#anyway. the visceral reaction i had to both scenes was exactly the same | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamingsnowflake2013 · 3 years

Photo

Not your typical prince! Kataoka Issei is too cool and strong for the princess carry! How awesome that Issei literally does almost exactly what his grandma described in episode 2 - he went to rescue Hayame and ended up grabbing a plum (Hayame). LOL!

What is it even called anyway? The potato sack carry, the neanderthal carry or the steal-a-bride carry? Also, what is Yoshitora feeding him? He literally needs only one arm to pick Hayame up and one shoulder to carry her (people usually use both in this type of carry) like she weighs nothing! He really weren’t kidding when he told her he had been holding back on his strength around her the whole time.

It’s such an awesome scene not merely highlighting the contrast betwen the two brothers but also showing Issei’s jealousy and possesiveness of Hayame and how he has actually matured in expressing them in a more controlled but still singular manner.

Issei's been traumatized ever since he saw Seigo carry Hayame back in episode 2 so now, he doesn't hesitate to whisk her away Issei style.

I love how Maeda Gordon and Takanori Iwata are able to channel each other because Seigo and Issei are such a fascinating mix of similarities and contrasts caused by them being brothers and their different life experience - for instance, you can catch a glimpse of Seigo's stoicism from that bridal carry scene in Issei’s expression while Issei’s pain from that time is now mirrored in Seigo’s eyes.

It’s Seigo who is left watching on the sidelines helplessly and as Issei has calmed down and has better control of his emotions and temper, it makes sense that he would resemble his older brother a little more as he gradually matures. And matured he has!

Hayame actually expects Issei to carry her like Seigo did but he completely surprises her and turns her world upside down, both literally and figuratively. Seriously, no one can accuse Issei of being predictable.

Honestly, I half-expected him to throw a grenade back at Seigo with his free hand and walk away from the explosion when he was walking away in that epic slow motion with Hayame on his shoulder and that determined, manliness-personified expression on his face.

This whole moment is huge and life-altering for Issei because he finally throws away his doubts, hesitation and shyness to become this new version of himself, transforming into a man over night, like a little ugly duckling turning into a swan - so manly, cool, self-assured and oozing the natural charisma he has always possessed but which used to be dimmed by his anger and cynicism. Even his stubborness turns into unyielding determination.

From the moment he arrives and finds Hayame’s been with Seigo the whole time, he never gets angry or violent, instead he thinks only about her, worried sick what might have happened to her and feeling relieved and grateful nothing has. It doesn’t matter how she was saved, the most imporant thing for him is that she is alright, dirty and bruised, but alright. He looks at her with so much concern, care and affection that are so plain for everyone to see, Hayame had to be blind not to notice it.

She is so happy to see him and touched to learn he has been searching for her, combing through the forest and worried for her the whole time (once again, the similarity between the brothers is striking - 10 years ago, Seigo was waiting for Hayame for hours and searched for her for days when she didn’t come for their date until he found her). She is also sad and apologizes for broking they promise to watch fireworks together and making him worried. He adorably admonishes her like a parent would a little child, feigning annoyance and tenderly squeezing her head but he never truly blames her. They are so freaking healthy and precious, it’s insane!

It’s a such a fleeting moment but Seigo actually calls Hayame by her name when he offers to help her to the car and Issei notices it all - his brother calling her name, his outstretched hand reaching out to her - but he doesn’t protest nor does he try to stop her. In that moment, he leaves Hayame the choice to decide who she truly wants.

However, when she flatly refuses Seigo, Issei doesn’t hesitate for another second and immediately steps in to catch her when she stumbles and takes her hand, preventing her fall, and the mere touch affects Hayame profoundly.

He informs Seigo he is the one who’ll be taking her home because he is the one she has chosen and hasn’t refused.

It’s actually the very first throwback to that scene to episode 2 when Seigo asked Issei whether he came to the ryokan because of Hayame and Issei was too immature, stubborn and afraid to admit the truth, making him regret it ever since - not standing up for his feelings and not being the one to carry Hayame home.

And then Issei finally calls Hayame by her given name for the first time because he can't bear Seigo does and because he has guessed something must have happened between them. It’s the final straw for him.

He is done with plans and strategies, he is done with being careful and tiptoeing around her in fear he may scare her with his feelings. He decides it’s time for a full frontal attack because, let’s face it, Issei has always been the kind of guy who expressed himself better with actions, acted first and explained himself later. Using her name without honorifics is extremely intimate, even lovers with age difference may use them so Issei tries hard to erase the distance between them created by their age and openly defines their relationship as an intimate one. It’s not as huge for Seigo to call her ‘Hayame’ because they are basically the same age and used to pretty much date, but for Issei to call her like that has momentous significance.

Hayame has such a visceral reaction to hearing Issei call her by her given name, without any honorifics, for the first time. It echoes Issei’s own when she used his name at the park. It stuns her and makes her flushed which is the complete opposite of how she reacted when Seigo called her by her name for the first time.

She had been dreaming about him for 10 years and he never called her by it back then because they didn’t share names so one would expect her to be affected by it deeply; however, while she was shocked to meet him after the years, when he actually called her by her name for the first time directly she barely noticed it.

#promise cinderella #nikaido fumi #takanori iwata #maeda gordon #jdrama #fumi nikaido #iwata takanori #gordon maeda #analysis

34 notes · View notes

momenacesage · 3 years

Text

so,, hanseo and miri am i right. the ending never happened so take this headcanon-y / illiterate fic of thoughts as crumbs !!

okay, so, i was thinking, the reason why miri and hanseo don't get together straight away when they both realise their feelings is bc miri says no. don't get me wrong, hanseo has a lot of loyalty and love to give, and he's ready to give it to her. but she disagrees, bc she pushes him to talk through his traumas and realise where he sits in all of it. she wants him to understand himself first bc he's never had the chance to put himself first. she doesn't believe that it would be healthy with his current mental state to jump into another connection so quickly. instead, they take the time, they sit and study so that he can get better at being the chairman, she strokes his hair and protects him from his night terrors whenever he accidentally falls asleep at her place, and he talks to a third party to pinpoint who exactly he is amongst all the messes he's been forced through. she reminds him that there's a little jang hanseo sitting inside of him, in a little locked room that he's kept to himself because he doesn't want to see his true self get abused when his brother has taken everything else from him. he wanted to keep that side of him to himself, at least there was something that he could protect. honestly, going through therapy, he allows himself to realise that the idea of unlocking that room absolutely terrifies him. bc what if he retreats back into that dark place again? what if he allows himself to care for miri but he can't protect them like he couldn't protect his parents, or anyone else around him? and it takes a lot of effort to even get there.

but miri takes him aside, brushes her hand against his and tells him that she loves him for the first time. mind you, this is about a year after the events of the show, but they've been growing side by side this whole time, and when miri loves, she falls deeply. she realises now that she was so absorbed in the thrill of liking someone like vinny, after all, everyone seemed to be romantically interested in that man. but she understands that there wasn't really any truth to it. she's found it hard in the past to feel attachments or really any sort of attraction to people, living a very secular life. so that's why, when she sees these very visceral reactions to the man's looks, she honestly couldn't help but internally look at him the same way. it's like the awe that one may feel when they view a great piece of art, or an amazing scene in a film. there's always a disconnect between the viewer and the subject at hand. but it was a different matter when it came to her puppy.

she'd remembered the first time that she saw him, ducking behind pillars, looking like he was trying to be some goofy spy in that smart suit of his. he'd raise a hand to swipe away a few strands that would fall across his forehead and she couldn't help but wish that she knew what it was like to run her fingers through his hair. the attraction was like a lightning bolt that shot straight through her spine - and that was terrifying to her. so the initial times, she finds that she doesn't purposefully try to interact with the man. happy to stand and observe. miri has gotten so used to being the observer. never the participator.

that changed when he got himself sent to the hospital after being shot. the residents whispered behind palms about how the young man had saved their infamous lawyer pair, but she couldn't help but curse the italian. she knows of his prowess, she knows that he has ten times the fighting ability compared to hanseo. she would stomp back to her studio, something wild spreading across her mannerisms - utterly confusing any other resident around.

in all honesty, she's never been one for hospitals. but she makes hanseo food everyday. she doesn't trust whatever they give patients in hospitals anyway, and she knows that she has a few cooking tricks up her sleeve. they never really see each other, and she has always asked another resident to take the food to him. (a different one every time. she doesn't really know how she'd respond if anyone ever questioned her actions, especially when she's not completely sure why she's doing what she's doing either ... ) it takes a couple of days, but she slowly moves to his rhythm. taking notice of the foods that he likes, the ones that he didn't. now stopping outside of his hospital room to peer through the little window, elated at the look of sheer happiness that spreads across his puppy-dog features every time he sees a visitor with an entourage of containers for him. (maybe this is where his pet. name came from). even as things become a bit more normal, and he finds himself over in the plaza more often, the two would continue to peak glances at each other. her, wanting to see him smile like that again. him, mildly hurt that the only girl who had been playing on his mind for months had not gone to see him in the hospital. it's only after he finally asks her, and she abruptly poses whether he would like to study with her every night, does one of the other residents let miri's daily cooking habits slip.

she notices the distinct shift in his behaviour towards her, but he won't ever discuss the new nugget of knowledge till years later, and she'll get flushed and embarrassed at the fact that he's known all this time.

anyways, it takes a year and a half of talking twice a week to crack down on the deepest fears that hanseo has held onto for so long. all the residents know when it's happened bc they see the visible change. he's similar to how he's always been, but it seems like there's something lighter about him. like there's something that has been finally put to rest; the man looks like he has found a little bit of the peace that he deserves, at very last. when he visits the plaza, he's gotten rid of the stiff suits in dark colours. this rigid business attire had been his method of camouflaging into a wall of corporate faces - maybe his brother would aim a sharp object at the wrong person, one of those that he had cloned himself into looking like around him. it worked on some occasions. but this experience had taught him that these clothing decisions had become survival for him, and that was surely not a sustainable way to continue living. so most residents would stop to flick their eyes over the young man as he passes. his simple caramel turtleneck and blazer combo seeming too settled in the middle of the two extremes that the male usually fell in between.

rumour has it, the man literally dipped the apple to his eye, the woman who had waited for him to get healthy for a year and a half, the only sun he sees, nearly off of her feet when he steals their first kiss. they'd waited this long for it to occur, they may as well make it magical.

( are these crumbs okay?? hes not dead!! nope, that was false!! that never happened!!)

52 notes · View notes

rpbetter · 3 years

Note

"writes dubcon therefore is a freak who should be bullied off the site" ho boy i'm fed up with people acting as if consenting adults writing [insert "problematic" fictional thing here] is the worst thing in the world. seen way too many people justifying harrassment of REAL PEOPLE by "they write thing that triggers me". ok, and? mute the tags or don't follow! "it triggers someone" is not a valid reason to ban a topic. piano music triggers me yet i don't go around demanding everyone stop playing the piano.

Anon, not only is everything you said absolutely valid, but also, thank you for demonstrating that triggers are incredibly varied and as such, we cannot predict everyone's triggers. Making the entire "point" of banning for possible triggers invalidated as hell.

We should be aware of things like the most commonly occurring phobias (things like arachnophobia and coulrophobia that are, additionally, easily triggered by imagery) and tag them. We should be aware of very obvious triggers, that are, again, easily set off by imagery, like blood, eye trauma, and depictions of domestic violence. And we should always read and be aware of our writing partners' stated triggers so that we can tag them appropriately or even decide that it isn't going to work because our muse, canon story, or interests are going to present an unfair situation in this partnership.

But triggers can be highly unusual, as well as activated differently (even at different times) for everyone. I'm not triggered by seeing hotel rooms in pictures or movies, I'm not triggered by writing scenes that take place in them, but I'm triggered to some degree by being in one. It's outrageous oversimplification to act like all triggers are the same, they all display the same way, they're all going to trigger someone on the same basis, everyone's going to react the same to their triggers. There is absolutely no way to prevent 100% of possible triggers for 100% of the population, 100% of the time.

Add to this that way too many people trivialize triggers by throwing around that term to justify the banning of something that makes them uncomfortable or that they take a personal, moral issue with. "I don't like this" and "I'm grossed out by this" and "this makes me feel uncomfortable" is not being triggered. It's just a good way to weaponize the better nature of other people so that they comply.

Most people legitimately do not want to trigger someone, especially if they have triggers and know what it's like. Just like no one wants to be accused of cruelty towards trauma survivors in general, or be designated a pedo, rape apologist, or fascist. They're all things to weaponize in order to isolate, shame, and control. And that's really fucking gross. These are serious, real things that have no business being trivialized to police content, win internet arguments, or garner popularity.

The potential for someone to be triggered isn't a reason to ban anything; we have tags, we have blacklist.

While I'll be the first to say that tumblr's blacklisting can be as shitty as everything else on the site, the primary issue with running into content you don't want to see comes down to two factors: no one tagging/tagging correctly and actively exposing yourself to that content. Going through people's properly done tags and blog warnings about their content in order to "call it out" is actively exposing yourself by choice. You actual walnuts.

Calling people on on their "problematic" content is bringing those topics to the attention of other people. That's the whole point of this gross behavior: look at the freak pedo abuse apologist I found, they write dubcon!! Don't look if you'll be triggered uwu

Buddy, pal, my guy...you just put that on blast for anyone to run across. Maybe their blacklist catches those words in your callout post, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they think you're a safe space because you promote yourself that way, so they click it anyway. Point is, you just willfully and irresponsibly exposed people because it's more important to you to demonize a rando on tumblr RPing something you take issue with. Good job!

Furthermore, dubcon itself is such a hilarious issue to take. Do they realize that isn't always sexual, or? Not? I'm thinking not. Funnily enough, one of the oldest posts I've been working on for this blog is about exactly this topic, the myriad situations that are dubious consent. That doesn't have to be sexual, and neither does it have to be intentionally predatory. You can come up with some amazing character development with a lot of muses in the RPC with dubcon because almost everyone's muse has some manner of trauma that might negate their perception of their own consent...and what do you do then? Is it removing more agency from that muse to shut them down, or is that always the better option? Can you separate your opinion as the mun from your muse's natural reactions? How does this impact the muses involved not just that moment but the next year?

Point is, dubcon isn't always some rapey situation. Even if it was, even if someone is writing it that way, it's literally not your business or your problem.

There's one mutual-in-law on my RP blog that really bothers me. They write things that I find fetishizing, incredibly rapey, all around shit that bothers me. I don't want to see it, some of the things they write makes my damn skin crawl. This person doesn't know it, we certainly don't speak and I don't think they like me very much, but I've repeatedly defended their right, specifically their right as a person with some long-term callouts on them, to write what they want to. I have them blocked and their urls blacklisted so I never have to see my mutual reblogging their threads. It's not a problem because I don't click "show anyway." Why would I, if it genuinely bothers me so much?

That's how you handle things that bother you; you use the tools available to not interact even by accident. Not by launching a morality crusade.

If any of us want to write what we enjoy, we have to allow others that same freedom. It's always a matter of time before this policing grows to include more and more topics, it's been used multiple times to get well-meaning people who don't fall into the general demographics to police queer, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups off of platforms. We've been fortunate in most of the RPC that it implodes on itself before it gets all the way there, but even so, you can see it.

It starts with things that produce a visceral reaction in the great majority of people, positions this with a repeatedly condemned idea presented as solid fact that fiction is reality, and you've got the start of something awful. Today it's something you don't like, maybe even something that triggers you, so you either support it or you quietly allow it to happen. Who needs to write that "freak shit" anyway, can't they just be gross privately? Six months from now, it's something "problematic" that you enjoy like violence that's canon-typical for your muse, or your OTP because they're gay and that's fetishizing, they're cis male and female but one or both is bi and that's bad representation, or they canonically have a rocky relationship so that's romanticizing toxic/abusive relationships.

If you can't care for any other reason, you really should care about how it is going to impact you sooner or later. In an environment like this, you can stay in your space, put warnings on your blog, and tag properly and you're still going to get a callout if the wrong person finds your blog. Just takes a single person with more time, energy, and skewed ideas of justice than they have reading comprehension or common sense.

Again, I cannot encourage people enough to give warnings, but it's difficult to ignore why those warnings are slipping; they're a way to be found, designated as a Problem, and called out. Look, it's another reason why callouts actually make things worse, not better! People put that shit in their rules so you can avoid content, they're being responsible and interested in promoting a safe RPC. Let them do it, damn.

You can't tag everything, and if you've never experienced what a giant series of repetitive tags is like on a screenreader you probably should before you tag seven paragraphs of possible issues. You can tag for visuals, you can tag for the obvious things, and you can tag for what's in the rules you agreed to when you followed/followed back. But you should also warn people that you write "dark topics" on the tin, and expand on that in your rules for specific things like graphic violence, toxic relationships, dubon, and addiction.

That's how responsible adults, not over-aged children, make better decisions about their mental health and general comfort. Not by appointing themselves the watchdogs of the damn RPC, here to protect you whether you want to be or not, find that incredibly insulting or not when you're in one of their categories of people who must be protected, by forcibly banning Problematic Everything. Problematic, of course, being entirely in the eye of the content police.

It's fiction. No one and nothing real was harmed. It's great that you are so invested in the fictional world and people that make you happy, but take a fucking big step back into reality. The real people you're harming with your bullshit had every right to peaceably exist. If what they're writing is triggering to you, stay. away. from. it.

Without any coincidence whatsoever, that's how you get from the base-point of Problematic Material to Problematic Mun. Yeah, it's just fiction, it's just RP, but I also took something out of context OOC or was upset by their tone on their own blog or couldn't exercise the minimal adult logic to remove myself from their presence OOC as well. So, now, you've got OOC behavior being added to the callout, if it wasn't already. Everyone is now ableist, transphobic, racist, and a misogynist because it lends that visceral reaction to the callout and ups the game from just being "y'all so gross you aged up a cartoon character to ship" to "this is REAL and it won't be tolerated! OP is actually a pedophile, they told a sexual joke in a discord server with a minor present and I have the receipts!"

What are the most storied callouts in the entire RPC? I'm absolutely certain the same names came to mind no matter what fandoms you're in, and one of them was "Matt." Another was probably "Ares/Snow". They're all successful and keep being brought up out of the closet anytime people are bored enough because their primary punch is the mun themselves being a predatory threat to the community. The mun is verified to be a bad person. Well, of course, that's got to be repeated, it worked. (Even if it did not, at all, work and only made it harder for people to avoid any of these muns.)

Are there people in the RPC who are legitimately a problem? Absolutely, yes. We're all supposed to be adults, however. Part of being an adult is having and acting upon one's agency. If someone is coercing you into things you are not comfortable with, shut it down. If you have difficulties being certain of those situations, run it by a trusted, honest friend or available, impartial source in the RPC for a second opinion. If you can't handle any manner of confrontation, there really are situations in which it's perfectly alright to block someone without any discussion. It's just the internet, you're in control of your space. Own it.

Minors are a whole other can of fucked up worms I'm not even getting into right now except to say that because a minor exists in a space they were told to stay out of does not mean we ban all topics inappropriate for their consumption.

tl;dr: banning shit doesn't work anyway, the whole idea is predicated upon some incredibly problematic takes IRL, and no, there's no justification for it outside of intense personal problems with one's own importance. That energy would be infinitely better spent volunteering one's time to help real people in crisis or after surviving one, or even oneself in developing some healthier approaches and thought patterns.

#hey what if we all start saying we're triggered by callout culture is that bannable then lmao #vespertine #drama cw #bsnf #callout culture #tumblr rpc #rp problems #also thank you again anon I hope you're having a great day!

16 notes · View notes

finch-writes · 4 years

Text

sunkissed

✧ nishinoya yuu x gn!reader / fluff ✧ contains haikyuu timeskip spoilers !!

✧ you meet a familiar face from your childhood in a place far from home.

it was the hair that had tipped you off.

you’re sitting in your usual spot in your usual bar, sunlight peeking under your table’s umbrella as your pen hovers over a blank page. you’ve come out here for a study break towards the end of the morning rush. to clear your head before you go back to your pile of textbooks later, you reason with yourself and try to ignore the guilty feeling of procrastination creeping up behind you

you do a double take when you see spiked hair with a distinctive golden wisp at the front. it reminds you, viscerally, of someone you attended high school with - you had never been particularly close with nishinoya, but his presence had always been a comfortable one in your class. he walks inside to place an order with the barista, and you find that your eyes follow his retreating form.

that can’t be him.

thankfully, your coffee arrives mere moments later. it’s a nice distraction for the most part and a sip of the drink tells you that it’s exactly what you needed to clear your mind from your studies, yet you cannot shake the feeling that you know the bar’s latest patron. it wakes something uncomfortable deep in your chest that you don’t know what name.

you’re stirring your drink when he reemerges. there’s a proverb written on his shirt that brings a bittersweet smile to your lips as you take another sip - in familiar kanji, no less. the odds are stacking in favour of your past. you don’t even realise you’ve been staring until he looks in your direction.

you avert your eyes from the man as soon as he meets your gaze, redirecting your attention back to your notebook. you cringe a little, hoping that you won’t be forced to confront the fact that you were staring at someone who may very well be a total stranger. you were in italy, for fuck’s sake - the chances of meeting someone from japan were relatively low, let alone one of your old classmates. but that hair and that shirt ...

fortunately (unfortunately?), he makes that decision for you. his face lights up with recognition, settling on a grin that you haven’t seen in years.

“hey! (y/n)-san, is that you?”

you let out a breath that you didn’t quite realise you were holding, and place your mug back on its saucer as he approaches your table. you’d almost forgotten how nice it was to hear japanese spoken to you in person.

“noya-san, it’s been a while. do you want to sit with me?”

“if you don’t mind the company, sure!”

were it coming from anyone else, you suspect that the bubbly enthusiasm that he spouts might be exhausting. he’s clearly not short on energy from the way he takes a seat across from you and relaxes in his chair as if it were his own at home. now that he’s closer, you take a moment to actually look at him.

his hair is longer, for starters. it feels silly that it’s the first thing you notice about him, but he’d always stood out because of it whenever he wasn’t accidentally causing a scene. even now, years later, his fringe is still blond - you’re pretty sure you remember a time when that wasn’t the case, but the memory is faded with age and you aren’t sure how accurate it is in the face of passing time.

you are also pretty certain that the last time the two of you had spoken, nishinoya had been a little shorter - though since you’ve been sitting down through the entire encounter you can’t say for sure just yet. he’s definitely gotten broader, and there’s a warm glow to his skin that tells of a life recently lived under the sun that you definitely hadn’t seen back in japan.

his energy is less scattered than you remember. nishinoya had always been a confident person, but he was always so chaotic - now, it's almost like he's grown into that self-assuredness. despite the small differences, he seems more like himself than ever. it suits him.

it’s only when you meet his eyes that you realise that you were staring (again), however this time you realise that he’s been staring right back. the wind changes, ruffling his spiky hair just a little. he smells like the sea. it makes sense, you suppose; the city where you’re staying is oceanside.

“here you are, sir. we would have gotten this to you at the same time, but we didn’t realise you were both at the same table.” one of the bar’s few table staff interrupts. she seems genuinely apologetic, and a little lost - you figure she might be new to the job.

“no problem at all miss, that’s on me - i didn’t know my friend was here until a few moments ago.” he’s cheerful as ever as he apologises to the waitress, but you feel your brow furrow just a little with confusion.

friend. why are you surprised by that? you’ve never hated the guy, and nishinoya is certainly blunt enough that he wouldn’t have come over to your table if he disliked you. you frown into your coffee and take a sip, silence settling between the two of you as you find yourself lost in thought.

while it only lasts for a few moments, it doesn’t surprise you that nishinoya is the first to break the quiet at your table.

“you said you were coming to europe after we graduated, but i didn’t think i’d see you here.” he laughs, maybe a little awkwardly. “you’re at university?”

“sure am. i’m in my final year.”

“no way! congratulations.”

“thank you!” you hum. his enthusiasm is infectious as ever, and you feel your earlier awkwardness dissipating. “but ... what are you doing here?”

“fishing.”

he’s never lied to you as far as you know, but there’s something extra earnest about the admission that catches you off guard. you cover your mouth with a hand and cough instead of spitting out your drink (which was your first instinct), but your startled reaction earns a chuckle from him anyway.

“seriously!”

“okay - i know you said you were going to follow your heart once you graduated, but i didn’t think it would lead you to the ocean.” your shoulders are shaking a little with laughter. “looking for anything specific?”

“aside from adventure? i want to catch a marlin or two while i’m here. the locals say they’re a good challenge for tourists.”

“huh. i thought you’d be playing professionally by now, everyone always said you were good.” at the end of your second year their team had gone to nationals. you know very little about the sport even now, not even enough to know the positions outside of the one that hits the ball and the one that stops the ball (or was there two of those roles?) - but you’d heard stories about the fact that nishinoya was one of the core members of the team. you take another sip of your cooling coffee, noting with a bitter pang that the cup is almost empty.

“i wanted to try something new.” he responds, and you realise only when he puts his cup down that he’d been thinking about his answer. “i love volleyball, but there’s other things to life, you know? maybe i’ll play again someday, maybe i won’t. speaking of which -” he brandishes his spoon at you - “what are you studying at university here? are you enjoying it?”

noya changes the subject with more grace than you would have expected - but then again, he just keeps on surprising you. you don’t want to push him when you’ve only just reunited, so you let it slide and allow yourself to get tangled up in the ebb and flow of catching up.

the idle chatter remains when you finish up your drinks, but your mind is wandering back to the past in between your words.

you and nishinoya were never close during school, only ever friendly acquaintances despite being in the same class. the two of you didn’t really have many common friends, either. he’d been more of a troublemaker than you, even if by accident - the memory of him being suspended still surprised you a little, and you’d never known which rumours about the incident were true.

different hobbies, too; while you’d always been more interested in the creative side of life, he’d always been fired up about volleyball. even though he’d explained his reasoning, it was still a little weird to you that he’d just dropped it so readily. in contrast you’d stuck with your arts, going to it in times of stress when you needed the comfort of a story in either words or art.

and yet here you both were, standing outside of a bar in italy, where he’d called you his friend to a waitress neither of you knew.

you linger for a moment. now that you’ve reunited, you’re hesitant to let him go without any chance at at least trying to kindle a friendship first. you’re halfway across the world, but you’ve found a piece of home.

“same time tomorrow?”

his grin widens.

“see you then.”

#my writing #haikyuu #hq manga spoilers #haikyuu x reader #nishinoya yuu #i haven't actually ... ever published a scenario before i just realised #will this stay by itself? will it become a series? who knows but noya deserves the world

22 notes · View notes

janiedean · 5 years

Photo

HELLO ANON, I’m delighted you wanna participate in my week-long springsteen birthday party celebrations!!! and since you took care to leave me such a long, well-put, thought out message that I’m sure you thought I couldn’t wait to read, I decided to talk to you about a truly absolute classic and if you don’t know it I even picked for you one version where he’s hot as hell, isn’t it darling? ;) so, without further ado...

youtube

badlands is the opening act of bruce’s fourth (and most likely turning point) record darkness on the edge of town from 1978. it’s one of his truly most known classics, a hell of a concert opener/piece (believe me, I’ve tried it seven times and it was always a mystical experience, you should too!!) and a perfect summary of... pretty much all of his favorite themes. sounds good? believe me, if you ain’t experienced badlands in your life you’re missing something. ;) now, shall we go through the lyrics? (ps: really, listen to it while you read my explanation or you won’t get the full experience :( )

Well, lights out tonight Trouble in the heartland Got a head on collision Smashin' in my guts, man I'm caught in a cross fire That I don't understand

so, we have one of those openings of bruce’s that cold kick you into the scene that imvho are one of his trademark points and I love him dearly for it which immediately projects you into the scene: we’re in the heartland and the lights are out tonight, which means that it’s night and it’s dark and already from the first two lines you can contrast the upbeat rhythm with the utter bleakness of the opening. by the way, if we all failed geography like jon and sansa, this is what we mean with badlands:

and with heartland we mean that part in the US that goes from north dakota/iowa to kansas/missouri roughly, so we can assume that our narrator comes from some small town in center-USA and he’s not enjoying his time there that much. see, two lines and you already have situation, mood and location - this guy knows how to write a song, amrite?

so, other than that, it’s lights out and this guy has a collision in his guts, which makes you immediately think of a car accident inside his body in one of the most tender parts of it/in the part that gets upset when we feel sick first, which is supposed to make you feel his visceral unhappiness at his situation. also, he’s caught in a crossfire ie he feels in the middle of a bunch of different problems that jump at him and he doesn’t understand them, which also means that he hasn’t straightened them out and he doesn’t exactly know what’s wrong with him, but he knows that he has problems and that his life isn’t what he wants.

But there's one thing I know for sure, girl I don't give a damn For the same old played out scenes Baby, I don't give a damn For just the in-betweens Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul I want control right now You better listen to me, baby

so: now he addresses a girl, which means he’s talking to a woman who’s supposedly his love interest, and he tells her he knows one thing at least, which is that... as before we have guessed he’s in some situation of stasis that he dislikes while he feels caught in a bunch of problems he can’t face/figure out/have a grip on, and his visceral reaction to it is that he wants to cut away with all of that, he wants to stop rehashing his old life (the same old played out scenes/just the in-betweens), and he immediately states it as he says that he wants the heart, the soul and control, as in: he wants to have back his feelings (his heart), his life (the soul) that he feels he doesn’t have anymore and mostly he wants control over them, as if until now he’s felt like he didn’t have it and everyone else was taking all the decisions, and he presses to his girl saying that she has to listen to him. seems like he’s decided, right?

Talk about a dream Try to make it real You wake up in the night With a fear so real You spend your life waiting For a moment that just don't come Well, don't waste your time waiting

now, here we have one of the most iconic lines bruce ever put to music (the first four verses) which would deserve treatises, but anyway, for what we can do: he tells her that they have dreams that they shouldn’t forget and that they should try to make them real ie they shouldn’t be there worrying about played out scenes and in-betweens, but then they wake up with a fear so real that they can’t do it, and at this point you feel their fear too because he’s singing in a way that about throws all of that in your face. but then he says you spend your life waiting for a moment that just don’t come and that hits you even more because don’t we all wait to do things/wait for the right moment to experience things/throw ourselves into what we want to do and then it passes and you think it’s gone? yeah, that. and with that he says that we shouldn’t, and we go into the immortal refrain, as in:

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday Let the broken hearts stand As the price you've gotta pay Keep pushin' 'til it's understood And these badlands start treating us good

now: living the badlands every day (look at the above) is obviously a way to say suffering through your life while feeling overwhelmed (don’t you feel overwhelmed just looking at those pictures?) while the broken hearts stand as in, your heart being broken is the price you’ve got to pay because life is shitty, but if you *push until you get it* then the badlands might start treating you good and you might turn your life around. that’s the message, but it becomes even more obvious when you go ahead with the rest:

Workin' in the fields That'll get your back burned Workin' 'neath the wheels 'Til you get your facts learned Baby, I got my facts Learned real good right now You better get it straight, darlin'

so: our narrator has a physically demanding and hard job (working in the fields/’neath the wheels) which causes him physical problems (back burned) and he had to suffer through that to learn his facts real good, which he stresses repeating it twice, and then explains:

Poor man wanna be rich Rich man wanna be king And a king ain't satisfied 'Til he rules everything I wanna go out tonight I wanna find out what I got

admittedly, it’s not the most original moral but it’s because it’s true: poor people want to be rich (of course), the rich never have enough and want to rule over the others (be king) and the kings/rulers/people in power have no satisfaction until they have everything under their rule because their ego is out of control and power breeds power and no one ever has enough of it (seems like grrm likes bruce). our dude, who’s definitely poor and not a king, just wants to go out tonight and find out what he’s got. and what does he have?

Well, I believe in the love that you gave me I believe in the faith that can save me I believe in the hope and I pray That someday it may raise me Above these

so, he has three things: the love his girlfriend gave him so we can suppose she definitely has an agency in this relationship and he didn’t expect her to give it to him, he has faith that he can be saved from his crap life (could be faith in god or the love he feels for her or both) and he has hope and prays that all of this might raise him above the badlands, ie: that the fact that he has love in his life and that love gave him hope might give him the push to leave his crap life behind and get to something better that he desperately yearns for.

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday Let the broken hearts stand As the price you've gotta pay Keep pushin' 'til it's understood And these badlands start treating us good

now you see that the refrain repeated at this point has a new layer added to it, right? now, you should really be listening to the song because that’s when clarence clemons’s immortal sax solo happens and brings you to another dimension and then it slows down before the last part is basically a whole crescendo which believe me in a concert is a mystical experience. also, get ready for one of the Best Lines Bruce Ever Wrote In His Life:

For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive I wanna find one face that ain't looking through me I wanna find one place I wanna spit in the face of these

now: here we get the nail on the head ie he sums up the entire deal in two lines: this song is for the people with a notion deep inside ie a need so bad it’s etched inside them and nothing can carve it out or take it from them that there’s nothing sinful or bad in being glad you’re alive as in, in being glad you are because then you can keep on living and make things better for yourself rather than just give up and die in a life that you hate, and those people should find a face that doesn’t look through them (as in, someone who sees them for who they really are and loves them for it), one place (as in, a place to live that they want to live in), and they should spit in the face of the badlands ie the horrible life they feel like they can’t conquer but that they need to leave behind.

I mean, it’s basically spitting in the face of what hurt you until now and go off to live your life and trying to be happy, what’s to hate about it? and if you listened to that song, you’d know that at this point the crescendo ends and it kicks into the last refrain:

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday Let the broken hearts stand As the price you've gotta pay Keep movin' 'til it's understood And these badlands start treating us good

which is the same as before obviously, but now has three different layers more to it and tops perfectly a gem of a song that is deservedly one of bruce’s most beloved ones by us all fans and that should be more known to the casual listener because it’s truly iconic and speaks to all of us because we all felt like that at some point, didn’t we?

thank you so much for indulging me in my springsteen extravaganza anon! you might find it a little difficult to do it again I fear, but if you find a way I’ll be delighted to find you some other iconic song to dissect. happy early springsteen birthday!!!! :)

#bruce springsteen for ts #springsteen birthday extravaganza 2k19 #Anonymous #ask post #incest cw #ch: jaime lannister #only slightly less toxic than chernobyl's ruins #long post for ts #god i love badlands so much #thanks anon i just rewatched bruce with that sweat-covered tshirt sing this #and now I'm :))))))#i absolutely could have done with that ;)#bruce meta

10 notes · View notes

vaguely-concerned · 5 years

Text

Let’s Read Victory of Eagles; the Prepare to Cry About William Laurence Edition

earlier temeraire let’s reads (yes I’m sticking with it)

- oh man starting with temeraire’s pov is such a good call, I don’t know if I could take getting plunged straight into laurence’s misery without some (very slight) levity first

- lol and also crey @ laurence gently reminding these young guys how to keep him prisoner

- temeraire on his way to revolutionize dragon politics after one damn month... I’m so proud ;___; on the other hand him thinking laurence is dead is... nope not processing this laurence is fine let’s not worry about it

- SURPRISE THARKAY! BEST KIND OF SURPRISE

looool he just keeps coming to get laurence and finding him embroiled in some fresh catastrophe... I’m sorry ur bro is in another castle/war camp/ship wreck/prison tharkay you’re a champ for tracking him down again and again

- He has a new birb!!! good stuff. this part of them walking through the quiet ruined town is really striking too

- laurence feels like he can be just himself for the first time in months huh... cool cool cool

- “You and Temeraire would be welcome in other parts of the world. You may recall there is some semblance of civilization,” he added dryly, “in a few places, beyond the borders of England.”

fsdakhfdasdfsaflj a) I love him so much b) I g u e s s Tharkay kind of just asked Laurence to run away with him in his low-key sardonic way... super triple extra cool cool cool extremely admirable even if he and everyone else in the world knows it to be doomed

resting his hand on his shoulder because he knows Laurence is gonna be Laurence about this... yeah okay just punch me in the heart

- tfw the guy you sort of have a thing for is determined to get himself killed for a government you feel exactly zero personal loyalty to and now you have to watch his back 🙄

- lol laurence is like ‘I’m not gonna start a fistfight’

five minutes later: granby pulls laurence out of a fistfight he started because someone talked shit about his dragon

- aw demane and sipho! good boys bein’ good boys

- temeraire reciting principia mathematica to himself and changing his voice so he can pretend it’s laurence reading to him... that is under the belt naomi novik that is just mean

(all the funnier/more heartbreaking for knowing laurence has no fucking idea what he’s reading out loud when it comes to that book and would never have touched it if temeraire didn’t love it so much)

- “Oh,” Temeraire said, and sat back on his haunches. He was not quite sure what to say. “I am very sorry?” he offered, uncertainly. He supposed it must be very unpleasant to be a coward.

fjfjghfgj how is he so darling

- tbh perscitia is very much me when it comes to fighting; I too am small and slow and cripplingly overly aware of all the ways things can go wrong which everyone seems happy to overlook

- as a professional tharkay spotter: he is in fact present in the proceedings right now, he arrived at the same time as granby and had one (1) line of dialogue! I am not sure why everyone’s talking about this napoleon fella instead of specifying to me what precise dragon he hitched a ride with or what kind of babysitter arrangement he has put in place for his birb but y’know I’ll take what I can get

(there is a peculiar sort of satisfaction in getting reeeeaaal attached to a side character; this reminds me a lot of being nine and scrupulously scanning every page of a harry potter book for mentions of sirius, no matter how peripheral or inconsequential)

- all of temeraire’s dragons are pure gold tbh, I especially like majestatis and his laconic competency (I may have a type)

- temeraire not getting why laurence isn’t responding to him quite as he should and laurence basically getting his affairs in order... William Laurence if you break both our hearts I will never fucking forgive you this is my stern voice

- adding a second (and tonally very different) pov is such a genius move at this point in the story; it really breathes new life into everything.

- lady allendale is the real mvp, you can really see a lot of laurence’s good sides in a straight line from her to him

- oooooooooooooooooooooh roland dropping some truth bombs on laurence for being so very very honorable and so very very dumb

thank you jane I guess at least he’s pretty

- having to read laurence trying to convince all the people who love him to basically let him kill himself is extremely upsetting and I Do Not Care for it

- temeraire absent-mindedly putting ‘coming up with some way to let laurence live as long as me’ on his ‘to do’ list is Everything

but also he doesn’t even realize how wrong things are with his captain and I want to curl up in a ball. no bb no one is going to take him but he’s halfway through taking himself out :(

(I will say that there’s something about laurence’s incredible inflexibility and self loathing that is very relatable, which is probably why I’m so mad at him and also so scared for him. incidentally one of hanzo’s traits I really identify with. anyway onwards)

- ah of course granby was kidnapped I was wondering when something bad would happen to him in this book

- “You are not obliged -- ” Laurence began.

“No,” Tharkay agreed civilly, with one raised brow, and Laurence bowed and left it there.

fdsfdklsalkjhfkjasdhfjkadshdsfhksdfjakh how... how can anyone be so impossibly lovely and so sarcastic in one word... my heart feels so full

but also ow b/c I think tharkay does see the state laurence is in and it must be extremely stressful to look out for all the swords your bro is determined to throw himself on

- oF ALL THE DOORSTEPS IN ALL OF LONDON THEY HAD TO END UP AT LAURENCE’S EX’S how many mirrors has this poor man broken to end up here

- oh uh wow I think I just murdered woolvey’s shitty racist ass with my mind I never even knew I had the power

- Tharkay seeming to suss out the whole Situation here at a glance... *prayer hands emoji*

- Tharkay shook his head, and when Laurence looked at him said quietly: “It must be difficult to follow an officer of public repute, in the affections of a woman who loves courage.”

...

“My reputation is hardly one any sensible man would covet.”

“It does not name you a coward,” Tharkay said. “Whatever has Bertram Woolvey done?”

as observed completely impartially except for that one awful enormous crush he is developing lol

- oh no... woolvey died... this is... terrible.... *insert ‘shocked’ captain kirk reaction image here*

okay it does put edith in a genuinely awful situation, which super sucks. everything around her is like the one part of laurence’s self loathing that is sort of justified: he’s been making her life so much harder for so long. first she had to worry about her not-even-husband-yet getting lost at sea and he seems pretty emotionally distant, for all that he can be sweet, then he adopts a dragon and she is SUCH AN AFTERTHOUGHT to him in that process (because, as I have discussed earlier, william laurence should just not ask people to marry him b/c he never. actually. means. it. he just thinks he should I think)

and then, after finally disentangling herself emotionally from that she manages to marry a dude who’s a twit, but a twit who by all appearances treats her well and she’s happy -- and then Laurence shows up for three fucking hours and her HUSBAND IS SHOT DEAD

most of laurence’s guilt is the useless self-flagellation of depression, but in this one case I’m a bit more ‘yeah okay valid bro’

- Laurence’s tendency to describe, in minute detail, what some dude is wearing even under the most dire of circumstances is so endearing. (also he barely ever does it with women; usually it’s like ‘and she was wearing idk a dress?’ lol)

- laurence’s superpower is inspiring people’s affection and loyalty and then wondering why they’re all not cool with him throwing himself off a cliff

- is tharkay like basically a scottish lord on his dad’s side and has been fucked over by either the system or the rest of his family. are you fucking kidding me jfksadflsadfj

- oh. oh okay that’s the king that’s super extra salt in the wound for our golden boy :I

- NOOOOOOOOOOO TEMERAIRE THINKS LAURENCE MIGHT BE ANGRY WITH HIM!!!!!! LAURENCE YOU BEAUTIFUL USELESS DUMBASS PLEASE SNAP OUT OF YOUR DEPRESSION LONG ENOUGH TO TELL YOUR DRAGON SON YOU’RE NOT ANGRY WITH HIM OR SO HELP ME I’LL... CRY AT YOU I GUESS

- okay so this is all very bleak and... borderline war crime-y and laurence is clearly In A Bad Way but also demane has just put every scrap of clothing he could find on his little brother, who now can barely walk for all the layers but is presumably nice and warm, and my heart is doing strange things in my chest

- “Laurence, what are you doing?”

*ELMO SURROUNDED IN FLAMES GIF* MY BOY THARKAY BEING THE REAL MVP ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS

this whole scene is so brief but so good fkdslahfaklsdhfaskld laurence literally slipping back out of dissociation and noticing the smells and sounds around him again... this is So Much, tharkay you fucking miracle of a man

- there is something incredibly interesting about how laurence is just viscerally terrified by the things tharkay seems to represent to him -- that’s at least twice now that he’s thought straight out, in pretty much the same words, that tharkay’s way of living seems achingly lonely and untethered and frightening to him. (the first time is in black powder war, just as he’s about to give the offer of friendship that tharkay seems equal parts confused and touched by lol) laurence has this intense need to be part of something bigger than himself and doesn’t trust himself to know what’s right (...even tho he’ll historically still occasionally go off and do The Right Thing despite orders anyway because he’s a beautiful idiot), while tharkay obviously puts freedom and autonomy faaaar above any of that (understandably, from his background lol)

and still it’s exactly this dude who woke laurence up to himself again and reminded him who he really is. this is the man he knew he’d be ‘sorrier to lose than yet I know’ and gooooddamn if he wasn’t right about that. I’m not ready to be coherent about it yet but uh wow this is A Lot

- the way novik writes laurence dissociating is. a bit too close to home, I’m not thrilled about this haha

- LAURENCE IS TALKING TO HIS DRAGON SON AGAIN AND I CAN FINALLY BREATHE THANK YOU THARKAY

- also let me specify that tharkay coming in and ending laurence’s breakdown by just showing him that he, y’know. doesn’t have to commit borderline war crimes if he doesn’t want to is... yeah. when he’s like ‘yeah no bro I like you and all but this is fucked up I’m out’ and Laurence slowly puts the pieces together and goes ‘...that... is an option? F U C K’ is the Good Stuff (I’m being flippant about it but also I really mean it lol)

- temeraire is giving the french uniforms the side eye for being boring and admiring the kilts... god bless him, focusing on the real things on the eve of battle

- gOD lien is so fucking COOL, celestial who actually knows wtf she’s doing OP pls nerf

ETA: also I’ve looked up some spoilers for the rest of this series (b/c there’s a couple of characters now who I’m so attached to that if they die I don’t even fucking care anymore lol), and apparently they never get to fight lien/meet her for too long again and can I just say... What The Fuck, why would you come up with such a compelling antagonist and not use her???

- Tharkay, straight(hah)-faced: yeah I’m coming with you to australia on this prison ship nbd just curious about it that’s all

Laurence, blinking back tears, barely getting the words out: cool bro

(I think laurence has been like. crying or on the verge of crying in every single scene he and tharkay have been alone in this entire book. tharkay saw laurence through an ugly ugly divorce (with the government of england if not the land) and is still going with him to fucking australia. that’s how you know it’s love tbh, he’s done for)

also for the meme: AND THEY WERE SHIPMATES! OH MY GOD THEY WERE SHIPMATES!

ALSO also: tharkay getting granby a drink fdsafjsalkdjfh best boy, best friend

- not connected to anything but I do appreciate that laurence is a rare extremely extroverted protagonist. he just really needs people around him and sort of wilts when he’s isolated, whether by circumstance or his own Stuff.

- Oh man I really liked this one! the pacing worked better than the last one, the dual pov really shook things up, the new dragon characters were cool and Laurence had a lot of character development that has been in the cards since book 1, even if it was really upsetting while it happened. and Tharkay was there a lot, which is the surest way to my heart at this point, to be fair.

#temeraire #victory of eagles #william laurence x tenzing tharkay #willzing #meta #okay let's go to australia everyone! what could possibly go wrong #it's only known for being full to the brim with creatures that can murder you with a glance #...added a ship tag b/c I'm not exactly being subtle in this one lol

37 notes · View notes

meyerlansky · 6 years

Note

Would you mind sharing the meta you have about Charlie and Meyet both being vulnerable in that scene like they never are outside of it? The lack of resolution of this fight in S4 outside of fan works kills me. How do you even resolve a betrayal (from both of their POVs) like this off screan? How? Argh. /Sorry for being too emotional about it.

YES okay so. i am also too emotional about it so no judgment there. and obviously as with all my meta this is my read of the stuff ymmv my interpretations are influenced by historical details etc etc but the tl;dr for this is basically just what was in my tags: they’re both scared, of different things and for different reasons and showing it in different ways, and we never see them both as raw and vulnerable as they are in that scene, imo. it was never a conversation that was going to end well, but i think they probably could’ve eventually, if they’d shelved this while their emotions were running high in the moment and worked it out in subsequent conversations, gotten to a place where they were understanding where the other was coming from if Certain Things Were Not Said.

and the thing is, right, the things they’re both afraid of are, as far as i’m concerned, equally understandable and equally justified, but charlie’s fear is more visceral and immediate, as evidenced by the fact that… it’s in the text, he’s afraid of getting killed because masseria found out he went behind his back. IT’S A LEGIT CONCERN AND HE’S NOT WRONG FOR HAVING IT, but it makes him even more impulsive than usual and makes it so he doesn’t see that meyer’s just as afraid of losing out on a deal that could very very directly lead to the kind of independence and security and legitimacy meyer has been lowkey working towards since “nobody wants to be in school forever.” it’s literally land ownership [which meyer is smart enough to know was never reasonably going to happen for any of team ny on their home turf], in an area that was in the middle of a development boom at the time, perfectly situated both for liquor importation during prohibition and to profit off of because of said land development once prohibition inevitably ends. plus meyer staked everything on the tampa deal—he negotiated it on the fly after watching ar very publicly fuck up and lose what little standing he had with nucky, and nucky makes it extremely clear that he doesn’t think they’ll come through, so his/their reputation is very much at stake with the tampa deal. and the explanation of that is taking up so much of the text real estate of this post [and will continue to do so, fair warning] because in comparison to charlie’s very immediate and very obvious fear of getting killed, the tampa deal being important enough to meyer to fight for it probably comes off as… idk, kind of shallow and materialistic. but i don’t think that’s a fair read, and i acknowledge i’m biased and my read of meyer’s characterization might be too generous or whatever, but meyer’s concern about appearances and legitimacy has more to do with that being a survival tactic than it does with being greedy—he’s seen exactly what happens if people decide you’re too dangerous or too sneaky or too anything-they-don’t-like, so his need for security and perceived-legitimacy comes from that, not necessarily from wanting to be on top of the heap. based on the stutter over “this is now, this is happening now,” he panics just as hard when charlie talks about killing petrucelli as charlie panics through the whole conversation, and it’s obviously not because he has any deep-seated fondness for petrucelli himself. it has way way more to do with what the tampa deal represents for him, and the fact that charlie’s gone from “i can’t do this” to “we can’t do this” in a way that would definitely get them both killed if charlie had gone through with it.

it doesn’t help that charlie in the heat of the moment doesn’t/can’t divorce the business partnership from the emotional partnership they have, which i think is an emotional reaction more than a logical one, because a. meyer gives him the out with “you do what you want, but i’m in,” and b. there’s never any friction [that we see, admittedly] over charlie investing solo in the artemis club, and there’s no reason tampa should really be any different especially since meyer at no point fucked anyone involved in the tampa deal. it’s only different because charlie’s afraid and not thinking straight, and meyer doesn’t pick up on it because he’s afraid and thinking emotionally as well. anyway. like i said, i’m biased, and i think the fact that meyer’s perspective on the tampa deal and his fear about giving up on the deal because of what the deal symbolizes for him isn’t as apparent as charlie’s perspective makes it easy for people to read that scene as “charlie’s afraid he’s going to get killed, meyer’s greedy and cares more about making money than that charlie’s afraid for his life, so he’s in the wrong,” and i don’t… think that’s fair. they’re both justified in feeling the way they do, and because neither of them are equipped to discuss the emotional reasons behind the ways in which their perspectives on the tampa deal diverge, they’re both wrong in the way they go about talking about it.

they’re both on the defensive, and they’re on the defensive with each other, which doesn’t happen at any other point in the show: they have the tension in the hallway in margate sands, but that’s charlie on the defensive and meyer trying very very hard not to go on the offensive before they get the meeting with ar over with, and it’s extremely brief considering they walk into the room with masseria and ar and immediately close ranks. with north star, their chances at coming to an understanding are, ironically, hobbled by the fact that they both seem to assume they’re coming from the same perspective—and neither of them have the emotional wherewithal to realize that the fact that they’re not coming at the tampa deal from the same perspective is the root cause of the way they both seem to dismiss the other’s fears. charlie doesn’t realize the worst possible thing he can say to meyer is “we’ll back out of the deal to keep us safe” because he doesn’t realize meyer’s entire perspective on staying involved is “this deal will keep me safe;” meyer doesn’t realize the worst possible thing he can say to charlie is “i’m staying because we don’t need to conduct this deal as business partners” because he doesn’t realize charlie’s entire perspective on getting out is “i need you to have my back over your business interests.” i think there’s a lot of subtext to meyer’s comments in particular that charlie’s too upset to pick up on and doesn’t interpret the way meyer intends them; as much as he accuses meyer of not listening—and he’s not wrong, like i said, imo meyer went into panic mode as soon as murder came up, and even prior to that comment it’s not like he’s great at emotional consolation at the best of times—he’s not really listening either, and that’s… the problem. neither of them are in a place to listen, and they say the exact wrong things to each other to inflame exactly the things they’re both afraid of.

as for why i say it’s the most vulnerable they both ever are onscreen, i say that because despite them both being in near-death situations on screen, which are definitely more physically vulnerable, in terms of their relationship and their emotional investment in each other, it’s the only time we really see them openly disagree with each other, and the disagreement is an emotional one, not a business one: meyer interprets “we back out of the deal” as “your security matters less than mine,” charlie interprets “i’m staying” as “i’m leaving you behind permanently,” and they both know each other so well that they know exactly where to hit with subsequent comments that will really really sting. charlie lashes out, meyer freezes over, and hbo denies us the rule-of-three-stipulated angry makeouts every other couple in the episode gets and just leaves the thread dangling for the rest of the season instead of giving us the resolution we deserve for the fight. ANYWAY THIS WAS LONG AND RAMBLY BUT I HOPE THAT’S A SUFFICIENT ANSWER? if it’s even intelligible at all. god @ me shut the fuck up /o\

#dragon-in-drag #boardwalk empire #meyer lansky #charlie luciano #asks #long post #aaaaanyway i'm emotions it's fine they're both so stupid and we deserved more resolution than we got #and by resolution i mean angry sex #NUCKY AND SALLY GOT ANGRY SEX #DAUGHTER AND CHALKY GOT ANGRY SEX #RULE OF THREE HBO #THERE'S ONLY ONE OTHER ARGUMENT IN THE EPISODE AND IT'S CHARLIE AND MEYER #>:(#this pans out we live wherever we want

26 notes · View notes

kinetic-elaboration · 7 years

Text

March 24: Thoughts on 4x07 Gimme Shelter

Okay, I finally watched 4x07... It’s hard to gather my thoughts on it, though. I feel like I have a lot and they’re all sort of jumbled up.

In general, I did like it. I thought it was way better than the last two episodes, both of which I kind of hated tbh, especially 4x05. There were some weak points and some things I didn’t quite get or would quibble over but my overall feeling is a positive one. I liked the two main story lines, I thought there were several really good moments, and I was impressed with the episode’s ability to actually have a coherent and clear theme.

The Arkadia/Bellamy Story:

One of my big complaints this season has been that story line after story line after story line lacks tension because the general structure of the episode and the season make the outcome of the alleged conundrum predictable. This time, for once, I actually felt the sort of tension I felt when watching season 2 (well, okay, a slightly weaker version of it)--I actually didn’t know what was going to happen. Maybe that’s weak of me and I should have known that Bellamy wouldn’t be able to save Mark and Peter but I was still hoping for a last minute solution (unlike previous story lines, saving the Coltons wouldn’t have made overall survival any more or less likely, so it wasn’t completely insane to think that Bellamy could have been successful). The last scene before he loses contact with them, stuck in the Rover, was like... honestly a nightmare scenario for me, I mean this literally, I have had nightmares on exactly this theme, searching for some solution to some problem and finding none, so I was definitely emotionally compromised by it.

I was also very pleased that--even though Bellamy’s obsession with the Coltons was obviously from start to finish a surrogate for his worry about Octavia--we finally got to hear someone mention a member of the 100. I really thought I’d have to give up on anyone caring about that particular affiliation ever again. Literally everyone other than the named members of the 100 (by my count...8 people?) has completely disappeared into the ether so I was really beyond excited to hear someone talk about someone else as “one of the 100″ again.

You know how before S3 there was this talk about Bellamy being acknowledged as a hero finally and then instead his character was totally assassinated? LOL I feel like that statement should have been prefaced with “IN SEASON 4″ so at least I could have known how long I’d have to wait for heroic Bellamy to come back from war. I’m not saying this is the first time we’ve seen him since season 2 because it’s obviously not, but still, I loved it, I loved seeing him intense and devoted and trying so very hard.

I also really liked the Bellamy and Kane conversation toward the end, over the Rover radio. This is probably bad of me, but I laughed when Bellamy said “You floated my mom” not because it’s funny but just how sudden it was, like, ‘I hear you trying to be my dad and you’re not my dad!!!’ Also because I like when characters’ pasts are things that like actually still exist since that’s pretty hit and miss with this show. Also because I personally head canon Kane as a prosecutor figure on the Ark and this semi-confirms this view (or we’re just supposed to read the line as being like ‘you, a council member, were generally responsible for my mom’s death’ which is also possible).

I still maintain that Harper has negligible personality but I did like her little mini theme-reinforcing story line here.

Oh also today’s story reinforces what I’ve thought this whole season, which was that Jasper’s little trick about committing suicide by standing out in the “black rain” was not as reprehensible as people think, in fact not reprehensible at all, because if it were black rain he would have felt it right away so like he was obviously not in danger--it’s not his fault that other people are dumb and fell for such fakery lol.

The Island Story Line

This one is more complicated for me. I liked a lot of things about it but I also had some...uncertainties about it and it’s hard to separate the two.

First, the moral issue of the day... Okay, yes, as an initial matter, I still have enough of a soul to be disgusted by the idea of forcibly experimenting on people, like I’m not a completely heartless bitch (even though I think a lot of my episode reactions make me seem that way). But because I have no idea who this Grounder fellow is, and because he really fortuitously just fell into their laps--more on my thoughts on this later--it’s hard for me to feel what I think the full impact of the moral conundrum is. Just as I didn’t really, viscerally, emotionally care about the 4x02 slaves because I didn’t know who they are, I don’t really care about Baylis or whoever he is because he’s pretty much the definition of a rando. I would much, much, much rather a character I didn’t even know existed 24 hours ago die and all my faves live than my faves take the moral high road and give themselves up to death to save some dude I know literally nothing about.

So what I’m trying to say is that I’m stuck between ‘this is really gross’ and ‘this isn’t gross enough.’ The arrival of Baylis is such an obvious narrative out, a having cake and eating it too scenario: you’ll see our heroes doing something bad, but not, like, REALLY bad, don’t worry. But can I really be upset about that? My revulsion is going to limited anyway because disgust at medical experiments is sort of a theme we’ve already traveled on this show so I’ve built up a tolerance and also... if Abby et. al. were really the new Mt. Weather and I felt the same way about them as I felt about,, say Dr. Tsing in S2, I couldn’t still continue to identify with them as the protagonists of the story. So the narrative is necessarily somewhat constrained in that way.

Speaking of Mt. Weather...have the Sky People learned nothing from their own past experiences?? Yes, today’s moral conundrum was about whether to do the experiment to see if bone marrow works as a treatment, but if it DOES, then the next moral conundrum seems incredibly obvious to me and I’m just wondering why no one has brought it up? Like Abby was literally tortured by the last people who thought using others’ bone marrow was a good idea? You’d think she’d remember that. Maybe I’m just missing something, in which case I’m going to feel very dumb, but it’s sort of hard not to associate bone marrow with Mt. Weather in the context of this show. From S2 I learned that one person’s bone marrow can supply something like 8 people with radiation inoculation--if you’re willing to kill the “donor.” So unless Luna’s bone marrow is going to be used in a very different way, for example as like the basis for a synthetic bone marrow style substance, which maybe is where they’re going but it wasn’t very clear to me at least on an initial watch, they can save 8 people if they’re willing to kill her which seems...not great. (Really, thinking about this, their plan HAS to be using something IN her marrow to make a magic solution substance, right? Like there’s no way that’s not the plot.)

That being said at least we’re not going into fucking space I mean WOW THAT WAS SO DUMB I’M STILL NOT OVER HOW DUMB IT WAS. Still a waste of like 2 episodes but I’ll forgive them as long as I never hear “let’s just fly away into space like nbd” ever again.

As I was saying about Baylis. I’m all over the place on my thoughts on this. In general, I do feel like his appearance is super convenient, as I said above, especially since prior to this we’ve literally never heard of anyone else being on the island, of “scavengers,” or of particular Bad People in Emori’s past (besides, you know, her whole family who kicked her out--but that’s fairly obviously not who Baylis allegedly is). We heard some talk about ‘worse things than drones’ on the island but nothing as specific as what we got in this episode. And if random Grounders really are the ‘worse things’ we were forewarned about, by the way, what a disappointment. I was waiting for genetically engineered monsters. Yet again, The 100 meta writers >> The 100′s actual writers. My problem with contrived narratives like this is that they take me out of the story. All I can think is ‘I see you writers, pulling the strings, constructing this narrative.’ That’s a fine thing to think AFTER watching or maybe on a second or third rewatch but a well constructed story shouldn’t feel like a narrative on the first viewing, imo. You should be feeling it too deeply to be analyzing it on the level of construction.

So I thought it was heavy-handed. And I also was sitting there wondering “when is someone FINALLY going to bring up that Baylis would be a great experimental subject???” Because I had come to that conclusion during his fight with Emori--back to the ‘this season is predictable’ theme I guess. I didn’t think the Dramatic Moment of Clarke suggesting experimenting on him was earned because, like, duh, why else was he even written into the show except to be a test subject? However, I will give this point a little bit of slack because of that final scene: finding out that Emori was acting the entire time--that, within the universe of the show, SHE was pulling the strings--made a lot of the earlier obviously-contrived-ness forgivable. Like, okay, it feels fake, but that’s because it IS.

And about Emori... Unpopular opinion time. I liked her, was intrigued by her, when she was introduced in S2. But I found her very lackluster (in terms of writing/conception, not in terms of performance) in S3. I didn’t think the writers really developed her in any way. I realize this could be disputed with textual evidence, for example, how she goes from trusting no one but her brother, to trusting and relying on Murphy, or how she learns to accept her deformity. But I’m talking more, I don’t know, emotionally, I just couldn’t see what difference she made to the story, I just couldn’t connect with her. I feel like she is largely a female Grounder version of Murphy, but less compelling because I know her less and see less of her. Her constant sole motivating factor is her own survival, which makes her very predictable and one-note. Similarly, her relationship with Murphy bores me because we never saw it develop, all of the getting together stuff happened off screen, and then once they were together they basically became like the same character twice over, interacting with itself.

BUT I really did like Emori in this episode. And I finally saw something in her that was compelling to me: how incredibly, incredibly sharp she is. Like that con she played, it wasn’t just on Clarke or on Murphy, it was on ME. I guess in a way I’m saying she earned my respect.

Also Luisa D’Oliviera’s voice is gorgeous, like why have I not noticed that before? When she and Clarke were walking in the woods in particular, ugh, beautiful.

I’m still not really on the Murphy/Emori ship but I will admit they were hella cute in this episode.

I don’t know how Murphy learned how to cook but I like that he does. I also like this “Murphy flirts with everyone” trait they’ve decided to give him these last couple of seasons. I definitely saw him as more ‘awkward boy trying to be cool’ in early Season 1 but I guess all of his experiences have just thrown him into the ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude, which frees him up to flirt with everyone for fun and without worry.

But...what the fuck is a randzi?

One (more?) complaint about this story line though: The impact of the Baylis story was lessened considerably as it was told, imo, in that I could never quite get a purchase on WHAT he had (allegedly) done to Emori--maybe this is just my prurient interest, but I thought they cut a lot of corners in just painting him as a generically abusive bad guy. Sometimes I was tempted to read him as an abusive ex-boyfriend...but he also abused her brother and then there’s that ‘scared little girl’ line. Was he one of the people who cast her out? She talks about that event but also says it happened when she was an infant, so this must be someone she met later...I suppose someone who took advantage of her and her brother’s vulnerability while they were on their own. I eventually settled on a non-literal Bad Uncle type. I’m not saying I need a play-by-play on the abuse, but it just...I was constantly trying to figure out exactly what they were talking about and it started to feel a little contrived (again), how generically he was painted as A Bad Person Just Trust Me He’s Bad. But then that last scene makes me think...was it contrived on purpose? Maybe. Still, Emori’s abuser is, apparently, a real person: Murphy’s line toward the end is “He’s not the guy?” not “The story was fake?” So if the story was real, Emori could have used real details if she’d wanted--the details weren’t hidden from the viewer because she was bullshitting the whole thing but because, I can only assume, the writers were too lazy to write them in, and that, I don’t respect.

Oh, also, that line about saving themselves first and then restoring their humanity, that Kane says, is another one of those faux-deep The 100 lines that I always have to roll my eyes at (like “I bear it so they don’t have to” when Clarke says it, or “No one is innocent” when divorced from its original context, or my personal favorite “You don’t ease pain you overcome it” or whatever that 3x16 nonsense was). Again, did Mt. Weather teach you nothing? Once you’ve done something SO BAD that it erases your humanity itself, it’s gone; you don’t get it back. Maybe if someone actually listened to Dante we wouldn’t still be having these problems lol.

Also also: I’m still on the fence about these Ultra Modern Aesthetics like in Becca’s lab and house, but it was nice seeing Clarke shower, look clean, and rest. And I liked the almost horror-movie scene where she first sees there’s been an intruder in the house. But...was there blood on the pillow of that bed or am I just totally imagining things??

Octavia and Ilian

Two hotties I don’t care about, basically.

I honestly cannot conceive of anything Ilian could do or say that would make me care about him ever so.

I get why Octavia is Annoyingly Dramatic: she’s sixteen. She’s sixteen with an added dose of stunted emotional growth from literally knowing only 2 human beings for most of her life. But that doesn’t make her dead inside emo child bit any less obnoxious to me. (I realize I am a semi-hypocrite about this given some things I DO like and even worse some things I’ve actually written myself but shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.)

I know everyone saw I/O coming from a million miles away and so did I but that doesn’t make it any less nonsense. That said...I wouldn’t mind seeing Octavia become a sheep herder. I mean I’m so tired of her current state of being that anything would be a nice change of pace but like a real 180 about-face might be kind of refreshing. It might be nonsense...but when was the last time O wasn’t nonsense? Like at least it would be relaxing nonsense.

And on the trailer: Yes Jasper. Yes Miller is finally back from his extended spa vacation or whatever he was doing.

#the 100 #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #john murphy #emori #s4 reactions #the year 2017 #2017: fandom thoughts #2017: the 100 s4 #the 100 spoilers

3 notes · View notes