#desperately hoping for his next character to be a cunning asshole | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

takerfoxx · 3 years

Text

The Owl House, Season 1, Episode 19, “Young Blood, Old Souls,” First Impressions!

As well as what I think will happen going forward.

So now I’m all caught up with The Owl House. The end of season one. The grand finale. And with it, the show has finally acquired what I feel has been its missing element.

See, I’ve talked about how difficult this show has been to comment on, owing to its very episodic nature. There’s a neat premise with some cool characters, and each episode seemed like it would just throw some new shenanigans at them. They were fun, they were funny, I enjoyed watching the characters do stuff in this world, but there was still a strong lack of a single unifying conflict, something to hold everything together and keep the audience coming back for more. I mean, sure, it’s sister show Gravity Falls was also very episodic (up until it wasn’t), but at least with that one they introduced the mystery of the journal’s author and kept it going throughout the show, building upon it and even having it drive several episodes. With The Owl House, you had Luz and she wants to learn magic, sure, but there was no real urgency there. Hell, her magic lessons only played into a couple episodes.

Honestly, I think that’s why the whole Lumity thing blew up like it did (in addition to it being really cute and groundbreaking and the characters having good chemistry), because it offered something that was clearly a work in progress and worth coming back to see develop!

But now The Owl House no longer has that problem, because it has found its central conflict.

Emperor. Fucking. Belos.

Oh yeah. That’ll fucking do.

I...really like this guy. In a world of goofy weirdoes, someone this serious and intimidating just stands out. He’s like the abomination hybrid of the Lich from Adventure Time crossed with Horde Prime from She-Ra, someone who is NOT funny, who ranges from unsettling and pretty creepy to absolutely terrifying, but also has this casual charm and sense of control about him. He’s someone who’s on top of the game, good at rolling with the punches, able to to turn even losses into wins, from his regaining control of the crowd after Eda’s escape to him shrugging off Luz hurting him to bouncing back from having the portal destroyed. He is smart, he is cunning, he is determined, and he is terrifying, definitely a fantastic antagonist.

But what is he? And what does he actually want? Well, I have a couple theories. First, perhaps he is another rogue palisman. We saw him destroying another palisman and absorbing its soul. Perhaps he’s like the Bat Queen in that regard.

Second, maybe he is also a human, and he wants the portal to get back home. His magic is much different than everyone else, in that he doesn’t use circles or charms (though he clearly can), but instead seems to rely on technology, such as that pimping staff of his. Maybe he’s like the Wizard of Oz or John Frum, someone who used smoke and mirrors to deceive the locals and take control, until he figured out how to gain actual power.

Also, anyone notice that his power seems to have a sort of flesh golem theme to it? Maybe he’s manipulating the corpse of the Titan itself. Also, that freaking skull centipede from the opening finally showed up. Brrrr, that thing genuinely freaks me out.

And now Luz is trapped on the Boiling Isle, with no way to get home. What’s more, Eda is now without power. She has her mind and humanity back thanks to Lilith, but they both have lost their magic, and now Luz has to be the one to teach them to get by. There are...so many things they can do with that, so count me interested!

Now where will this show go in the second season, now that Luz is trapped and Emperor Belos as revealed himself as a threat? Well, obviously I don’t have a clue, but I can posit a few guesses.

So, here’s one.

What if Demon King turns out to be the Titan? Like, reincarnated or something?

I mean, think about it! His skull thing he wears looks kind of like the Titan’s skull, and he keeps talking about his glory days when he had power, which is always played off as a joke. But what if it isn’t a joke? What if he truly was not only a powerful ruler, but the one that everyone seems to worship? What if destroying that beating heart Emperor Belos has in his throne room restores King to what he was?

Also, this next one isn’t so much of a prediction as it is something I hopes happens.

I want Lumity to become official midseason instead of at the very end.

Look, it’s great that there’s more LGBTQA+ relationships in kids’ media, but they always seem to hook up in the final episode, from Korra to She-Ra to Adventure Time to Kipo. I want Luz and Amity to figure out their attraction to each other and actually have to build a relationship in the show itself. I want to see them go on cute, awkward dates; I want to see them get into fights; I want them to be a COUPLE. And I never want that! You know me and how much I cringe at that stuff! But if they actually have these two become an official couple and have them develop and work at their relationship over several episodes, I will gladly endure all the cringe!

Also, yes, I caught Amity’s asshole parents in the background of the flashback.

Speaking of which, I am very interested in what goes on with Lilith. Like I thought would be the case, the curse wasn’t intended to be malicious, it was something stupid she did out of desperation and insecurity without knowing the full consequences and has regretted ever since. But now that she’s part of the Owl House family, we will get to see her and Eda rebuild their broken relationship. That...okay, just her having to put up with King and Hooty is going to be a blast.

Luz. Luz, Luz, Luz. Man, poor girl. I’m still mad at her mom for the whole, you know, G-rated conversion therapy thing, but it’s clear that Luz is upset about being trapped. What is she going to do now? Is she still going to school? Is she now wanted?

Also, that spy character that was introduced at the very end. Is that someone we already know or someone new?

#the owl house #luz noceda #eda #lilith clawthorne #demon king #amity blight #emperor belos #lumity #reaction

20 notes · View notes

maybankiara · 4 years

Text

personally, the only characters in obx i find interesting are jj, pope, rafe, ward, and wheezie. idk if this is an unpopular opinion or nah, but i honestly find it very hard to even give a damn about what happens to the other characters.

and, while that might be just me, i don’t think other characters are as well-written as these. that’s one of the most important things for me. if they don’t seem real, if they’re too shallow or too cliche, i’ll get bored.

(this ended up getting lengthier than intended, so i’ll just put everything under the cut.)

jj: he starts off being the usual sidekick, the jester, comic relief, almost. he reminds me a lot of stiles stilinski in teen wolf, and that’s great. stiles is a character that starts off the same but then as you get more info on him, it gets better. same happens with jj. he gets more interesting as the narrative unveils more about his home life, about his desperation for being loved and accepted and not seen as all the insults his dad throws at him. he’s unpredictable, but he’s loyal, and he’s character that has clear motivations and needs.

pope: what i love so much about pope is his academic side story. he’s driven and his goal is very different to other characters’, and his narrative of losing his marbles is absolutely brilliant. you see the cracks in the perfect facade from the very beginning, and his struggle to live both in the world of adventures and the world where he “has a future” is super interesting. just like jj, you know exactly what motivates him and he has his own side story. the end of the season, where he’s sacrificed everything for nothing? poetic cinema. i can’t wait to see where he ends up being mentally in season 2.

rafe: look, at first glance, rafe might be the typical “abused and neglected kid turned evil” but that’s...just not it. rafe’s a coke addict and he’s constantly trying to prove himself, but as things keep taking a turn for the worse, so does rafe’s sanity. that scene in which he talks to himself?? poetic cinema. there’s something very off in his head and he reminds me of john murphy from the 100. this is why i’m hoping for a redemption arc for him, or if not redemption, then possibly kind of a joker-esque storyline where he descends into madness and chaos. i love his character because there’s so much going on in his head and the potential for a great villain or a great redemption story is incredible. (whether rafe is still redeemable is debatable, but only makes him more interesting)

ward: he’s an asshole but he’s so layered, he loves sarah and would do anything for her and it seems like she’s the only one on his family he actually gives a damn about, and he treats rafe like utter shit. what’s his thing with wheezie? he doesn’t seem to like her very much. he’s cunning and desperate for the gold, and i’m intrigued by his past - did he kill before big john? is he a professional killer on the side, is that how they got rich? imho he’s a great villain and i love every scene he’s in, because i never know how he’s going to react. his motivations and needs are less clear, but in a sense that they’re not meant to be fully uncovered, and it keeps you thinking.

wheezie: i’ve recently read a post on how she’s actually one of the key characters when it comes to the turn of events, and that’s absolutely true. she’s young and she acts both 8 and 18 at the same time. she’s a snitch but she loves sarah, and i wonder what she’s like with rafe as we haven’t seen much of them. honestly she might be the only sane person in the whole family. she’s very perceptive and i think she’d make for a great sidekick to rafe in the next season, if that’s what they go for.

and that’s it. that’s my list of the characters i actually like watching on screen. the only one that kind of could be on this list is kiara, but honestly she doesn’t have much of a personality beyond being a girl in a boy’s group and wanting to save the world which is...sad. i liked kiara in the beginning, when we were just being introduced to the characters, but it feels like her character didn’t really evolve (save for the scene where she accepts sarah into their group).

john b is your average protagonist that somehow does the thing that people couldn’t have figured out for over a century. his storyline is basically gold + sarah and for the amount of hype they gave to the pogues, it barely feels like he’s a part of them.

sarah is just...idk dude, i don’t find her interesting. i don’t care about her. when she and john b were on that boat in the last episode, for all i cared, they could’ve died. i was just hoping they would’ve because of the pogues. if it wasn’t for that, i wouldn’t have cared at all.

topper is more of a plot device than a character imho and aside from being obsessed with sarah, there’s not much to him. i feel like he has a lot of potential, as we hardly know anything about him. right now, he’s just a dick. just your usual asshole teenage boy.

i forgot about barry, originally, and he’s also quite interesting. we seem him both being friendly with rafe and being incredibly violent, and he seems like the slimy, disgusting guy that you cannot help but find fascinating. (fine, now i realise i should’ve put him up with the interesting characters.) we haven’t seen much of him and i’m hoping he has a bigger role next season (he’ll probably keep tormenting rafe and he still needs his money back from jj)

in any case, that’s just my opinions on the characters. i feel sad about the fact that i don’t care about some of the main characters but hey, happens. maybe they’re just not my cup of tea. i’m very excited about season 2 though, and seeing where they take each of the characters.

#obx #outer banks #outer banks meta #obx meta #obx analysis #rafe cameron #jj maybank #pope heyward #kiara carrera #john b routledge #sarah cameron #topper thornton #wheezie cameron #d.tag

54 notes · View notes

purplefairywriter · 4 years

Text

Hyung Line BTS as RPG Classes

This idea has been wandering around in my head for a while so I finally decided to release it into the wild world. This is based on D&D for the most part but I opted not to go into details about their races, so this is just going to be a run down of their classes and alignments. If you don’t know what classes are alignments are, I’ll explain it as I go through the members of BTS. Alignments are only meant to be kind of a guide to your characters and not a blanket statement for how characters will act. SPOILER ALERT: most of them are on the good spectrum alignment wise. Here’s the maknae line one for you guys!

JIN

Blurb Jin walked into the dimly lit tavern. There were a variety of fair and buxom maidens there, all of whom turned to stare at him as he strutted in. Carrying his lucky red rose and his special lute, he went to the first maid who caught his eye. He gave her the rose before taking his lute and playing a single, beautiful chord. Then he leaned in and said "Hello, beautiful. I'm Mr. Worldwide Handsome. Are you gonna tell me your name or are you gonna let me just call you beautiful?" Class “The bard is a master of song, speech, and the magic they contain... Only rarely do bards settle in one place for long... Bards thrive on stories, whether those stories are true or not.” BARD. He’s a bard, 110% a bard. I mean... His personality screams it. There’s a reason I call this man the “good guy version of Gaston”. He has a charm to go along with his “Worldwide Handsome” title. That and the fact he was literally studying to be an actor before he go recruited by BigHit makes me believe he’d be a great addition to any party who is trying to do undercover/spy missions. Need a cocky nobleman? Jin’s got you covered. Need a down on his luck pig farmer? Jin’s got you covered. In my opinion, he’d have one of the higher charismas of a BTS party, which would help with the bard life. Alignment Probably chaotic good, so a rebel. He values personal freedom while at the same time upholding what is good. He probably comes off as an asshole/playboy when in reality he cares a lot about his friends/loved ones.

J-HOPE

Blurb J-Hope sat in the open field, admiring the sun. It was the sun that brought life to everything and everyone he knew. His best friend sat next to him, reading their favorite book. When a gruff voice shouted a slur towards his friend, J-Hope jumped up. "Hey! Try that on someone your own size, buddy!" He proclaimed without even sizing his enemy up. It turned out to be one of the local members of the warrior's guild, one of the toughest fighters out of the bunch. J-Hope held his ground, though. Their words escalated until a duel was unavoidable. J-Hope's friend tried to dissuade him from fighting. "I'll never let some idiot hurt my friends, physically or no! I'll teach this bully a lesson!" After the duel was over and the bully was simpering in defeat, J-Hope reminded his friend that he, like the sun, would never fail his friend. Class I’m feeling warrior type. You could go with either fighter or paladin with him. Either way, he wouldn’t be able to stay in the back and watch his friends get hurt without raising a ruckus. He wouldn’t be quiet or sneaky enough for a rogue and being a spell caster might not be up his alley. He’d want to have a hands-on approach in helping his friends, he would want to be in the front lines kicking butt. Why don’t you just pick one class? aka Why are you lumping paladin in there? Well, because J-Hope, as well all know, has a high charisma. Paladins need a high charisma as well as strength versus just strength alone. Paladins are basically more determined warriors and/or defenders/protectors of others, as they have a religious cause to be fighting for rather than just fighting because why not. Plus I have to admit, I think it would be funny to have J-Hope as a paladin because he’d be a bad paladin. As in he wouldn’t be screaming from the mountaintops about his god, he’d save someone and then go “oh yeah by the way I gotta tell you about my god real quick”. I’d imagine if he was in a paladin group everyone would make fun of him for helping people without preaching to them. He would stick to his guns (or should I say swords, this is a D&D post after all) about things, though. It’d be hard to sway him against doing a thing, which probably makes for a great paladin in some ways. If he was a paladin, he’d choose a sun or a mischievous god that fell under good. (In my world if he was a paladin, he’d be one for a crow/raven god that is mostly good but mischievous at times.) Alignment Chaotic Good, so the same as Jin. Although if you go the paladin route, he may end up being Lawful Good, which means he would have a strict sense of honor while at the same time putting down the freedom of others (even though I personally don’t see J-Hope being that way, but I can see him acting that way if he felt like he had no other option, really.)

SUGA

TW: slight verbal abuse (Not Suga giving it), violence Blurb Suga sat in the alleyway. He watched some pickpockets go by, just enjoying the sparse quietness that the night brought him. The sound of a knife unsheathing some distance away made him leap unto his feet. He looked over to see a grown man aiming the knife at a cowering child. "I'll pay you back, I promise!" The child cried. "You lousy brat, you haven't been able to steal anything for two weeks now! What did I ever hire you for?" The man asked, his words slurring. Suga walked over to the pair and tapped the man on the shoulder. The man turned around with a growl. "What are you doing talking to my son like that?" Suga asked, his hand on his knife's handle. The man looked at the kid then back at Suga. “Then why are you lettin’ him roam the streets and work for me? Some moron idiot father you are.” The man asked. The boy looked up at Suga, visibly frightened. Suga had never seen the boy before in his life. But Suga knew what it was like to deal with angry, cutthroat criminal scum like the man standing in front of him as a child. “Leave the boy alone. How much does he owe you?” Suga asked. He kept his hand on his knife, ready to draw in case the criminal lashed out. “50 gold.” The man grumbled. Suga pulled out his coin purse and nearly handed it to the man. “It’s between me and the brat. I don’t want your blood money.” The man said. The man turned back to the boy, his anger growing. “I could’ve made twice as much profit this week if I didn’t have to feed you. I should’ve let you rot!” The man raised one hand, tightly gripping a knife over his head as the child screamed. Suga stabbed the man in the shoulder, which reduced the man to a crumpled heap of pain on the alleyway path. Suga grabbed the child’s arm and dragged him out of the alleyway and towards safety. [The boy isn’t Suga’s child, obviously. Suga is probably going to feed the kid and find him a safe place to stay at least.] Class

“Rogues devote as much effort to mastering the use of a variety of skills as they do to perfecting their combat abilities, giving them a broad expertise that few other characters can match. When it comes to combat, rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength. A rogue would rather make one precise strike... As adventurers, rogues fall on both sides of the law.” I know some of you guys may be like “no wait Suga can’t be a rogue, he isn’t evil!”. I feel like Suga would make a good rogue, I do, I just have that feeling. He seems like the type of guy who devotes time to developing his skills, as well as a guy who speaks only when something needs to be said. He comes off as a big tough guy when in reality he cares. “Why isn’t he a bard?” I feel like for Suga, music in an RPG setting would be secondary. Given that in real life he grew up with a family who was didn’t support his ideas of his music career, I could see him having to resort to rogue-ry things in order to support himself and survive (he would never break laws for fun, he’d do it in order to survive) with the idea of becoming a musician someday. If he dual-classed, bard would be his second class. Alignment Chaotic Good. But like I said earlier, he may come off as more neutral at first. He may put his own needs first before readily accepting that he does care for other people in a way.

Blurb RM stood in a secluded glade. Crickets chirped nearby, the only sound keeping the world around him from silence. His companion was frightened, desperately trying to start a fire in the dark of the forest. "Are you sure this'll work? It seems strange, being out here so late at night..." The companion’s voice was deeply concerned. RM sighed as he stared up at the stars for a moment. "It's alright. If there's one thing I know about magic, it's that you have to trust yourself in order for it to work. Don't be afraid, I've got your back. Okay?" The companion nodded, his words bringing some comfort to them. They finally got the fire lit. The companion sighed in relief at the light the fire offered. RM spent the next few minutes casting protection spells before he sat down. "I know that darkness is scary, and the thing that dwell in it are even more frightening. One day you'll be able to face the darkness without any fear." RM said as he got comfortable. "How do you do it? How do you not be afraid?" His companion's question made him chuckle. "It took me many years to get to this point. Like there was this one time..." RM told his companion stories until they fell asleep. He'd do this until the companion felt safe, until his companion was as strong as he was when it came to facing the dark. Class I’m thinking either druid or wizard for RM. Wizards require high intelligence (which RM has!) while druids require high wisdom (which RM also has!). I can imagine him as either the wizard who’s spent much of his life reading every magic book and trying every magic spell he can or as the druid who enjoys spending time being at one with nature. For a staff, I’d be inclined to give him one that looks like a thyrsus totally not because I’ve watched Dionysus too many times or anything crazy like that because it’d be a cool reference to BTS. Alignment I could see RM being Chaotic Good or Lawful Good. It just depends on the situation, really. He’d probably want to be a good example for other people and look after them in a way. That’s it for now! I may do some actual character sheets (as in a full-on character build with races, stats, the whole 9 yards maybe) or even write the whole situation regarding the blurbs (kinda gave Suga’s away though, I knew I couldn’t leave you guys hanging like that) eventually so... Thanks for reading! Here’s the maknae line with Jimin, V, and Jungkook!

1 note · View note

multi-muse-transect · 5 years

Text

Windblade Movie Pitch

With the Bumblebee movie being a success and an Optimus Prime movie coming up next, here’s an idea for a Windblade movie. @buncha-bees @charliewatsonbb-87 @chrome-mind

Plot: Windblade crashes on Earth after an energon crisis on Caminus and she goes there to broker a deal with Optimus Prime. On Earth, she meets the son of Charlie Watson who mourns the death of his mom. Rogue Decepticons converge on the town in hopes of using her city speaking ability for evil as it is up to Windblade and an unlikely ally to defend it.

Cast

Heroes

Jessica Henwick as Windblade: Like Bumblebee, Windblade is a fish out of water and has zero knowledge of Earth’s culture. Jessica Henwick as a choice is because I saw her performance in Iron Fist as Coleen Wing and also Game Of Thrones, her acting already screams out Windblade.

Domhnall Gleeson as Starscream: Starscream in this one is a Decepticon who is out of luck and meets Windblade by accident due to a failed attempt to assassinate Megatron and has a shift of personality. Gleeson blurs the line of slimey and cunning while having moments of humanity along the way that resonates with charisma just like Starscream.

Finn Wolfhard as Wade Watson: I saw Stranger Things, that’s all. Plus the movie is sort of a passing of the torch kinda thing with Charlie’s son going through the same thing.

Idris Elba as Agent Fowler (Secret cameo like Nick Fury): As the description states, Idris is a cameo of sort like Nick Fury from the Avengers and making him agent Fowler kinda matches his motif. Although Fowler should be written as a government figure at first till he reveals to Windblade he’s the liaison for the Autobots in a post credit scene.

Felicity Jones and Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie Watson (Old and young): Like Idris Elba, it’s more of a cameo than a big role. Felicity Jones plays an older Charlie who is on her deathbed while Charlie is seen in old video footage.

Villains/Rogue Decepticons.

Tom Hardy as Tankor: Instead of being an idiot like in Beast Wars, Tankor is a cunning leader who has had enough of the war and rallies a group of rogue Decepticons to capture Windblade in order to use her powers to end it.

Tessa Thompson as Strika: Seeing her performance as Valkyrie from Thor Ragnarok, I feel Tessa can show a viscous side. Strika is Tankor’s second lieutenant and she coordinates the drones, smart yet reckless for a reason, Strika is the bot with the plan.

Michael B.Jordan as Jetstorm: A group always needs that sarcastic asshole like from Beast Machines. Michael B. Jordan is charismatic enough to play a character like Jetstorm. Jetstorm is the spy of the group who does recon, maybe even a dogfight against Starscream.

Nathan Fillion as Thrust: Thrust has always had that old school kind of cool, like a 50′s biker gang member and Nathan Fillion fits that role. Thrust is what describe is sort of the first boss of a video game and the first Decepticon Windblade fights.

Daisy Ridley as Shadow Striker: I know she’s suited to play heroes, but Daisy Ridley has a vicious side to herself when she plays as Rey alongside a range of emotions. Shadow Striker is the most human of the group and has doubts in Tankor’s plan to end the war but she joins out of desperation because she’s had enough of Megatron’s garbage and is the tracker of the rogues.

Cameos

Hynden Walch as the Mistress Of Flame

Josh Brolin as Overlord

Andy Serkis as Shockwave

Gwendoline Christie (Slipstream)

Adam Driver as Skywarp.

Oscar Issac as Thundercracker

John Boyega as Acid Storm

Dylan O’brien as Bumblebee

Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime

#transformers #transformers idw #maccadam #bumblebee movie #starscream #tankor #strike #jetstorm #shadow striker #transformers cybververse #charlie watson #windblade #agent fowler #optimus prime

50 notes · View notes

permian-tropos · 6 years

Text

The Case for Redeemable Rax, a Three Part Saga

@absolxguardian this massive rambly essay started with our discussion of Galli vs. Tom Riddle as you will see

it’s extremely long though and I’m publishing it mostly for personal reference, just to have it archived on my blog

also it might end up being character notes for fanfic so if it just gets repeated in narrative form somewhere else that’s why

Episode I: The Phantom Personality Disorder

the warning signs Dumbledore missed with Tom Riddle were definitely meant to be of a personality disorder, most likely psychopathy. there are a ton of similarities between Galli & Palpatine’s first meeting and Tom’s first conversation with Dumbledore, but contextually it’s different since Palpatine is mega evil and Dumbledore (while flawed) is not. Dumbledore doesn’t threaten to kill Tom, and he certainly doesn’t start feeding him overt fascist ideology. but Tom is also unlike Galli because he’s in control of the conversation. he’s just a kid, but he’s charismatic and calculated and even when Dumbledore intimidates him into giving back the toys he stole, it’s suggested (or is it directly stated? I don’t quite remember) that Tom won that round — he got a demonstration of a wizard’s power to intimidate and control people, even if the person being controlled is himself. it’s not deterrence because he was just told he could one day have this power for himself.

so these are particular psychopath warning signs that we don’t get from Galli — or even adult Rax! we see him interact with Palpatine three times and we hear about his relationship to Kolob, and something that doesn’t happen (even though neurotypical people can learn to do this, even neurotypical kids) is Galli trying to leverage their power to his advantage

when he’s faced with someone who has power over him, Rax doesn’t know how to turn the tables or even stay afloat. with Palpatine, he never says or does anything outside of “yes, sir” and assorted synonyms. he wasn’t charismatic enough to charm Kolob or the other anchorites so he could get away with bullying other kids.

those same other kids followed his lead when he left the orphanage, but it’s not because they let him have power over the others. he didn’t need to be that cunning to get them to leave -- he could have told them in good faith that they’d be taken to a better life off Jakku with him. when he’s waiting for Palpatine in a state of terror and false bravado, thinking, “he won’t kill me, I killed for him” -- this is almost certainly right after he killed the other children and it makes fear and desperation the primary motives.

we learn that he burned down the orphanage before he left, and that Kolob didn’t know what happened to the other kids, so Galli must have done this on his own. it wasn’t something Palpatine would have needed him to do, and he never attacked the anchorites before then. it could have been a final act of spite, but he’s not smug or satisfied afterwards, he’s thinking about how he might be okay dying in this chair because it’s so comfortable, ha ha, it was all worth it for this, ha ha Ha. what I can imagine happening is that, after years of clinging to the hope of a better life, he was abruptly told he wouldn’t get it or would even be killed if he didn’t kill the rest of the children. he did the deed impulsively, in a panic, and then Palpatine left him alone on Jakku just long enough for him to wonder if he’d be played, if he killed his friends for nothing and that he was going to be next. he would've only had the anchorites to take out his rage and anguish on (he could easily blame them for everything), and Palpatine took him offworld after his rampage was over.

and you’d think maybe he’s just young and learned manipulative skills later, but when Sloane is about to kill him he actually has something he could use as leverage — the information about the Eclipse and the other ships sent to the Unknown Regions — but instead he weeps and begs for mercy. Sloane isn’t soft-hearted or empathetic and Rax would know this. seeing him suffer makes her revenge that much sweeter. so he’s not very cunning on instinct, when his life depends on it.

compare this to Palpatine leveraging his own vulnerability in the fight against Mace Windu to turn Anakin to the Dark Side. and I do think he was genuinely vulnerable and not entirely faking because Palpatine gambles with his life again with Luke and Vader, only he loses. his prologue scene with Rax in Book 3 reveals he’s perfectly aware of the risk he’s taking, because he hopes for high rewards.

Rax is just not very good at being an Evil Slimy Advisor. unlike a Wormtongue or a Jafar or a Lady Macbeth, he doesn’t even try to convince Sloane that she’s the one in control. he takes nominal steps towards this — making her Grand Admiral, promising her the throne — but they openly discuss the fact that she’s a puppet ruler, and when Sloane is like “so uh when are you going to drop this act and just be the Emperor or something” he’s like “no, no, I’ll keep telling everyone I support you, you’ll still be respected”. Sloane’s not pleased by the paltry offer, obviously she wants to rule for real and it feels like he’s not even trying to seduce her with power yes I think she genuinely gets pissed that he’s not being seductive enough; the culmination of all her hatred comes out as “did you really think I would join you after everything? you think I’m that cheap??? the fuck??”

conclusion for part one: Galli specifically averts the (pop science 101) psychopath trait of leveraging power from a position of weakness.

if he’s mentally disordered (and I think he is) the most believable diagnosis is actually ADHD. lmao yes I’m being serious here even though I’m biased since I’m projecting onto him: he’s disobedient and difficult to contain as a kid, kind of flaky and dreamy as well if he’s distracted by “stories”, he’s intense and comes off as wound-up or unstable, he’s impulsive, easily overstimulated by emotion or sensation, has hyperfixations that he turns to for stress relief, is rejection-sensitive (Sloane calling him “precious orphan” is enough to ruin his moment of triumph), and he can’t even keep his hands to himself when he talks to people

otherwise he acts like (and is) someone trained to have complete deference and submission to authority. he can’t manipulate, because authority is absolute and you either accept it to be good, or lash out at it to be, as Palpatine puts it, nasty and naughty.

[Intermission] because this essay is fucking long get up, stretch, refill popcorn, use the bathroom

Episode II: Attack of the Societal Factors

Rax’s fall to the Dark Side and subsequent abuses of power seem like a product of patriarchy. I don’t actually mean that he has an internal gender bias — he behaves in patriarchal ways (being a sugar daddy, condescending to people, refusing to yield status and control) but towards men and women, except in his apparent heterosexuality. Chuck Wendig generously makes Sloane a bit of an escapist fantasy for the gals, where people pretend not to respect her but deep down they all do. but he’s also continuing the long Star Wars tradition of being visibly patriarchal but not overtly sexist.

patriarchy isn’t exactly the same thing as male supremacy. male chauvinism is built into it, but the word itself means “rule of the father” and that describes the intersection of a hierarchical structure and a gendered chauvinism. not all men are fathers, not every patriarch is ruling a household or family (they can be a monarch, a CEO, a schoolteacher, a military commander), not all rulers in the role of “patriarch” are male. Rae Sloane behaves EXACTLY like a patriarch in a lot of ways, and even exercises what the Romans called “patria potestas”, the power a patriarch has over the lives of their family members. Sloane kills her subordinates, she kills her “daughter”, she kills loyal allies who she decides have outlived their use — because she acts as if it is her right to do so.

the way that Rax abuses his power is the way a lot of people do in our own patriarchal society — pushing boundaries to see what you can get away with. literally, he “tests” and goads Sloane as if he’s waiting for her to snap, he pushes the Empire into further chaos by “testing” them all, he terrorizes Armitage by telling him graphically what the Jakku orphans would do to him, even as he’s being sympathetic and trying to relate to the poor kid, and with Adea he acts in that dubious-consent area of not actively taking a “no” as a “yes” but not taking a lack of a “yes” to be a “no”. later we find out that she’s thoroughly enamored with him and eager for power, which sort of shows why Rax can be the way he is without being inherently evil: pushing boundaries doesn’t always backfire. if you’re being rewarded for it, just like Galli was rewarded for betraying and killing people under Palpatine, it can become a fixed pattern of behavior.

and that comes back to the anchorites cause this is the idea I had that turned into this essay — testing people’s boundaries is a very immature thing to do, but it’s not because kids are worse at being good people than adults. the average kid is good at doing things that are emotionally healthy for a kid. testing boundaries is something kids need to be willing to do. it’s not healthy for them to be overly deferential and unwilling to upset anyone. they have to learn a variety of social skills through trial and error. that’s why it’s okay that kids are kind of assholes — as long as they’re in the right environment where they can’t permanently traumatize each other or become locked into abusive patterns.

an environment where kids can’t test their boundaries against authority, by rebelling or being stubborn or throwing tantrums or anything like that, is a deeply unhealthy environment, and foundational to patriarchy. the younger you are, the more you’re at the mercy of adults, and kids need to accept some adult authority to stay safe, but it’s also really dangerous if a kid will do anything an adult tells them to, so they need to have an instinct to push back. and kids also need this to become healthy adults with agency and self-respect. adults aren’t healthy if they're “skilled” at deferring to “because I told you so” or “those are just the rules” or “don’t talk back to me” or “you’re not showing enough respect” from other adults. they’re especially not healthy if this is wielded through religious abuse, where they are forced to accept a divine patriarch whose will goes unquestioned.

if you demand absolute obedience, if people can’t push against authority (a correct and healthy outlet for fear or anxiety or frustration), they end up with this grab bag of options: be a doormat (and likely be self-destructive or self-loathing), take it out on their peers, or take it out on people they have power over. these are adaptive strategies that a majority of people living in a patriarchy have to some extent.

Galli stood out from the other kids, in ways anchorites clearly believed were bad and going to lead him to the Dark Side, but unlike Tom Riddle, they weren’t real warning signs, and unlike Anakin and Ben Solo, it seems like he didn’t have any positive support systems that he had to reject in order to fall to the Dark Side

so he comes across as, not a troubled child, but an unfortunately gifted one. he has exceptionally high cultural intelligence. he’s brilliant at honing in on the core beliefs of an ideology — but patriarchy and fascism have core beliefs that look appalling when brought to the light. he captures the essence of the Empire, the thing Rae Sloane is supposedly so passionate about, and it absolutely disgusts her. and Rax can’t understand what he’s doing wrong. he's figured out exactly what the Empire is all about, why should he keep it to himself? isn’t Sloane an elevated mind? well, it’s all true, but he shouldn’t say it.

Rax isn’t manipulating Sloane to get what he wants -- when it’s not working out he specifically refuses to interfere. he’s manipulating Sloane because it’s an act of self-expression, of artistic creation; he thinks of it as composing an opera. his creativity lies in faithfully recreating and perfecting the ideology and culture he was victimized with. Palpatine made him believe the abuse was good for him. and for Rax to be cunning, for him to hide his true intentions, he’d have to understand that nobody wants to be abused and manipulated. and apparently, understanding that would be enough for him to realize it’s just unconditionally bad for people (instead of “sharpening some blades, and ruining others”), therefore it was bad for him, and therefore he’s a horrifyingly broken unloved wretch

Episode III: Revenge of the Horrifyingly Broken Unloved Wretch

because he does start to realize this on Jakku, as he’s insisting to himself that Sloane’s rejection was just a fluke and a disappointment, then moments later he’s facing down Kolob and laying into him with righteous indignation. he starts wanting to get rid of Brendol Hux, while feeling protective of Armitage. he stops admiring Palpatine through his hate — he starts to embrace disdain and disgust for the man. and he clearly starts to more actively hate himself because it all comes spilling out as he’s dying.

just a few months after one (1) woman rejects him because he’s simply being too much of an asshole, he starts to realize that he’s been crapped on and strung along for his whole life. it’s still hard to say if he could have really recovered. plenty of his actions were already unforgivable. but Darth Vader took years to process the fact that his son was alive. and in those years, Vader continued to do evil things, and if he’d been killed before RotJ, it would have been perfectly justified. so Rax deserved what he got, and his evil plans needed to be foiled, and I would have thrown in a kick in the nuts if it were up to me.

but suppose we redefine redeemability not as a true/false binary, but instead a variable measure of how quickly someone can convert good influences into good attitudes, after bad influences gave them bad attitudes. we’ll call it their Redemption Quotient. their RQ, so to speak. just for fun.

heroes (in the moral alignment sense) by nature have a higher than average RQ. they’re not heroic because they’re flawless or infallible, but because they absorb good influences faster than most -- Finn gets over being a stormtrooper as soon as something in his heart tells him it’s wrong. Han overcomes his defensive selfishness as soon as he meets some pure good cinnamon rolls to protect. Luke gets over his nihilism as soon as he meets a pure good cinnamon roll to protect. anti-heroes and anti-villains fall in the middle of the spectrum, and true villains by nature fall below that.

all things considered, Rax might have a high RQ for a villain.

#my post #LONG POST #aftermath trilogy #gallius rax #hes my god Damn boy #i fuckin stan that shit #but I give you an essay so you can disagree with me point by point if you like

12 notes · View notes

imagine-it-like-this · 7 years

Photo

Title: A Soul for a Life Characters: Rowena, reader Relationships: Rowena/reader Genres: Angst, Drama Warnings: Feels

Your name: submit What is this? document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', function(){ walk(document.body, /\by\/n\b|\(y\/n\)/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value); }); function walk(node, v, p){ var child, next; switch (node.nodeType){ case 1: // Element case 9: // Document case 11: // Document fragment child = node.firstChild; while (child){ next = child.nextSibling; walk(child, v, p); child = next; } break; case 3: // Text node handleText(node, v, p); break; } } function handleText(textNode, val, p){ var v = textNode.nodeValue; v = v.replace(val, p); textNode.nodeValue = v; }

Laying your eyes upon the charred skeleton, your first reaction was to scream.

The smell of burned flesh lingered in the air; it melted into the copper one of blood, forming a repugnant mixture that made your stomach churn.

The only thing you could think of, as your eyes inspected the messy room, was that you needed to get out of here. The mere sight was making you uneasy. Add to that the smell and the realization that your girlfriend was gone for good this time…

You were going to go insane. You were already halfway there, with thoughts you couldn’t make sense of swirling through your head and images of all the times you’ve nearly lost her in the past flashing before your eyes. It was only a matter of time before you snapped.

As soon as you were out of the hotel, you let sobs overcome you. You leaned against a nearby tree for support and screamed. Screamed and shouted and cried and sobbed at the top of your lungs.

People on the streets stopped dead in their tracts and turned their heads in your direction. Other guests opened their windows and stared.

Everyone’s eyes were on you, observing you, no doubt silently judging you – for how dare someone be sad in public? The nerve! – but you didn’t care. You didn’t care about anything anymore.

Rowena was gone. There was nothing left for you anymore. What point was there in dignity when the one person worth having it for was gone for good?

You had to get her back. You didn’t know how – you just knew you needed her back among the living.

You needed her back in your life.

Needed her beautiful smile she only saved for you.

Needed her voice, rough around the edges, yet sweet and caring at times when you needed comfort.

Needed her arms around you, her fingers intertwined with yours.

Needed her. All of her.

But there were no spells you were aware of that could make that happen. Her Resurrection Seal was burned off, so you couldn’t count on that, either. From what you’ve seen, there wasn’t any of it left for you to try to repair.

The only thing that was left was…

You almost laughed. Rowena would have called you crazy. She’d have said you’ve lost your mind and probably proclaimed she’d rather stay dead than allow you to do that.

But she was gone now and you were grieving, and she really had no say in what you did.

Besides, it wasn’t even a choice at this point. You would rather have her hate you in life than love you in death.

Selfish? Maybe. But understandable.

And, given the circumstances, you were certain she would do the same for you. She would hate herself for it. She would never let herself live it down. But she would do it out of the same love you were doing it out of.

Gathering your remaining strength, you stood up, taking a deep breath to compose yourself. You reached for a tissue in your bag to wipe your eyes before walking away from this wretched place.

But not before flipping off all those who pointed and laughed at your misery and whispered things you were glad you couldn’t hear. Good luck with those boils, assholes! you thought, muttering a silent spell. Hope they were worth it.

You found the nearest crossroads and did the little ritual. You may not have been the best at magic, but you knew how to summon a demon.

This is the right thing to do, you told yourself over and over again. Rowena will understand. She will hate it, and possibly hate you a tiny bit, but she will understand why you had to do it.

You’d already killed for her. You’ve sacrificed yourself for her and almost died for her more than once. She was worried out of her mind and angry that you would go to such extremes for her, but she understood why you had to do it. She knew that you loved her.

And she will understand why you would sell your soul for her.

It wouldn’t last forever, as you’ve planned, but ten wonderful years was better than nothing. Besides, you could always come back to her as a demon. There was no doubt in your mind she would take the best care of your body until the time comes for you to return to it.

“What do we have here?” a smug voice said, startling you from your thoughts. The demon that stood before you was a tall, handsome man in his mid-twenties. He looked almost kind and innocent; if it weren’t for the eyes, you would’ve easily mistaken him for an ordinary human. “Why, hello there, little witch.”

“Cut the crap. I’m not in the mood,” you said in that no-nonsense tone you stole from Rowena. “I want to make a deal. You in or not?”

“Someone’s in a hurry,” the demon said, flashing you a grin.

You rolled your eyes. “Don’t waste my time. I… I need this deal.” And just like that, the tears were back. Damn it! Couldn’t you stay composed for one fucking minute? “Please.”

“Wow, you’re desperate!”

Thank you for noticing, jackass!

“I am,” you admitted. “So are we gonna do it or not?”

The demon straightened himself, fixing his tie and shirt like a businessman preparing for an important meeting. “Depends. What do you need?”

“I need you to bring my girlfriend back to life.”

“Really?”

You ignored his nonchalant tone. “Her name’s Rowena. This is her.”

“I know who she is,” he said when you tried to show him her picture on your phone. “Ginger whore.”

“Don’t call her that!” you hissed, trying your hardest not to let your anger get the best of you. This demon was a jackass, but he was also the person Rowena’s life – well, second chance at life – depended on. If you screwed this up, you could never see her again.

The demon smirked. “Hit a nerve, haven’t I?” He chuckled. “There used to be a bounty on her head, you know? Can’t believe someone finally did her in.”

You swallowed. “Will you bring her back or not?” You made sure to lace every word with deadly poison.

“Sure,” he said with a wink. “For a price.”

“I know. My soul. I get ten years, then I’m yours.”

“Correct! But are you sure you want her back? No offense, but that one… Ugh!” He shuddered, making a disgusted face. “I remember when she was in Hell. Bossed the old boss around like a pro. A cunning bitch, she was. Very… manipulative. Perfect Hell material, but damn, was she annoying. Wouldn’t wish her on my worst enemy.”

You shot him your deadliest glare. “I’m good. Thanks.”

The demon clapped his hands like an excited child at a toy store. “Great! Glad that’s settled.” He gave you a vibrant smile. “Come, now. Give us a kiss!”

You carefully entered the hotel room, heart beating fast with anticipation. The smell of burning flesh was still there and it took all your willpower to refrain from gagging.

Your eyes fell to the floor, where the charred corpse used to lie; you breathed a sigh of relief when you found nothing there, a spark of hope flickering in your heart.

It was when you turned to the bed that your eyes welled up with tears. Rowena sat on its corner, clad only in a light purple bathrobe. You blinked a few times, praying to all deities you could think of, real and made up, that what you were seeing was real, that she was really back.

It was.

She was.

“Rowena!” you exclaimed, throwing yourself at her. She fell on her back, with you on top of her, your arms tightly wrapped around her. “You’re here! You’re alive!”

“Aye.” She couldn’t keep the laughter in anymore. “Though, if ye keep this up, I won’t be for much longer.”

“I’ll take my chances,” you said, crashing you lips into hers for a quick, hungry kiss. “I love you so much, baby girl!”

“Me, too, darlin’.” She brought a hand to your cheek to caress it. “Very much.”

You got off her, rolling to her right. She turned on her side so she could look at you, linking her hand with yours. It felt so good to be able to touch her again. To be able to kiss her and look into those beautiful eyes full of life. To hear her voice, tough yet delicate.

The world wasn’t ready to lose the perfection that was Rowena MacLeod.

And neither were you.

“How are you feeling?” you asked, stroking her hair.

“Good,” she replied.

“Just good?”

“I’m not dead, am I?” she countered, pulling on a playful smile.

You grinned. “Thankfully.” You pressed your forehead to hers, lowering your hand so you could take hold of hers once again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, sweetheart.”

Rowena’s face fell. You knew talking about her death was the last thing she probably wanted mere moments after coming back to life, but it had to be said. You needed her to know. “It wasn’t yer fault.”

“I never should’ve left you alone. Not with him on the loose.”

“Ye didn’t know. None of us did,” she said. “What happened, happened. It’s in the past now. Let it stay there.”

You could tell it was painful for her to talk about it. No wonder, you thought, remembering what the Winchesters told you Lucifer did. If that had been you, you would have been a sobbing mess the moment you came back to life.

The fact that Rowena could smile only hours after the worst moments of her life just proved how strong she was.

“I’m sorry,” you said, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. The last thing you wanted was to hurt her. “I won’t mention it again.”

“Thank ye,” she said. “How’d ye do it?”

“Do what?”

“Bring me back. What kind of spell was it?” She shot you a bright smile. “I know it wasn’t my Seal; that thing burned up along with…” She shuddered at the memory and your grip on her hand tightened. “With me. So what was it? What’d ye do?”

You sat up, locking your eyes with the wall opposite you. You couldn’t look her in the eyes. How do you tell someone you sold your soul for them? How do you tell the person you love most that your promised forever will not be forever after all, that you would be gone in ten years and leave them all alone?

How do you tell them that to get them back you will once have to lose them?

“Y/N?” Rowena called worriedly.

“It wasn’t a spell,” you finally said, swallowing the lump in your throat.

“What was it, then?”

“It…” You gulped. “Rowena, I need you to promise me you won’t be mad.”

“Why would I be mad?”

Tears spilled down your cheeks, blurring your vision. “Promise me!” Then, softening your voice, you added: “Please.”

“Y/N…”

Rowena sat up as well and you turned your head, avoiding her glance.

“Y/N, look at me.”

She cupped your cheeks with both hands, tilting your head back to meet your tear-filled eyes.

“What happened, darlin’? What’d ye do?”

Her voice was sweet and comforting, motherly even; it only worsened your guilt. Here she was, being so gentle with you when you were just about to break her heart.

“Ye can tell me,” she said.

“You’ll hate me,” you whimpered.

“I could never hate ye, darlin’.”

“You will,” you told her. “I know you will.”

“I won’t.” She pecked you on the lips. “I promise.”

“You won’t be mad?”

“No.”

You took a deep breath. You could do it, you told yourself. You could tell her the truth. Rowena may have seemed scary, but on the inside she was a sweetheart. She wouldn’t hurt you.

Much.

“I sold my soul,” you said.

Rowena stared, all color draining from her pale skin. “Ye what?”

“I sold my soul.”

“Ye-ye sold your soul?”

“Yes.”

She stared for a moment longer.

Then she got up and started pacing back and forth, breaths deep and shallow, arms nervously flailing about.

“Say something,” you begged, choking back the sobs.

“Tell me ye didn’t do it,” she said.

“I did,” you cried, wiping away your tears.

“No.” She shook her head. “No!”

“I did it, Rowena!” you exclaimed. “I sold my soul! It’s done.”

She looked you in the eyes. “How could ye be so stupid?” she exclaimed.

Her words stung, but you knew she was just upset. If roles were reversed, your reaction wouldn’t differ much from hers. “I did it for you.”

Her own eyes filled with tears. “Bloody hell, Y/N! Why? I didn’t ask ye to do it! Ye didn’t have to do it!”

“I did!” you retorted, getting to your feet and walking over to her. “I need you in my life, Rowena. I couldn’t stand the thought of living without you. You’re the only person I have left in this world and I couldn’t just let you go. I love you too much for that. I don’t care if you hate me for it. I don’t care if you leave. You’re here and you’re alive – that’s the only thing that matters!”

“What about ye? In ten years the hounds will rip ye apart and drag ye to Hell!”

“That’s ten more years with you than I would’ve had if I hadn’t done it!” you said. “You wanna punish me for loving you? Fine! Scream at me! Curse me out! Hit me!”

“I’m not goin’ to hit ye!” Rowena said, fazed that you’d think she’d ever stoop so low. She took your hands into hers and squeezed them. Anger faded from her face, replaced by sadness she rarely showed. “Goodness, Y/N! Ye honestly think I’d harm ye?”

She pulled you into a hug, wrapping her arms firmly around you.

“I love ye,” she said softly. “I didn’t think it possible, but I do. I would never, ever hurt ye. I’m just scared.”

You knew it took a lot of courage for her to admit it out loud. Rowena rarely showed her true feelings; when she did, it was a heartbreaking sight.

“I know, sweetheart,” you whispered. “I’m scared, too. But I don’t regret a thing. I got you back. That makes everything worth it. And if given a chance, I’d make the same choice all over again. I would do anything – anything – for you.”

“Ye’re an idiot. A bampot. A numbnut.”

“I am. All that and more.”

“I hate ye,” she said, voice breaking. “I hate ye so much. No – I loathe ye!”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t,” she agreed. “But I wish I did. It’d make this easier.”

“Since when has anything been easy with us, Wena?” You pulled back from the hug. “We’ll get through this like we always do. Just the two of us.”

“We’ll have to,” Rowena said. “For the next ten years, I don’t want ye out of my sight. Where I go, ye go. What I do, ye do. I don’t wanna waste a single minute. Are we clear?”

You smiled. “Crystal. And when…” You breathed. “When they take me, I won’t be gone for long. We’ll find our way back to each other.”

Rowena nodded. “I’ll take care of yer body until ye’re ready to inhabit it again.”

“And I will do my best to remember the love I feel for you! And if they manage to torture it out of me, I need you to make me remember.”

“I will,” Rowena said, tears sliding down her rosy cheeks. “I promise.”

“I love you, Rowena. I love you so, so much. That’s forever.”

“Forever,” she agreed, her lips connecting with yours in a sweet, gentle kiss.

Editor: @apritelleorai

#rowena #rowena x reader #rowena imagine #spn #supernatural #spn imagine #supernatural imagine #rowena macleod #rowena macleod imagine #spn rowena #rowena spn

51 notes · View notes

samwinlover-blog · 7 years

Text

Make Me Jealous

Pairing: Sam x Reader Characters: Sam, Dean, Reader, a few guys in bars Warnings: Jealous!Sam, fluff, swearing, implied smut Word count: 1865 Tag list: @amanda-teaches @myplaceofthingsilove @spectaculicious @bambinovak @spnfanficpond @writingthingsisdifficult @rocksalts-and-winchesters @aliensdeservebetter Summary: The Reader realizes that she’s making Sam jealous and decides to roll with it.

The bar you, Sam and Dean had driven up to was tacky at best. A flickering neon sign reading JJ’s Bar and Pub hung crookedly above the front entrance and the entire placed smelled of cheap liquor. But honestly, the three of you weren’t picky. You had just finished a particularly stressful hunt and were in desperate need of a night off. So when Dean suggested going out, you and Sam didn’t object.

You were sitting right in front of the bar tender with Sam to your right and Dean to your left. Dean ordered three shots of whiskey with a sly wink at the blonde jotting down his order. You rolled your eyes at his almost compulsory flirting, and struck up a conversation with Sam.

There had always been this tension between you and the taller Winchester, this hint at more than friendship between the two of you. You’d hooked up once, the night before Lucifer almost ended the world. But that was just a drunken last ditch effort to make your last night on earth fun. You hadn’t spoken about it since and hadn’t taken the relationship any further. So the two of you were stuck in this strange limbo, half way between friends and lovers. It bothered Dean, who was perpetually grumbling at the two of you to “makeout already” But the only reaction this ever evoked from Sam was an eye roll or a hit on the shoulder- so you took the hint.

When Sam got up to use the restroom you started eyeing your drink and waiting for Dean to be rejected so he could talk to you instead. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like he was going to strike out any time soon. The bartender was so completely his type: giggly, blonde, and drunk. You watched the way she twirled her hair on her pointer finger and looked at Dean’s lips. Yeah, you weren’t going to be talking to Dean any time soon. So you sat there with your whiskey, waiting for Sam to return.

You heard the leather seat groan as someone sat down, but when you turned your head it wasn’t Sam who you saw. A semi attractive male with a wide grin and gleaming teeth had was sitting next to you. His eyes were focused solely on your own and his body was angled towards yours. His face was good looking enough- lightly freckled with tanned skin and sharp blue eyes.

“Hi, I’m Zach”, he reached out a hand which you shook, smiling slightly.

“I’m (Y/N)”, you replied.

“Are you here alone?”, he asked, clearly referring to Dean.

“Well I’m actually here with my friends, but they’re, um, preoccupied right now”, you responded, implying it was okay for him to sit down and talk with you. This Zach guy was nice enough, and you’d had a long week, why not take him back to the motel?

Turns out the two of you were pretty similar and connected right away. He told you about his job and you told him about college- reminiscing on wild parties and crazy professors. Sam still wasn’t back from the bathroom and you didn’t want him to return any time soon. You were actually having a nice time. Even though you knew it couldn’t be anything permanent, flirting with Zach was fun, easy. All you wanted was fun and easy.

“So tell me more about you, what do you do for a living?”, Zach questioned.

You lied with ease, “I’m a physical therapist”

“Oh, really? So what, you like help athletes rehabilitate and stuff?”, you nodded your head in return. Zach then launched into some story about him being a D3 soccer player in college, telling small jokes along the way which had you in stitches.

But just as he was finishing, Sam walked up behind him.

“Oh, hey Sam”, you looked up at him. His lips were pursed and his eyebrows were furrowed into a frown, you wondered why.

“This is Zach”, you gestured in his direction.

Sam’s face was still set in a hard line, his jaw clenched tightly and hands gripping the sleeves of his jacket. Zach picked up on this and became flustered, “Uh, I think I’m gonna head out. It was really nice talking to you, (Y/N).”

He then turned to you and spoke more privately, “Would you mind giving me your phone number? I’d really like to talk some more some time.”

You made yourself fake blush and asked the bartender for a pen, which you took and promptly scribbled random numbers onto the palm of his hand. As cute as he was, you definitely didn’t need any baggage. You were a hunter, and what you did for a living would quite literally tear nice guys like Zach apart.

With one last grin in your direction, he left the bar, looking down at your phone number the entire time.

“Who was that asshole?”, Sam voiced in your direction, you could tell he was annoyed but you didn’t know why.

“He was pretty nice actually- what’s up with you, you’re acting pissy”, you responded.

The look of anger instantly wiped from Sam’s face, his features softened and his hands unclenched.

“Oh, um, nothing, I just have a, uh, headache, sorry”, he was clearly lying.

And then it hit you, Sam was jealous.

You tried to conceal a smirk as you said, “Okay then, you won’t mind if I go talk to that guy over there then?”

That same look from before flashed across his face before he said through gritted teeth, “Yep, um sure, I’ll just be here”

Grinning like a cat, you rose from your seat to go chase the brunette that had caught your eye earlier. You were pretty sure Sam was jealous, he had to be- what other emotion could that have been? So you decided to play it out, see if Sam would say anything; you secretly hoped he would.

"What are you drinking?”, you asked, nodding towards the brunette’s near empty cup.

“Whiskey, nothing but, how about you?”, he nodded back. His voice was low and gravelly, but not nice sounding like Deans. It was forced, as if he was trying to sound more masculine than he actually was- a huge turn off.

“Same here”, you lied with a slight wink.

“Really? I like a girl who can hold her own.”, he replied and you smiled in return. He was about your age, maybe a little older. His face was kind looking, paler with cunning green eyes and thick eyelashes. His hair was curly and a rich brown color, similar to earth or old leather.

You giggled and flirted with this guy for about 15 minutes. He “taught” you how to play poker, even though you most definitely could hustle his ass if you wanted- and on a normal night, you probably would have. But tonight was about Sam, you wanted to see how far you had to go to get a reaction from him. After a while, you looked back at Sam and saw he was watching you too. His jaw was set and you saw the linings of those muscles peek out from his cheeks, his knuckles were also paper white from how tightly he was gripping his beer. Clearly he was jealous like before, but that wasn’t enough. You wanted him to do something, say something.

After another 15 minutes you got bored, this guy truly was boring- nothing compared to the endless stories and laughs you shared with Sam on a daily basis. You found yourself comparing everything he did to Sam in your head, and every time the younger Winchester won out. You made up some excuse and stalked back to your seat, defeated and convinced you had read Sam's face wrong earlier.

But when you sat down, Sam turned to you and said, “Why do you always do that?”

Your head snapped up from the watermark on the table you’d previously been studying, “Do what?”

“You always go after guys who clearly aren’t’ good enough for you.”

This was the reaction you were hoping for, you just needed to push him a little further.

“I don’t do that, Sam”

“Yeah, you definitely do, (Y/N). Like, who even was that guy back there? Some random biker who doesn’t know squat about you?”, he replied, shaking his head with his jaw still clenched.

Anger then flushed your face, who was he to criticize you when he couldn’t even make a move himself?

“Oh really, Sam? Then who’s the right guy, huh? Tell me.”, you retorted, refusing to break eye contact with him.

“Never mind”, his voice trailed off and he started looking down at his hands.

“No, don’t bring that up and then just stop.”, you said back to him, voice rising.

“What do you want from me, (Y/N)?!”, he turned back to you, voice intensifying to match your own.

“I want you to say what you mean, exactly what you mean.”, you yelled back.

“Fine! You want me to say something?! I’ll say something!”, he was staring directly into your eyes at this point, hands raised up in anger.

“Okay, do it!”, you threw your hands towards him in a get on with it gesture.

“I’m in love with you, okay?! Is that what you want to hear?", his voice was at a shout now.

Your jaw dropped open, eyes widening in disbelief. That wasn’t what you expected to hear, not even close. You thought he only wanted you for your body, if he wanted you at all. But he used the L word. Love. He said he loved you.

Your voice was barely a whisper when you responded, “I love you too”

You saw surprise stretch across his face, “Really?”

You nodded.

“Then why do you flirt with random guys in bars like these?”, he asked again, gesturing around him.

“To get your attention you idiot!”, you smiled. You felt giddy, overwhelmed with happiness. Sam Winchester loved you, Sam Winchester. The one you’d been best friends with forever, this beautiful, smart, kind person you’d always admire. He loved you.

Now it was your turn to question, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want to ruin things, if you were in my position what would you do?”, he responded.

“I have been in your position! And I just told you what I would do.”, you replied, referring to the whole flirting-with-random-guys tactic you’d told him about moments earlier.

He blushed and smiled while he leaned in to whisper, “Let’s make up for lost time then.”

Your toes curled in your boots as you went to grab your jacket before realizing that Dean was gone, and had taken the Impala with him.

He was always doing this, picking up some random girl and leaving you and Sam stranded with no ride home.

A look from Sam told you he understood too as he said, “I’ll call us a cab.”

He reached down for his phone to dial the number of the taxi company, but not before giving you a quick kiss on the lips, squeezing your waist and taking your hand in his own.

315 notes · View notes

oumakokichi · 7 years

Note

This little detail in chapter 5 has been on my mind and was wondering what your thoughts on it were. Before laying down ontop of Momota's jacket on the press, Ouma takes his shirt and scarf off, but was that truely necessary? His top wasn't the most baggy of clothes (if anything those things on his pants or hair would more likely hang out from underneath the press). Could the reason he took off the shirt and had Momota flush it be so someone would find that clue? Or was this a simple error?

Thank you so much for asking this! There’s still a lot Iwant to talk about with Chapter 5, and answering this question kind of requiresgoing into detail once again about how incredibly smart Ouma is.

The short answer is that absolutely, 100%, yes, I believe heleft those clues on purpose. There’s very little with Ouma that’s seldom leftup to chance or accident. If Komaeda is a character who throws caution to thewind and allows chance into his plans every single time because he knows luckis on his side, Ouma is a character with almost no luck whatsoever wholiterally has to create his own luck in any scenario, and doesn’t take almostany risks at all unless there’s a 99.9% chance he’s going to win, or unless hedoesn’t have any choice but to take arisk.

Having gone through Chapters 5 and 6 very carefully, I wantto go back to a statement I said in one of my first meta posts, about how Ithink Ouma is the smartest character in the entirety of ndrv3. Not only do Istill believe this to be true, but having picked through the clues and hintsthat Ouma leaves for the group in the final chapter, I think this is truer thanever. The answer to “how smart is Ouma?” is “way, way too smart.”

Heavy, heavy spoilers will be under the read more, so please only read if you’re comfortable with that!

I’m not saying this as a justification of the things he’sdone or just because I like him as a character. I’m not saying anyone has tolike him, because he’s still a flawed character who does horrible things inorder to accomplish a well-intentioned objective, and it’s still perfectly okayto dislike him for those flaws and the things he does. What I want to conveywith this is simply that Ouma is not a character motivated by either malice orchaos, but that he is a master strategist, and that his every move is extremelyplanned and calculated.

There’s really no denying the fact when looking at the laterchapters that Ouma was a genius in the most literal sense of the word, and thatfrom a strategic standpoint, he was miles ahead of the other characters.

The reason I can’t think of Ouma’s hints and clues inChapter 5 as anything accidental is precisely because Momota seems to reach theconclusion by the end of the trial that even if they do go into the voting timewith the Exisal still unopened (leaving the catbox closed, in other words),Monokuma is already relatively sure of Saihara’s original (and correct) theory:that Ouma is dead, that Momota himself is the culprit and the one sitting inthe Exisal, and that the camcorder video was “edited” by stopping both thecamcorder and the press at the exact same time and pulling a culprit-victimswitch when the press was obscuring the body.

With Monokuma willing to take a bet on the “reasoning of aSHSL Detective,” as he himself puts it, there inevitably rose the risk of asituation in which all the rest of the group votes on the wrong answer (Ouma asthe culprit, Momota as the victim) like Saihara asked them to at the end, butMonokuma himself still votes on the right answer. And in that case it becomesimpossible to prove that Monokuma “didn’t know” the truth about the case, and there’sno longer any way to discredit the basis for the killing game itself.

By the end, with Saihara having already reached the truthdue to his detective’s intuition and deductive reasoning, there was a very,very real possibility that the whole group would’ve been flat-out executed, andMomota himself could realize that, which is ultimately why he came forward andopened the Exisal himself.

The thing is, this is a conclusion Momota reached afterfollowing a script specifically written out for him by Ouma, and following a plan designed by Ouma. The entire plan wassomething Ouma had to improvise in the span of less than two hours after Makicompletely ruined his attempt at dragging the killing game to a halt, but stillin that short amount of time he wrote an entire script that was almost the sizeof a telephone book and planned every single detail within his capacity toforesee, right down to how his fellow classmates would respond or react tothings within the trial.

He knew them. Hecould predict things about them. Like Kamukura and Junko before him, who arethe single two other characters we see talking about “boredom” and “analysis”the same way that Ouma does, it’s very clear to see that Ouma was incredibly smart. If he could write outan entire script for Momota that covered almost every single possible thingthat any of his classmates would think to argue or say, then it follows thatthere’s literally no way he wouldn’t also have predicted that Saihara wouldsolve his “unsolvable catbox murderer.”

After all, he himself spent most of the game challengingSaihara to find the truth, to believe in his own reasoning, and to improvehimself as a detective. He clearly saw Saihara’s potential, because thatpotential itself is what interested him about Saihara so much.

There’s no way a character as careful and cunning as Oumawould’ve made such huge slip-ups like leaving Momota’s jacket sleeve (the wrong sleeve, by the way, which wasitself a clue) sticking out of the press or telling Momota to flush Ouma’sshirt down the toilet knowing that it would be incredibly easy for it toresurface because it would clog the whole thing, unless those thing were veryintentional and meant to be clues.

Because ultimately, as much as Ouma wanted to take down themastermind and end the killing game once and for all, he was certainly notwilling to actually risk everyone else’s lives on it. No matter how much peopledo or don’t believe Ouma’s words, his motive video itself in Chapter 6 confirmsthat his motto, his single guiding code as the leader of DICE, was “We don’tkill people.” When Ouma says he hates the killing game, that he hates murdersand deaths, there’s no way to take that as anything but the truth, because thegame itself and all objective proof points to this same conclusion. Takinghuman lives was the single biggesttaboo for him, and that’s precisely why he became so desperate and tired afterthe stunts he had to resort to in Chapter 4.

He would’ve known far, far earlier than Momota that therewas always a chance that Monokuma would reach the right answer himself or bewilling to take a bet on it, using Saihara’s previous track record of beingcorrect as leverage. He would’ve known that in that case, all the group wouldstill get executed regardless, particularly if the mastermind was willing tocheat and not follow their own rules, as we know Tsumugi is inclined to do. And ultimately, he would’ve decided that hissacrifice was better spent not getting the whole group killed, but insteadsending a single, huge subversive message to the mastermind, and leaving cluesto the rest of the group that would become vital to them ending the killing game in the next chapter—which is exactlywhat happens, actually.

If Ouma had actually wanted to make a completely unsolvablecatbox murder, it would’ve been all too easy for him to leave nothing stickingout of the press at all. If he’d wanted his own clothes disposed of so that hisshirt didn’t stick out, he could’ve just told Momota to hold onto it in theExisal with him, rather than flushing it. And most notably, he wouldn’t havegiven them the camcorder video at all.

That video itself was the single most damning piece ofevidence that wound up proving that Ouma was actually dead and Momota was theculprit, and it was handed to the group quite literally on a silver platter.The act of “tricking” the group into thinking it was Momota at first onlyresulted in them realizing the truth later, realizing the angle and purpose ofthe press to cover up the victim. There was absolutely no reason for Ouma torecord that video and then hand it to the whole group as a present unless itwas absolutely designed to help them solve the case, rather than leaving itunsolvable forever. Again: you don’t give hints and clues out for free if youdon’t want people to solve them.

Following Chapter 5, there are so many things about Oumathat Saihara and the others uncover. Literally most of the investigation forChapter 6 is spent realizing “hey Ouma left all these secret messages and alsogave us literally ALL the tools we need to uncover the mastermind and get outof this school, and also wow he kind of was super scarily smart about all thisshit.”

I want to write in-depth about some of these Chapter 6 cluesat a later time, including most notably the fact that Ouma had accessed Amami’slab and left clues necessary to the whole group’s survival all around theschool as early as the beginning ofChapter 4. And he did it all while obfuscating stupidity, making himselflook as if he was simultaneously just an asshole with a big mouth and alsocompletely on the mastermind’s side, and didn’t even begin to show his trueintentions until Chapter 5. But that’s for a later time, and I’ll probably haveto take my time writing it, because there’s way too much to start with.

In the meantime, I hope this ask helped! Ouma absolutelywanted to take down the mastermind and end the killing game in Chapter 5—just notby taking everyone else down with him. He was absolutely not willing to put other people’s lives at risk, moreso after whathe chose to do to Miu and Gonta in Chapter 4 and how that completely wentagainst what he stood for. And knowing that Monokuma might well ignore his ownrules and execute everyone anyway, that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take,so he staked his life on trying to send a message instead, and getting everyoneto start thinking and solving things for themselves in Chapter 6, rather thanending things in the Chapter 5 trial.

I hope by reading this people can at least appreciate thatOuma is well-written, even if they certainly aren’t obligated to like him as aperson. He absolutely can be a little horrible gremlin who does morallyquestionable things, and he knows how to target people emotionally and presshis advantages. But he’s also unarguably, undeniably smart, very smart, and all of his calculationsand strategic planning was for the sake of ending not only the current killinggame they were in but trying to end the concept of the killing game as a whole,and that is fascinating as amotivation. Thank you for any of you who’ve read this far; this was very fun towrite!

#ndrv3 #drv3 #new danganronpa v3 #kokichi ouma #ouma kokichi #ndrv3 spoilers //#my meta #okay to reblog #i'm so excited to be able to start writing more about chapter 6 spoilers and misconceptions soon #there's so much that's incredibly fascinating there and i haven't seen a lot of people talking about it yet #anyway i hope people enjoy this piece because it was incredibly fun to write!#alsiushaku

74 notes · View notes

sincerelymrnaked · 6 years

Text

Danger Room: Toronto’s most hostile comedy show for hecklers

“GET OFF THE STAGE MAN BOOBS!”

“DON’T EAT THE MIC YOU FAT FUCK!”

“GET DOWN BEFORE ONE OF YOUR BUTTONS HITS SOMEONE IN THE EYE!”

“SAY A JOKE YOU SAGGING ASSHOLE!”

We walk into the bar known as The Corner Comedy Club, a grimy comedy club with a fitting slogan: “It’s so small it’s funny,” on the corner of John Street in Downtown Toronto. A fat comedian in a red plaid shirt and ripped jeans is sitting on a stool on the stage with a mic in a sweaty hand, getting chewed alive by a crowd of the most ruthless hecklers I’ve ever witnessed.

“YOU’RE AS COMICAL AS YOU ARE SKINNY!”

“Yeah, that’s what your mom said when I was sitting on her face last night!” Fat Comedian calls.

“BOOOOOO!”

“GOOD MOM JOKE YOU FUCKING AMATURE!”

“I PAID TEN BUCKS FOR THIS SHIT!”

The poor guy can’t get two sentences in without being ripped to shreds. Chirps fly through the bar like rapid gunfire, the heavy-duty artillery leaving the brave comedian wounded and humiliated on the grimy stage. He’s struggling to stay upright, pushing weak incest and dead baby jokes, desperate for the slightest trace of laughter that he’s actually responsible for, trying to make a joke and not be the joke. He has no such luck.

But this wasn’t your usual comedy night. This was Danger Room — a night were most comedians don’t last more than one minute before the shark tank of hecklers swallow them whole.

And one of my best friends was soon to perform.

Let’s back up to six hours prior.

I was at the gym near the free-weights when I bumped into one of my old buddies from High School. He’s a writer too and whenever we see each other we often dive into discussions about the pressure to engage readers. He told me he’s been writing a new short story every day, but that he’s also been doing some stand-up comedy to test material in front of a live crowd.

“Really? Stand up?”

“Yeah man. There’s this open mic place I go on Sunday nights on Danforth and Broadview.”

“How’s the crowd?”

“Depends on the night. Sometimes there’s silence, but it’s a good crowd to go to for your first time. Everyone’s pretty open and positive.”

“I’ve got a friend who I’ve been wanting to get on stage for a while. He’s a born comedian! I would love to get him on.”

“You guys should definitely come by!”

My friend Phil is the funniest guy I know. Not only can he spit out any accent with cunning precision, he can also spiral into rants of improvised comedy as if he wrote the stuff down and rehearsed it for weeks. He can play any role. Become any character. He’s quick. Spontaneous. And damn right hysterical. But here’s the problem: he’s nervous about getting up on stage.

Here’s why.

Phil and I are fraternity brothers, and a couple years ago I convinced him to do some stand up for a sorority’s philanthropy event. I had helped him prepare his set, making sure to throw in some of his signature stuff. His Frat Bro PC character he not-so-loosely based off of South Park was one of his best rants, and we decided it would be fitting for a Greek life gathering.

But were we ever wrong.

The audience of sorority sisters, children, parents, and distinguished philanthropists were not prepared for a set screaming about how “PC DOESN’T STAND FOR PUSSY CRUSHING!”

Though his material was comedic gold to my buddies and I, it wasn’t the right time or place, and it left a sea of mothers and daughters staring at him with lowered jaws and wide eyes — all in deafening silence.

Phil’s been rightfully nervous to get back up on stage ever since. I figured tonight would be the perfect opportunity to get him back on that horse.

I shot him a quick message: “We’re going out tonight.”

After meeting up with Phil and some buddies for a quick pre-game, we all hit the road in my buddy’s soccer mom van and drove twenty-five minutes to Danforth and Broadview. This was the night of Thanksgiving Sunday and most of us had dinners with our families that delayed our departure time, so we were running a little late. Actually we were running very late. By the time we arrived at the bar, the show was over and everyone was gone.

Giving up, we considered the alternatives of going to another bar, racking in some shots, and maybe getting Phil a mic anyway. But then my buddy Bernie came up with a final idea.

“There’s another comedy club not too far,” says Bernie, scrolling through his phone. “It’s just on the corner of John Street. Ten-minute drive from here. Some show called ‘Danger Room.’”

“Is it open mic?” Phil asks.

“I think it’s for actual comedians. And I think there’s cover.”

We agree to check it out. Nothing else was happening anyway.

When we get to the bar, we ask the guy running the door — a bearded man in a leather jacket, sporting a red bandana around his head — if our buddy can get up on stage. “You done this before?” he asks Phil.

“This is my first time,” Phil replies, not counting the sorority event.

“First time? And you’re fucking stupid enough to come here!”

In that second, as if on cue, we hear from inside: “GET OFF THE STAGE MAN BOOBS!”

We shuffle through the crowd and find seats near the front of the tiny bar. The place reeks of beer and tobacco smothered clothing, with faint lighting illuminating a small wooden plank constituting a stage. Drunken chirps are firing from a group of guys scattered all around the grubby place; the poor comedian currently up is being publicly decimated. He struggles to squeeze in some of his prepared jokes until one of the drunkest hecklers literally rips him off the stage.

“YOU ARE FUCKING AWFUL!”

“PLEASE! NEVER COME BACK HERE!”

More comedians step on, and nobody does any better. The drunker the hecklers get, the more shameless they are with their heckling. This results in comedic desperation: comedians resort to new levels of vulgarity in hopes of cheaper laughs. Jokes about sex become jokes about overdosing on drugs, which becomes jokes about being fucked by dads, which spirals into jokes about being a child predator. The laughs never come. Well, besides the laughter deriving from shameless heckling. The cycle continues.

One guy is heckled so badly, he tries to avert the attention to the Muslim sitting in front of him, hoping to use pathetic racism to weasel out of the ambush. (Yup, a real stand-up piece of shit.) He’s proven weak and unfit, and this only amps-up the insults.

“YOU LOOK LIKE A GERMAN SKATEBOARDER THAT ALSO DJ’S!” one guy screams at a comedian in a bomber jacket with a big man-bun dangling from a backward cap.

“AND YOUR CAP LOOKS LIKE IT’S TAKING A SHIT OUT OF YOUR HEAD!” another heckler adds. (Not all of them were so clever.)

“I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE COMEDY, NOT A SPECIAL-ED ASSEMBLY!”

Why would anybody stand up before such a merciless crowd? Simple. To battle the most vicious monster there is, and survive to tell the tale. Most of the guys who go up are actual comedians, who come to Danger Room to test their skills against the worst crowd you could possibly encounter. After a Danger Room attack, silence would feel like a compliment.

But even these guys were used to getting up on stage. Phil was up next.

He sits on the stool and raises the mic to his mouth.

“WHAT’S THIS PUSSY GOING TO DO? SING HIGHSCHOOL MUSICAL?”

“GET OFF THE STAGE PEDRO!”

“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WATCH CHILD PORN AND JERK OFF IN PUBLIC SWIMMING POOLS!”

Despite these initial heckles, Phil starts off strong by faking weak. He begins with a quaky, loud and high-pitched voice, playing the character of someone terrified to perform — like a voice-cracking thirteen-year-old about to read the Torah for his Bar Mitzvah.

“H-high g-guys, my n-name is Ph-Phillip and I’m s-super n-nervous t-to perform t-tonight in front o-of all o-of y-y-you…”

Before the next heckle can fire, he jumps up, snaps into a booming southern accent — blaring with confidence and authority — and ascends into an incredible rant about the astonishing diversity of the crowd which he “ain’t used to in ma neighborhood back in Virginia!”

Everyone erupts into laughter.

A heckler screams a dumb Jew joke.

He switches from his southern accent to his Gay-Nazi-German-accent. “Vhat nobody veally knows is zhat vee vere all gay!”

His set is completely improvised. He rolls with the punches and starts introducing all his classic characters that were once confined to the frat house living room: Puerto Rican drug dealer, Australian pervert, Chinese businessman — those that were previously only available to the boys at the end of a drunk night with pizza boxes scattered on the floor. For the first time, Phil’s contagious humour is completely unleashed. And nobody could get enough of him.

When the heavy chirps start flying, unlike the other guys, he doesn’t revert to desperate comedy by raising the vulgarity or trying to deflect the cruelty towards people sitting in the crowd. He’s genuinely funny, and not desperate to make the crowd think so. He simply is.

And if you think I’m just being biased, even the drunkest hecklers gave him a big round of applause. It was the first and only applause of the night. None of the boys could believe it. But I’m gonna be a huge cheeseball and say I knew he had it in him all along.

As we walked out, the owner told Phil he could come back anytime. Two comedians gave him their business cards as they hacked darts outside the bar. People who were in the audience asked him where his next gig is. He was the newly-emerged celebrity of the night.

People often feel like they need to ease into challenges. They prefer slowly moving forward, gradual development, and keeping their dignity intact throughout the process. But sometimes your dignity has to be compromised. Sometimes you need to dive headfirst into the trenches of difficulty in order to come out stronger. Sometimes you need to go all in.

Failure has a way of holding people back — the silence of the sorority is something that may’ve stopped Phil from further performances, but the bravery to move on was the key that popped open the door to the night’s success.

Now, allow me to be sincerely-naked-honest for a second: There’s a lot of assholes in the world.

There’s a lot of people who are going to give you every reason possible to stay safely buckled to your seat. They’ll take pride in ripping you down, in laughing or shaming you for even trying. But that’s all part of the system of growth. When you make yourself vulnerable and try to pursue something scary, chances are you’re going to eat shit sometimes. And most times, people will shit on you.

It’s one of the biggest risks of starting a blog — hell, about writing in general. Not everyone is going to agree with the things you’re writing about, and a whole lot of people will make the effort to make their disagreements heard loud and clear. They’ll so much as bombard you with novella-long comments about how you don’t have the right to say the things you’re saying. They’ll send you hate emails. They’ll even straight up say that you don’t have what it takes and that you should just give up — the equivalence of a heckling reaction to a punchline.

When I was the opinion editor for my university paper, it was a hard pill to swallow: the acceptance that not everyone will like or agree with my stuff. But I eventually began to see flack as a necessary part of my development, similar to the way comedians who come to Danger Room see ruthless heckles. It’s part of the process, and the more accustomed you get to the horrors of people protesting against your stance, the taller you eventually stand.

In summary, there’s two ways of approaching assholes who love to shit on you like it’s their day job. 1) You could play victim and cry about being verbally assaulted, complain about feeling unsafe, or blame all lack of success on the pricks that walk the earth. 2) You could suck it up and use those same assholes to make you stronger.

We may bomb it. We may kill it. But until we try, we’re letting the hecklers win.

We all live in a Danger Room. So let’s use those pricks to our advantage.

Let’s raise our red solo cups (or cheap glasses of wine if you think you’re classy or something) to the assholes that make silence feel like a compliment — and who make our worst fears a fucking joke.

Sincerely, Mr. Naked.

#danger zone #comedy #SincerelyNaked

0 notes