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buckttommy · 1 year

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Okay, this is a novel. Go with me.

I'm not saying anyone's interpretation of canon is wrong, but I've seen some people interpreting the graveyard scene as Buck still trying to be something he's not in order to earn/maintain the love of the people he cares about and I just... don't agree with that at all. Where Buck is now is an in-between state. He's not the same person he was before the lightning strike, but he's also not the person he's meant to be after the lightning strike either. Not yet. So he's tucked in this Magical and Confusing World of Almost, where he's almost figured out all the pieces to the puzzle, and he almost knows who he is outside of people's expectations, and he's almost connected the plethora of dots drawn between himself and Eddie, but he's not there yet.

So when Buck says, "I feel like I have to be the same old Buck, mostly for everyone else," that's not him saying he thinks he won't be loved if he's not the same old Buck. That's him saying he's stuck as the same old Buck because he has no idea who to be and, where he is now, no one else can tell him who to be, just like when he asked Hen if she was "at ease" in 6x02. He is constantly looking for answers that nobody but himself can find or give. But he doesn't want anyone to worry in the interim, especially not when everyone else he knows already regards his death with far more depth and trauma than he himself regards it with. So he remains "the same old Buck." This idea also ties into his conversation with Natalia over lunch.

Buck told Eddie that he, in some way, felt like Natalia saw more in him than he saw in himself, but I'm so intrigued by that piece of dialogue, mainly because we didn't actually see the entirety of their conversation. We saw Natalia's fascination and Buck's intrigue (and, dare I say, discomfort!) by her fascination, but we didn't actually see anything beyond Buck beginning to tell her about his coma dream. So what is it that she sees? I think she sees exactly what he said to Eddie—that he got away with something he shouldn't have.

Natalia treats him like an anomaly because he is. No one else in Buck's life treats him like that.

They know him. They love him. They grieved for him. And when he came back to life and came out of the coma, they celebrated him and his return. But. They don't treat Buck dying and coming back as the anomaly, the rarity that it is. And I think this is a perfect example of a situation in which Buck is struggling to find the happy middle. His family treats his death with all the pain and gravitas inherent to literally seeing someone you love die and hang limply, helplessly, in the air, whereas Natalia treats his death with too much glee, too much fascination. And as much as he loves his family, and as much as he's intrigued by Natalia, Buck doesn't need either of those things.

What Buck needs is for someone to acknowledge both aspects of his death: that it was scary and sad and traumatizing, yes, but also that it was something out of a film. Something that shouldn't exist but did. And I think once Buck finds that? Once he looks within himself and allows both of those realities to coexist and inform his processing and who he is, then he will be on his way to finding the peace he's so desperately craving. But until then, he'll struggle with his voice, with Natalia's voice, with the voices of everyone he loves all saying different things on completely different ends of the same spectrum. Which is hard in ordinary circumstances, but especially in this one, in which matters of life or death are explicitly in play.

Buck is loved by his family. He knows he's loved by his family and, overbearing as they are/can be, he recognizes their love and loves them for it in turn. But in 6x11, Buck finally came to a place where Being Buck was enough for him. Now he has to redefine what that means to him. Which doesn't mean that the current version of himself that he's playing pretend at is wrong or lesser, only that this current version is ill-fitting now and he's struggling to find an identity that's the "right size," especially with several different voices (his own included) telling him how he should feel and respond to life-altering trauma.

I'm not the costume meta person here, that title belongs to the lovely Kym, but I'm assuming Buck's internal struggle also calls back to the wardrobe choices made in 5x14 too. The choice to have Eddie and Buck in the same/similar clothes they wore during their outing to the equestrian center only illuminates to me what we already knew: that Buck's 6B arc is a speed-run through Eddie's 5B arc, in that they both dealt with the nuanced complexities of similar traumas. Eddie dealt with horrendous survivor's guilt following the loss of his team, and Buck, too, is dealing with a similar brand of "left behind" confusion. Eddie was the only one "left behind" in that he's the only one who survived everything his squad went through, but Buck is dealing with it in the sense that death came and robbed him of something, but he's still "left behind" to pick up the pieces.

Both men have struggled immensely with the idea of cheating death, of living on borrowed time (though both concepts are outlined more explicitly in Buck's arc than it was in Eddie's), but the similarities of their trajectories are important to note because they will both, ultimately, lead to the same place—to the realization that cheating death and living on borrowed time means you have to, subsequently, do something with that time. Buck says it himself a the end of the scene: every day, from the point of death onward, is a gift, one that must be embraced before time runs out.

Time is running out for Buck and Eddie, but not in an entirely ominous way. Time is running out in the sense that both are rapidly becoming aware of that fact that days wasted aren't just days wasted; they are gifts that are going discarded without being embraced to the fullest. And when they finally sort themselves out, I believe that realization is going to hit them the hardest. Because it won't be so much the idea that "we could have had this, we could have had each other, sooner if we weren't so afraid," but the realization that "we were happy and we were okay, but we weren't as happy or okay as we could have been," and that's a hard pill to swallow for two men who have lived chunks of their lives playing against the nebulous, overwhelming nature of time.

I'm sure they'll figure it out—both together and individually—they always do. But in the meantime, the slow crush of both of their feelings against each other, and against the audience, is nothing short of agonizing.

Get it together, boys. I'm on my knees begging. Work it out for the sake of your hearts and mine. I can't take this much longer lol

#This was a novel #I'm so sorry lol #jack.txt #tv: 911 #911: 06 x 15 #911 spoilers #meta

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larappzwarren · 2 years

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'Made in....Earth' - Rami Beracha

This is the blog of Rami Beracha, a venture capitalist from the world. Rami is the co-founder of Sosa. רמי ברכה Miscommunication is a big issue. I'd venture to say that it's a dangerous hazard that is our own creation .. It is triggered just a second after coming into contact with another person and culminates in an incredible explosion... The biggest error we make is to believe that we're completely in sync in our expectations for each other and not trying to guess what our partner's expectations are of us. There is one aspect, however, that we are in complete accord with our partner in - he also doesn't miss an opportunity to widen the gap in expectations. .... And there is no one on the planet to warn us to the upcoming conflict. There are many sources of communication issues, but they are generally related to our different personalities. People with square personalities are more likely to avoid communicating with people who are liberal. Affirmative personalities may struggle to align their expectations with the expectations of passive people. It is simple to identify - everyone knows that they are squared from liberal and passive from aggressive. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10534786/ Imagine if they were different? It is possible that there an in-between between them that exists however, we aren't aware about it. It's not something any person has ever investigated, warned of, or identified. ! I'd like to introduce you, ladies and gentlemen, to the new type of personality that we all share The FULL CIRCLE personality versus those of the HALF-CIRCLE personalities. ! Note: A behavior guideline as you read the following analysis, attempt to determine which personality most accurately describes you as well as try to figure out which one of your friends is. If you discover that you are of different types and you are not content. This could be the cause of many of your differences. If, however, you are identical in your appearance I'm sorry to say that I'm unable to explain why your relationships look so terrible. So here we go... Two kinds of people are human. Some of us are the 'full-circle' types, a self-contained person that finds it easy to be by himself. Yes, he does need an accomplice. Absolutely! It's all true! ... However, he cannot survive without his dream partner until he locates one. And, once he has found the one he wants, he would like to continue living his life by his side with his - hopefully full circle - partner. The other aspect of humanity is comprised of the "half-a-circle" types - (no, it's not full circles that have been damaged during the birth) (see below) ... It's true they require an accomplice, yes, they want an ally desperately, yes, they are in constant searching, even religious, for a new partner... and yes it's the same in terms of national security to locate their ideal partner as they simply cannot live without one. When they find the grumpy creature that they have found, they will not let go. They'll attempt to live with their victim as if were one of them and refuse to give up the idea of living in harmony. The Halves will not give up anything less than staring at each other from a distance of zero throughout their lives. Nothing less intimate can satisfy their urge to integrate with one another and form one whole. An interesting observation between the two types relates to the decision to let go of a partner. The entire circle would typically let go of a person who has lost their chemistry rapidly. Half-circles on the other hand redefine the idea of having chemistry' with their partners to mean: 'I'm holding on to this B..ST..RD. Until I can replace him in a proper manner'. רמי ברכה Imagine the fantastic dance that happens when a "half" and "full" circle attempt to make each other their counterparts. They're unaware of their differences. The Half makes two leaps forward, well from the comfort space of the Full, who considers the sudden intrusion into his personal space too scary. So he fixes this zone-invasion-problem by making a gentle step backward. But the problem is that he did the Half move out of his familiar area ...... The Half is aware that the Full was making an innocent mistake, so the Half takes a second step backwards.. However, the Half quickly gets angry and begins to take a bigger, more aggressive step.. They understand why, but since they don't know the proper language, they aren't able to adequately explain their rage and go to the wrong places. They could have avoided their own misery by knowing the difference between Full and Half. https://www.law-bracha.com/צוות-המשרד/רמי-ברכה/ Although this essay is not meant to be a complete guideline, there are some steps you could take. 1. Discover who you are. 2. Find out about your partner https://anchor.fm/elhanan-magidovich/episodes/10--egu9i1 3. There is a difference. 3. Respect different opinions! Let's just say that there's only one conclusion: Live and let be.

#Rami Beracha

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subtley-peculiar · 2 years

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Yet again nobody asked but here's my Danganronpa: Goodby Despair Gender and Sexuality Headcanons!

Hajime Hinata: He/Him, I personally think of him as a cis guy but i love fanart and writing made by people who interpret him as a trans guy! I think he's polysexual and polyamorous

Akane Owari: Any Pronouns, I feel like bigender in a girl & non-binary way makes the most sense to me. Pan and Demisexual

Byakuya Twogami (Imposter): They/She/He, Non-Binary Genderfluid icon. Aro and Ace-spec, mainly expiriences alterous attraction.

Chiaki Nanami: She/They (thinks neopronouns are neat and doesn't mind but they aren't significant enough to her for her to include them), Asexual and Pan (mostly going off of my own experiences here but) easily has what she thought to be crushes but realized they were all alterous.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu: He/Him, trans man. Got to transition at a very young age but considering the people he had to be around his perception of manhood is kind of toxic so he gets dysophoric about alot of things, he's working on it tho. Bisexual but going along with my previous statement it took alot of time for him to come to terms with this because he had alot of internalized homophobia.

Gundham Tanaka: He/They/It, is he cis? probably not, but def a man. Probably is a guy but feels like it in abstract concepts because gender is weird so i think he would technically define himself as demiboy. I think he is Asexual (sex favorable tho) and omni with a preference for men.

Hiyoko Saionji: She/Her, Bisexual. Only brings it up to be a bitch tho. Other than that she doesn't really mention it....unless she is crushing on a girl but even then kind of secretive because feelings are complicated and her wanting to show affection to crush comes out as insults because she struggles to articulate her feelings.

Ibuki Mioda: She/They/Xe/Zir/It/He (yes, that order specifically), Trans girl, after feeling comfortable in her presentation and femininity she questioned what she was fine with being called and all that. May possibly be non-binary but very much punk rock chick energy. Asexual Biromantic, polyamory is cool <3

Kazuichi Souda: He/They, Transmasc non-binary. Bi with a preference to men. Figured that out after realizing he's been a piece of shit to sonia. Very much internalized homophobia

Mahiru Koizumi: They/She, Non-binary Lesbian.

Mikan Tsumiki: She/Her. Omnisexual, she can like anyone but tends to be attracted to fem presenting people or masc presenting people.

Nagito Komaeda: He/Him, but says he doesn't care because he's a people pleaser with no self esteem. Gay, very much liking men. Thinking about it he's been into Non-Binary people before.

Nekomaru Nidai: He/Him, Very much an ally, very much straight ally...or so he thought. Gay

Peko Pekoyama: She/Her, Transgirl, transitioned earlier on like her boyfriend fuyuhiko. They definately traded clothes. Aroflux, heterosexual.

Sonia Nevermind: She/Any, is intrigued by non-binary people and likes learning about peoples relationships with gender, she actually enjoys studying about it. they redefined her relationship with femininity because of it. She doesn't label herself.

TeruTeru Hanamura: He/Him, Pansexual

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highfaelucien · 3 years

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While on the topic of wishing sjm had done something different for her characters, I really wanted something more for cassian. For example, cassian’s wings going from being completely ruined in the end of acomaf to being 100% healed in acowar made no sense to me. I think it would’ve been an opportunity for the growth of cassian’s character to see him go through the loss of losing the ability to fly and instead retrain himself to be a warrior in other ways and find other things about himself that prove his own worth to himself. Given the fact that cassian’s confidence is aligned with his ability to protect and serve others, it just would have been sooo good to see him overcome his grief and become even stronger of a character. And how wings, in general, are a sense of male pride among illyrians. I think this would’ve been the perfect way to write cassian and have him break away from his own idea of masculinity. He could have redefined what it meant for him to be a Man ™. Ugh, it just could have been so GOOD, imagine the character we could have gotten from him.

Listen, after ACOMAF, when this happened, EVERYONE was buzzing about this. Most people thought he wouldn't outright lose his wings permanently, but there would be a LOT required.

And then ACOWAR came and approximately nothing happened whatsoever. Oh he had to be healed. the healer had to rebuild his wings. he had to do strength training every day. But fundamentally: not a sausage.

Personally? I think Maas chickend out. I think she was unable to commit to taking Cassian's wings, or figuring out how to write him as anything other than what she's established him as: fun jock man who likes to hit things real hard and make dick jokes sometimes.

Having to see Cassian vulnerable? Having to see him broken, and struggling, and having to reevaluate his entire life and self-esteem and sense of masculinity would have been an incredible option for a character arc.

Most of the theorising/Nessian fics involved Nesta helping him. The two of them being broken/fundamentally altered by their experiences in Hybern - she being killed and Made with a dark power, Cassian losing his wings.

There was expected bonding over that, peeling away the masks they both wear to discover the softness underneath. The two of them being able to reach one another, because of their bond, in a way the others could not. It produced some pretty epic stuff, honestly.

And how badly I wanted that I didn't FULLY realise until the disappointment of ACOSF, when it hit fully.

Because instead of stripping Cassian back and seeing the tactician, the strategist, forcing him to put his other skills to use, to develop those skills, rather than 'smash with sword and ask questions later'. This man is a General. All the combat training in the world doesn't let you be good at this job if you can't command, if you can't use tactics, if you can't strategise.

And THIS is where I wanted to see Nesta. Nesta, the woman who calculated how many ships would be needed to save the humans of Prythian. The woman who looked at Greysen's manor and assessed its capabilities and saw a prison. The woman who devours history novels, who has a tactical, cunning mind. Who has never been a warrior or a creature of brute strength or physical abilities.

THIS is how I wanted to see Nesta evolve. This was how I wanted to see her develop. I didn't want her taken out of lady's dresses. I didn't want her forced into fighting leathers, to basically become another copy of her sister, and follow down that path.

I wanted her to take her own. I wanted her to finally be in a place where she could learn, and strategise, and contribute. And I wanted her to work with Cassian on this - who was grounded because of his wings, who couldn't command on the frontlines anymore, or even fight. Who had to stay back, and see how he handled this. How he maintained his authority. How he maintained his sanity without his wings.

We could have had so fucking much. Such a powerful narrative about survival. I wanted her in the library, with the other survivors, (and with fucking MORRIGAN - not sidelined, not dismissed, not being bitchy and catty for the sake of it. But someone who visits the library frequently, who interacts with the women there, and sometimes just is a woman there herself, because there are still hard days.)

But no. No instead of something nuanced, and original, and actually tailored to Nesta's strengths as a character, we got Yet Another Weapon's Trainng Montage.

We got the narrative that the only way to heal from abuse is to be able to beat the shit out of your abusers. Because that's #GirlPower, right?

It makes me so furious I almost want to just. Just fucking rewrite the whole damn fucking thing myself the way it SHOULD have gone.

And I know you talked about Cassian and not Nesta, so I do apologise, but they were tied together. But I agree.

We all wanted Cassian to evolve from that 'Lord of Bloodshed' / "savage brute" because reading between the lines and forcing some nuance from these books, which is the only way to survive: Cassian has a lot of layers. There's a lot of trauma there. A lot of insecurity. A lot of angst. A lot of heart. A lot of fucking INTELLIGENCE. (I'll fight on that point, I really will. Cassian is not a dumb himbo who can barely add 1 and 1).

But sjm was too busy writing him having a hard on for Nesta to explore....anything about himself. Or his relationship with Azriel, and Rhys, and Mor, and everyone else.

The removal (even temporarily) of his wings would have allowed for a LOT of that exploration.

Firstly, the fact that he injured them by CHOICE, saving Azriel's life. That would have been such a deep connection and bond between them. The guilt that Az would feel - but the potential for Cassian to step in, even with his wings gone, and say that he'd do it again.

Because Azriel is his brother. He loves him. And it was worth it. It would be worth it a hundred times over to save him. Because he's worth saving. And he's worth sacrificing for. And what that would have done for Az as a character, too. Who always offers himself up first for dangerous missions, puts himself in peril to protect the others.

And having Cassian join Feyre and Az's flying lessons? Because Cass having to relearn how to fly once (if) his wings healed to that extent, means letting Azriel train him. Because those old instincts aren't enough. And he has to learn how to strengthen them, and train with them. And how this affects his perception of himself and his masculinity, as he said. But also deepening his understanding for Az, and the bond the two of them share, in having this experience together.

Bonding with Rhys, who FINALLY fucking opens up to someone and has some nuanced therapy-like conversations about what happened with Amarantha. The sacrifces they've made for their people. How they'd do it again but it still hurts, and changes them, and how they have to learn and grow and move on from that and heal together.

Rhys working with Cassian on his other talents, using him as the skilled strategist and tactician he MUST be. Helping him to develop that, keeping his brother from losing his mind while he can't fight or use his physicality to solve problems, as he usually does.

Mor personally healing and tending to Cassian. Mor being there at his bedside every day while he was bed bound. Mor becoming as possessive and overprotective of both him and Az as any mate ever has been.

Mor speaking to him about her own rehabilitation after what her family did to her, the physical toll that took on her. Mor's heart breaking because she nearly lost both him and Az and she couldn't handle that at all. Mor reiterating how much she fucking loves him, and how she needs him.

Mor helping him through the darker days of his depression because she's been there. And she knows what it is to put on a front. To always be laughing, and joking, without the seriousness of life -leave that to the others. But sometimes it's too much and he needs to break down. And be angry. And furious. And hopeless. And scared. And that's what she's there for. Because she understands.

Mor winnowing him to his favourite spots that he can't fly to anymore, just so he can be there. The two of them spending time, and bonding, and developing that relationship we got in ACOMAF beyond 'we bicker constantly and drink together and make sexual innuendos'.

Even Amren showing up and doing her part. Snapping at him to stop brooding so much. But also bringing him some of her puzzles. Some of her favourite military history books (which she has anotated and edited to highlight the bits that have been incorrectly reported). Spending time with him to stop him going mad. Exhausting herself those first few days personally attending to Cassian's wings, and snarling at anyone who tried to interfere.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH.

IT COULD HAVE DEVELOPED SO MUCH WITH THE INNER CIRCLE. AND CASSIAN. AND NESSIAN. AND JUST. EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER BUT NAW. IT WAS BASIC ASS AND BORING AND I'M GONNA DIE MAD ABOUT IT.

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noobsomeexagerjunk · 3 years

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Always Shine and Redefine Our Humanity

How Eret Contributes to the Dream SMP's Narrative Themes of Change and Self-Discovery

I can’t believe listening to a song from a fairly obscure but growing musical (where I took this post’s title from) would prompt me to inspect Eret’s character more but here we are. I will heavily use @theeretblr's (whom you should subscribe to, btw) Character Explanation thread as a basis, as well as statements about their character from their most recent streams and things that I have gathered from other essays by people who clearly have been watching from the start.

This will include sentiments and theories I want for the character because I kinda got attached to them as of late. Please keep in mind that I have been watching since around Late November-Early December, so my biases would be appropriate to such a viewer.

This essay is a discussion of the roleplay character.

1. Eret is Self-Preserving & Versatile in Skill (and this is why they're powerful)

"Those who are given Power hold on to it."

Something I’ve observed concerning Eret’s Betrayal of L’Manburg was their motivations for doing so. For a time they have believed that power and security mattered. For a time their interests went first. CC!Eret referred to the choice as "an offer no one would refuse" as well. This wasn't just luxury and (they didn't know it at the time, but false) power, it was the protection they would be allowed to have by the admin of the server. It was being allowed to do whatever they wanted, despite the means to it being dishonorable and interestingly enough, demanding of permission.

Eret was willing to do anything to remain secure and equipped, and I argue that they still do until now. The difference is that now, they are more concerned about how they maintain their security in that they wouldn't hurt other people or be extremely unethical in the pursuit of this security.

Also, they're privy to grinding when it's necessary, they know how to build structure and contraption, and they can hold their own fairly well. They're very well-spoken and can deliver on appearances and ambiance, excellent at both comforting and intimidating whomever they choose. They had to have been this skilled for a while.

2. Eret has a Forgotten History (of bringing down powerful groups of people, apparently)

"Those who don't know History are doomed to repeat it."

So remember that interaction with Foolish? I want to bring this up because I feel that having particularly close ties with a God of Undying/Death has implications.

Foolish also brings up "taking care of [a] Wither cult"—an organized group! Wasn't Eret known for taking down an organized group on the server? L'Manburg, at its founding. He was part of the rebellion against Manburg. He was against the Eggpire. Yep, that's a pattern.

What does this mean? Well:

Eret's hands were never clean from the start, clearly before the Final Control room, and it can be inferred that they're redder than they seem

Eret's tendencies towards self-preservation may have been influenced/learned from Foolish

Eret may have had (if they still don't do) an inclination to pursue power through the dismantling of organized groups that also seek/already have established power

Eret's current skills are the way they are due to his past

And we cannot forget the CC confirmation that c!Eret has relations with Herobrine, the infamous Minecraft urban legend known for the horror he brings and how many lovers of Minecraft frame him as this terrifying powerhouse entity beyond human comprehension. This relation is still a mystery, but from what we know, it can tell us a lot about what Eret has forgotten about himself and what Eret is capable of!

3. Eret is Concerned by What People (though only those that matter to him) Think of Her

"I think Respect is a big thing."

In light of her power, we have to remember that Eret regretted pursuing power upon recognizing the loss of respect and friendship that came with the throne. This becomes a much stronger detriment when she realizes that the power she thought she had never actually existed in the first place—one can say she would dread pursuing power for herself again. To subject oneself to the standards of others after all is to subject yourself under constant scrutiny.

In her regrets, she learns and realizes what she wants—to be loved and cared for, to be truly alive with her loved ones. It's why she decides to improve herself, and she works and makes the effort to try! She struggled (and still does) in the process of pursuing forgiveness, illustrating that her determination towards an end is very strong, gradual as it may be.

It's how she looks up to Wilbur! Still! I reckon the two believe they're responsible for the other. Change! What an incredible thing the two are able to do.

4. Eret Knows What He Wants (but is struggling to figure out how to get it)

"That was a long time ago. I've changed things and I know not to break people's trust anymore."

One of Eret’s biggest concerns right now in Season 3 is his relationship with the Crown, mixed and fickle it seems based on his streams during this time. His kingship carries more and more weight each passing day, debating whether forgoing the effort and spilled blood Eret had to get the Crown is worth it. (I mean, he accepted the restoration of his Kingship when George got dethroned.)

The Kingship is still power, and it's become true power after Dream had been put in prison. We know he's admitted being deathly afraid of Dream, so this period of genuine Kingship would be incredibly special to him. Ever since he's been finding ways to make his kingship genuinely meaningful, redefining the evils the Crown used to have by doing good to whomever sincerely, freely, and willingly. He's attempted allyhood with like-minded individuals based on his judgment of their character. Remember his Knights? These consisted of HBomb, Puffy, and Punz, each of which exhibited behaviors (predilection for community, dedication to duty, moral neutrality) he has as well!

But yet, the blood spilled for that Crown still stains him, and it cannot be denied that it will continue to do so for as long as Eret wears the crown. I wonder if he believes this, whether a part of him does deep down. Dream being in jail doesn't just mean freedom to be a king but freedom to quite literally be yourself, whatever it may be.

5. For these reasons, Eret Represents Constant Self-Actualization and Rediscovery

"I'm a strong, independent...whatever the fuck I am."

Given the points established above, Eret is unfamiliar with her full self and wants to shape herself into someone desirable and genuinely contributing kindness to a clearly broken world, a world whose brokenness she also happened to contribute to.

Her enthusiasm for History and the pursuit of enlightenment speaks volumes to this motivation. It's her repeated, dedicated efforts to try and try and try and try, to be better! Not just to be a better person herself but for everyone else to be able to be better too! She's aware that perfection is impossible, but clearly recognizes that constant reevaluation of the self is nonetheless necessary.

It's how she's open to engaging with as many people as possible despite differing opinions and carried baggage. She researches and explores and examines! She does no harm but takes no shit.

Every facet of her, to the terror her eyes have been known to give, to the air of affirmation radiating in her domain of a Pride castle, to the blood that decorates her fingers, to the people she has given support to, to the people she has disadvantaged, to the History she keeps, to the part of herself she no longer remembers, to the power she carries—Eret knows how to be truly alive.

#hey eret if you're reading this feel free to respond in any way you can (especially if i get something wrong!)#dream smp #dream smp analysis #dream smp theory #eret #the_eret #eretblr #long post

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ashesandhalefire · 3 years

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would love to hear your complicated feelings on the michael/sanders scene in context!

okay so this is messy because my thoughts are still a little all over the place, but the issues i had were specifically with the new power reveal, and they were basically 1) the way they've handled the pod squad gaining new abilities, and 2) the decision to give michael in particular this ability and backstory

i wish the reasoning was more nuanced and meaningful but a lot of it is just "i don't vibe with this" and "i think it's dumb" lmao

so i'm starting to get less and less impressed with how they're rolling out this "aliens can have more than one skill" idea. sometimes the concept comes across as Very Sexy but the execution less so. i wanted to actually see them learning these new skills. i wanted to see them tutoring each other and practicing and doing stuff wrong and getting frustrated and feeling weird trying to learn powers that are different from the ones that have been a part of them for their whole lives. but isobel's telekinesis was really the only new skill that got any screen time, and i think michael was only sort of grudgingly there for one scene of it. healing hasn't been mentioned (to my recollection?), and mindscape practice has been mostly off-screen and it seemed more about deflection in case they were pulled into jones's mindscape and less about learning to influence people. and now it's starting to feel like we're just sort of rolling out new full-fledged abilities left and right. like, there are really only three or so, but it feels like oprah is behind the scenes going YOU GET A POWER AND YOU GET A POWER and doesn't feel as organic as i'd like it to feel. and at least reading auras and telepathy have mindscape vibes and feel like natural extensions of that power. but why is firebending now a whole new subset of powers? what are the limits of these alien abilities? how many more undiscovered powers are there? and that's not even mentioning the proficiency with swords. that feels like a decently unique kind of weapon to fight with, but it doesn't require any practice. we just dig that sucker up and the spirit of mom says "fuck 'em up, girlie." who cares if jones has been fighting with it for decades (centuries? i'm unclear on the length of this guy's life lol). he's not good enough to beat a really motivated novice. anyway! now we're saying that michael has secretly been able to jump into heads and control people for ten years but he doesn't use the power because he's terrified that it makes him evil and his siblings will be disgusted with him. and despite the fact that he hasn't practiced this power in ten years, a large part of the "beat the bad guy" plan hinges on his being able to overpower jones's control of the sheriff, meaning that the incident at eighteen isn't being looked at as a fluke when a new power manifests. we're just assuming michael has this fully developed mind control ability lying dormant in his brain. we lay out that michael did this thing, redefined his whole life by this new trauma, and, after a quick pep talk with his pseudo-dad, has processed his fears of his inherent evil enough to confess to his siblings and subject himself to using the power. all in like six minutes of screen time. and his siblings are entirely unaffected by this. they're not like... what??? you lied about a secret power for years??? they're just like [PSA voice, mentor putting a hand on mentee's shoulder] you could never be bad, michael. we love you. and then he DOESN'T EVEN DO IT. he just hops into the mindscape like anyone else could've done and says "pls don't shoot my friends :(" and the sheriff says okay and stops "letting" jones control her. why was this a good way to roll out this new power??? so the whole point of the reveal that michael has this mind control power apparently didn't even have anything to do with the sheriff subplot because he didn't actually use this power to resolve that problem. for now - until it comes back again, which based on some of the other subplots this season is not a guarantee - it was just to heap more trauma on his shoulders and legitimize this "woe is me, i'm a horrible monster!!" yarn they keep trying to spin without actually showing him do anything Truly Bad or Mildly Morally Gray. the sanders conversation is a rehashing of the alex convo from earlier where someone has to insist to michael that his genetics don't make him inherently evil. and the alex one was more effective for me because it was in the immediate aftermath of this massive revelation about who his father was AND michael

thought he was about to get murdered. he was spinning out. but having it happen again like eight episodes later - after michael still hasn't actually done anything to lend some legitimacy to his fears that his bloodline is Unavoidably Evil - doesn't have the same emotional impact. the worst things michael has ever done with his powers were shown back in the first half of s1, and he's be almost entirely reformed since then. so to set up whatever michael/jones showdown must be coming our way, we get the introduction of this ability that michael has never even so much as hinted at having before, and we get the reveal that it has colored how he looks at himself since he was eighteen. what. michael saying that his religious extremist family tried to perform an exorcism on him and couldn't and dallas inferring that he started to believe he was the demon was a good exchange. we already knew about that incident, but michael played it off as no big deal during 1x06. the new conversation helps him to relate to dallas, finds them some common ground, establishes trust, and makes the true emotional depth of what happened to michael explicit. having michael redefine all of his emotional struggles for the last ten years through the lens of "actually i found out that i have the same ability as the alien that possessed my sister and made her kill three girls in front of me, and it has made me view myself as fundamentally evil since that day" is such a bad rewrite of his history. was the history of horribly abusive foster homes insufficient in explaining michael's self-worth issues? was being the victim of a hate crime not enough trauma? was the witnessing and covering up of two separate murders that derailed his entire academic future not enough to make michael question his own goodness or value? why would it be necessary to add this mind control element to really make him feel bad about stuff?

and if ANYONE was going to get a story that dealt with struggles with consent and mental control, why was it not isobel?? why was it not that holding the turquoise enhanced her abilities and enabled her to control people, and she was TERRIFIED of that because of noah?? her consent was violated horribly, and she has struggled horribly with respecting the consent of others. this needed to be her ability to develop and deal with! giving it to michael fully developed also feels like a very handwavey, last minute choice. if this was planned from the beginning, why is this the first that the audience has heard about it? he says he never mentioned it because of isobel, which explains why isobel and max don't know about it. but why doesn't the audience know about it? in s1, michael is adamant that liz leave town. if isobel couldn't get her to go, why didn't michael sneak off and make her leave? why didn't he force her to forget (if that's within the purview of the power)? sure, he doesn't like having this power. but he's also more than willing to sacrifice himself for his siblings. wouldn't a little unethical behavior be worth saving them from experimentation? also if michael has been able to force people to do things all along, where was that energy when alex got kidnapped? why is torturing flint in a basement less inherently evil than just compelling him to tell the truth or compelling helena to let alex and charlie go? i know not everything can be planned from the beginning. but there was no reason this power had to be written like this. it didn't have to be something michael knew he had. but they chose to insert it into his history, and i feel like that was a bad call. - positives about the scene dad!sanders supremacy michael needs a dad figure who's like "you're a good person, you dumbass" and straight up LAUGHS at his assertion that he's evil.

#powderseal #asks for ts #wank for ts #because it's a big ol' complain-fest in here lol #and only actually barely related to the actual michael/sanders convo...

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apenitentialprayer · 3 years

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The Cult of the Saints: An Outline

The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, by Peter Brown.

Chapter 2: “A Fine and Private Place”

1. Inscriptions on graves stretching over a millennium are “reminders of the massive stability of the Mediterranean care of the dead.” Funerary customs were simply “part and parcel” of the human condition, and so rituals were surprisingly indifferent to labels like “pagan,” “Christian,” “elite,” or “popular.” They were less a religious experience as they were a human experience, with the central aspect in all cases being the importance of the deceased’s family in taking care of the dead. 2. At the same time, the grave became a flashpoint where tensions between communal and familial loyalties could be expressed and played out. Different societies at different times have attempted to deal with the apparent contradiction of loyalty among its constituencies in different ways; some have been content to allow certain members of the dead “to retain a high profile,” while others have attempted to suppress the power of certain deceased and their families. (x) 3. Though such tensions shift the field of conversation from overt theology to more subtle sociological concerns within the community, the language used to discuss these tensions nonetheless remain religiously charged. Granting ammunition to those scholars who use the two-tier popular religion model, writers of this period like Augustine and Jerome attempted to frame undesirable practices as pagan holdovers. 4. This framing of undesirable practices as pagan holdovers has influenced later historians; by taking such claims at face value, scholars like A.H.M. Jones could later look at texts written by these same authors that speak positively of the cult of the saints and frame these texts as the final victory of the vulgar in pressuring the practices of the elite. But such a view fails to hold up under scrutiny. 5. For example, the elites who decried ‘paganisms’ that had infiltrated Christian practice often blamed a phenomenon of mass conversions that had happened in the century since Constantine’s conversion to Christianity. There are two issues with such reasoning; recent archaeological work at Hippo has failed to find evidence of a sudden mass conversion to Christianity among its 4th Century inhabitants; the growth of the community seems to have come from a rising population occurring within a stable Christian community. Second, the practices being described as pagan in origin were often practiced by the elite Christians themselves, and had been practiced by such Christians for generations before. 6. By looking beyond the writings of a select few elites who lived during the generation of Augustine and Jerome, a different picture starts to be formed; this picture forces us to confront the tensions between the universal Church, which articulated itself as a form of extended spiritual kinship, and the biological kin units that were members of this Church. 7. The increased centralization of the Church in late antiquity, combined with the central ritual meal in which all members would participate, allowed the institution to become a form of “artificial kin group.” This is shown by their funerary practices; by the early third century, the Church in Rome had its own cemetery, and the burial of non-Christians within its territory was seen as a breach in kinship ties. Likewise, the Christian Church prayed for its dead specifically, at the exclusion of heathens, apostates, and excommunicates. Likewise, the dates of the deaths of martyrs and bishops were recorded and memorialized as a form of family history. 8. At the same time, the ‘privatization’ of the cult of the saints threatened the universality of the Church; writers like Augustine and Vigilantius criticized devotions centered on ancestral graves and relics for this very reason. There was an anxiety that the rise of feast days dedicated to localized saints could threaten the importance of Easter, and the holy sites in Jerusalem could be neglected in favor of tombs closer to home. 9. By keeping these conflicting interests in mind, the framing of the controversy changes from a Christian intellectual elite trying to suppress a ‘vulgar’ religious practice to a battle between two different Christian elites attempting to position themselves as the proper patrons of the cult; the bishops representing the universal Church, and the families of the venerated deceased. 10. This conflict can be seen in the creation of shrines and the private possessions of relics by wealthy laypersons. Families would often construct shrines to saints with the intention of burying their own dead in proximity to them, depositio ad sanctos. This led to some resentment; the grave of one poor person located outside a chapel had an inscription which said his position outside the church was a result of his poverty, but quips that he nonetheless is “as warm as they” who were laid to rest by the saint. In another case, a woman named Lucilla was rebuked by a deacon for kissing the bone of a martyr that she owned before receiving the Eucharist in her mouth. 11. In Rome itself, tensions between these groups were less severe; the Christian poet Paulinus praised a Roman senator who held a feast at the grave of an ancestor on his death-day, for example. Pope Damascus, likewise, was able to exert influence on prominent members of wealthy Christian families in order to keep a hold on “cemeteries that could so easily have slipped irrevocably out of their control.” Outside of Rome, Ambrose of Milan would play a prominent role in the cooling of this crisis. After the relics of Saints Gervasius and Protasius were discovered in 385, Ambrose was swift to appropriate them for himself; he collected the corpses and placed them in a basilica of his own creation, “inseparably link[ing them] to the communal liturgy.” 12. Ambrose had neither created the practice of saint veneration, nor did he simply accept cult veneration as something outside his control; by linking relics to particular churches and basilicas throughout his territory, Ambrose had essentially “rewired” the practice by connecting it to places of public worship. Augustine’s writings in favor of the saints would perform a similar function; whereas their intercession was previously a largely private affair, his recording of ‘authentic’ miracles by their intercession made these stories the public domain of all Christians. 13. In the generation directly after Augustine, the ambivalence towards the cult of the saints had shifted; figures like Gregory of Tours and Paulinus were greatly enthusiastic with the celebrations of the saints. Two factors may have played a part in this; first was the economic situation in western Europe; even during Augustine’s term as bishop, his community controlled more wealth than he ever did as an individual, and in fact struggled to find ways to spend it. 14. While much of the Mediterranean struggled with financing its ecclesiastical ambitions, Italy, Gaul, and North Africa seemed to have an abundance of wealth; whereas Alexandria “had to choose between shirts for then poor and the itch to build,” western Europe did not have the surge in population that made it difficult to fund reliefs for the poor and sick. And, without the traditional ways of spending wealth for the community, resentment for their possession of the wealth could fester. The cult of the saints allowed the Church to avoid that; by publicly funding shrines and hosting feasts and ceremonies at them, the money could be funneled back to the community. 15. Furthermore, the cult of the saints helped to redefine urban life in the Roman world. Before, the city was divided into citizens (men belonging to the city) and non-citizens (women, children, the poor, and visitors). Most of the time, these latter two categories were allowed to remain in the city, but at times of war or famine they were forcibly expelled; the line of who belonged was drawn. With the rise of the cult of the saints, both women and the poor were able to participate in public life like never before. 16. The most dramatic expression of women’s involvement would be the processions on feast days, which scandalized even some of the clergy; men and women, married and unmarried, walked and mingled together during these celebrations. Later, under Islamic rule, there are records of young men coming to such festivals specifically to see the women. In some cases, illicit sexual activity did occur - Augustine had one in one of the basilicas of Carthage before his conversion to Christianity. 17. Beyond the physical mixing of the sexes, the cult of the saints allowed women to partake in situations that were not dominating by men in the traditional sense. Most shrines were located in cemeteries, where the regulation between the sexes was more lax. Beyond that, however, the escape from the “rigidities of her urban setting” could mean a complete escape from the masculine presence in its entirety. One account of a pilgrim details her walking a circuit of shrines in which even the male saint being venerated did not act in the traditionally Roman masculine form. (x) 18. The poor, meanwhile, often congregated around shrines, as they were heavily associated with charity and gift-giving. This was part of a larger shift to a postclassical society in which the citizen/non-citizen divide was replaced with the rich and poor as the primary separator; the rich were expected to provide service to the poor through a religiously charged expression of patron-client relationship. The poor were not to be thrown out “at the first touch of famine,” but were essential parts of this system of patronage. 19. The inclusion of the poor as social recipients was mirrored by the inclusion of women as givers. This development allowed women to participate in public life at a time where public laws were still forbidding them to participate in politics; under the Christian worldview, charity was an act of mercy, and not an act of politics. Women could therefore visit the sick, feed the poor, and fully participate as patrons of shrine-based ceremonies without breaching this ban. 20. These developments hopefully show that the development of the cult of the saints was not the result of a “vulgar,” half-pagan majority forcing their will on a reluctant, educated Christian elite. Rather, it was a development within the Christian community that created intracommunal tensions and resulted in a tradition that broke from traditional paganism.

#history #sociology #Christianity #Saint Augustine #Saint Ambrose of Milan #The Cult of the Saints #long post

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rallamajoop · 3 years

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The Witcher: The Games vs The Books

Coming to the fandom this late, I can only assume the relationship between the Witcher games and the original novels has been long since talked to death by others. But I'm far too fascinated by the whole glorious mess that is this canon not to want to get down some of my own thoughts about how it all fits together.

See, on the one hand, the games (Witcher 3 especially) are arguably only too dependent on the novels to stand alone. They do a wonderful job of picking up a number of unresolved plot points the books left hanging, and a woeful job of explaining so much a player coming in cold would really like to know – Ciri's history with Geralt, Yennefer, her powers and the Wild Hunt itself just to begin with. This is an issue that only increases as the games go along: cliche as Geralt's amnesia may be, it's used to good effect to introduce the world to the player in the first game. By the third, Geralt has all his old memories back and two extra games worth of new experience, and good lord is it all alienating to the newcomer.

On the other hand, so much about the games (again, the third especially) contradicts the novels in painfully irreconcilable ways. That wouldn't necessarily bother me – adaptations are allowed to rework and reinvent, stories can and should evolve in the retelling – except, well, see point one above. So you're bound to come out of the games with a lot of unanswered questions if you haven't read the books, and just as many if you have.

Spoilers to follow, of course, for both the books and the games.

Here's one of the big ones: just how did the world – Ciri included – discover that one of her long-presumed-dead parents was actually alive and well and now ruling the entire empire of Nilfgaard? Fucked if I know. Neither the games or the novels have any explanation. In the novels, in fact, the world at large believes Ciri is married to the emperor of Nilfgaard. Naturally, this 'Cirilla' is a fake, but the scandal were the full truth ever revealed would redefine Emhyr's reign. Yet somehow, in the games, everyone seems to know he's Ciri's father, and that whole awkward incest angle is never mentioned. Continuity has been tweaked pretty significantly, and it's left to the player to guess how. If that wasn’t bad enough, the games apparently still included a Gwent card of the fake!Cirilla (artwork above) just to ensure maximum confusion.

Before I get too sidetracked with all that stuff that doesn’t add up though, there really is a lot to be said for what does work about how the games expand on the plot of the novels. The Wild Hunt itself is the big one. The spectral cavalcade appears several times through the novels and hunts Ciri across multiple worlds in the final book before apparently losing her trail and vanishing to make way for the 'real' big bad, never to be mentioned again. While TW3 left me pretty underwhelmed by the revelation that the spectral Wild Hunt were just a bunch of dark elves in skull armor, the books had introduced the Hunt and let us spend some time on the dark elves' world before we get the reveal that the two may be one and the same. So for all the ranting I could do about missed opportunities regarding the Wild Hunt, they're the natural candidate for the games to pick up on as their new big-bads.

To my surprise, Geralt and Yennefer's "deaths" and subsequent recovery in pseudo-Avalon also comes straight from the novels. That everyone thinks Geralt dead at the start of the first game isn't, as I'd first assumed, a convenient excuse to have him reappear with amnesia, but simply how the novels end. Why Ciri leaves them and goes world-hopping isn't clear, but "because the Wild Hunt was after her again" is as good a theory as any. So, another point to the games there.

And there's so much more. The Catriona plague has only just appeared at the end of the novels, but we know it's posed for a major outbreak – one that’s in progress by the time of the games. The second game in particular does a terrific job of taking the ambitions of the expansionist Nilfgaardian Empire and the still-relatively-new Lodge of Sorceresses and building an entirely new conflict around them – even taking two of the least developed members of the Lodge (Sabrina Glevissig and Síle de Tansarville) and expanding them into major players. Dijkstra similarly ends the novels on the run from those in power, and having already taken the same assumed name 'Sigi Reuven' he's using in the games – while the books assure us that prince Radovid will grow up to pay back his father's assassins (ie. Phillipa) and become Radovid the Stern.

The twisted fairy tale origins of the novels are something the games actually seem to have gotten better at as they went on: the 'trail of treats' to the Crones is the great example, the monster-frog-prince and the land-of-a-thousand-fables of the expansions are two more, and many more are hidden in sidequests. And I'd be remiss not to mention that in again asking Geralt to pick a side in the conflict with the Scoia'tael, the first two games not only recreate a scenario Geralt repeatedly deals with in the books, but a major theme. It's interesting too how much the broad structure of the third game feels like an homage to the books, with Geralt searching for Ciri, interspersed with sections from her POV. You can nitpick the detail of any of these examples, but the intent is unmistakable, and a lot of credit is due for it in the execution too.

Some of the detail that's gone into translating the world of the Witcher books into the games is just insane – not just in the geography and history of the place, but right down to the names of the wine you can pick up. There's the fact the Cat potion makes Geralt see in black-and-white, or the fact the basilisk and cockatrice monsters are clearly based on the same model, but the basilisk is reptilian where as the cockatrice is more avian – which is exactly how Geralt describes the difference between them in The Lady of the Lake. There's a point where Book!Regis recounts a detailed list of all the lesser vampiric species, ending with the only two violent enough to tear apart their victims: almost all can be encountered in the games, and the last two (Fleders and Ekimma) are indeed the most animalistic. This kind of thing is everywhere.

My favourite examples tend to be those that blend into the background if you haven't read the books, but will get a grin from those who have, such as a peasant in Velen who will call out to Geralt (paraphrased from memory, alas) "Sir, sir! We be up to our ears in mamunes, imps, kobolds, hags, flying drakes... oh, and bats!" – which is a lovely little reference to a couple of conversations from Edge of the World wherein Geralt explains that most of the monsters the locals want him to take care of don't actually exist. Or all those soldiers chanting "Long live King Radovid!" – natural enough, but it takes on a whole new life if you've read the passage in Lady of the Lake where the young prince Radovid grumbles internally about having to sit and listen to the city chanting 'long live...' to every other notable figure present except him.

Really, it would be faster to list the things the games introduced that don't come from the original source material in any obvious form, because it's a struggle to come up with very many. The villainous Crones of Crookback Bog and Master Mirror of the Hearts of Stone expansion are the biggest ones that come to mind, along with a great deal of the vampire mythology from Blood and Wine. To the witchers themselves, they’ve added mostly game mechanics: the use of bombs and blade oils, the names of most of the potions, and three new witcher schools (all with their own specialised gear). There are a number of new creatures and monsters – Godlings, noon-and-night-wraiths, botchlings, shaelmaars and so on – and though trolls are mentioned in the books, the games take credit for giving them so much character. Obviously, there are new characters, like Thaller and Roche – but not technically Iorveth, because a Scoia'tael commander of that name is mentioned in the books, if only in passing. And already, short of just listing off every new character the games introduced, I’m running out of ideas. Credit where credit’s due on that front: most of the new characters and locations they’ve created feel authentic enough that Kalkstein or Thaller would be right at home in the novels’ world.

But for all their dedication to the detail, it's hard to feel like the games have really managed to capture the spirit of the books in their storytelling: the mundanely corrupt bureaucracy that does so much to bring the world to life, or their cheerfully cynical sense of humour, or the flamboyant wonder that is book!Dandelion, or their enthusiasm for putting women in positions of power, or the bigger themes about the differences between the story that gets sung by the bards and what really happened – or so much else from the novels that came as such a surprise to me when I started getting really sucked in.

And if we’re going to talk about all the little things they got right, it’s only fair to point out there are just as many little things they got wrong, and sometimes pretty glaringly at that. "I thought you bowed to no-one" says Emhyr to Geralt – almost as if book!Geralt doesn’t happily bow in most every situation where it would be polite or diplomatic to do so. "This would never have happened if the council was still around!" says Geralt upon finding a sorcerer's lab full of human experiments – as if none of his experiences with Vilgefortz or the wizards of Rissberg ever happened, back when the council was very much still around. In TW2, he mocks the idea of a woman like Saskia leading a rebellion – almost as if women like Falka and Aelirenn haven't led some of the most storied rebellions in history (and we can't even blame the amnesia, because Geralt himself mentions Aelirenn later – oh yeah, this one annoyed me particularly).

Book!verse 'Lady of the Lake' is basically just Ciri being surprised while bathing

Yennefer's studious aethiesm and willingness to desecrate Freya's temple is entirely in character – but only if we forget that she had her own personal religious experience with the goddess Freya herself in Tower of the Swallow. And then there’s the fact the Lady of the Lake is now a literal lake nymph who distributes swords to the worthy, as if no-one writing for the games ever got past the title of that particular Witcher novel (let alone got the joke). And the list goes on. It's easy to get overly caught up in contradictions like this – it's hardly as if Sapkowski's novels don't contradict themselves in places, as almost any long-running series eventually will – but it's going to stick out to those who’ve read the novels nonetheless.

While we're talking about how the games pick up where the books left off though, the big contradiction that has to be touched on comes in bringing Geralt back at all, at least in any public capacity. There's plenty to suggest that Geralt survives the novels' end and even goes on to have further adventures, but it's also pretty explicit that the history books record his death in the Pogrom of Rivia as final. The last two novels by order of publication (Season of Storms and Lady of the Lake) go so far as to feature characters far in the future with an interest in Geralt's legacy, and they discuss the matter in some depth. As far as the world knows, Geralt is dead.

Book!Geralt fanart by Diana Novich

But it's hard to blame the games for ignoring this – true, thanks to Geralt's longevity, they could have set their conflict many more years after those future scenes – maybe even used Ciri's established time-travel powers to let you pop quietly in and out of the past (and, okay, now I've thought through all that, I'm kind of sad they didn't). But there comes a point where that kind of slavish devotion to preserving the source material really doesn't do a story any favours, and I'm not sure I could name any other successful adaptation that's bothered.

Besides bringing Geralt back at all, most of the bigger changes pertain to Ciri. In fact, as much as I'm about to get deep into the nitpicks below, you can make a surprisingly good case that the games have made only one really big change, and that's in simplifying the prophesies surrounding her. See, in the novels, all those world-saving prophesies aren't technically about Ciri, they're about her as-yet-unborn child. Who gets to impregnate her is the big driving force behind most of the villains of the books – one that all the main contenders seem to see as more of an awkward necessity rather than the inspiration for violent lust, but even so. To Emhyr, having to marry his own daughter is a bug, not a feature – but he's willing to do it to become the father of the savior of the world. But if Ciri is capable of fulfilling those prophesies herself, then Emhyr is already the father of the savoir of the world, and the revisions to his relationship with Ciri start to make a lot more sense.

Ciri's history with the Aen Elle elves seems to have been similarly revised – if not quite so cleanly. Avallac’h and Eredin are, naturally, both book characters – in fact, a lot of personality has been left behind in the books, since Avallac’h originally had a rather camp flair, and Eredin is less the power-hungry kingslayer you might imagine. When Geralt meets Avallac’h in the books – which happens briefly in Toussaint, for one of those "everything you're doing is going to make everything worse because prophesy" conversations – he's busy decorating a cave with fake prehistoric paintings in the hope of confusing future explorers. (Surprisingly, there does seem to be official art of this moment on one of the gwent cards – see above – though the Avallac’h who jokes about adding erect phalluses to the picture and admits his vanity won’t allow him to resist signing it hasn’t entirely survived the transition to the new medium).

We also meet the former Alder King, Auberon, whose death we see in flashback in the game. (Fun fact: Auberon is actually blowing bubbles through a straw in a bowl of soapy water when we first meet him in the books, hence the straw in the illustration below. The books just have more whimsy than any of the games would know what to do with.)

Ciri spends some time in the final book as a prisoner on the world of the elves, who are as keen as everyone else for their king to father her unborn child. Avallac’h eventually convinces her that this is all for the greater good: her child will be able to open gates to allow the people of her world to escape when the apocalyptic White Frost arrives. But their king, like most older elves, is impotent, leading to multiple nights where Ciri allows him to take her to bed (in some of the frankly more disturbing scenes of the series) to no result. Eredin, moreover, doesn't appear to have intended to poison the king: the vial that kills him was supposed to contain some sort of fantasy viagra, and even Eredin seems genuinely shocked to learn its actual effects.

Regardless, Ciri eventually discovers that Avallac’h and the Aen Elle have deceived her, and intend to user her child's powers to invade her world, not save it. Neither world is threatened by the White Frost for at least several millennia, it's just a pretext to make her cooperate. And so she flees, and Eredin (already leading his Red Riders aka The Wild Hunt long before he was crowned king) pursues her.

With the books as context, why Ciri would ever trust Avallac’h is very hard to understand. It's a little easier if that whole awful episode with her and the former king is subtracted out – Ciri's child is no longer necessary for Eredin's goals. So it's odd that the game still references the deadly vial Eredin gave to the king. Are we to suppose the vial genuinely contained poison in this version of continuity? I'd rather it didn't – Avallach's ruse is far more interesting if he underwhelms Eredin's support by revealing a half-truth – but the games aren't telling us.

And then we have to factor in that one last detail I'd forgotten when I originally started playing with this theory: TW3 does contain one last, dangling reference to the time the old king spent trying to impregnate Ciri, when Ge'els very reasonably asks why on earth Ciri would ever trust Avallac’h now. It's a damn good question, and the game offers no real answers. So in Avallac’h, we're left with a character who is vital to the final chapters of the games, who comes out of nowhere without the books as context, but whose role makes no sense with that backstory in mind. Frankly, the writers would have been much better off avoiding the whole mess altogether and inventing some new character to take Avallac’h's place.

The treatment of the White Frost is even more confusing. The books are ultimately fairly explicit about just what the White Frost is: a ice age, most likely caused by the same mundane climactic factors that produced the real ice ages of our history. The only escape is intergalactic emigration, as Ciri (or her children) might some day enable.

In the games, the White Frost has instead become some sort of nebulous, free-floating apocalypse which will eventually reach all worlds, which is basically fine – up to a point. We briefly visit a dead world that the Frost has decimated, and even the Aen Elle are now supposedly planning to invade Ciri's world because it threatens theirs as well (I mean, apparently – their motivations are so underdeveloped you could miss them by accidently skipping just one or two lines of dialogue). When the Wild Hunt appears, it's always in a haze of cold. Their mages can invoke its power still more dramatically through portals which can freeze you in your tracks. So obviously, the Frost has already reached their world, and time is running out, right?

Well, no – you visit their world too (again, briefly – to meet a character who has never been mentioned before and won't be again, for reasons which have also never been mentioned before if you haven't read the books) – and there's no Frost in sight, apocalyptic or otherwise.

So why does the White Frost follow the Hunt around? No idea. It's never explained.

At the very end of the game, a second "Conjunction of the Spheres" occurs (possibly because of the Wild Hunt's appearance?), and the Frost begins to invade (or possibly Avallac’h summons it, so Ciri can go into it and destroy it?) It's all painfully unclear. The game is too busy pulling a bait-and-switch over whether Avallac’h's betrayed you to tell you what's actually going on instead.

But if Ciri could destroy the Frost completely (at great personal risk, but still) why is this not more clearly set up? Why did the Aen Elle think that escaping to another world (which will ALSO eventually be destroyed by the Frost) was a better solution than sending Ciri to face the Frost directly? For which matter, why do the Aen Elle need Ciri at all if sending enough ships to carry an army is no problem? Why does Ciri spend so much of the game questioning Avallac’h's true intentions, if they were ultimately so noble? When did he tell her the truth? If Avallac’h did summon the Frost, why did he pick that particular moment? And if he didn't, and it all just happened spontaneously, we're back to questioning why invading that world ever seemed like a good solution to Eredin – it all collapses in on itself.

None of these questions couldn't have been answered with a little creativity, but then the game would've had to dedicate some real time to explaining its backstory and developing its core conflict – something it's bizarrely reluctant to do. And if you think I may be drifting from the point a bit in the name of getting all my gripes about the ending down in one place, you're not wrong, but I feel Avallac’h and everything surrounding him is pretty much the ur-example of what doesn't work about the way The Witcher 3 depends on the novels: the backstory the writers are building on doesn't actually exist in any format available to the rest of us.

There are plenty of ways TW3 could have incorporated its backstory into its own narrative (yes, even excluding the method "by expecting people to read many many more pages of text from in-game documents", because that's bullshit and always will be). There are times it does this brilliantly, such as in the quest ‘The Last Wish’: everything you really need to know is covered in Yennefer and Geralt's conversation in the boat, and without ever making the dialogue sound unnatural. In fact, TW3 has even more options here than many works with the same problem, because Geralt is famous and people already think they know his story. You could have bards singing Dandelion's ballads, you could have characters confronting him with misunderstandings about his past to force him to correct them. You could also have Geralt visiting people and places he knows Ciri remembers fondly because of the time they spent there together, or include playable flashbacks similar to the time you spend playing as Ciri. You could stick chunks of backstory in optional sidequests or scenes old-school fans can skip through quickly. So many of my questions (how did Ciri get so close to Yennefer if they were never at Kaer Morhen together? Why has no-one tried training Ciri in her powers before? What does the Wild Hunt even do while it's not hunting Ciri? Why is Ciri princess of Cintra if her father is Emperor of another country altogether?) could have been answered so easily.

Seriously, summarising the Witcher books is not that hard. Lots of things happen, but only a fraction of it is really relevant in retrospect, and you could hit all the major plot beats in a handful of paragraphs. (Heck, I’d do it here if this post wasn’t already ridiculously over long.)

But then, TW3 has a bizarre problem with leaving so much of its best material off screen, even from its own story. It's criminal that we never get to see any of Geralt's time (or Yennefer's) with the Wild Hunt, even in flashback or dream sequence. This is material that directly sets up the relationship between the main hero and the main villain, and the most we ever hear about it is a few vague allusions to it being like a strange nightmare. Really? That's it? What was it like? Was Geralt in a trance, unable to control his own actions – was he brainwashed into believing he belonged there, or was he merely unable to escape? What atrocities might Eredin have forced him to commit? Did he visit other worlds? Was he paraded among the Aen Elle as a captive? There is no way this isn’t a part of the story worth talking about!

We never see the moment Ciri rescues Geralt from the Wild Hunt. We never see how Avallac’h convinces her to trust him, we never see the moment he was cursed, or any of her efforts to save him – all these big, story-defining moments are left off-screen, to be vaguely recounted to you later in dialogue. Then there's the entire political situation in Nilfgaard – you hear about it second-hand, and it's all resolved off screen. And the list goes on. Yet you and Ciri still have time to run around Novigrad so she can thank a bunch of throwaway characters you've never even heard of before, nor will again. The priorities on display here are baffling.

The Witcher 3 was such a wildly successful game that it’s obvious these sorts of issues didn’t seriously hold it back, and it’s such a big game that I could have sat down and written just as many words focusing only on the parts that do work without much difficulty. It boasts stunning visuals, addictive gameplay and some truly wonderful characters, and so many parts of the story work brilliantly in isolation that it’s strange to come out of it feeling that it ultimately adds up to so much less than the sum of its parts.

I’m glad TW3 exists – if it hadn’t been such a runaway success I doubt I’d ever have discovered Sapkowski’s universe at all, but for myself, TW3 will probably always be remembered as a somewhat-overlong introduction to the really good stuff, in the expansions and the original novels it came from. I looked up the novels after finishing TW3 in large part because I’d been left with so many unanswered questions – and I’m glad I did, but I’m honestly surprised more people weren’t turned off by TW3′s scattershot approach to its own narrative. You’re allowed to change and rework in moving to a new medium, but I can’t imagine it would’ve hurt games’ success to tell a complete story in the process.

#The Witcher #Witcher Novels #The Wild Hunt #Geralt #Ciri #Emyhr #Avallac'h #Eredin #meta #long post is long

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“Because informal camaraderie between the sexes was an unfamiliar phenomenon, figuring out how to relate to each other was a complicated matter for both men and women. As one young man noted in 1924, "Nowadays when a woman goes everywhere and does everything, it is very difficult for a man to figure out how to treat her." "How is a man to know how to treat a woman anymore?" asked another bewildered soul. Obviously, these and other young men were at a loss when it came to relating to women as friends and companions. Did female companionship mean, they wondered, that men had to be courteous and gentlemanly at all times?

Would they have to refine their language and manners in order not to offend female sensibilities? Or should young women simply be treated as men would each other? Most often they found no clear answers to these questions, and they had a hard time imagining new ways of behaving. "No matter what I do," grumbled one young man, "I never seem to do the right [thing]." Young women seemed equally unsure about how to interact with the opposite sex. On the one hand, they longed for frank conversations and easy rapport. On the other, they did not need advice columnists and etiquette experts, or their mothers, to remind them that "nothing is as delicate as a woman's reputation."

As they well knew, simply seeming too anxious for male companionship or too careless in selecting one's company was sufficient to cast doubt on a woman's moral rectitude. Yet, showing too much reserve might mean missing out on having fun. Their concerns were therefore of a different kind than young men's. Was it really true, they wanted to know, that men found women who went out at night by themselves to be "cheap"? Did men approve of women who wore lipstick? And under which circumstances could a woman allow a young man to walk her home? "I don't want to be prudish, but I don't know what is appropriate," one nineteen-year-old woman wrote, summarizing the dilemma she and many other young women faced.

In public discourse, the uncertainty over new codes of behavior came to a head in discussions over the seemingly trivial issue of male chivalry. Throughout the 1920s, young men and women debated this matter with an astonishing passion, and for that reason alone it is worth examining. What were these discussions about? What caused them? What was it about this issue that triggered such intense feelings? And what does this tell us about the difficulties associated with establishing cross-gender camaraderie? On the surface, the lines of conflict were clear enough. Over and over again, young women complained about what they perceived as rudeness among men. "Why are Danish men so ill-mannered?" "Femme" wanted to know in 1923.

"Girlie" was convinced that "chivalry and courtesy disappeared along with the crinoline." Writing from Italy, another woman was sure that Scandinavian men would "die of embarrassment" if they saw the gallantry with which "even lowly dock workers on the Arno River treat a woman." Adding insult to injury, one of the few Langelinie girls to speak out in public claimed that her interest in the visiting sailors stemmed solely from the fact that the foreigners were "considerate," "gentlemanly," and "chivalrous" companions who did not try to take advantage of "a decent and well-behaved young girl" like herself.

"A Copenhagen Girl" agreed. Since "you can use a very strong magnifying glass and still not discover even the tiniest trace of chivalry" among Danish men, she didn't find it surprising that nice girls like herself preferred the company of men like "Pierre and Giovanni, Tom and Jack." In most cases, young men declared themselves guilty as charged, but, they argued, this was only because chivalry was an outdated form of conduct entirely incompatible with the kind of camaraderie women seemed to desire. "What is it that determines that a man must always be chivalrous toward a woman?" a self-described "nonattentive gentleman" thus asked.

Another young man who defiantly labeled himself "nongallant" wanted to know whether "a young woman has any right to be offended because I do not pick her up before a dance but ask her to meet me at a trolley stop?" "Mack and Jack" were equally annoyed by what they saw as unreasonable demands on the part of female companions. "We are two young men," they wrote to an advice columnist in 1923, "who would like to hear your opinion about the behavior of two young ladies. The other night after we had been out dancing together, the young ladies wanted us to escort them home, but we live at the opposite end of town and escorting them home would have taken more than an hour out of our night's sleep, so we refused. Now they don't want to see us again."

The unmistakable tone of anger, resentment, and indignation that runs through this discourse suggests that more than etiquette was at stake in the controversies over chivalry. When young people debated whether men ought to open doors, assist with overcoats, carry packages, offer cigarette lighters, give up their seats in trolley cars, and walk companions home, they were, of course, trying to determine what constituted proper behavior in an era when gender norms were being redefined. That in itself was fraught with difficulty, and the confusion they expressed was genuine.

But because both men and women perceived chivalry as a source of power and control, their "conversations" are therefore best understood as part of a much larger struggle over the relative status of men and women in a changing cultural context. For that reason it became such an intensely contested issue. Certainly, women's insistence on male chivalry was not merely motivated by a desire to indulge in the pleasures that spring from a companion's service and attentiveness. In their eyes, chivalrous behavior indicated, among other things, a certain level of male regard. After all, it had in the past only been disreputable women who could not legitimately demand such treatment.

Insufficient male chivalry was therefore seen, even among many self-proclaimed "modern" young women, as an insulting sign of disrespect. More importantly, young women also perceived chivalry as a sort of sexual safety mechanism. At the heart of the ideology of chivalry lay the notion that men were responsible for serving and protecting women. Therefore, as long as women could hold men to a code of behavior that emphasized courtesy and (sexual) self-control, their ability to protect themselves from physical and moral danger seemed all the greater. And if this potentially greater degree of safety came at the expense of what seemed more egalitarian companionship, that was a price worth paying for most women.

Besides, despite their modernity, young women were not out to eradicate gender-differentiated forms of behavior. While they were eager to assert their independence from older patterns of social interaction and to develop new forms of camaraderie with men, they still insisted on their femininity and on having that femininity acknowledged by male companions. "It might well be," one women poignantly argued, "that women in this country have reached their goal in terms of equality with men, but that does not mean that they have stopped being women."

That sexual equality and continued male chivalry were demands not incongruous with each other was a claim many men found hard to accept. "We don't understand how young girls can demand to be equals and at the same time demand to be treated as ladies," two male friends explained. "Women have by now for many years sought equality with men," another man elaborated, "and it is therefore my infallible [sicl] opinion that the ladies must either be entirely independent in all matters and renounce gentlemanly gallantry, or they must relinquish their equality with men." With such comments, young men laid bare what was for them at the heart of this matter.

Clearly, they expected women to reciprocate for the favors and attentions they received with a certain degree of modesty and deference. As Karen Dubinsky has pointed out, the flip side of chivalry and protection is power and control. When men no longer felt they had power and control over women, they were, as they repeatedly stressed, no longer willing to respect a code of conduct that endowed them with a specific set of duties and responsibilities. Underlying the controversies over the issue of chivalry were therefore much more profound conflicts, most of which derived from young men's resentment over losing a set of gendered privileges and an authority over women that older generations of men had been able to claim.

Even though many young men were attracted, at least in principle, to the idea of having fun and enjoying themselves in the company of female peers, they were also deeply ambivalent about young women's entry into what had previously been male territory and their encroachment on what had traditionally been male prerogatives. As one newspaper columnist complained in 1921, "Women have forced their way through every door—into the labor market, into politics, and into entertainment. They are getting more and more rights—rights to this and rights to that—but what about us men? We don't seem to be getting any more rights."

Many young men also took offense at women's relative independence in public arenas. As long as young women had money of their own, they did not have to depend on male companions in order to partake in public entertainment. Although most men had greater earnings and more spending money than their female peers, even those women with the most limited funds were usually able to afford a movie ticket, the admission to an amusement park, or a cup of coffee in a restaurant, and unlike in the United States, for example, young Danish women typically paid their own way when they went out with male companions, at least as long as they were not engaged or going steady.

"Of course, we paid for ourselves when we went out," insisted Stine Petersen. "Yes, naturally! Naturally, we paid for ourselves," exclaimed Netta Nielsen, seemingly surprised at the suggestion that men might pay for female companions. While hard on their pocket books, such financial self-reliance had several advantages for young women. First, it allowed them, as Michael Curtin has pointed out, to signal that "the relation between themselves and [male companions] were of a public and egalitarian nature, not romantic as between lovers." Perhaps more importantly, it released them from any obligation to male peers and from the moral suspicion that surrounded any woman who accepted gifts and treats from men who were relative strangers.

Besides, paying one's own way also protected young women from ending up, as Nikoline Sorensen phrased it, in an "awkward position" where men "might expect things" in return for their generosity. But rather than appreciating the potential for egalitarian friendships that such practices produced, most young men resented the self-reliance of their female peers, perceiving it as a challenge to male initiative and a lessening of their power. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, much of young men's resentment grew from their sense that women were in fact not only becoming less dependent, but were also acquiring a whole new kind of power over men.

"What are men to do? How can they protect themselves against these attractive, scantily dressed young girls? We are under their spell," a twenty-two-year old man complained in a statement that interwove two of the most common strands in male discourse on postwar gender relations. First, men of all classes and ages spoke of young women as increasingly bewitching and seductive. Whether it was their short skirts, deep necklines, freer body language, or seeming flirtatiousness that led men to this conclusion, they generally agreed that the new generation of women possessed an unprecedented degree of sexual allure.

Second, they constantly complained that women were using their wiles, their charms and their bodies as unfair means to gain control over men, who were ill-equipped to withstand such an onslaught. "This is the last and final battle in the war between the sexes," one observer declared in 1924. "After suffrage and all the other rights women have obtained, they are now plotting their final assault. With their physical allure, they are striving to master men who are, after all, only men." In this light, young men's unwillingness to behave chivalrously begins to take on its deeper meaning. In a situation in which many young men believed that women were gaining the upper hand, they were less than eager to engage in behavior that smacked of servitude to women.

In earlier generations, a man who fetched a woman's coat or carried her packages had discreetly underlined his own masculinity through a show of physical ability. By the 1920s, the very same gestures seemed to many young men simply to demonstrate service and subordination to a new generation of women who already possessed too much power over them. Quite understandably, they therefore resisted any involvement in such behavior. Although the debates over chivalry are revealing of the underlying conflicts that seriously circumscribed any effort to create more frank and egalitarian relationships between young men and young women, they may ultimately be read as fairly innocuous.

After all, having to fetch one's own coat is at most an inconvenience, and while ungentlemanly behavior might offend a woman's sensibilities it hardly impairs her autonomy or her freedom of movement. But because (sexual) self-control was a central component of the ideology of chivalry, young men's increasing unwillingness to adhere to this long-standing code of conduct had more serious consequences. Predictably, although unfortunately, it led to an unprecedented level of physical and sexual danger for all women who ventured into public arena.”

- Birgitte Soland, “Beauties and Boyfriends, Bitches and Brutes.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

#becoming modern #birgitte soland #history #1920s #gender

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i-know-my-value-darling · 4 years

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Supernatural stars reflect on the show's undying legacy

Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, and Misha Collins discuss 15 years of fantasy, family, and flannel.

"We only get one shot at this." Sam and Dean Winchester are surrounded. The monster-hunting brothers are standing on the edge of a cliff. They look to Castiel, their brother in arms — or is it wings? — but even he can’t help. One move in the wrong direction could ruin everything. After years of fighting demons, going toe-to- toe with Satan himself, and saving the world multiple times, they once again find themselves in a position of having to perform under pressure. But this situation is unlike anything they’ve ever dealt with before. All eyes are on them as they have one shot…at getting the perfect picture.

It’s a dry, hot August day in Malibu — when people were still allowed to gather outside — as Supernatural stars Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins prepare for the last setup of their final Entertainment Weekly cover shoot. With a bottle of champagne in each of their hands, Ackles once again reminds them they get “one shot” to do this right. But if their characters can shoulder the weight of the world, surely these three can handle a photo. Read the whole story below

The champagne soaking is meant to be a celebration of 15 years, of making television history. Supernatural, the story of two brothers destined to save the world, is the longest-running genre show in the history of American broadcast television. (So old, the first three seasons shot on this thing called film.) What started as an underdog story, living its first few years on the verge of cancellation, has become an institution, a milestone to which other shows aspire. Supernatural not only survived the move from The WB to The CW after its first season — it’s now the final WB show left standing — but became the backbone of the now highly successful CW network. Over the years, the sci-fi series has aired on every weeknight, helping to launch shows including Arrow and The Vampire Diaries. The network moved it one final time, most recently, to Mondays, to help Roswell, New Mexico expand its audience. “Supernatural is a major link to many of the shows that we have successfully built to market,” The CW’s chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz says. “Almost every one of our shows has had it as a lead-out or a lead-in.”

And to think, it all started as a promise to bring horror to television. After Supernatural creator Eric Kripke had finished working with Warner Bros. on 2003’s Tarzan series, he pitched the idea of a reporter who travels around hunting urban legends. As he puts it, it was a Kolchak: The Night Stalker rip-off. But when he realized the story would benefit from having brothers at its core, he started writing. “At the time, The Ring and The Grudge were huge hits in theaters,” Kripke remembers. “We said, ‘We’re going to take that experience and we’re going to put it on TV,’ and the initial goal was to be scary.” After Warner Bros. passed on his first, what he calls “uptight,” draft, Kripke had to reassess the kind of show he was creating. “I canceled all my Christmas plans and wrote that second draft in three weeks,” he says. “That was when the show got its sense of humor, because I was locked alone, over winter break, in my office. I couldn’t do anything fun, so I started entertaining myself.”

The show was still scary, but it was also funny and, over the years, would continue to evolve. Sure, you could say it’s a little bit X-Files — in its early days, the show often used the line “The X-Files meets Route 66” — and there were definite Star Wars influences (Sam and Dean were originally based on Luke Skywalker and Han Solo). But no combination of pop culture is going to perfectly describe Supernatural because the show has managed to do something remarkably rare in the age of peak TV, where audiences are so overwhelmed with content that an original idea seems foreign: It’s created a truly one-of- a-kind experience.

For starters, it’s a show about two flannel-wearing, beer-loving, blue-collar dudes from Kansas who for a good chunk of their lives traveled from cheap motel to cheap motel, paying for gas and greasy diner food with a mix of fake credit cards and money they earned scamming people at the pool table. “Almost all television is about rich people or, at the very least, middle-class people,” co-showrunner Andrew Dabb says. “The fact that we’ve been able to take this Midwestern blue-collar approach to this genre feels like we’re breaking the mold.”

But the mold-breaking didn’t stop there. Supernatural might’ve started out as a horror show with some snarky one-liners, but it evolved into some of the boldest, most experimental (and certainly strangest) stories on the small screen. “We’re a show of big swings,” co-showrunner Robert Singer says. “I used to say, with every idea, ‘This will be a home run or they’ll cancel us,’ but every year we wanted to do something really nuts." And when he says nuts, we’re not just talking about the episode with the talking teddy bear or the murderer targeting imaginary friends. Those are just some standard monsters of the week. We’re talking about the black-and-white episode shot like a classic Hollywood monster movie, or the episode that introduced Chuck (Rob Benedict), a prophet — who’d later reveal himself to be God — who was famous for writing a book series called Supernatural. That, of course, led to Sam and Dean attending a Supernatural fan convention as the show continued to redefine what it meant to inject a series with meta humor. And the swings never stopped. Season 13 featured a Scooby-Doo crossover as an animated Sam, Dean, and Castiel solved a case alongside the Mystery Inc. gang. And in season 14, after giving God a sister a few years prior, the show made the Big Man Himself its final villain. “I don’t think any idea, barring some production concerns, has been viewed as too crazy,” Dabb says. “Because we know that our fans are smart and that they’ll follow these guys anywhere.”

So long as each episode features Sam and Dean — and the occasional heartfelt talk on the hood of the Impala — the show can do just about anything, which is another reason Kripke had to rewrite his first draft of the pilot. Originally, Dean was the only brother who knew about monsters growing up, bringing Sam up to speed later in life. It wasn’t until Kripke figured out that they needed to be in this together that the series snapped into place. Because at the end of it all, they’re two brothers bonded by the loss of their mother and a life spent on the road with an absentee father. (It just so happens that their mother was killed by a demon and their father hunted them.) The familial dynamic — the irrational codependency, as the angel Zachariah (Kurt Fuller) once called it — is the most important part of the show. “The first inkling I had that we had something special was shooting the pilot,” Kripke says. “It was the scene on the bridge when Sam and Dean talk about their mother. It was the first time that you really saw their chemistry and their connection as brothers on full display. Because I’ve always said this show begins and ends with whether you believe that sibling relationship.” But Sam and Dean weren’t just the center of the show. For many years, they were the show.

Supernatural has never been an ensemble drama. For the first 82 hours of the series, Ackles and Padalecki were the only long-running series regulars — Katie Cassidy and Lauren Cohan briefly joined for season 3, appearing in 12 episodes combined. But Sam and Dean weren’t just in every episode; they anchored every episode. (They skipped table reads because there would’ve been only two actors there.) “I had many moments of not only questioning, ‘Can I keep this up?’ but an answer of ‘I cannot keep this up,’ ” Padalecki, 37, who’s been vocal about his struggle in the early seasons, says. “I borrowed strength from Jensen.” But even Ackles, 42, admits it was a tough job. “The 23-episode seasons were nine and a half months of filming,” he adds. “It was a lot of work, but I always came back to: I still enjoy it, I still like telling the story, I still like these characters and the people I work with.”

Not only did the guys stick around, they built a reputation of having created one of the warmest sets in the business, with a number of crew members staying with the production all 15 seasons. It all dates back to a talk Kripke had with his stars during the filming of the series’ second episode. “I said, ‘The show is about your two characters, and with that comes this responsibility,’ ” Kripke says. Padalecki remembers the exact setting of what he calls their “Good Will Hunting moment,” a bench in Stanley Park in Vancouver, where they film. It was a chat both actors took to heart. “We’d both been on other sets,” Ackles says. “We knew we wanted to enjoy it, to have fun with our crew; we wanted them to like us and us to like them and to have fun doing what we do.” It’s an attitude Pedowitz hopes bleeds into other CW shows, an attitude that launched an annual tradition where the CW chairman/CEO takes his new casts out to dinner with the Supernatural guys, a chance for the vets to share advice. “It’s always the most flattering situation,” Padalecki says, recalling a moment he had a few years back with the late Luke Perry, who was a part of the Riverdale cast. “Luke was sitting next to me and he was like, ‘What y’all have done and what we hear about you guys, it’s really cool to be associated with y’all in some way, shape, or form,’” he recalls. “And I’m sitting there pinching myself.”

It’s a behind-the-scenes legacy that’s perhaps just as impressive, if not more so, than the onscreen legacy. Collins, 45, who started as a guest star and the show’s first angel in season 4, has become the show’s third-longest-running series regular, and he still remembers walking onto set his first day. “When you’re coming onto a show as a guest star, it can be a little bit nerve-racking,” Collins says. “Coming to this set, it was an immediately different vibe. Think- ing about working on other shows in the future, that’s something that I aspire to bring with me.”

A similar reputation extends to the fans as well. Not only is the #SPNFamily one of the most dedicated fandoms out there, it’s also known to be a pretty nice one. (Not many fandoms can say they’ve helped launch a crisis support network for their fellow fans.) But their dedication isn’t just about seeing what crazy twist God throws at Team Free Will next. Thanks to fan conventions and social media, the viewers are just as invested in the lives of the actors. Supernatural’s not just about the words on the page, it’s about the actors saying them. “When you’re dealing with the public taste, there’s an alchemy of great writing, a great idea, and the close-up that’s required,” Peter Roth, chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group, says. “You need stars who you want in your living room.” And you need stars who want to be in your living room, and who, even after 15 years, care so deeply that they get emotional while taking photos in Malibu.

"It's going to be a long eight months," Ackles declares. Standing on that same ledge, an hour before the champagne shot, Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins walk away from a group hug after unexpectedly starting to tear up. It might be the setting — looking out over the ocean — or the occasion: their last-ever photo shoot. Or maybe it’s the fact that they’re almost a month into filming their final season.

It had been a question posed to the stars for years: How long will this show continue? How long can it continue? “Even my mom and dad were like, ‘When are you going to be done with this?’” Ackles says with a laugh. It was a decision the network and studio had ultimately put into the actors’ hands, and it was a conversation they’d been having for a while. Back in 2016, Padalecki told EW, “If we don’t make it to [episode] 300, I think Ackles and I will both be truly bummed.” But in season 14, they hit 300…and then kept going. While filming episode 307, they announced the upcoming 15th season would be the end, which will bring them to a total of 327 episodes when all is said and done. “[Jared] and I were always married to the fact that we never wanted to go out with a diet version of what we had,” Ackles says. “We wanted to have enough gas left in the tank to get us racing across the finish line. We didn’t want to limp across.” Padalecki remembers the moment it hit him — not the decision to end it, but rather the opposite. “We had that moment where he and I both realized that we didn’t want it to end,” he says. “It finally got to a point, ironically, where it was like, ‘I never want to leave this. I could do this until the day I die, and then if I get the choice when I’m dead, I’ll re-up!’ But you never want to be the last person at a party. We just knew. That’s not to say there haven’t been vacillations, but we all trust the decision that was made.”

Starting in July 2019, the cast and crew returned to Vancouver to begin filming the final season, but in March 2020, with two episodes left to go, they were sent home. For years, fans had wondered what, if anything, could stop the Winchesters, and now it seems we have the answer: a global pandemic. As sets closed amid social-distancing measures due to the spread of COVID-19, it didn’t take long for fans to start connecting the dots, sharing relevant GIFs from episodes that featured viruses, most notably Chuck telling Dean to hoard toilet paper “like it’s made of gold” before the end of the world in season 5’s “The End.” (Did we mention that Supernatural is also kind of psychic? In a season 6 episode, Dean calls Sam “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which just so happens to be the role Padalecki has lined up after this ends.)

When production paused, it all felt a little like we were living in an episode of the show, just waiting for Sam and Dean to drive up in Baby, open those creaky doors, and save us. They might not be able to do quite that, but the thing with the Winchesters is that they never stay down for long. When Supernatural is able to safely resume production, it will. And though there are only two episodes left to film, fans will enjoy a total of seven unseen hours, including the return of Charlie (Felicia Day) and a mystery woman who visits the bunker and, for some reason, gives Sam and Dean all the holidays they never got to celebrate. “She makes Christmas for them and Thanksgiving, birthday parties, and all that. It’s a very good episode,” Singer says, adding, “I don’t know when it’s going to air.”

That’s the thing—no one knows, not even the guys who took out Yellow Eyes, stopped Leviathans, defeated Death himself, and are supposedly destined to be the messengers of God’s destruction. But Sam and Dean do know the value of a good plan B. “Obviously it’s a horribly unfortunate situation we’re in, but the silver lining is that it gives us an opportunity to recharge,” Ackles says. “We had just finished episode 18, we shot one day of episode 19, and I was reading these two monster scripts thinking, ‘It’s like we’re at the end of a marathon and they want us to sprint for the last two miles.’ I feel like this almost gives us an opportunity to refocus and go into the last two episodes and hit them with everything we got.” Because when they do return to set, shave their quarantine beards, and step back into Sam and Dean’s shoes for the last time, they’ll have one shot at ending this thing…and they’re determined not to miss.

Photos: Peggy Sirota for EW

https://ew.com/tv/supernatural-stars-cover-ew-to-reflect-on-the-shows-undying-legacy/

#supernatural #jensen ackles #jared padalecki #misha collins #last season #season 15 #entertainment weekly #cover story #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #full post #SPN #spn family #new photo #new photos

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author-luna · 3 years

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Villain!Sokeefe/Ruewen family AU

Hi there everyone! A little while ago, a friend and I were talking about Sokeefe and what might happen in book 9, and then I had this idea for an AU where Sokeefe as well as the Ruewen family (Gardy, Edaline, Sophie and alive!Jolie) have been villains all along.

The idea couldn’t leave my mind so here I am.

Word count: 2.9k

Trigger/ Content warnings: mentions of nightmares

Please don’t hesitate to message me / tell me in the comments in case I should add any warnings!

My idea for it was that during Keefe’s time with the Neverseen, they were able to get him on their side

They make him work as a double agent, while thinking he is loyal to them

His joining is fueled by the fact that he feels like the Black Swan isn’t doing anything to help them nor are the utilizing them how they should

He knows that they could defeat the Neverseen in the bat of an eye, if only the Black Swan helped them reach their full potential by not sheltering them

But Keefe has his own agenda, which involves shattering both the Black Swan and the Neverseen

In his opinion, both organizations are hopeless and the best way to actually achieve what they want is a different approach

His plan is to get both the Neverseen and the Black Swan to destroy each other as well as the council, leaving the elvin world exposed

Then, in mits of all chaos, a new organization should take the position of power and work to redefine the elvin values and society

He has thought quite far ahead, but a lot of stuff is still up for debate and he doesn’t really mind because he knows he’ll come up with something in time

After he comes back, he finds it harder to play pretend than he originally thought it would

He can’t bring himself to think about the betrayal everyone would feel after they find out

Even worse, how Sophie would take it all in

After all they’ve been through and how she still trusted him, he can’t take any risks

One day though, when he and Sophie are both hanging out together and the topic of the Neverseen comes up, he can’t take it anymore

It slips out of him before he can even think about it

and suddenly it’s quite, too quiet and yet so unnervingly loud because the blood is rushing in his ears and the air is swirling and Sophie is just shocked

he scrambles to explain what he meant, cover up or anything

but then Sophie just starts shaking and oh god he really messed up didn’t he-

he is convinced that she hates him now but then the shaking turns into faint giggles and the giggling turns into soft laughter which then erupts into a laughing fit and he just wants to call Elwin so he can check on her

after a little while Sophie calms down and sits down, her hands in her lap and her eyes looking at him expectantly

at first our boy is just confused but the she tells him to sit down and explain

when he looks at her like she went insane she tells him that she knows him, he would never do that if he didn’t find value in it

so, he sits down and tells her all about it

from the very start, how he spend his stay to how they recruited him and about why he joined and his own plans

Keefe talks for a while, and when it all come to end, he is surprised by how much better he feels, almost like a weight has been lifted off him and he could finally breathe

Sophie stays quiet for a while, her eyes looking into the distance

Keefe stars fidgeting and pulling loose gras out of the ground because the silence is heavy and he thinks that she definitely hates him now

when Sophie finally looks at him, she is smiling, s m i l i n g and he thinks she finally went crazy

she seems to have read what he thought on his face because now shes pouting and she hit his arm in a playful manner, which leads Keefe to throw a handful of grass on her and suddenly they’re rolling around, chasing each other and laughing like normal people

when they finally stop to catch their breath and they find themselves under Calla’s tree which is ironic, Keefe thinks

the silence now isn’t heavy, it’s comfortable like they've came to a silent agreement

when Sophie speaks up, Keefe can’t help but feel nervous

he is expecting a lecture, a list of things he already knows, maybe even a screaming match because that’s what he deserves

instead, Sophie just whispers a single phrase

‘I trust you’

and it’s enough to bring tears to his eyes because she still trusts him, she isn’t going anywhere and she is still his friend

and then they talk for hours

it’s about everything and nothing in particular

they exchange stories and jokes, laughter echoes through the air followed by a light hearted silence and for the first time in ages Keefe feels like everything might turn out good and he dares to hold on that bit of hope he usually tries to suffocate

Sophie herself feels the same

she thought about yelling at him or scolding him, but deep down she knows that it doesn’t matter

and when she said she trust him, she meant it with each fiber of her body

a little voice in her head tells her that she’s laughing with the enemy and that she’s foolish for trusting him, that she’s a traitor herself for doing it but she snaps back saying that maybe she wants to be a traitor and that she doesn’t care, and the voice shuts up

for the next few days, the voice keeps whispering that she is the enemy as well because she’s trusting Leefe, but whenever she says that maybe she wants to be the enemy, the voice shuts up and that makes her think

Keefe made good points, his plan could use some improvement but the point still stands

her thoughts are constantly running and circling back to the same question ‘Where do I stand? What can I do?’

and at night, the overthinking gets to her

her dreams are haunted by what if’s, but one dream stand out to her

that night, she dreamt of her friends, her family, Keefe and herself in a future where there is no Neverseen

in her dreams, her friends and her were at the beach in San Diego, Linh is playing with the water and everyone is just having fun

when she turns around, she sees Grady and Edaline laughing with her human parents and she hears her human dad’s barking laugh echo as he retells a story from her childhood

she feels a hand on her shoulder and when she looks up, Keefe is standing besides her, looking fondly at the scene

he notices her staring at him and he looks down to her,a soft smile on his face as he whispers ‘We did it Foster’

she jerks up from sleep and she could swear that she can still hear the laughter, smell the water and feel the lingering touch of Keefe’s hand on her shoulder

that night she realizes that this is the future she wants, one where she doesn’t need to hide her human self

she lays awake for hours, and the next morning she finally makes a decision

in the night, when she lays awake, she mentally reaches out to Keefe, and when he opens his mind to hers, he is confused

but with an unbelievable determination she tells him that she is joining him

there is a lot of arguing from his side, but Sophie expected as much

she tells him that if he doesn’t want her to work with him she’ll join the Neverseen on her own so he gives up for now and tells her he will make arrangements for her to meet the others

after the meeting, they take Sophie in as part of them

obviously they don’t trust her from the start and she has to work very hard to earn their trust

they give a lot of assignments that involve morally questionable things that Sophie at first refuses to do but gives in

wherever she goes to these type of missions, she mentally seeks out the comfort of Keefe’s mind, who gladly will distract her, comfort her and talk to her until she feels better

it isn’t a pleasant thing for her to lie to her friends so openly, and she often struggles with hiding it, but Keefe is always right there to help her

they keep talking at night, just basking in the security of each other’s mental presence

because sometimes, things don’t seem that bad when you have a friend by your side

Sophie’s telepathy gets even stronger with the help of Gethen, who teaches her how to hide things securely from Fitz and Mr.Forkle

‘Gethen is okay I suppose’ Sophie begrudgingly admits one night during their nightly hangouts, after Keefe asked her about their training session

he teases her and laughs at her when she threatens to mentally slam a pillow at his head, but secretly she find that his laugh is quite adorable

after the Nightfall fiasco, Vespera and Gisela finally start trusting Sophie more because she kept up the facade so well

they call a meeting with her to ‘formally introduce her’ and during the meeting, she’s a bit nervous

of course, she has been kinda member all this time, but now being officially part of them was making her giddy with nerves

they do the protocol of introducing her to everyone, making her swear herself in, talk about her position yada yada, but the only thing she can focus on is Keefe's hand that intertwined itself with hers under the table and three familiar hooded people in the back

at some point during the meeting he had grabbed her hand to stop her from tugging on her eyelashes and to keep her grounded and steady, and to be fair, the soft circles his thumb kept tracing over her knuckles and the menatlly reassuring things he said to her were soothing and kept her from freaking out

but as much as she wanted to focus on the meeting, her attention kept going up to the three hooded figures in the back

she couldn’t help but feel like she had seen them before, their posture and presence so familiar

she was so distracted she barely noticed how everyone left the room, leaving only Gisela, Vespera, the hooded figures, Keefe and her in the room

when Keefe squeezed her hand, her attention snapped back to the room and she noticed that the figures came closer

Gisela suddenly asked her and Keefe to keep calm since they would now let them into the identities of three of their members

once the hooded figures let down the hoods, Sophie might have yelped in surprise and Keefe might have pulled her closer,just to put his arm around her and there is a tiny chance that Sophie buried herself deeper into his comforting side hug

in front her stood her parents, her elvin parents and with them their daughter she saw them mourn

it didn’t make sense to her how Edaline smiled at her and how Grady sheepishly scratched his neck and especially not how Jolie, the Jolie form the pictures and Prentice mind, shyley waved at her

Gisela and Vespra left them alone and told them to explain and sort it out

the moment they left, Keefe and Sophie started bombarding them with questions

finally, Grady and Edaline explained that Jolie had joined the Neverseen a while before she joined the Black Swan and how she recruited them

her death and all the mourning was just an act to keep everyone from questioning them when they try to get information or when they try to spy on the council

Jolie told her about how she was able to make herself a new identity under the name Trix

upon asking how she could be Trix if his ability was being a Guster and Jolie being a Conjurer jolie answered that she kept gusts of wind stored in the void that she could use and redirect to her liking

they tell them about their positions and how they actually always assisted them in some way, and Sophie feels abit betrayed for not knowing earlier

her and Jolie talk for a bit, getting to know each other and Sophie decides that Jolie is quite amazing

Edaline notes that they should go before someone notices their absence and Sophie takes her home crystal, leaping her and Keefe back to Havenfield

for a second they stand in the living room, hands intertwined and faces close

and before they could speak, they hear someone clear their throat and Sophie lets go of Keefe’s hand in embarrassment

Keefe is a bit upset, he already missed the way Sophie’s hand had fit into his own and the comforting feeling of rubbing his thumb against her knuckles

with a glare, Grady sends him home

after Gardy leaves him alone, he smirks to himself and makes it his mission to hold Sophie’s hand often

now time skip to Unlocked

at first, Keefe didn’t plan on telling Sophe where he’s going because he still was convinced that he is a danger for her

but 2 nights away from the lost cities and he suddenly found Sophie towering over him, hand on her hips and a glare so deadly he probably would have been 6 feet under

sheepishly, he asked her what she was doing here and she just punched his arm

cue an hour of lecturing about how they were in this together and he shouldn't have left without telling her

that’s when it dawned on him

why was she here, and if she was here with him, who was in the lost cities

she sat down besides him, setting down a backpack and saying that she was also a runaway

for the next month or so, they wandered around the world

with her teleporting, their birthfounds and Keefe’s new abilities, they had no problem at all with traveling and staying undercover

in the lost cities, Grady and Edaline helped keep the suspicions at bay

they covered for them and made sure no one found them

cue another showdown between the Neverseen and the Black Swan

this time, it’s a full force one and everyone instinctively knows that this battle is the last

all the intelligent species hold their breath as the war rages, gnomes and elves fighting on each side with all they’ve got

there are losses of course, but the biggest one is when Sophie and Keefe suddenly appear in the middle of everything

their friends stop and look at them with bewilderment, and it soons turns into shock when Keefe takes out a microphone like thing and tells everyone to freeze

as the battle stops, Sophie whistles a tune and Silveny descents from the sky

she lands in front of them and gently, Keefe helps her up and sits behind her

their friends would love to follow them with their eyes, but their gaze is fixed into the distance, and so, they don’t notice how Silveny flies them up to the middle and how Sophie starts expanding her mental grip on everyone

when she finally has everyone listening to her, she takes turns with Keefe to tell them about the future, how both the Neverseen and the Black Swan can’t guarantee a good life for them and the council even less

they end their little speech with them asking their friends to trust them, and Keefe sends everyone but Fitz,Biana,Linh,Tam,Dex,Marella,Wylie,Stina,Bronte Grady and Edaline to sleep

they land and talk with their friends, telling them everything that has happened, from them joining the Neverseen to their time in the human world

and as they stand there, all the stories told and feeling laid bare, they hold each others hands

they know that there is a high possibility of their friends not forgiving them or even not wanting them back

they also know that they might have to leave the elvin world behind forever

that's why they hold each other, because they know that as long as they have each other, the world can throw anything at them and they will get around it

because when Sophie lovingly whispered ‘As long as we have each other, we’re invincible’ after Keefe woke up from a nightmare, it was a promise

and as Keefe whispered a ‘It’s us against the world’ back, it was a mutual understanding,a promise and a reassurance that tells the world ‘We belong with each other, each a heart and a soul that is stronger together’

so when Biana breaks out into a sprint to hug them and everyone joins, hugs exchanged, laughter echoed and stories told, they don’t let go

the future might be uncertain, but it’s a bit better if you have friends with you to stand against the uncertainty

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wanderingwomanwondering · 3 years

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I’ve watched 15x19 Inherit the Earth twice and I still hate it. Chuck’s end was fitting but the weak ass storytelling to get us there was unforgivable. Also, Cas is still gone and we barely mentioned him or adequately mourned him in that episode. I just...can’t with this show rn. 15 years! For this?!?!?!?!

What quality storytelling and wrap up could they possibly accomplish in the final episode next week. The fans needed and deserved narrative throughlines and intentional, carefully developed character growth throughout the series. Some characters grew (e.g., Castiel, Jack) but Sam and Dean have been mindbogglingly more or less the same for about 10 years. Occasionally a “good” episode rehashes their old issues and makes the boys feel their feelings, but the show has been mostly plotty shark-jumping antics. That’s entertaining only in how inconsistent and strange it is.

I wanted Dean to wrestle with and work through his mommy and daddy issues (ages ago). I wanted Sam to figure out how to love and trust a woman who could actually live a “normal” hunter life with him. I wanted Dean to figure out that he’s queer (don’t at me) and work through what that means given his archaic ideas about masculinity in the context of the hunter life. I wanted both men to learn to be more emotionally mature and overtly open-hearted over time (and not just with pretty women but with scores of men in their lives that they loved and lost). I wanted them to learn how to grieve in honest, overt, and healthy ways since death and loss are a cornerstone of their lives.

I wanted Sam and Dean to have a long ass memory, mentioning fallen friends freely and often, lighting a candle on Jo’s birthday and then going about their hunter business. I wanted Dean’s hilarious comment in 11x4 when he said “I read” to mature into a special interest area that he researched and became an expert in, taking full advantage of the Men of Letters library. I wanted Sam to never stop inviting Dean to be more emotionally vulnerable. I wanted Sam and Dean to slowly stop keeping secrets. I wanted Sam to keep demanding that Dean treat him as an adult and capable hunter who he doesn’t have to keep sacrificing for and taking care of. Codependency is not a good look after 15 years.

I wanted Castiel to confess his love for Dean (dont at me) at least seven seasons ago. I wanted him to be in every epsidode, a tried and true and unequivocal part of the family, always fighting by Sam and Dean’s side. I wanted Dean to reciprocate! Even if he had to spend half a season struggling to redefine himself in light of his expanding heart and romantic interest in Castiel. I wanted Castiel and Dean to hash out what it means to be in love, and queer, and of two different species (angel and human) and the beauty of that and the complications.

I wanted Dean to work on wrangling his rage over the years rather that letting it control him and endlessly put him on the outs with Castiel mostly and sometimes Sam. I wanted Mary and John to stay dead (don’t at me). They were a critical part of Sam and Dean’s past (and Dean’s issues in particular) but with quality writing and support from friends and family, Dean could have worked through that, letting himself grieve what his parents weren’t and celebrate what they were.

I wanted Sam and Dean to turn the bunker into a headquarters for hunters and MoL around the country, reminiscent of Ellen’s Roadhouse and name a few mixed drinks after her. I wanted Sam and Dean to regularly remember Bobby as not just Bobby but as their foster father. The boys lived with him and were raised by him during huge chunks of their childhood while John was away hunting.

I wanted Dean and Sam to see and treat the women in the show like sisters, occasionally texting with them, asking about their hunts, calling them on birthdays, tearfully meeting up to toast a dead hunter or 12. All of this because it is human and facilitates character growth and it shows who they are, not necessarily because it serves the plot. The plot is secondary to why I stuck around for 15 years! I’m here for the characters.

I wanted Sam and Dean to grow as people despite their endlessly brutal and painful circumstances. Whether you’re a hunter fighting evil or a normal clueless person drinking too much Starbuck’s and worrying about your family, adversity is a part of the human condition and learning how to navigate that adversity and learning who you are and how to be in the face of that is what we are all here doing.

Ngl, each new season of the show since the 5th has been harder and harder to watch because the boys have been defined in terms of their persistent unresolved issues instead of by their ability to grow and adapt as people.

We see them, week after week, rally and rise to meet external threats (monsters, demons, angels, etc). I wanted to see that same energy around their personal growth. Naming the boys’ issues and watching them drink and cry about it once or twice per season is technically character development, but narrative throughlines that go beyond merely naming their issues, throughlines that actually delve into their issues and force them to begin dealing with them in order to resolve them (as much as possible) is character growth. One does not require strong storytelling skills and basic knowledge of human psychology, the other definitely does.

In the last 10 years (basically after Kripke left) fans have been given a show, sure. But, in many ways, the story died at the end of the 5th season. Honestly, I could write about this for the next week, with receipts (because I’ve been here for 15 years), but I’ll stop here.

#supernatural #spn #destiel #castiel #mary winchester #john winchester #jack kline #bobby singer #ellen harvelle #jo harvelle #men of letters #spn 15x19 #salt #showrunning vs storytelling #the disappointing end of an era #sam winchester #dean winchester #casdean #deancas

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dallonm-archive · 4 years

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So I Turned Church Mud Into A Novel Lol Oops | NaNoWriMo 2020

Folks the JOURNEY I have been on in the last 3 days. I’ve been on a great albeit chaotic Church Mud high and it led to? This?

For those who don’t know, Church Mud is meant to be a ~7k words short story for my writing dissertation (and it still is). I attempted to do Draft Zero over summer, completely missed the mark, pretended it didnt exist for a month and here we are. One thing I learnt from that attempt though was that there is a much wider story to be told than what we’d see in those 7k words. Back then I was content with it only existing as a short story, not having all the parts told, because I liked the idea of Felix and Dorothy existing in this small window with a happy ending that’d otherwise be temporary. But I cannot help myself :) I met my advisor on Wednesday and reaffirmed that I’m at a really good place with this story in terms of ideas, themes and character - what’s missing was just the plot. So that’s what I’ve been working on (and killing my sleep schedule over) since, and what happened was: I realise most of my ideas wouldn’t fit the short story --> But they’d work in a novel --> So I guess I’m writing Church Mud as a novel after I graduate? --> But I kinda wanna write it now --> But I can’t --> But I want to --> Chloe your dissertation --> Hey you want more novel content? Here’s chapter titles --> God I Can’t Wait To Write This As A Novel --> Hey that thing where you write a novel in a month is happening soon...could be a...perfect excuse to...….,,,

So I had a ~revelation~ at 4am: why can’t I write it now? NaNoWriMo coincides with when I’m meant to brainstorm this story, so why don’t I take what I have and pants it as a novel, intentionally #LoseNano2020 and use what I wrote to infer what the short story will look like whilst also have a Draft Zero to work with/finish/rewrite next year? I debated if this was a good idea because it felt ~unconventional~ but I realised that a) I want to write this as a novel anyway and b) this is where I’m loving the project and that’s what matters and c) makes it feel less like uni work lol I’ve spent the all day playing around with what Church Mud The Novel would look like, and not only am I o b s s e s s e d but it also taught me? so much? about the short story? I was worried it’d get complicated but from the vague plot idea I have, I have a clear vision of Church Mud The Short Story separate from the novel, but I also see how it would fit into the novel as a chapter, and seeing where it’d fit in has really helped me figure out where it sits in the twins’ lives and so many elements I hadn’t considered before. I believe very strongly in Writers Intuition and my intuition is telling me that this is the direction I need to go with this project. My only issue is Church Mud doesn’t fit as a title for the novel at all and was never going to be the title, but I really don’t care oop, I’m not titling it until next year unless I come up with a title so good I want to change the short story as well lmao. But other than that this is working so well for me and really catalysed the momentum I already had atm for this story. I’ve also wanted to rework how I share Church Mud things here and this is a perfect way to at least for the next month, but before I ramble more lets actually talk about where the story is!

CHURCH MUD

Genre: literary fiction Setting: California (+ probably some other states? Idk I’m not American wtf is a state), 1986 POV: third person present + retrospective moments, split between twins Felix and Dorothy The Vibes: hazy summers, hot air, 3am, saltwater breeze, grainy photographs, empty roads at night, the moon blurred by clouds, arms resting out car windows, abandoned churches, telephone boxes, getting lost on purpose, cigarette smoke, dust from an old Bible Deals with: faith & the weaponization of it to control others, identity, perceptions of reality, chosen family, independence v co-dependence, free will, trauma & what it means to “let go”

CONTENT WARNINGS: religion/religious imagery (specifically Christianity), trauma, toxic relationships, inferred addiction (all updates will be tagged with these/any more specific warnings)

This is still in very early conception, in the sense of it’s existence as a novel, but it’s definitely an expansion on the ideas I had for the short story, where these two seek to let go of their past together so they can live their own, new lives, and also restore their tangled relationship that could never be fixed through letters and distant contact. When Dorothy left the controlling religious cult she grew up in, she never gave herself a chance to properly process the complicated emotions that came with that decision, or the trauma she went through, opting to cope with it by putting all her energy into building her new life and embracing her identity. Watching her brother navigate the same new, confusing path she took four years ago forces her to look back on her own experience, and the repressed memories of events that prompted her to leave in the first place. When Felix catches up with her, he struggles with the realisation that adjusting to this new life and world won’t be easy, and whilst it was the right choice, his impulsive decision has ramifications. Trauma does not necessarily stay in the place you associate it with and for Felix, it’s like seeing all of it from a birds eye view, all at once, including everything he blocked out. With his faith, his sister, and his drive to be a good person, he has hope for himself and the world, but the pain and anger he harbours will not make it easy for him. ^by no means a pitch literally just the copy paste of the quick summary I wrote for myself lmao

The most exciting part of this to me is how different, yet similar the novel feels. This version of the story isn’t necessarily happier, it’s still rough around the edges, but it’s definitely from a different mindset and there’s this haziness to it that doesn’t exist in the short story. It feels like a grainy home video that they’d never let see the light of day. I wouldn’t call it dreamlike or softer because of this, but there is this distinct tonal shift from the short story to the novel that I can only describe through the aforementioned Vibes. As I said, I have an idea of where the short story would fit into the novel’s timeline as a chapter, but they still won’t be the same. The short story is obviously more restricted to one singular event, and that turns the intensity and tension up high. This difference is also 100% influenced by the fact that the short story is set only at night (bar for some potential flashbacks), and the night plays a huge thematic and atmospheric role. Of course parts of the novel will take place at night, but the presence of daytime changes the mindset to me? In the short story it feels like they’re stuck in this perpetuate-esque night, whereas in the novel you know that the sun will always rise.

This story is also very different aesthetically, but at the same time elements of the short story’s aesthetic come into play and clash with the unique aesthetic of the novel, where they coexist, but are also in conflict with each other. As you can tell from these two moodboards where you can really see how for the second I gave up trying to make it coherent lmao:

To me there are two distinct aesthetics, and they are both very different and exist in different ways, but they are both inherently part of the story, and it feeds into this idea of perception of reality and these two realities that the twins perceive: the “outside world” and the gated world they grew up in.

The stars of the show, my favourite disaster twins:

Not fragile, but not made of stone either

Loves very hard, sometimes more than she’d like

A protective and loyal soul, especially with those she loves, but she never wants to forget to protect herself

If I’m in love with my best (female) friend, no I’m not <3

-goes to the edge of the pier and stares wistfully at the ocean so everyone knows that I am the main character-

Loves her brother more than anyone else but is struggling to figure out his new role in her life. As teenagers she felt painfully tethered to him because they were always The Twins, and she had nobody else, as adults she hopes to find a balance between their deeply close bond and their harshly different lives

Arc driven by defining your identity and then redefining it, and facing the parts of it you’d rather lock far away. Also deals with her experience growing up as a girl in a religious cult in the 60s/70s, and the relationship faith has with her feminist identity.

As of now, there’s more focus on him in the novel, since the short story focuses on Dorothy and I feel to write him from an observer perspective I need to get into his head first

Just found out restarting your life completely is hard?

Trying to be a good person, wants to be a good person, but there’s an anger in him that he hates but it’s festering and it’s growing

But ultimately he is a sweet and soft person and that’s what he wants to be in life even though it’s hard, it shows especially with his sister

I think at some point he locks himself in a cabin and? I would too

Centred around perception of trauma and v influenced by my own experiences with that, where you think things will be easier as soon as you leave that situation but really it just makes you look at everything from a distance and be like “what the fuck?? that actually happened??” (which conflicts with the fact that you KNOW you’re in a better place and you would never go back, but it hurts and it’s hard especially understanding the placement of your trauma in this new space)

I need to give this dude and his sister a happy ending for my own wellbeing. I don’t know how that’ll look but these two will get their happy endings. I actually don’t think I’ve loved two characters more and I love all my characters deeply

And I think that’s all for now! This 100% was not the direction I expected to take but I am so glad I did, and I also love the opportunity to reintroduce this story because good Lord it’s changed so much (and this instance is the most change). I also think this is the perfect Nano scenario for me, as someone who’s never done it before, there’s zero pressure on me to “win” because I don’t expect to even finish this. I’m just going to see where it takes me and see what it’s given me at the end of the month. I’m also not outlining this at all lmao, one because me and outlines do not get along but also my Preptober is just. the work I have to do for my dissertation anyway, which is reading and gathering a lot of fiction/nonfiction about cults/religion, and all the weird and unhinged takes on it. It’s very slow but it’s also fun! My uni work this weekend is literally to read The Girls by Emma Cline so I think I won here?? I also want to dedicate the rest of October to the short stories I planned to write for Nano (I was going to work on my collection).

I don’t know if I’ll do a taglist for this - I have the og Church Mud one but like I said I’m rethinking how I want to share this story and updates for this will only be regular in November so?? But chances are I will be constantly on my bullshit for the next month and a half with this story, pretty update or no pretty update

My NaNoWriMo page is here, although fair warning I have No idea how this site works, this is my boomer moment. Excited to clown about this story though!

- Chloe

#first off my fatal flaw is interchanging between Felix and Dorothy and Dorothy and Felix #second off i would die and kill for them #writing #amwriting #writeblr #writeblr community #religion /#trauma /#nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2020

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cryoftheplanet · 4 years

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I discovered this blog because I'm playing lore catch up after beating FF7R. It was my first intro into the FF universe so I was obviously v perplexed. One thing that always has me wondering is what drove Sephiroth to madness in Nibelheim? Crisis Core gave, in my mind, a weak justification for this dramatic character change. Like what do you think he found out in his week of solitude to make him lose it THAT severely?

It’s interesting you should say that because I’ve always found it very intuitive to the point that this is a little difficult to answer!

I think he found out exactly what we know he found out, that he was a monster created for Shinra. I think we see a lot more than that bubbling out under the surface that influences what happens after - a history of having held himself apart from people, and an implicit understanding of Shinra’s dehumanizing and horrific crimes and how far-reaching they were, even if he never expected to be personally affected. Look how entirely unsurprised he is to find an array of human test subjects being turned into monsters in a reactor in the middle of nowhere.

After everything we’ve seen from Shinra by the time we get to the Nibelheim flashback, his obvious misanthropy and desire to just burn it all down is too far but still shades of understandable. He lays the blame at the feet of all humans, but in a way his desire to bring everything to ruin is an exaggerated and self-obsessed mirror to Avalanche’s desire to blow up the reactors. Whether or not it actually helps it’ll certainly help him feel better and less powerless over his situation.

And powerlessness is probably the true heart of the problem. It’s obvious that Jenova was an influential figure in his turn, though whether you see her as more of a manipulative figure taking advantage of someone simultaneously dangerous and vulnerable vs. a false idol for Sephiroth to project his newfound self-conception as the Planet’s Chosen onto (and I’m pretty stalwartly in the latter camp), everything that follows is about filling a self-serving need in one way or another.

I find this easiest to understand in the full context of the game and against the other characters who go through similar struggles with their identity, or as in Cloud’s case, a disruptive revelation. Nearly everyone in the cast has some lie about what they’re doing or who they are that they need to square with in order to move forward. Sephiroth can’t do that. He absolutely cannot accept that he was made to be Shinra’s monster and is constantly redefining himself as some other sort of special, whether as a Cetra or a God. At the end of the day he’d rather destroy the world than face it.

(and if you find none of this squares with what you saw in FF7 Remake then... yeah. It sure doesn’t.)

#sephiroth #ffvii #final fantasy vii #ffvii remake #the-nightmare-doctor

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blessedarethebinarybreakers · 4 years

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Hi this may not be new to everyone but I was recently introduced to the concept of questioning God. I was raised with the idea that you do not question Them bc who do we think we are to question God, and to question Them is to lack faith. I'm still trying to wrap my head round this new idea so sorry if this sounds really silly and naive but why would we want to question God? And is questioning God=lack of faith? Sorry if this was messily worded

Hey there, anon! When you’ve been raised never to question God, the idea of questioning them can be kind of scary -- but hopefully you will find it to be freeing and empowering and enriching, too!

Now, I think most Christians would ascribe to some sort of “who are we to question God?” type mindset, as you name. I think I probably do, insofar as that means I tend to understand God as omniscient; I do believe that God’s answers and God’s will are Right and Just, are Correct, and that I don’t really have any hope of “proving God wrong.” But even so, it’s not a failure of faith to question anyway! As this post will assert, questioning is a healthy and powerful part of faith.

For in questioning God, in going on a journey of reflection and asking God what the heck is up, I will learn and grow -- I will discover what God’s will truly is, and just why it is Right and Just. And I will grow deeper in relationship with God on the way.

___________

(Before expounding on all of that, I want to add that there may well be some Christians who do believe that God might could be proven wrong -- or at least that God is open to learning and changing God’s mind! Diversity of faith and interpretation is valuable and worthy of respect.

After all, there are stories in scripture where God changes Hir mind -- Xe is convinced by Abraham not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if even just 10 righteous people live there; and by Moses to spare the people of Israel.

And then there is one of my favorite stories from the life of Jesus, i.e. God Incarnate, where he seems to get schooled by a Canaanite or Syrophoenician woman. I’ve got a sermon on this very story and what it might mean about God’s relationship with us as one open to give-and-take, growth and change!

If I’m not mistaken, a faith that makes room for the possibility of God changing God’s mind is more similar to most Jewish persons’ beliefs about God than a “God is always right. period.” type mentality. Anyway, back to the main point of this post!)

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Questioning God does not = a lack of faith. After all, countless faithful figures in scripture asked questions of God, from Moses to Habakkuk, from the psalmist to Jesus himself. See this post for examples!

In fact, many say that questioning God is actually evidence of a deep and vibrant faith. (Again, this idea is a Big Deal for our Jewish neighbors.)

If you dare to question, if you spend time and energy pondering hard topics and you engage with God as you do so, that’s a sign that you care. That you want to know what is true about God, what is true about God’s will for us. You’re not willing to swallow lies or submit to easy answers. That’s powerful faith. As Rachel Held Evans puts it in her book Inspired,

“If I’ve learned anything from thirty-five years of doubt and belief, it’s that faith is not passive intellectual assent to a set of propositions. It’s a rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred, all-night-long struggle, and sometimes you have to demand your blessing rather than wait around for it.”

___________

Now, saying all this stuff about faith probably requires a redefining of faith. If you’ve grown up being told that faith is as simple as believing in God, as not doubting God’s existence or God’s will, all of this stuff about faith being a struggle or a conversation with God or any of that doesn’t make much sense. So here are some quotes + places you can go to explore new meanings of just what faith is:

“The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty -- because what need do the certain have for faith?” - Science Mike, The Liturgists.

"The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns." - Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

It can also be helpful to understand faith not as an achievement, but as a gift -- not something we earn, but are given freely. See this post.

The idea of faith being a journey with ups and downs, and doubt not being faith’s enemy but a healthy part of it, can be explored in this posts + the posts linked in that one.

I find Barbara Brown Taylor’s discussions of a full solar faith vs. a lunar faith in her book Learning to Walk in the Dark very helpful when discussing a relationship with God that allows us to bring Her all our questions and doubts and messy emotions. I described her idea of the perils of a full-solar faith in which we cannot question God and must act happy & thankful all the time in this older post.

____________

Okay. Let’s get to the part of asking questions of God that excites me the most -- using our questions as a way to enrich our relationships with God!

God longs for real, mutual relationships with us -- and that can’t happen if we are unquestioningly obedient, right? A relationship cannot be one-sided; it cannot be unbalanced; it must involve a willingness on both sides to hear the other out. It must allow for vulnerability, for confusion, for communication.

In asking questions of God, we can grow in relationship with Them. And we will be following in a long tradition of good and faithful people who have done the same!

Here’s a quote on how sharing our questions and frustrations with God can actually deepen our relationship with them:

"My favorite Quaker example of this willingness to confront God is a story told by a woman who was so frustrated with her life she began berating God. For nearly an hour, she told God how pissed off she was with Him. Finally, her anger subsided and she heard a “still, small voice” whisper to her: “Finally, we can have an honest relationship.”"

- Anthony Manousos

And another quote about how letting God in on our anger or frustration towards Them is an important part of being honest and connecting with Them:

“Is it ever acceptable to be angry at God? I would suggest that it is not only acceptable, it may be one of the hallmarks of a truly religious person. It puts honesty ahead of flattery.” - Harold S. Kushner

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An additional reason we would want to question God is because sometimes, what we are really questioning is whether a certain thing we have been told is actually of God is or not. Often, when we question God what we’re really questioning is the ideas of God that have been fed to us by other human beings.

For instance, if we have been told that the Bible holds nothing but God’s direct word and will, and then find passages that seem to promote harmful things like genocide or slavery, it is right and good and human to question whether such things are actually promoted by God!

“Accepting the Bible’s war stories without objection threatened to erase my humanity. ‘We don’t become more spiritual by becoming less human,’ Eugene Peterson said. How could I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength while disengaging those very faculties every time I read the Bible?” - Rachel Held Evans, Inspired

Or if we’ve been told that LGBT relationships are not God’s will, but then we see such relationships bearing good fruit while the repression of an LGBT identity bears bad fruit, it’s sensible and good to question what God’s will in this matter really is.

"If same-sex relationships are really sinful, then why do they so often produce good fruit—loving families, open homes, self-sacrifice, commitment, faithfulness, joy? And if conservative Christians are really right in their response to same-sex relationships, then why does that response often produce bad fruit—secrets, shame, depression, loneliness, broken families, and fear?" - Rachel Held Evans

For more on this element of questioning God that is more about questioning scripture or certain church teachings / leaders, see my “Framework for Interpreting Scripture” page on my website.

_________

I’ll close by commending to you my #wrestling God tag. There you will see many examples of faithful people asking God questions, bringing their difficult emotions and their doubts to God, and even getting snarky with God! For instance, a post with verses expressing anger or confusion towards God.

Finally, if you dive into what it means to ask questions of God, things might get overwhelming for a while -- some people find that taking these steps causes them to feel like everything they thought they know about God has changed. If that happens to you, I’ve got a post that aims to guide you through some steps to getting to know God again.

Best of luck to you, anon, as you continue your faith journey! Please let me know if you have any more questions as you go!

#wrestling God #questioning God #faith tag #doubt tag #Anonymous #essays

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