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sweetbitterimpossiblecreature · 3 years

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A Brief And Concise Summary Of Is Wrong With The ACOTAR Series

I think we can agree that a lot of ACOTAR is pretty iffy. Consider this a very brief refresher.

What's Wrong With Feyre/Rhysand (juxtaposed against Feyre/Tamlin)

Rhysand drugs and sexually assaults her in Book 1

This is "for her own good". Because he "has no choice". Despite the fact that, from what we know of the plot, Amarantha thinks that Clare Beddor was the one Rhysand was diddling, and is only interested in Feyre because Rhysand, "her" man male, has taken an interest in her.

If we extrapolate from this we can figure that Rhysand is the one directly putting her into danger.

Now, let's be clear: drugging someone is bad. Sexually assaulting someone is bad. One could argue there were extenuating circumstances. But if, in such a situation, what your mind goes to is "I know, I should assault this person... for their safety" I have questions about your moral qualities. There were a million things he could have done. He could have done whatever he did to Clare - that is, remove her ability to feel any pain - easily. He could have helped her escape. Under The Mountain, he - while still there unwillingly - has a lot of power, as Amarantha's side piece. Maybe this would have resulted in him being punished- however, he is hundreds of years old and a badass motherfucker, and she is a nineteen year old human girl.

Now, onto Tamlin. Obviously not a lot of people really ship F/T anymore after ACOMAF, because compared to F/R, it's boring. I read another person's post about it, which was very enlightening: they said that Feyre's personality is essentially a mirror. When she is with Rhysand, she's snarky and malicious- because she is "bouncing off" his energy. When she's with Mor she's super feminist and "in awe of her strength". On the other hand, Tamlin is kind of an empty character. He's a pretty boy with anger issues, which should be more interesting than it is. SJM manages to make him bland. Because Feyre has nothing to bounce off of, (a lot of this is from the person's post), she and Tamlin together is mainly just him introducing her to his world.

What Tamlin Does: prevents a skinny twenty year old from going on dangerous missions with him and combat-trained soldiers, accidentally blows up a room with her in it, and, at the end, prevents her from leaving the house.

This is not a Tamlin apologist post. Obviously it was really fucking gross of him to do that, and their relationship was toxic. However, a lot of his abuse stems from their inability to communicate, as well as own negligence. He does not knowingly and purposefully sexually assault her or rape her mind. And tbh, leaving a girl without combat training at home while he goes on missions with a bunch of muscled sentries is... kind of reasonable?

Again: not a Tamlin apologist post. It was abuse. However, if Rhysand is "allowed" to sexually assault, mind-rape, and drug Feyre "for her own safety", why is Tamlin demonized for preventing her from leaving his mansion "for her own safety"?

Another pertinent point: Rhys is never punished for sexually assaulting her. It is brushed off as part of his "mask" or that his hand was forced. Jesus Christ my dudes, his hand was not forced under her skirt. If he has to maintain his gross rapist abuser tyrant oppressor mask... why? Who did that benefit beside him? None of his actions remotely helped Prythian. They were done solely for his buddies - five people safe in a rich hidden city - and no one else, which is explicitly stated.

Finally, the power dynamic is fucked up. Feyre is less than twenty five years old. Rhysand is 500. There is a tendency in fantasy romance to romanticize a centuries year old man with a young girl, because the man does not show symptoms of age, and so it is easily ignorable. However, can we just briefly acknowledge how fucked up it is? Rhys is over five times older than Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and other known predators/abusers. She is twenty. That is really fucking gross. She is in a vulnerable position and he takes rampant advantage of that.

If he had wrinkles, liver problems, and erectile dysfunction, more people would acknowledge it.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying writing a book with an uneven power dynamic is automatically bad. For example, in The Locked Tomb series, which is in my opinion THE BEST FANTASY SERIES THAT HAS GRACED THIS EARTH (lol i'm starting fires), one main character Harrowhark Nonagesimus is in a position of power over Gideon Nav, the other main character. However, this is not glossed over or romanticized. Gideon resents Harrow for this- there is a relationship of mutual antagonism, fraught with unwilling familiarity and intimacy from growing up together. They are roughly the same age. While there is a certain power dynamic (in that world, there is a dynamic of necromancer and cavalier, i.e. sorcerer and sword) the "empowered" character (Harrow) emphatically respects her and does not abuse this power, although both would of course deny this, and she does make a show of threatening and being aloof. In short, while Gideon obeys her, Gideon also has power over Harrow, and the idea of what is essentially slavery is not romanticized.

Feyre Doesn't Face Any Consequences For Her Own Actions

Let me present a radical notion: a guy preventing you from leaving his house does not justify completely fucking ruining his country and harming the people inside it.

In other words: Tamlin does not deserve what she did to him.

I know that sounds iffy. We're conditioned to think that if someone is an abuser, then they are the scum of the earth, they deserve to die, torturing/murdering/doing anything to them is completely A-OK. However, here's another radical notion: someone harming you does not justify you doing worse.

Obviously, the effects of psychological abuse can cause you to hurt other people (see: Nesta), but Feyre deliberately and maliciously (oh, God, that insufferable POV of her in Spring Court; she reads like a cartoonish Disney villain) dismantles his country. She uses sexual manipulation (Lucien), torture (causing the sentry to be whipped), and mind-rape (who didn't she do this to? lol).

A summary of the entire first half of ACOWAR: "It smelled like roses. I hated roses. For this capital offense against my olfactory system, Tamlin and the entire Spring Court deserved to burn in hell. I knew exactly what I was doing. I smiled at him sweetly: no longer a doe, but a wolf. He didn't see my fangs.............." *aesthetic noises*

Man. I'm starting to think SJM had a horrible experience at a Bath & Body Works and took it out on the rest of us. Don't do it, Sarah!! I know Pink Chiffon and Triple Berry Martini are way too strong, but don't take it out on an innocent population!!

She steals from Summer Court (there are, yk, other solutions to theft. Like maybe asking politely) and ruins Spring Court. Her boyfriend - yeesh sorry, MATE - does nothing while a dozen Winter Court children are murdered.

Now: moral ambiguity is not automatically bad. Again using The Locked Tomb as an example, in the second book (spoiler alert), Harrowhark has a sort of moral ambiguity. She was raised from the beginning to worship the King Undying as God, and so she obeys him without question. Because of this, she commits a lot of crimes in His name: she "flips" - i.e. kills - the life force of planets, and she plots murder (albeit the murder of someone who tried to kill her first). There is no attempt to justify this. There is also no attempt to paint her as a virtuous and yet also badass Madonna figure. She is desperate, plagued with the "wreck of herself", and the book clearly displays her moral pitfalls. While her POV is of course colored by her mindset, it also is limited by her lack of information, and we as readers can acknowledge that.

BACK TO ACOTAR: Feyre is seen by everyone as gorgeous, formidable, and essentially perfect. Rhys sees her as flawless, "made for him", wonderful, beautiful, blah blah blah. (THEY ARE SO BAD FOR EACH OTHER; THEY EXCUSE AND GLORIFY EACH OTHER'S CRIMES, IT'S SO BAD, GUYYYS). Tamlin is insanely batshit in love with her, or whatever. To the Night Court she's the High Lady. In this way she personifies the Mary Sue character. (Excerpt from the TV Tropes page on Mary Sues: "She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal." Sound familiar?)

There is the Ourobous scene. And yet, paradoxically, while presented as an acknowledgment of her flaws, it is in fact a rejection of them. She sees her own brutality... and instead of recognizing that she has these deep, deep moral flaws and realizing that she needs to grow and be better, she in fact "accepts" them.

Guys: Self love means: "I'm important to me, so I'm going to get a massage today after work", or "heck, why not splurge on some expensive lotion, you only live once" or "you know what? I had a tough day today. I'm going to get that strawberry cupcake". SELF LOVE DOES NOT MEAN "oh, I accept all the war crimes I have done, I love myself". LOVING YOURSELF DOES NOT MEAN ABSOLVING YOURSELF OF ALL WRONGDOING.

It's this refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing that is so grating about ACOTAR. It's so goddamn one-sided. And you can tell that after Book 1, SJM decided to completely change the trajectory simply because of how jarring Book 2 reads compared to the first one.

Also: Feyre is a very, very young girl (compared to the other ruling fey) who did not know how to read for the majority of her life. She has no experience whatsoever in politics. Her being High Lady is not a win for feminism.

Rhysand: He Sucks

First, he is 500 years old. He should be written as such, not as some 20 year old virile frat boy feminist. Fantasy is all the more compelling for its elements of realism, which is a concept that SJM does not appear to grasp.

Second of all, his morals are absurd. He is written as the Second Coming of Christ, as someone who can do no wrong, ever, and his flaws only serve to make Feyre love him more. Anything shitty he does is written as part of his "mask" and she can See Beneath It and knows that it "hurts" him to maintain this "mask".

Fellas, WHY DOES HE HAVE TO MAINTAIN THIS MASK???? There is no reason for it. If A) he does not give a shit about Court of Nightmares (we'll get back to that), only about Velaris, and B) Velaris is hidden/protected from the world, what is he pretending for?

It would not hurt him politically to be seen as someone who cares about his country.

"Pretending" to be "Amarantha's whore" does not in any way shape or form benefit the macro-world that is Prythian. In Amarantha's name, he commits atrocities. He commits war crimes; he systemically oppresses entire societies. It doesn't even really benefit Velaris, because Velaris is already hidden.

Let me put this in a real-world perspective. This would be like if Donald Trump was suddenly like: "I know I was a shitty president but IT WAS ALL PART OF MY MASK, WHICH WAS TO PROTECT THIS MICROCOSM OF PRIVILEGED PEOPLE THAT I CARE ABOUT". Like: okay? Sorry, or whatever, but I don't actually give a shit. What about the parents of the children who died? What about Clare Beddor? What about the people who were held in slavery, murdered, tortured?

Rhysand: omg it sucks that my cousin Mor was oppressed by this toxic misogynistic culture from the Court of Nightmares.

Also Rhysand: lol whatever, who gives a shit about Court of Nightmares. They all suck. They meanie. Lol what did you say? That there might be other girls just like Mor who are oppressed by this system? Lol whatever. I can't do anything, I gotta maintain my Mask. I gotta sit on this throne and show the entire Court that not respecting women is completely okay.

In summary: by parading Feyre around as his "whore" (!!) he demonstrates by example that it is completely okay for the Court of Nightmares to abuse their women.

A good ruler cares about all his people. Rhysand cares about a tiny tiny fraction of his people: those who were fortunate enough to be born into Velaris.

God, I'm exhausted. Onto Nesta:

The only character who successfully breaks the Mary Sue effect Feyre exerts on her people is Nesta. Her POV for the first half is a joy to read.

Obviously it sucks that Nesta was a huge bitch to Feyre for the beginning of her childhood. However, it was wrong for Rhysand to threaten her- he is a man male with a huge insane amount of power, and it is not okay for him to threaten to bring the brunt of it down on a young girl because she was a bitch to his girlfriend.

I've seen a lot of discourse on the morality of F/R sending her out of Velaris. Here is my two cents:

It was okay for them to cut her off of their money. If they don't want to enable her self-harm, that is their choice. Again, it's their money, even if it wasn't fairly earned (Rhysand born into an enormous fortune).

It was not okay for them to banish her from Velaris with the implication that she was an embarrassment. Let me explain.

If Rhysand and Feyre are talking to her as sister/brother-in-law, then that is that. They have the complete right to express disapproval and try to help. However, they should not be using their royal privilege against her.

If they are talking to her as ruler to subject, then they have the power to banish her from the city. However, a ruler would not give a shit about a random subject getting drunk and having sex. So, they should not be talking her about her problems as a ruler to subject.

I've heard it compared to her being sent to rehab. However, rehab is a system designed to help people with certain problems. It has specialized medical centers and involves therapy. Nesta gets her life threatened multiple times. It is not rehab.

In summary: why did SJM inflict this upon us. Throne of Glass was actually good! GAHHH! After the first few books she completely whipped around and introduced the idea of males and mates and fey and that C is actually A and the quality took a huge nosedive. Sigh.

Final horrible but unmistakable truth: The entire ACOTAR series reads like a bad A/B/O fic. I hate to say it but it's true. We're lucky there were no heat cycles. OH WAIT

#anti sjm #anti rhysand #anti acotar #anti acofas #anti acomaf #anti everything #anti feyre #to some extent #mentioned: the locked tomb #mentioned: gideon the ninth #mentioned: harrowhark nonagesimus #anti #strongly anti #pan-int #that's my ao3 tag!#meta #my post

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aotopmha · 3 years

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So, I saw Evangelion 3.0+1.0.

(Spoilers ahead.)

I think it's my favourite Evangelion thing now solely because it cut off all of the obstructive elements and finally, FINALLY got a philosophical backbone that's not just a generic sentiment of "go outside" or "human connection is awesome".

You will never be able to love yourself if you never see anything worth loving in yourself.

This is why I think the original series is broken to me, fascinating as a piece of art for sure (which is why I've seen it several times), but emotionally distant. It was never going to have a solid conclusion because it didn't understand the very first thing about learning to love yourself.

The story was stuck in a cursed cycle induced by the lack of a strong philosophy in its writing, stuck by not actually letting the characters grow by increasingly weaker plot contrivances and I really don't think that was a deliberate writing choice to make a point.

The original series understands how people feel when they are depressed and the difficulties of connecting with people, but not how to get out of it, so it just tacked on Shinji's realisation at the end of the final episode without any of the logic behind why he came to the realisation and End of Evangelion only doubled down.

I think 3.0+1.0 basically understands pretty much *everything*.

For someone to overcome depression they need people to give them time to breathe.

They need time to breathe and someone who validates their feelings, so they could come to their own realisation about who they are and what they want and why.

Yelling at Shinji to get in the robot is the worst thing to do for him.

This movie isn't good because everyone basically got either a happy or heroic ending, it's good because it not only understood how depressed people feel, but also how they can move forward (and, for children, do all of that coming of age stuff like taking responsibility).

It understands that children shouldn't bear responsibility like adults.

It understands that you need to accept your weakness to move forward from your emotional struggles.

As said, validation and acknowledgement is what leads the way forward to confidence and action.

And this was always almost there with Eva, the series almost got it, but then about 2/3rds into the original series, the characters just started to speak like robots and the lore babble took over and when it did get back to talking about feelings, it always did it with this unnecessarily bloated prose that you had to decipher, along with being insecure about what it wanted to say.

This movie had clear, concise prose, had just enough show and just enough tell and it knew what it wanted to say from the beginning to the end.

I think the only part I didn't like is the Mari thing at the end.

I get the point: you actually might end up with the most unexpected person in your life.

One of the best lines in the movie is by Asuka: Shinji doesn't need a girlfriend. He needs a mother.

It's such an amazing line to me because it encapsulates and addresses all of the criticism I find to be emotionally blind/emotionally unintelligent that is levied at Evangelion.

Getting laid doesn't fix depression. Emotional support and digesting your feelings does.

So the ending with Shinji and who he ends up with is actually pretty irrelevant.

But it's still a bit too tacked on for my taste.

But again, the movie at least gets everything that's important and I'd argue executes those bits as good as it possibly can.

I think I was crying the entire first act of the movie because it was so empathic to Shinji's fuckups and suffering and everyone else as *characters*.

And it's that patience and kindness displayed by his friend Toji that paid off.

I think this is the first time I also actually liked Rei because the focus was on her as a character, not a thematic mouthpiece and I like that quite a few minutes were actually spent exploring Gendo.

This finally connected with me as someone who has gone through depression and I'm glad about that.

I can finally say Evangelion connected with me and made me actually feel things and pretty strong things.

And among many things, it followed through with the Freudian elements, too.

Shinji erased the Evas from existence, leaving the mother's womb. Which Freud essentially viewed as growing up.

I'm not a huge fan of the CG, but I think it's a fascinating decision to only use it in action scenes because one of the movie's points is that this kind of psychological stuff is not something that can be solved with violence – using violence will only get innocent people mixed up in it and cause hurt and destruction. So violence is depicted with something artificial, CG and everything to do with people is 2D animation (at the very least that's the principle everything felt to be operating under; some scenes with people might've been CG, but there seemed to be an aesthetic distinction at least, one being "surface level, physical" stuff and the other "the heart" of the matter).

But I am a huge fan of the direction as I've always been with Eva.

I love Anno's ability to depict the grand and of course, I love the viceral aspect of the gore in this series as I think that kind of stuff gives it a kind of specific, earthy humanity, highlighting the fleshy, dirty elements within humanity, something the series is literally about (and why I think I like these series combining viceral violence with strong empathy, I find the ugly and dirty parts of humanity and living beings in general fascinating).

Not as much bloated and stilted prose as End of Eva and the original ending of the series, but not as simple as 2.0. A really good blend instead.

I find it to be a incredibly emotionally intelligent and mature movie.

And in terms of overall quality, a pretty great movie to me on this first viewing.

#Evangelion 3.0+1.0 #Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time #Neon Genesis Evangelion #NGE

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 3 years

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why does jean warn up to mc so quickly? ikevamp makes it clear that jean is a pretty reserved person and doesn't open up or let people in easily but he seems to let mc in quite quickly and it confuses me quite a bit.

Oh boy, where to begin with this one.

Well, I have a lot of Feelings^TM about this, but I'll try to be concise. Essentially, I think Jeanne doesn't recover in the other routes--or the general storyline--largely because he's just a lot to unpack narratively speaking. And without some pretty direct intervention, he has a hard time healing. MC’s direct intervention was meaningful because it was focused, consistent, and adapted to Jeanne’s specific needs. She also doesn’t make light of his experiences which is key; she fully understands that she can’t fathom what he’s been through. There is a very weighty respect and acknowledgement, a seriousness with which she treats his wounds that’s important.

It’s easy to make this a “why is MC nOt LiKe ThE oThEr GiRlS” but honestly that’s just not the sense I get when I look at all the information available to us.

That being said, I also just feel like every person's recovery from traumatic events doesn't really look the same? I mean Leonardo’s cptsd isn’t going to operate the same way Jeanne’s wartime/Inquisition cptsd is going to operate. Some people require very individualized healing, others will often require a large scale group effort to lift them up.

Typically people don't ever just get over what happened to them and never worry about it again, either. It's usually a process of coping; the hope is that with time you find healthy ways to deal with grief and move forward. Therapists aren't magicians, they just help people process painful experiences/thoughts. It's honestly up to individuals to find meaningful ways to implement these tactics.

Tl; dr: My contention is that Jeanne doesn’t open up or choose to stay alive because MC magically heals him, rather his recovery is a convergence of many people’s efforts and hopes that he stays alive. Gilles (he insists that Jeanne must live, asks him to promise), MC (affirms and bolsters that promise), Comte (makes a second life and recovery possible)--and in no small measure Mozart and Napoleon--all make an active effort to buoy him. As people often say, it takes a village to raise a child.

While Jeanne seems to respond most powerfully to MC’s attempts, it feels more like a product of chemistry/compatibility than it does a random cop out. There is no insinuation that only romantic love can heal; after all, MC gets close to him without any romantic intentions at first. They’re just good friends? It’s more that their feelings simply moved in a different direction after a point, which doesn’t necessarily happen all the time. Jeanne is also incredibly moved by Mozart’s love for him as a friend, Comte’s love for him as a father, and even Gilles’ love as a comrade to an extent. If anything, without their input Jeanne’s capacity for romantic love would be questionable at best.

Now, because I can never for the life of me stop analyzing, I have a more large scale outline of my thoughts below. Spoilers for Jeanne’s route:

If we look at Jeanne's life history, he has pretty specific trauma. Most of the harm he endured was a direct result of human rights violations after the war itself. He didn't enjoy fighting and killing people, but he's also very much a man that sees the reality of his position: it's either kill or be killed. His entire goal was to defeat the enemy as efficiently as possible in the hopes of ending conflict, and with his enormous resolve turns the tide. He had no innate interest in inflicting harm, or lack of control when engaging. He isn't pathological about it, and doesn’t dehumanize the other side. He was more "this was an act of necessity, but those are still human beings." So as far as I can tell he has a very strong moral compass and sense of duty, he doesn't show much delusion/confusion in that regard. (Also evident in his conversations with the young orphan boy.) Furthermore, he has been shown to have a sense of humor--cracking jokes with Gilles and boosting morale for his fellow soldiers.

His childhood abandonment is significant (he left his home because he was "not an adequate farmhand and they had no ability to feed all their children") but I don't know if I would consider it a huge trauma point for him. It seems as though he deemed it an act of necessity--not spite. It was simply the way of things, and he couldn't help his wiry constitution. You'd be surprised how common that was once upon a time, tbh... While it's certainly not right or fair, it does appear that in his perception it was the choice he made and he moved on after he became a soldier. Just focusing on what he could do, rather than everything he lacked. For people in his position, they often feel it is useless to linger on what should have been. There’s no time to linger or doubt, life hangs in the balance.

That leaves us with his time under the Inquisition, just before he was slated to be burned alive. I think this is the keystone trauma point for him, because there are a lot of moving parts to his powerlessness here. The first part is that his entire life's mission--ending the war so that people would no longer have to die and/or starve as a result of senseless violence--was just sabotaged. All those years of doing things he never wanted to do (wartime violence) and being forced to leave his family to ensure they didn't all starve, all of it treated like some kind of joke. Like he didn't sacrifice years of his life and sanity to protect a people who were happy to call him a monster and watch him burn alive. The second part is the overt gaslighting and rewriting of Jeanne's personal history (and overall French public perception) for the sake of the King's political agenda. To call him a treasonous danger to the country when he was once lauded a hero. The third portion is the actual physical helplessness of being arrested, starved, and continuously maimed for no reason beyond pure malice. While it's never right to do that to any human being, this was done to a man who prided himself on his stalwart moral code. To abuse and torture him for something egregious that he would never do (at the risk of death) is just another slap in the face to everything he is and believes in.

I just feel like the context clarifies why that period of time would be the tipping point. His entire moral code and life’s work is being called into question and swept aside, as well as his agency? He believes very powerfully in a sense of right vs wrong, what's fair and what isn't fair. Somebody else deciding that for him--and deciding in a way that is openly unfair/incorrect--further makes him lose himself and his sense of reality. A person in that situation begins to doubt if they are good or bad. His belief in god all the more pressing; if he was a good person, why would fate bring him so much suffering? Honorable soldier or not, his blade has drawn so much blood...

People often reference his stilted social skills (and I am of the belief that he is on the autistic spectrum) as a reason why he is so "people-adverse" but tbh? I don't agree. His memories before the onset of this trauma reveal that he was actually a very warm person, and that people were more than willing to fight under his banner. He had friends, and he had comrades--his country loved him. He was the picture of well-meaning civic duty. Just because he doesn’t integrate smoothly into larger social groups or adapt well to socially shifting circumstances, doesn’t mean he just hates people lmao. When people give him the space to exist within his comfort zone and don’t take advantage of him, he thrives. Compounded by that, we also have his actions in the present to further prove what is true and what isn't.

While he is stern with the orphan boy (I'm sorry I can't remember his name, damn it) there is no malice or cruelty in what he has to say. He doesn't punish the kid or do anything out of line. It may not be fair in terms of the adult level of discretion he asks of him, but the kid also didn't have a lot of options realistically speaking lmao. Same thing with MC, she and the orphan boy are nearly identical in how Jeanne treats them. He's a little rough, but the route reveals that his intentions are just a reflection of what he's been through. He truly believes that if a person isn't strong, they won't survive--because his entire life was a series of trying to be strong/reliable because nobody else would. There was nobody to protect him, and nobody to care for him went things went south. It was him and his sword against the world, and even his exceptional skill as a fighter did not protect him from the Inquisition's arbitrary torture. He has lived in a world where good acts can become absolutely meaningless, where following rules and helping people still gets you slaughtered. That's going to take a considerable toll on his mental health: where do you find the will to go on when the next second of your life could mean the devastation of everything that matters to you?

Spoilers: you don't. Or if you do, every minute of the day is a fight to stay alive. That is the point at which we meet Jeanne. Caught in the hellish whirlpool of wanting more, wanting better--but being terrified of the cost. The cost of hoping, only for his entire world to go up in flames again. It's not a small thing, in my view.

If you have any doubts as to whether or not that is the case, I direct you to literally every singular instance in which Jeanne's emotional sensibility goes visibly dark/south. When do these instances happen? When it rains, for one. And when Shakespeare deliberately starts pressing on his sensitivities: about the soldiers he was forced to kill, about the nation that spurned him, how he's truly "wicked" at heart and doesn't deserve to be happy--seconds before flames erupt for the festival. Does that really sound coincidental? I mean lmao. The rain is a painful reminder, but MC transforms that memory into something a little lighter with her bet. He has nothing to lose in her game, all she does is ask for time with him or offers him something if she loses. There's a playfulness there, a restoration of agency and ease that's invaluable to his recovery.

As for Shakespeare's deliberate retraumatization...I can't even begin to explain how damaging that event was. Shakespeare is undermining Jeanne's agency in that he--not unlike the corrupt monarch of Jeanne's era--is twisting Jeanne's beliefs to work against him. He knows full well that Jeanne doesn't feel like he deserves somebody so bright and understanding (we need to remember it's not really a luxury he's had much in life, especially after the war ended). He knows Jeanne has a tendency to impose that strict moral code on himself even more than he does on others. To reaffirm his every worst fear and lurking terror only throws Jeanne into a vicious downspiral. Jeanne doesn't reject MC out of disgust or hate. He rejects her because he literally cannot handle the concept of trying to be happy again, or of burdening her with his constant struggle to move on while he’s in the middle of a bad episode. He knows he won’t be able to stop reliving the past, that every second of his life and breath will be colored by his gruesome memories. He's trying as hard as he can to keep the intrusive thoughts quiet, to move on. But I'm not going to lie to any of you, that is incredibly difficult to do alone.

The next obvious question is, well why can't the other men help him? This isn't to say that they can't--we see how much solace Jeanne finds in Napoleon and Mozart. Even Isaac is gentle with the veteran. But there are limits to how much they can do. Napoleon is struggling with his own wartime trauma, and it's not identical to Jeanne's. Plus there’s a distinct difference in their sensibilities? Napoleon is the type to habitually seek comfort in helping others when he can't help himself, he's not as in tune with answering his own personal feelings and regulating them. (I mean just look at his new ES: he knows what he wants, but it takes a nudge from Isaac for him to go through with it.) He’s very communally reliant in ways Jeanne isn’t; Jeanne is a very private person, and typically prefers one on one from what I can tell.

Mozart is the definition of repression, and if you look at their interactions it's usually Jeanne that's smoothing over Mozart's rough edges. Mozart says as much himself: that he feels like a rotten friend because he knew Jeanne was struggling with a lot of intense trauma, but he didn't know how to unravel it without hurting him in the process. Mozart calls it personal cowardice, but honestly I just feel like they both had too much going on to be able to help each other effectively. (And Jeanne expresses this sentiment too? This idea that he's not angry with Mozart? He knows they're both carrying a lot, he's just touched Mozart cares about him in return.)

Okay, briefly unrelated, but like. Am I the only one that wheezes uncontrollably when Mozart is like "?????? Idk what it is about MC...I don't want her to be scared of me..." in his own main story in the baths. And Jeanne. IS TRYING SO HARD. NOT TO SPILL THE BEANS ABOUT HIM O B V I O U S L Y BEING IN LOVE. THE HILARITY I CAN'T DO THIS. Jeanne was like "yeah....yeah that's rough buddy.......[screams internally, give your boy time Jeanne he's fragile]"

Honestly? That's the thing about Jeanne too--he has incredible self-awareness and hyperarousal-related (I mean the PTSD kind, get your head out of the gutter) awareness to the people around him. He's very, very conscious of the fact that he is surrounded by geniuses when he can't even write his own name. Just because he has the fortitude not to lash out with his insecurities, doesn't mean he never feels stupid or inferior. And it doesn't help when there are people in the mansion who call him--a fucking war veteran from 500 YEARS AGO--nAiVe. He's not naive lmao. He just doesn't know how the world works so many years later, and it's a ridiculously steep learning curve? Leonardo and Comte are nearly 500 years old, but they lived throughout every hour of that time in a linear fashion. It is a big deal to be moved from 1430 to 1890 in the span of a second asynchronously, and then be expected to function without a hitch??? Given the circumstances he adapts well.

That atmosphere--this constant impatience with what he doesn’t understand, his inability to be caught up to speed quickly--is going to hinder his recovery lmao. He feels like a burden most of the time, and agency and freedom are crucial.

Another thing that occurs to me about the mansion's arrangement is that there is a power dynamic, just as any space with people in it has some level of hierarchy (unless you live with miraculously chill people). Jeanne is acutely aware that Comte is the most powerful being in that space, and he is not only hatefully angry at him--but likely afraid too. We have to remember that the biggest betrayal he witnessed in his life was at the hands of a monarch; it was the aristocracy that turned on him and erased the truth. Comte is openly a child that resulted from both that era and that type of lineage, I don't really blame Jeanne for being wary. He intimately knows how willing rich people are to throw normal folks under the bus to suit their ambitions/whims. Comte, while not deliberately threatening, also seems to be painfully aware of this impression he gives off. His "chad persona" as I've mentioned allows him to navigate his life in secret by necessity, but it’s actively damaging to his son. He can't reveal the truth because of Vlad's betrayal, and he's openly unsettled by what it could mean to be honest. Will they wonder about Vlad and find themselves ensnared under his mind control as Charles and Shakespeare are? Will Comte himself be subjected to the mortifying ordeal of being known only to lose them?? That's a risk he isn't willing to take--and that leaves him in a double bind.

What is it that they say, the truth will set you free? This is where MC and Comte come into enormous play when it comes to Jeanne's recovery. One thing to keep in mind is that most of the people in the mansion have their own traumas they're trying to carry, and I feel like a lot of them are unsure how to approach Jeanne. Or if they do, he's very guarded. It takes a lot of consistent effort to get through to him. What does MC do when Jeanne unleashes his harsh worldview on her? She's understandably frightened, but Jeanne isn't malicious (so she chases him around). In fact, he openly avoids and runs away from her--well aware that what he's done is wrong. If anything, he did it on purpose, bringing us right back to Shakespeare's verbal undoing; why does Jeanne attack her in the first place?

LMAO. He attacks her because she essentially says "oh thanks for helping me!" "I am not nice. Watch yourself." "But you seem like a nice guy to me?" "REEEEEE" Does the pattern become a little clearer? When people think kindly of him, his instinct is to shatter that illusion with an impulsive reprehensible act. When people think poorly of him or lash out, what does he do? When that orphan boy starts yelling and screaming, Jeanne is nothing but calm. He explains the situation, and offers the kid a choice, perfectly happy to be the bearer of bad news. This operates on many levels I’m sure, but I have a feeling it has something to do with him being hailed a saint and a war hero only to be tortured and branded a monstrosity (and he probably thinks being a vampire is doubly monstrous). He’s more comfortable being hated because he feels it’s what he deserves in a lot of ways.

Jeanne has a lot of internalized self-hatred because of what he's done, and because of how much harm was inflicted on him outside of his control (he's Catholic and he was tortured, come on this writes itself). If I'm honest, I think that's actually the greater part of why he hates Comte lmao. Comte refuses the very concept of being cruel no matter how much Jeanne lashes out. Sure he lectures him and scolds him, but he never actively limits what's important to him or controls or harms him. Comte fully realizes the tragedy of how Jeanne's life was used by a nation in dire straits, and knows he needs time and acceptance to heal. No matter how dismal or unhappy, Comte doesn't stop--he fully believes Jeanne should have time in his life where he can really live for himself for once. But therein lies the issue, Jeanne doesn't know how to live for himself.

Which brings me to how MC and Comte "heal" Jeanne. I feel like they give him the space he needs to recover, and that's what results in his gentled temperament and happiness. Remember that so much of his main story is MC endlessly chasing after Jeanne. No amounts of his hissing or running or threatening stops her. Even if his refusals are empty of real dislike, they're enough to deter most people. Not MC. She's able to see through to the depths of who he is, and doesn't just use him for her own ends? She actively seeks to teach him (to read and write) to help him settle better in this era, she actively tries to ease his distaste for rain with a well-meaning bet, and she never gives up on him. (Actions mean so much more to him than words in general too, tbh...). Love is more easily defined by work and effort than it is by attraction.

When he has his episode at the festival, sure she's rattled; but that's because she truly believed that he didn't want to be around her anymore. When she notices he really doesn’t want to be followed, she stops like any normal person would. It’s only when she reads his notebook and sees the truth for herself (that he’s given up despite having the same feelings for her) that her determination is rekindled. She doesn't approach him fearfully, doesn't treat him like he's made of glass either. She just wants him as he is--accepts and loves him as he is. Scarred, bloody, exhausted, abrasive, terrified. She doesn't define him by how easy he is to love. That is a huge issue with traumatized people lmao. Because of their maturity, people always just assume they don't need help, or they rely on them to an extent that isn't sustainable. The second they reveal need or that they struggle, people walk away or victim blame them because it’s easier than taking them seriously.

While MC's attempts may be a little more obvious (cherishing his lily field, wearing the hair pin he gave her, careful about his gruesome injury, really listens when he talks about the horrors of his life and accepts that he experienced a level of agony/terror she can never understand, tries to express her feelings no matter his evasion) I think it's also important to consider Comte's large scale effort. I don't say this to undermine MC, I say it because Jeanne's life was defined by a complete lack of security. He left his parents to make their lives easier, he lived in a war that meant life or death any second, and his country's leader branded him a traitor which lead to his endless torture and public execution. Jeanne does not know a life in which safety is the norm. Point blank. He does not understanding going outside and not expecting the worst anymore.

Comte not only understands that level of despair, but treats it with dignity and respect. He fully accepts being hated if it means Jeanne can use that hatred to live on and find a way to heal. And most importantly, when Jeanne begins to move forward with MC and Mozart's help, Comte never once holds it against Jeanne when the truth is revealed. He's not angry, this isn't about reprisal or reparations or revenge. It's just love.

Jeanne doesn't really have a concept of this? His entire life was mostly transactional, defined by strength and efficiency. Nobody gives a damn about your feelings. You either hurl yourself at the problem or die. Nobody is going to help you or carry you or save you. While he may have had a little more support while he was in the military from his fellow soldiers, that support system was ripped away from him during the Inquisition.

One very common sentiment regarding elongated imprisonment and torture is that survival occurs in pairs. It is an undeniable fact that people need others to survive. It is the nature of who we are. Individualism has never proven to be successful, or if it is, its dividends are astronomically minimal when compared to people working together.

What does it mean to be the most reliable, steady person in the room? Usually it just means you don't know how to ask for help when you are no longer capable of maintaining that stance. Napoleon is guilty of it. Leonardo, Comte, and Jeanne all are too. It's part of why MC and Comte's capacity to see what he needs and provide as much as they can is such a big deal. That sort of consistent support (without a constant necessity to beg for help) allows Jeanne to be able to re-integrate into his new reality and find joy. Even if his nightmares and memories never go away, they are now being actively overrun by positive experiences. That's the thing about recovery, really--it tends to be more about drowning out the negative as much as possible and coming to terms with it, than it is about forgetting or never feeling it again. It’s about softening the sharp edges of pain like sea glass.

So is MC magical and randomly got Jeanne to open up? Nah, I don't think so. I think it was a series of persistence and real acceptance of who he is that made him warm up. People really seem to underestimate how deeply affecting understanding is, but that's how damage is undone. Jeanne can't really linger on the idea of his own monstrousness, his unworthiness, a lifetime of misery, when the person in front of him actively listens and cares about him. Makes him laugh and smile and lose himself in warmth for the first time.

If I'm honest, I feel like people also just...underestimate the level of traumatic resurgence that's perpetuated and inflicted by society’s standards in general lmao. This rhetorical structure in which good and bad exist in moral extremes, this idea that people should be able to recover and never experience relapses or periods of sensitivity. The refusal to radically listen to people and their problems, and make active attempts--not matter how small--to mend/ease those hurt feelings. Granted there will always be people in the world who do not want to improve, but I feel like most people want to. It's hopelessness, silence, and stigmatization that remain the true enemies of traumatized/mentally ill people everywhere. And among that population are always war veterans...

#ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp jean #ikevamp jeanne #ikevamp meta #ikevamp saint germain #ikevamp comte #sorry i have a lot of feelings about this topic kjahsflkjhsjkghfd #but yes!#i think mc being able to help him was more about her sensibility and the mental fortitude/space to be able to care about him as he needed #i don't think it's necessarily that she's SpEcIaL #trauma is a sensitive subject--especially considering he's a war veteran #but i also think it's simple and complex at the same time #simple in the sense that people really do just need consistent support and love to be able to care for themselves again #complex in the sense that support can come in so many permutations and some of them are very delicate and multi-faceted #and thus must be handled with extreme caution in some regards #anywho not that i'm any kind of expert this is just what i understand and see #also in case it wasn't clear i love him and cry every day (look away comte it's my whoring hours)#though i hope this helps??? i went off harder than anticipated lakjhglkj #thank you for the ask!!! <3333 #asks #rambles #not incorrect quotes

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thelioncourts · 3 years

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fandom: captive prince paring: damen/laurent rating: e warning(s): none word count: 5606 summary: It was six days in the SICU before it happened.

The first time it happened, it was an accident. It was.

After all, no one intends on the first time beginning in a SICU, a SICU that makes everything reek of bleach and antiseptic and the lingering metal of blood, a SICU that makes one’s home reek of bleach and antiseptic and the lingering metal of blood because those smells cling to everything, cling to the skin and the follicles of the hair, cling to stable life. Laurent dealt with that smell for six whole days before it actually happened, the accident that had been awaiting something like this.

That initial day at the hospital, Laurent had been quiet, steady, his pulse slower than normal and his eyes unblinking. The second day, the pacing had set in and Laurent became innately familiar with the neighboring rooms, with the tiles in their distinct pattern and the water stain on the ceiling at the exit of the SICU floor. By the third day, the rush of bleach into his nostrils set his teeth on edge. And the fourth and fifth days, were, are, blurs of hopeful wanting after a hesitantly positive conversation with the doctor to the entire floor of concerned people.

Six days had been the minimum amount of time Damen was going to have to stay there, courtesy of doctor’s orders and specialists’ concerns, and Laurent had agreed with them, of course he had, but it hadn’t made it easier. By the nightfall of the second day, the first fluttering of Damen’s eyes post-surgery, Laurent knew that six days, four more full days now were going to be even more difficult, if not just for Damen’s ability to become a menace when forcibly contained, bullet wound healing in the juncture of his neck and shoulder be damned.

By that last day, Damen was wound up so tightly, leg shaking impatiently under the thin and rough hospital bed sheets, that Laurent was certain that a gust of wind could snap him. And Laurent wasn’t fairing much better.

But they got the all-clear from the doctor, the doctor that must always smell like bleach and antiseptic and the lingering metal of blood, and they hadn’t seen each other much during the six days for one reason or another (the entire crew making a home in the SICU hallway, Damen’s lack of consciousness those first two days and his in-and-out of such on the third day, Laurent’s publicist nagging his ass about statements and his lawyer nagging his ass about statements and the police sauntering in to nag his ass about statements and —) and Laurent felt, in those moments of Damen pulling his clean shirt on, in those moments of Nik helping tie Damen’s shoes so Damen didn’t have to move too much, the curled heat of desperation in Damen’s stomach because it was twinned in his own; and going back to Laurent’s place probably isn’t a wise idea, but it’s all they have so they don’t think about it, they just go.

Jord had called a car for them, doing his best not to get involved so as to keep the press in the dark, but it had been too late for that six days earlier. Instead, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a too-bright elevator, taking it down, Damen’s bandages peering out from the too-white of his t-shirt, and they waded through the sea of photographers and journalists and fanatics that had all heard Laurent De-freakin’-Vere was at the Varenne Medical Center with his bodyguard following an incident at the Arlesian Arena, that had all heard after a nurse — now on leave — had leaked a picture of Damen’s bleeding-out body being wheeled in with Laurent’s hand, white and shaky, on his forehead, with Laurent’s blue eyes, unnervingly full of emotion, looking down at him like he was the sun from the sky and he had to be okay.

(The fourth day is when Damen had learned they were known, when Laurent had left his phone in the room to go talk to the police again and the damned thing hadn’t quit vibrating so Damen flipped it over to find an array of texts from Nicaise, all tabloid covers jumping to conclusions about everything.)

And so the sixth day is when it happened, starting in a hospital, as they tried to wade through the sea of photographers and journalists and fanatics, and Laurent couldn’t keep his hands to himself anymore, not at that moment, because Damen was the sun from the sky and he was okay and people needed to know it wasn’t, couldn’t be, just a dance anymore, and he led Damen up against the glass just inside the double-doors of the hospital’s entrance.

The clicking of cameras and the chattering of the impatient crowd that had been vying for six days for a glimpse of Laurent De-freakin’-Vere and his bodyguard that he had accompanied to Varenne Medical Center following an incident, a shooting, an attempt on Laurent’s life, at the Arlesian Arena, had their ears ringing, and Laurent’s team (PR, other bodyguards that had been called in to take shifts, etc.) weren’t helping with their snapping of orders to one another and their ever-loud conversations with the doctors and nurses escorting them all with last-minute post-surgery care, waving like they’d become good friends, but Laurent led Damen up against the glass just inside the double-doors of the hospital’s entrance anyway because he had to.

[Continue on AO3]

And Laurent hates this shit, hates it all, hence why it hadn’t happened until this instance, this event, because Laurent couldn’t keep his hands to himself anymore, not at that moment, because Damen was the sun from the sky and he was okay and people needed to know it wasn’t, couldn’t be, just a dance anymore, and Damen took to his part as Laurent had always hoped he would, took to his part in a way that had made Laurent’s breath catch.

His hands fell to Laurent’s waist immediately, his palms warm and strong and big, no sign of six days in a SICU apparent in the way his fingers were gripping at the place where Laurent’s green sweater met the corduroy of his pants, apparent in the way his undivided attention was so very much on Laurent and nothing else, like they were the only two people in the place between the hospital entrance’s double-doors.

And Laurent hates this shit, hates it all, hence why it hadn’t happened until this instance, but it’s so hard to hate it, impossible to hate it, when Damen’s brown eyes, now shimmering with true sunlight and not the gods-forsaken fluorescent of overhead hospital lights, were looking at him like he hung the moon in the nighttime blue and they were both okay.

And Laurent couldn’t keep his hands to himself, couldn’t not slide them up the expanse of Damen’s chest, careful at the place the bandages were, where they were wrapped around his shoulder, and he leaned forward, nose finding the hollow of Damen’s throat, eyes closing in dreaded anticipation of what might happen, might not happen, and he felt, heard, the huff of breath Damen let out, the power of it enough to rustle strands of Laurent’s golden hair, and then, “I always forget that, despite everything, you get some kind of enjoyment out of public displays,” and then there’s a mouth on his own, warm and strong and alive alive alive, and the cameras are going crazy, the voices louder than ever, and Laurent hates this shit, hates it all, but it’s so hard to hate it, impossible to in fact, when Damen’s mouth is on his for the very first time, when Damen’s mouth is on his after so much dancing around one another.

Getting to the car was a blur, just like the fourth and fifth days at the hospital, and Laurent was certain there were microphones and actual phones shoved in his face as they walked, as Damen fell into his normal position to protect even when he was the one in need of protection because, gods, he is the sun from the sky and he was okay, and Laurent was certain Nik was glaring at them as they walked off, was certain everyone was showcasing some kind of expression that made them look half-mad.

Then the door closed.

All the cameras clicking, all the voices louder than ever, immediately were muffled, and the car took off, the driver’s instructions, no doubt, clearly and concisely given by Jord earlier.

It really starts then, the car rumbling around them, speeding through side-streets to Laurent’s subleased apartment in Barbin, not thirty minutes from here, their shoulders starting side-by-side before Laurent couldn’t keep his hands to himself again, before Damen, not having had him once couldn’t not have him again, and it wasn’t wise, no doubt, because they’re in a car of all places and on their way to Laurent’s apartment in Barbin it’s too much at once.

Laurent’s hands wind underneath Damen’s shirt, tracing lines of muscle with the familiarity of vision, and Damen’s hands can’t find a place to settle, moving from hips to chest to throat before finding purchase in the golden waves of hair falling on Laurent’s shoulders, and it’s everything they’d been dancing around and it’s too much at once —

And thirty minutes ends too quickly and it’s too much at once because suddenly they’re fighting, arguing as Damen shoves open the door of Laurent’s apartment like he has to get inside first to check if it’s safe, like he owns the place with his knowledge of it, and Laurent is rambling, something he does when he’s uncomfortable, and he’s rambling at the ramrod line of Damen’s shoulders, and Damen is suddenly hit with six days’ worth of exhaustion from the SICU.

“I told you this couldn’t happen,” Laurent says, shoving the door closed with the same kind of anger Damen had shoved it open with, and Damen laughs mirthlessly at that. He rubs once at his eyes, rubs too hard, and he sees stars dancing around the gold of Laurent’s hair when he looks back up.

“It’s already happened. All of it,” Damen says, and he doesn’t have the patience to continue to stand here, not when he had his hands on Laurent’s waist at the hospital, not when he had Laurent’s hands on his skin, not when he had his mouth on Laurent’s mouth, and he steps forward, the challenge of it daring Laurent to move backward. He doesn’t.

And reality has clearly set in with Laurent, and it’s too much for him, the fact of that obvious in the ramrod line of his shoulders as well, and his foot is tapping on the floor and his eyes are looking everywhere but into Damen’s, and Damen is exhausted from six days in the SICU and he refuses to let up because they’ve been dancing around this for so long, for too long, and so steps forward again, the challenge of it gone. Now it’s purposeful, each step crowding him into Laurent’s space, forcing blue eyes to stop looking everywhere but into his own and —

It’s enough, because it’s the double-doors again, it’s the car, and they’re both holding onto six days’ worth of exhaustion from the SICU, and Laurent is still talking, rambling, words finding life between heated kisses, between the distinct clink and slide of Damen’s belt by Laurent’s nimble fingers.

“It’s not safe. I cannot protect you, Damen, and especially not if we’re this.”

“It’s already not safe, for you most of all,” Damen punctuates back, his shoulder throbbing in perfect timing, “so why fight it?”

“You deserve better,” and it’s so simple it’s heartbreaking and it’s the same thing they’ve talked about over and over and over again, and Damen is exhausted from six days in the SICU.

“Is that just an excuse, Laurent?”

“An excuse for what?” Laurent asks back, his lips falling open as Damen hefts him closer by a grip around the lowest part of Laurent’s back, arching him, until Damen’s own lips can easily find the hummingbird-pulse of Laurent’s neck, and Damen is panting as he answers, as he says,

“To keep me here, by your side, without having to commit to loving me.”

And Laurent’s eyes are the brightest of blue when he pulls back, when he finds Damen’s gaze willingly, and he says, without missing a beat, he says with lips swollen from being kissed, from being kissed by Damen, “You’re infuriating. Do you know that?” and it’s so Laurent De-freakin’-Vere that Damen can’t help but laugh, the sound breathless and soaring and suddenly —

Suddenly they’re in Laurent’s bedroom, clothes already trailing, and it’s addictive and it’s everything they’ve been dancing around and now they can’t stop, can’t take their hands, their lips off of one another, can’t quit breathing life into each other’s souls.

Laurent’s shirt coming up and over his head muses his hair in a way that makes Damen jealous, but there’s no time to dwell on that, not when Laurent’s hands are back under his shirt, tracing muscles with the familiarity of vision, pushing at the fabric in hopes of musing Damen’s hair too, and his own name leaves Damen mouth like it’s salvation, and it is; Damen’s wanted this for so long, willing to risk his life for it, and he had already done that, had already given everything, and salvation tastes better than he’d ever imagined it could.

Then Damen’s mouth finds Laurent’s neck, the blue-veined white of his elegant throat, and Laurent lets out an obscene whimper, one that pebbles the skin from Damen’s ears to his cock in gooseflesh, one that makes Damen want to bite down, bite into the porcelain being offered so reluctantly and freely at once, bite to make a mark so the whole world would know (as if the whole world didn’t already know from the show in the hospital’s double-doors, as if the whole world hadn’t known this dance was happening from the moment Damen hired on and stood in front of Laurent on his way to the Bazal Hall, eyes never wavering, eyes full of something more), but there’s not time for that, not when Laurent is pushing him down on the bed, not when Laurent is straddling him like he’d wanted to do in the car on the drive here, the agonizing thirty minutes of waiting to get to Laurent’s apartment, knowing it was too much at once, knowing they couldn’t, wouldn’t stop, not now.

And they’re chest to chest now, their shirts gone, and Laurent is certain his heart is tattooing its patterned beat into Damen’s skin, or maybe it’s Damen’s heart doing that to him, and salvation is his name, is their names, being sighed into the air, and suddenly the lingering metal of blood haunts its way into Laurent’s nostrils, his own voice from far away repeating Damen’s name like a different kind of salvation, like a calling for it instead as Damen bled at his feet six days earlier, as he was wheeled into Varenne Medical Center, before the lingering metal of blood mixed with the scent of bleach and antiseptic that clung to everything, to the skin and the follicles of the hair, and he can’t not say Damen’s name louder than, can’t not let Damen know, can’t let him not feel it, and he says as much, says Damen’s name and demands he feel what Laurent still can’t say, and it rips through them both, and Damen takes to his part like Laurent hoped he would, takes to his part in a way that makes Laurent’s breath catch —

And now Damen is on top and Laurent’s hands are tangled in the sheets, his fingers twisted to keep from doing anything more, because he’s already squirming in the cage of Damen’s body, hips cresting up as though not touching has to be alleviated by getting closer and closer and closer, and —

“Damen, please,” and that’s his salvation and Damen must feel it then, has to feel it, and Damen breathes his name back, the rumble of the bass of it gut-clenching, and now it’s Laurent’s turn to feel, his face flushing hot, and there are hands pushing at the corduroy of his pants, pulling them off with desperation, and Laurent untwists his fingers from the sheets so he can do the same, so they can be —

Too soon and not soon enough, they’re both entirely bare and there’s the gentlest of pressures, Damen vying for Laurent to open to him freely, and Laurent does, he does even when parts of his brain scream no, but it’s Damen and Damen’s always been able to quell the screaming, to give Laurent a peace that allows vulnerability to shine through, and it’s why this has always been too dangerous, why Laurent hasn’t allowed this to happen until now for it’s not safe for him to be this vulnerable, not safe for Damen if he’s this vulnerable.

And then there’s no time to dwell on that because Damen is pushing his thighs back, hamstrings quivering in defenselessness when Laurent himself won’t, and Damen presses in as deep as he can, wrenching forth a grating moan from his own throat, wrenching forth the end of a sigh and the butterfly-flutter of Laurent’s lashes, and it’s ecstasy down both of their spines, and Damen is rambling, babbling now, their shared pleasure the only thing he can call out to, and it starts then, him fucking Laurent into the sheets that smell of almond and vanilla and Laurent De-freakin’-Vere, and there’s another obscene whimper, and it’s —

“Gods above,” Damen is saying, his right hand close enough to Laurent’s hair to twist a golden strand around his finger, and “You’re so — Laurent, you’re so —”

And Laurent is squirming again, hips cresting, taking Damen deeper, and Damen takes to his part like Laurent hoped he would and he fucks in harder, deeper still, his cock throbbing with the movement, with the wet, tight heat of Laurent around him, of him being buried so far within and Laurent is still trying to take Damen deeper, heels digging into the dimples of Damen’s back so reminiscent of the one on his left cheek, and Laurent’s thighs are trembling still with the effort of holding Damen’s hips in their warm and welcoming splay, and Damen shifts to accommodate such a want, such a desire, chasing their pleasure.

The shift has Laurent letting out an agonized keen and Damen’s cock throbs yet again, responding to the sound of it, the heat curling in his stomach, the building of it impossible, and it’s too soon, far too soon, and Damen doesn’t want it to end too fast, knows Laurent doesn’t either, but the building of it is impossible —

And it’s Damen who makes the first sound of desperation as he makes his hips stop moving, but Laurent isn’t far behind, the sound a gut-punch where Damen is still buried, warm and hard, between Laurent’s splayed thighs, kept so well in the tight clutch of Laurent’s beautiful figure.

And Laurent’s fingers that had gone back to clenching at the sheets let up from his right hand so they can curl around Damen’s neck, curl just around the edges of the bandages hiding from sight the place Damen had been shot just trying to protect Laurent, hiding from sight the place Damen had been shot after the prickling of the hair on the back of his neck had sent him running to Laurent in a red-hued fear, and they’re kissing again, gentler this time, Laurent’s thumb catching the stubbled underside of Damen’s jaw, Laurent’s thumb catching the fullness of Damen’s bottom lip against his own, and he’s sighing again, the butterfly-flutter of his lashes tickling Damen’s cheeks —

And Damen’s palm, warm and strong and big, fans over one of Laurent’s slender hips as he sinks back down into the paradise of Laurent’s vulnerability, pulling back from that addictive and vicious mouth to look down into pupil-blown blue eyes, and Laurent is worrying his own bottom lip between his teeth to keep from making a sound, to keep from saying too much, because it’s too much, and Damen licks over the redness of that addictive and vicious mouth, soothes the sting of Laurent’s own bite, coaxing forth every sound, practically begging to hear every sound.

And Laurent gives them to him, sighs of the unendurable breathed into Damen’s ear, and it’s too soon, far too soon, and neither of them wants it to end too fast, but it’s impossible, and Laurent’s hand, the one curled around Damen’s neck just around the edges of the bandages, lets go to trail down his own body, to pull at Damen’s palm, warm and strong and big and fanned over one of his slender hips so they can both grasp at the weeping wetness of Laurent’s cock against the flat of his stomach, against the jutted v-cut of Damen’s abdominals, and it’s — gods above — it’s so —

And now it’s Damen’s turn to move his other hand, the one braced by Laurent’s head, the one with the twist of spun gold around one of its fingers, and he moves it underneath the curve of Laurent’s spine, underneath the arch of Laurent’s cresting hips, and his lips find Laurent’s neck again, the blue-veined white of his elegant throat, and they bring to the surface of a rush of blood that turns purple under Damen’s ministrations, and Laurent’s mouth is free now and it’s impossible and —

“You deserve better,” Laurent says out loud with a gasp, the words barely a murmur, slurred with pleasure-drunkenness. “You might not believe me, or want to believe me, but it’s true. And it’s not an excuse because here I am, loving you despite everything, Damen, and I’m doing it because I’m selfish, because this was always going to happen.”

And Damen is breathing hard against the fresh purple bruises on Laurent’s blue-veined white throat, practically whining, his hips continuing to move in a mindless chase, his hand on Laurent’s cock thumbing over the weeping wetness of the head, thumbing over it until Laurent is curling his body up, pushing himself closer to the barrel of Damen’s broad chest, pushing himself closer until their hearts are tattooing erratic and unsaid things onto their skin, and —

“Damen, please,” again because everything now smells like almond and vanilla and like their sweat, and Damen feels out of his mind and he can’t say no, not to Laurent, never to Laurent, and so —

And so he drives in faster now, practically bending Laurent in half at the waist, chasing their shared pleasure, and Laurent’s pupil-blown blue eyes go glassy with it, his lashes butterfly-fluttering as he sighs, pants, out everything he can’t say, and Damen fucks in faster, harder, needing to see Laurent come apart beneath, needing to know they were dancing and waiting for this.

And they’re kissing again, Laurent’s lips sweat-sticky, Damen’s too, and it’s a deep kiss, all-consuming, as deep as Damen’s cock in Laurent’s body, and now Damen’s hand is sneaking out from underneath the curve of Laurent’s spine, from underneath the arch of Laurent’s cresting hips, to wrap around Laurent’s neck and to mimic Laurent’s earlier movements, thumb stroking the underside of Laurent’s jaw, finding the fullness of Laurent’s kiss-swollen bottom lip, and Laurent nuzzles into the warm and strong and big space of Damen’s palm —

And Damen’s hips stutter, the softness of the action startling, but Laurent doesn’t allow for that to get them off their rhythm, his heels moving down the expanse of Damen’s back to his ass, digging in, needy and demanding, and —

“Laurent.”

And Laurent responds within a second, panting against the openness of Damen’s palm and sending shivers down Damen’s spine, and he says Damen’s name like it’s more than salvation now, says it like it’s being wrung out of him, says “Damen,” on the near-edge of a scream, and it’s happening now, it’s impossible and it’s happening.

Damen’s curls are sweat-damp against his forehead as he continues to drive in, as he lets the warmth of Laurent’s breath on his palm add to the almost-bursting heat in his stomach, add to the pleasure that had seemed unattainable with anyone else, and maybe it’s the smell of almond and vanilla, or the lack of bleach and antiseptic and the lingering metal of blood, but everything is so clear, so consuming, and Damen’s hips stutter again when Laurent moves up from Damen’s palm to his thumb, when Laurent moans against the sensitive pad of it, when Laurent’s devilish tongue darts out to lave at it, and the stutter makes Damen shift one last time, the movement sliding him to press in perfectly at the pleasure-swollen space of Laurent’s prostate, and the sound —

The sound Laurent makes, the broken and unthinking sob of it, will be with Damen the rest of his life, and all he wants to do is drag every possible sound from Laurent’s lips, and he tries to, driving in with a precision now that has Laurent’s legs quivering, has Laurent undulating beneath him, the sinuous lines of his muscles so gods-forsakenly beautiful that Damen is, once again, caught wondering just how Laurent, Laurent who could have so easily been the one to hang the moon in the sky, is real —

And Damen is thumbing at the weeping wetness of Laurent’s cock again, his thumb moving with a precision equal to that of his own cock, small and distinct circles over and over and over the slippery head, and then —

And then Laurent is coming, suddenly silent, his back arching up and high and pressing Damen somehow, miraculously, even deeper with the force of it, pupil-blown blue eyes scrunched up, sweat-drenched golden hair splayed all over the almond and vanilla-scented pillow, and he comes all over his own chest, all over Damen’s hand, and there’s no sight like this, nothing that could ever compare to Laurent De-freakin’-Vere utterly undone beneath him —

And it’s enough to have Damen groaning out a sound that could be his very own undoing, the sight of it all, and he leans down, taking his own opportunity to lave at one of the purple marks on Laurent’s blue-veined white throat, and he catches a too sweet, too salty taste and realizes Laurent’s come is on his tongue —

And he pants out a whine, a whimper, a goddamn growl, and buries himself in the tight and welcoming clutch of Laurent’s splayed thighs, the thighs that have almost gone limp like the body they’re attached to, soft and malleable beneath him, completely fucked-out —

And then it’s quiet.

Six days’ worth of exhaustion from the SICU and the tight clutch of Laurent’s body still around him have Damen down, his weight bearing on Laurent’s body, catching his breath against Laurent’s damp blue-veined white throat —

And that reprieve is enough time for Laurent’s brain to kick back on, orgasmic haze lifting ever-slightly, and his hands are on Damen’s back, one stroking up and down and up and down the sweat-soaked valleys of muscle, the other petting at the edges of the bandages around Damen’s shoulder, and Damen can’t not say his name, can’t not say “Laurent?” with a question attached, waiting for Laurent to tell him what he wants after this impossibility of a moment —

“You shouldn’t have done that,” and Damen knows immediately it’s not about the sex, knows immediately what it is, and rises onto his palms to get a good look at Laurent still beneath him —

And Laurent lets out a soft sound, pupil-blown blue eyes lidded and heavy and beginning to show something Damen’s never wants to see, especially after everything: worry.

And it’s overwhelming, the weight of it, the soft sound of Laurent’s withheld emotions, the brimming of his worry, and now it’s Damen’s turn to talk, to really let his words out, and —

And he goes with comfort, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “It’s alright,” he says, “I’m alright,” he says, “Most importantly, you’re alright,” and he noses at Laurent’s hairline as he starts to shift them, gathering Laurent into his arms, pulling out of the tight clutch of Laurent’s body albeit reluctantly, settling his back against the wooden headboard with Laurent’s head on his right, unbandaged shoulder —

And now that he’s been given permission to touch, to hold, to breath in, Damen can’t risk letting Laurent get in his head for one single second that Damen could ever let this go now, and there’s adoration warring with all kinds of want in the chasm of his chest, all of it for this golden dream in his iron-strong arms, and he traces a finger up the knobs of Laurent’s spine, breath catching when Laurent lets out the same soft sound.

And they’re here. They’re here, and they’re staying right here, like this, because they can’t risk letting the other get in their head for one single second that they could ever let this go now —

And this — this was an accident, wasn’t supposed to ever happen. But it was six days in the SICU after Damen had been shot when the prickling of the hair on the back of his neck had sent him running to Laurent in a red-hued fear and it happened, and it’s impossible that it happened so Damen kisses at Laurent’s hairline, in the same place he had nosed at moments earlier, kisses down the high-apples of his flushed cheeks, kisses the aristocratic upturn of his nose, kissing Laurent until that heart-wrenching soft sound of his stops, kissing Laurent until Laurent can’t help but return the desperation of affection, lazily pressing the bow of mouth to sharp line of Damen’s collar bone.

It’s not long until Laurent slides his right hand around Damen’s left shoulder, his fingers careful around the bandages, careful like Damen is delicate, and he’s straddling Damen again, his knees tucked under him, his knees on either side of Damen’s hips, and he’s warm and pleasantly heavy in Damen’s lap, warm and heavy and fucked-out, smelling once more like almond and vanilla and sweat and not bleach and antiseptic and the lingering metal of blood, and he’s leaking Damen from between his thighs, from where Damen had buried his place forever in Laurent’s self, and the knowledge of that, of Laurent leaking him from between the welcoming heat of his thighs, has Damen possessive in a way he can now show (because he’s always been possessive, gods above, he has) and —

His warm and strong and big palm finds the slender curve of Laurent’s hip again, his fingers digging into the giving flesh of Laurent’s ass, his fingers searching just far enough to feel the fluttering gape of Laurent’s hole where Damen had buried his place forever, where he’s leaking Damen —

And Laurent laughs, the sound half-incredulous, half-overwhelmed, and he says with a sigh, “You brute,” and Damen laughs too, half-incredulous, half-overwhelmed, because this happened.

And then they’re kissing, softer and slower than ever before, their tongues sliding together slick and wanting, and Damen can’t help but pull back just far enough to mutter against Laurent’s mouth, and when he pulls back Laurent’s pink tongue chases for just a moment, catching the downturn of Damen’s cupid’s bow just as Damen gets out, “Are you alright?” and he’s not talking about the shooting, about the six days in the SICU, he’s talking about this —

And Laurent hums, pulling back all the way so they can see each other’s eyes, and they’re both so clear, brimming with everything still unsaid, and Laurent says, vulnerable because he knows Damen can quell the screaming of his brain, “I’m scared of this,” and he pauses before continuing, before saying, “I always have been selfish when it comes to you.”

And Damen smiles, his left cheek dimpling and all, and he strokes a thumb over the hummingbird-pulse of Laurent’s neck, relishing in the momentary jump of it, and he can’t help but respond back, can’t help but say “You deserve more than you’ll ever let yourself believe,” and can’t help but say “And if you love me, let me love you back. Contradict your presumed selfishness with this act of selflessness,” and his smile deepens when Laurent smiles too, his far shyer, far more unsure, hopeful even —

And he’s toying with the edge of a bandage, apprehension creasing his brow for the longest of seconds, and then he sighs, breathes in so deep that his chest expands, and he says “Okay.”

And there’s so much unsaid still, so much to talk about, but it’s been six days in a SICU and now everything smells right again and Damen is exhausted, his shoulder giving a timely ache, but Laurent is in his iron-strong arms and it’s more than okay for now — it’s impossible.

They fall asleep not too long after that and they’ll talk more in the morning, when Laurent’s screaming brain decides to pick back up again, and Nik will yell at Damen about his recklessness, about avoiding accidents like this one —

But the first time it happened, it wasn't really an accident at all, even if it felt like one, even if it held all the signs.

The first time it happened, it was a dance with different partners and intense eye contact with one another coming to a close, the strings crescendoing into a cacophony before mellowing out into nothing at all, and so now, when the second time happened, it would be with a new song, an understanding, that they could have the impossible.

#captive prince #damen/laurent #damen of akielos #laurent of vere #captive prince fanfic #my writing #queue

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pinkestlittlebutterfly · 2 years

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There’s one particular aspect of Lust arc that I always wanted to talk about but never quite managed to put into a coherent text that doesn’t span over entirely too many pages. However, this absolutely amazing post by @yarrayora (which you should go look at regardless of your interest in the topic I’m about to discuss because it’s such a good read and includes a fantastic look at Mikuni and Jeje as well) spurred me to try again, so I hope I’ll manage to be somewhat more concise this time.

The way I understand it (and please correct me on this if I am wrong!) there’s the prevalent idea that when it comes to the abuse Mikado dishes out against his son, Lily is complacent and consistently chooses not to defy him despite being perfectly capable of doing so. By making this choice, he becomes guilty of perpetuating the unhealthy dynamic between the three of them and can, at least in part, be blamed for the problems Misono faces due to his father’s abuse. I absolutely understand where this notion is coming from, and I don’t necessarily think it is wrong, but I still would like to challenge it.

First of all, even though I tend to come off as pretending otherwise, I want to make it clear I am perfectly aware Lily is neither innocent nor perfect and that he did make grave mistakes he can and should be blamed for (as Yarra put it, “magically gaslighting” Misono by erasing his memory again and again). Denying that would mean denying a key aspect of Lily’s entire character, and I’m not about to ever do that. But this isn’t really about the concrete conflict of Lust arc but rather the household dynamics at a whole that presumably span over years in manga canon, and the part Lily plays in those - because as soon as you look beyond the secret both Lily and Mikado keep, you’ll find that their positions regarding Misono are entirely different ones.

To explain that, let’s take a look at the full scope of Mikado’s abuse: He is very authoritarian and makes decisions in Misono’s stead without considering his son’s stance on the matter. When challenged on these, he resorts to emotional manipulation (think “you’re my only family left”). He disregards things that Misono considers important to him, such as his resolve to play an active role in protecting what he loves. He does not take his son seriously and does not trust his abilities, never even bothering to finish a game of chess against him. He isolates Misono from his friends, going as far as claiming he never had friends in the first place.

And now let’s contrast Lily to that.

Lily, first of all, is not an authority figure to Misono. I’m aware that some see them as having a father-son relationship, but it is quite undeniable that Misono is the Eve, the master, the one to lead; and Lily the Servamp who may advise, may tease but ultimately follow his commands. A relationship like that would not work if Lily did not hold a deep sense of trust in Misono and his abilities, which Mikado lacks. And sure, Lily is protective, but I’d argue he is not overprotective - if he were, he would not follow along into battle as happily as he does, and if he thought it necessary to shield Misono all the time an attack like The Red Queen’s Scaffold would never work out.

In addition to this Lily not only welcomes the idea of Misono making friends, he actively pushes him to do so to a point where it becomes a pattern for him during the first three volumes especially. He is consistently encouraging and supportive in all of his Eve’s attempts to connect with Mahiru and Tetsu, be it about figuring out how to text them with Misono’s phone or suggesting he ask them to come by for a hospital visit. Even as Misono gets knocked out by Jeje Lily doesn’t take him home or to a hospital but keeps him around his friends, because he knows and openly states that it’s better to be surrounded by friends than alone.

Now, of course, all the differences in the world won’t be relevant as long as Lily still chooses to stand by and do nothing when Mikado goes around being Mikado again. So why is it that he is being so complacent? After all, Mikado is not Lily’s Eve. He holds no power over him.

Mikado does, however, hold power over Misono, and that’s the core of Lily’s problem.

Servamp portrays its abusive relationships with a bitter taste of realism, and part of a realistic abusive relationship is that it cannot just be disrupted all that easily, that speaking out against an abuser can do more harm than good in the end. Mikado, for all his faults, is still Misono’s father, and Misono loves him and has never gotten anything but love in return - stifling, suffocating love, but love nonetheless. Directly interfering with a relationship like that is dangerous beyond belief, and the backlash might just knock away anyone who tries.

Lily could try and talk to Misono, of course, and tell him “hey, what your father is doing is wrong”, but this will not only create opposing sides and urge Misono to choose between Lily and Mikado but also put Lily into the role of the accuser, which is significantly harder to handle than that of the accused. He would risk Misono’s decision not being made in his favour and ending up alienated - not to mention how cruel it would be to force this choice upon him in the first place.

Lily could also talk to, or call out Mikado, but again he has no guarantee Mikado will completely agree with him or even react particularly well. Mikado is not rational in his love for Misono, he has been shown to try and isolate his son from everything he perceives as “dangerous” (like his friends, for whom Misono is willing to fight). Though you are welcome to disagree because I struggle with being rational regarding Mikado, I personally do not put it past him to try and drive a wedge between Lily and Misono as well, which given everything we know about the bond of Servamp and Eve could have catastrophic consequences. The best thing Lily can do is to stay by Misono’s side, even if that means keeping his mouth closed and watching in silence lest he give Mikado reason to shut him out too.

So Lily ends up doing what Lily does best: Being cunning and sly and operating behind people’s backs.

Even as he stands by in silence in Mikado’s presence, saying that Lily does nothing at all to counter his abuse is simply wrong. Lily resists by building Misono up where Mikado tears him down, by letting him see the world beyond the garden, by giving him power and pride.

Mikado wants Misono to stay inside the mansion and be kept safe. Lily provides him with the strength and resources to exist within the real world. Mikado thinks Misono is weak and wants him to stay out of battles, even claiming that his father did not hand Lily down to him for fighting purposes. Lily seems to disagree with that verdict as he happily trains Misono in effectively wielding him and his lead and readily follows along into battle, unwavering in the faith he holds in his Eve. Mikado denies Misono’s friendships and isolates him from anyone outside the mansion. Lily fosters and encourages these bonds and constantly nudges Misono towards them.

There are things that Mikado and Lily can equally be blamed for. But Lily is not, and will never be guilty of or compliant in the abuse that Mikado subjects his son to. Lily did his best in a horrible situation - and even though he failed in the end, even though he allowed his fears and selfish desires to compromise what he had built Misono up to be, he was still the one to pave his way out of the garden, helped him build bridges beyond a system that he himself was tangled up in, bridges at the end of which friends were waiting with open arms.

Lily wasn’t able to break Misono free, he was never in a position to be that person for him. But Lily made sure that when the day came that Misono wanted to leave the garden behind, he’d have everything he needed to do so. Lily did not save Misono, not from Mikado’s abuse nor the confinement of the garden, but Lily gave him the tools he needed to save himself.

#i put the rest under a cut because i know it's not a particularly nice topic #but i really wanted to put this out here #and i hope it doesn't come across as impolite or rude #it's really not meant as such #abuse #servamp #servamp lily #servamp misono #servamp mikado

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kiingocreative · 3 years

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The Structure of Story is now available! Check it out on Amazon, via the link in our bio, or at https://kiingo.co/book

Every author starting out will know how important reviews are. If you’re yet to be convinced, here are some fun facts about reviews*:

1. 88% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.

2. 72% of consumers will take action after reading a positive review.

3. Positive reviews tell Amazon and Google you’re worth ranking and can boost search results for your book by feeding into SEO (reviews account for almost 10% of total search ranking factors).

So reviews aren’t just a nice to have — they’re critical to the success of a book.

Now, amongst the writers community, we talk a lot about receiving reviews, but less so about giving reviews. I enjoy writing book reviews immensely, because it makes me think about what I’m reading on a different level, and forces me to learn how to articulate that opinion. This is actually one of the main reasons why I got into professional BETA reading.

I was asked recently how I structure my book reviews (all of which can be found on my blog), so here you have it: all the secrets to how I go about writing book reviews, along with some concrete examples!

Start With Why.

The most important question to ask yourself before you even start writing a review is this:

Why do people read book reviews?

In essence, they want to know whether the book is good, what it’s about, and — more importantly — whether they should read it. They generally like some context and detail to back the review so that they feel it’s genuine and trustworthy.

If you can keep in mind what people generally want to get out of a book review, this will help you keep your review relevant and useful. It’ll help you figure out what’s worth including and what isn’t. If in doubt, ask yourself what you would want to read about in a review when you’re trying to decide whether or not to buy a book.

Some Key Questions.

Before you start writing, you also need to ponder a few things. It may not always feel natural to reflect on a book on this level of detail — it didn’t for me at first. I either liked a book, or I loved it, or I didn’t, but I rarely spent a lot of time critically thinking about why I did or didn’t like a read.

If you’re also finding this uncomfortable at first, I say stick with it. I found it extremely interesting to make myself think these things through. It’s made my writing so much better, because I’ve developed that objective evaluation muscle that activates even when I’m with my own work. It’s also made me much better at forming and formulating an opinion, which is something I didn’t use to be good at!

Here are some questions to start with before you start on your review:

• Did you like the book?

• What did you like about it?

• What didn’t you like about it?

• Are there any themes that were particularly well handled?

• Were there any characters you liked above others, and why?

• Would you recommend the book to a friend?

These few questions will start shaping your view of what you’ve read and provide the main elements of your review.

To take your critical reading to the next level, you may want to ponder the various elements of the story and the writing as a whole. Think about:

• The plot / storyline — is it strong? Consistent? Original? Enticing? Are there gaps?

• The characters and character arcs — are all characters well developed? Multi-layered? Do they make sense? Are they relatable?

• The key themes — what are some recurring topics through the story? Are they well handled?

• The pace and timeline — is the story progressing at a good pace? Where does it lag? Does the timeline make sense?

• The writing style — how was the writing style? Did it flow well? Did it feel unique or original?

• The dialogues — did they feel natural? Were they believable? Were they engaging? Did they add to the overall story?

• The editing — how was the editing? Were there any typos or formatting errors?

Example Review Outline

Once you’ve spent some time with those initial questions, you’ll find it gives you the best part of your review content. At first, you may want to note down your answers to each of these. With time, you may find you can process these in your mind faster than you did before, and you don’t need so many notes. Whichever way is right for you, once you have this, you’re ready to start structuring your review.

I tend to use the following outline (though, of course, this isn’t the one and only way to write a review!):

1. Star Rating:

It’s most common in this day and age to include a rating in your review. There are talks out there about not leaving a rating on a book, because these can be extremely subjective — someone’s three-star rating may mean they loved the book but for others it’s a negative rating, some people don’t leave five-star reviews out of principle etc.

If you’re reviewing the book on Amazon and Goodreads however, you don’t have a choice but to pick a rating out of five stars. Have a think about how that rating system relates to you. For instance: would you leave five star ratings? What rating do you use for a book you liked versus a book you absolutely loved? What kind of book would warrant a low-rating? etc.

2. Opening:

Start with a short overview of what you thought of the book. This should give the reader a concise view of what you thought of the book, in two or three sentences. The idea is that, if they read only this opening part of the review, they should know your view on the matter.

Here’s an example opening paragraph I wrote for Heart of a Runaway Girl by Trevor Wiltzen:

‘Heart of a Runaway Girl is a breath of fresh air. As far as crime and murder investigation novels go, I only ever read Agatha Christie, so my standard is high. But this book did not disappoint.’

3. Synopsis:

The next section of the review is a short summary of the book, which should give the main elements of the plot. I tend to keep that part really short because I find that, if anyone wants to know the specifics, the book blurb the author so diligently wrote for the back cover is a much better place to learn more about that. Yes, you need to give a sense of what the book’s about, but it shouldn’t be the bulk of the review.

I think this is a matter of personal preference, I’ve seen reviews out there with a much longer synopsis section, but I always find myself skipping those bits to get to the nitty gritty of the review, which is what the person thought. There again, go back to the why — people who read reviews do so to find out whether or not they want to buy a book, so the more valuable pieces to help with that (in my view) are your opinions, more than an in-depth summary which they can find elsewhere.

For instance, when I reviewed Counter Ops by Jessica Scurlock, the second opus in the Pretty Lies series, I kept the synopsis paragraph to:

‘In Counter Ops, we meet a familiar duo, Ivy and Nixon, as they face the aftermath of the Elite Auction, and each endure its painful consequences. We follow their journey as they try to escape their fate and attempt to come to each other’s rescue — in more ways than one.’

4. Highlights:

The next part is what I call the ‘highlights’. This is where you talk about what you liked most about the book, or what you thought the strongest parts of the book were. This can focus on one element of the book (a character, a part of the plot, a theme etc.) or cover multiple elements.

See, for example, the highlights I picked for my review of Age of the Almek by Tara Lake:

‘I loved the author's ability to give every character their own voice and a distinct perspective on the world around them. I loved how involved I became with every character's fate and woes. I loved the precision with which the Almek world has been created, with such minuteness you can picture it down to the finest details.

My favourite part is the portrayal of the many facets of human nature, be it through the reactions of the masses to the barbaric ways of their rulers or the individual views of the protagonists. In every Almek citizen is a piece of the great puzzle that is humanity at large, and the author has a gift for writing it as raw and real as it gets.’

5. Mitigate your view:

Right after the highlights is where you’d add anything that mitigates your view. That’s anything that wasn’t quite as strong as you’d want it to be, or anything you weren’t a fan of.

You can skip this part if there’s nothing you didn’t like about the book — you don’t have to go nitpicking if nothing comes to mind. And it doesn’t have to be a bashing of the author and their work either. Keep it constructive and explain why you felt that way. There’s never a need for insults or expletives, and these wouldn’t enhance the quality of your review anyways. Formulating constructive criticism takes practice, and requires tact and subtlety. It’s a valuable skill to have if you’re willing to invest time in honing it.

Here’s how I phrased that part of the review for Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan:

‘But - and there's a but - my qualm with this book is that, for a story that revolves entirely around Nick and Rachel... There's actually very little Nick and Rachel in it!

Yes it's all 'about' them and it talks 'of' them loads, and we're told theyare happy together and want to be together... But it's all 'tell' and no 'show'. Their intimacy is sorely lacking, so I was left missing that added colour to convince me that they, in fact, do love each other. And I'm not talking saucy passages — I 'm talking about basic things suchas them actually talking to each other and spending time together.’

6. Conclusion:

The final part of the review is a short paragraph with closing remarks, such as a short summary of your view on the book, whether or not you recommend it or some indication of what readers the book may be for (e.g. ‘if you liked… you may like this book’).

When I reviewed Collision by Kristen Granata, I ended the review with:

‘Readers used to intricate, far-fetched romance plots may find this book too straightforward for their liking. In my mind, this is what makes the book's key strength: it's real and honest, it takes the reader through difficult situations and complex emotions beautifully, and that makes it all the more relatable.

A great read overall - and the moment I finished the last page, I was on Amazon ordering the next book in the series!’

How long should a review be?

I don’t think there should be a minimum or maximum word count to a review, though I find that mine end up being around 300 to 500 words. I feel this is a good length because as a reviewer this forces me to be concise and clear in expressing my opinions, and as a reader it’s long enough to give people a sense of the book, but not too long that they’ll drop off before the end.

Final Thoughts: To spoil or not to spoil?

My view on adding spoilers in your review is simple: DON’T.

Try as I might, I can’t fathom what could be gained from adding spoilers to a review. Once again: back to the why. Someone reads a review to find out if they want to read the book themselves. If you ruin the plot for them in that review, what’s the incentive to pick up the book?

It just hurts the author’s chances of making a book sale, and it robs a fellow reader of the joyful rollercoaster of finding out those plot twists at their own pace. Don’t do it, it’s just rude.

*Sources:

www.bookmarketingtools.com

www.searchenginewatch.com

www.dealeron.com

#writingtips #screenwriting #creative writing #writers on tumblr #writers #writing #writerblr #writing advice #writing community #writing resources

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satoisms · 2 years

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Given ig cos I have no idea what fandoms you are into dhsjkh

SEND ME A FANDOM

I’ll tell you:

The first character I first fell in love with: mafuyu. instant love. and i've loved his precious floof son for over 2 years now. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: honestly??? kasai. like i was meh on her but i do enjoy her character and it lowkey does annoy me how ppl still focus on chapter 6 but ignore chapters 7 and 12 and were like what??? at chapter 43 now??? come on. The character everyone else loves that I don’t: i thoroughly find the entire cast of given interesting and like each one to a certain degree. so for each cast member i do have a bit of love but if i were to name one i don't feel as much for is... yuki. and like i find the guy super hecking interesting and his importance to mafuyu's life, but there's just so little info on the guy that makes it difficult to know what he was really like. all we know that's concise is he was the centre of the childhood friend group, he was mafuyu's boyfriend and first friend, he and mafuyu were hella codependent, at a point he spent all his free time with the band and doing jobs so had zero time for mafuyu, and ofc he isn't around anymore. i want to know more abt him but most of what we've gotten is from either the rumours from jr high or hiiragi and shizu's pov and both had polarizing views of him. the best take we could get is from mafuyu but he hadn't opened up about him much at all so henceforth he's a mystery. i'm intrigued but the combination of lack of proper info on him and his fanbase being highkey really hecking toxic i just feel wary. The character I love that everyone else hates: kasai. please can we move past her telling ritsuka abt the rumours about yuki and idk look at her apologizing and even being the reason ritsuka went to visit mafuyu while sick instead? like she's the one who suggested it. The character I used to love but don’t any longer: uhhhh i like every character. i guess maybe... my favour for shizu has kinda faltered a tad bc of current events. though i also feel utmost concern for him bc he just seems like he's not in a good or healthy headspace rn and i worry. plus the guy's one of the youngest of the cast so he has room to grow too. The character I would totally smooch: i would smooch p much the entire cast but most importantly i would smooch the living daylights out of kedama. best floofer. deserves more love honestly. The character I’d want to be like: stopping to look at the cast uhhh... probably a die between the uenoyama siblings. ritsuka is honestly such a good guy who looks out for everyone and wears his heart on his sleeve and even helps out those who aren't that nice to him. yayoi for her empathy and honestly??? ability to just be open abt feelings and stuff. i'm shy as heck let me not be shy pls. The character I’d slap: in a loving way i'd slap ritsuka to tell him it's okay to let others know he's hurting and to stop overworking himself. the poor guy is wasting away bc he's doing all-nighters and is blaming himself for everything like pls boy stop. it's not your fault. A pairing that I love: ritsumafu is my brainrot haha. i love the pairing so much why else have they been my artistic muse as of late? i also love the other canon pairs in given and also have a soft spot for yayoi and aki haha. A pairing that I despise: any pairing that has ritsuka paired with anyone that isn't mafuyu and similarly any pairing that puts mafuyu with anyone that isn't yuki or ritsuka. i just... the thought of that makes me uncomfortable. it's not for me.

#kisumshi #answered;#answered;ooc #answered;ask meme #-haha i rambled a bit for the one answer-#-but like legit i love the guy and find him interesting but bc of lack of info-#-and his fans legit being ppl who will hound you if you dare say an opinion they find wrong-#-it just makes you a lil wary-

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kaibutsushidousha · 3 years

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What do you think of Karna, Scathach and Arash?

I can tell you really like the strong greater mythological heroes. Anyways here it goes.

Karna is a character I was introduced to through /Apocrypha and E Pluribus Unum, so I initially found him really boring. His whole deal is that he can see through people’s hearts and intents without lies, but this trait leaves him too empathetic to hold any moral standards. He sees absolutely anyone as acceptable. This combined with the traditional warrior values of loyalty enable him to be easily thrown into the role good guy on the villain’s side in every story he appeared, or at least that’s what I thought.

He sees through the villain and goes “I understand your motives. That’s respectable. I’ll help you.”, then he meets the heroes and goes “I understand your motives. That’s respectable, but sorry, I already sworn my loyalty to that other guy first. Can’t change sides just because.” Edison’s Karna and Amakusa’s Karna were really hard to engage with because he was just a mega powerful tool with no relevant opinions.

What made me open my eyes to Karna’s charms was, of course, playing CCC. Karna is a character very carefully designed specifically to show off the best in Jinako’s character, and Jinako is a character very carefully designed specifically to show off the best in Karna’s. That’s what makes them my favorite Master-Servant pair nowadays, but it’s also what made Karna so hard to use without her.

Due to his upbringing, Karna is a helpless believer of the notion that all lives have different values, but due to his ability to empathize with literally everyone, he claims that lacks the talent to appraise people, as he ends up seeing everyone as having the same value even though he “knows” this is “not true”. With Jinako, instead of making him a mindless villain supporter, this trait is used to portray Karna as the person who value and validates a person who never felt valid in her life, but without turning it into an otaku power fantasy because Jinako is a side character and Karna’s brutal honesty means Jinako is still not allowed to ignore her flaws and devolve even further into her NEET persona.

CCC Karna’s takes what made him uninteresting in his other two major stories and twists into a beautiful and powerful message about how everyone has a place in the world no matter how useless they feel, which ties amazingly into Yuga Kshehtra’s themes later on. Yuga Kshehtra is all about Altjuna trying to eliminate everything that’s flawed, until the heroes defeat him by exploiting their own flaws, creating tactics that no unflawed being could accomplish. Karna left in CCC saying that even if Jinako really was nobody, there’s still someone out there waiting for, and those words got the perfect pay-off in Jinako’s role in the Divine Skyrock operation.

I guess I also have to acknowledge that his Christmas was fun, but Karna was always good for comedy. It’s only in his serious scenes that he struggles a bit when he’s not paired with Jinako.

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Scathach is one character I absolutely loved from the superficial traits on her introduction. Her design is still one of the most gorgeous Fate/ has ever produced (though all Koyama designs generally tend to be), the concept of her having evolved so much that she became immortal and decided to raise her own killer is really metal, and her battle animations with multiple Gae Bolgs gave me chills when I first saw them. I honestly believed for a long time that Scathach would be my favorite FGO character.

However, to this day, Scathach’s only major story appearance was in E Pluribus Unum, where all she really does is making a fool of herself in her fight against Cú Alter. Her entire character concept is so full of promise, and now 5 years later she still hasn’t managed to deliver in any of it. We have yet to see Scathach being any impressive, either as warrior or as a mentor.

A huge aggravating factor to the Scathach problem is Skadi existing. Skadi gets an amazing and fascinating star role as a Lostbelt King, being a seemingly almighty anti-violence presence that serves as much of an obstacle to Ophelia as she is an obstacle to Chaldea, and a sympathetic figure struggling to preserve a doomed world; and outside of her Lostbelt, she still gets to be fun and useful in many other ways. I have absolutely no complaints about Skadi, but her Scathach does feel like the writers completely gave on the original and felt like the only way to salvage Scathach was turning her into a completely different character.

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Fate/ as whole is very concerned with the question of what is a hero, in its most idealized form, and I personally believe Arash’s character is their most complete and concise answer at the moment. Arash is entirely selfless, but in a lively way that inspires individuality. Helpful and empathetic, but never becoming a crutch to anyone. Friendly, but always lonesome. Willing and ready to sacrifice himself to save people and end conflicts, but strongly unaccepting of other people sacrificing themselves.

Arash is, above all else, someone who understands people and understands sacrifice. Since self-sacrifice is his trump card, he’s always conscious of when sacrifice is meaningful and when it isn’t. It helps a lot that his Clairvoyance is so high ranked that he can see the entire city of Tokyo, and openly read anyone he faces. Arash shines the brightest in his interactions with Elsa, Bedivere, and Mordred, as they’re all hiding a lot of trauma (some a lot more subtly than others), and trying to use the concept of “sacrificing themselves to do good” as an excuse to kill themselves. That doesn’t work because Arash can easily see through them, and can’t stand this attitude. Arash will inevitably scold them on it, and eventually demonstrate what a meaningful sacrifice really is.

#type moon #fate extra ccc #fate apocrypha #fate grand order #fate prototype sougin no fragments #karna #scathach #arash

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lapis-yam · 3 years

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With that established, let's move on to the most open-ended question: why? Don't feel like you have to be concise or anything-the longer the better.

I'm certainly anything but concise.

I can't remember the exact moment I became interested in Judaism. It was more of a gradual buildup until I genuinely felt like I could not continue pursuing any of my other goals in life until I contacted a rabbi.

I believe I first became acutely interested in Judaism because I had been making an effort to be a better advocate for Jews. I was very active and vocal in my support of Jews and my contempt for antisemitism and vowing to fight it to the best of my ability and by any means necessary. My interest in being a better ally to Jewish people led me to learning more about Judaism as a culture and as a religion. I started studying Jewish beliefs, analysis of important Jewish texts (Torah, Talmud, etc.). The first value I found that I deeply resonated with was the importance of questioning. Questioning what your told, and even crazier, questioning G-d, was something I didn't think any religion allowed, let alone encouraged. But Judaism was different in that respect, and I deeply admired that. I thought that all/most religions (especially Abrahamic religions) were very rigid and encouraging of blind faith, something I've never been good at.

Then there was the emphasis Judaism/Jewish culture puts on learning. The idea that there's always something new to learn and your education is never truly finished was deeply appealing to me. I love learning, reading, analyzing, studying, annotating. I love it all, and knowing that no matter how much a learn, there's always a deeper understanding you can gain of the Torah, there's always an infamous rabbi you've never heard of before that you should learn about, there's so many holidays with their own traditions and stories and rituals, theres mountains and mountains and mountains of books to read to give you a deeper understanding of any topic you could think of. Every question I had, I was encouraged to seek out the answer on my own, no matter how small. Why do Jews sway back and forth while praying, why can't you turn lights on and off on Shabbat, why is Israel so important to Jews, what's [insert holiday] about, why is circumcision required for Jewish boys, why can't Jews eat pork, why was the Talmud written, when will Mashiach arrive, why, why, why, why? There was always a new question to be asked, something I didn't know the answer to, something I had never thought to ask had I not been encouraged to do so. I have never run out of questions, and I doubt I ever will.

Then there's the encouragement of disagreement. How common it is for Jews to argue honestly caught me off guard in the very beginning. But it soon became one of my favorite things about Judaism. There's always an argument going on. This ties back to the first two. Whenever I would ask a question, I would either be told to search for the answer on my own, or my rabbi would give me his answer. I learned very quickly that I was expected to disagree with him, to argue with him. Otherwise, had I truly understood his answer? This became apparent during Torah study as well. The first Torah study class I went to, the entire class we spent more arguing than actually reading Torah. I was very nervous to participate, bc at the time I could barely follow along, but being encouraged to ask questions, and then have to defend whatever my interpretation of the verse we were reading was, definitely strengthened by ability to comprehend Jewish texts, as well as strengthen my bonds with other Jews. Nothing was passive. I have to be active constantly. I have to argue, celebrate, learn to cook Jewish recipes, learn Hebrew, write, study, etc.

Judaism turned everything I knew about religion on its head. Everything I loved about religion, Judaism had. A monotheistic belief in one creator, a large well of material to learn from, a sense of community, thousands of years of tradition, a beautiful culture, a welcoming and nurturing environment. It was everything my "ideal religion" would have.

As my interest grew, I could not stop researching Jewish holidays, traditions, food, beliefs, ethics, etc. I literally could not stop thinking about my now burning desire to join this "peoplehood", for lack of a better word.

My reasons for wanting to convert were clear to me now. I felt a deep connection to the Jewish people, to Hashem, and to the teachings of the Torah. I wanted to do anything I could to be 100% part of this community.

When I started converting, I reached out to a Reform Temple. The reform movement is seen to be the most "progressive" Jewish movement, and also has a reputation for being the least strict and most "assimilated". I chose to start my conversion with the reform movement because I thought it was my only option. I'm a trans man and I genuinely didn't think I could find an Orthodox community that would be accepting of that fact. I found very quickly that the reform movement was not for me. I personally didn't feel it was as true to the Torah as I wanted. I wanted a community that accepted the word of the Torah and sought to follow it as much as possibly in the 21st century. I didn't feel that the reform movement did that. It seemed like they wanted to "modernize" Judaism, which I didn't like. Judaism is ancient and I wanted to be part of a movement that treated it as such, that respected its roots and tried to follow as closely as possible to the origins. Eventually, I found an organization that helped LGBT Jews and LGBT ppl looking to convert Orthodox find orthodox communities.

I find my views align far more with Orthodoxy and I feel much more "at home" in this movement than I did in reform.

That's pretty much it I think :) Obviously, feel free to ask any other questions you have. I didn't proofread this, so I might be a little unclear.

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masked-buffoon · 3 years

Text

Chapter 2: Twisted (Part 4)

Warnings: none...? (enjoy it for now XD)

Author notes: a kind of transition... More action in the next part, I promise!

Dazai-san's office was quiet when I entered, without bothering to knock on the door. It was not yet the middle of the afternoon, and the warm sun rays shone through the imposing bays, bathing the room with bright light. I sat down on the couch and contemplated how peaceful it was without my superior, before demanding my mind to come up with a plan to erase the slave trading company from the world. The orders given by the higher ups of the organisation had been clear; I could not let these people run free, for they had betrayed their contract with us and deserved to pay for our losses. In a way, the whole Port Mafia worked like an enterprise, a business, except it was led by a ruthless man who commanded countless armed men ready to kill on a single word from him. I sighed and closed my eyes. Ambushing them would be quite a difficult task. The location of the warehouse made it impossible to surround with the men and there was a single entrance, heavily guarded. Inside were stored the slaves, from different origins, whom I ideally wanted to spare from the fire, so launching a massive and blind attack was also not an option. Going all out for them in the open was not a wise plan, and I thought eliminating them from the inside was a much better strategy. As such, I had ordered the investigation team to gather information about Samejima Seiji that we could use against him.

For the moment, I could simply rest in the serene atmosphere of the empty office, without worrying about being beaten up by my whimsical executive. Erasing an entire organisation... I was not sure I could do this within a single night, just like Dazai-san and his partner, Nakahara-san, had done some time ago. This achievement had given them the title of sōkoku, double black, the strongest and most feared duo of the underground. I did not possess my superior's extraordinary foresight and intelligence, nor was I half as strong as Nakahara-san. His gravity manipulation ability was made for combat, it was undeniable, whereas mine... I did not even know how it could prove useful, considering I could not even control it. I was worthless, and deserving of the executive looking down at me. At least, if I could succeed this mission on my own, I would perhaps make sure he would not slap me upon returning by the end of the week.

A knock interrupted my train of thoughts and I groaned an annoyed "come in", much like Dazai-san each time someone would bring in a new pile of paperwork. It was Taneda-kun, the subordinate I had scolded in the torture room.

"Ogawa-san... I am there to bring you the intel we gathered about Samejima Seiji." He timidly said, putting the documents on the table in front of me.

"That's a thin file..." I grimaced before sighing.

"The man isn't very interesting..." He conceded "Shall I leave you alone?"

"Please." I nodded.

Once the door closed, I took a look at the information I had requested. There was not much, indeed, nothing exploitable at the very least. He did not even have a family I could have used to lure him into a trap, and despite being able to hack into his offshore accounts, stealing his money would not erase his organisation. As I was thinking about a strategy, at least a dozen of ships all around the world was transporting his slaves, which would bring in another tremendous amount of money. The fact he liked tennis was useless for the Port Mafia as well. The only thing I could use was his lewd tastes for women, but being the head of a slave trading company, he could surely have all the women he wanted for his personal pleasure. Finally, I came to believe it would be easier to drop a bomb on the warehouse and make them disappear all at once.

Once again, a knock disturbed me and, frankly annoyed, I stood up to open the door myself.

"I asked to be left alone —" I started grumbling before cutting myself "Oh. Yamada-san."

"I'm equally pleased to see you, Ogawa-kun. There is someone on the line who requests to talk to you." He gave me his most contemptuous look.

"I have a phone. Why didn't that person call me directly?" I crossed my arms.

"It is rather urgent, so I would appreciate that you do not ask any questions. For my and your sake." He replied curtly.

I was forced to follow him in the corridor, toward his office. It was fancier than Dazai-san's, heavily decorated with luxuries he would not be able to afford, did he not occupy such an important position in the Port Mafia. Without waiting for him to suggest it, I took a seat in front of the desk. He handed me the phone.

"Ogawa Yōko." I introduced myself "I was told you wanted to talk to me."

"Yes, indeed."

My blood froze in my vessels and my hand started shaking uncontrollably as I struggled to keep holding the phone. It could not be... I breathed out and tried to calm myself down. I could not let him hear how frightened I was.

"Dazai-san." I clenched my jaw "What would you want from me?"

"Tell Yamada to leave us alone." He ordered.

I did as told and, as the door closed, brought the phone back to my ear.

"I heard you interrogated a prisoner earlier. Is that right?"

"It is." I nervously tapped my finger against the desk "I gave my written report to Yamada-san and ordered an investigation on Samejima Seiji, the leader of the slave trading company we are after. I also obtained the location of their headquarters."

"I know the details, the report was sent to my mailbox." He stated, making me frown "Which is why I know the man was released. What I want to know is why. You are perfectly aware that we don't let them go."

"I judged he did not need to die and simply made sure he disappeared from Japan." I answered concisely.

"You are a fool for thinking he could be harmless." He scolded me, rather harshly despite his poised tone "Now that he is gone, we can't even know if he isn't going to inform his boss, and any plan we can make won't change the fact we lost the upper hand of surprise effect...!"

I sighed, slightly.

"The man chose China to start his new life with his wife and future child. I made sure they were escorted by our men from Tokyo to Beijing, and also personally called our contact within the Chinese embassy to provide them with a new identity, which means we can find them anytime. Besides, I do not think he would even try to go against us... Not after how I threatened him in the torture room." I explained.

"Oh? And how did you threaten them, Ogawa-kun?" He sounded more curious than angry.

"Oxytocin." I said, staring at a painting on the wall "With his pregnant wife at my mercy, obviously. Then, I crippled him by shooting a bullet in his hip. I made sure to send them a souvenir from their stay among us as well, to remind them we are watching."

"Excellent." He somewhat chuckled at the other side of the line "It seems I was wrong for worrying. Yamada only mentioned you had released our prisoner in the wild, after all, I could not help wanting to question you about your clumsy mistake."

"I understand..." I relaxed a bit "But my report contained everything I told you, including the methods of torture and details about their release... You said you had received it in your mailbox... But it was a handwritten version I had submitted to Yamada-san."

"Is that so? Perhaps I should have a talk with him, then... Anyway, I entrust you with taking care of that company, so no matter what that second in command says, you have free reins." He declared "Try not to disappoint, this time."

"Of course, Dazai-san." I accepted his orders.

Having been officially appointed to the task, I left the office of Yamada-san, not without a slight smirk as I gave him the phone back. Our superior wanted to have a few words with him about the reporting incident, and if he had expected that his false report would have doomed me, his lie would actually get him quite a lecture. However, I knew that he would not be demoted, because Dazai-san needed a stupid pawn he could move as he wished. The greedy man was the perfect tool for that motive, easily controlled and manipulated, quick to kiss up the higher ups and too nearsighted to see he was being played with. Quickly, I made my way back toward the executive's office, the only place where I could focus properly without being disturbed. There was no point in launching an attack on the organisation, we would have to kill them from the inside. I could still exploit his weakness for women and attempt to seduce him — I had been taught by Ane-san herself — but seeing as I lacked many feminine attributes, I would not even be able to get a glance from him. Disguising myself as a slave disgusted me, for I had been in their stead only a few months ago and entering the company undercover sounded like a waste of time. They were not that powerful, it was only the location of the warehouse which made it complicated. Then, I had an idea. Slaves were captured to be sold. As much as I despised this business, it was one of the Port Mafia's most important income, a market a powerful organisation like us could not neglect. Slaves were sent overseas, of course, but there were auctions in Yokohama as well. I had been the product of one of them, so I knew for sure such events occurred. I had seen different kinds of brands on many girls' skin, marking them for life as properties, and I recalled that particular company had been present as well. I only needed to know if they were to participate in another auction soon, or if there was a way to invite them to a scheduled one. Once everything would be settled, it would be my turn to infiltrate the event.

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#bsd #bsd oc #bsd fanfic #bsd dazai #bsd imagines #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bungou stray dogs oc #dazai osamu

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