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#how can i be worried that i am fine and irredeemably bad at the same time 😭 @ my brain: bro pick one
petitprincess1 · 1 year
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Do you think Stella should or shouldn't be seen as misunderstood and hurt?
Why do I feel like this was sent in annoyance and/or anger? Might just be me. Anyway, just a smol disclaimer:
I can say Stella is a bitch and also wonder about her reasoning for acting this way, as well as knowing more to this, at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.
(Also, do not worry, anon. I'm not upset with you. I just really wanted to say that.) I've said this before and I'll keep saying, I know a bit more than most people here do because of Viv's Patreon. Which sucks because I really wouldn't mind talking about this, but I won't (unless I can super trust you and I know you). And, yeah, you don't have to believe that I am. That's fine. But I'm not one to like spreading misinfo.
So, trust me, Stella is kind of an asshole. Does that mean she's irredeemable or doesn't deserve to have more development? Of course not. I think everyone is waiting for more development. But some people are just too impatient and would talk about how underdeveloped Stella is rather than.....waiting to see what happens in the next episodes!
Plus, I think what pisses me off the most with most that say Stella is "badly written" or is "hurt" is that we've seen her being abusive BEFORE THE CHEATING HAPPENS! So, what's the reasoning there? Why was she being rude and talking shit about Stolas then? You can't sit here and pretend that people have NO REASON to dislike Stella. Like, really??
Plus, I still think some of them wouldn't be so upset if Stella were a man. Not all, but some. Even then, I doubt anyone would be as vocal saying how hurt Stella is and that the writing is bad...if she were a man. Can you imagine how quickly the internet would call that person a clown? Again, not all of them. Mainly the ones that hated Stolas to begin with.
(Also, no, I don't think Stolas is that much of a victim either. He did cheat, regardless of the reasoning, and should get consequences. Doesn't mean that I can't realize that his reason is a teensy bit more understandable.)
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woodruff · 3 years
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blackstarising · 3 years
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coming back to this post i made again to elaborate - especially as the ted lasso fandom is discussing sam/rebecca and fandom racism in general. there are takes that are important to make that i had failed to previously, but there's also a growing amount of takes that i have to, As A Black Person™, respectfully disagree with.
tl;dr for the essay below sam being infantilized and the sam/rebecca relationship are not the same issue and discussing the former one doesn't mean excusing the latter. and we've reached the glen of the Dark Forest where we sit down and talk about fandom racism.
i should have elaborated this in my last post about sam/rebecca, but i didn't. i'll say it now - i personally don't support sam and rebecca getting together for real. i believe what people are saying is entirely correct, even though sam is an adult legally, he and rebecca are, at the very least, two wildly different stages of life. for americans, he's at the equivalent of being a junior in college. there are things he hasn't gotten the chance to experience and there are areas he needs to grow in. when i was younger, i didn't understand the significance of these age gaps, i just thought it would be fine if it was legal, but as someone who is now a little older than sam in universe, i understand fully. we can't downplay this. whether or not you think sam works for rebecca or not, even despite the gender inversion of the Older Man Younger Woman trope, whether or not he is a legal adult, i don't think at this point in time, their relationship would work. i think it's an interesting narrative device, but i don't want to see it play out in reality.
that being said!
what's worrying me is that two discussions are being conflated here that shouldn't be. sam having agency and being a little more grown™ than he's perceived to be does not suddenly make his relationship with rebecca justified. i had decided to bring it up because sam was being brought into the spotlight again and i was starting to realizing that his infantilization was more common than i felt comfortable with.
sam's infantilization (and i will continue to call it that), is a microaggression. it's is in the range of microaggressions that i would categorize as 'fandom overcompensation'. we have a prominent character of color that exhibits traits that aren't stereotypical, and we don't want to appear racist or stereotypical, so we lean hard in the other direction. they're not aggressive, they're a Sweet Baby, they're not world weary, they're now a little naive. they're not cold and distant, they're so nice and sweet that there's no one that wouldn't want approach them, and yeah, on their face, these new traits are a departure and, on their face, they seem they look really good.
but at a certain point, it reaches an inflection point, and, like the aftertaste of a diet coke, that alleged sweetness veers into something a lot less sweet. it veers into a lack of agency for the character. it veers into an innocence that appears to indicate that the person can't even take care of themselves. it veers into a one-dimensional characterization that doesn't allow for any depth or negative emotion.
it's not kind anymore. it's not a nice departure from negative stereotypes. it's not compensating for anything.
it's patronizing.
it is important that we emphasize that characters of color are more than the toxic stereotypes we lay on them, yes, but we make a mistake in thinking that the solution is overcorrection. for one thing, people of color can usually tell. don't get it twisted, it's actually pretty obvious. for another, it just shifts from one dimension to another. people of color are still supposed to be Only One Character Trait while white people can contain multitudes. ted, who is pretty much as pollyanna as they come, can be at once innocent and naive and deep and troubled and funny and scared. jamie can be a prick and sexy and also lonely and also a victim of abuse. sam, however, even though he was bullied (by jamie, no less), is thousands of miles away from home, and has led a protest on his team, is usually just characterized as human sunshine with much less acknowledgement of any other traits beyond that.
and that's why i cringe when fandom calls sam a Sweet Baby Boy without any sense of irony. is that all we're taking away? after all this time? even for a comedy, sam has received a substantive of screen time over two whole seasons, and we've seen a range of emotions from him. so as a black person it's hurtful that it's boiled down to Sweet Baby Boy.
that's the problem. we need to subvert stereotypes, but more importantly, we need to understand that people of color are not props, or pieces of cardboard for their white counterparts. they are full and actualized and have agency in their own right and they can have other emotions than Angry and Mean or Sweet and Bubbly without any nuance between the two. i think the show actually does a relatively good job of giving sam depth (relatively, always room for improvement, mind you), especially holding it in tension with his youth, but the fandom, i worry, does not.
it's the same reason why finn from star wars started out as the next male protagonist in the sequel trilogy but by the third movie was just running around yelling for REY!! it's the same reason why when people make Phase 4 Is the Phase For Therapy gifsets for the mcu and show wanda maximoff, loki, and bucky barnes crying and being sad but purposefully exclude sam wilson who had an entire show to tell us how difficult his life is, because people find out if pee oh sees are also complex, they'll tell the church.
and the reason why i picked up on this very early on is because i am an organic, certified fresh, 100% homegrown, non-gmo, a little ashy, indigenous sub saharan African black person. the ghanaian tribes i'm descended from have told me so, my black ass parents have told me so, and the nurses at the hospital in [insert asian country here] that started freaking out about how curly my hair was as my mother was mid pushing me out told me so!
and this stuff has real life implications. listen: being patronized as a black person sucks. do you know how many times i was patted on the back for doing quite honestly, the bare minimum in school? do you know how many times i was told how 'well spoken' or 'eloquent' i was because i just happen to have a white accent or use three syllable words? do you know how many times i've been cooed over by white women who couldn't get over how sweet i was just because i wasn't confrontational or rude like they wrongly expected me to be?
that's why they're called microaggressions. it's not a cross on your lawn or having the n-word spat in your face, but it cuts you down little by little until you're completely drained.
so that's the nuance. that's the subversion. the overcompensation is not a good thing. and people of color (and i suspect, even white people) have picked up on, in general, the different ways fandom treats sam and dani and even nate. what all of these discussions are converging on is fandom racism, which is not the diet form of racism, but another place for racism to reveal itself. and yeah, it's uncomfortable. it can seem out of left field. you may want to defend yourself. you may want to explain it away. but let me tap the sign on the proverbial bus:
if you are a white person, or a person of color who is not part of that racial group, even, you do not get to decide what is not racist for someone. full stop. there are no exceptions. there is no exit clause for you. there is no 'but, actually-'. that right wasn't even yours to cede or waive.
(it's also important to note that people of color also have the right to disagree on whether something is racist, but that doesn't necessarily negate the racism - it just means there's more to discuss and they can still leave with different interpretations)
people don't just whip out accusations of racism like a blue eyes white dragon in a yu-gi-oh duel. it's not fun for us. it's not something we like to do to muzzle people we don't want to engage with. and we're not concerned with making someone feel bad or ashamed. we're exposing something painful that we have to live with and, even worse, process literally everything we experience through. we can't turn it off. we can't be 'less sensitive' or 'less nitpicky'. we are literally the primary resources, we are the proverbial wikipedia articles with 3,000 sources when it comes to racism. who else would know more than us?
what 2020 has shown us very clearly is that racism is systemic. it's not always a bunch of Evil White Men rubbing their hands together in a dark room wondering how they're going to use the 'n-word' today. it's systemic. it's the way you call that one neighborhood 'sketchy'. it's how you use 'ratchet' and 'ghetto' when describing something bad. it's how you implicitly the assume the intelligence of your friend of color. it's the way you turned up your nose and your friend's food and bullied them for it in middle school but go to restaurants run by white people who have 'uplifted' it with inauthentic ingredients. it's telling someone how Well Spoken and Eloquent they are even though you've both gone to the same schools and work at the same workplace. it's the way you look down at some people of color for having a different body type than you because they've been redlined to neighborhoods where certain foods and resources are inaccessible, and yet mock up the racial features that appeal to you either through makeup or plastic surgery.
it's how when a person of color behaves badly, they're irredeemable, but a white person performing the same act or something similar is 'having a bad day' or 'isn't normally like this' or 'has room to grow' and we can't 'wait for their redemption arc', and yes, i'm not going to cover it in detail in this post but yes this is very much about nate. other people have also brought up the nuances in his arc and compared them to other white characters so i won't do it here.
these behaviors and reactions aren't planned. they aren't orchestrated. they're quite literally unconscious because they've been lovingly baked into western society for centuries. you can't wake up and be rid of it. whether you intended it or not, it can still be racist.
and it's actually quite hurtful and unfair to imply that concerns about racism in the TL fandom are unfounded or lacking any depth or simply meant to be sensational because you simply don't agree with it. i wish it was different, but it doesn't work that way. i'm not raising this up to 'call out' or shame people, but i'm adding to this discussion because, through how we talk about sam, and even dani and nate, i'm yet again seeing a pattern that has shortchanged people of color and made them feel unwelcome in fandom for far too long.
coach beard said it best: we need to do better.
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aceofwhump · 4 years
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Guys
The Weeping Monk.
The Weeping Monk has become my new obsession. I love him. I knew I would because seeing all the gifs of him in tumblr is why I watched in the first place I didn't not expect for him to capture my interest so much. It's not the strongest hyperfixation I've ever had but it is one nonetheless and I'm thrilled. Welcome the list of "Ace's Favorite Whumpees"!!
SPOILERS ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously I got ramble and let some spoilers loose so if you want to watch it still and don't want spoilers just keep scrolling
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So not only is Daniel Sharman fucking gorgeous but Daniel Sharman looking like this?
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With the eyes and the hood and the darkness and the scruff. Oh hell yeah! He's like some omen of death with that cloak. I love it.
So why do I like the Weeping Monk so much?
Well first of all I LOVE A GOOD REDEMPTION STORY!!!!! Like so much! I blame Zuko for that. But if you give me a bad dude who's done some bad shit but also has one hell of a traumatic past then put him on a path of redemption and healing? I’M SOLD! And at the end of the season, The Weeping Monk has been set on his redemption beginnings and I will die if Netflix doesn't give us a season 2 so I can see this boy walk his new path towards redemption and healing. I crave it.
But anyway. This man right here. The emotional angst and whump he exudes is so lovely.
Towards the end of the season we find out that he's Fey and I fucking lost my shit. This boy is a Fey who was raised by the people who hate Fey. His people were killed and he was taken as a child by the same people who murdered them. He was then brainwashed to believe he was demon born and evil and a sinner purely for existing and was taught to punish himself for it (he whips himself in a form of self flagellation!) and I'm sure he was punished for all sorts of things growing up by his "Father". The amount of self hate and self doubt he must feel breaks my heart. He knows he's Fey! He remembers his real name (also that reveal sent me to another plane of existence) so he must have some memories of his family and his people. But he's spent his whole life being used as a weapon against his own people and brainwashed into thinking he was saving them because fey are inherently damned. And that's all he is to the Red Paladins. A weapon. But he sees them as his people, his family because that's all he knows!
This dude is so broken and brainwashed and lost it just breaks my heart.
LOOK AT HIM!! Look at this lost and broken boy!! He just needs some love and affection dammit!! I mean he flat out asks "Do you love me Father?" AHHH!!
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And oh my god this conversation between him and Gawain?!
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Allow me to share the whole conversation because I need to talk about it.
Gawain: Don’t be afraid Ash Man. I don’t bite. It’s those eyes. The mark of the Ash Fold. There haven’t been any in these lands for centuries. How did you find your way here? Have you just come to watch me die?
The Weeping Monk: Why didn’t you tell them? Before...you could have told them. But you didn’t. Why?
G: Because all Fey are brothers. Even the lost ones
WM: This suffering, it will cleanse you.
G: You parrot these words, but you know it’s all lies. I can feel it in you, my brother.
WM: You are not my brother.
G: They have turned your mind so far inside out...that you don’t know the difference between kindness...and hate. Who did this to you?
WM: We are saving souls. Your soul.
G: Tell that to the little ones that you burn.
WM: I don’t harm the children
G: You burn their homes, you slay their mothers and their fathers, and you watch your Red Brothers run them down on horses. And you see it all through those weeping eyes. That makes you guilty. Brother! You can fight. I’ve never seen anything like it. You could be our greatest warrior. Your people need you.
WM: You are not my people.
G: Then tell them. If this is where you belong, tell them what you are.
WM: I’ll pray for you.
G: And I you.
First of all this conversation is the reason I now ship these two. Just saying. Gawain saw that he was kin, that he was lost, that he was broken and reached out to try and help him even though he is the reason he is being tortured. I can’t with these two! But also, the WM felt guilty about turning him in and worried about his own fate but you can tell that Gawain’s words sink in and set something inside of him and it’s because of Gawain that WM is now on this path of his. AND Gawain! I fully expected him to hate this man after everything hes done but he saw a lost and broken fey brother and tried to help him and I just...Gawain is so good you guys! This whole exchange is just *chefs kiss*. Cause after this the WM saves Squirrel.
Which leads me to Squirrel and the Weeping Monk. The other reason I desperately need season 2 is because I can't wait to see this unexpected pairing. I mean come on, big bag tough guy with trauma becomes unexpectedly joined with a young child? Best trope ever. Plus he got his ass kicked pretty bad and I need season 2 start off with that so I can see Squirrel take care of this injured man. Anyway, these two are going to have a great adventure getting back to the Fey and I NEED TO SEE IT!!! I want to see Squirrel and Lancelot bond and Squirrel defend him against Fey who hate him and for Lancelot to reluctantly become attached and defensive of this Fey boy and AHHHHHH!!
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Oh and side note: One of my favorite tropes occurred. Defeated in battle, manhandled to their knees and hood pulled off revealing their bruised and bloody face. God yes please.
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Time for some headcanons:
Okay he's totally touch starved am I right? This boy hasn't known a kind touch in his whole life. Pain is all he's known. The Paladins only touch to punish him or wield him. And he thinks he deserves it. He deserves the pain. The punishment. But kindness? A soft touch? Someone tending his injuries gently? He doesnt know what to do it that. He ends up stiffening or flinching away from the blinds hands of the fey, confused at first but slowly he starts to crave that kind touch.
Squirrel is always hugging him. Like whenever he sees him. And WM doesnt know what the fuck to do with that. You think he ever for hugged? I DOUBT IT! So hes all stiff and awkward and kind of bears it but after a while he starts hugging back kind of awkwardly.
Oh and speaking of tending his injuries I can almost guarantee that he has either had to tend to his own injuries in the past or he didn't do anything for them at all. But he's in a Fey camp now and the Fey help each other so when he and squirrel first show up at the camp and a he's taken to a healer and at first he balks and is like "I'm fine" but people like Pym and Squirrel and Gawain (YES GAWAIN! I have thoughts hang on) are like clearly you're not so just sit down before fall down again and let Pym heal you! AND then we get a scene of them all seeing the scars and fresh lashes and being horrified
Okay Gawain. He's not dead and he and Lancelot become best bros (or lovers cause I kind of ship them so much. Forget Nimulot. It's Gawain and Lancelot all the way) and Gawain protects him from the Fey who want to kill him after Squirrel and Lancelot arrive at the makeshift Fey camp and he's taken prisoner. Gawain watches him and see his humanity and goodness and self hate and trauma and Lancelot has someone who sees him as a "brother" as someone lost but not irredeemable and they fall in love okay bye
His powers as one of the Ash Folk. We know he can track. But from what we saw what if he's also got some camouflage or healing abilities hes never explored. NEVER EXPLORED BECAUSE HE THOUGHT IT A MANIFESTATION OF HIS INNER DEMON!!!
Also, I saw these two onset pics and now I'm ready for this to be s2 WM and Squirrel.
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Okay rant over. Sorry. Bye now ✌
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So since I've been saying nothing but good things about Vrains, I feel it's only fair to counterbalance my positivity with negativity that no one asked for. Why? That's just the kind of bitch I am, so here are my problems with Vrains.
So many of the duels in Vrains are heavily favored towards more... How do I say... Plot centered characters. Yusaku, Ryoken, Homura, Lightning, and Bohman have the highest amount of wins in the series, while other supporting characters are left to fall by the wayside. The infuriating thing about it is that they're usually characters that are set up to have intimidating past win records, and you're told that these characters are supposed to be the best at what they do, but they end up losing almost all of their duels.
Because of the fact that some characters are established very solidly in the “they will never/almost never lose” category, any time one of the side characters happens to go up against them, there’s never any real sense of suspense. There’s no room to wonder “Are they going to win this one?” because you already know that no, of course they aren’t, they don’t have enough main character energy to pull off a win. Vrains suffers from the same problem GX did with being heavily centered around their protagonist, and while there are more people aside from just Yusaku winning duels, the fact that he never loses and that his rival only loses three times throughout the whole show kind of makes the problem worse. I like Yusaku, and I think Revolver is okay, but man, it gets kind of tiring seeing Emma and Go and Blood Shepard and Spectre and Aoi and Akira constantly get dunked on any time one of them happens to duel Yusaku/Revolver/Bohman/Lightning.
I’m especially mad about Emma losing all the time despite having one of the best decks in the show, where her only win in all 120 episodes was against Shima. Shima. I love him, but it’s not exactly something to be proud of. It isn’t even like it’s an issue of the writers not being able or willing to let a girl win a duel because they did perfectly fine with Aoi! She had an okay number of wins under her belt, so it’s even more infuriating to me that the only other relevant girl in the show gets to win one (1) duel. Against Shima. God damn it.
This is just a personal gripe, but. Damn it. I wish we’d gotten to see more of Earth and Aqua. They kind of got the Rin and Yugo treatment from Arc-V, where we get to see them together only in flashbacks, Aqua got kidnapped, and Earth was only with her for a few minutes after saving her before he had to push her away so she wouldn’t be in danger (as opposed to just pushing her out a window because of mind control), and then Earth got captured and basically tortured to death. Both of them end up dead by the end of season two, they do not get to come back, and that is the end of them and their love.
On another Ignis related note, Windy. Windy is made out to be this horrible, irredeemable villain for almost the entirety of his screentime, only for them to drop the bomb on us that he was actually never evil to begin with, he was just reprogrammed by Lightning to make him that way. Well, that’s good, right? Now that we know Windy was only acting that way because of his code being altered against his will, we’ll finally get to see what the real Windy is like-
No. We don’t. After Windy has been reverted back to normal, he never says a Word in the few brief moments we get to see him again. The most we get to know is that his real eye color is purple.
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And now, since I’ve completed Vrains... The ending with Ai’s existence supposedly causing the end of the world. I take issue with the whole apocalypse setting they tried to show us being brought about because of Ai because they never show us... How. In 5Ds, with Yusei being left alive and going on to become Z-ONE, they actually explain how his desire to save everyone was eroded over time until he came to the conclusion that sacrificing the city to save the entire world was a necessary evil he was now willing to go through. We don’t talk about the plot twist they pulled in that arc, it didn’t happen, don’t know what you’re talking about. With Ai... They don’t give us anything beyond his existence leading to the apocalypse. We never get to see how it got so bad, if it was something Ai himself did, if Ai somehow changed from just wanting to live in peace to wanting killing and violence, all we know is that if he lives, the government comes after him with tanks and blows up the whole city??? Which like. Seems just a Bit excessive to blow up buildings and waste tons of innocent lives just to get to one gay robot. You’d think they’d be more specifically targeting him instead of just laying waste to everything in sight until they eventually kill him. 
If Ai being alive is really going to cause all this hell, to make it believable to the viewer when we’d only ever known Ai to want peace, they’d have to show us some event in the future that caused Ai to change his views on humans being his allies, but they don’t give us any of that. They had the building blocks, but couldn’t stack them up in a way that made that scenario feel plausible. To top everything off, after making Playmaker kill him because of his dangerous existence leading to the end of the world in the future, no for real guys stop laughing, the final episode resurrects Ai at the last second, just showing us a glimpse of him coming back into existence somewhere in the Cyberse, with Playmaker assumedly going out to search for him.
So... All of that was pointless, then? Is the future still going to be a barren hellscape because Ai came back? The whole point of his assisted suicide duel with Playmaker was to make sure he wouldn’t be alive anymore to cause the end of the world, but if you give us this glimpse of him being somehow brought back, then what was the point of everything we just watched? Can Ai exist or can’t he? Fuck me man, I know it was probably just put in to satisfy fans to show us “haha sike he’s not dead, don’t worry”, but if you want the future safety of everyone in this show to hinge on whether or not one person lives or dies, then can you at the very least make up your mind on whether they live or die? FUCK. 
Well... I think that’s about everything I have to say, minus a few smaller personal gripes like “why couldn’t we see Roboppi again” and “for a whole season being dedicated to his safe return, we sure did get to see very little of Jin after he got rescued”. Yeah, I think I got it all out of my system. All in all, I did enjoy Vrains, and I do look forward to going back and watching the whole thing subbed, but... Yeah. You know me. Just gotta complain about the things I love. :P
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douxie-casperan · 3 years
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[Skrael is @ice-demigod-skrael, Douxie is myself and the following is a direct c/p with a smidge more readable format of our DMs as we might have gone on a bit of a tangent. This has been us the past couple of hours. Enjoy!]
[Heart of Glass AU following Douxie finding out the Order, despite him being under their wing since being forced to flee Camelot, has not given up their plan for using the Genesis Seals to create a reset and brutally fix the balance. Needless to say it did not go down well.]
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Douxie: “Were you hoping I'd take out Merlin for you? Was that it?"
Skrael: "We only ever wanted to ensure your safety."
Douxie: “By lying to me, you know exactly what he did before I was left with a literal disability for life?”
Skrael: "Your mind needed only to think on healing, Hisirdoux; you did not need to worry about something such as this!"
Douxie: “Case you missed it somehow, I still live here! It's not a balance if you wipe everyone out that's a reset! You two were telling me I was doing good helping out in the small ways I could without anybody realising who it was and I'm just supposed to just say alright jobs done time to get in line and get wiped out with everyone else because in the end the best beings are only as valuable as the worst?“
Skrael: "N-...no. No. You were doing good. You were helping the balance! It was good work- but fixing it entirely is not your job, Hisirdoux- it is mine. Let us do our own work, Hisirdoux. Please. You do not need to concern yourself with it! We were born for this role; we will not push it off on someone we care about! Because we do care about you, Hisirdoux; we never wanted to see you hurt! You were never going to get wiped out, Hisirdoux; you were always safe with us. You were always safe with us. I swear it."
Douxie: “What kind of person is able to easily pick favourites and say this person isn't worth it? You could hate my girlfriend, oh that makes her "bad" now wouldn't it? Every single life out there has potential to do good things and many of them actually do and don't kick everything aside to watch it burn because they have the choice and last time I checked there was one person who deliberately set things out of kilter long after he stole from you, you're practically saying his sins belong to everyone for the virtue of existing since then! I could have easily been one of them, how many people like me are out there that are just going to be snapped out of existence but because they're a number and not real enough to matter?” Douxie: “Plus... She's going to feel them all gone like a light switch, even if you don't give a damn about anyone else does she deserve that too?”
Skrael: "Hisirdoux, please-- if there were another way, we would take it! We can save whomever you want us to save, Hisirdoux; it is not all or nothing. Your girlfriend can be spared. But, you must understand; magic will be lost if the balance tips any further toward humans. We need to cull them before you and all magical creatures suffer something more permanent than imprisonment, or being beaten back into the shadows. There are fates worse than death, Hisirdoux, and I don't think you want to experience them."
Douxie: “They said culls about us too remember? All for the greater good, just a few sacrifices and spare the lot, send them forth and you'll go free.” Douxie: “You sound like he did.”
Skrael, as if he's been slapped: "Wh-...I am nothing like him Hisirdoux- I would never harm you the way he did. Please, see that. He was... cruel, and he used you, Hisirdoux. I kept you safe; I protected you. I didn't force the weight of the world on your shoulders- you were a boy! A young boy! You never should have had so much pressed upon you! I was only ensuring that you wouldn't have to feel that again! You do not deserve what happened to you. Not again. I will not take part in doing that to you, not like he did."
Douxie: “Then what makes anybody else deserving of it? Because you said yourself I didn't and yet it happened anyway getting spared to be thrown under the next and he lied about what was actually going on too. You've had time, just like he did, you said nothing, just like he did.”
Skrael: "It was not your responsibility! You didn't need to know!"
Douxie: “Yeah heard that before too.” Douxie: “So you gonna go full circle and take something else as well? I mean it's such a similar plot line already and broken my trust so why not take away something else I can’t get back, yeah? I'm sure you can think of something.”
Skrael, once again recoiling: "I...I would never, Hisirdoux. I told you this. I would never. You know this... right?" [A hand, outstretched, reaching for Hisirdoux, his boy, his son] "You... You are safe, here. I will never hurt you. I will never take from you."
Douxie: “More than you already have, you mean? For whatever little it's worth, I never have told anyone. Guess I was the better one on keeping promises... It's the least I could do for everything you've done for me but this? I can't pretend it's okay, I can't do what he did.”
Skrael: "Hisirdoux please... Don't do this-"
Douxie: “Do you think I WANT to?! I wasn’t the one who just threw everything back in my face while knowing, knowing what I'd already been through and knew how I felt about it! A well lived lie is still a lie, I just stupidly thought you were better than that.”
Skrael: "...I-... I am. Nothing I ever- my love for you was not a lie, Hisirdoux. It wasn't. You can- I can swear it, on my own life, my own soul, my own arcana, Hisirdoux. You are my son. My love for you has never been, and will never be a lie."
Douxie: “And yet didn't stop you lying to me did it? You can’t pull a greater good on me I've heard it all before. Different century and it's the same garbage.” Douxie: “I'm tired.”
Skrael: "Just... Let me make this right, Hisirdoux. Please. "You can rest, here, Hisirdoux. You can rest, now. And in the morning, we can make it right. I can make it right."
Douxie: “But you won't because if 900 years didn't change your mind why would it now? Like I'm this close to breaking my no swearing rule here if you can't tell.”
Skrael: "Then do it. Swear at me. Do it. Let me feel your hurt; let me have it, Hisirdoux. And when you have said what you wanted to say, I will do anything you tell me to do, anything that will make this better."
Douxie: “Is what would even slightly do at least something not sinking in?” Douxie: “As much as I hate that old man he had the same thing about only my way works, you can chuck anybody aside as long as the intended goal works. You're basically different sides of the same coin happy to damn anybody who doesn't fit what you want and lo and behold in both cases it's me having to call it out for what it is!”
Skrael: "Hisirdoux, I can't- I wish there was another way. You must believe me; how badly I wish something else was available to us, but we have tried everything. Nothing will save magic but the erasure of some, even just some humans. They will be the bad ones, Hisirdoux; we can ensure it. We can ensure that it is those who hurt you, who hurt magic. We can make it so that those who go are the ones who deserve to go. Even you must admit that there are irredeemable humans who walk this earth! You, of all people, must know that!"
Douxie: “Are you seriously trying to play that card on me? That doesn't mean I want to play God with their lives, I don't get to decide who deserves what happens to them, nobody does. The only way you can seriously make things worse if you randomly came out with the fact you had the King squirreled away for a rainy day or something equally ridiculous because that's how bad you sound right now! I don't care if it's the age difference perspective or whatever the heck it is but it doesn’t change the fact it's not right! And I'm tired of being constantly lied to, I genuinely thought here was better but knowing that it mattered but only as long as it didn't interfere with culling like the humans, the magical, everything like nameless cattle.” Douxie: “I... I just, I've had enough. I'm genuinely willing to give you guys a chance to realise that making things worse won't make things better, but I can't stand here and watch with the vain hope you will. I really wanted you to be better but everything feels tainted.”
Skrael, whispering, hoarse: "Please... Please, no. Not you, too. Hisirdoux... Please."
Douxie: “...I don't know where she is, if you're wondering, I really don't. I've tried a few times but I've never had any luck and she never told me her reasoning either but I think I can guess what it was but then, knew about that too, huh? I really don't want to but if I stay here - it's, it's not you two I'm worried about it's me. I did something stupid before and look what my grand prize was? But then it's all anybody sees me as isn't it, just a stupid kid who doesn’t know any better and hey maybe they're right! I don't care, I'm just tired of those claiming they know best and think it's better to treat me like an idiot and expect me to be fine with it because I only matter what I matter otherwise I should be in a corner somewhere with my mouth shut where nobody will notice.” Douxie: “You can do everything right and still lose, that's the saying isn't it? It's all I ever do, at least give me this one decency and try not to stop me even if you're not willing to give me anything else.”
Skrael: "...is there nothing I can do to make you stay...?" Skrael: "No words I could say to make things alright again?" Skrael: "...Is there nothing left for you here? Truly?"
Douxie: “Was I right about Nari? You don't have to answer if you don't want to.”
Skrael: Mercy, even now? "...you are."
Douxie: “Might be something worth thinking about... I'm gonna miss everything but I guess it started with just Archie and me with everything out to get us may as well return to our roots. It won't be happy and it'll be an outright miracle if I don't breakdown in the next few hours but at least he’s never tried pretending to be anything other than what he is and right now that's what I want more than anything. I hope the two of you make the most of the second chance, I've got that really bad habit of trying to do the right thing in the end and I'd think I'd rather be forced to spend a day in a room with him where I wasn’t allowed to do anything than have it come to that.” Douxie: “Take care of yourselves, alright? You might have lied about something as big as this but I never did, I cared too much to try.”
Skrael: "Hisirdoux, ah... One last, if I may- one last thing. I will never forgive myself if you do not hear it one last time. I cannot stop you leaving, but perhaps... Though the circumstances are... Less than ideal... Perhaps you were never meant to remain with us forever. A son is, often, meant to eventually overtake his father. We may not see eye to eye on this topic, but know that no matter what... Nothing will ever shake this fact from truth: "I have always been, and will never not be, so, so proud of you. You are going to do great things, Hisirdoux. Even if I must see them from the other side of history."
Douxie: “....” Some asshole who probably does not deserve it whatsoever is gonna get a damn hug because everything hurts and he doesn't want to break down crying because he was already struggling but after that Douxie: “Guess I did something right, huh?”
Skrael cupped his jawline, staring him in the eyes: "Of course you did. You always have. I never doubted you once."
Douxie snorts: “Doubt it with how much got blown up in the early days, partial ambidexterity doesn't count for much when you're down a hand.”
Skrael has a smile cannot hide pained eyes. But he smiles nonetheless: "Even then, I did not. Believe what you will, Hisirdoux, but this, I would not ever lie to you about. We cared for you from the moment you crossed our threshold, and you will be cared for even as you pass back over it, now. Forgive an old, ancient heart for asking, but, do you have everything you need, as you move on from here? Is there anything-- anything at all-- I can do for you, this one last time."
Douxie: “Are you seriously trying to dad-mode me right now?”
Skrael, smiling: "...old habits."
Douxie: “Just think you won't have to keep explaining about human food cluttering the place, be a novelty after this long. But I think you're forgetting how used to being on the road we are, I'll blitz the apartment and that'll be it. All traces gone.”
Skrael: I'll miss it... He does not say and his smile fades "Yes. I suspect you will be very good at... evading us. If you- if you wish, however... We will not look." It breaks his heart to say it, but he means it. "We will let you live your own life. How could we possibly begrudge you that?"
Douxie: “If you do actually get it into your heads it's a bad idea, you might have better luck, just saying. I'm only good at it because I've had a lot of practice from standing out too much. Customers can have redemption arcs, don't see why nobody can when there's still a chance to do the right thing.”
Skrael looks serious as the grave: "...I cannot promise that, Hisirdoux." Something like regret does color his voice, however.
Douxie: “No, but don't want you assuming I think otherwise, I might get called naive about it but I don't care. My truth is what it is.”
Skrael: "...I know." Another soft, proud smile, though like before, his eyes are untouched by it, reflecting only sadness. "It is one of the many, many, incredible things about you." He floats up, and places a gentle kiss in the boy's hair, holding him close for one moment more. And then he releases, and turns his back, unable to hide now the frost that has stuck to his eyelashes. "Now... Get going. Before you stay forever." It is an attempt at a joke. It does not land, he thinks.
Douxie for just a moment looks reluctant but does nod and goes to leave before a pause: “Tell them the truth, all of it. If anybody figures out what you're planning if you do still want to go through with it, it won't be from me... But the good ones when they do won't even think of second chances. Not everyone has the luck of an ill-deserving old man.”
Skrael turns, showing him his sincerity, and says, "...That much I can swear. Honesty about the plan... To those who guess, or those who ask. I can swear it. On my arcana, I do swear it." He says, and the words are not delivered lightly. There is a flash of blue in his chest, and as it fades, he turns his head away, staring at the floor. The one image he does not want, cannot force himself to see, is that of Hisirdoux properly leaving.
There is the sound of footsteps leaving and regardless of if it's seen or not a salute is still given as is tradition with send offs and him with the added bonus is he's struggling he really is. Douxie: “Thank you for being my second chance, might have been an even weirder family than my first? Second? One but, I don't think I could have had one better and I wouldn't even be able to say this right now if none of you had.”
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tonya-the-chicken · 4 years
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I wrote this post some time ago as a reply to someone and now I somehow want to post it again with some changes lol
TW: mentions of murder, referenced canon abuse and swearing
Let’s talk about redemption arcs and people’s overwhelming desire to punish fictional characters for what they did... Inspired by Endeavor hate ngl... I mostly speak about fictional charcters in this post so pllease, don’t go dumb and understand that fictional characters and irl people should be treated differently
I think sometimes people don`t understand why punishment exists in our society at all. Like, why couldn`t we just forgive? Why punishment is needed? Oh, I would like to talk about behavioural psychology, but it is kinda creepy so instead let`s remember what my teacher of LAWS said(idk what you call it in your bitchass America)
Punishment basically serves two functions:
Preventative (show others and a person that they can’t just get away with their deeds). Like, if you knew that there are no negative consequences, wouldn`t you do it? Wouldn`t you kill the old lady?
Correction and all work with a person in general (for example, you can be forced to go through some psychological help)
Also, I lied there’s one more: compensation. Like, if you stole something, then bring money back, you little shit. Or pay for therapy for your victim
So when we put it into stories and so popular nowadays redemption arcs (which I fucking adore if they are done correctly) we have 4 points out of this 3 cause the first one can be put into two
Character is punished to show others that this is not something you should do (it’s a kinda societal thing and has nothing to do with character in particular. This point in general is not interesting because it doesn’t drives changes in person by itself)
Character is punished so he himself would think twice before doing this shit again (we can’t know if person’s remorse is genuine so it’s better to simply scare them. But I can allow skipping this point if person’s remorse is clealy shown to be genuine and we as readers understand that. That’s probably the big distinction we, as readers, should see: while irl we never know persons true motives, work of fiction can provide them to us clearly)
Character changes and understands what is wrong in what he has done (the part of redemption we all love and enjoy)
Characters work hard to correct or atone for their mistakes
As we can see first two bullets has nothing to do with character development and serve for the purpose of maintaining order. The third one IS a character development and the last one is what makes people actually forgive horrible actions and not go ape shit I guess. But for some of us nothing is enough, isn`t it?
And there is one more shit that is often in redemption arcs and that shit is great and I fucking love it
Explanation of the character’s behaviour, their reasoning and motivation
I truly enjoy reading about WHY characters behave a certain way but people, remember, SAD BACKSTORY IS NEVER AN EXCUSE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. Same goes to your mental problems and hard life situation. The fact that behaviour can be explained doesn’t mean shit. Like, behaviour also follows certain laws and despite the fact that it’s sometimes hard to understand all the details we still theoretically can explain ANY BEHAVIOUR. Does this mean we can excuse any behaviour? HELL NO
So remember folks, “They had their reasons to do this” means nothing most of the time. “I wanted to try how it feels” is actually a valid reason to kill someone, you know. Of course, if crimes is not severe, reasoning suddenly can be very important like we won`t punish harshly someone who stole bread cause he is starving or cause he has kleptomania (I mean as a literal disorder). But even in that case you must pay back money cause like stealing is bad but eat the rich
let`s talk examples from bnha cause why not
Endeavour
We have Enji oh my baby you have done so much stupid shit you dumbass. Sad backstory even if will be brought up in the future, currently is not a focus of redemption at all. Like, he even doesn`t explain his behaviour too much. “He want to be the strongest, so he decided that even if his genes will make it to the top it will be enough. As a result,  blinded by his goal,   he abused his family”. Basically, it`s all the explanation we have right now. And if Hori stops at it I will be fine with it. Honestly, as much as I want to learn more about Enji’s past if Horikoshi leaves everything at this I would give him nothing but mad respect cause... This kind of shows that your reasoning doesn’t matter that much if you did horrifying things
So 3 points to redeem someone
Enji didn’t suffer any punishment for his actions (nightmares are considered punishment only if you believe in God. Also, too weak, God, try harder... And same goes for High-End). When I think about him being punished I actually worry about society’s reaction cause, like, he is number 1 hero and the fact that he’s an abuser will be, like, very shocking to simple people.Trust in hero will fall harder than my will to live during 2020. And honestly, media would just turn this into a drama possibly hurting other members of his family, like.... Enji being legally punished for his action would be an interesting plotline but in general I am not a fan
We see his genuine remorse and character growth. We all agree that he even is drawn differently now changed and trying to become a better person, yeah? Clumsily at first, but he genuinely works hard to be a better peron, hero and father. I can respecct that
Compensation… Well, you can exactly “correct” trauma so he should pay up for psychologists for each child he probably should follow the path of atonement and try to give them something he robbed them from. Like, go to family dinners with Fuyumi even though every last one of them is a disaster and nobody is happy to be there. Or make everything possible to provide Rei calm life with her children (like building a new house, yes, this is an amazing thing) or at least become *reducted cause I wanna this post to be serious and SFW*... Tbh I have nothing to say, he himself says multiple times that he seeks nothing but atonment, not even forgiveness
So like you better work bitch to make your family happy bastard... [And tbh they seem so much better then when I first wrote this post, I am so proud of you, my garbage fire man]
Overhaul
In no way is he redeemed but somehow people put Overhaul and Endeavor stans in the same category so here he goes
Kai has something Enji doesn’t: very good and detailed explanation, a plan, a smart reasoning. His wrong deeds were basically for a better good he believed in. But we all collectively hate him for what he done to Eri despite his actions having r E A S o n S. Dude has some MOTIVATION. So like yeah bros. It makes him an interesting character and he is an amazing villain but dude deserves to rot in prisons. He shows no remorse and I am gonna bet he won`t even think about somehow helping others. Dude is a shitty person. And I fucking love him
So let’s go for our 3 bullets again
Punishment. Yes, he is punished, he is in jail with both his hands cut off. Would it make people forgive him? Nah
Personal growth. I would like to see it but as far we saw barely no growth... Though maybe being in jail without quirk will make his brain work
Atonement... Dude has a Messiah complex, I ain’t waiting for that anytime soon
So I asked myself if I had two men: one who spent a sentence in jail for child abuse but is more or less the same person and another who wasn’t punished for his abuse but feel genuine remorse and actively try to make things better who will I choose? Of course, I will choose Pikachu
But is it possible to redeem Overhaul? I wonder if there`s a force in this world strong enough to make him become a better person. Welp... I am a sucker for redemptions, justt letting you know
All for One
Oh, he is irredeemable (and this is sexy). Why is he here? Cause, well
Even if he is punished there`s no punishment severe enough to describe how horrifying his deeds are
Even if he is to feel remorse… he has like 500 years or something??? And he didn`t feel anything killing people??? So why would he change today?
Even if he atone for what he’s done… I am to believe he started at least a civil war. You can`t atone for that bitch. You crossed all fucking lines, all fucking lines
AfO is literally the most evvil man in bnha... I don’t want to see him redeemed cause I love characters that are pure evil and I love the despair of realizing you can’t fix what you have done. Though you are free to have a different opinion! Who knows, maybe Horikoshi will make a classy redemption for him and I will scream out of excitement? Cause I am that kind of bitch??? Who knows! I just love to think Doctor Ujiko is gay for him
Anyway, why do people like to make this characters suffer? Like, Endeavor, Minoru, Overhaul, many others? Is this part of the “punishment” to feel like person paid for their deeds? Or do people just like fictional violence and punishing “bad” characters make them feel good about themselves? Who knows
I have no idea what this post is about I want to sleep and I like Enji though if you dislike him this is fine. I hope it was interesting reading this, love you all bye
Don’t kill me for my controversial takes, I am depressed
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pinayelf · 4 years
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Cullen’s Revised Redemption - my take
This was previously an undetectable read more but decided to update it and also make it (more) public since people have asked for it. This is very wordy, so grab a bag of chips or something lmao.
Disclaimer and Request (PLEASE READ)
I am putting this above the read more because I need people to see it before they do anything with this post. The reason I had the first version of this basically invisible is I’m genuinely not here for people yelling and fighting in the notes so that being said:
I wrote out the first one so I had something to link to people in the case someone asks me why I’m romancing him with an elven mage
This is a hot button issue and I know people have feelings varying from either extreme sides or in the middle so
If you vehemently hate Cullen and find him irredeemable that is fine and valid, but please do not come onto this post and reply why. To be frank, you won’t make me dislike him considering I hated him initially
If you think his redemption is perfect that is fine and valid, but please do not come yelling at me for this post.
Let us agree to disagree NOW.
I love Cullen. If the URL wasn’t obvious I’m saying it now. But I am also allowed to feel that his redemption wasn’t fully realized and lackluster and wish it didn’t happen off-screen. 
I believe Cullen does want to change. Failing and slipping at first is realistic. What didn’t work is that it wasn’t fully realized. If you disagree that is fine.
Cullen’s PTSD is a reason for the things he did. It is a reason NOT an excuse. Mental illness is not an excuse to do bad things. You can say that while acknowledging his trauma. Said by a person who also suffers from mental illness
“Ellie why do you care so much about a white dude, he doesn’t deserve your time and energy!!!” - because he is a comfort character of mine, he is fictional so I have the ability to make him safer for me and for my OCs and I think that’s more than fair
This is NOT the only right way to write a fix-it for him you can 100% write your own, this is just mine and an example of one
Now...let’s go!
This is meant to have been a longfic, but I can never finish anything I write so you’ll get a condensed version. This is for my worldstate where Imryll (my main Cullenmance) is the Inquisitor, but I also use this same redemption in all my timelines, just tweaked a bit for whoever the characters are.
DAI starts and Cullen has just stopped taking lyrium. He wants to change, , he is full of regret and ready for it but is obviously harder than he anticipated. Especially since the Herald, Imryll, wants to ally with the mages. He and Imryll do not get along, Imryll doesn’t trust him and they have had a couple of public fights. 
Imryll allies with the mages. Cullen is worried abominations might occur. The ones from Kirkwall see Cullen and refuse to interact with him. Some hate him and look at him with disdain. He’s made an announcement saying he no longer operates under the Templar Order and denounces what Meredith did. But they still don’t trust him.
He is frustrated by this and Leliana calls out the fact that he still doesn’t trust them because he believes they’ll turn into abominations, so why should they trust him? Cullen says he’s seen it happen, like in Kinloch, especially if they’re exposed to power. Leliana points out how the same thing happened to Meredith. Cullen snaps out of his frustration, admitting he knows he’s wrong but it’s hard to accept it. Leliana tells him he must accept he is wrong if he wants to really change.
(Note: In my canon Leliana becomes his support for this rather than Cass. I love Cass but she is too static in her beliefs and will just enable or stunt Cullen from growth. They are still close friends but it’s Leliana who he confides in with about this - they both have the same faith but Leliana is more open-minded and will help him grow)
The Templars and the Mages clash at Haven and Imryll demands Cullen to do something about it. Cullen is hesitant and doesn’t do much, he doesn’t want to believe his comrades are acting this way. This sours his relationship with Imryll and the mages.
(This idea is taken from a text post that I can no longer find :c) One of the mages give birth and the others are overjoyed and crying. They need supplies and Cullen offers to help but they all refuse to speak to him until he arrives back with Josephine. Cullen wonders why they are celebrating and crying and Leliana says that most mages never stay with their family because they are separated. Another realization hits Cullen.
Cullen joins Cassandra in looking for rogue Templars and when they encounter the group, Cullen attempts to reason with them but they don’t relent. He sees his old self in the leader and realizes what he sounded like. After dealing with the Templars he and Cassandra see a group of young refugee mages starving and hiding in a small cave. They quiver in fear when they notice his Templar gauntlets and refuse to come to Haven despite them being in near-death from starvation. Luckily, Varric is there and convinces them to come. 
The encounter dawns on Cullen what the Templar Order truly looks like to mages. This haunts him. It is the same fear he had for years after Kinloch - the difference is, the order protected him but no one truly protected the mages. He finally accepts that the order he once romanticized so much is corrupt.
The next time he sees that his Templars are the ones who start the altercations. He does something about it - but at the same time angering his lieutenant. 
During the fall of Haven, the Red Templars show Cullen anyone is apt for corruption, seeing the people he once trusted become the army for a magister breaks his heart. He witnesses the mage recruits give their lives for the Inquisition. He watches Imryll sacrifice herself for the sake of the Inquisition. When have the Templars ever done this? He’s never witnessed this. He must make amends. He must. 
Upon arriving at Skyhold he requests to be judged by the mages and Fiona - the ones from Kirkwall especially. He tells them it’s time he answered for his inaction and the things he enabled. Surprised, Imryll calls Fiona to form a council of mages to judge him. 
Cullen prepares for whatever sentence they are to give him. All the while after owning up to what happened in Kirkwall, the Inquisition loses some support, including soldiers who leave due to their disillusionment in him. The day of trial comes and to Cullen’s surprise they sentence him with reparations. He is to do the Inquisition mages’ bidding and to work with Fiona along with his Inquisition duties.
Besides the loss of support, many begin to look at Cullen differently and turn cold towards him, like some staff and people who have joined the Inquisition. He helps build a mage tower and joins Fiona in doing small missions  to help the refugee mages. While some mages warm up to him, some don’t and while hard he accepts they never will.
One day a missive arrives at Skyhold stating that mages from Starkhaven are taken hostage by Red Templars for a hefty ransom. Josephine insists they pay the ransom and plans to take a loan out from an Antivan bank - however Cullen sees the situation as time sensitive. He is afraid that if they wait too long, the Red Templars will kill the mages. Josephine, and Leliana surprisingly argue against this, seeing it too risky. But Cullen has a terrible gut feeling, and after finding the location of the abandoned keep they are located in, he takes some of his troops who are willing, and mages who are looking to save their brethren.
The raid goes all right, and the troops manage to retrieve the hostages without any casualties, however at the last minute, one of the templars set off hidden explosives that begin to set the the keep ablaze. As it falls into ruin, Cullen makes sure everyone makes it to safety. But then he sees a young mage girl trapped under rubble, and in spite of his lieutenant demanding he leave her, he doesn’t. He runs to her rescue and seemingly dies as the castle crushes both of them.
The troops return to Skyhold with the news that Commander Cullen has died in the rescue. Shocked, the remaining advisors and Imryll set off to find a new Commander.
Surprisingly, Cullen and the young mage girl, who introduces herself as Lyra, survives. Lyra mustered up her remaining strength to put a barrier around them as the castle fell. Cullen and Lyra then set to Skyhold in order to get her to safety. Cullen does everything in his power to make sure she is safe, and shocks everyone at their return. 
After this event, Imryll begins to warm up to Cullen. They form a friendship as Imryll often spends late nights at the mage tower doing research. Cullen initially stayed there to make sure nothing happened to Imryll (as she was not very popular with his troops or certain Orlesians). Despite them being from separate worlds they find they have a lot in common. 
When asked how he feels about the Dalish, Cullen tells her that in the Circle, elves were not treated differently and it does not matter who you are. Imryll tells him it’s a very blind way to view discrimination, as despite her existence not revolving on her being a Dalish elf, her being a Dalish elf is how people will always view her. Cullen finally understands when he accompanies her to Val Royeaux to deal with Josephine’s assassination contract and he sees how Orlesians treated Imryll in spite of her title. He speaks to her about it, and apologizes, saying he will never understand how it feels, but he will make sure she and the other elven members of the Inquisition feels safe. 
And all the while, Cullen begins to see what protecting those who need it is truly like. 
Cullen opens up to Imryll about his withdrawals. She tells him she supports him not taking lyrium again and encourages him not to. While suffering from a terrible spell, Imryll uses a healing spell to alleviate his headache and it triggers a memory from Kinloch. He freaks out at Imryll, who he scares off. He and Imryll don’t speak for a few days until he goes up to her and explains what happened. Imryll then says that if they are to be good friends they must always remain transparent with each other and learn boundaries and communicate well. Cullen agrees.
Cullen quitting lyrium inspires some of his troops to leave the order and quit lyrium. To be able to cope and deal with it, Cullen asks if they can have a rehab clinic in Skyhold. Imryll agrees.
As Cullen’s friendship with Imryll deepens he realizes he’s falling in love with her. Unsure what to do and already assuming she will never feel the same way he tries to shove the feelings aside despite Imryll showing signs of reciprocating. 
As time goes, Imryll’s relationship with Cullen’s lieutenant worsens because of the decisions she makes as the Inquisitor. The Lieutenant and Imryll get into a fight when Imryll allows the mages to make their own separate army group, as the lieutenant feels it will make them corrupt with power. He calls Imryll slurs and tells her that she has no right being a leader because of who she is. Cullen publicly calls him out, to which the lieutenant responds he is only doing because he wants something from Imryll. Cullen tells him he is doing it because it’s the right thing to do, and that the lieutenant should not speak or Imryll or any elf or mage in the way again. When he refuses to apologize, Cullen kicks him out of the Inquisition. 
Meanwhile, Imryll struggles with learning how to be a Knight-Enchanter. She questions her self worth and her bravery. Cullen comforts her, telling her she is the best person he knows. He tells her she is brave because of how she still continues to fight and to lead the Inquisition, not in spite of who she is, but because of who she is. He offers his support.
During the Shrine of Dumat, Cullen is hurt badly after attempting to keep a Red Templar Shade from Dorian. He refuses care, saying the others need it more. Imryll insists he does and asks if she can use a healing spell to alleviate the pain of his bruised chest. He lets her. Amidst this, they share a kiss and cements their romantic relationship.
Cullen and Imryll’s romantic relationship flourish and for the first time in his life, Cullen feels he’s found someone he can have a healthy love with. He also finds he has friends - real friends, which he hasn’t had in a long time.
During Samson’s capture - memories flash back and threatens Cullen to slip. This makes him realize that his say on the matter is biased and lets Imryll and the others choose what to do with him. (Imryll conscripts him but doesn’t have Cullen handle him, she has another recovering ex-Templar work with him and spend time in the rehab they’ve built in Skyhold).
When Imryll chooses Leliana as the Divine, Cullen shocks his former colleagues when he says he approves of the choice.
After Corypheus’ defeat the idea of the rehab clinics begin to spread and open up in other places - which begins to open conversation about how the Chantry exploits their own Templars.
Following the events of Trespasser, Imryll disbands the Inquisition. With land Cullen inherited from his parents he and Imryll build another rehab clinic as well as a place for former Circle mages to find a home in, and learn how to live lives outside the Circle (this post is Cullen-centric so I’m not gonna write a long thing about it but in my canon Divine Leliana and Vivienne find a middle ground and build centers/schools where abandoned and former Circle Mages can find a home in and learn, without them being prisons)
And scene! If you reached this end thank you for reading all that. A lot of the later stuff is mainly skipped over because this focused more on how Cullen changes - the repercussions from his actions and how he actively shows the changes.
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storyplease · 4 years
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Is there such a thing as true forgiveness?
Something I am very interested in is the idea of harm, redemption, and forgiveness.
Especially with cancel culture being so popular and all, it makes me wonder-
What is an acceptable mistake?
If every act that could possibly be considered abusive or wrong is a Cancel Them Forever offense, then who, exactly is good enough to be allowed to stay “in the circle”?  Doesn’t this focus on purity and perfection make people unable to open up or be genuine, to grow and change, or to even have a conversation about how they can improve?
Then I must ask, if you commit one of these offenses, how is the severity judged? If you murder someone is it the same as being in a toxic relationship with someone? If you hit someone in a bar fight is it on par with domestic violence over a period of years? If you’ve done bad things in the past, are you not allowed to move past them and change/grow as a person?
I’ve seen plenty of characters who are well-loved in media who have literally killed other sapient beings in war (it’s still wrong to murder FYI), but are still beloved and not considered irredeemable, even if they might not be kind or beneficial to those they consider enemies.  I’ve seen plenty of characters who literally did do things like murder or be a part of a deeply unhealthy relationship in the past, but at the point they are introduced to the narrative, these past behaviors are not really considered part of who that character appears to be, and they are not usually shunned for it.
When I see people post zero-sum, “this character is all bad all the time and if you like them then you are also evil” types of arguments online, it makes me wonder if this is also how they see people IRL.  Do they think that people in prison deserve to be in prison forever? That they can never be done paying for their crimes? That those who think anti-social things or are racist and sexist should simply be exterminated?  I worry about this kind of thinking because while it is “simple” and “easy” to think such things are “just”, the practice of doing so is basically a totalitarian regime that executes everyone who they deem “problematic.”
I am deeply interested in narratives where a character is forgiven, but not just a superficial “you did one thing and you’re fine” or “they suffered until the end and then died to make things right” depression-a-thon.  However, it does seem like they are few and far between.
I wonder if it is because human beings IRL would rather smooth over, ignore or alternatively condemn forever rather than have the uncomfortable conversation about how people are not lost because of what they have done as long as they can find a way to work through their wrongs and change for the better.
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drunklander · 5 years
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Drunj!Der Yells About Outlander
Thoughts on Ep. 402
It shouldn’t be surprising when I say this post is going to be less jokey than last week. If that’s not your jam, I recommend you stop reading now and maybe just sing “Everyone is Garbage” to the tune of Everything is Awesome while you instead go watch the entirety of Underground, or the Rosa Parks episode of Doctor Who.
I have to say, the producers on this show have said a lot of dumb shit in the past. From “Frank’s a good guy!” when he’s portrayed as being objectively awful on screen to “We don’t shy away from the horrors of the past because we’re so daring like that!” as a justification of their need to rape or assault everyone with a pulse. But one of the dumbest things in recent memory was at NYCC when Ron tried to claim that Outlander isn’t a political show.
Bullshit. Everything is political.
Using America the Beautiful to underscore how America didn’t, and still doesn’t, live up to the ideals we sing about in our romanticized versions of our history was political. Albeit in an overly heavy-handed way. Choosing to do an episode about slavery that focuses solely on white people and not the enslaved, who are just there as props for the white people’s moral dilemmas, is political. Choosing to show a lynching on screen in a time when Black people are still being killed in horrifying numbers at the hands of white people who are supposed to serve and protect, in a time when Black people have the police called on them while simply having a cookout in a public park, in a time when a white man can shoot an unarmed Black boy and walk away with no consequences, is political.
How we portray Black bodies on screen matters. And in this instance, a *very* white show chose to frame enslaved people as the props against which they highlight the guilt of the white protagonists.
I really do wish they included someone checking to see if Claire, who had a man killed right in front of her, was ok. But instead she just does the emotional labor of assuaging Jamie’s guilt over Bonnet’s attack. Because doing emotional labor is just what women do. *flips off the patriarchy and also the producers*
Young Ian’s awe at River Run, how it’s befitting a king, just highlights how he has no context for what the symbol of a big white plantation house means for so many people. That image is so laden with white supremacy it should immediately trigger a bad taste in any decent person’s mouth. Go ahead and @ me.
Jocasta Cameron is straight garbage, but Maria Doyle Kennedy is fucking amazing. A++ casting, show.
Not sure if the parallel of Jocasta telling Claire to call her Auntie and Claire telling Phaedre and Mary to call her Claire was intentional or not. Will have more to say about that in a second...
Honest question, if the dog who plays Rollo is so poorly trained that they have to cut him out of most scenes, why didn’t they get a different dog? Slash, I thought they’d been training this one since it was a puppy?
“Some River Run hospitality.” *feels nauseous*
I SO hope they don’t do the Jocasta and Ulysses having an affair storyline from the books. Please, show, don’t do it.
Show!Jocasta is so much more overtly garbage than book!Jocasta. This is a woman who had to flee her country after the Rising because of how horrible the English were to the Scots. Yet she doesn’t bat an eye at the concept of keeping human beings as property. Even with Jamie, she isn’t thinking of him as his own person, but rather someone she can make do her bidding and use for her own purposes. She should fucking know better, but the promise of benefiting from white supremacy is apparently more beneficial than actually having morals. Fuck you, Jocasta.
Claire’s palpable discomfort with being led around by an enslaved man juxtaposed with Jamie thinking nothing of it as he reminisces about his mother is just the start of me side-eyeing Jamie a lot this episode.
Don’t worry, I’m an equal opportunity side-eye’er. Claire’s gonna get her share of it too. Starting with her asking Phaedre and Mary to call her Claire.
Claire. You know all about chattel slavery. You know it’s wrong. You know how enslaved people are treated. Why the fuck would you ask Phaedre and Mary to put themselves in a position to potentially face serious consequences for not being “properly deferential” to a white person just to make yourself feel better about being complicit in their enslavement. She’s prioritizing making herself feel better at the expense of the potential well-being of Phaedre and Mary. JFC, Claire, do not endanger the marginalized people you claim to care about in the name of wokeness.
The skunk bit with Young Ian and John Quincy Myers is a tad off-putting tbh. I love that Ian wants to learn about Native Americans and looks to find similarities with them rather than think of them as “savages,” but like they’re having this convo while completely ignoring the fact that an enslaved boy is filling the tub and like immediately just start talking about banging Native American women. It just feels like they were stretching for some levity when the characters in this episode don’t deserve any.
Jamie: “Uncle Hector and you have achieved a great amount here, Auntie.” Me:
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Jocasta: “I purchase them in lots, in order to keep those with children together.” Me:
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“Over the years, I found my slaves to be more productive when treated with benevolence. You see, I don’t actually see them as people. I only treat them nicely so my property can reach its maximum potential output. I am a garbage human and the myth of the benevolent slave owner is just bullshit that white people tell themselves to absolve themselves of the fact that they benefit from white supremacy.”
That Jocasta can refer to the people she enslaves as both too expensive to be livestock and friends in almost the same breath is peak caucasity. Seriously, show!Jocasta is an irredeemably shit person.
Also Jamie being like oh well done, Auntie, you are so nice to these people makes me want to punch him in his dumbass face. Show!Jamie has been on my last nerve for a while tbh.
Like bro, you literally lived in a cave for fucking years because the English were out to fuck Scots up. You were in prison for fucking years. You served on an English estate, where you were raped, for fucking years. And now you see people who were ripped from their homes and families and brought across the sea against their will (hey remember your nephew, Ian?) and you’re like oh Auntie, you’re such a nice white lady. Go fuck yourself, Jamie.
Jocasta playing the woman card with Jamie to justify her needing him to get involved with the enslaved labor on her plantation is something Colum would be proud of.
And Jocasta being like hey, “Claire, you’ve been homeless for a hot minute, shower me in praise for how nice my slave-run house is as I ‘graciously’ let you stay here” is such a power move in the worst possible way. Colum and Dougal raise a glass from whatever afterworld they ended up in.
Claire, girl, why couch your opposition to slavery in the Quaker influence. Own your opinions on this. Take a fucking stand. There are things in life worth standing up for. This is fucking one of them.
Oh Jenny. I love that she wrote to Jocasta about Claire. But also last season still turned me the hell off from show!Jenny so really I don’t like that lady.
Fuck each and every one of these yuppie white men.
Aw, woke-ish!Ian. Yes, it was their land, but let’s please not think of the Native American women as sexual conquests like you were earlier. KThxBai.
Ok for real, after living at Leoch and scheming through Paris and then being fucked over by Bonnet, Jamie sure doesn't learn much about people being sneaky. How does he not see where Jocasta was going when she so readily positioned him in a position of authority on the plantation.
Jamie, bro, buying into the benevolent slave owner narrative is not a good look. And by not a good look, I mean you are a garbage person. I get that that’s the point, but still.
Ok so the book frames Campbell as a friend to the Frasers, and the show is trying to frame him as someone genuinely trying to look out for the Frasers’ best interest. But he has also resigned himself to the reality of his current situation with no desire to try to make things better since it would mean making a personal sacrifice. To which I say, fuck you very much, you coward.
Hi, I’m Der, and I’m of the opinion that if you are in a place of privilege and see bigotry and oppression taking place, it’s your duty to stand the fuck up and try to make a change. 
“If we take the Tryon option, we don’t need to feel bad about slavery and can just bask in our white privilege on stolen Native American land and not have to deal with the consequences of accepting free land from the English, y’know, the people we hate, for almost a decade.” Cool, Jamie. Cool cool cool. Remember last episode when you were almost woke? 
Claire acting naive about what’s going to happen to Rufus should seem out of character. She went back into the past knowing full well how things were there. She knew that if she went back, she’d be in a time where this was the reality. Yes, she thought she’d be in Scotland, but that’s just another sign of her fucking privilege. She was like oh, I’ll just be in Edinburgh and not have to consider slavery. Joe Abernathy did not deserve the shaft he got in season three and he does not deserve fucking peak-white-privilege-the-past-is-fine-because-it-doesn’t-really-affect-me Claire as his friend.
Scrub Nurse!Ian is literally the only positive part of this episode.
This entire scene of a room of white guys being like “we need to uphold the law!” makes me want to kick the shit out of each and every fucker who has ever owned a confederate battle flag t-shirt or a bumper sticker. 
Also fuck each and every person who voted for the authoritarian narcissist who currently occupies the white house in 2016 or any of his fucking lackeys in the midterms. All these fuckers are straight garbage. And all the fuckers defending the authoritarian tendencies of the current administration can go fuck themselves. Go ahead and @ me.
“Don’t worry, my husband is heir to this estate.” Oh don’t fucking delude yourself, Claire. Rufus is going to die. And you are complicit in his death. Fucking own it.
*insert obligatory Joe Abernathy deserved better rant here*
I don’t like giving partial credit, but at least the show let fucking Rufus tell his own story. Just for a little bit though.
Ok I’m calling fucking bullshit that Ulysses, a man who (I don’t care what his relationship with Jocasta has been) has been enslaved for years, fucking calls Claire out and tells her she should have let Rufus die. Way to fucking try to absolve Claire by having a Black, enslaved man try to make her upcoming actions ok.
Don’t act naive, Claire. You know how this was going to end. Rufus was always going to die. You are complicit. There is no escaping that. Fucking own your part. Fucking own your privilege. And also fuck the show for centering this so much on the fucking white people.
Rufus didn't get to be an active participant in his own death. Claire should *not* have been absolved of her decision to kill him by having him ask her to do it. But by not even telling him what she's doing, she's just another white person making decisions for him without his consent. She also should have known to kill him without Jamie telling her to. *gestures at the Graham Menzies part of the books* She knows what's about to happen. She should accept that by choosing to be in the southern colonies, she's going to be complicit in slavery. She made her bed when she decided to go back into the past and now she should have to lay in it. 
Sure she may not have known that she’d end up in the colonies, but she still knew she’d be going back to a time when she’d end up being part of something that is morally abhorrent. But apparently getting that ginger dick was worth it.
It’s cute they do a parallel of her helping Rufus to die with her helping Geordie to die. But I can’t help but think this is as much for her as for him.
Every white person in this episode is trash. As they fucking should be.
Fuck everyone who defends the continued existence of confederate memorial statues tbh.
I know that’s out of left field, but yeah, fuck those people.
The fact that this shit is bringing up very real feelings about today’s political climate makes me fucking angry at the fuckers around today and also the fucking production crew for trying to cater to the meemaws by saying the show isn’t political.
Fuck Jamie for being like yeah, I can just pray this shit away. No. God is a cop out. You did this. YOU. You need to own this. Don’t you dare hide behind your faith. You will not be absolved.
Fuck this show for showing a fucking lynching and them immediately cutting to Claire’s face to make the lynching about her white guilt. Fuck them. 
If Jamie and Claire really don't want to be complicit in the atrocities of colonial America, they should move to a city where they could join in the work of starting to dismantle the things they claim to be morally opposed to. Instead they embrace their privilege of getting to ignore slavery by leaving River Run next week and go out to colonize Native American lands.
And just think. After all of this. After witnessing a lynching. In a couple episodes, Jamie’s gonna voluntarily send a guy into slavery! 
Fuck.
Please all go read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. KThxBai.
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missjackil · 5 years
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My 14x18 Opinion
Absence
WOW!! I totally missed the mark on at least some of my predictions eh? That’s fine, it means they can still surprise me, so its a win/win :)
This episode really had me stressed out. My empathy buttons were pushed for both Sam and Dean, and Jack. I literally shook through most of the episode! I thought it was a good episode, but now without its problems. At the risk of sounding more show negative than I actually am,  I feel like now that there is a finish line in sight, that more attention is being paid to the drama, than to script writing.  Don't get me wrong, I'm here for the drama, I always have been, but they’re spending too much dialogue on re-explaining past events, or emphasizing how great someone is before they kill them or something else bad happens. Im sure they could have come up with better dialogue between Sam and Dean before Cas called than to recall the good that Jack did in the last episode. We all watched it, and if we didn’t., it was in the “Then” we know Sam and Dean both care about Jack a lot, so they could have filled that time with a better convo IMO.  But let’s move on..
I didn’t think Mary was dead, or at least that wouldnt be established in this episode. I thought she would be missing and the guys looking for her till maybe next episode. I liked the memory flashbacks, it was cool to add content to the recent past. The memory with Cas was strange though because Mary has never come across as being afraid of him and Cas had healed all 3 of them after the torture rescue in 12x2 which was about day 3 of her being back, so having her fearful of him was pretty dumb IMO. 
I enjoyed the resurrection of Sam’s grief beard, but it had switched from being Jack’s memory to being Sam’s and that confused me for a second, then I thought OOOOHHHH MARY IS IN HEAVEN AND THESE ARE HER MEMORIES!!!! Then I instantly hurt for my boys. 
As expected, the “You’re dead to me” statement in the trailer was misleading. I don't think Dean feels very profoundly bonded to Cas anymore, but I don't think he’s written him off forever either. However, don't believe all is forgiven.  That scene between Sam Dean and Cas when Cas said “i have failed you” was very tense. I knew at least one Winchester was going to throw and break something
I knew Sam would defend Cas, and also blame himself. Sam has always been ridden with more guilt than he needs to carry, but this season especially has him drowning in it. can't think of an episode this season that doesn't have him on the verge of tears if he wasn't legitimately crying. Im very glad that Dean supported him and didn't blame him for anything. Dean blamed himself too, so I don't think Cas is disowned at this point, but Dean remained quiet and standoffish towards him like Cas deliberately hid information from them and now Mom is dead so Im sure both Dean and Sam are going to hold that grudge for a while.
On Jack’s end, if he was soulless, he wouldn't care that he killed Mary or that Sam and Dean won't ever trust him again. but it’s more than obvious something is wrong. Remember he doesn't have Nephilim grace, he has archangel grace and I can't help but think that might be messing him up too. I recall when we were first introduced to Jack, things would happen when he was scared and he couldn't control it. Hearing Angel Radio freaked him out really bad, which I still kinda think he was hearing Lucifer just before he exploded Mary. 
I know many of you are worried the show is “destroying a well-loved character” but seriously, they never do that. Not by making them too bad to redeem that is. Some of you think Mary used to be a good character, and they ruined her now, but that’s not what happened either. In the early seasons, the only time we actually saw HER was briefly in the Pilot when she tucked Sam in, and for a second when she caught Azazel by his crib. Any other time we saw her was in a dream or hallucination, or when her image was being used to trigger a response from the boys. Both episodes in which she was her younger self, she wasn’t played by Sam Smith, and she didn't really care for Sam and Dean. She wasn’t very nice to them, and not even remotely motherly, so I'm really not sure what “wonderful character” you all believe she used to be and then got ruined.
She was/is not irredeemable She didn’t treat the boys the best, but certainly not the worst among people they consider “Family” (side eyes Cas). she never set out to hurt them, I never forgave her for wanting to stay in the AU after everything they went through to save her, but the boys did, and she hasn't been cold or mean to them since. She just never was a good actress.
So, Jack tries a spell to bring her back, and it didnt work. It just brought back her “shell”. Such a good broment when Dean held her body and Sam touched Dean and Mary. The funeral pyre was sad, but I loved Sam holding Cas back from trying to comfort Dean. The same as when Dean held Cas back from comforting Sam when Jack died. These brothers know what the other needs, and they’re going to be the one who provides it. Nice try Cas. 
The one thing that affected me like nails on a chalkboard though, was Mary’s initials in the table. BIG NOPE! That’s Sam and Dean’s thing!! And I would have been more willing to accept it had John carved his initials too. Still wouldn't have liked it but at least it would have made sense. Also, every time they’re near that table I look for the carving, and its always there and her initials never were, not even in 14x17, so that just really sucked. 
Overall I liked the episode, I was actually more worried for Rowena but shes OK thank Chuck. 2 more episodes this season and Im sure they’re gonna hurt.
On a scale of Bloodlines to Lebanon, I give this episode a 7. Not as good as it could be but worth a rewatch. And Sam’s hair looked great :D
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Text
Emotional Breakdowns Lead To Passably Poetic Ramblings
26.06.21
word count: 2.15K
I never write because I need everything I write to be evocative. I need it to be painful. What's the point of writing something if the reader doesn't hurt? It hurt me to write this, and I hope it hurts you to read.
I've always imagined putting my thoughts into words, but I don't know if I want them to be on paper or my phone. Digital is easy, it's good, it's clean. It's easy to edit, to navigate, to save; it'll probably live on forever. It won't erode and disappear like the writing journal I had for six years, eaten away by the same termites who ate my entire closet from the inside. His name was Reggie, and he deserved better. I'd kept him safe in the closet, but I learnt too late that nothing was safe in the closet. Nothing physical, existing is ever safe from the World and it's beasts – Man or insect.
But paper is personal, it's real. It's beautiful. Sure, sometimes my brain and heart think of words faster than my hands can keep up, and the words are barely legible and my hand-writing's not pretty anyway, but that's the beauty of it. That's what makes it mine. But someone I know can stumble upon these words and read the truth of my existence. But maybe I want them to stumble upon it, one day. Maybe I want them to find my words and understand, really understand, who I was and what I am and what I kept locked up inside of me. That I wasn't some selfish, ill-mannered brat. That I really loved them, but sometimes it was hard. My mother always tells me no one can ever trust anyone but family, that even if she screams and shouts and scolds at first, at the end of the day she'll always have my back, and I know that's the truth.
But my cousin molested my other cousins and I, and she cried when she found out after years because she had to hear it from the other side of the family, and she cried because she'd told me so many times that she'll always have my back if something like that happened to me and she keeps saying family and family and family, and trust and trust and trust and how family is my parents and brothers and that's all we can ever trust but how do I tell her that the reason I said nothing when my cousin did it was because I was used to staying silent when my brother did? It's all so funny because I was blessed enough to have been born to parents who would never blame me for being abused in a society in which the blame- and shame-game is prevalent, but what do you do when the victim is your daughter and the abuser is your son – your firstborn, the first "nawasa" in the family, your pride and joy, the prince charming. You've loved him for seven more years than you've loved me. I understand. You don't deserve to suffer the truth. I saw how you were when you found out the truth about the cousin, I remember the things you said about family and trust. I know you have your own issues. You don't deserve to suffer. You don't. I love you all. So much. So so much. I won't let you suffer. I won't let you be the collateral to his sins. I'll protect you, and you'll never know.
And I'm okay, so why would I say anything? When we're happy and whole and great? Why would I say anything when I'm actually, genuinely fine and unaffected? Why would I ruin us? How could I say anything? And I'm fine, I really am. I'm okay. And I know my friends think I'm gaslighting myself when I say that I'm fine and it hasn't effected me much and it wasn't that bad because I was never actually physically hurt, but it's true. I'm used to laughing and loving the people I hate. I'm used to hating the people I love without an ounce of real hatred. I know what it sounds like, but it really isn't that way. It's okay. I'm okay, and no one should worry, even if sometimes I want everyone to worry. Even if sometimes I want everyone's pity and attention and love and sympathy, and I want them to hurt for me, like I hurt for the people I love. Sometimes I just want validation, I want people to know everything so they understand me. But everyone wants to be understood, so that's nothing special. I'm okay, and that is the only thing what matters.
I wasn't raped; I was molested. There's a difference.
I wasn't raped, and honestly I only remember a few instances with clarity. Everything else is a blur – it's all just snippets and flashes of memory spun together to make a vague, dramatic montage. But I wasn't ever physically hurt, and of course I know that it was still terrible and horrible and I didn't deserve it, but understand that it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I'm fine and genuinely, actually okay and I'm only affected when I have a mental breakdown, but that's almost always because I'm pms-ing. And it hasn't happened in a while now. It stopped. I think it's been four years? And it happened for five? six? I was 9 or 10 when it started? And he was 16 or 17? Okay, that – Oh, God oh fuck that sounds bad doesn't it? I'm 18. My younger brother is 10. I couldn't imagine– I can't. God.
But it actually wasn't as bad as it sounds. I was asleep – of course I wasn't asleep (but I think sometimes I must've been? I don't know) – but I was "asleep" when he did what he did. And he did do a lot, to be honest. His hands, everywhere on me. His mouth – everywhere. His–
Why is it so hard to write? I think it's harder to write than it is to think and speak of it.
But I don't know what happened to me. I don't know. I don't remember what happened. I wish I'd kept a better record, but I didn't. Oh, I remember a lot of things that happened, but I don't remember it all. I wish I did but I really don't. I wish I could read and revisit and do a shitty psychoanalysis of him. But I can't, and now he's the only one who knows what really happened, and I'll have to live with it.
There were no words. Never any words, never any pain. So again, I'm fine, and I'm okay. And he's great and fun and funny and I love him and I care about him and I'm always joking with him and he's a terrible person and I hate him and I wish I knew how his brain works and what he was thinking and still thinks and I'll never forgive him, but it's okay. It's really okay. As long as I was the only one who suffered. As long as I'm the only one who continues to suffer for my silence.
I think the only reason I still think about it so much is because I never got closure. I never got an explanation. I never understood why. I don't know if he's an irredeemable monster or if he at least feels guilty. I don't know what he was thinking, because there were never any words. And I'm glad there weren't any words and I was "asleep" because it makes it easier to interact with him and pretend it never happened, that it was someone else and everything's still okay.
But there were never any words, so I don't have anything to work with. Nothing to draw conclusions from, nothing to psychoanalyze him with. I don't know what he was thinking, I don't know what happened. I want closure, I want to understand. But I'm scared of whatever will lead up to the conversation, and the conversation itself. I'm scared of the acknowledgment and how it'll change everything irrevocably. I'm scared of getting closure, but I need it too. I need to understand.
Did you feel bad? Did you think of how it'll hurt me? Did it hurt you? Or were you indifferent to it all? Did you just not care or –fuck–was it some big joke? Was it funny? Was it amusing? Do you feel entitled to me? How fucking dare you? How could you? How fucking could you? You loved me. You were great to me, you still are sometimes. You're my big brother, man. I loved you. I love you. You were supposed to be my hero and I fucking swear to God you were. What the fuck happened to you? What made you this way? How could you do that to me? How could you do that and still look at me in the fucking eye? How? Why? I deserve to know.
But please don't tell me. I don't know what I'll do if I find out the extent of your monstrosity. I don't want you to fall even lower. I like to think you can't, but I know that's not true. Especially after what I learnt about Z- There's always room to fall.
But anyway – Reggie. I'd been brave enough to write a chapter of my life for the first time in that journal. It was the last story Reggie got to know. I'd never been brave enough to actually write about how I'd been hurt. I could never even write his name when I tried to make a record of what I went through – I was always smart (or sentimental?) enough to try and and keep a record, some proof, dated and organized. I was smart enough – but not brave. Maybe because my coping mechanism was pretending he was two different people, or maybe because writing it would make it real; I'd lived long enough without acknowledging it (even more so without understanding it), maybe if I ignored it long enough it would just go away. But the story I wrote in it wasn't even about that exactly. It was an older story; It was about how all of it might've been my fault. About how maybe I was always a fucked up child. But the story also brings me comfort – it reminds me that I've always been me, that the person I am today is because of the person I always was. That there was no influence that made me this way. I am what I was.
The termites consuming Reggie also reminded me of the old Islamic story about how the Boycott of Banu Hashim ended – the parchment holding the banishment declaration by the Meccans had been eaten by termites, except for the word Allah – the name of God. I thought it'd be interesting if this was God's way of sending me some message I have yet to decipher.
But I don't believe in God. Maybe life would've been easier if I did; if I could have found peace in He who I could not see, could not touch. If I could've found the same relief that my friends and family find in His words, His presence.
But I never felt His presence. I tried, I really did (maybe I didn't, maybe I should've tried harder?). During my last try, I made the resolution to offer all my prayers one Ramadan. I thought if I manage to nail down all the worship obligations, actual faith might follow somehow.
I lasted two days. I cried on the prayer mat during Fajr both times, like my mother does all the time, but I doubt it was for the same reasons as her, or lead to the same result. I did not feel at peace, and I did not feel seen and heard by the Creator; I had never felt more alone, more abandoned. My heart did not feel a little less heavy; it had never felt heavier.
I cried because I was desperate the cycle wouldn't repeat. I wanted to believe there was someone who could make it stop, someone who could make sure that others didn't follow in his footsteps. It did stop, eventually. But I think that's just how it was supposed to be – not because some deity cared enough to make it stop. He doesn't care about us, but if you don't agree with that, I envy you. I wish I believed what you believe.
But I'm also glad I don't. So I will just exist, till one day I don't. And you won't remember me, and He won't care, and no one will greet me at the Gates of Heaven or throw me in the depths of Hell, because neither exist.
I hope.
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moviedailymotion · 3 years
Text
- Ein Geschenk von Bob - VOLLEDIG 2020 - M O V I E S [STREAMING ONLINE]
Ein Geschenk von Bob  - VOLLEDIG 2020 - M O V I E S [STREAMING ONLINE]
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Our relationship is strained. It feels like it has been for a while. For the last four years, there has been an elephant in the room — I’d joke and call it an orange elephant, but I’m nervous that might end this earnest conversation before it even begins. Have I changed? I mean, yes, of course I have. I’ve gotten older. I’ve had two children. I’ve tried to read and learn as much as possible, just as you taught me. In fact, that’s sort of the weirdest thing. I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still believe, deep in my bones, all the fundamental things you not only talked to me about, but showed me when I was little. I believe in character. I believe in competence. I believe in treating people decently. I believe in moderation. I believe in a better future and I believe in American exceptionalism, the idea that the system we were given by the Founding Fathers, although imperfect, has been an incredible vehicle for progress, moral improvement, and greatness, unlike any other system of government or country yet conceived. I believe this exceptionalism comes with responsibilities. Politically, I’m pretty much the same, too. Government is best when limited, but it’s nonetheless necessary. Fair but low taxes grow the economy. Rights must be protected, privacy respected. Partisanship stops at the water’s edge. No law can make people virtuous — that obligation rests on every individual. So how is it even possible that we’re here? Unable to travel, banned from entry by countless nations. The laughingstock of the developed world for our woeful response to a pandemic. 200,000 dead. It hasn’t been safe to see you guys or grandma for months, despite being just a plane ride away. My children — your grandchildren — are deprived of their friends and school. Meanwhile, the U.S., which was built on immigration — grandma being one who fled the ravages of war in Europe for a better life here — is now a bastion of anti-immigrant hysteria. Our relatives on your side fought for the Union in the Civil War. Great-grandpa fought against the Russians in WWI, and granddad landed at Normandy to stop the rise of fascism. And now people are marching with tiki-torches shouting, “the Jews will not replace us.” What is happening?! Black men are shot down in the streets? Foreign nations are offering bounties on American soldiers? And the President of the United States defends, rationalizes, or does nothing to stop this? I’d say that’s insane, but I’m too heartbroken. Because every step of the way, I’ve heard you defend, rationalize, or enable him and the politicians around him. Not since I was a kid have I craved to hear your strong voice more, to hear you say anything reassuring, inspiring, morally cogent. If not for me, then for the world that will be left to your grandchildren. This does not feel like a good road we are going down… Look, I know you’re not to blame for this. You hold no position of power besides the one we all have as voters, but I guess I just always thought you believed in the lessons you taught me, and the things we used to listen to on talk radio on our drives home from the lake. All those conversations about American dignity, the power of private enterprise, the sacredness of the Oval Office, the primacy of the rule of law. Now Donald Trump gushes over foreign strongmen. He cheats on his wife with porn stars (and bribes them with illegal campaign funds). He attacks whistleblowers (career army officers, that is). He lies blatantly and habitually, about both the smallest and largest of things. He enriches himself, his family members, and his business with expenditures straight from the public treasury. And that’s just the stuff we know about. God knows what else has happened these last four years that executive privilege has allowed him to obscure from public view. I still think about the joke you made when we walked past Trump Tower in New York when I was kid. Tacky, you said. A reality show fool. Now that fool has his finger on the nuclear button — which I think he thinks is an actual button — and I can’t understand why you’re OK with this. I mean, the guy can’t even spell! You demanded better of me in the papers I turned in when I was in middle school. I know you don’t like any of it. If you’d have had your choice, any other Republican would have been elected but Trump. You’re not an extremist, and you’ve never once said anything as repulsive as what people now seem comfortable saying on TV and social media (and in emails to your son, I might add). Four years ago, I wrote to you to ask you not to vote for Donald Trump. But this time around, that’s no longer enough. At some point, just finding it all unpleasant and shaking your head at the tweets, while saying or doing nothing more about it, is moral complicity. You told me that as a kid! That the bad prevail when good people do nothing. A while back I emailed a friend of mine who is an advisor to the administration. I said to him, why do you think my dad’s support of Trump bothers me so much more than yours? Because it does. This is someone who helped put Trump in office and wants to keep him there, but we’re still friends. Talking to him doesn’t hurt my heart the way it does when politics come up over family meals. The man’s answer was telling, and I am quoting. He said, “Because I am irredeemable, but your dad ought to know better.” Does that register with you at all? One of the things you taught me well was how to spot a scam. Double check everything, you said. Do your research. Look at what the people around them say. Look at their history. Remember when you used to quote Reagan’s line to me, “Trust, but verify”? I’ve been lucky enough to make a few trips to Washington the last few years. I’ve sat across from Senators and Congressmen. I’ve talked to generals who have briefed the president, and business leaders who worked with him before the election. This is a guy who doesn’t read, they said, a guy with the attention span of a child. Everybody avoided doing business with him. Because he didn’t listen, because he stiffed people on bills, because he was clueless. He treated women horribly. He’s awful, they said. I thought this was a particularly damning line: If Donald Trump were even half-competent, one elected official told me, he could probably rule this country for 20 years. I have trouble figuring what’s worse — that he wants to, or that he wants to but isn’t competent enough to pull it off. Instead, Washington is so broken and so filled with cowards that Trump just spent the last four years breaking stuff and embarrassing himself. I learned from you how to recognize a dangerous or unreliable person. If you don’t trust the news, could you trust what I’m bringing you, right from the source? Let’s trust our gut, not our political sensibility. Based on what I’ve told you, and what you’ve seen: Would you let him manage your money? Would you want your wife or daughter to work for him without supervision? I’m not even sure I would stay in one of his hotels, after what I’ve read. Watching the RNC a few weeks ago, I wondered what planet I was on. What’s with all the yelling? How is this happening on the White House lawn? Why are his loser kids on the bill? His kid’s girlfriend??? And what is this picture of America they are painting? They are the ones in charge! Yet they choose to campaign against the dystopian nightmare that is 2020… which is to say, they are campaigning against themselves. Look, I agree there is crazy stuff happening in the world. The civil unrest is palpable, violence is on the rise, and Americans have never been so openly divided. Sure, rioting and looting are bad. But who is to blame for all the chaos? The President. Remember what you told me about the sign on Truman’s desk? The buck stops here. (May we contrast that with: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”) In any case, what some crazy people in Portland are doing is not ours to repeatedly disavow. What the president does? The citizens are complicit in that. Especially if we endorse it at the ballot box come November 3rd. Besides, what credibility do we have to insist on the ‘rule of law’ when eight of the president’s associates have faced criminal charges? His former lawyer went to jail, too! And then the president commutes their sentences, dangles pardons to keep them quiet, or tries to prevent them from cooperating with authorities? When he’s fined millions of dollars for illegally using his charity as a slush fund? When he cheats on his taxes? When he helped his parents avoid taxes, too? I remember you once told me the story of a police officer in your department who was caught filling up his personal car with gas paid for by the city. The problem, you said, wasn’t just the mistake. It was that when he was confronted by it, he lied. But the cameras showed the proof and so he was fired, for being untrustworthy most of all. Would you fire Trump if he worked for you? What kind of culture do you think your work would have had if the boss acted like Trump? As for the lying, that’s the craziest part, because we can, as the kids say, check the receipts: Was it bad enough to call John McCain a loser? Yes, but then, of course, Trump lied and claimed he didn’t. Bad enough to cheat on his wife? Yes, but of course, he lied about it, and committed crimes covering it up (which he also lied about). Was it bad enough to solicit help from Russia and Wikileaks in the election? Yes, but then he, his son, and his campaign have lied about it so many times, in so many forums, that some of them went to jail over it. Was it stupid that, in February, Trump was tweeting about how Covid-29 was like the flu and that we didn’t need to worry? Yes, but it takes on a different color when you listen to him tell Bob Woodward that in January he knew how bad it was, how much worse it was than even the worst flu, and that he was deliberately going to downplay the virus for political purposes. I’m sure we could quibble over some, but The Fact Checker database currently tallys over 20,000 lies since he took office. Even if we cut it in half, that’s insane! It’s impossible to deny: Trump lied, and Americans have died because of it. A friend of mine had a one-on-one dinner with Trump at the White House a while back. It was actually amazing, he said. Half the evening was spent telling lies about the size of his inaugural address. This was in private — not even for public relations purposes, and years after the controversy had died down. That’s when he realized: The lying is pathological. It can’t be helped. Which is to say, it makes a person unfit to lead. Politics should not come before family. I don’t want you to think this affects how I feel about you. But it does make it harder for us to spend time together — not just literally so, since Trump’s bumbling response to the pandemic has crippled America and made travel difficult. It’s that I feel grief. I feel real grief — were the lessons you taught me as a kid not true? Did you not mean them? Was it self-serving stuff to make sure I behaved? Was I a fool for listening? Or is it worse, that my own father cares more about his retirement accounts — and I’ll grant, the runup of the market has been nice for me, too — than the future he is leaving for his children? Are you so afraid of change, of that liberal boogeyman Limbaugh and Hannity and these other folks have concocted, that you’d rather entrust the country to a degenerate carnival barker than anyone else? I see all this anger, what is it that you’re so angry about? You’ve won. Society has worked for you. My own success is proof. So what is it? Because it can’t possibly be that you think this guy is trustworthy, decent, or kind. It’s definitely not about his policies… because almost every single one is anathema to what Republicans — and you — have talked about my entire life. The one thing I hold onto is hope. I believe in America. I believe in the goodness of hardworking people like you and Mom. I know that this is not what you wanted to happen, that this is not the America you grew up in nor the one you would like for me and my kids to grow up in. I hold onto hope that you’re tired enough to draw the line. That you are not irredeemable as that Trump advisor allowed himself to become. The right thing is always the right thing, you’ve said. Even when it’s hard. Even when it goes against what your friends think, or what you’ve done in the past. The right thing is obviously to end this. To cancel this horrendous experiment with its cavalcade of daily horrors and vulgarities and stupidities and historical humiliations. America is a great nation. …
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koljabartsaderawegf · 3 years
Text
BEKIJK - Ein Geschenk von Bob - VOLLEDIG 2020 - M O V I E S [STREAMING ONLINE]
BEKIJK - Ein Geschenk von Bob - VOLLEDIG 2020 - M O V I E S [STREAMING ONLINE]
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Our relationship is strained. It feels like it has been for a while. For the last four years, there has been an elephant in the room — I’d joke and call it an orange elephant, but I’m nervous that might end this earnest conversation before it even begins. Have I changed? I mean, yes, of course I have. I’ve gotten older. I’ve had two children. I’ve tried to read and learn as much as possible, just as you taught me. In fact, that’s sort of the weirdest thing. I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still believe, deep in my bones, all the fundamental things you not only talked to me about, but showed me when I was little. I believe in character. I believe in competence. I believe in treating people decently. I believe in moderation. I believe in a better future and I believe in American exceptionalism, the idea that the system we were given by the Founding Fathers, although imperfect, has been an incredible vehicle for progress, moral improvement, and greatness, unlike any other system of government or country yet conceived. I believe this exceptionalism comes with responsibilities. Politically, I’m pretty much the same, too. Government is best when limited, but it’s nonetheless necessary. Fair but low taxes grow the economy. Rights must be protected, privacy respected. Partisanship stops at the water’s edge. No law can make people virtuous — that obligation rests on every individual. So how is it even possible that we’re here? Unable to travel, banned from entry by countless nations. The laughingstock of the developed world for our woeful response to a pandemic. 200,000 dead. It hasn’t been safe to see you guys or grandma for months, despite being just a plane ride away. My children — your grandchildren — are deprived of their friends and school. Meanwhile, the U.S., which was built on immigration — grandma being one who fled the ravages of war in Europe for a better life here — is now a bastion of anti-immigrant hysteria. Our relatives on your side fought for the Union in the Civil War. Great-grandpa fought against the Russians in WWI, and granddad landed at Normandy to stop the rise of fascism. And now people are marching with tiki-torches shouting, “the Jews will not replace us.” What is happening?! Black men are shot down in the streets? Foreign nations are offering bounties on American soldiers? And the President of the United States defends, rationalizes, or does nothing to stop this? I’d say that’s insane, but I’m too heartbroken. Because every step of the way, I’ve heard you defend, rationalize, or enable him and the politicians around him. Not since I was a kid have I craved to hear your strong voice more, to hear you say anything reassuring, inspiring, morally cogent. If not for me, then for the world that will be left to your grandchildren. This does not feel like a good road we are going down… Look, I know you’re not to blame for this. You hold no position of power besides the one we all have as voters, but I guess I just always thought you believed in the lessons you taught me, and the things we used to listen to on talk radio on our drives home from the lake. All those conversations about American dignity, the power of private enterprise, the sacredness of the Oval Office, the primacy of the rule of law. Now Donald Trump gushes over foreign strongmen. He cheats on his wife with porn stars (and bribes them with illegal campaign funds). He attacks whistleblowers (career army officers, that is). He lies blatantly and habitually, about both the smallest and largest of things. He enriches himself, his family members, and his business with expenditures straight from the public treasury. And that’s just the stuff we know about. God knows what else has happened these last four years that executive privilege has allowed him to obscure from public view. I still think about the joke you made when we walked past Trump Tower in New York when I was kid. Tacky, you said. A reality show fool. Now that fool has his finger on the nuclear button — which I think he thinks is an actual button — and I can’t understand why you’re OK with this. I mean, the guy can’t even spell! You demanded better of me in the papers I turned in when I was in middle school. I know you don’t like any of it. If you’d have had your choice, any other Republican would have been elected but Trump. You’re not an extremist, and you’ve never once said anything as repulsive as what people now seem comfortable saying on TV and social media (and in emails to your son, I might add). Four years ago, I wrote to you to ask you not to vote for Donald Trump. But this time around, that’s no longer enough. At some point, just finding it all unpleasant and shaking your head at the tweets, while saying or doing nothing more about it, is moral complicity. You told me that as a kid! That the bad prevail when good people do nothing. A while back I emailed a friend of mine who is an advisor to the administration. I said to him, why do you think my dad’s support of Trump bothers me so much more than yours? Because it does. This is someone who helped put Trump in office and wants to keep him there, but we’re still friends. Talking to him doesn’t hurt my heart the way it does when politics come up over family meals. The man’s answer was telling, and I am quoting. He said, “Because I am irredeemable, but your dad ought to know better.” Does that register with you at all? One of the things you taught me well was how to spot a scam. Double check everything, you said. Do your research. Look at what the people around them say. Look at their history. Remember when you used to quote Reagan’s line to me, “Trust, but verify”? I’ve been lucky enough to make a few trips to Washington the last few years. I’ve sat across from Senators and Congressmen. I’ve talked to generals who have briefed the president, and business leaders who worked with him before the election. This is a guy who doesn’t read, they said, a guy with the attention span of a child. Everybody avoided doing business with him. Because he didn’t listen, because he stiffed people on bills, because he was clueless. He treated women horribly. He’s awful, they said. I thought this was a particularly damning line: If Donald Trump were even half-competent, one elected official told me, he could probably rule this country for 20 years. I have trouble figuring what’s worse — that he wants to, or that he wants to but isn’t competent enough to pull it off. Instead, Washington is so broken and so filled with cowards that Trump just spent the last four years breaking stuff and embarrassing himself. I learned from you how to recognize a dangerous or unreliable person. If you don’t trust the news, could you trust what I’m bringing you, right from the source? Let’s trust our gut, not our political sensibility. Based on what I’ve told you, and what you’ve seen: Would you let him manage your money? Would you want your wife or daughter to work for him without supervision? I’m not even sure I would stay in one of his hotels, after what I’ve read. Watching the RNC a few weeks ago, I wondered what planet I was on. What’s with all the yelling? How is this happening on the White House lawn? Why are his loser kids on the bill? His kid’s girlfriend??? And what is this picture of America they are painting? They are the ones in charge! Yet they choose to campaign against the dystopian nightmare that is 2020… which is to say, they are campaigning against themselves. Look, I agree there is crazy stuff happening in the world. The civil unrest is palpable, violence is on the rise, and Americans have never been so openly divided. Sure, rioting and looting are bad. But who is to blame for all the chaos? The President. Remember what you told me about the sign on Truman’s desk? The buck stops here. (May we contrast that with: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”) In any case, what some crazy people in Portland are doing is not ours to repeatedly disavow. What the president does? The citizens are complicit in that. Especially if we endorse it at the ballot box come November 3rd. Besides, what credibility do we have to insist on the ‘rule of law’ when eight of the president’s associates have faced criminal charges? His former lawyer went to jail, too! And then the president commutes their sentences, dangles pardons to keep them quiet, or tries to prevent them from cooperating with authorities? When he’s fined millions of dollars for illegally using his charity as a slush fund? When he cheats on his taxes? When he helped his parents avoid taxes, too? I remember you once told me the story of a police officer in your department who was caught filling up his personal car with gas paid for by the city. The problem, you said, wasn’t just the mistake. It was that when he was confronted by it, he lied. But the cameras showed the proof and so he was fired, for being untrustworthy most of all. Would you fire Trump if he worked for you? What kind of culture do you think your work would have had if the boss acted like Trump? As for the lying, that’s the craziest part, because we can, as the kids say, check the receipts: Was it bad enough to call John McCain a loser? Yes, but then, of course, Trump lied and claimed he didn’t. Bad enough to cheat on his wife? Yes, but of course, he lied about it, and committed crimes covering it up (which he also lied about). Was it bad enough to solicit help from Russia and Wikileaks in the election? Yes, but then he, his son, and his campaign have lied about it so many times, in so many forums, that some of them went to jail over it. Was it stupid that, in February, Trump was tweeting about how Covid-29 was like the flu and that we didn’t need to worry? Yes, but it takes on a different color when you listen to him tell Bob Woodward that in January he knew how bad it was, how much worse it was than even the worst flu, and that he was deliberately going to downplay the virus for political purposes. I’m sure we could quibble over some, but The Fact Checker database currently tallys over 20,000 lies since he took office. Even if we cut it in half, that’s insane! It’s impossible to deny: Trump lied, and Americans have died because of it. A friend of mine had a one-on-one dinner with Trump at the White House a while back. It was actually amazing, he said. Half the evening was spent telling lies about the size of his inaugural address. This was in private — not even for public relations purposes, and years after the controversy had died down. That’s when he realized: The lying is pathological. It can’t be helped. Which is to say, it makes a person unfit to lead. Politics should not come before family. I don’t want you to think this affects how I feel about you. But it does make it harder for us to spend time together — not just literally so, since Trump’s bumbling response to the pandemic has crippled America and made travel difficult. It’s that I feel grief. I feel real grief — were the lessons you taught me as a kid not true? Did you not mean them? Was it self-serving stuff to make sure I behaved? Was I a fool for listening? Or is it worse, that my own father cares more about his retirement accounts — and I’ll grant, the runup of the market has been nice for me, too — than the future he is leaving for his children? Are you so afraid of change, of that liberal boogeyman Limbaugh and Hannity and these other folks have concocted, that you’d rather entrust the country to a degenerate carnival barker than anyone else? I see all this anger, what is it that you’re so angry about? You’ve won. Society has worked for you. My own success is proof. So what is it? Because it can’t possibly be that you think this guy is trustworthy, decent, or kind. It’s definitely not about his policies… because almost every single one is anathema to what Republicans — and you — have talked about my entire life. The one thing I hold onto is hope. I believe in America. I believe in the goodness of hardworking people like you and Mom. I know that this is not what you wanted to happen, that this is not the America you grew up in nor the one you would like for me and my kids to grow up in. I hold onto hope that you’re tired enough to draw the line. That you are not irredeemable as that Trump advisor allowed himself to become. The right thing is always the right thing, you’ve said. Even when it’s hard. Even when it goes against what your friends think, or what you’ve done in the past. The right thing is obviously to end this. To cancel this horrendous experiment with its cavalcade of daily horrors and vulgarities and stupidities and historical humiliations. America is a great nation. …
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bareklyionasery · 3 years
Text
WATCH — Ein Geschenk von Bobs — FULL 2020 — M O V I E S [STREAMING ONLINE]
WATCH — Ein Geschenk von Bobs — FULL 2020 — M O V I E S [STREAMING ONLINE]
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➜ [-KIJKEN-]
➜1080p [[HD-IMAX]]
Our relationship is strained. It feels like it has been for a while. For the last four years, there has been an elephant in the room — I’d joke and call it an orange elephant, but I’m nervous that might end this earnest conversation before it even begins. Have I changed? I mean, yes, of course I have. I’ve gotten older. I’ve had two children. I’ve tried to read and learn as much as possible, just as you taught me. In fact, that’s sort of the weirdest thing. I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still believe, deep in my bones, all the fundamental things you not only talked to me about, but showed me when I was little. I believe in character. I believe in competence. I believe in treating people decently. I believe in moderation. I believe in a better future and I believe in American exceptionalism, the idea that the system we were given by the Founding Fathers, although imperfect, has been an incredible vehicle for progress, moral improvement, and greatness, unlike any other system of government or country yet conceived. I believe this exceptionalism comes with responsibilities. Politically, I’m pretty much the same, too. Government is best when limited, but it’s nonetheless necessary. Fair but low taxes grow the economy. Rights must be protected, privacy respected. Partisanship stops at the water’s edge. No law can make people virtuous — that obligation rests on every individual. So how is it even possible that we’re here? Unable to travel, banned from entry by countless nations. The laughingstock of the developed world for our woeful response to a pandemic. 200,000 dead. It hasn’t been safe to see you guys or grandma for months, despite being just a plane ride away. My children — your grandchildren — are deprived of their friends and school. Meanwhile, the U.S., which was built on immigration — grandma being one who fled the ravages of war in Europe for a better life here — is now a bastion of anti-immigrant hysteria. Our relatives on your side fought for the Union in the Civil War. Great-grandpa fought against the Russians in WWI, and granddad landed at Normandy to stop the rise of fascism. And now people are marching with tiki-torches shouting, “the Jews will not replace us.” What is happening?! Black men are shot down in the streets? Foreign nations are offering bounties on American soldiers? And the President of the United States defends, rationalizes, or does nothing to stop this? I’d say that’s insane, but I’m too heartbroken. Because every step of the way, I’ve heard you defend, rationalize, or enable him and the politicians around him. Not since I was a kid have I craved to hear your strong voice more, to hear you say anything reassuring, inspiring, morally cogent. If not for me, then for the world that will be left to your grandchildren. This does not feel like a good road we are going down… Look, I know you’re not to blame for this. You hold no position of power besides the one we all have as voters, but I guess I just always thought you believed in the lessons you taught me, and the things we used to listen to on talk radio on our drives home from the lake. All those conversations about American dignity, the power of private enterprise, the sacredness of the Oval Office, the primacy of the rule of law. Now Donald Trump gushes over foreign strongmen. He cheats on his wife with porn stars (and bribes them with illegal campaign funds). He attacks whistleblowers (career army officers, that is). He lies blatantly and habitually, about both the smallest and largest of things. He enriches himself, his family members, and his business with expenditures straight from the public treasury. And that’s just the stuff we know about. God knows what else has happened these last four years that executive privilege has allowed him to obscure from public view. I still think about the joke you made when we walked past Trump Tower in New York when I was kid. Tacky, you said. A reality show fool. Now that fool has his finger on the nuclear button — which I think he thinks is an actual button — and I can’t understand why you’re OK with this. I mean, the guy can’t even spell! You demanded better of me in the papers I turned in when I was in middle school. I know you don’t like any of it. If you’d have had your choice, any other Republican would have been elected but Trump. You’re not an extremist, and you’ve never once said anything as repulsive as what people now seem comfortable saying on TV and social media (and in emails to your son, I might add). Four years ago, I wrote to you to ask you not to vote for Donald Trump. But this time around, that’s no longer enough. At some point, just finding it all unpleasant and shaking your head at the tweets, while saying or doing nothing more about it, is moral complicity. You told me that as a kid! That the bad prevail when good people do nothing. A while back I emailed a friend of mine who is an advisor to the administration. I said to him, why do you think my dad’s support of Trump bothers me so much more than yours? Because it does. This is someone who helped put Trump in office and wants to keep him there, but we’re still friends. Talking to him doesn’t hurt my heart the way it does when politics come up over family meals. The man’s answer was telling, and I am quoting. He said, “Because I am irredeemable, but your dad ought to know better.” Does that register with you at all? One of the things you taught me well was how to spot a scam. Double check everything, you said. Do your research. Look at what the people around them say. Look at their history. Remember when you used to quote Reagan’s line to me, “Trust, but verify”? I’ve been lucky enough to make a few trips to Washington the last few years. I’ve sat across from Senators and Congressmen. I’ve talked to generals who have briefed the president, and business leaders who worked with him before the election. This is a guy who doesn’t read, they said, a guy with the attention span of a child. Everybody avoided doing business with him. Because he didn’t listen, because he stiffed people on bills, because he was clueless. He treated women horribly. He’s awful, they said. I thought this was a particularly damning line: If Donald Trump were even half-competent, one elected official told me, he could probably rule this country for 20 years. I have trouble figuring what’s worse — that he wants to, or that he wants to but isn’t competent enough to pull it off. Instead, Washington is so broken and so filled with cowards that Trump just spent the last four years breaking stuff and embarrassing himself. I learned from you how to recognize a dangerous or unreliable person. If you don’t trust the news, could you trust what I’m bringing you, right from the source? Let’s trust our gut, not our political sensibility. Based on what I’ve told you, and what you’ve seen: Would you let him manage your money? Would you want your wife or daughter to work for him without supervision? I’m not even sure I would stay in one of his hotels, after what I’ve read. Watching the RNC a few weeks ago, I wondered what planet I was on. What’s with all the yelling? How is this happening on the White House lawn? Why are his loser kids on the bill? His kid’s girlfriend??? And what is this picture of America they are painting? They are the ones in charge! Yet they choose to campaign against the dystopian nightmare that is 2020… which is to say, they are campaigning against themselves. Look, I agree there is crazy stuff happening in the world. The civil unrest is palpable, violence is on the rise, and Americans have never been so openly divided. Sure, rioting and looting are bad. But who is to blame for all the chaos? The President. Remember what you told me about the sign on Truman’s desk? The buck stops here. (May we contrast that with: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”) In any case, what some crazy people in Portland are doing is not ours to repeatedly disavow. What the president does? The citizens are complicit in that. Especially if we endorse it at the ballot box come November 3rd. Besides, what credibility do we have to insist on the ‘rule of law’ when eight of the president’s associates have faced criminal charges? His former lawyer went to jail, too! And then the president commutes their sentences, dangles pardons to keep them quiet, or tries to prevent them from cooperating with authorities? When he’s fined millions of dollars for illegally using his charity as a slush fund? When he cheats on his taxes? When he helped his parents avoid taxes, too? I remember you once told me the story of a police officer in your department who was caught filling up his personal car with gas paid for by the city. The problem, you said, wasn’t just the mistake. It was that when he was confronted by it, he lied. But the cameras showed the proof and so he was fired, for being untrustworthy most of all. Would you fire Trump if he worked for you? What kind of culture do you think your work would have had if the boss acted like Trump? As for the lying, that’s the craziest part, because we can, as the kids say, check the receipts: Was it bad enough to call John McCain a loser? Yes, but then, of course, Trump lied and claimed he didn’t. Bad enough to cheat on his wife? Yes, but of course, he lied about it, and committed crimes covering it up (which he also lied about). Was it bad enough to solicit help from Russia and Wikileaks in the election? Yes, but then he, his son, and his campaign have lied about it so many times, in so many forums, that some of them went to jail over it. Was it stupid that, in February, Trump was tweeting about how Covid-29 was like the flu and that we didn’t need to worry? Yes, but it takes on a different color when you listen to him tell Bob Woodward that in January he knew how bad it was, how much worse it was than even the worst flu, and that he was deliberately going to downplay the virus for political purposes. I’m sure we could quibble over some, but The Fact Checker database currently tallys over 20,000 lies since he took office. Even if we cut it in half, that’s insane! It’s impossible to deny: Trump lied, and Americans have died because of it. A friend of mine had a one-on-one dinner with Trump at the White House a while back. It was actually amazing, he said. Half the evening was spent telling lies about the size of his inaugural address. This was in private — not even for public relations purposes, and years after the controversy had died down. That’s when he realized: The lying is pathological. It can’t be helped. Which is to say, it makes a person unfit to lead. Politics should not come before family. I don’t want you to think this affects how I feel about you. But it does make it harder for us to spend time together — not just literally so, since Trump’s bumbling response to the pandemic has crippled America and made travel difficult. It’s that I feel grief. I feel real grief — were the lessons you taught me as a kid not true? Did you not mean them? Was it self-serving stuff to make sure I behaved? Was I a fool for listening? Or is it worse, that my own father cares more about his retirement accounts — and I’ll grant, the runup of the market has been nice for me, too — than the future he is leaving for his children? Are you so afraid of change, of that liberal boogeyman Limbaugh and Hannity and these other folks have concocted, that you’d rather entrust the country to a degenerate carnival barker than anyone else? I see all this anger, what is it that you’re so angry about? You’ve won. Society has worked for you. My own success is proof. So what is it? Because it can’t possibly be that you think this guy is trustworthy, decent, or kind. It’s definitely not about his policies… because almost every single one is anathema to what Republicans — and you — have talked about my entire life. The one thing I hold onto is hope. I believe in America. I believe in the goodness of hardworking people like you and Mom. I know that this is not what you wanted to happen, that this is not the America you grew up in nor the one you would like for me and my kids to grow up in. I hold onto hope that you’re tired enough to draw the line. That you are not irredeemable as that Trump advisor allowed himself to become. The right thing is always the right thing, you’ve said. Even when it’s hard. Even when it goes against what your friends think, or what you’ve done in the past. The right thing is obviously to end this. To cancel this horrendous experiment with its cavalcade of daily horrors and vulgarities and stupidities and historical humiliations. America is a great nation. …
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merrywetherweather · 6 years
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Last Jedi Spoilers and Thoughts
So I just had to sit down and think some things through because I just saw The Last Jedi and as with every piece of media I consume, I’m overanalyzing it. There’s just a few things I wanna hit on and maybe predictions in here for the next film.
Firstly, I’d just like to touch upon the actual film itself. As a Star Wars fan, I’m immediately enamored with anything relating to the franchise being released, so I’m reluctant to even give criticisms. However, episode VIII was not as great as it could have been. The constant POV switching was annoying, since I felt like some scenes needed to linger for a longer period of time. I couldn’t build up enough attention or emotion for one particular instance without the film jumping again, leaving me frustrated. If the scenes had been longer and cuts happened less frequently, I felt like there would have been enough emotion and tension built up for the finale to actually feel like a satisfying and breathtaking culmination of everything that was/has happening/happened. The cogs were spinning independently, but not enough to set the whole machine in motion. It didn’t have as much of an impact as it should.
Secondly, I’d like to touch upon the relationships portrayed. The first was Finn and Rose. I want to start by saying, I like Rose and any major POC characters added to a giant franchise like Star Wars is wholly welcome. She’s also just a great character in general, but I don’t know if her arc was actually needed.The entire expedition to find a hacker was made pointless by Vice Admiral Amilyn’s hidden plan to stay aboard the main vessel, while allowing the rebels to escape. Their entire arc felt more like a pitch to introduce us to Rose and then immediately try to sell a romantic relationship between her and Finn to the fanbase. They haven’t even known each other for a day and she’s already confessed and kissed him (Also what is it with this new trend of ending each Star Wars film with putting the POC character in a coma?).
Another thing is if the franchise is going to push this ship along and try and force its canonization, it feels like it might have come as a direct response from people shipping Poe and Finn. Rather than have a gay couple, it almost seems to be pacifying the fanbase with a biracial POC couple. Honest to god, both forms of representation are needed in film today, but when adding in the facts that Rose’s arc and her confession felt forced and everyone was expressing a call for a romance between Poe and Finn, it does seem like the franchise has found a giant loophole to the reason why they can’t write in a gay romance. “But isn’t this good representation too?” Well, yes. But if it’s also at the cost of other forms of representation, what the fuck is even the point?
The other relationship that was heavily emphasized in this episode was the connection that Rey now shares with Kylo (I say Kylo because he’s still part of the Sith until otherwise portrayed). Before I get into any of the underlying romantic tension (which I am now on the fence of liking or disliking for a few different reasons) I’m going to delve into his character. Without any backstory, it was pretty easy to write him off as a pasty emo fuckboy who occasionally threw temper tantrums in episode VII. Now that we know how he was turned to the Sith, the audience can maybe find a little sympathy that he was almost murdered in his sleep by his mentor and his uncle (”Cool motive, still murder”.)
Knowing this, Rey feels the need to try and correct Luke’s mistake by giving Kylo someone he can trust, someone who is willing to meet him at his level and pull him back to the Light. It is important to note the scene where they almost touch through the force, he has taken off his gloves. In cinema, any time someone is wearing gloves, it generally indicates that the character has hidden intentions. In that moment, however, Kylo was being open and trusting Rey. Whether the audience feels he is irredeemable or not doesn’t matter. He does still have some good in him and Rey wants to save it.
In the throne room with Snoke, things are a little different. It’s no longer just him and Rey. He needs to make a decision. Every time he has to kill someone he loves or cares about, he’s being asked to pledge his loyalty. But Rey knelt before him as someone who had bestowed her trust in him fully. She deemed Luke’s decision wrong. She was on Kylo’s side when it came to his past. She went to him. She got on his level. She earned his trust. Kylo is a very unstable person. It is reflected in how his lightsaber is built, in his pained and guilty expressions when he killed his father, and the way he hesitated and decided not to kill his mother. But, in that throne room, the only thing he was sure about in that moment was that he couldn’t kill Rey. So, if he can’t kill Rey, what does he do? He kills the guy asking him to do it.
Then after he deals with Snoke’s guards, the consequences hit him. He looks at an empty throne and he absolutely panics. Rey just mentioned saving the rebels. He can’t go back, not now. Not after what he’s done. He’s scared of facing his mother and all the people he’s stolen friends, family, and comrades from. Kylo is not a person aspiring to the throne. He craves power, but not that kind of power. He’s someone looking desperately for acceptance and he thinks power is how he gets there. He didn’t find it when he was training as a Jedi and he didn’t find it trying to follow in Darth Vader’s footsteps. Rey has shown him fleeting moments of acceptance, but in that moment of panic, he comes to a different decision. Someone new is going to assume Snoke’s throne and it might as well be him. He said a “new order”. He says he doesn’t want The Jedi, The Rebels, or The Sith. But, really, he just doesn’t want to go home. The throne and the new order he speaks of are just an excuse. So, his cowardice wins out and he flips again.
Kylo is not someone lost to the dark side. He’s constantly straddling the edge and it’s tearing him apart. That’s why Luke tells him if he strikes him down, he’ll never leave him. The guilt will remain with him forever. Just like his father. In terms of his relationship with Rey, she is supposedly the Light equal to his Dark. They are two sides of the same coin. But, just like Kylo straddles the edge, so does Rey. But she does it from the side of Light. Each time we see her train, she’s immediately pulled in. Her first lesson is feeling the force and she’s swept into the Dark after experiencing everything in the Light. Physically, it’s manifested in her morning training with the staff and lightsaber. With the staff, she can stop herself just before hitting the rock. With the saber, she accidentally drives it all the way through. She straddles the edge from the side of Light while Kylo does so on the side of Dark. In this way, they’re in perfect balance (I mean, it’s obvious these characters are foils and there is definitely romantic tension between them.).
But because Kylo has done so much wrong, it is hard to find him redeemable, unless he proves himself. And nothing proves itself as redeemable to an audience more than sacrifice through death. This setup is an obvious parallel to Vader’s redemption, but whether or not the plot will play out that way is a different matter. There are three possible options here. One: Kylo is deemed irredeemable and Rey must cut him down, thus ending in his death. Two: Kylo redeems himself through sacrifice. Three: Kylo is saved by Rey and pulled into the Light (This would be a very unfavorable outcome to audience members who dislike him. All cannot be forgiven so easily, which is why most villains who’ve performed heinous acts generally are killed off for redemption.).
I would wager though, that he does make it out of the franchise alive and that he must redeem himself by actually living with the consequences of his actions instead. Of the three options, I know Kylo would rather choose the ones ending in death than go back and deal with all of his mistakes. So, as unsatisfying as option three might be for the audience, I might actually prefer it, as it would thoroughly punish and make him repent. THAT would make him redeemable in my eyes.
As for the romantic relationship that seems to be building between Rey and him, I’m conflicted. They balance each other out as decent foils, but the question of, “Is he redeemable?” still lingers in the air. Rey believes so. The audience’s opinion doesn’t matter in that case. But there’s also the “woman saving the man’s soul” trope hanging about and there’s a lot to say about how it isn’t her damn job to do that even though she’s choosing to. The only thing I know for certain is that they’re going to have continued chemistry. There was the foreshadowing “saving what you love” quote from Rose and the fact that Snoke is no longer connecting them through the force but they are still reaching out to each other after he died. They haven’t given up on each other yet. Rey closed the door on him so to speak, but their connection is still there.
One last piece I wanted to discuss was when Leia was relieved of command and  Vice Admiral Amilyn had to assume control. It was wholly unnecessary to leave everyone out of the loop of their plan of escape. I was also worried the entire time that they were pulling an “incompetent bitchy woman in charge” trope with a little “man who obviously knows what he’s doing” spice thrown in. Leia in charge is fine because she’s recognizable. She’s awesome. She’s practically an “honorary man”. But they threw in a new woman in charge and suddenly I was very scared they were going to make her the bad guy. Just another bitch/boss trope. When it turned out she was competent and knew what she was doing, could handle her shit, and treated Poe like he was a misbehaving toddler, I was relieved but found the entire ordeal completely unneeded. Just let her come across competent to start. It was just unnecessary drama and filler.
Other than all that, my favorite part was the lightsaber battle in the red room with the guards. Cinematically, it was the most aesthetically pleasing to look at, and any time your enemy becomes your momentary ally, you just know some good shits gonna pop off.  Also, since the lightsaber broke in half, I think it is safe to assume Rey will finally get her own duel sided saber. (Then we can have her actually be a force to reckon with during saber fight scenes since she’s more competent with her staff).
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