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bedlamsbard · 2 years

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Please talk about how the altverse happened you keep saying that it wasn't planned and as you know altverse!Loki hits literally every one of my buttons. I am seriously considering writing meta for the altverse that's how deep I'm invested. Was it just a single point divergence of what if Thor fell? And what was the logic behind altverse!Thor being so gods-damned scary (in the best way)? The sheer brutality of what they did to each other leaves me with so many questions

First of all, I would love to read any meta you write for the altverse!

As originally (loosely) planned, Odin was actually supposed to come from the original version of Thor: Ragnarok, the deleted scenes version of Odin who was roaming NYC -- not from the Ragnarok point in the timeline but from a little earlier; he had been staying ahead of the TVA before they finally cornered him. There's a relic of this in an early chapter of Morning where Mobius calls Odin the member of the family furthest from the Sacred Timeline, because he had been avoiding the TVA for so long and thus distorting the timeline. (All the Mimameid and set point worldbuilding came much later.)

I knew Odin was going to be the member of the family introduced last because I didn't settle on his divergence point until pretty late. I cycled through a few different options along with the Ragnarok one, including an Odin who came from much, much earlier in the timeline -- the Odin who made the decision not to pick up Loki on Jotunheim, but I discarded that option because then he wouldn't have any emotional connection with Loki (or Thor, because he wouldn't have met Thor at that point either, since I had them being born as "twins" very early on).

I can't quite remember what order I did everything in -- I wrote the scene of altverse Thor's arrival at Project Pegasus that's at the end of Morning 3, but I can't recall if I did that before or after I'd decided that he was going to come from Odin's timeline. I'm guessing after, because I don't think I ever planned on introducing a sixth timeline that didn't have an accompanying family member. I think Odin's timeline and divergence point spun out of having that image of altverse Thor at Project Pegasus and then working backwards to how that could have happened, which resulted in the Odin flashback in 4, and then working forward from that image to figure out how it would work with the rest of the timelines and what I intended for the end point of the story; it also served for me as "okay, how do we get other functional timelines in this universe that the TVA allows to exist and how does this differ from the family members that were near-instantly arrested?"

By the time Odin was introduced in 4, I already knew that altverse Thor and Loki had seriously messed each other up in the face during the Battle of New York -- if you reread his interaction with main timeline Thor and Loki you can tell that he's completely shocked to see them without that specific scarring and that's the reason he approaches them from behind, so that when they turn around he can go "wait, WHAT." (There's a line in 4 where Odin is touching Loki's face and it specifically says "the unmarked skin of [Loki's] left cheek," so even at that point I knew which side of the face it was -- it's also deliberate that his bad eye is his left eye, while main timeline Thor's blind eye is his right eye. There's also a reason, which we now know, why Odin's assumption is that Loki took Thor's eye.)

I wrote the full chapter flashback that would become Morning 6 in a single day (possibly two day) frenzy at the beginning of August and then sat on it until it was posted at the end of November. I'd initially written it just as concept writing and hadn't intended it to be in the story (I mean, it's 10K of Natasha POV), so I wasn't sure if it had a place to work in there. I've got about half a dozen other altverse scenes in various stages of completion, some I wrote as concept writing to get a better feel for the world and the characters, some to shake out how events happened here, some with the intention of actually possibly being in Morning; that's where the courtroom scene at the end of 8 comes from.

The thing is that I'd written 10K, a fairly coherent 10K, and I wanted to use it -- if it had absolutely had no place in Morning I wouldn't have shoehorned it into there, but because of the Natasha POV it ended up working really well as a TVA "video" -- I use outsider POVs as a trick to as closely as possible replicate the movie viewing experience. (This is the only flashback where the characters themselves witness it; there's one more coming up where Loki sees it, because he gets it as a memory/vision from altverse Loki, but I think that's it.) I'd written the initial version of the Mimameid scene at the end of 7, but was really dissatisfied with it, so I set that aside to percolate; with Morning I've been writing two chapters ahead, so I didn't want to put the Stutgartt/Helicarrier chapter up until I was okay with 7. I wrote all of Yonder, went back to work over the scene in 7 about the Infinity Stones and the realm between the realms, and abruptly realized that because of a throwaway line during the drinking scene in Yonder (Thor calls the Time Heist "brav[ing] the roots of the great tree Mimameid that passes over all the realms") I actually had the concept for the realm between the realms, I just had to make it work and be coherent. So I did that. It took a while, and then I could go ahead and post the Stuttgart scene from 6.

I had already written the courtroom scene in 8; I wanted to use that. I'd known nearly from the start that the royal family was going to end up in one of their timelines, but before the altverse came about it was going to be Frigga's. I went back and forth a lot on when precisely Odin's divergence point was and what it was, because it almost doesn't matter -- part of the altverse's role in the story is to show how the TVA's timelines and the Sacred Timeline function. Putting it in TDW and making his nexus event the same as Frigga's (killing Malekith; you'll note that I use "divergence point" and "nexus event" as two separate things) means I get to do some other stuff moving forward.

Of the four altverse flashbacks to date -- Project Pegasus, the Observatory, Stuttgart/Helicarrier, and the courtroom -- they have very, very deliberate TVA headers (and footers in two cases). Pegasus and Stuttgart have this header and no footer:

Then T minus one year to nexus event

No variance energy detected Potential variant identified: none

The Observatory and the courtroom, on the other hand, have these headers and footers (the date stamp differs between the two scenes because they're a year apart):

Then

Variance energy detected Calculating potential variants…

[text]

…calculating…

No variance energy detected Potential variants identified: none

T minus two years to nexus event

That's because those two scenes are scenes where there is a divergence that could potentially lead to a nexus event; you can see Odin thinking about doing something different than what he ultimately does. With the Observatory scene, Odin could have sent Mjolnir after Thor; if he had done so, everything would have gone as in canon: no nexus point, no divergence. With the courtroom scene, if he had decided to refuse Loki's request for mercy, he would have created a nexus event; Thor has to live for events way down the line to play out. Essentially these are the TVA's sensors going "okay, something could be about to happen -- is it -- is it -- okay, no, we're fine." (Or "we're not fine" in the case of the other flashbacks in the story.) So within the story the altverse partially serve as a way to show how the TVA and the Sacred Timeline function.

Because the family was always going to end up in one of their own universes, it works best for it to be the one that is most different from the main timeline -- which has to be Odin's. Hela's is not going to help, Loki's has all its other stuff going on and diverges in other ways because of the whole Time Heist mess, and Thor's turns this into an Avengers story, which is not where I wanted to go with this; Frigga's would be fine, but it's the main timeline. With Thor and Loki especially both the boys and the audience gets to see how things could have gone so differently and how those different pairs of character interact with each other in a way that would be less possible in a main timeline-derived universe, because now they have two years of history where things went very differently on a personal level, but not in a big chronological scale.

As for why the 2012 events were so much bloodier and more brutal in the altverse than in the main timeline, it's largely because Thor and Loki are very, very different people, especially going back to the original 2011 divergence point. This is the Thor who is straight off that skirmish on Jotunheim and he falls into Thanos's hands very angry in a way that Thanos looks at and goes "hey, I can work with this." (Since main timeline Loki's backstory is now revealed, Thor actually did fall straight into Thanos's hands, which Loki did not.) And Thanos was able to play off Thor's insecurities (if you look at altverse Thor, most of his really violent rages are inspired by any mention of Odin) and play to his strengths as a combatant. Thor has always been much more physical and much more aggressive than Loki and that was something that got emphasized a lot while Thor was with Thanos doing all the murder. He was also on a different internal social scale in Thanos's Children than main timeline Loki was, because it's pretty key that Loki did not reveal who he was, whereas Thor said it straight out and Thanos was able to play off that, very "oh, you know, here's Odin's son in exile, the unworthy one," more of a seduction than a "hey, I bought you and you're my property now"; Thor was on the same internal social level as Gamora and Nebula. Thanos also very deliberately worked up Thor's issues with Loki being chosen by Odin over him. Plus, like, canonical "the Mind Stone makes tense situations EVEN WORSE!" thing that came about as part of the scepter being in Thor's hands, in the same way that it did with main timeline Loki or the Avengers.

In canon, Loki, being Loki, does his whole twisty "ha ha I'm going to set the Avengers against each other and cripple the Helicarrier" thing, which is why he gets captured in Stuttgart. That's not Thor's style. He wants the fight as big as it can be, he wants to put himself up against the Avengers; he knows there's a possibility that Asgard will show up, which ultimately they do.

Because there was never any Bifrost fight in the altverse, the Bifrost is intact -- this actually means the situation in the Nine Realms is much more stable than in the main timeline. (There was a civil war on Jotunheim but that's a different thing.) That means that the einherjar show up at the Battle of New York (the World Security Council was so mad), which makes Thor even angrier, and because Asgard is there I suspect more Chitauri actually come through the portal and it's a messier battle overall. This is part of why Odin is so mad: Asgardians were killed as a result of Thor's actions (which never happened with Loki in the main timeline), which really plays up the whole "he is a second Hela" thing in Odin's mind. Thor's anger towards Loki is intensified by the fact that Loki turns up in New York not just with the Avengers, but with the einherjar, with Sif and the Warriors Three, and with Gungnir, with this symbol of Odin's favor, and then he's actually not part of the initial New York confrontation with Thor -- Sif and the W3 do that, it doesn't go well for them, and then Thor basically hauls Loki up to the top of Stark Tower and they have their fight.

At this point Thor is -- if not necessarily trying to kill him, to beat him badly enough that he can prove to Thanos that he is the worthier of the two brothers, because Thanos has spent the past year going "oh, wow, I really wish I had the opportunity to choose which of Odin's sons I got, I mean, you're okay, but there has to be a reason Odin chose Loki, it sucks to settle for second best, but I guess he could have made a mistake...?" Because Thanos instantly pinpointed where Thor's insecurities were (father, brother), and then the Mind Stone dialed them up. And it put Loki down to his absolute last gasp in the fight (Thor literally had him pinned down), which is doing the one thing that Thor would never ever be able to predict, because Thor still thinks they're twins by birth. (You'll note in the courtroom scene that Thor calls Loki "a shapeshifter who can't even win a straight fight in his own skin"; he doesn't find the adopted frost giant thing out until much later.)

There have been a few hints to date that altverse Loki has significantly better control over his frost giant powers than main timeline Loki ever did (even Yonder Loki) -- Thor's scarring, and the ice and the frost in the corridor when the TVA family arrives at the end of the present day timeline in 8. Which is something that will be expanded on later and comes about as part of the AU, but it's one of those things that works as a visual cue of "okay, things went differently."

Which is also one of the reasons for the scarring -- it's an immediate visual cue of "shit went down and it was very, very bad." But also -- Thor and Loki are very different people, had very different experience, and the circumstances of this timeline meant that even if events in the long term turned out the same, in the short term it didn't matter.

#thelurkinglark #bedlam replies #family reunion concept #morning behind the scenes

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scarfdyedshadow · 4 years

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The Unveiling of Ibaraki-Douji’s Character Across FGO (1/2)

I should start with the disclaimer that this isn’t specifically intended to be an analysis of Ibaraki as character, or so to speak an analysis of her narrative arc, character development, and growth over the course of Grand Order. For that, I extremely recommend reading the meta posts of @xenodile. They are very thoughtful, insightful, and nuanced analyses of her.

This is more or less a consolidation of my thoughts on the reveals made about her character over time, the slow meting out of tidbits about what lies under her surface and what her true basis is. In short, the deciphering of her puzzle. In that regard, this post won’t go into Ibaraki content irrelevant to that, such as the relative low points of her treatment over time.

Ibaraki: “Kuha, kuhahahaha! Woman, woman, woman! Is this the first time you’ve seen something like me? Then engrave it within that body. Cram it in in place of the organs that’ll be devoured by insects after death. Violent like a rampaging beast, terrifying as a god, miserable as an insect! Knowing neither human weakness nor a warriors’ pride, lowly so as to wield one’s rotting arm as a weapon! That is an Oni. One who terrifies humans with all they have, a man-eating demon!”

When we’re first introduced to her in Rashoumon, Ibaraki is an intimidating presence, speaking of the depravity of the oni and how she is the embodiment of it. Right off the bat, there’s something to be said about her being fixated on what an oni is and how she fits the bill, rather than her own individuality.

Ibaraki: “Kuha, kuhahahaha! How nice, how nice!”

Kintoki: “This isn’t nice at all! Your eyes aren’t laughing at all, damn you!”

Ibaraki: “….mu, don’t insult me. I’m not used to laughing. Laughter from the bottom of my heart, huh… I can’t do it like Shuten.”

And only just a bit later, it already becomes clear she’s forcing herself a bit. She’s not used to laughing, to be able to do it fully and genuinely. And again, shortly thereafter, her weakness is called out.

Kintoki: “Can’t you tell? Bah, whatever. Hey General, can you tell her?”

Protagonist: “It’s because you haven’t eaten Shuten.”

Ibaraki: “Y-you human! Don’t say such a cruel thing! Eating Shuten was just a manner of speech! That... like hell I can eat her! I would never injure the Shuten that I respect so much, you fool!”

Kintoki: “See? She’s like that.”

Protagonist: “…a chicken.”

Quite contrary to her initial impression, Ibaraki’s fundamental nature is that of a coward. Certainly she has some capacity for fierceness and fighting, but she doesn’t truly live up to the violent, miserable, and terrifying image she projected at the beginning. And as for why she did that?

IbarakI: [Blushing] “C-can’t help it, this is an Oni’s custom! An Oni must always put on airs! That’s what Mother taught me!”

At this point we learn that the airs she puts on are an ideal she tries to live up to in order to be a proper oni, as taught by her mother. That’s someone that will come up later, but for now we learn from her debut event that Ibaraki feels compelled to hold herself to a particular impression, to appear as a fierce inhuman oni, due to her mother’s teachings.

There’s nothing in particular I want to highlight in her profile and lines, wherein she mostly presents as she does at the beginning of the event, as an imperious and deadly leader of oni. It certainly can be gleaned from her lines though that she puts a particular emphasis on her being an oni as opposed to a human. Throughout her various appearances in this interim period, she continues to insist on being a true and vicious oni while generally in practice being a big dork, though she never truly acknowledges this.

And indeed, throughout all this, her esteemed mother she seems to hold in veneration, perhaps even fear, continues to come up. It’s evident that even if she isn’t physically present, her influence is felt every time Ibaraki pushes herself to be a proper oni, to hold herself to that standard.

And then we get to her mats profile.

Ibaraki isn’t just upholding that image with words and to a mild extent actions, she’s literally pushing her own body to adhere to that particular image. It makes what we’ve known about how she forces herself pale in comparison.

Her personality section, as much as it understates what she went through because this game isn’t the ideal of taking things as seriously as they should be, explicates why she is how she is quite clearly. Her mother of noble birth, devoid of love, literally beat her into the mold of a proper oni. The reason she acts the way she does is because she was forced to every single day act as a proper scion to the oni, assume responsibility as a leader of oni. She was left with no choice but to mutilate her own heart and strive to act as a prideful monster, and she is constantly self-conscious of maintaining that image.

This then would seem to be the final word on how Ibaraki’s character came to be, but there are some additional wrinkles, first alluded to here as well.

Watanabe no Tsuna is a hunter of oni, the man who put an end to her grief stricken rampage and humiliated her by cutting off her arm. It’s only natural that she should hate him and want to kill him. But why then does she feel the conflicting impulse of wanting to talk to him? Why does she feel strong curiosity about him? What is there to be curious about, when he did what any human would do if possible and put a stop to her destructive rampage? Shuten only offers a cryptic answer, and Ibaraki is left with the lingering question.

Dialogue 9 I am an oni from Hell, but from the looks of it, that one's an oni of the present world. I can sense the blood of a high-class god from Shuten Douji, but Ibaraki Douji has a smell similar to mine. ...She must have been a human, originally. (If you have Shuten Douji and Ibaraki Douji)

The sparrow Beni-enma, soon to release in FGO NA, has a line for Ibaraki Douji, and it is a truly absurd place to receive such a major revelation. Ibaraki was not born as an oni, but as a human. It’s a detail that contextualizes why her mother of noble oni stock was so unrelentingly harsh on her, why she was so particular and forceful about making her into a proper oni. Such is doubly necessary to make up for the deficit of having once been human, of being so impure. It contextualizes as well why she didn’t take to that traumatic teaching easily, why she still lapses into a sweets loving coward. Her fundamental nature isn’t quite that of an oni, and that’s why she has to push herself so hard.

But then, how has this not especially come up before? Ibaraki’s basically never alluded to having formerly been a human, something which you would think impossible, even if she has an image she works hard to maintain. Likewise, she seems a certain degree too casual, too unaware, when it comes to what her mother put her through, even if she bears fear and awe.

Of all the places to do it once again, the tail end of Beni-enma’s interlude answers the matter, and once again contextualizes all of Ibaraki as a character prior. She was so thoroughly traumatized, so thoroughly indoctrinated, so thoroughly broken, that she repressed the memories of what she endured. She only remembers it as a distant emotional impression of having to crawl towards an impossible goal, of having to smile even as if she was in agony.

And Shuten maintains that illusion. Ibaraki has always been how she is. She’s never been through anything like that. She’s always been an oni’s oni, the ideal oni everyone wanted, and there’s no need to dwell on anything else.

Ibaraki is able to maintain her current self by burying her trauma deep inside of her, clinging to a reality of a stern but teaching mother that never existed. Of course she’s full of pride. She’s an oni, so she should act like an oni. There’s no need to think about difficult things, or be moved by uncomfortable sentiments.

Of course she doesn’t remember being a human. She had her past torn away from her by what she was forced to become, her memories ripped to shreds by the unsentimental abuse of her so called mother. To acknowledge what came before what she is now would be to undo her entire self.

And Shuten reveals she maintains this lie so that Ibaraki can remain happy. She fears Ibaraki will fall apart if the delusions she clings to are torn away. To simply allow Ibaraki to be carefree and pursue her desires is all she feels she can do.

But why does Tsuna come up? What bearing does he have on Ibaraki’s trauma? He’s nothing more than a sworn enemy that put a stop to her rampage and disgraced her by cutting off her arm. Certainly his presence stirs up some feeling, but it should have no bearing on her past, her pain, what she was and what she forces herself to be. Why does Shuten believe that if Ibaraki were to meet Tsuna, she might break down?

Tale of the Beginning and the End

― And just like that, it was all over. Grisly claw marks, destroyed houses, shattered household belongings. And a single woman nearby, close to the brink of death. I may or may not make it in time. It seems like I was wrong from the start.

I never expected us to come in contact with one another. The last thing I wanted to do was to even look at you. However, as long as you were alive. As long as you were happy. I thought that would be enough. But look, this is the reality.

she's dead / it's your fault she was killed / it's your fault that oni escaped / you must kill her don't avert your gaze / look away i'll carve out those golden locks of hers / you're not done yet decapitate her / kill yourself who should I blame? / no one is to blame

― And just like that, the man ceases his delusional thoughts. Oni are meant to be killed. I will slay her...that's all, nothing else to it. No, think. I have to keep thinking. Even if I die, until I die, even if I become corrupted.

I remember that look in her eyes, like bubbles that floated away and vanished.

Quietly, without a hint of any intense emotion, I stared back at the girl who had fixed her gaze on me. Everyone is a sinner. Oni are sinners, people are sinners, the girl is a sinner, I am a sinner. They are not just sins, but responsibilities as well.

I tightly grasp the hilt of my sword. I have no intention of giving it up to anyone. Having it even be stolen would be absurd. "Slaying that oni, is my duty."

― Tsuna, Tsuna, TSUNAA!

......the oni's claws approach. Something, whatever it is, swells within my trembling heart. I rotate my body, turn my arms, and swing my sword.

The truth of this fight, along with its conclusion, will soon disappear to the passage of time.

No one else can understand, will be able to understand this fight to the death between the two of us.

Watanabe no Tsuna’s profile paints the picture of a man unmoved as he slew countless oni. He is without hatred and without joy. He is akin to a robot.

And yet In his Bond CE this man who is even uncertain he has emotions to begin with, when it comes to Ibaraki, is left questioning everything he is. He is wracked with self loathing, desires even his own death, and condemns himself as a sinner. He berates himself and rages at himself.

He never expected to come into contact with her. The last thing he wanted was to ever see her again. It was enough that she was happy and alive. And yet it had come to this. No one but him can understand the truth of this fight.

The picture is perhaps of having come home to ruination. A doll lays discarded. Why is it that Ibaraki-Douji wishes to talk with a human she has only known as a sworn enemy in a single encounter? Why is that she has such a sheer curiosity about him? Why is it that to meet him again might break down the illusion of what she is? Why is it that the machine of a demon slayer breaks when it comes to encountering her and her alone?

Ibaraki-Douji, despite everything she pushes herself to be, was once human. She had a human family, and a human past. And perhaps that past is not quite as dead as her heart makes it out to be.

#fgo #fate grand order #fgo meta #fate grand order meta #ibaraki douji #ibaraki-douji #watanabe no tsuna #fate series #fgo spoilers #ibaraki doji #I fully expect information from 5.5 and Tsuna's lines to either add to this or potentially mess up the impression I garnered from the CE #time will tell #fate grand order spoilers

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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one of the previous anons here (again)! :0

not to be an "UM ACTUALLY" kinda person, but I think the tinfoil anon was referring to the scene in the training room (where crosshair got stunned by hunter) insteada the scene at sea (rescuing omega and azi).

I'm.... *also* really curious about what he was thinking there, honestly? Like, all that setup to ask his brothers to join the empire with him -- but what did he expect them to say? And it even seemed like he was about to draw his rifle on Hunter, before Hunter stunned him, but the others also had their guns pointed at him? He couldn't have possibly thought he was going to walk away from that in one piece lmao, regardless of whether he outdrew Hunter or not

Anyway, yeah, apologies for cluttering your inbox with the digital equivalent of snail mail these past 48ish hours XD.... I just think these meta posts are neato

OH SHIT if that's the case so sorry other anon, that's my bad 😅

And omg, literally don't worry my inbox is already beyond saving. I've got hundreds of asks spanning back years at this point, stuff I just straight up don't have time to answer and, sadly, probably never will. Cluttered doesn't begin to cover it. If my ask box could embody physical space, it would probably smell like TBB's barracks lol

But YEAH okay, let's talk the stunning scene instead because I love being sad on a Sunday night. What's important for me is that building up to this it's Hunter who is gunning for Crosshair (pun not intended lol). Crosshair has already shown that he's not planning to hurt them by murdering his other team and he's only just started to think over Hunter's "We never were" — in response to his "don't become my enemy" accusation — when all the droids pop up. Yet instead of focusing on them, Hunter immediately jumps on Crosshair. I mean yeah, we as the audience (to a certain, complicated extent) understand why they're so wary of him, but also think about how bad that looks from Crosshair's perspective. You've just proven you're not out to hurt your team, Hunter claims you were never enemies... but the second a fight starts he attacks you. Like you're the enemy. So does Hunter believe what he's saying? So many of the problems here come down to claims vs. action. TBB is really good at saying things to Crosshair, but aren't very good at backing them up with action. Like claiming they wouldn't leave him behind vs. actually not coming back for him during this whole stretch, here we've got "We're not your enemy" vs. Hunter choosing to attack him instead of the droids.

So they tussle a bit and it's only when the droids become overwhelming that Hunter is forced to turn his attention towards them instead. When he does, we see Crosshair thinking for a moment and then we get a preview of that "Oh no, Crosshair is going to shoot Hunter!" scare out on the water: he lifts his rifle, aims in a way that appears to be at Hunter's back, but then shoots over his shoulder to hit the droids instead. We even get two reaction shots to this, Hunter's brief look of surprise and a more overt "Omg, Crosshair is helping" reaction from Tech and Wrecker.

When Wrecker pulls his helmet back down it's with a sense of new determination. The whole squad is back in action! This is (again) proof that Crosshair is not out to be their enemy. He just fought alongside them, protecting them rather than taking advantage of the situation to take them out.

... except that as soon as the battle is finished Hunter immediately has his weapon on Crosshair.

And everyone else follows his lead.

Crosshair had complete trust in them. He had his back turned right before this moment, head in his hand, not at all worried about what his allies were doing. Why would he? They're meant to be allies and the threat (the droids) is gone. Except then he turns around to find that Hunter has his weapon on him after Crosshair just killed for him, after Hunter attacked first, after Crosshair didn't attack when given the chance, and you can see him looking down at his weapon with this sense of resignation.

What was he thinking in this moment? Probably that fighting is inevitable. I don't think Crosshair believes he can make it out of this without being stunned (or shot. I mean, does he know their blasters are set to stun?), but rather that he's just going along with what the others insist is going to happen. Every time he does something to say "We're not enemies" they do something back that says, "We are."

Crosshair doesn't want to fight his team, but Omega releases droids to help them battle him.

Crosshair wants to fight the droids, but Hunter attacks him instead.

Crosshair does fight the droids when given the chance and thinks that's it, he's proven his trustworthiness, but Hunter has him at gunpoint the second it's over, as do the others.

Every time he tries to do something to show he's not their enemy — "Don't make me your enemy" he says. That's what he's trying not to be — they turn around and frame him as the enemy anyway, whether it's attacking him instead of a droid, Tech telling Wrecker he's beyond talking to, or all of them assuming he's out to shoot Hunter instead of save Omega. This is an ongoing trend that just snowballs the longer things go on. Have you watched Grisha? You know the Darkling's line, "Fine, make me your villain"? To my mind it's sorta like that only with Crosshair having better grounds to make that claim than the Darkling did lol. Raising his gun isn't about thinking he can win this fight. It's also not about wanting to fight — he's made it very clear that he doesn't want that at all. It's much more of a resigned, "Fine, if this is the road you insist on going down, I'll oblige you."

"This is who I am," Crosshair says and Hunter has made it clear, several times over, that "this" is TBB's enemy. Crosshair didn't want that, but it's what they're insisting on, so an enemy is going to defend themselves by shooting back. Which is when he's knocked out, wakes up drowning, is saved by Omega, learns the Empire tried to kill him, and is back to his half angry/half desperate, "Can you please not think of me as the enemy for two seconds and hear what I have to offer?"

As for what he thought his brothers would say in regards to joining the Empire, that offer he has... I think he thought they'd say yes. Whether that belief is born of his own, twisted reasoning, or if there is still something going on with the chip, Crosshair prioritizes their safety and their purpose over the ethics of working for the Empire. When Hunter goes, "We're loyal to each other, not some Empire" that's something Crosshair agrees with. When not forced to try and kill them via the chip, he is loyal to the squad, absolutely, even over what the Empire wants. That's why he kills the Empire's soldiers and disobeys orders to get rid of TBB, instead trying to orchestrate their move into the organization instead. That's not what the Empire wants, it's what Crosshair wants.

So they're both loyal to the team over who they work for, the only problem is a) Crosshair is struggling to believe that they ever considered him a true part of the team — "You weren't loyal to me" — and b) Hunter's loyalty, unlike Crosshair's, actually has a limit. For him, he's not willing to kill civilians to give his brothers a sense of purpose in the world. He's not willing to follow an evil Empire to ensure that they have food and aren't always on the run. For Hunter, his desire to keep the rest of the team safe and happy does not outweigh basic morality (which is a good thing!) They'll figure out a way to survive while also doing the morally correct thing. Crosshair, however, places nothing above his teammates. He'll betray the Empire's orders for them. He'll kill his new team for them. He'll murder whatever innocents it takes to give them a safe, fulfilling life in this new galaxy. The Empire wants him to kill other people's kids? What does he care if the tradeoff is getting a good home for Omega? Something, something, Jedi fear attachments. All of which makes this whole mess all the more tragic. He will do anything — literally, ethically anything — for his squad... and they didn't even come back for him. He'll do anything for them, but they're insisting on being enemies instead. The underlying problem is that Crosshair's way of expressing devotion and care — let me help you join the Empire that's definitely going to take over the galaxy so that you'll be under their all-powerful protection and can live save, happy lives — is something that TBB finds to be repugnant (with, you know, excellent reason). So Crosshair is just standing there, continually offering his heart to them, not understanding why these ethical questions are more important than the only thing he cares about: them. And, again, we don't currently know how much of that warped thinking stems from Crosshair himself, or something that was/is still up with the chip.

Plus, toss in everything else we've discussed about Crosshair's abandonment. He doesn't understand why they care about the Empire's crimes over the protection of their family and he's continually hurt by the knowledge that they won't go as far for him as he's willing to go for them, not realizing that going that far is morally reprehensible. If TBB had tried to rescue him and had approached him as a brother in need of rescue, rather than an enemy, he might be more receptive to their arguments about what's best for the team. Simply because he would have felt like he was still a part of that team. Right now, everything Hunter argues about the evils of the Empire, while 100% true, are filtered through this knowledge that Crosshair isn't a "real" brother anymore. Chip or not, he believes what he's saying and has no reason to think that he's wrong, just that others aren't listening to him. From Crosshair's POV, they wrote him off the second this all started and haven't made a single move to fix things. That's the easiest way to entrench the idea that his way of doing things is right, the only problem here are his brothers who refuse to see it, insisting on opposing him instead, just as they had from the get-go when they left and never came back. To Crosshair, he's reaching out despite (again, from his perspective) the others not deserving it, yet that extended hand is continually slapped away. Nothing in the situation is helping him realize that what he's offering is what's wrong because it's all framed to look like he himself is the problem (see: Tech's little speech to Wrecker). But that's also why Omega's reminder that he's still their brother is so important. He gets a reminder, but Crosshair needs to see that again too. He needs a reason to turn away from the Empire because, whether it's due to the chip or not, the simple argument "This is wrong" isn't doing it for him. I honestly think he'd have left with them if he felt like he could rejoin the squad because, as established, his squad means everything to him. That's the top priority. But so much happened to make Crosshair believe that his brothers don't want him, that they'll only accept him as an enemy, that any offers to join them are made only out of obligation... that all he has left is the Empire. He needs to believe that they accept him as his brother so he can toss the Empire to the curb for what he wanted this whole time: to go home.

tl;dr IT'S SUCH A HORRIBLE MESS lol and this is why I oh so hope season two tackles all this with something resembling respect and nuance. This is one hell of a tangled problem, with lots of justified and inaccurate anger on both sides, so to try and simplify it all into a, "Crosshair is just a bad guy who thinks bad things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" would be... less than satisfying imo.

#TBB #The Bad Batch #SW #Star Wars #mymetas

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alexseanchai · 3 years

Text

Fanfic 2020 in Review

I got tagged by @kasienda @noirshitsuji and @marvelousmsmol and I am tagging whoever wants to play!

1) List of fics completed this year in the order they were finished:

*filters own works to complete and updated in 2020*

1 - 20 of 57 Works by AlexSeanchai

nope. *adds filter to include only works of at least 1000 words*

unless otherwise indicated, these are all Miraculous Ladybug:

“don’t bake it lying down”, post-reveal Marichat vs Felix Graham de Vanily

“veracity”, canon divergence from “Ladybug” featuring Mister Bug and Verity Queen (so also Marichat, I guess)

“(no request is too extreme, if) your heart is in your dream”, in which Hawkmoth wins, for the thirty seconds or so before Emilie saves Ladybug and Chat Noir’s lives

“tell me you love me and make me believe it”, in which trans girl Chatonne Noire ropes Ladybug into helping plan her civilian self’s escape slash social transition

“kingmaker, oathbreaker”, in which Hawkmoth wins and Emilie watches her son remove himself from the family

“stay and let me watch you break it down” (Twelve Dancing Princesses), a modern setting

“set a course for winds of fortune”, in which trans girl Chatonne Noire has already escaped and Gabriel and Nathalie are trying to bring Gabriel’s son home

“we ground love in a hopeless place”, in which post-reveal Marinette’s attempt to remain resolutely not in love with her partner dissolves like sugar in coffee when they start a pun war

“ring the bells that still can ring”, in which Alya is deeply confused about why Adrien and Marinette are planning a wedding when last night both were single

“burning wishes at both ends (the cold wind and long loud wail remix)”, in which Gabriel made a monkey’s paw wish and Emilie makes another

“words cannot espresso”, in which Marinette’s OC roommate is justifiably worried for Marinette’s safety, and meanwhile Adrien takes care of Marinette

“the compromise of truth” (the chronologically second-earliest part posted to date of nine lives, snake’s eyes), in which Adrien tells his friends how he won some freedom and respect from his father

“At The Present Time”, the Ladrien/Ladynoir marriage proposal follow-up to @art-deco-shrimp‘s “Your Presents Required”

“j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)”, in which the events of canon must just have been a series of dream sequences, Marinette and Adrien both think, until they both arrive at Chloe’s Halloween masquerade dressed as themselves from the dreams

2) Number of words written:

ahahaha no. I am not counting all my scattered fic drafts and trying to figure out what I did and didn’t write in 2020. I refuse.

AO3 says I posted 162K in 2020. it is counting all of keeps you guessing (like any real love), which (a) I started posting in 2019 (b) is co-written by @galahadwilder; it is counting all of my meta snippets collection, much of which was written in 2019; it is counting the Vimeo passwords for my vids. but I probably cleared 150K by a safe margin.

3) Your most popular fic:

“veracity” has a four-digit kudos count, wow, when’d that happen? this is also the 2020 work with the most hits and the most bookmarks, but “tell me you love me” has four-thirds as many comments as its nearest competitor.

4) Your personal fav:

“cannot break us, not with a thousand swords”, no question about it. this is the one in which Ladybug proposes marriage to Chat Noir via Princess Bride meme on Tumblr. (if you intend to download the work or otherwise to consume it with creator style off, you want the accessible version instead of the primary version.)

5) Your fav scene:

aaaaaaaaa

—okay so this is cheating and I know it, since Uncertain Humors (the one where Marinette/Adrien is both Orpheus/Eurydice and Theseus/Ariadne) is nowhere near finished, never mind posted (maybe I'll get “Sanguine” done to post on my birthday?)

but it is still my favorite of the year. as you might guess from that description of the story, this scene has content notes for character death:

Hell is a maze. Marinette walks.

This acrid passage has little to see but damp stone, seeming blood-stained in the dim carmine light. At about the height of her heart, the faintly glowing thread cuts through the not-clammy air; it ought to be pulsing at the same rate as the heart it's bound to. She might be able to see her own reflection if she looked down at the open sewage pipe, or at one of the puddles that now and again she splashes through, dampening the canvas of her shoes. She might see reflected what's behind her.

She remembers Mme. Mendeleiev lecturing on human physiology. In healthy humans old enough to have learned how, urination is a voluntary action: one may not know which muscles one tenses and relaxes in order to do so, and probably isn't paying attention to those details when one is doing, but one has conscious control over whether one does. Usually. Stress and anxiety mean some people are unable to relax the relevant sphincter muscle and others are unable to stop themselves. It's voluntary for cats, too: it's one way they mark their territories. Cat-boys have other ways.

There is a moment in every human life when all one's muscles relax at once. Some Parisians have had several such moments.

The thread is braided with itself around her left fourth finger, rows of tiny red half-hitch knots, and falls loosely over the back of her hand to loop twice around her wrist. She holds it wrapped between the fingers of her right hand to keep it at a constant tension, as though knitting with this insubstantial thread, so fragile for something two (two dozen, two million) lives hang from—too thin to sew with, no thicker than one strand of his hair. As she walks, she winds it around and around and around her wrist.

Between her ring finger and her right hand, it loops twice.

Marinette's shoe lands in a puddle she didn't see. The rainwater splashes soundlessly onto her bare ankle and on the stone.

(With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal— It's a very loud song.)

She walks on.

6) A fic or scene that challenged you:

where the firelight fades, no contest. this is the second story I’ve ever been able to stick with more than a couple hundred words past the 20K mark, but it’s easily the twentieth novel-length I’ve begun. (though also, you know that kedreeva post? well, 90K later, I’m less than 15K from completing this 10K fic! I think.) and I have been learning so much about long-form fiction.

there has also been a lot of weeping and tearing my hair. case in point: I just trashed the chapter 15 draft because I figured out the reason it wasn’t going anywhere! I can probably keep the first few hundred words of that draft without any editing, and another few hundred with some revision...

7) A line of writing you’re proud of:

from “j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)”:

Everything about their partnership is fragments of sentences in the dream diary Adrien writes in ultraviolet pen. Disjointed flickers of thought even when examined under the black light he hides in the snack cabinet under packets of Super Yoyo sandwich cookies and bags of cheesy Monster Munch potato chips and boxes of petit écolier butter cookies (chocolat noir)—none of which explains the gym-socks smell. All fleeting incoherent flashes, invisible between the mundane lines of La Modification shelved at his bedside between Leroux and Dumas. None of it is solid. Adrien has more proof his room's haunted.

okay let me break this down for you!

* Adrien started a dream diary to make sense of the memories

* in invisible ink, in a book that (according to Wikipedia) is thematically appropriate and won’t (if Gabriel sees it) look like anything other than Adrien developing an interest in French literature

* shelved between Phantom of the Opera and The Three Musketeers

* look I didn’t come up with the name “black light”

* or “chocolat noir” for what English speakers call “dark chocolate”, or “petit écolier” (that is, “little schoolboy”) for that sort of butter cookie

* also not my fault that “chocolat noir” sounds remarkably like “Chat Noir”, which, attentive readers may have noticed, is not a name that appears in the story after the header and before Miraculous Cure

* I found the website of a store in Boston, Massachusetts that caters to French expats, and the yo-yo cookies and the monster chips were right there in the photos, y’all

* the snack stash and the black light live in the cabinet where, in canon, the Camembert lives; yes, that cheese smells in the real world like gym socks

* this story’s akuma was not able to affect anything but squishy human memory: nobody affected remembers anything about Ladybug or Chat Noir or Hawkmoth, not in any solid way, not even when they read news articles about the subject, and this includes Marinette and Adrien not being able to see or hear or remember their own kwamis—but you know what Adrien’s Insta post about his poltergeist and Adrien’s Insta post with the floating sock don’t show and don’t explicitly refer to?

* I love this paragraph so much (my housemates may have been lovingly mocking me over it)

8) A comment that touched you:

there are people (y’all know who you are) who said y’all are studying my style. I ded of blush.

9) Something that inspired your writing:

by volume of fic drafts that can be blamed on any particular person, the winner is probably @norakwami

10) Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):

so that longest-story-ever-written record I set in 2007 with the 89.5K story that, till where the firelight fades, was the only story I’d gotten much past 20K?

I broke that fucking record!

and then I deleted the draft of firelight chapter 15 😭

11) Do you have any writing goals for the next year?

I’m starting work on a fantasy novel, a Sleeping Beauty retelling in which I explore (among other things) the economic consequences of the king’s ordering all the spinning wheels burned, and I want to make significant progress on that. and I want to not make my hands any worse; I kind of need those!

(breaking news alert: bodies fucking suck. so does giving yourself repetitive stress injuries in doing one and a half to two people’s worth of work for an organization that was never ever going to pay you more than one person’s worth of pay.)

#by alexseanchai #miraculous ladybug #tag game

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sparring-spirals · 4 years

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please talk more about how much you love the brjeaus! :D

:OOO !!!

... :D

OKAY so, first: this meta sums up a lot of important things I Love about them. Fair warning I was a tiiiiiny bit drunk while writing it so its a little more uh.... gushy/rambly/circular than it needs to be. But it gets the points across. Eventually.

But I have an infinite store of love for them, so we can always talk more about them.

I already know this will be unnecessarily long. I’m putting in a read more.

I didn’t get to gush about it in the meta last time, so I’m gonna talk about it now. The party scene? The one where Beau is tripping balls and they both fail to interrogate a guy? One of my favorite scenes of all time. Insta-serotonin every time I watch it. They way Travis and Marisha yes-and each other the whole time is glorious. Travis beautifully straddles the line between playing the straight and narrow to Beau, while dialing up Fjord’s natural ridiculousness. He might check Beau’s forehead and squint quizzically at wherever Beau is staring off to, but he also goes along with about 80% of what she suggests, and then dances furiously when things go awry. Marisha leans in to Beau being stoned while still trying super hard to be helpful and aggressively having Fjord’s back, and. God I love them so much. Its such a good sequence of roleplay and ridiculousness and two friends having a fucking blast (Even if maybe they shouldn’t be). This is your call to go rewatch it. its good.

I love that they take the time to check in with each other, if it makes sense? Imo it matters more to me than if they knew if one of them was feeling badly- and they do, sometimes! But it matters to me that they check; after big battles, after one of them has been quiet for a while, after they want a sanity check. They take the moment to fall back, and go, “Hey, you good?” and it matters to me, so damn much. They have that mental space, that time, carved out for each other, as a soft spot to land, in case the other person needs it.

And that “soft spot to land”- that is also important! Because it always deserves to be said- how much they trust each other. They love the Nein, they can talk to them, and they do, but.There is a certain quality, to the way Beau and Fjord talk to each other that takes advantage of the inherent understanding they have. Even if I don’t agree with how they’re handling the Traveler, this is super evident in their conversations about him. They’re very, very often on the same page about things. That’s why, I think, its easier for them to ask for sanity checks from each other. They can slip in to line and go “Fuckin what the hell, am I right.” and have it be echoed, they can say “Jesus I’m not at all capable of doing this.” and have it be okay, because the other person knows how damn hard they’re trying.

Because! Because! I’m sure I already spoke on this but I can always speak more- its a thing of, they give each other the benefit of the doubt. It’s in the way that Fjord told Beau that he could tell she was trying to be politer, way back when. Its in the way Beau always tells Fjord she has his back, she’s his first mate, even when Fjord isn’t sure of his own decisions. That “I know you’re trying. I know. There’s no doubt that you’re trying, and that you intend well.” and every single other interaction is built off of that. They can give each other shit, rib each other about effort and intention, because every single thing about their friendship is predicated off of. “I trust your intentions. I trust you are trying. I trust you.”

and for these two, god, thats so goddamn meaningful. Its so damn lovely. I adore it so much.

(i think this is a good place to cap off this meta. thank u anon for letting me ramble more about these two, I truly love them and will take advantage of every opportunity to talk about them :’D. next time join me for: god aren’t we so fucking glad that Critical Role has so many beautiful example of platonic relationships :’) ).

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fallintosanity · 4 years

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What are your thoughts on 7 Remake’s ~controversial~ ending? It’s been a few weeks now since I finished and I legit feel like I’ve journeyed through all 5 stages of grief and finally landed on Acceptance 😅

haha that’s fair! I have a lot of thoughts about the remake, but they’re coming from three different angles.

(Spoilers under the cut obvs; also this got fucklong even after I cut a bunch of non-ending-related thoughts, and I apologize to those of you on mobile)

From the POV of someone who played and loved the original

Overall, I really enjoyed the remake, ending and all. I replayed the OG prior to the remake’s release, finishing literally four hours before the remake became available in North America, but it had still been months since I did the Midgar parts so it wasn’t too immediately fresh in my mind. Still, I was impressed by how faithful the remake is to the OG for the vast majority of the game. They noticeably cleaned up a few things, like Tseng slapping Aerith, which didn’t age well or stopped making sense with regards to the greater Compilation, which was nice to see. But they also doubled down on some of the ridiculousness of the original. I can’t tell you how much I cackled when the Hell House showed up, or how many times I said to my fiance in joy/disbelief, “They really managed to fit that in!”

I also love all the little nods to the greater Compilation. I saw one interview excerpt from like... 2015 or 2014 or something that said the Remake is considered canon to the Compilation, and the content of the Remake itself suggests this. While some of the cameos could be considered nothing more than cameos (as much as I love Kunsel, I don’t think his name being dropped means anything other than that they needed a name and wanted to give a nod to him), there are other clear hints that Crisis Core and The Kids Are Alright, at minimum, are canon to the Remake. Hojo mentions “S and G type” SOLDIERs, i.e., Sephiroth-type and Genesis/Gillian-type. (Roche is a G type I am not taking arguments on this point) The description of the Buster Sword says it carries the hopes and dreams of those who came before, implying more than just Zack (i.e., Angeal). Zack’s scene right before he charges the ShinRa army is shot-for-shot the one from Crisis Core, which could have just been a nod, but the fact that he also says the same lines as the original is telling. There’s a lot of lore loaded into those lines. Leslie and Kyrie are both from The Kids Are Alright (which makes me wonder if the third ShinRa half-brother is floating around somewhere). You could make an argument for Before Crisis being partially or completely canon to the remake as well, since someone mentions a previous assassination attempt on the President, which happened in BC.

But now we get into the issue of whether Advent Children is canon to the remake, i.e., the ending and the thing you actually asked about. ^^; This is where I’m more torn. My initial reaction to the ending was “Oh crap, we went from FFVII-Remake to Kingdom Hearts - oh shit now we’re in Advent Children - oh fuck now we’re in fanfiction-land.” Which... is definitely not what I was expecting from the ending of Part 1.

On first playthrough it feels a bit like they overplayed their hand with Sephiroth in the ending: “everyone wants a Sephiroth fight in a FFVII game, so we’ll give them a Sephiroth fight”. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the fact that Sephiroth appears in person in the Midgar sequence, when in the OG all we see of him before Kalm is the aftermath of President Shinra’s murder. I do think Sephiroth’s appearances prior to the ending were done well - the writers clearly intended to emphasize Cloud’s mental issues, and Sephiroth is too big a part of them to ignore. His appearances prior to the top of Shinra Tower both serve as a bone tossed to those who wanted to see him in the remake, and set up the Cloud-Sephiroth relationship a lot earlier and in more depth. You can see how utterly terrified Cloud is every time Sephiroth is around - even sometimes frozen into immobility. Depending on how things go with the Kalm flashback, this may also help cue new players in to just how wrong things are with Cloud. (After all, a SOLDIER First shouldn’t be afraid of another SOLDIER First, should he?) But the final fight against Sephiroth, or at least, a clone wearing Sephiroth’s face, felt premature, out of place, something that’s only there to appease people who wanted to fight Sephiroth now.

Aside from the Sephiroth thing, I’m reserving judgment a bit on the ending as a whole. On the one hand, I’m deeply curious to see where the story goes from here, and how the writers use their newfound freedom (more on that in a minute). On the other hand, I don’t want this to turn into Kingdom Hearts 4, and I don’t trust Nomura in that regard, especially after all the bullshit that went on with KH3, Verum Rex, and FFXV/versus 13. I love Nomura, but like George Lucas, he desperately needs someone to rein in, edit, and shape his ideas.

I’m also not sure how I feel about all the theories being thrown out there - such as that at least one of the Sephiroths we see is the one from after AC, somehow flung back in time to fuck things up; or that the OG was, 999-style, Aerith seeing into the future and now in the remake she’s taking control to put everything on the path she wants. They’re interesting, for sure, and I think that with careful handling, it’s possible Squenix might be able to pull one of them off - but given what I know of Squenix (again, more on that later), I don’t trust them to do it well. I am, to be blunt, very concerned that later installments of the remake are going to turn into an incoherent tug-of-war between those who want to be faithful to the original, and Nomura’s desire to inject weird Kingdom Hearts nonsense everywhere.

I say this with all the love to Kingdom Hearts, but it’s a very specific kind of story and it’s not what I want to see in my FFVII.

On a writing meta level

On the meta level, I’m fascinated by the choice to go with the whole Whispers/Arbiters of Fate thing. I don’t know how much of that is pure Nomura-injected BS vs how much was a deliberate choice by the writing team, but for right now I’m going to assume it was mostly a deliberate and unanimous choice.

I’ve seen a lot of other Remake opinions along the lines of a reluctant, “I guess they had to put the Whispers in there because a perfect remake wouldn’t have been satisfying to everyone. There’s always someone who would have complained.” I... don’t think that’s entirely true. Like, yeah, sure, someone’s always going to complain if it’s not a pixel-perfect remake, but based on the overall satisfaction I’ve seen from OG fans (including myself) regarding the parts that are true to the original, I think Squenix would have done just fine if that was the path they chose. And given how much attention they paid to making most of the game into a nearly-perfect recreation, I think the writers knew it.

So why’d they go the whole Whispers route?

My guess would be that the writers were giving themselves freedom, on a meta level, with the Whispers. It’s a way of both poking fun at, and solving, their own dilemma: do we make a perfect, hi-res copy of the original? Or do we change things to make it our own?

The “change something to make it your own” is a longstanding trope when someone new is put in charge of something old. You see it in everything from Disney live-action remakes to new managers who change their employees’ routines just to “make an impact”. Most of the time, these changes are neutral / un-impactful at best, or outright frustrating / terrible at worst. I wonder if the Remake writing team wasn’t fully aware of this, and possibly tangled up in knots internally about how to handle it. Would it be seen as a bad, “make it their own” change to have Tseng not slap Aerith? What about adding Chocobo Sam, Madam M, and Andrea Rhodea to the Wall Market sequence? What about the changes to how the Avalanche gang reacts to Cloud, now that we have full animation and voice acting and it’s clear Avalanche has no reason to want to keep him around except for Jessie being horny on main? Where’s the line?

I could see the Whispers being the writing team’s way of making sure they stay in line where it’s important, while also giving themselves the freedom to make the updates needed to allow the remake to work. They’re kind of a meta nod to the audience, a “don’t worry! If we get too far out of line, the Whispers will bring us back.” In that sense, the entire ending where you (the player) kill the Whispers and free yourself (the player) from destiny is you giving the writers permission to continue making those small changes.

In FFXV, almost the entire ending sequence is a cutscene: Noctis on the throne, being murdered by his ancestors and descending into the spirit realm. But there’s one single quick-time event in there, one point where the player has to take action and push a button. It’s not even difficult, and on the surface it seems pointless. Except, if you don’t, Noctis lives. (Trapped in purgatory maybe, but he’s still there.) If you never push that button, Noctis doesn’t sacrifice his spirit and those of the Lucii to destroy Ardyn and wipe the Scourge from Eos. By asking - requiring - the player to push that button to commit that final act, the game makes the player complicit in Noct’s sacrifice. It’s a powerful moment, and similar to what (I suspect) the Remake writers intended with the Whispers.

Because they could have left the Whispers in forever. They could have had them be a continuous presence throughout all episodes of the Remake, a little reminder that no matter what tweaks the writers might make to update the story, to “make it their own”, the Arbiters of Fate will ensure things are on track. That things will play out exactly as in the original. But by asking the player to destroy the Arbiters, the writers are asking for the player’s permission to make changes. And by killing the Arbiters, you’re granting it. Because, just like you can keep Noctis alive by not pushing the button when prompted, you can keep the original game more-or-less on track by never stepping through that portal, never killing the Arbiters. But if you do step through that portal and go through with it, you’re agreeing to accept that things might change, thus freeing the writers from the constant double jeopardy of changing things vs keeping them exactly the same.

On a business meta level

As cool as (I think) that all sounds, the bigger question is, can Square Enix actually pull it off? And here’s where I start to have my most significant doubts. After the FFvs13/FFXV debacle and the hopeless mess that was KH3, I do not trust Nomura to tell a coherent story, even if it’s supposedly a retelling of an existing, well-known story. I don’t know anything about the inner workings or politics at Square Enix, other than that there are politics at play, so in fairness to him I can’t really say it’s because he himself is bad at telling a story, or just doesn’t have the support he needs to convey his vision well. But that gets into other issues with Squenix. We know their last several major games have had long and troubled developments. Someone way more attuned than me to the Japanese video games industry can talk in depth about why; all I know is that it happened (is happening?) and that it’s something of a miracle the remake came out as well as it did.

On top of that, I’m a bit concerned that even if Squenix can get (and keep) its shit together, it might be up against external forces that constrain how it can tell the story of FFVII in the present. For example, from what I’ve heard, the reason Crisis Core never got ported the way so many other games did, and the reason Genesis Rhapsodos has never been seen outside it and a Dirge of Cerberus cameo, is due to image licensing fights with Gackt, Genesis’s face model. CC established Genesis as a key player in the events leading up to the original game’s story, and enough hints have been dropped about CC in the remake that, like I said earlier, it appears to be canon. But if Squenix can’t reach an agreement to use the character again, they might be trapped in a corner where they either have to completely rewrite the parts of the story involving Genesis, or dance around his existence.

And on top of all that, it’s just expensive and time-consuming as hell to make games on the remake’s scale. Everyone expects the PS4 to be retired by the time Remake Part 2 comes out, which is going to pose huge logistical issues for releasing it. Squenix has been having a rough time of it lately, from what I’ve heard - are they, as a company, capable of handling all those logistical issues? I don’t know, and that makes me nervous.

Still, they did do a remarkable job with the remake overall, even grappling with the pandemic around the launch date. So maybe they’re getting their shit together again, and things will be smooth sailing from here. We’ll have to wait and see.

#anonymous #final fantasy vii #ffvii #ffvii remake #spoilers #meta #sanity replies #sanity talks a lot #tumblr massively fucked up the formatting somehow sorry

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sicklyscribe · 4 years

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y’all thought I forgot about this one

a good (3) of you really wanted this meta and well. It’s been like. Four years? Anyways.

‘Stolen Dance’ was on the radio today and it makes me think of Klaus and Care, because I get it mixed up with ‘Dangerous’ and that’s my song for them. Also, Stolen Dance has a line that I THOUGHT was ‘Stolen Paradise’ and it’s ACTUALLY ‘stoned in paradise’ so I USED to get K/C vibes from that. Anyways. Whenever I think of that ship I think of @hairzier, and I remembered that I had given her a teaser of this meta a while back. Before I got home, I had FINALLY constructed a thesis (wow amy what a nerd) for this analysis that I’d tried to write FOREVER ago, but it didn’t have a central focus and it was way too bogged down with me trying to find one as I went along.

Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about?

The meta is this: Klaus as an artist + Klaus’ relationships with three featured women in his life circa 2010′s. If you came to the fandom late or haven’t ever seen my username, hi, I used to write a ton of TO meta, I Don’t Do Ships Really At All For It. At least, not the ‘big’ ones. I digress. Just -- don’t expect me to bash or gush over any ship, I’m gonna compliment and critique them all. Please avoid or read on accordingly <3

Caroline: The Art

I tried to find my write-up for Sahar from ages ago, because it was clear and concise and exactly what I intended. Oh well. Once more.

Shippers and Antis pretty much love it and hate it for the same reason: Klaus is so different around her. Well, that and it’s either empowering for Caroline or abusive. Depends on perspective. I am firmly in the camp that every relationship in Klaus’ life during this time period is abusive in some way. What he does to Caroline is particularly messed up, but also particularly kind, in turns. The lightness and puppy-love-ness of Klaus around her was so jarring, is so jarring, because he doesn’t display that behavior for anyone else. He allows himself to be foolishly partial to her, but he also seems to only have selective guilt for the horrors he subjects her to. As a viewer who will bend over backwards to create complexity rather than label something ‘bad writing’, I found that Klaus’ relationships, especially with women, especially with Caroline, are steeped in his relationship with art.

To Klaus, Caroline is an exquisite work of living art. Pleasing to the eye, challenging to his thoughts, but benign -- safe, and static. More than wanting to ‘own’ her, though, I believe he wants to join her. Make himself into something that compliments her colors and her lines, because the experience of interacting with art is one of the purest joys Klaus knows. In this way, he intimately analyzes her life and feelings, he inserts himself into her narrative, he plays a part that he enjoys -- maybe one, at times, he truly wishes was not a performance. In this way, he adores her, he respects her, but not really as a person, and certainly not as an equal. He values every moment with her, treasures it; lets himself get drunk on it. She’s the Mona Lisa, living, breathing, and bold enough to insult him to his face. When she breaks the frame he makes for her -- when she really challenges him in ways only a person can -- he can only retreat, and lash out.

And ask for forgiveness with acts of kindness, or material value (he even, incredibly, uses his art to soften her to him, on more than one occasion) -- trying to shift her attention as if she can forget his abuses. In all: he wants her to enrich his life, not change it.

Hayley: The Clay

(Or the canvas, or materials, or what have you.)

One of Hayley’s first scenes with Klaus sets her up as a direct foil to Caroline:

Klaus: Painting is a metaphor for control. Every choice is mine-- the canvas, the color. As a child, I had neither a sense of the world nor my place in it, but art taught me that one's vision can be achieved with sheer force of will. The same is true of life, provided one refuses to let anything stand in one's way.

Hayley: So this is your thing-- show a girl a few mediocre paintings, whine about your childhood, and I swoon and spill all my dirty secrets?

Hayley doesn’t want to see him as a person. Klaus doesn’t really want to see her as a person, either. Eventually, he learns that he has to respect her as a mother, at least, or he will not deserve his daughter. Eventually, he learns to see her as family. But at the core, and I don’t think he ever loses this -- he sees Hayley as his work-in-progress. Potential. Not only to be a strong ally, but to be -- just maybe -- an equal.

Which is annoying for him, because she also happens to be the only person he cannot reliably control, or predict. His only choice is to try to shape her into someone that he can work with. That someone is himself, mostly, but with some key improvements. His tone with her is so often instructive, mentor-ly, a thin veneer above his need for her to be someone he doesn’t have to worry about, damn it! He can understand her so why can’t he control her!

This kicks into gear, mostly, after Hayley’s transformation. She estranges herself from Elijah, somewhat, and Klaus does not interfere with her spiral into blood and rage because it’s part of the process. He sees himself in her, but not like he saw himself in Marcel. His perspective on Marcel was so tied to fatherhood that he was trying to raise a young Klaus, while in Hayley’s case, he is trying to sculpt her in his image.

His advice on how to deal with rage, vengeance, and wildness is sincere and from personal experience. His advice on what to do about love? Well, certainly stay with Elijah while it’s convenient for me, but don’t let love blind you to what you need. What we need. What I need. Don’t tell Jackson you slept with my brother -- honesty won’t keep this vital political alliance strong. Don’t forget you’re one of us now. It’s what I would do.

I guess you could even say that Hayley, while pregnant, was a very different kind of work-in-progress for Klaus that made it near-impossible for him to see her as anything but a thing meant to be changed or cause change. Art, unfinished, and his.

Camille: The Critic

All of these relationships are unique and powerful in their own ways. I admit I’m partial to the poetry of this one, the radicalness of this one, but again, I don’t really ship it as a romance? Maybe I do, now that I’ve had time away from it, but I don’t ‘stan’ it as ‘otp’.

This one is obvious. Their ‘art’ scene is straightforward, and kind of cliche. A woman watches a street artist fill a huge canvas. Another passerby notices, and stops to ask her what she thinks. She floors him with her response -- so insightful, so bold, and so compassionate. The clever bartender that Marcel has a crush on just so happens to be a psychologist -- and, he learns later, with a particular, personal empathy for violent and cruel offenders.

He feels a unique desire to be seen by her, and to be considered by her, in his entirety. Not that he does not want to control what she knows -- obviously -- but that he does not want to put on a single, convenient mask with her to accomplish his ends. He wants to be known, and he wants to know what she thinks of him.

Again, he does not want any of this to touch him, or change him, really. He begins his Gallery Of Self not by making a therapy appointment but by ‘hiring’ (forcing) her to transcribe his biography (and making her forget everything she knows the moment she leaves his sight). This is safe, and it lets him bring out the masks and the goals and the good and the ugly of him and air them for her reaction. Will he, too, be worthy of empathy?

Yes. But he’s also worthy of critique. Eventually, he takes baby steps to allowing her to impact his life (to varying degrees throughout all seasons that, in my opinion, make for a shamefully circular set of arcs on the writers’ parts. The point is I saw where they were trying to go with it, and letting Drama of the Week get in the way). Eventually, he makes real appointments. Tells himself he needs to change, somewhat, for Hope’s sake.

And Camille is the kind of strong, confident woman he can imagine Hope to someday resemble. He wants his daughter to be free from the cycles of Mikaelson abuse, and he wants her to know goodness and have no reason to be evil. And if he is to do that, and if he is to know that Hope, then someone like Camille should be able to look at him and deem him capable. Worthy. Warts and all. He’ll spend time with her because he likes her, because he’s attracted to the beauty in her heart (like Caroline!) -- but he opens himself to her scrutiny because for once in his life he knows he has to change for the better. He knows he has to get help, and, well, the clever bartender seemed to fall into his life at exactly the right time to take in all of his decades and all of his deeds -- piece by piece, movement by movement, style by style, and understand them. Critique them. Maybe with that in mind he can make himself into a work that he can one day show to Hope.

With that in mind, I can’t help but have a soft spot for those cheesy lines from the very first episode.

Klaus: Do you paint?

Cami: No, but I admire. Every artist has a story, you know.

Klaus: And what do you suppose his story is?

Cami: He's...angry. Dark. Doesn't feel safe and doesn't know what to do about it. He wishes he could control his demons instead of having his demons control him. He's lost. Alone.

Cami: Or maybe he just drank too much tonight. Sorry. Overzealous Psych major.

Klaus: No. I think you were probably right the first time.

@florafaunaandeldritchhorrors @ptonkin @furrydolphin @jungshoook (DID YOU ABANDON THE KLEBEKAH URL REDIRECT????? MOM??????!?!!?!??!?!??!?!!?!!?!??! I JUST CHECKED AND IT’S NOT THERE ANYMORE???? I NEED TO *MOURN* AND YOU JUST DIDN’T *TELL* US??!)

#art in the originals is the ship I stan #anamysis #WOW GUYS LOOK I ACTUALLY DID IT #i could probably add in Aurora to this but hey give me like 2 years okay #no tags this is Special Edition Members Only Content #i wrote this in 1 hour and i've been sitting on this concept for...............longtime #granted the original version would have had a TON more line-by-line analysis but HEY you GET WHAT YOU GET #i seriously didn't realize the Cami section is longer I promise it's not some sort of Sign #it's just I was trying to write this fast and 1. couldn't remember specific Hayley scenes to reference #and 2. I pretty much copy/pasted a lot of my Cami & Hope meta discussions wholesale into this one soooooo more to work with more to write #and 3. I already wrote the caroline one like two other times before this and I kind of felt like I hit the stuff I Really Cared About #in not a lot of words

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morievna · 5 years

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Parallels between Yuki and Ugetsu and what they tell about past and future

In my earlier posts I alluded to fact that I find similarities between Yuki and Ugetsu – now I want to dig this topic more deeper to show what I exactly mean by this. After all one of reasons why I love Given so much is it how different couples foil each other at many levels. It is almost as we are presented the same struggle in different ways. This struggle is about finding balance in life - between music and love/normal life. Or if to put it in more abstract terms – between spiritual and mundane aspects. In this meta I intend to depict parallels between Ugetsu and Yuki and then use them as base to speculate on the latter’s choices. At the end I will try to predict how it can be handled in Mafuyu’s story-line in the future.

Since it is heavy topic I want to put disclaimer that I am no psychologist and I will look on this mostly how it was presented in narrative. Just keep it in mind that it is my interpretation and feel free to disagree.

Both of look here as they were in their own world, aren’t they?

Warnings: long post, spoilers and mention of suicide

Parallels between Yuki and Ugetsu are mostly indirect and tied to how they are presented in their relationships with respectively Mafuyu and Akihiko. Let’s start then from very beginning of these couples:

As you see both Akihiko and Mafuyu are in dark/shadow place in literal and metaphorical way. Both of them had problems with parents and were not getting enough love from them – Mafuyu had abusive father and Akihiko’s parents were neglectful and caught in their own drama. Their lives changed significantly when they met “light” (both Ugetsu and Yuki are standing in sunlight), who provided them with attention and love. Apart from it there is also motive of mutual understanding - Yuki empathized with Mafuyu because he had no father, and Ugetsu was first to recognize that Akihiko is delicate/sensitive person deep down. As trivia I want to add that these both encounters took place in summer.

No matter how they turned out later it is important that at first these relationships were positive for both parties and allowed them to find love, belonging and safety in their lives. We are shown Yuki acting very protective around Mafuyu a lot in flashbacks and it was Ugetsu who offered his house to Akihiko when the latter was homeless due to parent’s divorce. After all there is reason why both Akihiko are Mafuyu are having trouble of letting go of past and treasure these memories despite the pain.

Both pairings have strong soulmates vibes:

We are literally told this by Hiiragi and it is emphasized by ginkgo's leaves, which symbolize duality. In Akihiko/Ugetsu case it is shown too in a bit subtler way – they are almost always in black/dark and light/white clothes (something that anime picked up too) and in color illustrations are often used red and blue/green, which are complementary according to color theory. And stands count as well – Yataragasu (symbol for sun) and squirrel (symbol for earth).

By opposites we should take into consideration not only personality traits, but what I mentioned at start – mundane and spiritual (music) aspects. In other Kizu Natsuki’s original works there is similar pattern in couples too – where one person has more down-to-earth attitude and second one is more thinking of ideas in abstract terms. I like how this was put in words in blurb from “Yukimura-sensei to Kei-kun” – as providing spiritual nourishment to another person.

Both Yuki and Ugetsu’s talents are called in similar terms – something special and otherworldly. Unfortunately, this had not only inspirational but negative effect too– Akihiko abandoned his dreams and I assume that Mafuyu probably too felt overwhelmed since he waited for Yuki’s initiative to work together on music instead of actively asking about it.

Both Mafuyu and Akihiko are making strong association between love and instruments played respectively by Yuki and Ugetsu – as if guitar and violin was symbolically token of love. Just think how Akihiko compared explicitly his love to Ugetsu to love for playing violin in chapter 27. In addition to holding guitar all time in beginning Mafuyu’s songs are thematically connected to Yuki – first about pain of losing him and second about acceptance of his death and moving forward. It is a bit fascinating how music can be both positive and destructive. Thanks to music Akihiko and Ugetsu got to understand each other, but it also effected in split when it wasn’t balanced in life like in Mafuyu and Yuki’s case. It is a bit alike a Force in Star Wars.

And just like in Star Wars – without balance everything falls apart:

Though Akihiko is talking about Ugetsu and Mafuyu here, I think the same applied to Yuki. We know that after going to high school Yuki went to job to buy guitar. It was highlighted that it was expensive model, so he must spent a lot of time working to obtain it. And don’t forget that in his house single mother was only source of income, so he probably helped in paying fees and things like that too. To sum it all up he spent considerable amount of time on job to buy guitar and then later probably even more in studio playing – his life was basically dedicated to music at this point, no wonder that Mafuyu felt out place and strain appeared in their relationship.

And I think I don’t have to point out examples about Ugetsu spending really most of his time on music? Even though he got talent, he is practicing really hard to be at the highest level.

So let’s move from music to normal life.

It has similar vibe, doesn’t it?

Since both Ugetsu and Yuki are very immersed in music their basic needs are taken care by respectively Akihiko and Mafuyu. We have multiple instances in story where Akihiko is worried about Ugetsu’s well-being (like eating properly and so on). With Yuki there is only that one occasion, but I won’t be surprised if there will be more if we get more flashbacks.

Of course remember that both aspect are equally important and it very important to have them covered in life. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs we must find every one of the elements needed to seek fulfillment and change through personal growth.

And as you see love is very important too – we see in Given what happens when it is missing – apathy (Mafuyu), self-neglect (Ugetsu) and losing sense of living (Akihiko).

So we have parallels covered. I think that they clearly intentional and can be used as some kind of base to figure out more about Yuki and his mindset and choices. But firstly let’s take closer look on Yuki chapter 11.5

Judging on clothes – winter ones – it seems that it took place shortly before their argument. Even though they are together there is this vibe of being distant from each other. It is bit hard to put into word feeling of this scene, but it seems like some form of goodbye from Yuki like he wanted to make more memories so Mafuyu wouldn’t forget him easily. There is clear implication that he was feeling lonely. It may be a bit of over-interpretation, but I consider it interesting that Yuki got most of piercing in high school – after spending most of his time apart from Mafuyu. In some way it can be interpreted as sign of internal pain, since Akihiko got his piercing after first breakup with Ugetsu. I think it is safe to assume that Yuki felt depressed due to loneliness and separation from Mafuyu – losing his balance in life and music could not sustain him.

Before moving to their argument, firstly let’s take closer look on reasons why Ugetsu broke up with Akihiko. Because it is not simple as love for music was just more important for him.

This decision can be examined on three levels:

Identity / afraid of change – Ugetsu’s home is such great metaphor for him – ascetic, isolated from rest of world and dedicated solely to playing music. To me it feel like he thinks that music should be his priority because he has nothing except for it and it is only thing he is good at. So he thinks that he has to put music as first, because he is nothing without it and nobody would give him attention if he doesn’t play at the highest level. Accepting his feeling to Akihiko as equally important would mean that he has to change the way his was living and identity he build for himself.

Self-guilt –he blames himself for Akihiko abandoning his dream about playing violin as pro.

Loneliness – he has no friends and his family doesn’t seems to be supportive or take active role in his life either.

I want to highlight that it was bad decision, which caused only more pain for them both. Deciding arbitrarily what is good for another person and breaking up without telling reasons is bad. It is even underlined in narrative – Ugetsu thinks of himself as coward and lowest of low. Mafuyu thinks of this as wrong too (and again another parallel):

But saying “right words” would be talking about his insecurities to Akihiko, showing vulnerable side and stopping to run from his feelings – Ugetsu was not ready for this and took “easier” path to stop suffering by pushing away Akihiko. To me it looks as he wanted to turn back to state before knowing him, but obviously it didn’t work since love changes people and shutting out feelings is not something easy.

So keep all above in mind and now let’s take look on argument between Mafuyu and Yuki:

Identity / afraid of change – even though Mafuyu stressing out that music is tearing them apart, Yuki didn’t acknowledge this and simply want Mafuyu to trust him. It all sounds that Mafuyu felt betrayed, but is seems that Yuki didn’t want to change his attitude towards spending so much time on music and acknowledge this as something wrong – so I think that music is as much important to him as to Ugetsu.

Self-guilt – during this argument Yuki had learned how much this is causing hurt, so I am assuming he too thinks that “his existence fundamentally means suffering” for Mafuyu. Like you know thinking that Mafuyu words “Would you die for me then?” meant that Mafuyu would be better or happier without him.

Loneliness – despite having friends and supportive mother Yuki is pretty alone in this – it doesn’t looks that he tried to get help or talking with them. Even though Hiiragi was just observant Yuki didn’t try to talk with him. Just look below –from the way Yuki patted Hiiragi’s arm it looks to me as Yuki tried to pretend that everything was okay.

Unlike Ugetsu he can’t turn back literally before knowing Mafuyu since they meet as kids, so this is out of option. So he decided wrongly that there is another way to permanently “end suffering” for both of them. I want to repeat what I stated earlier – it is just my interpretation and maybe something else affected him too. But looking at major themes of story – how different characters has dilemma between music and life/love I expect Yuki’s story be something similar like that. I hope too that I sounded too judgmental – I am aware from my personal experiences that changing and fixing flaws is not that easy and sometimes reaching for help from others takes a lot of courage too.

God, it was hard to write I got so emotional. Okay I recovered so moving out to:

Just to make things clear – I don’t think that Ugetsu is going to die or something like that. Parallels are often used to emphasize differences in the end. I think that he is going to make amends and seek forgiveness for hurt he caused from Akihiko. His story resembles how redemption arc are usually done, but this is big topic for another time. I firmly believe that he will get happy ending, especially since Akihiko is very forgiving.

Since Yuki isn’t protagonist we will see rest of his story through Mafuyu’s eyes. I think there are two ways:

As mentioned before Mafuyu wanted to write song together with Yuki. I suspect that this wish will be fulfilled in different way. In recent chapter Hiiragi wanted to work on some Yuki’s song together with Ritsuka. Again because Yuki was special when it comes to music I don’t think it would be easy task. It is possible that we would get to see them all together working on this as some kind of collaboration between these two bands. Who knows, maybe even we get to see Mafuyu singing it. The tone and lyrics of this song would give us new information on Yuki too. And it would be interesting to know if this song was meant by him to be gift for Mafuyu. Besides, since Mafuyu seeks often Ugetsu’s advise on music I think he will be involved too. Honesty I think that just writing new song for Given by Mafuyu could feel a bit repetitive, so this way could make things more interesting.

Some alongside this way I anticipate that Mafuyu would open up more and talk about his bottled feelings about Yuki. Probably first to Ugetsu, with whom Mafuyu feels understanding and thus mirroring chapter, where Ugetsu talked about his relationship with Akihiko. Then later with Ritsuka. To be honest I feel like waiting for this so long. Main reason why I want this to happened – I think it would be good for Mafuyu to express it all during normal conversation (not just through music like before) to make final peace with past. And to solve Ritsuka’s issues with jealousy for good. I would also love to see Mafuyu introducing Ritsuka to Yuki’s mom and/or inviting her to LIVE performance.

Secondly, I think that near end of the story we will get dream sequence with Mafuyu and Yuki. To show their final goodbye, which they didn’t have chance to do in real life. It would signify that finally Mafuyu had forgiven himself and Yuki, made peace with past and is ready to embrace wholeheartedly present and future with Ritsuka. Kizu Natsuki pulled out similar thing in her other work “Links” so I think it is quite possible. After all subtitle of Given is - “I cannot say goodbye I am still drifting in your echoes” - I think that showing their final goodbye like this would wrap story really nicely. Because in the end the core themes of story are healing, forgiveness and finding love.

So it is all for today - thanks for reading. To end it on bit lighter tone I will borrow Bob Ross’s words:

#given #given meta #given manga #given anime #mafuyu satou #satou mafuyu #yuki yoshida #yoshida yuki #yuuki yoshida #murata ugetsu #ugetsu murata #akihiko kaji #kaji akihiko #given spoilers

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the100epic · 5 years

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Mackson meta

I love the relationship between Eric Jackson/Nathan Miller on The 100 and am in the mood to do a bit of meta, just to answer the questions ‘Who are they and what makes them work as a couple?’ Given their limited screen time, it was fun to mine what I could from limited material. First, a disclaimer - I’m only on episode 5 x 8.

Looking at Jackson first, and starting with a few obvious things. He’s an adult when we first meet him, and he already has a good sense of purpose. He’s a born healer. He’s quiet. He is very serious, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders –given his limited time in front of the camera, we don’t know how often (or if) he lets his guard down and laughs. He probably puts the needs of others before his own – think of 5 x 2 when Abby tells him she’s happy for him (because he has Miller), and he immediately turns it around to ask how she is and express concern for her. He lost his mother, possibly when he was young, and it’s obvious that Abby has been his mother-figure for a long time. (Check the tears in his eyes in 1 x 1 when Kane is trying to float Abby). He decides to take the chip in Season 3, probably feeling desperate for a route towards ending the suffering of other people, something he always tries to do but can never succeed at.

We don’t know if he’s ever been in another relationship before Miller. Maybe he has; he’s got to be at least 23 years old before the time jump and there had to have been some interested parties on the Ark. Or maybe he hasn’t; he’s clearly been working constantly ever since he’s been able to, so maybe he would have felt guilty for pursuing romance. However, I lean towards thinking that he has been in a relationship before. He is the one who makes the first move on Miller in Season 4, suggesting that he has some experience and confidence in this arena.

We have more material on Miller (though still not enough). He is younger when the show starts, and I feel his personality was not yet fully developed or defined back then. Partially because of limited screen time, and partially because he is under 18 when the show starts and he just has some natural growing up to do. What we do see is that he has a sense of humor (such as during the ghost stories conversation with Bryan and Harper), and he appears loyal to Bellamy. Part of that loyalty is undoubtedly due to the fact that he is trying to do what all of The 100 is trying to do - whatever it takes to survive. Miller does a good job of getting in with Bellamy’s group and being seen as a good foot soldier/ good lieutenant to Bellamy. This theme replays itself throughout the series; he is always a good solider, and in Season 5 it is the other Blake for whom he is a good lieutenant.

We know three things about Miller’s time on the Ark.

1. He has a father who loves him

2. He has a boyfriend named Bryan

3. He was arrested for stealing

My head-canon is that his theft had to do with stealing a gift or something for Bryan, but there’s nothing in canon to back that up. We do know from season 2 that Miller is ashamed of what he had done, ashamed for having let his father down. We don’t know how long he was incarcerated before being sent down to earth, but you can be sure that he’s had plenty of time to think about the ramifications of his actions.

We can also infer that he was training to be in the guard, like his father, back on the Ark. Miller’s too good of a solider by the time he gets to the ground for him to not have had some training.

Before we can get to Mackson as a couple, I need to take a glimpse at “Briller” – Miller and his ex Bryan. They’re reunited in Season 3, and it must have been hard for them; at one point they surely must’ve thought they’d never see each other again. On top of that, there are serious, major life experiences that they do not share (Season one’s war with the Grounders, Miller’s experiences as a captive in Mount Weather just for starters). As far as we can tell, the two young men do try to make it work, which indicates to me that Miller likes being in a relationship, likes having someone to love. When Bryan is up on the Ark, Miller never cheats on him despite knowing that he might never see him again. Unlike with Finn, perhaps the opportunity never presented itself but this still suggests that one of Miller’s qualities is loyalty.

My favorite conversation of Briller’s occurs at the end of Season 3 when they spend a minute dreaming of their future, thinking of how they’d love to have a farm and chickens. It gives a great glimpse into Miller’s head. He probably is a solider because he has to be, but he dreams of peace. During those years in the bunker, his dream of living on a farm must’ve felt even more remote than ever, though at least he had a man he loves to dream alongside.

We never get the full story on why it didn’t work out with Bryan. Was it due mainly to their disagreement on how to handle the Azgeda slaves or was that just one factor among others? (That debate – freeing the slaves versus getting the equipment they need to survive - does deserve some more analysis which I won’t get into here). We can only speculate as to whether that was the main reason for the breakup, or if other reasons presented themselves. Given what we do see with Mackson though, I wonder if Bryan and Miller were just too similar.

Because I see some good yin and yang with Mackson. Miller’s words in 5 x 2 to Jackson give us a great clue: “You’re a healer, not a fighter. That’s why I love you.” So we can add up the ways Jackson and Miller’s differences complement each other:

1. The fighter and the healer

2. Miller’s sense of humor contrasted with Jackson’s seriousness (Miller gets a rare smile out of Jackson in 4 X 9 during their scene in the rover)

3. Miller’s impulsiveness contrasted with Jackson’s clinical detachment

4. Possibly their age gap as well, with Jackson’s maturity being a plus for Miller. Remember that Miller’s father dies at the end of Season 4, right at the time that Mackson is taking off. I doubt Miller views Jackson as a father-figure in any way, but I do think Jackson’s maturity and ability to deal with other people’s pain provided a lot of balm for Miller. This experience had to have helped bond them.

But for a relationship to work, the partners can’t be too different. There have to be similarities too. Here are some Mackson ones:

1. They grew up with love. Miller’s dad and Jackson’s mom (whom we know less about, but we can infer a lot given the impact she made on his life) showed them love.

2. This trait is usually viewed as a negative, but the truth is that both Miller and Jackson are followers, not leaders. Miller follows whoever is their military leader (Bellamy, Octavia, etc) and Jackson follows Abby. Being a follower carries stigma, but the flip side of that coin is that both are very loyal. And maybe it means they are smart survivors, knowing that if you want to stay alive, it can’t hurt to hitch your wagon to an alpha.

3. Both are driven. Miller knows he made a mistake on the Ark, and he worked his butt off to survive on the ground and prove himself a valuable solider. And there’s no need to reiterate how driven and self-motivated Jackson must be in order to devote his life to healing.

4. Every single character on The 100 has made morally questionable choices, and I need to point out that Mackson are no different. Even Jackson was willing to experiment on “Baylis” in Season 4, and was about to do so to Emori. You can see the agony in his eyes, but we do not get any lines of dialog to indicate that he spoke out or offered himself in their places (which Abby would never have accepted). They both have to live with their demons and their regrets like every other character on the show.

Here’s something I wish I knew more about: When Mackson first gets together, they were facing – as Miller quips – “fiery death in five days”. Their relationship could’ve easily been a fling and nothing more – just one last sexual encounter before the world ends, perhaps? I wonder when it became more, or whether it was always intended to be more than a fling. The next time we see them together, the five days have passed, Praimfaya is upon us, and they are clearly a couple (as we see in 4 x 12 – there are SO many looks and touches, including an unexplained, secret hand gesture, the type of move done by intimate couples). Did they have in-depth conversations to discuss what might happen if they both somehow survived Praimfaya? I can definitely see Jackson being the type who would want to think about and discuss this. Or did they realize that there was a good chance that one or both of them wouldn’t make it, and thus tacitly decide that the topic was just too painful to discuss? Maybe they just took the approach of living for the moment and hoping for the best? (And next, of course, would come the moment that they woke up from the gas and had to face the fact that Miller’s dad wasn’t chosen, and they would have to process that).

Also I wish I knew more about what prompted Jackson to make the first move. I suspect some fans view him as passive, given his interactions with Abby, his quiet demeanor. So I will always love the fact that he made the first move. Was it motivated solely by Praimfaya? Did Abby at some point tell Jackson that Miller was single now and that he should approach Miller? Was it something that Jackson had quietly wanted to do for a while? (Maybe he noticed Miller even back when Bryan was still a thing). Had Miller been giving him a few signals to let him know that he was open to something? Was Jackson lonely and just wanting to reach a deeper connection (whether it be sex or a relationship) with another human being, especially given what they were facing in Season 4? Or some combination of the above?

No way of knowing this glimpse of their past, but I look forward to their future.

#the 100 #mackson #eric jackson #nathan miller #the 100 meta

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orionsangel86 · 6 years

Text

Episode Review - 14x01 - Want, Everything, Sunshine, and Beyonce

Hellatus is over everyone! Put away the crack memes and shit posts and bring out your meta caps because we are back in business! Oh boy are we back in business!

Right before @tinkdw came over to watch the premier with me, we discussed our expectations and both agreed that whilst our expectations were pretty much in our boots, we would consider the episode a success if it was even remotely meta. We wanted to be able to see clearly constructed themes both as a continuation of what had come previously and as a foundation for a strong season going forward. We were both hoping that at least from a meta perspective, that the episode would leave us happy and thirsting for more.

Dabb did not disappoint us.

It was such a strong episode meta-wise. There is a lot to pick apart that is ripe for discussion and I seriously hope that Dabb will keep a close eye on the other writers to ensure that these themes continue throughout the season. Plot-wise it was a weaker episode, but then again Dabb has always focused on the character emotional arcs more than the actual plot points in recent years, and I am grateful for that. The second half of season 13 felt stagnant to me simply because there was little to no character development and from a meta perspective it was also extremely weak. I went into this hellatus feeling negative about the show simply because I hadn’t actually enjoyed an episode properly since 13x12. However, the season 14 opener was most definitely enough to quench my thirst and get me excited for the coming season. Fingers crossed it goes from strength to strength.

Long review under the cut

Michael!Dean - What Do You Want

Straight in after the introductory Nyoooom of Baby (driven by a grim looking Sam and a pretty impressive swap from title music to diegetic music), we are introduced to the angel of the hour.

8 Things about Michael:

1. I am not sure how I feel about Jensen’s performance right now. He is playing Michael extremely straight and whilst I can see how this cold, calm portrayal can come across quite terrifying, it’s not a carry over from Christian Key’s performance. I don’t want to be too critical, because we only saw him in a few scenes so far, but when I compare it to how Tahmoh portrayed Gadreel alongside Jared, and the way Misha pretty much nailed Mark P’s performance (and greatly improved it), I guess I’m still waiting for Jensen to WOW me in the role. The one thing I will say is that he did terrify me and managed to come across creepy when acting alongside his own WIFE. So he's doing something right I'll give him that. When Jensen wants to have chemistry with someone, he does.

2. I like the fact that Michael’s goal right now seems to be to educate himself on our world. He’s not running around causing terror and mayhem like Lucifer, he’s learning how best to go about “improving” the world. He also appears to be inspiring people with his words: “Holy men, leaders, killers” and we have seen the effect he had already on Kip the Demon - who was inspired to run for King of Hell until Sam Fucking Winchester ruined that plan. I wonder if we will be seeing the fallout of Michael’s specific type of inspiration throughout the season.

3. “What do you want?” Obviously this question is an important one. It was repeated like six times throughout the episode, though never to the main characters. It looks like this is going to be the theme of the season and as far as TFW’s personal journey’s go, this is now the question we are asking them and the question being explored. What does Sam want? Or Cas? Or Dean? This has an endgame flavour to it that has me extremely excited.

4.Michael’s own personal want of “A better world” is a follow on in a way of many of the villains that have come before him. For seasons now we have been exploring this concept of improving the world for the better. We had it first in season 8 when the brothers had the goal to do the trials to make a world without demons, in season 11 Amara’s vision was to destroy so she could reshape the world to her own blueprints that she saw as better than Chuck’s. Dabb era has been even more obvious, first with the goal of the British Men of Letters being “a world without monsters” which was shared by Mary wanting a better world for her boys, and then in season 13 Jack’s arrival floated the idea of “paradise world” to Castiel. I don’t think Michael is gonna fair any better than any of these others, and wonder exactly where all these escalated versions of “a better world” will end up. It's all exploring the notion that nothing is black and white, but in fact a grey area.

5. I already discussed Michael and Sister Jo here. Cas mirrors... Cas mirrors everywhere... I also side eye the "pretty things" line because it reaks of Dean and his whole sublimation thing. In that sense it seems Dabb is making Jo a mirror for both our boys. I'll be keeping a close eye on her from now on.

6. ”Why would he say yes to you?” “Love”. OH DEAN. Just, Dean wasn’t in this episode but my god did we feel his presence RIGHT HERE. And to think there are people out there that still think this is a macho mans show about macho manly men. I’ve never known another character with more heart than Dean Winchester. This show is about LOVE above all things. I wish people would stop trying to deny that fact.

7. Radioactive Pigeon:

Look I’m not trying to be critical okay it’s very pretty and this is the FIRST time they have attempted showing an angels true form and that is amazeballs and all, but still. He has little pigeon wings and a bent halo. Pfft.

8. The Purity of Vampires. I actually love this. I think it comes across a bit silly on the surface, but the whole idea of monsters being pure is a massive callback to purgatory and season 8 and anything that calls back to season 8 makes me happy.

Sam Fucking Winchester

Excuse me while I scream HELL YES. I have been waiting for Sam to take on the leadership role for AGES. Honestly this was always my dream endgame for Sam. To organise and lead the hunting community. There’s your better world guys. It was something that the writers flirted with in late season 12, but at the time Sam only took on the position with Dean’s approval and encouragement to go ahead. Sam has always stepped back and let Dean take the lead throughout the show as the big brother and parental figure. I think this was always a role he was destined to fill and something that has been building in the subtext for a long time (much the same way as the toxic codependency has been shown to hold Sam back.)

What’s of interest here is what will happen when Dean comes back and is fighting fit. Will Sam relinquish his leadership position to Dean? Or fight for it? Will this cause conflict? I read this amazing meta on this which turned into an epic discussion and I highly recommend reading it. My HEART.

Sam’s state in the episode is one of constant motion. He cannot stop for a second, always being pulled from one thing to another. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t get to change out of his hideous blue and orange shirt (which is officially now my favourite Sam shirt), he doesn’t even get to finish his soup. I know Jared said that Sam had a ‘grief beard’ but Tink and I are adamant that the beard is simply due to the fact that Sam doesn’t get the time to shave. He has taken so much weight on his shoulders and in amongst that has to deal with horribly traumatic things such as face the face of his abuser and actually be a healer to him. Sam doesn't get a moment to himself and spends all his time concerned about others. It's very noble of him, but he's going through the motions.

Sam is the contrast here to both Cas and Dean, who are physically and mentally stuck in their awful situations. Sam is also stuck in a way, stuck with no time to actually contemplate the situation he has got himself in. Stuck without a moment to breath, or to grieve his brother. Stuck holding the weight of the world on his shoulders as every other single character looks to him for support, help and guidance. Sam is the motherfucking Beyonce of the episode, that is for certain.

He is also calling the shots on hell now...

(x)

... I find it amusing that back in the early days Sam's destiny was to be the boy king of hell, and it's almost like he's fulfilled that destiny, not by being king, but by being gatekeeper and in a position powerful enough to scare the demons into submission. This is probably what Crowley intended. Sam probably owns the moon now.

About Nick - Well, first of all, I TOLD YOU SO. I did say that I could tell the guy from the back of his head and I was damn right about that. Learn to trust me guys I am occasionally good at this stuff. Okay, now that that is out of my system, let’s talk about this. Round of applause for Jared in this scene. Because he takes Sam’s hell trauma extremely seriously and made sure that every nuance, every twitch, was picked up by those camera’s. I loved that. Potentially Nick could be a good way to help Sam heal in the coming season, as Sam has finally freed himself from Lucifer’s grasp. Is it fair that he should have to look after the face that tormented him for years? No. Not at all, but could it prove somewhat cathartic in the end? Maybe.

At the end of the day, Dabb must have considered Nick to have a purpose beyond “I want to give Bucklemming something to play with so they don’t fuck up my actual story” and “We need to keep stroking Mark P’s ego for some stupid reason”. Because otherwise I am really worried about how limited his power must be, and refuse to entertain the thought that he was overthrown by Singer and his horrid wife. I can see the potential in Nick being a dark mirror for Dean following his freedom from Michael’s possession. How Nick deals with the post possession trauma could be an indicator to how Dean is really coping even when he buries it.

At the same time, both Sam and Cas have been possessed by Lucifer, and therefore have all the experience between them to help Dean’s recovery without needing Nick to get involved. So I dunno guys. I’m trying to see the positive in something I otherwise despise.

Anyway I thought Jared was fucking superb in that scene and pretty much the whole episode and want to give him a round of applause because it is rare that he truly gets to shine on his own without Jensen by his side.

Now all we need is for Sam to get some sleep. How he is still functioning by the episodes end I will never understand.

Castiel Everything Winchester

(x)

Look at him. So defiant and done. You can almost imagine that fire behind him burning in his eyes as well. He’s such a dom.

Several things about Cas in 14x01:

1. He is 100% done with every demon on the planet and doesn’t give a fuck. Honestly though. The way he says “Oh God” when Kip walks in. The way he rolls his eyes. I wonder if he had Dean’s voice in his head saying “You know who wears sunglasses indoors Cas? Douchebags.”

2. He is making desperate choices in order to save Dean, which is certainly typical for him. The fact that he spends the entire episode stuck in a chair is a fantastic metaphor for his whole feelings on the situation, a metaphor then reinforced through a mirror at the end when he speaks with Jack (we never get anything explicit with Cas do we?). The fact that Cas can’t save Dean right now is weighing on him, but he is determined to do whatever it takes. The conversation he has with Sam at the end is a brilliantly short but important moment:

“I should never have gone to those demons”

“Cas no I don’t blame you. honestly I wish I had thought of it first. If it meant finding Dean I’d work with.. I’d do anything.”

The takeaway here is that actions speak louder than words. Sam HAS been distracted being leader of the hunters and having to face his own nightmares thanks to Nick, but Cas has literally been doing anything he can with a soul focus on saving Dean.

It's an intimate moment between them. In a bunker now bustling with life and movement this is the only time in the episode that it really seems still. The library has always been Sam's private space, where he feels most at home - like the kitchen is for Dean. But here he and Cas sit as equals together weighed down by their shared grief. It's the soft moments like this that I love the most about this show. They are both willing to do anything they can, but the difference is that whilst Sam is being pulled in lots of different directions, Cas’s sole focus is Dean. Note that heaven wasn’t mentioned once. It hasn’t even crossed his mind.

3. Everyone Knows, but Cas doesn’t give a shit.

“How is it you lost Dean, I thought you guys were joined at the... well you know, everything.”

It is an extremely explicit nod to Destiel. It is also the first time a line like this has made it into an episode since season 7 I think. The difference now being that we’ve had years of steady subtext and narrative building on the love story, hence the line has a different weight to those previously. It was very carefully written, careful not to imply that Cas was joined to BOTH Winchesters as the line was specifically about Dean. It was written by the showrunner, who would have known the significance of such a line, it encourages the view that all of heaven and hell have made their own assumptions about Dean and Cas’s relationship, and in case anyone wants to argue that the missing word was “hip” like the saying goes, the gesture and nod by Kip goes to prove otherwise. In other words, there is no platonic interpretation. Which is delightful.

Cas’s completely stoic silence is even more delightful. God I love him.

4. He can’t see demons true faces anymore. Like everyone else, Cas not realising those people were demons really threw me for a moment. Tink and I both agreed that the scene should have had Kip snap his fingers and have the demons smoke in and possess all those people instead - still catching Cas off guard but not making it seem like he is just super unobservant. I personally feel like this was just an error Dabb made. I have no desire to try to meta explain that one and I accept it as the error it is. I do like that it took an entire room of demons and 4 sets of enochian hand cuffs to overpower him though...The fact that he had to sit there and watch his family be beaten and almost killed around him whilst he was helpless again, is an excellent parallel to Dean’s current situation and what he will most likely have to face in the coming episodes, and also a reflection of Cas’s mental state (as mentioned above), Coming out of this episode it seems like this will be another season where Cas and Dean mirror each other and walk similar paths in terms of growth and development - if only those paths would meet with a kiss!

5. He’s the bait. Tink found this line hilarious straight away, where as I had to blink and ask why because I obviously took offence. But once we started discussing it and realised the quadruple entendre it is I found myself applauding Dabb on his genius. Cas IS used as bait, by the SPN PR people. Because he’s Mister Popularity. He’s also the character who causes the most conflict in fandom, with those who love him so much they are bitter and mean and those who simply hate him often complaining about the exact same things but in different ways - leaving the regular fans stuck in the middle (Tink explained this to me with delight - how both anti’s and bitter!cas girls alike will latch onto that line for completely different reasons). He’s also potentially a queerbait depending on how you look at it. But anyway. Cas’s epic eye rolls in this episode were almost enough to rival Sam’s bitchfaces. I am impressed.

6. He takes no pleasure for himself. I am forever going to obsess over Cas’s relationship with human food and drink:

“Coffee has no effect on me.”

“Me either, not anymore. But its like with saltwater taffee or infants, you know I just like the taste”

Although we can argue his refusal is out of stubbornness to not give the demon the satisfaction, even when accepting drinks from the Winchesters he doesn’t usually bother, or will stick with water. Even if he is seen ordering coffee it is usually only to avoid looking suspicious in diners. We know Cas enjoys some food and drink, but Cas rarely allows himself the pleasure. Even in 13x14 when Dean offered him a beer, it remained unopened. A symbolic metaphor for Cas refraining from indulging in other pleasures? This is why I am so so desperate for Michael to ask Cas what it is HE wants. Lucifer stated that Cas was a “pleasureless dullard” and I want to see this theme continue. Cas uses his grace as an excuse not to indulge and I consider this linked to meta about the “sacred oath” of heaven and Cas being duty bound and numbed by his grace. But these are all elements for a bigger meta at another time and the moment in this episode is just another snippet of that.

7. He looks awesome framed in fire. I just really liked the set up of Motown Meats as the new hang out for hell, with its fire pit and orange glowy bar. There is a lot of general symbolism there but I enjoyed the flames framed behind Cas in every shot he was in. Because even though he was mostly stuck in this episode, that fire raging inside him didn’t burn out once. He WILL save Dean. Just as he promised to Jack at the end, even if he get’s battered, beaten and bruised, his determined stubborness to save his husband will win eventually. Cas is no longer the broken thing of seasons 11/12. He well and truly rose like a phoenix in season 13 and now it’s showing through, as it’s a mission fueled by his own passion and love.

Jack Winchester (AKA my nougat son)

Poor Jack, like his father he hasn't had it easy in 14x01. He is struggling with his humanity now, his usefulness, in such a clear mirror to Cas that it kinda hits you in the face. He is desperately seeking guidance from those around him. First in the form of AU Bobby who has clearly bonded with Jack following their experiences together in apocalypse world.

It is great to finally see the Bunker gym! A room we all have ingrained in our fandom hive mind thanks to a 100 destiel fanfics. We all know what's gone on in there. >.>

Throughout the episode, Jack seeks out guidance first with Bobby, which goes badly, then with Sam, which is interrupted, and finally with Cas, which is when he finally gets told what he needs to hear. I am really happy that whilst Jack has so many father figures now, it is Cas who truly holds that torch and is able at least somewhat give Jack what he needs near the episodes end. If only he had damn well given his son a hug!

I loved the conversation so much that I transcripted it here:

JACK: I’m fine.

CAS: You did well

JACK: All I did was get punched. In the face

CAS: To be fair we all got punched in the face

JACK: That’s not - Before when I had my powers I could have done something

CAS: Jack you don’t have your powers, and your grace should regenerate in time, but until then..

JACK: I’m useless. I cant kill demons I cant find Dean and Michael is in our world and I cant stop him.

I can’t do anything. I don’t have anything.

CAS: Oh Jack. That’s just not true. You’ve got me. You have all of us. You have your family.

And we are going to find dean and we are going to beat Michael and we are going to do it together. Because that’s what we do.

This whole conversation was PERFECT. Every line chosen so specifically and weighted with meaning. Urgh Dabb I fucking love you for this.

Jack starts with “I’m fine” which Cas knows by now means you are not fine but he has also learned to recognise that sometimes it doesn’t mean “leave me alone” as Jack was crying out for guidance and support here.

The mirrored “got punched in the face” calls to attention the fact that Jack is a reflection of Cas himself here and everything he has felt both now and in the past.

Jack’s complaint about being useless without his powers is a fear Cas has carried with him since his fall in season 9. It’s something that still weighs on him and whilst Cas now knows his place by the Winchester’s side, knows that they are a family and that he is not just a hammer, I think that fear of losing his power and being cast out is still well and truly weighing him down. It will be cathartic for Cas to see the family accept Jack as one of their own even if he is “useless” and human.

Cas’s “That’s just not true” when Jack says he is useless - his voice breaks and you KNOW Cas has had those exact same thoughts.

“you’ve got me, you’ve got all of us. You have your family” compared to You’re my family, I love you, I love all of you” compared to “We're family. We need you. I need you.” The difference is there is no ambiguity in the word ME. Dabb turned it around, but had Cas clear it up. It’s the same line every time. The only difference is the placement of each individual statement. If this isn’t yet another clear example that the “I love you” was specifically directed at Dean I don’t know what is. THIS IS A CONTINUING PATTERN PEOPLE.

The determined promise to save Dean at the end, right after he specifies the singular and plural because obviously Dean was on Cas’s mind at that point - Mister I Don’t Get Words Wrong over here knows exactly what he means.

I love this whole conversation, but as I said above, it drums home the fact that whilst the Winchesters and others may be sources of guidance and support for Jack, he only has one true father, and I think Dabb wanted to make that clear in this episode. Remember:

Fingers crossed for more father/son bonding between these two in future episodes.

Mary and Bobby

(x)

Baring in mind I was expecting 1 small Destiel moment in the episode in the form of a line from a demon. You have NO IDEA how happy this moment between Mary and Bobby made me. If anyone saw that inktober pic I drew for premier day of me and Tink gasping in shock at the screen, it was for THIS moment. My face lit up in delight.

I said at the start of this long review that Dabb picked his moments well. With every second counting from a meta perspective. This was one of those.

Tell me, anyone, when watching that moment, would you deny that there was something between Bobby and Mary? As homework I'd like you all to play this scene to your heteronormative friends and family, or even be brave and ask a bibro. Would ANYONE deny that it was intended to be romantic?! I highly doubt it.

And yet there was nothing textually explicitly romantic about it. There was NOTHING in this scene that hasn’t been filmed a thousand times between Dean and Cas. The fact that Dabb chose to write this extremely small seemingly unimportant moment, in the kitchen, and for Bobby to use THOSE EXACT WORDS. As I have mentioned several times already, Dabb doesn’t fuck around when using well known moments from past canon in order to reinforce the importance of a thing. Dabb LOVES parallels. He wrote Bloodlines after all. He also knows the fandom hive mind and the things we pick up on and latch on to. This was a very smart calculated decision to include this in the episode and I am LIVING that he did it. GIVE ME ALL THE BOBBY x MARY/ DESTIEL PARALLELS.

...

I actually really liked Mary in this episode. There is so much discourse in fandom about her and whilst I find Sam Smith pretty cold and wooden, I have never understood the utter hatred of Mary as a character. Hence why I praise Dabb’s genius at this moment:

(x)

Because this line literally sums up her entire arc since her return. Tink and I paused the episode and basically flailed at each other because this is EXACTLY what Mary has been trying to do. She was in HEAVEN, with her BABIES and suddenly she is back on earth with two grown men who are strangers to her, telling her they are hunters and have suffered a life of HORRORS without her. So she ran. Hell, I would have ran too. She shoved herself into hunting because all she could think about was trying to make things GOOD for her boys. Trying to FIX her mistakes the only way she knew how: by HUNTING. She was drowning in the bad. So she found focus in trying to make things good. Like in this episode, she reassures Sam so much that he snaps at her. He doesn’t want to be reassured, and that’s fine. But my god this felt like the first time Mary has truly had a voice. I really weren’t kidding when I said that Dabb made sure every word counted.

OTHER THINGS

I am unsure how I feel about the title card:

Tink called it. I think it looks a bit odd, a bit too clean. I like the title cards to be grim and dark. Black angel wings though! And hey, at least the fiery halos in the title cards are perfectly spherical... so we know they CAN do it right...

*side eyes SFX team*

Kip as a wannabe Crowley was kinda fun for a one off episode but I am glad that they are stressing now that wannabe Crowley’s get killed. The last one we had was Bart in 13x08 who was very much the same flirtatious queer coded demon. I’m fed up with the villainous queer coding by now. It’s been done too often. Give me another Demon like Alastair or Ramiel or none at all.

“Asmodeus Kentucky Fried” DID ANYONE LIKE ASMODEUS OTHER THAN BUCKLEMMING? This made me LOL.

The fight scene at the end was really weird and overly long. I dunno why they decided on so many random slow mo and wooosh shots. the whole Mary slow mo throwing the blade at Sam was cringy. I wish they’d stop being experimental and stick with what they know! You think they’d learn after 13x23!

Maggie was a bit annoying. Why bring her along if she can’t fight? Also the random cuts to her reaction after Jack was angsty had me reeling. simply because in het couples that’s a brewing romance and that is a massive NOPE from me. I like her as an individual character, I DO NOT like her as a love interest to a 1 year old, and I certainly wouldn’t like some pining story for her where she falls for an unavailable guy. It’s not fair on her character. The one thing I did like was the “pointy end” comment. It reminded me of Charlie for some reason.

The throw away line about Ketch being in London looking for the golden egg Lucifer/president extractor. Nice closing of a plot hole there Dabb.

I liked the Jesus weapon expert hunter dude. He seemed quirky. Dead man’s blood bullets are an excellent idea.

DETROIT. Why does everything always happen in Detroit? I swear one day they are gonna reveal that Detroit is like a central universal power hub where the walls between the dimensions are thinnest or something. I could go on about this but I am sure a better meta writer elsewhere already has and this is waaay too long so I’m leaving this here.

If you got this far. Kudos and thank you for sticking around to read my thoughts. Feel free to ask me anything about any of the above. If I could hand out cookies through the internet I totally would right now.

Basically I enjoyed the episode. I have since re-watched it a dozen times and it is really the meta of it all that makes me love it. The story IS weak, and there ARE moments that are a bit odd, or infuriating depending on the way you look at it, but the heart of the episode was classic Dabb. All character driven and full of meaning. I am extremely well fed after this meta feast, perhaps even enough to get me through the horror show that will be Bucklemming’s 14x02.

So long as Cas continues to look like a sexy beast I’m sure I’ll get through it.

I’ll just leave this here:

God he’s such a dom. :P

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amwritingmeta · 6 years

Text

13x14: Commander Cas and Dean the Foot Soldier

I know this sounds like the title of a delightfully smutty sub/dom piece of fan fiction, but it really isn’t. (sorry) (or maybe it is!) (no infringement intended)

So, I wrote a bit about Cas quite possibly being set up for self-liberation this season by already being shown to have severed his ties to Heaven.

To boil it down: what I took from 13x14 is that he’s being shown to instead have begun to serve Man, aka humanity. The fact that we’ve seen him be disillusioned by and actively rejecting Heaven throughout the season naturally serves to underline this for us. I mean -->

Let me be perfectly clear and immediately tell you I don’t see this shift of servitude - moving from Heaven to humanity - as a positive one at this moment, not how I read that final scene of 13x14, because Cas is absolutely still being governed by his grace into this narrow-minded duty bound Mission Mode he’s on. “The only thing that matters” and all that.

He is still failing in breaking free and asking himself what he wants, rather than doing what he believes is needed of him.

Now, here’s the thing, Cas has been self-assured since he came back.

For example, the act of getting himself out of the Empty clearly filled him with confidence. He’s found his way back to himself without the depression, but he still has quite a ways to go to prevent himself ending right back in the position that brought on that depression in the first place: a lack of sense of identity.

And what is he doing in 13x14? He is (by necessity) revisiting well-trodden ground to, hopefully, learn the lesson once and for all and truly face what it is that keeps holding him back, keeps messing him up.

He’s come back with a sense of self, for sure. I mean, he’s not happy that Dean is so happy in 13x06. In fact, he’s frowning up a storm, clearly not exactly pleased that they go on a joyride case right after he’s come back from the dead, not understanding what Dean’s happiness is actually all about, not getting for a second that Dean was broken and it’s his return that’s healed Dean right up. (totally my reading btw - not official real meta)

But it makes sense, right? By 13x13, Cas is so fucking fed up with being taken for granted. With having his strings pulled, if you will, just like he was in S11, where he expressed his anger at his lack of control, not understanding that this lack of control is directly fucking linked to that one thing he actually believes GIVES him control: his damn grace.

(I am sorry) (I am just not anywhere a fan of that grace anymore) (it is toxic)

In 13x12 he begins to take action, and he takes it for himself, right? He got himself out of the cage in the Asylum by pissing Lucifer off. Then he got himself back to the brothers in 13x13, learning they never even suspected something had happened to him. I would think that with all the shit going down Cas can’t quite help but move from this attitude of his -->

into this other one -->

I mean -->

Oh yeah. Because 13x14 is so much about lining him up alongside Lucifer that it kind of explodes my mind.

Why?

Because what is one of Cas’ deepest fears, informative of so much of his behaviour, even though he continuously beats against it because his internal need (to be human) is much, much greater than this fear, so much so that his individual arc is pushing him to conquer it?

One of his deepest fears is that severing his ties with Heaven means that he will automatically turn evil.

Consciously and logically he should know this isn’t what will happen to him.

But Lucifer being cast down from Heaven, all the evil Lucifer represents, all the evil Lucifer has done, infects Cas’ choices with the fear that if he chooses a path even remotely similar, it will lead to only one single destination, which means hating and hurting humanity.

It’s an internal obstacle so huge that it’s almost insurmountable.

As long as Cas, subconsciously, remains believing it’s the truth.

And this belief is exactly why the narrative would ever line him up alongside this fear and practically tell us he’s actually becoming what he dreads the most.

Because the reason he’s becoming what he dreads most is due to?

Well, his choices this episode are framed around the fact (if my reading is right) that he believes himself to be acting for the good of humanity now, right? So when an order comes from humanity, well, then that makes that order just, right? Yes, that’s right, because Cas isn’t following his own innate humanity here, he is following Dean “humanity” Winchester’s “order” of whatever it takes.

He is taking Dean’s words and fitting that order to his own line of thinking BECAUSE HE STILL HAS HIS GRACE.

We’ve seen him do this with Heaven’s orders as well, because he was unable to justify him choosing Sam and Dean again and again any other way than if that choice was directly linked to his orders from Heaven, which he interpreted as being the same as him being put on Earth in order to protect the Winchesters. This self-deception was put an and to by Hester at the end of S7.

Why is he doing it now? Because he knows now that he wants to belong on Earth, he’s come as far as to not kid himself anymore about this, but he’s still making up excuses for why exactly that is. Of course he wants to protect Jack, but Jack has become yet another tool of self-deception. A mission to justify every choice Cas is making is in order to protect and not because he deep down wants to let go of the old and begin anew.

Now, mirroring him with Lucifer the way that they are clearly doing in this episode tells me that what Cas is doing now, and this path he is choosing, is not the right way, is not the better way.

He is acting as the solider out of this life-long dread of what it would mean for him to not be the soldier.

He is acting out of fear.

Moreover, he is serving humanity, he is making choices believing himself acting for the good of humanity, but he is still guided by his belief that he is needed, first and foremost, as the weapon.

And, to me, what the narrative is saying is that he will never find the right way, the better way, if he holds onto his grace.

His GRACE will be his downfall, keeping him chained to duty and old fears and blinding ideals.

All of this said, I want to also look at what’s good here. What gives me a lot of faith that, of course, he’s being setup for the narrative to teach him one big lesson and, hopefully, it’s for the final time.

Because by the end of the episode he has stepped into the role of captain, of commander.

He is stating what is the only way they can win, the only way they can survive, and he is shown to (believe himself to) be in complete control of the situation. He’s even explaining his actions away, and does a good job of it, because he has to, since Dean questions those actions with something as simple as -->

It’s so very significant, that What’s wrong with you?, mostly because I’m hoping it will work at the back of Cas’ head so that he actually starts asking himself that at some point.

Because that question isn't twistable into humanity needing protection, like the other significant thing Dean said to him this episode was: whatever it takes. This What’s wrong with you? is wholly delivered by Dean to Cas, a personal query, concerned and worried.

The intriguing thing, to me, about this final scene, however, is how forceful Cas is, how self-assured he is that he’s right, and how he ultimately convinces Dean of it. We see Dean be won over, and in 14x15 he is absolutely on board with this plan of Cas’ being the right one.

It’s so good - and it’s SO BAD.

Because Cas isn’t meant to lead them - to my mind, Sam is meant to be the leader figure in TFW. And I’m sure I’m far from alone in thinking that!

(13x15 hammered this home even more and I’m squealing) (squealing I tell you!!)

It’s true that Cas isn’t a born follower. He’s never quite felt like he fit in Heaven, right? He’s “never done what he’s told”, meaning he’s questioned orders, and subconsciously questioned his place, for a very long time. And he commanded his own flight of angels in Heaven, but they were always acting under someone else’s orders. He has leadership in him, especially once he’s balanced out, I’ve no doubt of that, but I feel he never really wanted or truly desired the weight of the leadership cape on his shoulders. He put it on out of necessity.

My take is that he would make a good team member, because we know he’ll question an order if he disagrees with it, and a team dynamic needs people who think for themselves as much as they can adhere to someone else’s leadership, but he’s not meant to try and see the bigger picture all on his own, especially not while that grace of his is blocking him off from his humanity.

But Dean nodding his head in agreement, ready to follow Cas’ lead in this, not to mention their previous exchange of -->

Dean: What exactly gives you the right? Cas: Nothing. I took it.

--> sends such S6 echoes my way I barely know where to look:

And all the heartbreak and pain and grief and horror that followed on the miscommunications of this season, based in this need to carry all the weight on ones own two shoulders.

And it makes me immediately think of how this defining 6x20 exchange, coming off the back of one messed up season filled with mistrust and suspicion and half-truths, bye the end of S9 is tied back to, when Dean watches an angel kill himself with an angel blade, declaring he’s doing it for Castiel, who is now the chosen commander of his own army of angels. (and let’s note how Dean is absolutely not able to look at Cas as a commander in any way, shape or form)

Dean: Cas, I know you try to be a good guy, okay, I do. You try. But what you’ve got here - this is a fricking cult. The last time you had this kinda juice you did kill humans, and angels, and you did nothing but lie to me and Sam about it the whole damn time.

This mistrust isn’t informative, because I would say it’s influenced heavily by the Mark, but it does show a wound that cuts so deep it still hasn’t fully healed, which I rather love. Cas undid Sam’s wall by the end of S6 - a means to ending the brothers interfering and getting themselves killed, but still - this isn’t something Dean can easily get over, no matter how unshaken the foundation for his trust in Cas still remains. Cas is known to make bad decisions believing them to be for the greater good. (While the brothers make bad decisions for the sake of what’s good for them, for family.) (so yeah - strike that balance, boys)

Yes, well, when you give up an entire army for one guy...

My point is that we have a S6 exchange of Dean trying to convince Cas to step down, to trust him implicitly and do as he orders him to do (though Dean looks at it as a request) - Cas shooting this need for control down by pointing out that Dean’s just a man while Cas is an angel.

We then have this S9 exchange where Dean reveals that Cas’ actions while toeing the line of megalomania has left his use of power questionable. Add to that the fact that Dean states more than once how he absolutely cannot look at Cas as any type of leader figure. Control freak Dean wouldn’t, would he? No matter how much trust and faith he has in Cas’ actual capabilities, he will deny this to his dying breath because he must be top dog or bust.

Now in 13x14, yes, Dean questions Cas and rightly so, but he steps down, he listens to Cas’ convincing argument, Cas tying it back to what Dean has said twice this season, and this whatever it takes mentality being something Dean can relate to whole heartedly. It’s what he already believes in. He sees the truth of Cas’ words and chooses, this time, not to rip the argument apart and force the upper hand. Instead, he stands down. Cas got them the answers they needed, Cas knows what they have to do. Dean will follow him.

I mean, if this reading is anywhere near correct, this gives me many, many feelings.

If Dean is relinquishing his leadership to Cas, though, this is one big leap forward for him and it means he’s actually ready to open himself up to other things. But I won’t pick Dean apart here because this post is already way too long, my peeps!

And btw I don’t expect Dean to not lead or take any responsibility or go from needing absolute control to not needing it at all in just one episode.

Baby steps.

But if this is the first baby step. Oh, boy with the final leg of his journey already!

Also, siding with Cas in his destructive scheme to save the world? No good. But if they’re setting us up for the narrative focusing on Dean and Cas, while Sam is pushed to the side because he needs to be brought into the final leg of his journey as well, which should begin with him breaking with the codependency, then bring it! It’s such a gorgeous setup!!

Tagging a few peeps who might find this of interest @elizabethrobertajones @bluestar86 @tinkdw @margarittet @super-sootica @godshipsit @charlie-minion @paperwhitenarcissus @thedogsled @amyoatmeal @sactownbrowns3 @thetwistedwillow @naruhearts @weathergirl83 @casistooadorableandithurts @fuckedupasusual @woahthisguy

#spn meta #my reading #spn 13x15 #cas #dean winchester #humanity #heaven #all the callbacks #spn s6 #spn s9 #tfw #balance #setting up for endgame #I barely know how to tag this other than that it gets me so #fucking excited for themmmm #and 13x15 did nothing to #stifle this excitement #they are just fanning the flames at this point #BALLS OUT

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mittensmorgul · 6 years

Note

The mixtape thing is hard for me to see as a romantic gesture only- In Stranger Shings, Jonathan Bayers gave a Mixtape to his little brother, In Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill got his Mixtape from his mother-So it seems that can be a family thing too?And we and the show, claim that Castiel is family- I would love it to be pure romantic love thing,but with many mixtapes showing up as a family affair it is hard

Hi there! First of all, my intent behind this reply is one part mild exasperation, one part humorous jibing, and maybe two or three parts coffee (It took a lot of coffee to drown out the part that just wanted to delete this in a fit of less-than-mild exasperation, but I just want to assure you that this reply is in no way intended to be mean-spirited or condescending, and I hope you don’t take it that way).

For my second disclaimer, I’d like to make it known that I have seen neither of these things-- GotG or Stranger Things-- but because I don’t live under a rock, I at least know what they are. So if I say something about them that people who are actually familiar with these things would take issue with, just know that I am not prepared for a meta debate on either GotG or Stranger Things, but that no ill is intended in referencing them here.

(for my third disclaimer, I’d like to again state how sad I am that meta writers need to paste these sorts of disclaimers on everything, but such is the way things go...)

Righto! I think we can get down to business now. :)

There has already been a very well-written defense of the mixtape as romantic as used in GotG and GotG 2, and how it even STRENGTHENS the romantic reading of the mixtape scene in 12.19. But being me, the post somehow didn’t make it into the proper tag on my blog, and despite trying to search for it multiple different ways, I can’t seem to find it anywhere... >.>

(additional disclaimer that I’m in the middle of a Death Migraine, so apologies for any lack of due diligence in linking relevant references... searching for things hurts my brain right now)

The gist of it was that the mixtape contained songs that Peter Quill’s parents listened to together, so the tape’s ORIGINS were without question romantically coded. Despite the fact that the movie opens with Peter’s dying mother giving him the tape (this was what happened, right? I’m not mistaken here?) as a gift of love from mother to son, from what I understand about the sequel, PETER TURNS RIGHT AROUND AND USES THE TAPE TO WOO GAMORA. Restoring the “romantic” associations the tape began with, imbuing the mixtape with a sort of “legacy of love.”

Did I get all that right?

This is EXACTLY what I was referring to in my post yesterday as the show’s history of using Led Zeppelin songs in explicitly romantic situations.

In the OPENING SCENE of 12.01, as Dean’s establishing his identity for a very confused and suddenly-alive-after-33-years Mary, this is what he tells her:

Dean: Listen to me. Your name - your name is Mary Sandra Campbell, you were born December 5, 1954 to Samuel and Deanna Campbell. Your father, he bounced around a lot for work, and you bounced right along with him and you ended up in Lawrence, Kansas.Mary: How do you know all that?Dean: Dad told me. March 23, 1972 you walked out of a movie theater, Slaughterhouse-Five, you loved it. And you bumped into a big marine and knocked him on his ass. You were embarrassed and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So you went to, uh, Mulroni's, and you talked and he was cute, and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number you gave it to him even though you knew your dad would be pissed. That was the night that you met-Mary: John Winchester.Dean: August 19, 1975 you were married, in Reno, your idea. Few years later I came along, then Sammy.Mary: Then I burned. How long have I been gone?Dean: Thirty-three years.

SHE GAVE JOHN WINCHESTER HER NUMBER BECAUSE HE KNEW ALL THE WORDS TO EVERY LED ZEPPELIN SONG. IT WAS A FLIRTATION. IT WAS THE FOUNDING STONE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP.

LED ZEPPELIN LYRICS.

EXPLICITLY ROMANTIC.

Not only that, but we know that Dean has known this story his whole life. As if Mary (who had died long ago when he was a child, just like Peter Quill’s mother) had given him a reason to love these songs, too. For Dean they weren’t just ///romantic/// coded, but a link to that happier and more innocent time from his childhood, where his life was normal and his mom cut the crusts off his PBJ and gave him pie. From a time when Dean thought life could even be normal at all.

So, not solely romantic, but absolutely romanticized. Or idealized, at least. These were memories he clung to like a koala as his life fell to pieces after Mary died. He remembered that old life as only a child could, through rose-tinted soft-focus, reinforced by John’s vague and infrequent recounting of his memories of Mary.

(remember in 3.09, how 9-year-old Sam complained that they NEVER talked about mom? and how upset Dean became when Sam probed him for more information? And even in the pilot episode Sam said something about never being able to get mom back, and Dean threw him against the bridge pillar and told him to NEVER say stuff like that about Mary... I mean, it’s HEAVILY implied that talking about her AT ALL was something that just didn’t happen, but when it did, it was the sort of memory Dean referenced in his speech in 12.01... those were the “important details” he’d memorized... and maybe that entire description of their first meeting hadn’t even been John’s words at all, but things Dean had been carrying in his own mind since he was a child-- something Mary might’ve told him herself before she died, since that bit of Dean’s story is related back to Mary in Mary’s own pov.)

The show has also lampshaded the use of Led Zeppelin as a sexual overture, in 2.02:

Jo: You know, I thought you were gonna toss me some cheap pickup line. Most hunters come through that door think they can get in my pants with some... pizza, a six pack, and side one of Zeppelin IV.

Jo had been expecting Dean to hit on her, and it’s implied all the way up through her appearance as a ghost in 7.04 that she’d WANTED him to hit on her, that she’d had a crush on him or was attracted to him... and the only reason she turned him down in 5.10 was because she didn’t just want the “last night on earth” fling with him... This was 100% a come-on.

And Dean’s two favorite songs? Ramble On (which yes, on the surface is a LotR reference, but the deeper message is the search for a lover), and Traveling Riverside Blues (which is 100% about sex... I mean... It’s just pure lust). Put together, they’re like the peak of Love and Lust. And being Dean’s two top favorite songs? I’d bet both of them are on that mixtape.

So back to the point with the GotG reference. It not only does not invalidate Dean’s gift of the tape to Cas as a romantic gesture, but REINFORCES the romantic nature of the gift.

These songs that united Peter’s parents, which his mom left to him after she died, and eventually he uses to romance someone he’s in love with...

If Peter had turned around and given the mixtape to another relative, or to a friend he had no romantic interest in, then I would’ve given you this example. But that is explicitly NOT what happened. Sorry. When taken in the larger context of the entire story around it, saying the mixtape there was only about a mother’s love for her son is being deliberately obtuse. Context matters, and taking that one link in Peter’s mixtape chain out of the larger interconnected story is cherry picking.

So that leaves us with ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE (which I won’t argue with because I have not seen Stranger Things and therefore have zero context with which to debate what you stated about it) OUT OF THE ENTIRE CANON OF HUMAN STORYTELLING in which a mixtape is used as a platonic or familial gift with no romantic coding whatsoever.

I’m going to go ahead and call the use of the mixtape in Stranger Things THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE. This was the subversion of the standard trope.

I asked Mr. Mittens and kidperson (who HAVE watched Stranger Things) what the context of the mixtape was, just so I could have a general idea. Apparently it was given to a younger brother by an older brother as a sort of “This is important music that you need to know to be cool” sort of gift. Or maybe “music that is important to me.” Apparently the older brother was hospitalized for something at some point? So there was also this generalized feeling of “taking care of my little brother” aspect to it? I’m just spitballing on the like three things I know about ST, so no actual meta value is being ascribed to these statements.

But this is what really bothers me about your question, because this is something that’s been discussed since 12.19 aired, and I would like to put forth this argument:

The VAST MAJORITY of references to the gift of a mixtape in popular culture ARE EXPLICITLY ROMANTICALLY OR SEXUALLY CODED. The OVERWHELMING number of references over DECADES of storytelling simply cannot be invalidated by a SINGLE use of the mixtape in a non-romantic way.

PLUS: CONTEXT MATTERS. You can’t just say, “Dean gave Cas a mixtape, but because one time on one show someone gave a mixtape to his brother, so therefore these situations could be identical, and it could be a gesture of brotherly camaraderie and not specifically romantic.” THAT IS NOT A VALID ARGUMENT WHEN TAKEN IN CONTEXT.

The entire scene in 12.19 was framed, shot, and edited with multiple other romantically coded tropes. The absolute QUIET that settled over the scene (no background music, the only sounds those of their voices, speaking earnestly and emotionally to one another), the fact that we didn’t see Dean GIVE the tape TO CAS, but only Cas attempting to return the tape to Dean because his recent actions HURT DEAN. Dean was ANGRY that Cas had gone missing for a time and had ignored his calls, and had stormed off to his room in a huff. Cas’s response to this was to offer to RETURN the tape to Dean (now explicitly coded as a gift of love, because he worried that Dean may have withdrawn whatever feelings that had inspired the gift in the first place).

The fact that Dean can’t even LOOK at Cas because of his hurt, and yet picks up the tape and hands it back to Cas (in a shot that frames JUST THEIR HANDS PASSING THE TAPE like THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT PLS PAY ATTENTION PLS), and tells him, “It’s a gift. You keep those.”

I can’t believe people need me to spell out all the subtext in that one line, but here it is:

At this moment, the fact that the gift object itself is a mixtape is practically irrelevant, because THAT LINE ITSELF carries about nine miles of romantic subtext. In this context, the mixtape takes on the same narrative weight as Arwen’s necklace in Lord of the Rings. It’s a symbol of her immortality as an elf, AND a symbol for her heart. AND SHE OFFERS IT TO ARAGORN, AND THEN HE TRIES TO GIVE IT BACK BECAUSE HE FEELS HE DOES NOT DESERVE IT, BECAUSE HE’S ABOUT TO LEAVE HER TO GO ON HIS MISSION TO SAVE THE WORLD.

Sound familiar?

This familiarity IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT IS A VERY LONG-LIVED ROMANTIC TROPE.

The fact that the Macguffin in this case happens to be a Led Zeppelin mixtape in 12.19 only ADDS to the inherently romantically coded GESTURE of what happened in that whole entire scene, compounded by A DECADE of other romantically coded subtext between Dean and Cas.

*screams into the void and the apologizes to the void and tucks it back under its blanket*

There’s also the fact that we have no idea when, or under what circumstances, Dean gave that tape to Cas in the first place. We can only speculate that it may have happened after the events of 12.12, but honestly it could’ve been any time in the preceding ten years. For argument’s sake, let’s suppose it was a relatively recent gift, considering the circumstances under which Cas attempted to return it-- immediately after being confronted with his unexplained absence and Dean’s anger over it, and immediately PRIOR to his PLANNED BETRAYAL, his theft of the Colt, and his abandonment of Dean yet again... The circumstances under which Cas felt he might not ///deserve/// this specific token of Dean’s feelings for him involved betrayal of those feelings by virtue of his absence and abandonment of Dean (at least, he understood this much of what that tape seemed to represent to Dean).

*another disclaimer: I’ve been writing this for like four hours now, and my Death Migraine has progressed to the point where I need to not look at things for a while. I could keep going here, but I’m failing at basic human things like “being able to sit upright” and “not throwing up every time I open my eyes” so I’m gonna stop typing now*

*no wait, one more thing because I can type with my eyes closed*

Isn’t it amazing that we’ve now evolved to the point where instead of combing through the subtext to find romantically coded things in their interactions, folks are now actively scrambling to find ways to explain away the blatantly in-your-face romantically coded text? I mean... what have we come to here? When the more OBVIOUS and far more defensible read of the scene is the romantic read? And yet still there’s this scramble to suggest it could be non-romantic...

And do you know how these sorts of arguments all sound to me? I’ll let the Simpsons explain it for me:

youtube

#top 13 zepp traxx #the scheherazade of supernatural #apologies that this sort of goes incoherent at points #imma go lie down in a dark room for a while now and pray for death #Anonymous

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flowisk · 6 years

Text

@necromin Thanks for the asks still Flowey

Why I like them

Oh... Asriel is a character who was practically written for me. I remember I fell in love with him from the very first demo of the game. He’s just this... person who looks like ‘there is no way to save him’ in a game that operates off the premise off ‘not having to kill anyone’. He is a codependent traumatized kid stuck in a loop, and I think his... desperation, especially in No Mercy, and how much... love he is brimming full of is... It’s funny because even when he ‘lacks’ love, you can see how much he cared/cares about Chara and his desperate loyalty and his willingness to go along with anyone and dependency. I felt the reveal of who he was, was just... so satisfying because with every layer unraveled around him I just grew to love him more and more. He’s kind of my dream come true... this dissociative little kid who’s presented so ‘maliciously’ and who is a ‘fake smiler’ and feels empty inside but who is truly this person worth being saved, who is... brutally sad in nature. Just... this incredible painful narrative of loss from someone who... desperately had one person to rely on. Also like... I just love this Bad Kid. Like... these two kids? Two little kids saying to each other ‘Creatures like us are so rotten, we wouldn’t hesitate to kill or betray each other’ and yet despite him saying this, you can tell Flowey has the utmost loyalty to Chara. Even though he SAYS this, the one loyalty he still has... is to Chara. Even the mere belief they could be around, regardless of any killing they do, overturns his grown apathy. His goal is never quite the same as theirs, but he would go along with any goal that makes them happy as long as he is by their side and they still think well of him. It’s this amazing... contrast that... says so much about Flowey as a character, and how he must have gotten to this point. As soon as Chara is there, you can see chips of the facade break away. This was built up to impress Chara, because he felt he was wrong and they were right and ironically when he is with them he can’t help but be a bit softer in contrast.

Why I don’t

Ugh, sometimes I’m frustrated by the soulless explanation. He just seems ND to me. Lately I’ve seen something that treated ‘soullessness’ as a sort of neurodivergence in itself, and that was compelling to me. But really I’m not fan of the ‘doesn’t have a soul’ bit because so many fans use it to be lazy and separate Flowey and Asriel as characters completely.

Favorite episode (scene if movie)

Oh... The end of the fight with Omega Flowey. And... his hallway talk with Chara in the No Mercy run, right before the protag gets to Asgore.

Favorite season/movie

Not applicable.

Favorite line

“It doesn’t matter now. I’m so tired of this, Chara. I’m tired of all these places. I’m tired of all these people. I’m tired of being a flower. Chara. There’s just one thing left I want to do. Let’s finish what we started. Let’s free everyone. Then let them see what the world is REALLY LIKE. That despite it all, this world is still ‘kill or be killed’. Then....? Well. I had been... entertaining a few ways to use that power. Hee hee hee... .... But seeing you here changed my mind. Chara... I think if you’re around... Just living in the surface world doesn’t seem so bad.” ^ This whole speech is what destroys me and no one does anything with this speech no one ever draws any lines from it except maybe ‘kill or be killed’ in variations I’m just. This speech DECIMATES me. “Why am I telling you all this? ...Chara I’ve said it before. Even after all this time, you’re the only one who understands me.” “I didn’t want to live in a world without love. In a world without you.” “I'm not ready for this to end. I'm not ready for you to leave. I'm not ready to say goodbye to someone like you again... So, please... Stop doing this... AND JUST LET ME WIN!!! STOP IT! STOP IT NOW!!! Chara... I'm so alone, Chara... I'm so afraid, Chara... Chara... I... I...” “Why are you being... so nice to me?”

Favorite outfit

I like that time he dressed up as a goat boy with a yellow and green sweater.

OTP

Chariskriel, Chariel, Friskriel

Brotp

Flowey+Papyrus

Head Canon

Oh hey it’s BPD boy. I could actually write a meta about this. I could write an essay about all the ways he demonstrates characteristics of BPD, down to Chara being his FP, his abandonment issues, his chronic emptiness, etc etc, and his rapidly circulating impulsive emotions Mains Reaper in Overwatch. I like to headcanon him as honestly... suffering through PTSD/dissociation or the monster equivalent thereof once he gets into his little flower body. Just his chronic feelings of emptiness, loaded with the fact he... literally can’t die. I mean, he CAN but suicide is a hard enough option when even flinching or having a last second doubt will cause you to still live. Chose his gender identity, in a way that actually physically effects his magic dusty body, because monsters are magic. Mama’s boy. Think this because he has that line, after visiting Asgore about how ‘not even SHE (toriel) could fix what was wrong with me’. A lot of people suggest that the first person he killed was someone close to him. But I’m willing to bet it was someone he didn’t know that well, and that he reset right after. I think it took a long time for Asriel to feel ‘liberated’ or ‘capable’ or ‘like there were no permanent consequences’ to killing, and then it just wore away until there were 0. I am sure he wishes he could reset to before him and Chara’s plan like, every day, and that though pops up in his mind every day too. (We already know he spends a lot of time calling for Chara.... “Did you hear me calling you?”)

Unpopular opinion

He’s just Asriel in a flower body. ...And I will admit, I do think he shows symptoms of abuse. I don’t think Chara intended to hurt their best friend or was intentionally manipulative but I do think they coerced him into a few things and forced his hand. Also a lot of the things Asriel says like... definitely imply those two were bad kids or occasionally did very bad things. I don’t think Asriel himself was 100% sweetness and goodness even before all the trauma. I just think you’re seeing him at a really vulnerable point where he wants to be sweet and good and leave a nice final impression. A sad breakdown where someone makes a few realizations is not the same as day to day life, and I think Asriel’s characteristics as Flowey are better for determining his character than his final speech at the end. A loquacious, mischievous brat who I love. Also like, ‘hellflower Flower’ and ‘sweet good innocent goat child’ are the two most bland and most common ways to write his character. Also honestly? I feel a lot of people pin Flowey as the ultimate evil of the game (and often drop that he’s Asriel when thinking of him in this way but...) what Flowey does is ‘what a gamer’ does. His actions are not that bad because he knows there are no consequences to them, much the same way someone playing a game knows. And I don’t just mean in a ‘no repercussions for him’ way. He also knows, that if he goes back, the dead won’t stay dead. Also people need to let Asriel have his ‘Chara wasn’t the greatest person speech’. Everyone’s always trying to act like Asriel is a dick for it, but that speech in itself does imply Asriel had a hard time looking at Chara’s flaws. Unfortunately the audience is even worse than Asriel about this, so Asriel can’t even have his two minute speech where he is able to admit to himself Chara wasn’t always right and he wasn’t always treated well.

A wish

I used to wish all the time that there would be a DLC where you could actually save Flowey but that dream is dead. Sometimes I still hope the next game Toby is working on will touch on him in some way but I kinda doubt it

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen

The worst possible has happened to him. Guess it could be worse but it’s still pretty sad. No Mercy route is my ‘oh god please dont ever happen’

5 words to best describe them

Mischievous, codependent, troubled, empty, tragic

My nickname for them

Asriel. Az, Azzy

Toriel

Why I like them

Interesting? I feel like she’s this caregiver who loves children and is given some complexity beyond that. Like Lisa’s Terry, they take a ‘tutorial’ character and make them an emotional centre of the game. It’s like... this character who is normally set up to impede you in some way in both games. And while embodying the handholding of a tutorial, Toriel is someone who you don’t want to speed by or treat callously even though she is set up to be what is ‘frustrating’ in a game. Many people who first play have a hard time leaving her behind, it’s this interesting? Not sure if subversion is the word, but it’s definitely an interesting way to play with the concept of the tutorial and have it be an active and emotional part of the story.

Why I don’t

I wish we’d been able to have a bit more of an ongoing dialogue with her or check up on her at some points. I really wish that we’d been able to dig into her a bit more deeply or see her thoughts on a few things...

Favorite episode (scene if movie)

Her final confrontation with Frisk is my favourite part, right before they leave the ruins. After that it’s her running into Sans and being able to have a nice meeting with someone she’s known for a long time but never met proper. It’s nice to see them both get a chance to be a little goofy and happy.

Favorite season/movie

Not applicable.

Favorite line

“It would not be right for you to grow up in a place like this. My expectations... My loneliness... My fear... For you, my child... I will put them aside.” “Pathetic, is it not? I can’t even save the life of a single child.”

Favorite outfit

The purple one.

OTP

I like Soriel. I honestly just felt they had something? (also the game... literally implies such) They’re both these lonely people, and idk... part of the reason I do like romantic soriel is because I dislike a lot of the vibe of.... ‘Toriel’s divorced and had a family break apart, so she must always stay a divorced sad mother who is untouched from all other relationships’ I’m good with their relationship in all capacities, but the way people act about the kind of flirty dialogue at the end being this big TABOO just strikes me as off.

Brotp

On that thread, soriel. I totally dig interpretations where they are throwing wine parties with each other. In a few neutral ends the two end up living together which is interesting to me, I feel like that’s a mostly unexplored topic. Though I guess that topic is a bit bittersweet. I feel exploring them as platonic or close in different ways is interesting too

Head Canon

- It was a long time before she was able to make snail pies, butterscotch pies, after her children died and she left Asgore. For awhile she lived on the Underground’s fast food equivalent because she couldn’t find the energy to cook anymore. It had been zapped out of her. - When the first child fell down it ignited this chamber inside of her and it was the first time she’d been able to cook in awhile. - She’s better at being active when there’s people to do things FOR, and struggles with doing things for herself - Since she’s a little monster made of dust, there was probably a lot of her childhood where she maybe wasn’t quite sure what to settle as gender wise and she really got into the concept of femininity in her teens and became very confident using she/her then

Unpopular opinion

The framing of a lot of arguments against Toriel dating bother me. If she wants to date, let her. Also I feel like Toriel can’t EVER win! People are either like... she didn’t do enough to prevent children from leaving the ruins or ‘she’s kidnapping children and restricting their freedom!’ (despite the fact we know she was never able to keep ANY of them for very long) I even literally saw a post recently that suggested part of the reason Chara was upset in the underground was because Toriel prevented them from leaving the ruins which is like? No? It’s made super obvious that’s a reaction Toriel has to kids dying in the underground. Also. It’s great to have nuanced views on Asgore, but any argument that goes ‘Toriel hiding away from the responsibility of keeping Asgore from killing kids is just as bad as , idk, killing kids’ has a rotten argument. Both of them made mistakes. Maybe part of it is a bias on my end that if Tori, with her sharp personality, had been a child murderer and Asgore had retained his soft nature and had been too sad and lonely to stop her, I just don’t feel the same criticisms would be being made. But who knows!

A wish

That she’s happy forever after and is a great teacher and adopts other kids and has good things happen to her and restores her relationship with her son (Flowey)

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen

Idk, bad things have already happened to her. I’m not fond of her and Asgore getting back together (I think it’s for the best they split ways and heal on their own for a bit) but I’m not like Oh God No or anything.

5 words to best describe them

Dutiful, caregiver, grieving, punny, lonely

My nickname for them

Tori

#replies #necromin #thank u sweet ducks #a chance to ramble

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beatricenius · 7 years

Text

A White-Walled Room

A fic inspired by this thought-provoking post by @red-earth-rising. It turned out kind of meta and it isn’t exactly what I set out to do, but that was at least my source of inspiration.

This fic is also on ao3

The room she was escorted to appeared almost empty at first glance, white-walled and echoing with her solitary steps as she made it past the threshold. It was impossible not to feel out of place in a room like that as a civilian. Something about the stark contrast between the blank nothingness and her vibrant burgundy coat, a color that had felt fairly muted in the world outside the BSHCI. Here, it made her otherness glaringly obvious. She could see it reflected in the thick glass wall separating her from the man she had come to see. Dressed in anonymous beige with his hair cut shorter than in the pictures circulating online, it took her a moment to assemble his features into something she might recognize.

“Good morning, Dr. Lecter.”

“Good morning. Ms. Boudreaux, I presume?”

“That’s right,” She took a step forward. Her hesitance was only apparent in the quivering steel of her eyes. “I was honestly surprised to hear you agreed to the interview.”

“You deliberately told me just enough to spark my curiosity,” There was mild amusement written on his face that did nothing to soothe her frayed nerves. His gaze held no malevolence, but it was the look of someone watching a child in the midst of a silly game. “Consider me informed and consenting. I have no time for formalities. What exactly is the topic of your research?”

“I’m writing a thesis about the evolving nature of your crimes,” She formed her mouth carefully around the words she’d memorized. “More specifically, the alterations to your MO after you joined forces with former special agent Will Graham. Post-fall, as it were.”

He tilted his head. “Much has already been said on the topic of those alterations. What do you intend to contribute to the conversation?”

She exhaled through her nose. “Many hesitate to explore the underlying themes of the murder tableaus you and Mr. Graham created, since those themes are potentially controversial. I don’t. I want to explore the angle of internalized homophobia as it is made evident in your crime scenes, when studied alongside what we know about you and the environments in which you spent your formative years.”

As she spoke, he went very still. She was unsettled by that too; the unnatural stillness that made her realize the extent to which his sparse yet deliberate micro expressions animated him.

“What are these environments you speak of?”

“Do you mind if I record this?” He signaled his approval and she fumbled with her equipment for a moment before hitting the record button. “You asked what environments I was referring to. Europe during the AIDS epidemic. The rural south, blue collar America. All fertile grounds for homophobic rhetoric.”

“I was never part of blue collar America.”

“Will Graham was. Did he ever talk about that?”

“No. Even before his attempted double suicide, Will did not like to linger in the past.”

She had heard him speak Will Graham’s name on countless occasions, but now that the smooth drone of his voice wasn’t a tinny recording filtered through busted speakers, she was struck by the sheer amount of affection he was able to pour into a single syllable. Will Graham’s name was spoken with something akin to homesickness.

“Has your thesis proposal truly been approved, Ms. Boudreaux? This sounds, for all intents and purposes, like an extension of tabloid journalism.”

“Do you object?”

A slight pause. “Not necessarily,” He gestured toward a chair in the middle of the room. “Ask what you came here to ask. I will let you know if I have any objections.”

She sat down, smoothing her hands over her thighs as if she was wearing a skirt. She wasn’t. She was wearing a pair of slacks she didn’t usually wear and worried that the way they rode up to expose her calves made her look somehow foolish. She couldn’t remember whether the color of her socks clashed with her coat. Being in his line of sight made such worries surface automatically.

“People always say that you respond best to politeness. I think that’s an oversimplification. My guess is that you’d prefer it if I was blunt rather than polite.”

“You can be polite while being blunt.”

“I can try,” She took her notes out of her bag. She’d more or less memorized those too, but the weight of them on her lap was calming. “My first question is a given. Was your relationship with Will Graham romantic?”

“Romantic,” The word was held against the roof of his mouth for a moment. “We were never inclined to label or categorize what we shared. It was intimate.”

“Sexual?”

“Intimate.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Your incompetence is flagrant. Obviously there is a difference. Sometimes we touched. Often, we did not. Regardless, it was intimate.”

“What was the nature of this touch? If you would humor me.”

He gave her a long look. “You should know that my memory is not what it once was. My information processing has become a finely woven sieve. Supposedly, I have an early onset of Alzheimer’s. They have been saying that for almost ten years. I usually have the mental presence required to keep myself moored. I don’t forget. I jumble.”

“Give me something jumbled.”

“The beat of his heart against my palm. The snow crust scratch of his voice next to my ear as his legs wrapped around my waist. Blood and semen and tears. All mine. His attraction to me was multifaceted and nothing if not complex. He could never sustain an erection with me. But we would kiss. On rare occasions, we had intercourse. All sorts of physical closeness was important; parts of me in parts of him, and vice versa. Do you understand?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Touch can be affirming. The simplest form of affirmation there is.”

“No. No. Affirmation was never the point. It was a was a blurring of individuality, the act of physically merging. It would close the final distance between us when our minds were already connected. Do you understand?”

“Theoretically. I’ve only ever had casual sex.”

Something shifted behind his eyes. “Sexual intimacy without emotion is a debasement of everyone involved. An act verging on bestial.”

“Not bestial. Casual. Almost polite.”

He smiled faintly. “People have often likened me to an animal. I always found it amusing. Will reminded me more of an animal than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“How?”

“I could never figure out whether the scale tipped in favor of design or instinct. He would pounce like something starving, with every bit of impersonal fury he could muster. Chest heaving, eyes that were all pupil. I would taste blood between his teeth and there was no telling where it came from. Him, me, someone else. Above all else, he acted on mindless drive. Transparent like an animal in intention.”

“With all due respect, that sounds like wishful thinking on your part, Dr. Lecter.”

“He was animal-like in that as well. The way he would adapt and evolve to suit my preferences. I did the same for him. I often tried to be what he thought I was.”

“But not what he wanted you to be?”

“Will never knew what he wanted. I forgave him for that early on. Eventually, he came to forgive himself as well.”

“For wanting an intimate relationship with you or for not wanting it enough?”

His eyes narrowed. “Will’s struggle with internalized homophobia rendered him unable to fully reciprocate. Is that what you meant to imply? That his desires were thwarted by self-loathing, born from the suffocating press of traditional values?”

She replayed the exchange in her head to pinpoint when and why his voice had sharpened with offense. All too late, she realized her mistake.

“I don’t wish to speak to someone who doesn’t listen to what I have to say, Ms. Boudreaux. You have a fixed idea of our involvement with each other and your questions have been prepared according to your assumptions. A tedious novice mistake.”

“I am listening. I am.”

“No. You aren’t. Your thesis is moronic. I don’t want what we shared to be contextualized. Context is irrelevant. Did you honestly think we were unable to move past such trivial notions after everything that transpired between us?”

For the first time since she walked into the room, she felt certain that she knew what the flicker behind his eyes meant. She recognized it from her reflection in the mirror, the vague yet palpable anger that arose from having been bereft. She didn’t soften her voice deliberately when she spoke, but found that a note of compassion bled into it anyway.

“I would understand it if that was the case. Are you a romantic, Dr. Lecter? You sound like a romantic.”

“I am opposed to searching for an explanation for that which defies explanation. With the right theoretical framework, any tangle of events can be arranged into something linear and logical. Fitting neatly into your little discourse. We do not fit there. Moreover, we do not belong there.”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” He paused. “I will not be pitied for things that never were. We did what we could with what we had, and I would not change a thing. Everything mattered. Every cause and its subsequent effect. He gave me everything he had and I did the same.”

“I understand. I do. May I ask you something else?”

“No. You may not. I don’t wish to speak to you any longer, Ms. Boudreaux. I’m afraid you have overstayed your welcome.”

“I didn’t mean to step out of line. I promise. When did your relationship start to progress into the intimacy you talked about? I want to hear it from you. Please.”

When he didn’t answer, she sucked her lower lip into her mouth and deliberated quickly. Finally, she released a small breath. “Alright. Alright. I’ll leave. Thank you for seeing me, Dr. Lecter. I appreciate it. I’m sorry to have offended you.”

Just as she was putting her things away and slinging her bag over her shoulder to leave, he took as step closer, fixing her with that unnervingly attentive gaze.

“He resonated with me. Like the echo of blood and breath in a seashell. I made the conscious decision to perceive that echo as the sound of the ocean. Do you understand? That intimacy was always there, from the very beginning.”

“Sometimes an echo is just an echo.”

“But love is dependent on elevation of the prosaic,” He stepped back again. “I can no longer stand it. The sound of the ocean. When he was alive, it was my favorite sound. It is where we were born and where we could have died. I regret that the ocean did not take him. I should have drowned him there. I should have laid myself to rest beside him. Did they tell you what happened to the nurse that played the sound of the ocean on a white noise generator?”

“They told me. Should I get someone, Dr. Lecter?”

“I admit that was rather bestial of me. Though I was never what Will was. Don’t get anyone, it would not be to my benefit.”

“Then I won’t,” She decided to go out on a limb. “It’s been nearly five years since Will Graham’s execution. Right? It’s understandable that the upcoming anniversary of his death makes you miss him. That’s why you agreed to see me. You want to talk to someone about it.”

“Are you a romantic, Ms. Boudreaux? You sound like a romantic.”

“Takes one to know one,” She ventured a hesitant smile. It wasn’t mirrored in the even lines of his face, but his eyes softened ever so slightly. “Thank you for your time. I mean that. May I visit again? I won’t bring my notes, just my ambition. And my company. An arrangement like that could benefit the both of us, I think.”

“Thank you for your blunt politeness,” He looked just past her head, as if his gaze was drawn by something behind her. “Let me know in advance when you want to visit. My memory is not what it once was. I need to separate to refine. Sieving is time-consuming work.”

“I will. Thank you.”

As she walked down the long corridor, she thought about the look in his eyes as his gaze fixed on that spot beside her, just above her head. It reminded her of flourish of violets in his voice as that single, delicate syllable rolled off his tongue. Absentmindedly, she considered the fact that Will Graham would have been almost exactly a head taller than her, if the information she had come across was correct.

#hannibal #hannigram #will graham #hannibal lecter #murder husbands #fic #mention of attempted suicide #in reference to twotl #referenced major character death

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whimsically-ominously-auspice · 4 years

Text

Matt Plants dad apologized to me for using his wife as a midwife to kidnap the Z twins and the 3 other Annabelles in her kindergarten and intended to be placed in the schools where she attended.

Annabelle was an oddly popular name. 5 in her kindergarten class. 2 moving in and out.

I took my daughter out of normal public school after grade 1.

Then i took her out of all public school in grade 5.

For 2 - 4 she did attend public school 2 and a half days a week. I "homeschooled" her the other 2 and a half days.

Which I actually didn't do shit. I didn't educate her at all. I just let her be at home. I didn't attempt to be a teacher to her. I was barely a mom. She knew she had to learn. So she watched Beakman's World over and over to learn Science. She did. She was able to pass the standardized tests for science she took in the public schools. From Beakman's World.. Old somewhat out of date science.

And i didn't tell her to. Sometimes she asked me about home school and i told her "you need to do it. You know what to do?" And I would hear the tv on

I had to report to the schools.. About her work. So if we went to Albuquerque to play mini golf well it is "physics" that runs a car. And so i would say well wr drove 2 hours so i would fill in her sheet "2 hours of physics" we didn't talk about how the car worked but we were in the dam car. It runs by physics. I figured that counted. I wrote all kinds of bleak shit on those worksheets to account for our time while being alive. If she made a pizza in our convection (toaster oven like) then it was chemistry.

I hate school. I hate public schools. I hate rules..

If we went out to eat it was biology because she had to shit at some point.

Video games like Minecraft were "study of basic principles" or "sociology" because she had to kill monsters sometimes or ran into other villagers.

We learn. We absorb. In each and every thing we do.

Did i lie? No

Did i teach her? No

It didn't mean she didn't learn.

She got into ghosts and ghost hunting "physical science - not physical education" "metaphysicalaty" "metaphysics"

Its science.

Solving a mystery "meta-physical physical science with an algebraic equality"

I am relieved to know the 5 Annabelles and 2 male twins have been reunited with their birth mothers and family.

They didn't realize how to mark them then follow them back to birth to find out who kidnapped them in the SMS.

So they been wanting to know who was behind it and they knew it been confessed several times before and apologized. So they have been waiting for this morning.

So they will all be accumulated and discarded the kidnappers of these infants.

There is a conflict with the people who raised them for 16 years... That is their parents... And so they will be dealt with in a more gingerly, gentle manner. Because while they are just kidnappers I do know one set of "parents" personally and they did give love to the children. They ARE ALIENS that do not belong here that raised human children ... So they may stay a few more months to help smooth the transition.

But they will leave and so there is No point to jail them as they have ankle monitors now.

Unfortunately all the families have ties to the regular USA military.

Including Matt Plant's dad. Who I met while he was in the Coast Guard and Matt, kidnapped human, was a left handed little boy that was born in 1981. He was a school mate. We had desks next to each other. He pissed me off all the time because he was left handed and he took up all this fucking space the way he wrote and knocked shit off my desk all the time. Fucking kid was spread eagle elbows out all the time like some war was going on

"Dude!! You're just intended to write!! You don't need to take up so much space! You're killing the atmosphere! I don't need your elbow in my face!" Cause literally it was. We were HORRIBLE seat mates. But I had a desk in the back of the room because I rarely went to school. But there was things I wanted to learn so I went when the teacher had it on schedule. And for some reason he stayed home a lot, too. So we got the seatmate until he asked to be placed back with the boys. And I just had my own desk all alone. The way I liked it. No one to talk to me and bug me. So I could just learn.

I liked the kid. I always admired him.. Until I had to fucking sit next to him.

This sweet kid Nate was left handed so i told the teacher to pay attention -- Ms Chen she was murdered by the Chinese Embassy.... But i told her "look Nate is having problems with his seat mate because hes left handed"

"And Jewel (she called us all precious names) he is doing well much better than the two of you. Try to get along better please"

Like dam it, so finally i got the nerve to argue her ... Because she was fucking good at being bossy

"Look. I don't mean to boss you around because I'm not here so often but look Nate's seatmate has to rearrange his shit all the time. So, it would be easier on him in his learning cycle not to sit next to Nate but they are friends, i see them hanging out at the park all the time. And Matt here needs some really good friends too that are patient and kind unlike me as you do say. And i talked to Matt Pleasants earlier this morning and he did say he would rather sit with the boys but you had him sit next to someone like me, before and they didn't get along so well so if you moved old Matt to be with Nate who is also not,right handed,i think they would be more comfortable"

And finally she couldn't argue me back.

"Well who do you want to sit with?"

"No one! Im quite fine alone!"

"See the thing is -- in society we are never alone and so you must sit with some body"

"Oh!! I'm not alone!! I am here with you! You sll6! So many people in this room and school I am here with$ in this kind of type of society!! I am! I swear!"

"Ok calm down and,explain to me more"

"I see in the subways all the time, Miss, I see not the children But adults mostly and mainly being alone. But in the society in which we born and breed. Not that I was born here, I wasn't. I was born down south, i think. But the point is Miss, who do you sit with in this society? Your desk you are alone. At home, single with no husband, you are alone. In this society in which you claim we need somebody. You aren't with anyone!"

"I know. Just sit sit. I cannot argue you any more! You make me cry! You are too smart for my beauty! You beautiful babe. I do love you. And I wouldn't kill you for the world!"

I bought her a house and gave it to her. All the teachers at PS 26 because of Miss Lieberman and because of Miss Chen. Mostly because of Miss Chen.

After she was murdered, we turned it into a neighborhood watch community apartment place. Her house. "To keep the entire world safe"

Because of her we stopped human trafficking in Russia and China and Lebanon, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, Quebec, The entire state of NY, Outer Mongolia, Egypt and many parts of Africa. Using the United Nations. It was "Operation: "I'll free you" regarding Ms Chen and her rightful delegates to life, freedom and happiness. The End"

And you see why? Because she loved. She taught. She listened. She cared so much she cried.

No one in the world like her. And she died. Murdered.

No one more beautiful and willing to fight. Her death inspired 29 nine to fifteen year olds to quit school, lie about their ages and enlist in the military to go to war in Desert Storm, to gain experience to fight Old World China that forced Miss Chen to live in fear so much she moved across the world just because she was born female.

Her love. Her beautiful love. The wealth of that love caused young boys to quit school to fight a whole country.

Because she taught us One Person does make a Difference

She fed our souls with true love and experience. She had a feeding tube to our hearts, not just our minds. Not just to educate "but feel and breathe and be alive!"

At home I was abused.

At school I was fed by a feeding tube to my heart.

To grow. To fly. To not only change me and how I react to stress but to change the world.

That is what she fed us. My Uncle Dad always did, too.

But in between him and me was an abusive and wicked step mother and brother.

She was our Church. Our School. Our Mother. Our Boss. Our Best Friend.

And she always liked to say "I am your Teach. I am your worst enemy"

She was from Mongolia, Republic of China.

So she had an accent but she worked very very hard to not show one. And I was always caught off guard... I always heard "I am your reach" and I would think "from your outer soul to inner" because she always touched my heart with a valid argument I couldn't not agree with even when I thought it was the worst idea possible. Like being jabbed by a left handers elbow and living in fear of it.

I started this post talking about kidnapping. Linked how I know this Matt's best while at school

Now I just want to talk about her. I saw Matt Plant is a teacher, seriously balding, I think it had something to do with her. He teaches 8th grade science.

He used to live 2 doors down across the hall from me. So I actually spent allot of time at his house (apartment) I would play with his sister that was 3 years younger. Dolls. Barbies. Read her books. Tell her things Miss Chen said about love, human companionship and compassion. She would say "I got another C Word for you -- Complain and I gotta use it in a sentence -- I must Complain I am not in Ms Chen's class with you"

So I introduced her and so she would run over and give Ms Chen a hug every morning before school started and say "tell me something smart"

Often she would say a one or two line of street safety advice.

And every Friday "tell me something smart" and Miss Chen would reply "you are" while touching her little chin, and giving her an extra hug.

It established a new principles in our classroom. Every morning on the board was a quote "tell me something smart" so for our journal enteries she would write "tell me:..... .... ....."

One girl changed our classroom. One mysterious girl when I played Barbies with, I would repeat something Ms Chen had said that day. Playing Barbies was really just holding a Barbie up and talking... Mostly for me anyway.

Ms Chen changed her world. Because I spread the love and nourishment and guidance she gave me onto her.

So why I try shit like human trafficking and then turn myself in and call the CIA and/or FBI and tell in myself -- it is because of her.

"If you do something bad, turn yourself in, day you're sorry and Beg for mercy. You'll get into less trouble"

My Uncle Dad Said the same thing. They didn't even know each other to "conspire to categorize communication to cause conflict in annoyance from home to school"

She knew us all. She knew I hated home. But others liked theirs so she would say something different to encourage us to understand she had independent thought.

She really was a beautiful woman human.

The world is Deep and Complex.

What comes around goes around.

I hope those kidnapped children are all doing well after reuniting with their family.

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