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maybedefinitely404 · 3 years

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For You Became My Lighthouse

Genre: angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort

Pairing: romantic Prinxiety

Content: food/wine, Patton and Logan offscreen, anxiety attacks, argument, crying, fear of breakup.

Word count: 4k

Note: Not proofread. We die like men. Also part two is coming soon~

5:24

It definitely wasn’t every day that Virgil spent the early evening dancing around the kitchen while making dinner. But today was no ordinary day, and he was just too damn excited to stay still.

Figaro sat on the floor in the bedroom doorway, licking his paws and glaring disdainfully at the speaker system that had disrupted his nap. Virgil spotted the dark cat and grinned, dancing over to scoop him up. He hummed along to the music, bopping the disgruntled cat to the beat (much to his chagrin). Once upon a dream, Figaro might have fought tooth and nail at being used as a dance partner, but living with Roman for years had worn down his resolve. And after Virgil had entered their lives, he’d completely given up fighting their excuses for attention. Instead, the cat just yawned and went limp.

“Aw, did I wake you up, Figgy?”

The cat did not answer.

Virgil let him hop from his arms onto his scratching tower and went back to slicing spinach on the counter, humming along to the music. He wanted it louder, loud enough that it numbed the excited tremble in his hands and drowned out his internal butterflies, but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with noise complaints. Again.

Instead, he opened the drawer in front of him and ran his fingers over the small box he’d placed in there hours ago. As he’d done countless times since, he opened the lid to make sure that the ring inside was still there, still perfectly centered and shining as brightly as it had been when he’d picked it up earlier that morning.

Roman would never expect him to propose. Ask anyone who knew them and they’d agree that the romantic, outgoing, type-to-propose in their relationship wasn’t Virgil. Plus, he’d dropped no hints. Any time he met with Logan to plan, or went to the jewelers, and the million other things he’d had to do before this, he’d chalked it up to ‘having a bad day’ or ‘needing time alone’.

He felt… a little bad, knowing in the recent months many of Roman’s attempts at dates had been turned down, only half the time due to actual bad days. But it would all be worth it in the end. The plan was to start with dinner; the meal they’d had on their first real date, followed by Virgil suggesting a walk. As they put on their jackets, he’d sneak the ring box into his pocket, and innocently lead them past a cafe for dessert, “coincidentally” the spot where Roman had asked Virgil to move in with him. Finally, the park, strung up with fairy lights and electric candles Logan and Patton had set up just before. It was their perfect mix of solitude and ‘extra’. Virgil would propose, and Roman would hopefully say yes, and everything would be perfect and amazing and-

The oven timer beeped. There was fifteen minutes left for the dough to set; time to make the filling for the ravioli. But he’d barely started cooking the spinach when his phone chimed, alerting him of a text.

Hey V, dinner and a movie tonight? You can choose.

Virgil bit his lip and sighed, thumbs hovering over the keyboard for a second. As old as the excuse was getting, he needed to side step Roman’s plans one more time. Just one last time.

not feeling well. anxietys been all over the place. sry.

He laid the phone back on the counter and returned his attention to the frying pan, flipping the greens and watching them wilt slowly. One eye on that, he pulled out his other ingredients from the fridge. He’d rather be ahead of schedule than behind.

Ding ding.

Yeah, shocker. What else is new.

Virgil felt his heart drop. That wasn’t… at all in character for his boyfriend. Yeah, he’d used the excuse more often lately, but was it that much? He stared at his phone, hardly breathing, trying to think of some way to answer that, when a burnt smell reached his nose.

“Shit,” He hissed, trading his phone for a spatula and turning the spinach once more. It was just on the brink of being overdone, just the edges turning a tad too dark, but nothing he couldn’t save. He scraped the pan’s contents into a bowl to cool and dumped it in the sink. The hiss and steam of the hot pan in water made him wince (he’d been told a million times it was bad, but he couldn’t recall why), but he left it on the bottom of the sink to fill and soak. Scrubbing dried spinach off it tomorrow would really put a damper on the ‘recently engaged’ mood.

“Mrow?”

Virgil shut off the water and turned to the trill, cursing when he realized Figaro had abandoned his tower in favor of sniffing the food on the counter.

“Figgy, no! Get down!” He plucked him away from the bowl just as he looked ready to pounce inside, much to the cat’s annoyance. “You would just spit it out, you big baby. Don’t look at me like that.” It probably wasn’t safe to keep cooking with the cat around anyways, so he went to their room and left him on their bed with a soft order to behave. Figaro blinked once at him with indignation before the door was closed, and Virgil hurriedly pulled out his phone.

Real mature, not answering.

Virgil took a deep breath to push down the rising anxiety. He’s… probably just playing around, right? It’s probably meant in a lighthearted way but he was just misinterpreting the text harshly. It’s not malicious. Right?

sry, put figgy away

He paused for a moment, before shooting another quick text.

ur not actually mad right?

The typing bubble appeared.

And went away.

And popped up again.

And vanished.

That was enough confirmation to get Virgil’s heart pounding, all hope that Roman was just fooling around out the window. He was typing again, and this bubble was staying for longer, but now it was too long to be a simple affirmation.

I don’t know, Virgil. You used to actually contribute to this relationship, and now I’m the only one really trying. We barely ever go out, for like a couple months now. You always dodge my plans. I miss the old you, because right now I feel like I barely know you. I’m getting sick of it.

Now Virgil properly couldn’t breathe. That sounded like the beginning, if not the entirety, of a breakup if he ever heard one. Fuck. Fuck! Fuck his stupid ideas, his stupid plans, fuck all of it. This is his fault, and Roman’s about to dump him, because he took his overdramatic proposal too far and it was about to end their relationship.

I’ll be home late.

Okay, that wasn’t… a breakup? Unless, of course, he was going to do it in person, and needed time to plan how it was going to go.

Cognitive distortions, is that what Logan had called them? Magnifying? Is that what was happening right now? There was a solid chance that Logan would agree with him, say that he wasn’t actually sure what Roman planned, and it would probably be okay, but it was very hard to be objective when he was in the middle of it.

how late?

Another deep breath. He placed the phone next to his mixing bowl, screen up so he would be sure to see the notification, and absentmindedly added in the ingredients he’d pulled from the fridge earlier. Shit, did they have thyme?

Of course they did, he’d gone shopping for all the ingredients like two days ago. He needed to get out of his own head.

The final timer went off, signaling the dough was ready to be used. Before he unwrapped the ball and got his hands covered in the stuff, he checked the lock screen on his phone. Nothing.

It was fine, it was fine.

Rolling out the pasta into one thin sheet took far more effort than he would have thought, and it took embarrassingly long before he was able to lay it out on the big ice cube tray he was using in place of an actual ravioli mold. He checked his phone. Nothing.

Once he got the hang of filling the molds without making a huge mess, it was actually an easy process. He finished three and a half trays-worth before running out of dough and filling simultaneously, but that’s more than enough for the two of them. No answer yet.

ro?

He set a pot on the stove full of water but didn’t turn it on; it would just be one less thing to do when he was ready to cook the ravioli. For now, he placed the pasta in the fridge so it didn’t dry up. Roman generally got home from work at six, which he had prepared for, except on late rehearsal days when he was held back an extra hour. That’s what Virgil consciously chose to believe; he meant he’d be home late because it was a longer day. He wasn’t answering now because he was on stage. Technically it all made sense, but it wasn’t enough to relieve the icy grip around Virgil’s lungs.

romans gonna be late. push back an hour?

Logan sent back a thumbs up followed by his ‘-Logan’ sign off. Virgil sent a quick apology but didn’t bother to check the response when his phone lit up, focusing back on his plate of raw ravioli.

So, at five to seven, he’d boil the pasta and warm up the tomato sauce. It had been finished that morning and had been waiting in the fridge all day, because Virgil was a firm believer that it would taste better having had time to sit. Plus, he’d been excited, and had needed something to do with his hands.

But now he needs something to do with his hands again, but instead of excitement, it’s a tingling discomfort spreading through his limbs and curling in his stomach. Convinced that there was nothing else in the kitchen he could do, he untied the apron and pulled it over his head, pleased at the stark black button up he’d successfully kept flour-free. The satisfaction doesn’t last for long.

Now that he’d acknowledged his shirt, it was impossible to ignore the way it wrapped far too tight around his neck. It’s fine, he thought as he unbuttoned the top button, I still look okay.

He may as well set the table. Patton, similar to Roman in regards to going above and beyond, had insisted Virgil go all out for the dinner. Stark white table cloth, silverware set perfectly next to the plates, and a tall, white candle as the centrepiece. Virgil had cringed a bit at the idea, but after being assured that Roman would love it, he’d reluctantly agreed. It wasn’t his style but, well, the night wasn’t supposed to be about him, no really.

Watching TV did nothing to relieve the knot of uneasiness in his stomach, even when he unrolled his weighted blanket from the side basket and huddled into it. It brought a calm familiarity with it, and if he concentrated hard enough, he could pretend that someone was holding him. Patton’s soothing words, or Logan’s gravity, or Roman’s warmth or Roman’s safety or Roman’s gentleness or Roman-

6:53

Time to throw in the ravioli. He shut off the television, he hadn’t been watching it anyways, and turned the water on to boil. As it heated, he scuttled back to the table, some of his excitement returning. Sure, things had been tense on the phone, but Roman would be home any minute, and the rest of the night could go as planned. He pulls a small crinkle out of the white fabric and recenters the candle, stepping back to admire his work. It’s okay. If Roman had done it, it would probably look better, but who cared. It was fine.

7:01

Virgil sighed, looking over his final creation once again. A part of him was cringing with the cheesiness of it all; the lit candle, food already plated, a bottle of wine fresh from the fridge. Getting a new wine may have been too much of a giveaway, so the feature was a half finished bottle from their last date… a few months ago. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure if it would pair well. He didn’t even like wine. But it was Roman’s favorite, so it would have to do.

He’d bitten three nails down to the nub by the time he figured he could add the tomato sauce over top. Roman was never later than seven, so the pasta wouldn’t even have the time to get soggy.

In a combination of unfortunate events unlike any Virgil had experienced before, the tomato sauce bubbled the moment he grabbed the handle, dozens of pinpricks of heat burning his hands. He yelped and dropped the saucepan in favor of grabbing his scalded hand, jumping back as the pot hit the side of the counter and sent tomato sauce flying directly into the open drawer next to it. In his search for a match to light the candle, he’d left open the drawer containing the ring box, and in moments, the velvety exterior was coated in a fresh layer of marinara.

“Fuck!” Virgil shouted.

Heat be damned, he grabbed the box from the steaming puddle around it and rushed it to the sink. Running it under water would just be asking for the situation to be worse so he tried to scrape off the mess with a dishcloth. Was this even salvageable?

No, it turned out. The white velvet had stained a shitty orange in a way he definitely couldn’t play off as the original color, and even though the interior (or god forbid the ring) hadn’t been touched, he found himself trying to fight off tears. This wasn’t fucking going well, and now…

7:28

Roman was never this late, not without telling him. Virgil checked his phone and, nope, only the previous message from Logan and a newer one, asking if they could set up yet. He sent a quick:

no, hes not home yet

Panicking was not a move he wanted to make right now, despite how his brain was trying to convince him otherwise. Roman was probably stuck in traffic, right? And Virgil was always getting on him for texting and driving, so that could be why he hadn’t said anything. Sure, the route from the theatre to their house was barely ever busy, and yeah, it was way too late for there to be real holdups, but there was a first time for everything.

He made quick work of cleaning up the disaster of marinara sauce, surprised that a decent amount was salvageable. Apparently in his panic he’d righted the pot before it had all spilled, so there was maybe just enough for the meals. The inside of the drawer was a stained, orange, mess, and the area under the burners was caked in dried sauce, and that was just too much work for right now. He slammed the drawer shut and threw a towel over the element. Out of sight, out of… well, not out of mind, but maybe it would take a backseat on ‘worries for the night’.

Might as well get a head start on dishes, he thought, since the thought of texting Roman is daunting and his whole body is aching for something to do. One second more of standing still and he may very well have combusted. He couldn’t even summon up the will to turn on music, the mood from before totally vanquished. If he could just get that burnt pan done, perhaps the tension in his chest would ease up a bit.

But he cleaned the pan, and the rest of the dishes, and scrubbed the sink, and Roman still wasn’t home. At some point when he’d decided to just finish all of the dirty cookware he’d rolled up his sleeves, which he quickly lowered and rebuttoned around his wrists. The dishes were drying; nothing left to do there.

He swallowed thickly. How was the shirt still too tight around his throat?

Virgil unbuttoned the next one down, hoping to ease the ball of fear in his throat. It didn’t help.

The food was lukewarm, at that point. It was still edible. It was microwaveable. It was fine. Again, the thought crossed his mind to text Roman, but what if he was driving? He might check it and get pulled over, and that would not help the uneasiness in their relationship right now. What if the phone’s light distracted him and he got into a car accident? He couldn’t lose Roman, not when their last words had been so strained, and it would be his fault on top? Not a chance. He’d be home any second now. He had to be.

Virgil quickly found himself under his weighted blanket once more, watching whatever sitcom was on with dissociated interest, arms wrapped around his waist in a vice grip and feet bouncing under the covers. This time, though, the television worked less as a distraction and more as grating noise in his skull and he muted it, but that didn't stop the sudden stream of noise. Water was running through the pipes under him, some of his neighbors were shouting, and the fridge was humming and the lights overhead were buzzing and it’s all so loud-

His sound blocking headphones were also in the basket next to the couch and he shoved them over his ears. The world went quiet except for the sounds of his shaky breathing; breathe in, and out, and in, and out…

8:07

With the thick padding over his ears, the only sound he could hear was his breathing. It was somewhat reminiscent of Darth Vader’s, seeming far too loud, but also a steady foundation for him to ground on. Without the outside distraction, it was far easier to focus on his breaths, to slow them down, to get into a rhythm of long inhales and longer exhales. Bit by bit, the swarm of butterflies that had clasped around his heart gave way, allowing the anxiety to morph into numb sadness.

If Roman had come home on time, would they be in the park already? Would they be engaged? Maybe they’d already be back home, sharing the news to their families. Roman would probably already be gushing about wedding ideas as Virgil nodded along in amusement. They probably could have convinced Patton and Logan to come home too, and they could have had a great rest of the evening, finishing the bottle of wine and reliving the past and…

Were they even going to get engaged at this point?

He fumbled for his phone and sent a text to Logan.

plans off. sry

The headphones were overly effective in silencing the world, now amplifying his thoughts too much, so he slid them off. He took a deep breath, the sound now camouflaged in the rest of the apartment’s noise. A lump formed in his throat as he took in the arrangement of the dining room, and the more he pushed it down, the harder it was to stem the tears that were steadily filling his eyes.

Virgil didn’t like feeling helpless, but that was all he felt at that moment.

Fuck.

Without forethought, he rubbed at his eyes, and instantly froze.

He drooped his head with a sigh that bordered on a groan, reluctantly lowering his hands from his face. Mixed in with his intercepted tears were the smudged remains of his makeup smeared across the web of his hands.

Might as well; everything else went to shit anyways.

Usually, Virgil didn’t spend more than a minute removing his makeup. But that day, he spent an inordinate amount of time scraping off every streak of color until his face felt raw, watching his hard work be erased. He’d spent forever getting it perfect.

Even after he finished, he couldn’t get himself to move. That familiar weight of anxiety was settling again into the pit of his stomach as rushes of adrenaline, but he found it impossible to tear his eyes away from the mirror. As he stared into his own eyes, he vaguely remembered reading somewhere that looking at yourself in low lighting could trick one’s brain, causing the face to morph into something totally different, oftentimes not human; monstrous. Something about the brain trying to find faces everywhere, and creating them where it can’t see one properly.

This didn’t happen to Virgil.

All he saw in the mirror was someone who had messed up his hope for a future.

Huh. So maybe a ‘monster’ wasn’t too far off.

He laughed humorlessly and finally flicked off the bathroom switch, reentering the living room. The candle was still burning strong on the table, a good half way down. Virgil blew it out.

9:12

The state of apathy Virgil had sunken into was violently replaced with sharp anxiety when he finally bothered to check his phone, realizing it was past nine o’clock. Once more he considered asking Roman if everything was okay (heh, as if anything was okay) but he was quickly reminded why he hadn’t in the first place. Light distracts a driving Roman, bad things happen, it’s all his fault…

Instead, he replied to Logan’s response.

Why? Virgil, what happened?

-Logan

we had a fight

His feet led him by their own will, pulling him to the wall so he could flip off the lights, dousing the apartment in darkness. Using the light from his phone screen, he stumbled to their room- or was it just Roman’s now? Would he have to move out? Oh god… where was he going to live?- ignoring Figaro’s mewls for pets.

What did this fight regard?

-Logan

idk. a bunch of stuff.

He stripped out of his formal shirt, hands shaking so bad he could barely undo the buttons, and exchanged it for his favorite hoodie. It may be too hot to sleep in, but he felt the need for comfort more than he was concerned about heat.

Virgil dropped onto the bed next to the clothes, finally relenting to Figaro’s complaining and stroking down his back. In the stillness of a silent apartment, it was suddenly harder than ever to not completely break down. At least he wiped off his makeup.

This was over dinner?

-Logan

no. over text. he never came home.

He allowed the first tears to fall.

Maybe this had all been building up for a while and Virgil had just been too dumb to see the signs. Was this the night he lost everything? Would the one person he never grew tired of, the only person he had truly loved, leave him? He didn’t know what he’d do without Roman and somehow, he didn’t think he’d have a hope of ever finding someone like him again.

The tremors and blurry vision made it difficult to type.

i think romans going to break up with me

It took barely half a second after it sent for his phone to start ringing, Logan’s name showing up on the caller ID.

Later, Virgil wouldn’t even remember pressing the answer button. The moment he heard Logan’s voice over the phone, his unusually concerned voice overlapping with Patton’s questions, the dam broke. He sobbed his way through an explanation the night, the text messages they’d swapped, and his snowball of anxiety.

To no surprise, the two on the other line immediately offered to come over, but Virgil declined. There was still the tiniest part of him, the littlest hope, that Roman was still going to walk through that door any second. If (when, when, when) he came home, they would need to talk, and it would complicate matters if Logan and Patton were there.

When he eventually yawned in the middle of a sentence, he was encouraged to go to bed. He really didn’t need to be convinced; he was more than ready for this evening to be over. After promises that he’ll update them first thing in the morning, and multiple reminders that Patton loved him, he was left alone in the apartment once again.

He curled into a ball on his side of the bed and cried himself to sleep.

Part two HERE!

#lywrites #sanderssides #sanderssidesfanfiction #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #angst #angst with a happy ending #hurt/comfort #virgil sanders #roman sanders #romantic prinxiety #prinxiety

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bestworstcase · 3 years

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replies on this post ( @ngocthach4020, numbering mine ):

Counterarguments:

1 - While I do agree that Zhan Tiri does a good job making it seem like she does care about Cassandra, the fact that Cassandra trusted a total stranger for over a year in itself makes her intelligence dubious at best. Not to mention Cassandra never asks the total stranger who mysteriously knows this much about her for her NAME during all that time, nor tries to find out anything else about her.

2 - Rapunzel is the heir to the throne. Of course she’s going to get more recognition than Cassandra. Cassandra herself was given multiple guard assignments throughout Season 1, cheered on by the people of Corona even when she came second place to Rapunzel at the Challenge of the Brave, and trusted with leading the assault against Varian in the season finale. This isn’t even getting into how she has plenty of opportunities at Ingvarr or Vardaros.

3 - The people of Vardaros focused on Rapunzel despite preferring Cassandra over her, yes, but that doesn’t change how they treated Rapunzel like dirt and Cassandra seemed to LIKE that.

4 - In the song I’d Give Anything, Rapunzel does acknowledge she wronged Cassandra.

5 - Just because Cassandra has legitimate grievances, it doesn’t excuse her trying to murder people who never did anything bad to her, which she does several times throughout Season 3.

firstly: i mean this in the kindest way possible but none of these are actually counter-arguments to the point i was making, which is that cassandra has very good reasons for her decision to trust zhan tiri and be emotionally vulnerable with her in the house of yesterday’s tomorrow. #2 is the only one relevant to the subject at hand, #1, #4, and #5 all concern things that happen after the incident being discussed and are thus irrelevant, and for #3 it’s unclear to me what point you think you’re countering and also, i have no idea what you’re talking about.

but as with anything i have plenty of thoughts

#1: i have two thoughts about this one

the first is that this is, first and foremost, a writing issue. for whatever reason, the writing team was not interested in digging into cassandra’s character arc in s3, and they also were not interested in developing zhan tiri as a character, and they really were not interested in elaborating on the cass + zhan tiri friendship whatsoever. the end result of this lack of interest is that all of this character development is gestured at or loosely implied, and the vast majority of their relationship occurs off screen. we are shown their first meeting in relative detail, given a handful of brief glimpses that mostly comprise zhan tiri saying a line or two while cassandra listens and glares, and then given the end result of cass doing whatever zhan tiri tells her to do until a narratively convenient plot device is inserted to make her stop. the character development in this arc is extremely poor. no one is arguing that it isn’t.

however my second thought is that, as a consequence, “cass travels with this person for almost a year without ever asking her name or trying to find out anything about her” is not, in fact, canon. that’s a matter of interpretation. (eg: i spent the entirety of the first half of the season assuming that of course cassandra knew who zhan tiri was, my reaction to CR in this regard boiled down to “well if cass didn’t already know that was zhan tiri she certainly does NOW,” RTTS did nothing to change my mind, and i was legitimately taken aback when OAH confirmed that cass just didn’t know. all of this was a plausible interpretation because so little of the cass + ziti relationship actually develops on screen. there is SO MUCH information missing.)

the point being: the only canonical information we have regarding zhan tiri’s identity and cassandra’s knowledge thereof is that cassandra doesn’t learn zhan tiri’s true identity until OAH. this does not preclude cassandra pressing the issue and zhan tiri lying to her by telling her a fake name, or feigning ignorance (a la “i’ve been trapped in that house for as long as i can remember and i have no idea where i came from or who i was before then,” which is absolutely a plausible cover story given the kind of things tromus pulled off whilst team corona was trapped in the HOYT and that cass herself has very recent experience with magical memory loss), or masquerading as an aspect of the moonstone itself (which is at least plausible enough that a good chunk of the fandom theorized that that’s who she was in the early half of the season).

there is, frankly, no evidence to support interpreting cassandra’s “who are you?” as “i’ve literally never asked this question before” instead of “you told me things about yourself that i believed but it’s not adding up anymore so i’m confronting you on your lies” or vice versa, because... we just don’t know. i personally favor the latter interpretation over the former, because it makes more sense to me, but the text is unclear.

all of which is to say: the post was about why cassandra trusts zhan tiri initially, a questions which - as i said in the original post - is answered very clearly on screen. there is not enough canonical information about the development of their relationship afterwards to do anything more than speculative analysis, ie headcanon, regarding how zhan tiri cultivated that trust. for what it’s worth my personal assumption is that zhan tiri continued to act as she does in RR, fostering the emotional connection between herself and cassandra, and that shortly after the stinger in who’s afraid of the big bad wolf (ie their second proper meeting) she gave cass some explanation of who she was and what she wanted. i also make the general assumption that they shared a lot of conversations during the long walk back to corona because it is ludicrous to imagine otherwise.

#2: cassandra is a commoner who was indoctrinated from birth with the cultural belief that the lives of the royal family are more important and have more inherent worth than her own. this only intensified once rapunzel returned to corona. cassandra exists in a system that chews her up and spits her out without so much as a thank you, and rapunzel is the center around which that system orbits. “rapunzel is the heir to the throne so of course she gets more recognition than cassandra, her servant” isn’t, in fact, a counterargument. that is exactly the problem. the world cass is in is inherently devalues her personhood. even her own father repeatedly prioritizes his duty to the monarchy over the wellbeing of his daughter.

in s1, cass is given guard duties which she is expected to fit around her already extremely busy schedule as a maid and lady-in-waiting to the princess, all without ever being made an actual member of the royal guard. she is given, in other words, all of the work and responsibility without any of the recognition, salary, benefits, or job security afforded to actual guards, and she is expected to do it during her scant time off. and she does it all with the constant unspoken threat of being sent to a convent against her will if she screws up looming over her head. that’s not... privilege or an opportunity, that’s flat out exploitation.

even in SOTS, she is only put in command of the assault on old corona because most of the higher officers of the guard are out of commission, including the captain. and this happens mere hours after her father forcibly sends her to a convent, which really underscores what little autonomy cassandra has in her life and how capricious and arbitrary any “opportunities” that come her way in corona are.

yes, she is better accepted in vardaros and the queen of ingvarr did at one point extend an invitation for her to join the battalion in ingvarr, but—again, that’s not really a counterargument. “cassandra would have to leave her home and move to a foreign kingdom in order to be treated with respect and live as her authentic self” is an enormous indictment of corona itself.

#3: the vardarans are less than receptive to rapunzel attempting to force her sunny demeanor onto them and react with hostile indifference when she persists even after being told—by multiple people including vex, quaid, cassandra, and iirc eugene—that her behavior was not wanted or welcome. they make their opinions known without making any attempt to soften the blow, but—with the one exception of “ya clod” lady—none of them harass or bully her. i’m not sure where you’re getting “they treat her like dirt” from. they treat her like people who are annoyed with having someone else’s culture jammed down their throats by some foreign princess, which,

cass, by the same token, enjoys being surrounded by people she “clicks” with and with whom she can just relax and be herself, and she repeatedly cautions rapunzel against trying to make the vardarans act, think, and feel like coronans... in other words, she advises rapunzel to be culturally sensitive. and she’s right to do so. cass doesn’t start gloating about being better liked until after rapunzel lashes out at her and makes a huge deal out of cass’s events being different / more in tune with vardaran culture than her own.

#4: things rapunzel does a full year after cass meets zhan tiri in the shell house are not relevant to the question of why cass trusts zhan tiri in the shell house and also lol no... she doesn’t? these are the lyrics of i’d give anything:

[RAPUNZEL] I know we've grown apart It breaks my heart in two I miss your company The closeness we once knew

I won't pretend to know Just what you're going through But I'd give anything for you Yes, I'd give anything to relive everything with you So if you find that you're in darkness or despair Though you won't turn to me Please know I'll be right there Name any sacrifice I'll pay the price that's due 'Cause I'd give anything for you Yes, I'd give anything to relive everything we knew Yes, I'd give anything For you

i don’t... know how to read an expression of apology or even just acknowledgement of wrongdoing into this song because it... isn’t there. this is the exact same sentiment rapunzel spends the entirety of s3 expressing, which is that she misses her friendship with cass and would do anything to get it back and she doesn’t understand why cassandra is so upset. and frankly it really. does not reflect well on rapunzel as a character because cassandra explains her grievances very clearly at the beginning of the season: “my whole life, i’ve been cast aside for you. no more,” followed by, you know, the entirety of crossing the line.

like even just... compare rapunzel’s lines at the top of crossing the line:

[RAPUNZEL] This has to stop now Whatever it is that you're going through We'll fix it together, me and you Just like we've always done

to her lines in i’d give anything:

I won't pretend to know Just what you're going through

there has been zero growth. zero recognition of the fact that cassandra has, by the time of i’d give anything, told rapunzel what she’s going through at least three times. (she laid everything out for rapunzel in the dark fortress after taking the moonstone; in gothel’s mirror room in TOTS, cassandra expressed her anguish over gothel’s abandonment and her feelings of inferiority; in OAH, cass used feldspar’s play to fumblingly express her difficulty sharing her feelings with rapunzel; and if you want to count the BVA rock telepathy and cassandra furiously screaming “i don’t follow your orders anymore!” in CR, that brings us to a total of five times that cassandra shares at least part of what she’s “going through” with rapunzel only for it to, apparently, go in one ear and out the other because by plus est raps is still like “what could POSSIBLY be GOING ON with cass.”)

the closest rapunzel ever comes to expressing her own wrongdoing is the mealy-mouthed “we both did things wrong” sentiment in OAH (“maybe you’re right and it is your fault, rapunzel... partially...”), which she then undermines by going essentially “but if you had just told me how you felt then none of this would have happened” (ignoring that cass... did... tell her how she felt... repeatedly... in s2...) and rapunzel acknowledging that it was probably annoying to deal with a sunny “flower child” when she was fresh out of the tower (which is true, but entirely glosses over her treatment of cass in s2). in the former instance it’s unclear what, if anything, rapunzel truly thinks she did wrong (certainly “not listening” isn’t it), and in the latter case she is apologizing for being ~too free-spirited~ in the first couple weeks after the tower which... wasn’t even the problem back then and certainly wasn’t the core problem in s2. and by her own admission in i’d give anything rapunzel still doesn’t even understand why cassandra was upset in the first place, let alone how she may have contributed to it.

like the utter dearth of development between cass and zhan tiri, this is ultimately a writing problem that reflects poorly on the character, rather than a character problem per se. for whatever reason, the writing team didn’t want to examine the legitimacy of cassandra’s actual grievances—which by extension meant that they couldn’t write rapunzel as having any awareness of those grievances, so the end result is cass obsessing over gothel and rapunzel spending the entire season baffled, just baffled, about what cass is so worked up about, all while sadly pining for the friendship they used to have and vocalizing a desire to get it back but simultaneously ignoring everything cass says about why she’s upset, because rapunzel listening to cass would require rapunzel to genuinely wrestle with her own role in what happened, which isn’t possible because that would loop us back around to all those legitimate grievances that the writers just didn’t want to (or couldn’t) deal with.

but tldr no at no point in the narrative of s3 does rapunzel genuinely acknowledge the actual things she did wrong by cass.

#5: i’m genuinely not sure why you think this is even relevant at all, unless you somehow read “cass did nothing wrong” into the argument of “it is both natural and reasonable for cass to trust the one (1) person who appears to give a damn about how she feels,” which i think says more about you than it does about me.

#rta

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ggyppt · 3 years

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In my 372nd review I take a look at The Falcon and the Winter Soldier 1x03 "Power Broker"

Spoilers Below

This episode finally feels like this show has settled into the grove of the larger narrative. Most of that has to do with the additions to the cast, most notably Baron Zemo (played by Daniel Brühl from the Alienist). Though, these additions also add a major level of frustration to the proceedings as well, which again, most of this centers around Zemo, they are still very welcome additions that ends up making the dynamics of the group finally feel complete. This, in turn, once again makes the previous episodes feel worse, and makes me actively not want to views those episode again cause they do feel left wanting knowing the places that the interactions go as the show goes forward. That in of itself is a major issue that this show keeps on doing, as rather than feeling like each episode is an improvement on the last, each episode has continually showed that those opening episodes were so much worse than I originally viewed them as, simply by being so much better at the functional aspects of being a show while barely being a better complete product than the previous episode.

Now, all that being said, we have to talk about Sharon Carter (played by Emily VanCamp from Revenge and The Resident) who comes back into the MCU with a splash. She is the star of this episode, between her absolutely amazing screen presence to the way she both feeds into and feeds off of the larger world of Mandripoor that she is existing in. With how naturally she fits into the seedy yet captivating realm of Mandripoor, the shifts that her character has taken offscreen feel natural. On the other hand, the fact that she feels natural in the world as a pre-established character ends up making Mandripoor feel like a grounded place that exists in this world, despite being a completely made up place. This balancing act hinges on the symbiotic relationship between Sharon and Mandripoor, and this show manages to pull it off. On top of that, Sharon is such a better presence in the fight scenes that we actually have the first truly engaging fight scene in the entirety of the series, though that falls away when it becomes a strict gunfight rather than letting Jess Durham’s (Emily VanCamp’s stunt double) skill in the close combat action.

Then we have Zemo, who ends up also working to seal up the hole that has been felt within the action scenes, and some of that credit must go to Daniel Brühl’s stunt actor Caine Sinclair. The character, portrayed by either Daniel or Caine, has such a strong physical presence in the scenes that your eyes are drawn to him even when he isn’t speaking. Then he starts talking and he becomes a fantastic counterpoint for our leads, and in the end, a much more interesting presence. That in of itself ends up exposing a foundational weakness in this show, where the actual characters we are supposed to be rooting for are far less interesting to engage with than the side characters that we know from previous experience that we are supposed to be rooting against. Now, while it is entirely possible for them to do a full face turn for Zemo, I find that highly unlikely, but once again, this is going to be an aspect of the show that will adjust as the full view of the series comes into focus.

Now, I’m going to take a second to explain terminology that I use. Face and Heel are two terms that I have stolen from wrestling, as I have found them to be more useful descriptors than hero and villain when it comes to talking out storytelling. This is because they end up having much simpler meanings that are also devoid of the moral factor that can sometimes make hero and villain bad descriptors. Face is just the person that you are supposed to root for, and the heel is the person you are supposed to be booing.

Thus, when we get into this situation where Karli (played by Erin Kellyman from Solo and Raised by Wolves) who is currently being depicted as a heel, and Zemo, a character who has traditionally been a heel, are both making great points that are important to be heard. In Karli’s case, speaking about how violence is the only way to get your point even heard a point that is a little too true to ignore in the current state of the public news cycle. In Zemo’s case, it’s his small speech on how we make people into icons and forget their faults, something that this society consistently does from the level of influencers all the way up to basically every president we’ve had for my entire lifetime. In turn, by putting the words through the mouths of the heels, they are vilifying them. That in turn, makes me opposed to the viewpoint of the show, in a sense, thus, untethering me from the reality that the show is trying to present. I cannot sink into and just enjoy this show because of the way they present these things, and to be uncritical of these things, alongside other things this show has done like their costuming (which I will not be letting go of) is to be complicit in a non-functional status quo that this show is advocating in favor of.

Now, that isn’t to say that this show isn’t also above villainizing its representation of global power, in the fact that is has continually showed US Agent to be actively at odds with the common people, with the opening scene actively throwing shade at the United States and their habit of playing global police. Instead, the show seeks to push the perspective that the right way is to leave the deciding of global right and wrong in the hands of these symbolic people, aka superheroes, a thing which Zemo has already been actively criticizing in a compelling fashion. This ends up leaving the show at odds with itself in ways that are down to perspective and performance more than anything else, which has caused major issues for this episode.

Then we have the ending, which is the closest to an actually effective cliffhanger that this show has gotten to. While it doesn’t quite have the feel of the actively game changing cliffhangers that WanderVision created, it is still something that leaves a hook behind that will create interesting drama heading into the next episode. The implications of which end up being a lot more, ‘how will they get out of this situation,’ and less the much more compelling, ‘what does this mean and how do we need to reevaluate what we already know’. This show really has been suffering from being the follow-up to WandaVision as it hasn’t lived up in any regard, but this is probably the regard that it has fallen the furthest behind on.

Overall, this is a major improvement in the actual functional aspects of the show, making it feel much more cohesively an actual TV show, rather than just a long movie. Though, this episode ends up creating those improvements at the detriment of it’s previous offerings rather than making this episode an obviously better complete product. Add this too some of the questionable presentation of political ideas that this show has put forward, which don’t work for me but that quality will vary person to person. This barely feels like an adequate episode of television, one with some of the worst foundations of a show that I have seen function as well as this one does, since the two lead characters are the worst part of the show at this point. 7/10

#ggyppt reviews #spoilers #the Falcon and the Winter Soldier

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hypnoticwinter · 3 years

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110 Epigrams, in no particular order

1. there is no such thing as bad writing so long as you are saying what you mean to say the way you mean to say it to the people you mean to hear it.

2. prose is only inexcusably purple when it is pretentious or unnecessarily complex.

3. the most important part of any relationship is knowing what you want and knowing what they want.

4. you handicap yourself if you have power but refuse to exercise it.

5. characters don't have to be likeable and don't have to grow, but they do have to have logical motives for their actions.

6. everything is art, but that doesn't automatically make it worthy of discussion.

7. literature is multidimensional and the original author should not be placed on a pedestal; however, the original author should also not be completely disregarded.

8. intelligence is the ability to take in knowledge and dissect it; wisdom is the ability to use it in your life.

9. the good don't need the law and the bad don't obey it.

10. in great attempts, even to fail is glorious.

11. it's not what you do with your life, it's how you feel about it. If you're content, nothing else matters.

12. the quickest and laziest way to solve a problem (provided the entire problem is completely solved) is always the best way.

13. money can't buy happiness, but it can buy fun.

14. irony has come to define people and their vain struggle to escape the cage only accentuates its existence.

15. either have something new to say or a new way to say something old.

16. you shouldn't marry someone unless you'd still do it if there was no cake, no celebration, no witnesses, no rings, and the only thing you got from it was a little piece of paper that said 'ur marid now grats.'

17. never buy people things they are better at selecting themselves.

18. being truthful is preferable to lying, but if you have to lie, do it to anyone but yourself.

19. the point of marketing is to make people think they want your product.

20. you can have an infinite set without having all possibilities.

21. morals are for people who want to feel better than anyone else, but can't get money or sex.

22. people only do things because it benefits them in some manner.

23. a law is only as powerful as the apparatus that enforces it.

24. being fat is prole, but having a lot of muscles is prole too.

25. you're not a dog, so don't reward yourself with food.

26. the only person who will always be there for you is yourself.

27. you're not as good as people say you are, and you're not as bad as people say you are.

28. if you need to do it with friends to have fun, then it isn't fun.

29. to feel sorrow is to deserve forgiveness.

30. we never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.

31. slang is the weapon of elitism.

32. art should never be censored.

33. someone fucking someone over because of the bottom line makes sense, but getting fucked over because people are friends irks people the worst way.

34. trust the written word the least, the spoken word a little more, and actions the most. The way people act is the way they feel.

35. carefully cultivated vagueness is any artist's best friend. Let your audience fill in most of the blanks themselves and they'll invent things much more fantastic and memorable than you ever could.

36. no matter how little you care about what other people think of you, their opinions of you still affect you.

37. saying 'then you do it better' is never a valid response to criticism.

38. if you don't respect yourself, nobody else will.

39. make no more enemies than necessary.

40. when people say 'just be yourself' what they really mean is 'don't try to trick me' or 'don't get uppity.'

41. true communication is distinguishing between when the other person doesn't understand you and when they do understand you but don't care.

42. it is always the speaker's responsibility to ensure their message is heard.

43. how hard you work does not and should not affect the value of something you create.

44. the government is a tool to serve a purpose; it should never be the focus of love or unconditional loyalty.

45. finding an aspect or the entirety of a work of art offensive is not a good reason to not absorb and attempt to appreciate it.

46. either have substance or have form.

47. the surest way to identify constitutional weakness in someone is if they phrase their insults and other opinions in the form of a question for no reason; people only do this when they don't believe in themselves because they're afraid of their own voice.

48. the best scams of all are the ones that punish people for not partaking: marriage, taxes, degrees.

49. if you can't bear your power/status gracefully, you don't deserve it.

50. the secret to empathy is to suggest something believable enough that the other person thinks that's what they were thinking.

51. whenever you feel you must do something, make sure you are doing it because you want to do it, not because someone else thinks you ought to. Note that the two are not always mutually exclusive.

52. you cannot feel shame unless you already harbor guilt.

53. it is the responsibility of the commissioner of a task to ensure that it is done to their liking; it is the responsibility of the doer of a task to ensure that it is done to the best of their ability.

54. ignorance is never shameful unless it is willful.

55. once an individual accepts the inherent injustice in the world, all things become just.

56. for praise to be worth something, it has to come from a higher source; thus the object of praise lifts the praise-giver to a superior level.

57. success in life does not come from actual virtue or competence, it comes instead from appropriately and frequently signaling one's holiness through ideological gang signs.

58. people do things publicly so others will notice them. What people do when they're alone is what they truly enjoy.

59. it is difficult to be kind to a person who wants nothing.

60. trying to be calm is not calmness.

61. it is safer to beg than to take, but finer to take than to beg.

62. you are only as good as your latest work.

63. being a victim has become a currency and like all currencies, it is counterfeited.

64. faith is a tool that becomes more necessary when an individual is living close to death.

65. poetry is the only art not consumed by its 'fans' ... it is an art divided between snobs, who refuse to accept any but classical poetry, and other snobs, who ape contemporary poets with none of the requisite skill or understanding.

66. companies are sociopathic entities. They don't have any empathy or desire to help people, nor should they. Their only purpose is to function efficiently and produce money, and it's the government's function to impose human values on them through regulations.

67. if you're actually proud of something, you won't be offended when someone uses it as an insult against you.

68. silencing an opponent through brute force rather than logic makes them a martyr.

69. people want sympathy, not solutions.

70. rules have no inherent power, and people no inherent obligation to follow them. Rather, the enforcers of rules are the ones with power, and rules are only obeyed out of fear of punishment. Corollary: the degree to which a particular rule is obeyed is directly related to the power or aggression of the enforcer of that particular rule. Hence why everybody obeys the law of gravity and nobody obeys laws against jaywalking.

71. people do not normally react aggressively to honest, non-aggressive criticism unless there is an underlying insecurity about the thing being criticized.

72. never put a person in a position where they have to defend themselves, even if they're wrong.

73. never apologize to people who do not believe in forgiveness.

74. never pick up something you aren't willing to put down.

75. if you can't change the situation, change your view of it.

76. the best way of learning is to accept your ignorance and regress to a childlike state where you are not ashamed of not knowing what you are doing and you are free to experiment even with the most basic elements of what you are trying to learn.

77. if you are proud of your country you are either a thug or you haven't read enough history.

78. justice without dispassion is rarely justice.

79. do not do anything for someone that they can do for themselves.

80. the truly marginalized people are the ones you never hear about.

81. change is not the same as progress.

82. the more irrational and bizarre a person's beliefs are, the more their subjective viewpoint is proven to exist.

83. believe in the ideal, not the idol.

84. know when to stop.

85. it is impossible to argue with someone who knows they are right.

86. when you reduce your character to one aspect of yourself, you will begin to assume that every criticism levelled against you stems from prejudice against that aspect instead of any legitimate wrongdoing on your part.

87. trust no information that was transmitted or created in exchange for money or favors.

88. praise the person, not the act.

89. giving an excuse means that you are not sorry.

90. looks depreciate.

91. you will only change if you see a need to.

92. if you want to be noticed, be irreducible. The larger the box you can be shoved in, the more you will stand out.

93. make no quotes in languages you don't speak unless you are certain of what you are saying.

94. a bad defense looks worse than silence.

95. do unto others as they do unto you.

96. if you can't explain something to someone, it's not because they're stupider than you are.

97. if the worst someone can do to you is yell at you, they are no threat.

98. groups are not defined by the outliers.

99. make decisions with irreversible outcomes rarely and with grave consideration.

100. those who refuse to follow are doomed to lead.

101. tribalism allows for blatant hypocrisy without even a trace of self-awareness.

102. a sequel should not undo what was done in the original, it should instead expand on it without damaging the original's legacy.

103. the only people against gatekeeping are those it's meant to keep out.

104. the only human right is the right not to have to do things that you don't want to do, and it is violated wholesale.

105. fudge everything you can get away with.

106. the only law is might makes right, all else is vanity.

107. believing features of a different culture are by default sacred is just a sophisticated way of insulting them for being savages.

108. never attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by malice.

108a. sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

109. anything good that flows downstream is an accident.

110. you can't gatekeep if you don't own the keys.

#writing #inspiration #alt lit #writeblr

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kingofthewilderwest · 5 years

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To me the solution in the The Hidden World felt disproportionate to the dangers in the film.

The movie says dragons need to leave to be safe from dangerous humans and to live optimally as wild animals. Those concepts I can get behind. Where I hesitate is that I don’t feel the movie showed these problems to be great enough to push our protagonists into the dragons-must-leave solution. I’m not saying this in anger or hate or anything, but mulling reflection of why I didn’t feel THW to be convincing in where the story needed to be most convincing.

I don’t like playing the “Cowell’s books did it better!” card because the DreamWorks franchise and book series are distantly related cousins, each beautifully unique in their own fashions. But I think it’s useful to mention the book series to illustrate my point about why THW needs a bigger sense of problem to make the movie’s solution charitable. The books also conclude dragons and humans need to separate because civilization is too dangerous for dragons; someday the species may be ready to intermingle, but it’s not this era.

But in the books, the incompatibility between humans and dragons is hammered hard. The Barbaric Archipelago is launched into a three way war between dragons who want humans dead, humans who want dragons dead, and humans and dragons who want to unite in peace. Berk is torched to oblivion by dragon armies; the Hairy Hooligans are thrown into slavery; Stoick is stripped of leadership; one of Hiccup’s best friends hesitates to support him; Hiccup flees into exiled hiding to survive; Hiccup is betrayed by family to be interrogated and tortured by enemies; Hiccup nearly loses his best friend; Hiccup watches family die sacrificing themselves to keep him and his goal alive; the entirety of Viking civilization is thrown into war-torn chaos in which the genocide of one or multiple species is a terrifying hair’s width away. All of this is compounded by the archipelago’s deep history, a history which extends into the distant past... and continues to affect the present. It’s the pact Hiccup the First made with the dragons being broken; Hiccup the Second leading a protest with the dragons he grew up with, and his own father murdering him for his “betrayal”; Furious being chained for decades, growing increasingly angry of the injustices against dragonkind; Grimbeard, guilt-ridden, hiding his King’s Things in preparation for someone who could handle the monarch mantle better; and an entire society overflowing with hostile, hateful, brutal Vikings and dangerous dragons.

So, in the books, the reason the dragons leaving makes sense and emotionally feels like the right solution is because:

The incompatibility between humans and dragons in this current time is hammered hard. Whatever environment we’re in, whatever characters we’re meeting, whatever villains we’re fighting, whatever part of the dramatic plot we’re going through, we’re constantly, concretely embedded in a world where we can see the issues between the two species. It’s obviously a dangerous, hostile world.

Hiccup spends his entire life working with dragons to improve society. He never gives up. In fact, he makes significant progress in creating a better world. Decades of his kingship he spends working with the dragon queen to try to build a compatible environment. There’s sense of accomplishment. Still, in the end, it’s a matter of civilization moving in two steps forward, one step back: they’re making progress, but it’s obvious society isn’t ready for true unity. When the dragons disappear, it’s a bittersweet but obviously inevitable solution.

The movies of course don’t need to drill into slavery, torture, and a three-way havoc-wreaking war to make their point dragons need to disappear as the most charitable solution, but it still didn’t feel as though there were danger enough to satisfyingly explain Hiccup’s choice.

The first reason for why THW’s problems don’t feel pressing enough is that the villains don’t feel embedded enough in their own world. The warlords and Grimmel sort of... float... in this universe. We don’t concretely see how they’re impacting the archipelago; they’re hunting dragons, but what do those environments look like after the dragons have been hunted down? They’re conquerors, too, so what do human civilizations look like after they’ve marched through? Where is the rest of dragonkind and humanity in this equation? The only interaction we get between the villains and their world is how they related to Hiccup; it makes them feel much less dangerous and less widespreadly impacting. Grimmel is meant to represent humanity’s hostilities, such that Hiccup knows humanity isn’t ready for dragons. But when all we see is some vaguely-shown warlords who don’t do war, and a dragon hunter who kills one dragon total in the film, it doesn’t feel like the dragons are in such a dangerous situation that their entire archipelago is incompatible with them. Once Grimmel’s defeated at the end of THW, and no one knows where New Berk is located, why can’t we resume a life where peace between humans and dragons was actually working? They might try to say it’s only a matter of time before someone else comes to endanger them again, but does the way the story presents our enemies make that feel believable?

Hiccup’s had mixed luck with humanity and its hostility. But there’s been luck. In the movie franchise, he managed to create peace by changing Stoick and the Hairy Hooligans’ minds about dragons. He managed to convince Eret, a dragon trapper, to live in a dragon utopia. He convinced Valka, an elusive vigilante who hid dragons from humans, that there could be peace between species. Sure, Hiccup didn’t convince Grimmel, his warlords, and Drago... but that’s still just about 50% of his cases. The movie franchise has shown Hiccup having notable success in convincing a good amount of powerful people that dragons and humans can live in harmony. Why would Grimmel be a breaking point? Grimmel doesn’t feel significantly more dangerous - and both he and Drago get defeated *BECAUSE* humans and dragons are working together.

We need to feel a much more overarching, oppressive, widescale hostile environment. Otherwise, it’s hard to emotionally process and logically accept that dragons are in “such” a dangerous position they need to return to the Hidden World’s safety. Are the dangers Grimmel present really so impacting and widespread for the dragons to need to flee the entire world? To me, it doesn’t feel like it. We need more sense of danger, and widespread danger, and widespread ideology, for why humanity and dragons can’t coexist.

And if we want to go beyond the movies into the comics, video games, and television series (which THW references), we have even more instances of Hiccup gaining victory. Mildew, Heather, Alvin, Dagur, Viggo, Bayana, Oswald, Mala and the Defenders of the Wing, Atali and the Wingmaidens, and the Berserkers all started off as threats but became dragon-supporting allies. Sure, there were a few people like Krogan and Johann who remained hostile until the end... but given as Hiccup has such a history of success and making successful ground, and the world has repeatedly shown it can accept dragons and live in peace with them... it doesn’t help THW’s conclusion. Whether we’re looking just at the movie trilogy or the broader DreamWorks universe, we have this issue.

HTTYD 2 hits the idea Hiccup is the dragon uniter. He has “the heart of a chief and the soul of a dragon,” who can “bring [their] worlds together.” He is the one who preached “We are the voice of peace, and bit by bit, we will change this world.” There’s nothing wrong with reversing these messages from HTTYD 2 if presented with strong enough opposition. That can be an interesting, successful move in storytelling. But THW doesn’t present a hostile-enough world, especially not widespread enough of a hostile world, to merit the conclusion “the dragons cannot live with humans - period.”

Especially not when the way every hostility has been defeated... is through the peace between humans and dragons. Again, Hiccup defeated Drago because his love for Toothless was so powerful that it overpowered the Bewilderbeast’s hive mind. The humans and dragons stood together to defeat the enemy, fight back. The Red Death was defeated, bettering lives for all local dragons and humans, because a boy rode a dragon. And THW antagonists were defeated when the dragon riders fought with their dragons (down to Hobgobblers being a help) and Hiccup helped the Light Fury save Toothless. Yes, they wouldn’t have been in conflict with Grimmel in the first place if they weren’t living with dragons. And even if we ignore the question “Isn’t that Grimmel’s blame being a hostile warlord, not Berk’s problem being promoters of positive social change?” ...which could be somewhat solved by saying “We still need to protect our own, that’s our responsibility, whatever others are doing”... the challenge is that, obviously, ideologically and strength-wise we’re seeing which way the world is turning: that in favor of a unity between species.

The second reason why THW’s problems don’t feel pressing enough is because of how the dragons’ animal needs are presented. Are the dragons really so dampened in their lives because they’re not in the wild? I don’t think the movie presents that in a strong enough way.

First, we see Berk is overcrowded to the point of ridiculousness; Hiccup has tried to bring every dragon he’s rescued here. As cool as it looks, it is a disaster and cannot keep going this direction. Hiccup’s denying it (as is a theme of the movie: Hiccup denying what needs to be done). But the issue isn’t that humans and dragons are incompatible, as this point tries to suggest; it’s that Hiccup is trying to babysit EVERY dragon he’s come across. Not every dragon needs to be taken in and domesticated. You can rescue wild dragons, return them to the wild, but still live in a society where you ride your own dragon and everyone’s happy. You can have domesticated dragons and rescue other dragons, too, without worrying about draconic overpopulation in your urban areas.

Next, the main crux of the story is highlighting Toothless and his call to the wild. Just like Grimmel is meant to be a symbolic microcosm of an overarching human threat (humans = dangerous), so does the Light Fury mean to symbolically represent the second issue (dragons = wild animals). But it’s not easy to extract an overarching conclusion (all dragons need to be free) from the one case instance we watch. So this is an issue for Toothless. But what about Stormfly? Meatlug? Hookfang? Barf and Belch? We don’t see those dragons having any struggles living a more domesticated life. Stormfly’s got zero restrictions for living with Astrid, from everything I’ve seen. It’s presented in THW as an isolated incident with Toothless, exactly because he hasn’t been in companionship with one of his own kind before. Toothless’ problem is his own and can’t be generalized to every dragon of Berk - and yet in the end of the movie, everyone just magically, wordlessly seems to come to the conclusion “oh yeah all our dragons are incompatible with our lives because they’re wild animals.”

We saw the dragons go into happier existence once they came to Berk. When they were wild animals in the first movie, they lived under the Red Death’s terrifying shadow. If they didn’t bring back enough food to the island, they would be eaten themselves. The dragons found peace, happiness, and satisfaction when they started intermingling with humans post-Red Death. Arguably, by THW’s times, dragons are the safest they’ve ever been with humans.

Yes, there’s absolutely an argument to be made that Drago and Grimmel abuse dragons (they also abuse humans, note note), and there will always be people like them popping up to abuse dragons... so it’s TOTALLY the best move for the dragons to leave... they’ll still need protection... There’s lots of logic to be had there. Self-defensive measures are the right measures to keep everyone alive. THW wants to provide that reasoning. But in light of the fact changes are happening, this is not the right point for the revelation to hit that dragons should go. From the audience’s emotional perspective, it feels “incomplete.” In the movie, characters could have had a large discussion “more dragon killers like this will just keep popping up, over and over and over, and even though we’re winning the fights, it still means putting the dragons in danger” - but I think that doesn’t get presented hard enough in THW to put the could-have-been-there believability... actually there. And that’s my point - not what THW tried to say, which is a good idea, but how it doesn’t come across as enough in its actual addressal of the topic.

Third, the reason why THW doesn’t feel pressing enough is how the relationships between Hiccup and Toothless versus Toothless and the Light Fury were handled. I’m still having difficulty finding the words to say what I mean, but I suppose I can try!

What’s meant to be shown is Toothless being drawn back into the wild. His needs need to be met there. The Light Fury is meant to represent that call back and what a wild animal needs to live a fulfilling life. When he sees her, after so long alone as the only member of his kind, his needs “click,” and he chases after what’s been missing ever since he left his kind.

For me, I feel as though this could have been handled better. Because the story put romantic undertones in Toothless and the Light Fury’s interactions (characters calling her a “girlfriend,” Toothless doing human flirtatious moves and actions, even the soundtrack providing titles like “Third Date”), it comes across to audiences in a romance > friendship angle. Hiccup, a friend of six years, isn’t enough for the Light Fury, a potential mate he barely knows. While the story wasn’t trying to make this about “friendships and romances are incompatible” or “romances are more fulfilling than friendships,” that concept still feels underlying in what THW presents to audiences.

Because of that, it feels like Toothless’ need to go back to the wild... isn’t actually a need to go back to the wild. It didn’t feel like Toothless’ life was stifled from being with humans so much as he was wanting to interact with one female. I know the movie also showed Toothless in the Hidden World, presenting himself as a “true king” (aka, what a real dragon leader can do when in a wild environment), but it was such a small part of the movie that the message of Toothless going after a female overshadows any other facets the story might have wanted to present.

To get the sense Toothless needs to be with his kind for wildness-related reasons, we could have watched him get emotionally fulfilled with others of his kind without a romantic connotation (that way, the “Am I not enough for you?” comment from Hiccup wouldn’t accidentally come across as “friendship isn’t enough”). Showing Toothless interacting meaningfully with other Furies, not just one Light Fury, and feeling particularly restless when with the humans, might have helped. His being bowed to by dragons in the Hidden World doesn’t come across as need fulfillment, after all, so it’s really just about him and our lady Light Fury.

It also might have helped to show Toothless interacting back-and-forth more with Hiccup in conflicted ways, to help us understand what he felt about their friendship. We don’t get enough of Toothless’ thoughts about Hiccup - it’s just him on the Light Fury all the time - that all of Hiccup’s selfless actions to let Toothless go end up feeling too one-sided to me. I know they had Toothless somewhat abruptly whiplash to the Light Fury to show what he needed, but the result was it was hard to feel everything Toothless should have been emoting. We got the sense he was interested in her. I don’t think we got a sense of how he felt conflicted or restricted in a human world. I don’t think we got a good sense of how this was impacting his relationship with Hiccup. While obliviousness of hurt your friend feels is a thing, the lack of Toothless engaging with Hiccup’s feelings throughout the film makes it hard for us to get a sense of his complicated situation and underlying needs.

I also think it might have helped to show more dragon society stuff. To show Toothless needing to protect his kind. This would both augment his needs as an individual, and the whole species’ needs. He’s the king of dragons, but we don’t see him restricted in helping them, or even see him feeling much need to protect them when he’s with humans. He’s focused on one Light Fury, not on concerns of where his entire species will end up or what his species as a whole will need. If all domesticated dragons need wild freedom and Toothless is the protector over them, it could have been interesting to see him interacting on that front. I could take or leave that... but... more to what I thought would help: If Toothless is the leader of all dragons and needs to protect them, it would have been nice to see his characterization and plot arc handle more with what Grimmel is doing to dragons as a whole... not just interacting with the Light Fury and being concerned when he and she get captured. Why can’t we get Toothless trying to help his whole kind integrally in this plot?

So because it turns, unintentionally or no, into this concept that Hiccup’s friendship isn’t enough, and can be quickly snapped out of when another Fury is near, it doesn’t feel satisfying that the solution is “goodbye friendship forever.” The intention is to be a moment of Selfless Sacrificial Love on Hiccup’s part to give Toothless something he uncompromisingly needs. And I LOVE Selfless Sacrificial Love. To be willing to give everything, even your own happiness, for someone you love... is the ultimate gift of friendship. But what should have been Selfless Sacrificial Love in this moment to me felt like “friendship isn’t enough.”

It’s also hard to play these call to the wild aspects, given the rest of the franchise. We see Toothless in GOTNF not go to the island for dragon-raising instincts when he could have flown there free; instead, he spends several days fishing out Hiccup’s helmet from the ocean. We see Toothless manage to break free of a natural Bewilderbeast draconic hive mind because he’s so connected to Hiccup, and fight against a dragon that his species would otherwise accept as alpha. We see Toothless destroy a tail that would allow him to get the freedom he needed... because he’d rather be codependent with Hiccup. We see the friendship needs overpower some of Toothless’ other wild animal instincts. Beyond those instinct moments, the franchise so much plays into how deep Hiccup and Toothless’ love is for each other, that THW’s a pull to the wild has to be very convincing to feel like it’s actually a greater need than Toothless’ emotional needs being met through the friendship of a lifetime.

I’ve had several people say it’s an understandable if bittersweet “growing up story” because, once we’re adults, we don’t see our friends as much. It’s important to be able to “let go” and let everyone live our lives. But that’s to the detriment of our society, not its strengths. There’s a reason younger generations are so freaktastically lonely and emotionally struggling. We’re not getting the human interactions we need. Letting go of a friendship doesn’t have to be a bad thing if you *HAVE* to leave - but unless there’s a VERY VERY VERY compelling reason to leave a friendship - staying in touch with someone will always be a plus. Human interaction is happiness. It’s not an “adult” thing to be less attached. It’s a societal problem that deals with the fact we’re not putting people as important and integral in our lives as we should be.

Wanting to stay friends with someone isn’t selfish. It’s selfish when you’re wanting something so bad that it’s to their detriment and there’s no possible compromise. THW wants to say Hiccup holding on is futilely trying to cling to something that can’t be, unless to Toothless’ detriment. However, it doesn’t feel like there’s enough to actually leave this friendship of a lifetime. Sure, Hiccup and Toothless shall always love each other, but to physically separate? Is THW actually compelling enough in how it frames Toothless’ needs... to suggest these overpower everything his relationship to Hiccup has been?

There are other reasons I’m unconvinced, but I’ll stop here. In short, I feel like neither main reason in THW for the dragons to leave was presented strongly enough that dragons had to leave. THW didn’t do enough to make the human world feel hostile enough. THW didn’t do enough to make the draconic call to the wild feel incompatible enough with humanity.

Since there wasn’t enough weight or danger or pressing issues, Hiccup separating from Toothless didn’t feel like the “necessary” solution. It didn’t feel like he had to let Toothless go. We got what it was going for, but it didn’t actually show us what it needed to make the separation feel the best course of action.

The concepts aren’t bad - they’re even lots of the same concepts of the books! - but this is why I feel a little iffy about how it was handled. Not to say it was terrible, or that I hated it. I don’t. This isn’t meant to be an angry post, because I’m not angry, but a reflective analysis. This is why I think there could have been more done to make what the story was trying to do... feel plausible.

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 5 years

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@trek-tracks

I'd read your rant! Also, you should see Beyond. I haven't seen ID, but I'm confident Beyond is WAY better than ST:2009 and, from what I've heard about ID (that it is a garbage fire), Beyond is not the one of the three to not see.

Yeah, I have heard that about Beyond, and I keep meaning to watch it. I’m not like actively avoiding it, it just sort of...hasn’t happened. I have a To Watch list about five miles long at this point that I just keep foregoing in favor of watching gaming videos on YouTube. It’s a sad life.

But here’s the rant (feel free to skip if you didn’t follow this blog to hear me complain about AOS):

My strong impression from the first two movies was that the writers misunderstood--or just, for whatever reason, chose to discard-- the dynamic that Kirk, Spock and Bones actually had in TOS.

In TOS there’s a very deliberate balance wherein Spock and Bones are on opposite ends of a spectrum of logic vs emotion/ lawful vs chaotic, and Kirk sits in the middle of that spectrum, getting the input from both ends and then turning that into balanced decision-making. (I know it’s deliberate because of that whole “I took one man and wrote him as three people” quote from Roddenberry.) It’s a great setup when it’s being used correctly because it gives you a built-in method of examining any situation that comes up in the show from multiple angles without sacrificing the drive of any of the characters.

Trying to write one single character covering the same total perspective as Spock, McCoy and Kirk can create combined would necessarily result in either a character who appears to be wildly indecisive at best and lacking in any consistent characterization at worst, or in paring down the range of that perspective to avoid the first thing happening. This is all especially important in a show with the set-up of Star Trek, where not only do you not have much time to deliberate because everything has to be solved in under 60 minutes and no we will NOT be revisiting any of it later, but your lead character is in a position of formal command, meaning you have very little room to allow him to be hesitant or indecisive in his decisions before he starts to look like he shouldn’t be in that job. Indeed, it’s made explicitly clear multiple times that any sign of hesitation on Kirk’s part will be taken by not just him but most of the crew and Starfleet as a sign that he’s losing ability to command. Because Spock and McCoy have different roles not just as characters but as crewmembers, they can give full attention to their respective angles in a way that Kirk alone could not without it looking like he was dithering, with the bonus that you can write it all as a natural (and entertaining) conversation rather than it coming off as forced exposition. You don’t need to have those kinds of discussions all the time--there are plenty of times when one or more of the trio is absent and things tick along just fine--but there are also times, IMO, when someone being missing or just poorly written makes things falter quite obviously, Where No Man Has Gone Before being the biggest example that comes to mind.

But instead of having Kirk be in the middle of this spectrum I may have just sort of made up, the AOS movies seem to take the tack of having Spock be at one end and Kirk at the other end. They’re portrayed as being complete opposites to such an extent that they’re at odds practically the minute they meet, and spend the entire first movie at each other’s throats because AOS!Kirk’s brash, reckless, emotion-driven, rules-ignoring personality clashes incompatibly with Spock being deliberate, logical, and law-abiding to the letter. There’s absolutely no indication in TOS that Kirk and Spock ever had that kind of relationship or that they had to get over any sense of rivalry before they became friends. Granted, TOS had such a lackadaisical approach to backstory that we don’t really know anything about how they did become friends, but we are told on more than one occasion (which, for TOS, is practically hammering the point in) that Kirk was himself was so serious and focused as a student (”positively grim”) that he attracted bullying for it. In other words, for as little solid backstory as we get, one thing TOS is clear on is that Kirk did not have an arc of being reckless and wild and having to learn some patience and sense--if anything he seems to have had an arc in the complete opposite direction, although not so much that he isn’t still a total workaholic.

So that of course very much impacts Kirk and Spock’s characterizations and dynamic, but it also impacts McCoy, because by sticking Kirk in McCoy’s usual role, McCoy himself is now left with very little to do but make snarky comments and stick hyposprays in people from time to time (which he does very well, but, still). Which is sort of both cause and effect, because the fact that the writers put Kirk in that position to begin with indicates to me that they didn’t understand and/or didn’t value the importance of McCoy, specifically, being in that spot in the first place. But it is important that McCoy is in that spot because I love him and he deserves it because McCoy as a character is in a much more natural position to serve that role than Kirk is.

This may seem like a tangent, but stick with me here: McCoy inherently has a different perspective towards Starfleet than Kirk. Than everyone in the main cast, really, but especially Kirk. Kirk’s character, his perspective, his role in life, his arc, his backstory, all are closely tied to his being in Starfleet. Kirk’s position in relation to Starfleet is so important that it’s part of if not the entirety of practically every bit of story or backstory he has. When we hear about Kirk’s history, we mostly hear about it in terms of where he was in Starfleet at the time: at the Academy, serving his first assignment as an ensign, being a lieutenant on the Farragut, etc. Kirk’s career is very much on his mind all the time and threats to it are the subject of conflict multiple times, not because he cares about climbing in rank for rank’s sake but because he needs that career, and that good relationship with Starfleet, to do the thing he is most meant to do in life: be a starship captain. It’s not a position he could have outside of Starfleet--maybe he could go command an independent ship of some kind, but it wouldn’t be the same thing, not really. Kirk’s not meant to be doing supply runs or carrying passengers or what have you; he wants to explore, he wants to be out there checking out the weirdest shit the universe has to offer, he wants to be doing something important. This is why it’s such a big deal that Kirk is willing to sacrifice his career to save Spock in the movies, because that career is his life.

Yes, Kirk doesn’t always agree with Starfleet, and he’s willing to break their rules if he really has to. But Kirk could never exist in the position he is in TOS, and he certainly couldn’t maintain that position, if he couldn’t agree with Starfleet on most things, and conduct himself in a way that they in turn found agreeable. You don’t get to be the captain of one of the most important ships in the fleet by fucking around. And he didn’t. He worked his ass off to get there! TOS Kirk might be a bit young to be a captain but not so much so that he didn’t have to climb up the ranks the old-fashioned way to get there. Meanwhile AOS had to have Kirk sneak onto a ship he wasn’t supposed to be on and then get rid of practically everyone else on said ship, right up to provoking the acting captain into a fistfight, to get Kirk into a position where it would be remotely plausible for him to be in command of the Enterprise. In AOS Kirk is characterized as being so at odds with Starfleet and the Starfleet way of doing things that it takes some very extreme circumstances to get him in a position to command the ship because there’s no way Starfleet would have actually chosen for him to do that.

The reason I’m putting all this emphasis on Starfleet is that in TOS, when it comes to questions of Following The Rules vs Doing What’s Right, Starfleet is the rules. If it’s a matter of Lawful vs Chaotic, Starfleet is going to be the law. Any time the characters are in a situation where they have to ask “Is it the right thing to do what the rules say we should be doing here? Could the rules be wrong?” the rules they’re debating are almost always going to be Starfleet rules. (When it comes to following non-Starfleet rules it’s usually not so much a moral matter as “okay following the rules might be the only way we’ll get this done but we’re not going to act like we like or agree with those rules.”)

So when it comes to putting a character in the position of being the one who’s emotional rather than logical, who’s the voice of Hang The Rules, I’m Doing The Right Thing, who’s there to say things that need to be said but aren’t really appropriate to just say in the societal rules we’re working under here--Kirk can do that to some degree, but it really doesn’t make sense for him to be the one on the far end of that spectrum. To have been in the Starfleet environment as long as he has, and to have been as successful in that environment as he has, he has to be someone who can thrive in that environment, who finds it more acceptable to work with than not, or at least can do a good job faking it.

But McCoy? McCoy’s coming at it from a completely different angle. McCoy didn’t join Starfleet out of any kind of lifelong pursuit, he basically did it on impulse because fuck it, he had nothing better to do with his life at the time. Being in Starfleet informs McCoy’s characterization far less than everyone else’s in the show; mostly it just informs his current physical location. His identity isn’t really wrapped up in being Starfleet personnel. His identity is wrapped up in being a doctor. He was a doctor long before he was Starfleet, and when being in Starfleet stops being a viable option he goes to be a doctor somewhere else (and to make regrettable fashion choices but that’s another topic entirely).

There’s a lot of little ways that McCoy shows that he doesn’t care a whole lot about the Starfleet way of doing things. He’s casually insubordinate to people who seriously outrank him. He inserts himself into situations and discussions that aren’t what his actual job calls for--there’s no real reason why the CMO would need to hang out on the bridge all the time but there he is. He complains about the dress uniforms. He usually forgoes referring to other crewmembers by their ranks if he can get away with using their first name instead. He doesn’t even sit right.

[ID: 1. McCoy sitting on the edge of Spock’s console on the bridge, 2. McCoy sitting on the edge of the briefing table with a cup of coffee, 3. McCoy sitting sideways in a shuttle chair while talking to Spock.]

And he has very little interest in his own rank, or in commanding anyone, or in generally behaving as if he’s a member of a military organization, something reflected in the fact that he in turn hardly ever gets referred to by his actual rank. McCoy is okay with ordering people around as a doctor--he’ll pull rank to get someone in for a physical, or make them sit down and rest when they’re injured, Jim, and since he has to he’ll run the rest of the medical department, whatever there is of it. But I think he sees that first and foremost as being a doctor, who just happens to have a few extra tools at his disposal to make his patients behave so hey, might as well use ‘em. But on the one occasion* when he’s called upon to actually act as a ranking officer in a completely non-doctoring-related matter, he gets so flustered about the whole thing that he has to ask the person he’s supposed to be ordering if he did it right. He’s not really interested in being in charge of anyone in any formal sense.

*The one occasion in the main show, at least, which doesn’t take into account Diane Duane’s extremely excellent novel Doctor’s Orders, in which McCoy winds up in charge of the Enterprise because Shenanigans, and spends the rest of the book having a massive extended anxiety attack about it. It’s so great.

So McCoy doesn’t look at things tactically in the same way that Kirk does. He doesn’t have to. It’s not his job. Not to say that McCoy never has to make any hard decisions, but as a character he functions much better than Kirk as the one who’s looking at the emotional aspect of things because most of the time, McCoy’s not the one who has to turn The Right Thing To Do into standing orders for 430 people that can actually be practically acted upon. He tends to have a more immediate, short-range focus, contrasting the way Spock tends to look at the biggest picture and Kirk, again, lands somewhere in the middle. McCoy thinks about individual people first and foremost. If the Enterprise is about to get into a skirmish with a Klingon ship, Kirk has to be thinking about what the outcome of that battle will mean for Federation-Klingon relations, about what he can do now that might save more lives down the road even if it puts some in danger right now, but McCoy will be thinking about the people who are about to be hurt, maybe killed, right now. Which is a great perspective for a doctor to have, and an important perspective for a captain to keep in mind, but it could never be the only perspective for a captain.

McCoy’s viewpoint is a very important one in the Watsonian sense that it’s useful for Kirk and in the Doylist sense that it contributes to the specific tone that TOS wanted to achieve. But it’s a viewpoint that has to be balanced for it to be effective both practically speaking and in story-telling terms. AOS missed that balance; by putting all their emphasis on Kirk and Spock being opposites they made McCoy more or less redundant. Which is a crying shame, because it’s an unforgivable waste of Karl Urban’s goddamn amazing performance. The thought of what he could have done if he’d had something more to work with is heartbreaking to me.

But McCoy goes unappreciated far too often in general. You know I once went looking for a TOS McCoy Funko Pop and they didn’t have one? They had a generic Andorian but they didn’t have McCoy. It’s an outrage! I had to make my own out of a Munny.

#interaction tag #trek-tracks #star trek talk #star trek AOS

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your-iron-lung · 5 years

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The Unsolved Chapter

aka, the crossover absolutely no one asked for; also available to read on AO3

Story Synopsis: While investigating what remains of the infamous Léry’s Memorial Institute for their popular channel, two Youtube celebrity ghost hunters go missing overnight, vanishing in a freak occurrence that has decided to lay claim to their souls.

While the world they were abruptly taken from grieves their absences and tries to figure out what befell the beloved comical duo, Ryan and Shane struggle to make sense of the new, terrible and violent reality they've woken up in. Drawn to a campfire that never seems to burn out, they meet others who have been condemned to the same, eternal fate and are forcibly taught how to survive in an attempt to keep their collective hope and souls alive.

Part 1 of 5

Chapter Word Count: 6031

Pairings: None; just a genfic

Genre: Survival Horror/Supernatural/Angst-y

Next Chapter: Part Two

Notes: uhh yep, here it is, a buzzfeed unsolved/dead by daylight crossover fic bc once i started to think about it, i couldnt stop. there will be temporary character death, lil bits of gore, and a fair amount of blood and violence in the story, just not in this installment. careful if you click the embedded link, as it might be loud

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‘Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters.’ Stephen King, The Shining

Léry’s Memorial Institute was probably the filthiest building Shane had ever stepped foot in, which, when you took into account just how many foul, decrepit locations he’d been to in the past, was really saying something. The building itself was beautiful in its own haunting way, as most older buildings often were, but Léry’s took the definition of ruined to a new extreme he’d yet to see before now. It was an architectural thing of beauty to be sure, but the grit and grime that covered the entirety of the stonework did manage to dampen his enthusiasm for exploring the dilapidated structure.

And he had been excited for it, originally; a chance to fly back to Illinois to shoot the season finale of Unsolved on his home turf had been generally appealing, even if he hadn’t heard of Michaelstown or Léry’s before. But then they’d all gotten their first look at the Institute, looming horribly tall over the long horizon of pines as they drove up to it from the bumpy dirt road, and he felt all his excitement leave his body in an instant, evaporating like a cold drop of water on hot asphalt.

The silhouette had been menacing and boxy, regal in an old fashioned way that modern constructions had abandoned in favor of more modern designs. It was, perhaps, one of the most imposing feats of architecture he’d ever laid eyes on; it certainly ranked up there with Waverly in his mind, and perhaps that was why he felt so inexplicably nervous as he’d looked at it. Rather than dwell on it, he compartmentalized his anxiety away in his brain and turned to make a comment about how spooky the hospital was to Ryan, but whatever effects looking at the building had had on him appeared to have hit his co-host three times as hard; Ryan’s brain already looked like it was melting, an expression of mute terror written plainly across his face.

Shane couldn’t fault him for that, considering his own momentary scare, and was actually grateful for his silence. If Ryan had pressed him for a comment on whether or not he thought Léry’s was haunted in that moment, then Shane might’ve reluctantly admitted that, in the event that ghosts were real, he wouldn’t be surprised to find a few here, but Ryan had been too horror-stricken to ask. In all actuality, no one on the team had been up for much conversation after that first initial glimpse, an uneasy vibe settling into all of them as they parked. They had all taken a moment to appreciate how terribly ominous it looked against the backdrop of a sunset red sky before TJ ushered them into their usual business routine, unpacking their equipment and getting their bodycams set up.

“Man, I feel like Jack Torrance walking into the Overlook here. This building feels downright predatory, man,” Ryan said, voice already shaking with nervousness.

Evening was falling fast upon them as they shuffled around in the entrance hall, carefully avoiding the large panes of broken glass and other debris that littered the floor. The layer of dust on the ground was so thick, distinct footprints could be seen as clear as though they’d been walking through snow, their tracks leading around in circles as they got their first look at the interior.

Shane hummed a noncommittal response as he shined his camera light around, disgusted by the amount of dust on the floor and in the air; if he were an asthmatic, he’d probably have run through several inhalers just from walking in.

“So tell me what I’m looking at here, Ryan; what’s the history behind this magnificent pile of rubble?” Shane asked as he nudged a thick piece of wood with the toe of his boot.

They would cover most of the history of Léry’s Memorial Institute in the voice over, but that wouldn’t be done until they got back to California and Ryan had yet to tell him much about the place. Keeping Shane in the dark about the past of some the places they went to was a good way to get genuine reactions out of him, but he felt that if they didn’t start bantering soon then Ryan would lose whatever was left of his poor, impressionable mind.

“I feel really weird,” Ryan said instead of answering, glancing around the area with wide, uncertain eyes. “There’s like, some kind of an energy in the air in here; do you feel it?”

“No,” Shane replied calmly, though that wasn’t entirely true. He could feel something akin to static in the air around them, but he didn’t register that as a supernatural phenomenon. The air felt charged in a way that reminded him more of an impending thunderstorm getting ready to unburden itself than it did of something unearthly. “It is a little chilly, though; probably should’ve worn more layers.”

“Good Christ, I hate it here already.” Ryan shuddered and rubbed at one of his arms as he turned to look down the dark hallway that lead further in. “Right, so. Léry’s. I couldn’t find any information on who the original owners were, or who built it, but I did find out that the original building was built sometime in the 1800’s.”

“This isn’t the original?”

Ryan shook his head and reluctantly took the lead in guiding them down the long, narrow hallway, adjusting the straps of his bodycam rig subconsciously as he went.

“Well, yes and no,” he said, stopping every few steps to shine his light and camera into any rooms they happened to pass. “The original building was just a really big mansion the owners lived in before they donated their land to the government; all this hospital space was added onto it during the Korean War to help rehab returning vets.”

“This is one hell of a remodeling job; the Property Brothers would be proud with how many square feet they managed to pump into this thing,” Shane remarked, grinning a little when Ryan let out a slight laugh. “So, army hospital?”

“Yep, up until the CIA took possession of it in the 60’s, and that’s where all my research brought me to dead ends. I couldn’t find what they wanted it for or what they did with it after they got it, but boy, the conspiracy theories run wild with this one.” He turned to flash Shane a conspiratory grin.

“Are you gonna use the voice on me?” Shane asked with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t lay it on too thick now; save some for the voice over.”

“Some say that the CIA turned Léry’s into a black site in order to perfect ‘information gathering’ techniques they’d wanted to put into practice during the war,” Ryan began, easily slipping into the professional tone of voice he used for narrations. The familiarity with which he spoke seemed to restore some of his confidence as they continued down the hall, as he no longer seemed to shrink away from the darkness surrounding them. “They reportedly hired a large number of staff to run the medical facility, but no records of anyone working here exist- at least to the public-, though there are rumors of one particular doctor who was well known for his sadistic use of electro-convulsive shock ‘treatments’.”

“Torture, you mean,” Shane said, shining his light into a room of indeterminate purpose. Ahead of him, Ryan nodded in affirmation. “Great, a secret torture hospital. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of angry, resentful ghosts to talk to here.”

Ignoring his comment, Ryan continued his monologue, clearly having spent time rehearsing it. “Supposedly. As the rumors go, they began implementing experimental interrogation methods on American citizens first before moving on to actual spies, and oh- oh my god, that’s a fucking big rat,” Ryan sputtered, his Unsolved voice breaking as he skipped back down the hall and almost knocked into Shane, who barely managed to sidestep his panicked retreat.

He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as he put an arm to Ryan’s shoulder to steady him before stepping ahead of him, shining his camera light into what looked to be a large reception area. It was wide and spacious, full of dark corners with plenty of dust and run down furniture covered in graffiti. The rat Ryan had stumbled upon was underneath one of the waiting room benches, turned over on its side and very clearly dead, though it was exceptionally large.

They stared at it together contemplatively for a moment before Shane said, “I gotta tell you, Ry, that I am not at all thrilled about spending the night here. I think I might ask my mom to call your mom to tell you I can’t come to your little sleepover.”

From behind, they could hear Mark laugh before stepping into the room, aiming the lens of his camera at the rat for a dramatic close-up they could potentially use to promote the episode.

“That’s disgusting, don’t film that,” Devon said, clicking her tongue in disapproval as she placed her hand in front of the camera lens until Mark lowered it off his shoulder. “This place is foul; I can’t say I envy you boys for staying here one bit.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Ryan muttered. “Hell, I might cancel the sleepover myself, no moms involved.”

“You can’t, you already walked out of one overnight this season,” TJ cut in, to which Ryan responded with a quietly spoken ‘fuck’ under his breath. “Let’s just start filming, yeah? The sooner we get this done, the sooner morning will come, the sooner you can leave. Now, where do you think you’re gonna want the static cams set up?” TJ asked as Mark held up the bags he’d carried in with them.

Against Devon’s wishes, they decided to film the intro for the episode in the lobby with the dead rat, the compromise being that Shane and Ryan had to sit on opposite sides of the hallway that lead back the way they’d come so that the rodent’s body wouldn’t make it into the final shot. This was agreeable to all of them, but as Shane sat there, waiting for the camera to start rolling, he couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering back to its corpse occasionally, trying to deduce what it could have died from.

They tried to film with what little natural light they had left, but the sun had already been sinking when they’d arrived. Whatever light it managed to provide ended up fading away too fast for them to effectively use, eventually prompting TJ to insist on bringing in big, bright lights so they weren’t stuck filming in the dark. As Shane squinted into the newfound light source, his eyes adjusting poorly to the brightness, he managed to get a better look at the room they were set up in.

Based on his own opinion and how little he actually knew about Léry’s, it certainly didn’t look like the kind of place run by a malicious, CIA sanctioned group of sadists; to him, it looked like a hospital, plain and simple. The white paint along the walls was cracked and peeling, revealing discoloured splotches of drywall that furthered the eerie, run-down atmosphere the building had as a whole. Regardless of that and the dead rat, there was nothing in the general vicinity that implied Léry’s might have been used for something as sinister as torture- they even had what looked to be remnants of vintage motivational posters decaying behind the reception desk. Despite how foreboding the building had looked from the outside, inside it both looked and felt normal, which made him wonder again about where his original discomfort upon viewing the building might have derived from.

“This week on the season finale of Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural, we’re investigating Léry’s Memorial Institute in Michaelstown, Illinois as a part of our ongoing investigation into the question, are ghosts real?”

Hearing Ryan’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. Unaware that they’d begun the segment, Shane turned to look at the camera Mark was holding and shook his head curtly on cue. The motion was well-practiced and concise, even if he was still squinting because of the lights.

He waited patiently as Ryan spoke of what he knew about Léry’s alleged history, repeating a lot of what he’d already mentioned to Shane earlier for the official intro. He went more in depth as he talked about the history of the building to the camera than he did with Shane, adding on some embellishments about the various conspiracy theories he’d dug up that involved what the staff at Léry’s might’ve been up to, and none of it sounded good.

“Léry’s was condemned and abandoned in 1983, and was even rumored to have been burnt down, but as you can see, since we are currently sitting inside the building, that clearly isn’t the case,” Ryan recited, shooting Shane a look that invited him in to begin a banter.

“Ryan, I swear to God if you’re trying to tell me that the building itself is a ghost, I will resign.” Shane forced his face into a serious expression that matched his disapproving tone of voice as Ryan laughed loudly. “You can get Brent back to be your new ‘ghoulfriend’ and you can just- the two of you can just run around these spooky places like a couple of headless chickens screaming about ghosts together.”

“No, that’s- that’s not what I’m saying,” Ryan said, a humorous inflection tinging his voice as he spoke. “What I’m saying is, is that someone either lied to cover up any potential future investigations into Léry’s alleged operations, or someone got it wrong; either way, Léry’s is still here.”

“And how’d you come to find that out?” Shane asked, honestly interested in Ryan’s answer. His friend had already admitted that researching the place had been hard and often netted him no real answers; if any and all official documentations surrounding Léry’s said it was no longer standing, then he wondered how Ryan was able to discover that it actually was.

“I looked up the coordinates on Google’s satellite image maps.” Shane raised his eyebrows at that, and Ryan shrugged in response. “There was a building here, and when I compared it to old images of the Memorial Institute I’d found dated pre 1980’s, they seemed to match. When I reached out to the current property owners, they agreed to let us look around as long as we didn’t try to ‘solve’ anything.”

“We never do,” Shane said wistfully, dramatically looking away for a moment, and again Ryan laughed, the sound of it echoing around the walls of the room.

“Alright, whatever, big guy; we can do all the ghost hunting we want, they said, but we have to let the sleeping dogs lie on whether or not Léry’s has a ‘tortured’ past or not; they don’t want any trouble with the government.” Ryan looked amused by his own pun, but Shane knew that his ability to find humour in little things like that wouldn’t last the night.

“Well, let’s get started then, shall we?” Shane said, slapping his hands to his thighs and beginning to feel his eagerness returning to him. He started to stand up, and Ryan sighed.

“Yeah, fuck, let’s- let’s get into it.”

“Is there anyone here with us right now?” Ryan spoke loudly and clearly as he addressed the spirit box, glancing around the room they were standing in cautiously as he held the small radio up between them. There was an overturned examination table and some rusted chairs in the room with them that Shane had initially tried to sit in, but found them too unstable to support him. “If there is, we’d really like to talk with you. My name’s Ryan, and my unnecessarily large friend here is Shane; I know he’s a little frightening to look at, but can you say either of our names?”

They waited for a response, Ryan pensively shifting his eyes around as though he might see a ghost hiding behind the old furniture while Shane did his best to not let his boredom show on camera. He waited silently for a moment, letting the spirit box spit out jumbled radio frequencies and broken fragments of words for Ryan to analyze later before deciding to chime in.

“Did you ever stop to think that the spirit box might be triggering these spirits you’re trying to contact?” he asked, voice drawling as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket. “If that doctor you mentioned earlier really did exist, then don’t you think it stands to reason that the static from the box might be traumatizing them? Torturing them in their afterlife? Maybe that’s why they don’t want to talk to you.”

“You’re just saying that because it tortures you,” Ryan said, snickering. He opened his mouth to say something else in support of his use of the spirit box, but was hushed when it began to pick up an unusual, garbled sort of noise.

If Shane hadn’t been accustomed to the usual tones of static the spirit box produced as it skipped through radio frequencies, he would have chalked the sound that was coming through the speaker now as typical spirit box sounds, but innately he knew that it wasn’t. Whatever was coming through the radio now was different, in that it had cut through the previous channel of static to effectively broadcast the new sound.

He could tell from the stunned reaction on Ryan’s face that he, too, recognized the sound as something unusual. This wet, static noise that was coming through the receiver had been unheard by either of them before.

Ryan turned his head to look up at Shane, any trace of amusement he’d been displaying before now gone as he struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. Before either of them could properly process what they were listening to, the sound slowly tapered off into silence.

Shane stared at the box in Ryan’s hand, waiting for the usual sounds of static to come back through the speaker so he could explain the phenomenon away as some sort of malfunction. He was preemptively formulating a response to the questions Ryan was sure to start asking when the whispering began.

The voice was low and quiet, possibly male, and managed to speak uninterrupted for more than a few consecutive seconds. Shane felt his skin break out into goosebumps as he listened, leaning forward to try and get a better understanding of what was being said even as Ryan recoiled, almost dropping the spirit box in his fright.

If the voice was whispering in any known language, Shane didn’t recognize it; the words registered as garbled, barely distinguishable nonsense to his ears, but the tone with which it spoke, intent and persistent, had his hair beginning to stand on end. Everyone in the room was hushed, although Ryan was beginning to hyperventilate, his breath coming in fast, wheezing gulps. His hand was visibly trembling, but he resolutely did not drop or set the spirit box down, a small act of bravery Shane admired him for.

They didn’t have long to focus on what the voice was saying before a loud, burst of static tore out of the speaker, ending the strange noises abruptly and causing Ryan to shout in surprise. Shane blinked solemnly at the little box as it returned to flickering through regular radio channels before he met Ryan’s stupefied gaze.

“What the fuck just happened,” Ryan gasped out, quickly turning the box off and setting it aside to deal with his minor anxiety attack.

No one had an immediate answer.

“Did anyone recognize what it was saying?” Devon asked timidly. “Not trying to be an alarmist here, but that… didn’t sound human to me.”

Ryan moaned at the implication and sat down hard on the floor, uncaring of how dirty it was.

“Look, let’s just all calm down and take a minute to think about it logically,” Shane said, attempting to take control of the situation in order to soothe his companion’s panic, but he didn’t feel calm himself. His heart was thudding away rapidly in his chest, though he told himself that it was due in part to being taken off guard by the loud outburst of static that came through at the end of the transmission. “Do you know every earthly language that exists?” he asked Devon, who shook her head reluctantly. He repeated the question to Mark and TJ before directing it to Ryan, and all their answers were the same. “Neither do I; just because it spoke in a language we can’t immediately identify doesn’t mean it wasn’t human. Have we all forgotten we’re in an old, ex-governmental building that was run by the fucking CIA? The box probably just latched onto an old numbers station or something.

“And anyway, I’d expect you to be more excited about this, little guy,” he said gently to Ryan, trying to encourage a positive reaction out of him. “We caught all that on film, buddy.”

From the floor, Ryan had stopped his rapid breathing as he processed Shane’s line of reasoning. He still looked frightened, but his expression also seemed more speculative after listening to Shane deliver his cowboy speech. When Shane reached a hand down to help him up, Ryan took it.

“You’re right. We have evidence,” Ryan said slowly as he rose back to full height, his eyes lighting up as he clasped Shane’s hand tightly to his chest.

Shane winced and tried to pull his hand free, but the clammy grip with which Ryan held to it was strong. “It could be any number of things before it could be ghosts, Ryan, you know that.”

“But if it’s not any of those other things, then it- it’s real! We have actual, recorded evidence! Léry’s Memorial Institute is certified haunted, baby!”

He let go of Shane’s hand at last, his fear momentarily forgotten as he did a quick dance, pumping his fist up and down into the air in a celebratory fashion. Mark trained the camera on him to capture the moment, swapping from Ryan’s joyful expression to Shane’s look of bewildered amusement. Devon looked on with a congratulatory smile until TJ eventually spoke.

“You… do realize you still have to stay the night here, right?” TJ said somberly, knowing that what he had to say would was going to affect Ryan negatively, and already they could all see the impact his words had on him as he stopped dancing. “I’m happy for you and all, but don’t forget we have a whole episode left to shoot.” Fresh horror dawned on Ryan’s face, his excitement over finding proof of the supernatural immediately dying out when he realized it didn’t absolve him from fulfilling the rest of his contractual obligations.

“Oh, fuck, you’re right,” he said with a groan, his shoulders slumping at the remembered thought. He brought his hands to his face and dragged his fingers down, pulling at his skin. “Ohh, fuck, you’re right. Shit.”

“Certified haunted, baby,” Shane teased with a weak grin, knowing already that it was going to be a long, sleepless night for the both of them.

They explored the area a little further after the incident with the spirit box, but didn’t manage to capture or illicit any other supernatural responses to their presence, though not for lack of trying. Everywhere they went, Shane demanded that the ghosts repeat the strange audio they’d managed to capture before and called them out on their cowardice when nothing happened. Ryan grew increasingly upset with his behaviour, but Shane was out to prove a point: whatever they’d discovered through the use of the spirit box wasn’t something supernatural, and if the spirits weren’t willing to entertain them, then he wasn’t willing to entertain the notion that it could be ghosts.

The logical part of his brain demanded he debunk it immediately, even if it meant he had to poop all over Ryan’s parade in order to do so, and he planned on taking the mightiest shit he could before they wrapped up filming for the night.

Most of the upper floors of Léry’s were condemned and deemed too unsafe for them to explore, barring their ability to scope out the building in its entirety, but the ground floors were plenty big enough to take up hours’ worth of time to investigate.

With Mark and TJ’s help, they set up three static cams where Ryan thought they’d get the most activity: one in the room where they’d gotten the spirit box to communicate with them (with an EVP device they would leave on all night), one in the reception area pointing down the hall they’d entered through, and the final one in a room Ryan had called the ‘treatment theatre’, where they’d decided to bunk down for the night.

It was a circular room with one single, ominous examination table set up in the middle over a system of rusty, grated flooring. A large set-up of outdated lighting systems hung low and broken over it, hanging like an untended widowmaker’s tree waiting to collapse, and for the first time that night Shane wondered if perhaps Ryan’s torture theory might have some truth behind it. Copper stains could be seen leading from the table to the grated floors, and he resolutely decided not to focus on them.

On the floor above them, reached only by a set of stairs set into the back of the room, was a windowed viewing booth that jutted out from the wall. A sense of unease overcame him as Shane looked at it, wondering what the people of the past had need of to stand up there in a room such as this, but he knew in the back of his mind what the answer to that was.

He tried to tuck his discomfort away as he laid out his sleeping bag next to Ryan’s, and wound up unsettling some dust into the air as he smoothed it out and plopped his pillow into place. He grimaced and tried to suppress a cough, but doing so only made the urge to cough worse. Ryan watched him hack whatever he’d inhaled into the crook of his arm, a wry smile of amusement playing at his lips.

“Need some water?” Devon asked, stepping forward with a water bottle already in hand.

Shane took it gratefully and drank until he felt his throat clear up. “Thanks,” he said as he capped it and set the bottle down beside his pillow.

“Should we see you guys out?” Ryan asked as Mark finished adjusting the camera that was set facing their sleeping bags, the red recording light already blinking with purpose.

Mark shrugged as he stood, taking his big shoulder camera back from TJ, who had had been dutifully holding it for him so he didn’t have to set it on the dirty floor.

“Nah, I think we can find our way out on our own,” TJ said as Mark wiped his knees clean of the grime. “I know you’ll probably just bolt if you get anywhere close to the exit anyway, Bergara.”

It was Shane’s turn to smirk as Ryan scowled, knowing that there was definitely some truth in that statement. Ryan had been unusually on edge throughout the rest of their investigation after their incident with the spirit box, and all Shane’s goading had done was make it worse.

“Have a good night, guys,” Devon said, looking uncertain about leaving them alone. She gave a little wave as Mark and TJ each said their goodbyes in turn. “We’ll see you in the morning; be safe, okay?”

“We’ll be fine; what’s the worst that’ll happen? A rat takes a nibble out of one of our ears?” Shane mustered up a smile he hoped looked assuring, but Devon didn’t seem comforted by it.

“The closest hotel we could book is 20 minutes away, but even still, don’t hesitate to call if you need something,” she said, and TJ nodded in affirmation.

“We’ll come as quick as we can,” he said, and Shane wasn’t sure why, but his words left a heavy weight in his stomach.

“Guys, we’ll be fine, this isn’t our first rodeo,” Shane said exasperatedly, and Ryan backed him up with a nod.

“The ghoul boys know how to behave themselves during a spooky sleepover,” he affirmed, but didn’t have the confidence required to back up what he was saying.

Still, Devon looked a little less doubtful and finally relented. She bid them goodnight once more before the three of them took their leave, carrying all the extra equipment Shane and Ryan wouldn’t need away with them to make packing up a little easier in the morning.

None of them knew it would be the last time they ever saw each other.

Shane sat down on his sleeping bag with a slight grunt and listened to their crew’s footsteps receding out of the room and away from them, echoing down the hall ominously. He waited until he couldn’t hear them anymore before he started getting ready for sleep, peeling away the opening of his sleeping bag to tuck his long legs inside.

“And then there were two,” he said rather cheerfully to Ryan as he got comfortable. He was met with a miserable sigh as his co-host begrudgingly slid into his own sleeping bag. He zipped it up promptly and stared up at the ceiling bitterly.

“You say that every time they leave, give it a rest already.”

“But it’s true every time it warrants being said,” Shane replied, drawing his phone out of his pocket and opening up Twitter. “We’re the only two people left in here; anyone else doesn’t exist, and you seem to need reminding of that fairly often.”

Ryan sighed shakily and turned his flashlight off, casting them both into the gloomy darkness, broken only by the glow of Shane’s phone as he scrolled through his social media feed.

“Shane? Are you awake? I’m kinda freaking out hardcore over here, buddy.”

It took a moment for Shane to register that he was being spoken to as he blinked the sleep out of his eyes, rolling over in his bag to face where Ryan was laid out. As his vision adjusted to the dark, he could see that Ryan was wide-awake, still staring up at the ceiling where the viewing booth stuck out like a sore thumb.

“What?” Shane asked, his voice heavy and tired, rumbling out of his throat in a low timbre. “Whatsit?”

“I- I can’t sleep,” Ryan admitted, his voice sounding small.

“Surprising absolutely no one,” Shane muttered before yawning loudly and rubbing the crust out of the corners of his eyes; he’d only been just been able to fall asleep before Ryan woke him up.

“Shut up,” Ryan grumbled. “It- I can’t sleep because it feels like- it feels like we’re being watched. I know it’s just the dark, but sometimes I think I can see people up there, looking down at us.”

Shane turned his gaze up to the viewing booth, but couldn’t see anything that looked like what Ryan was worrying about. His eyes did try to force shapes out of the darkness behind the window, but he intrinsically knew that it was just his mind playing tricks on him, trying to get him to see things that weren’t actually there. “There’s no one here but us, Ryan,” he reminded him, turning his attention back to his friend.

“But the voice on the spirit box-”

“-was just a voice,” Shane cut in. “And look, I’ll be honest with you- it was a little jarring, and I’ll admit to being a little unnerved by it myself, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Wh- no! Why would that make me feel better?” Ryan spluttered, finally tearing his eyes away from the booth above them to fix his wide-eyed stare on Shane. “You’re supposed to be my, my grounding rock, my calming spirit; how can you be scared? You’re not allowed to be afraid, I- I’m the one who fears!”

Shane stared at Ryan for one wordless minute before breaking out into a hearty laugh, his voice carrying around the room and making it sound louder than it was.

“Alright, calm down there cowardly Heisenberg; I didn’t say I was scared, just unnerved,” he clarified. His laugh seemed to ease some of Ryan’s worries, as his face cracked into a tentative grin at his words. “It was weird, yes, but nothing else strange happened while we were walking around, did it?”

“No, I guess not,” Ryan admitted, looking a little sheepish now. He contemplated Shane’s words quietly for a moment before he asked, “Do you really think it was just a numbers channel?”

“I think it’s a possibility, yes,” Shane said, picking his words carefully so as not to exacerbate Ryan’s anxieties. He honestly had no idea what it was or what it could be, but he wasn’t anywhere near ready yet to admit that it could’ve had supernatural origins. “We’re in a weird old government hospital; I think the most likely thing to have happened is that our little boxy pal picked up on a weird frequency we weren’t supposed to have access to and gave us a glimpse into something that wasn’t meant for us.”

“Yeah, but, we’re in Illinois,” Ryan began, picking at the zippered hem of his sleeping bag as he put the thoughts he’d been ruminating on into words.

“So? If you’re about to start shit-talking this wholesome state, so help me God, we’re going to have to start exchanging some serious words here.”

“No, that’s not what- Look, Illinois is in America; what possible radio frequency being broadcast here could we have picked up on that doesn’t speak English, or any other spoken American language, or even human?” Ryan asked, gesticulating around them as he spoke.

Shane sighed and rolled onto his back, adjusting his pillow to better support his neck. “You don’t know that it’s not any known human language, Ryan, we established that. It was probably just some kind of a looping cipher the CIA forgot to turn off when they moved out, not some- some demon speaking to us in tongues.”

Beside him, Ryan groaned loudly and quickly withdrew his arms back into his sleeping bag, as though he were afraid that by naming it, one would suddenly appear.

“Please don’t say demon.”

“You just did,” Shane said, unable to keep himself from speaking rather snidely. Ryan shot him a pointed look of annoyance, but he couldn’t help his uncooperative attitude in that moment. He was sleepy, and could feel all the dust they’d been breathing in coagulating deep in his lungs. He was irritated, and he let it show. “Look, Ry, we can discuss this all we want tomorrow, but I am incredibly tired right now. Just… try and get some sleep, okay? We’ll pick this up later.”

“I think we both know that’s not gonna happen,” Ryan muttered, but he mercifully let the issue drop.

Whether or not their conversation had helped or hindered Ryan, Shane couldn’t say. It had been a strange night for both of them, all things considered, and he wanted nothing more than to just be done with it. As he closed his eyes to try and go back to sleep, the last thing Shane would later recall seeing was the darkness taking shape in the form of a face looming behind the window pane of the viewing booth, looking down upon them intently. A strange metallic taste wouldn’t leave his mouth no matter how much water he drank to try and ride himself of it, and although Ryan had forsaken the notion of sleep for himself entirely, he too eventually drifted off unawares.

And that was all it took; by the morning they were gone, taken without a trace, everything they’d brought with them left behind and undisturbed.

#buzzfeed unsolved #ryan bergara #shane madej #dead by daylight #buzzfeed unsolved: supernatural #rpf #supernatural rpf #AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT #remember when i mentioned id fish-flopped into another fandom? it was unsolved

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whitleyschn33 · 6 years

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Maybe people love the girls in rwby more because thats what attracted the audience? Like rwby is a show that has powerful female leads that dont exist to be there just for a guy, theyre independent and good on their own, thats what attracted most people, cause its so rare to see, and theyre afraid that it will go on another route and focus on the guys (like Jaune) when we already have hundreads of shows with powerful male leads but like just a few with well written female leads

Hey, sorry for not getting to this right away - college started kicking my butt, and I wanted to actually sit and think about how to respond to this one.

I’m assuming that this is in response to what I said here, about noticing that people favor the female characters over the male. I also said that I really did not want to go poking at the fire ant hill, but you seem polite, so I feel it’s only fair that I give you a proper answer.

DISCLAIMER: These are my opinions. This is my personal response to the points you bring. I might be wrong. That’s fine. All I ask is that if you wish to continue this discussion, please be polite.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with preferring the female characters. This is a show with an almost entirely female main cast, and that’s wonderful considering how rarely you see that outside of Barbie movies and magical girl type shows, and even more rarely do you see that in an action show. I also appreciate that they aren’t sidekicks, or characters created off a male hero *cough cough Superfriend’s Hawkgirl cough cough*. I’m not saying that I think people shouldn’t like the girls more. It’s only natural to do so since they are the main characters. They are the characters that are given the most focus, so you naturally grow more attached to them then, say, Team SSSN, who we’ve only seen in its entirety, like, twice.

However, what does get on my nerves is when the love for these characters and/or the infatuation of the idea of an all-female cast leads to the demonization of male characters over issues that are arguably not issues.

I’m going to use Jaune as my illustrating point, since he seems to be the most glaring example of what I’m talking about. You have brought up that people seem to be afraid that he’s going to steal the spotlight - become the hero of the story and push Team RWBY into the background. However, there is just absolutely no evidence for this happening, especially in the last two volumes. In Volume 1, where we got four episodes about him in a 16 episode volume, this would be a valid concern. Since then, however, Jaune has been given less and less screen-time, showing that the writers are aware of the audience’s response to giving Jaune a fourth of a very short first volume and are doing their best not to stumble into that pitfall again. Outside of that, Jaune himself is an indicator that he is never going to have the spotlight in that manner again.

Jaune’s entire character is about realizing that he is not the hero. In any other anime/TV show/movie, the plucky inexperienced underdog would sneak into a prestigious school and suddenly find that they are somehow a natural and just as good or better than the people that have years of training. This did not happen with Jaune. He struggled. He was weak. He demonstrated that he very clearly does not belong among the elite. He had to go to Pyrrha and learn from her how to even start to begin to be able to fight off even one Ursa. And while he grows over the first 3 volumes, he never even comes close to the level of his classmates. He can hold his own for a few seconds against a rival school, but that’s about it. Very often, Jaune acts as the damsel in distress for Pyrrha or someone else to save. In Pyrrha and Jaune’s relationship, Pyrrha was very much the hero.

After Pyrrha died, Jaune did not suddenly take up her mantle and become the hero. He hung back from the opening fight of V4, staying out of the way of the people that actually knew what they were doing and helping the only way he could - by trying to strategize based on his wider perspective on the fight. He was not the hero. When he gained his semblance in V5, it was not some ultra-powerful shonen-style OP attack that turned Cinder to dust. It was healing, aura-boosting, which let Weiss rejoin the fight and kick butt herself. As any RPG player knows, this ability makes Jaune a support character, not a fighter. AKA, not a hero.

Jaune’s arc so far has been about learning that he is never going to be the kind of hero he wanted to be. His role is to be the support of the others, to be their stepping stone. Like he himself says, “If I die buying them time, then it’s worth it. They’re the ones that matter.” Jaune is never going to be the hero. He is never going to be the one to triumph. His role is to support, to help the people that matter get to where they need to be for them to win.

This, for me, is clear to see and makes sense. However, over and over and over again, I see people ripping apart his character as someone that acts like the knight in shining armor - that swooped in to save the day by healing Weiss, and to me, these criticisms just feel unwarranted when the payoff to Jaune’s semblance is learning that he is never going to be that knight in shining armor. From a narrative standpoint, this is as clear an indication as we are ever going to get that Jaune is never going to be a hero. He will be an extremely important side character, but RWBY will never be about him. The story line and his character have never given any indication that it could ever possibly be.

Tl;dr, there is no evidence that RWBY is suddenly going to deviate from Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang to focus on Jaune. Jaune’s entire character is meant to be a supporting one. This isn’t to say he doesn’t have his own arc, but in the end, he’s just going to be helping RWBY and Ozcar and Co. with their stories.

His character and the FNDM’s response to him is a perfect illustration of my opinion on the matter. Jaune’s character, at this point in time, shows absolutely no signs of suddenly taking the spotlight away from Team RWBY, yet the FNDM likes to twist scenes and evidence to make his character something it’s not so they can complain about him being a bad character. He is not a bad character. He is a well-written character in my opinion.

The reason people are so desperate to twist him into a character he is not is because he is, in fact, male. Not because he is a poorly written character, not because he takes time away from developing the main cast, but because he is male. If Jaune were the exact same character but female, we would most likely not be having this discussion. It is because Jaune is a male character that people twist him into being this horrific character, and that is not right.

You see this assassination of character with Sun and Ozpin (to a lesser extent), too. If I didn’t watch the show and went off the fandom, I would think that Sun was just some ignorant stalker that Blake despises. This is not true. If I didn’t watch the show, I would probably think Ozpin was this Machiavellian schemer that threw children into a war that he couldn’t be bothered to end himself. This is not true.

TL;DR2:What I dislike is not people loving the female characters over the male. What I dislike is people hating male characters, not because they are actually bad characters, but because they have been twisted by fandom interpretation to look like bad characters solely because they are male characters, because for some reason I am unable to comprehend, this fandom seems so threatened at the idea of developed male characters that they twist them into entirely different characters so that they feel justified in their hatred of said male characters.

I’m not sure how comprehensible this is. It’s starting to get late on my end, so if my logic just falls apart somewhere in here, I apologize. Once again, this is solely my opinion on the issue. You can have your own thoughts, and those are completely valid. I would be completely open to continuing this discussion with you (or anyone else who wants to jump in).

Thank you for your time, and have a good evening.

#not whitley content #jaune arc #sun wukong #professor ozpin #male characters #female characters #rwby #rwby discourse #ask reply

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overfedvenison · 6 years

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D&D Journal, Session 5 - Charn gets off the hook for Treason

Alright! Dnd journal... This is an eventful one

So - Last time, Okra the Orc Princess was murdered after Charn and Arka committed treason and Adrick the Dwarf made a deal with a demon and blanked out.

Charn and Arka had to begin by presenting themselves in front of the king and justifying why they kept the stone instead of fulfill on their duty. The king sent out the Paladins to retrieve everyone, most of whom complied... Adrick requested a Paladin watch over his hammer and armor as he couldn't go armed.

Charn was an issue... He refused to allow Arka to go, saying that Arka knows nothing of the lands and has sealed herself in the vault. A deal was made to allow her to stay... Charn being pretty insulting to the Paladin by not paying him proper respect.

He's smart, though, and upon seeing the king spoke only in turn. He was given a chance to defend himself... And took it, preparing a long speech justifying these actions.

"May I speak feely?" "You may. Justify yourself."

I got through my first point, and the king stated that he understood and the ability to renegotiate the deal is beneficial to this kingdom... Then I said I wasn't done. Let me post my notes on this.

Backstory if you forgot: We were tasked by the king's guard to go to perform a mission for Shira, a demon allegedly dedicated to maintaining the war of Demons and Devils so that the material plane does not fall to the victor. She tasked us with retrieving a Shard of Obsidian from the Mistveil Orcs, making us make an accord to do so (Which Charn weaseled out of.) We obtained the shard, then refused to give it back, and then the orcish princess we allied with was murdered - allegedly by a Black Raven.

And my whole notes on why we kept the shard

Section one: Arguments on the face of it.

1 - No even exchange. As far as anyone is aware, the deal is purely that we give a demon an artifact that will massively boost the power of their army for no return, or a minor return. Even if her intentions are genuine, this methodology is flawed. Although this is right and honorable and for any earthly country would instill strong diplomatic ties in the future, here I feel a proper exchange of resources is a bare minimum. Unlike other societies, good will is not an outcome here - Demons will not honor any past favors that were not an explicit agreement when parlaying in the future.

2 - No goodwill. To almost anyone on the material plane, the free offering of aid in a time of crisis for mutual benefit is a wise, charitible, and intelligent maneuver that will instill long-term goodwill and political relations. However, this is a deal with demons - Creatures of evil and greed. No matter how much charity you show them, they will never return gifts in kind unless an explicit deal is made. Furthermore, though offering aid at no cost to them in a time of need is a noble and goodly action towards humanoids, it will likely communicate that this kingdom is an easy place to exploit for personal gain to a demon.

3 - Potential for failure. Again, assuming Shira is telling the truth and entirely genuine in her actions, there is the potential she will fail, have the stone stolen, or become corrupted by it's power and elect to overtake the enemy forces instead of fight them to a neutral position. In any of these scenarios - And I remind you that time flows much faster in that plane, so these outcomes may come sooner rather than later - we will be facing a much more powerful enemy than if we had simply done nothing

4 - Potential gain. For the reasons above, this is a bad deal even if the demons themselves had only the resources of a common country to offer. However, this is a deal that might only come once in a lifetime - A deal with a demonic commander in which, to use a proverb, all the cards are in your hand. If this is genuinely needed, you could gain untold riches, magical items, or enough demonic aid to end the War against the Elven Lands in a fortnight.

5 - Breaking of a demonic accord. Unless someone else spoke first, I was the only one to accept this quest from Shira herself. My words were chosen carefully to get me out of any demonic accords: I stated that I could investigate the misty islands, but could not guarantee our success. As such, we can currently renegotiate at no penalty.

Section two: Things not adding up.

In this section I will elucidate how I believe that Shira is lying to us, and using us for her own gain. This is less factual, and more speculative than the previous section, but may bear greatly on your decision-making process.

1 - Timeline. Shira stated that she needed our aid, or else she would lose the war. She could not leave her current area, or she would fall, and so needed us to explore and find the object for her. Despite this, we took over two months in travel time - a period several years in the demonic realm. As such, I believe that she is in no real danger of losing the war anytime soon, although she is perhaps in a slow decline... Surely the over two years of losing battles with her there, is the equivalent of the week or so without her that it would take for her to obtain the Shard herself even if she for some reason couldn't defer this task to a capable demon

2 - Chosen heralds. Shira had us go obtain the item for her, an odd choice. Foremost, we are not especially noteworthy... At the time we had only a few conditional victories and were trusted scouts, but had a reputation for bad communication and poor teamwork. Further, we had made a terrible impression. Upon seeing her and her plane, our Lizardfolk Ally froze in shock and could not move, our dwarf struck him near-dead, and she watched us almost die to a demon while laughing. Again, I stated outright that I could not guarantee our success. In short, no one who legitimately needed this object would possibly trust us - She would want a teacher of the Petrels, a Squad of Ravens, or at least a party that displayed great competence. However her choice makes a large amount of sense if she saw us as competent enough to succeed, but incompetent and inexperienced enough to not question things or stand up for our doubts.

3 - Dismissal of humanity and it's allies. Shira was casually dismissive of humanity and it's allies, as incompetents who would die almost immediately should the blood war spill into our plane. Even ignoring our party's issues, it makes little sense as to why she would choose even the best of humanity to aid her if she believes this - Surely a demon commander has contacts in other planes willing to help if she is genuinely just trying to keep the balance

4 - Obfuscation. She was highly evasive of offering information and relied on awe to trust that we would accept a face-value explaination. For instance, she did not tell us what the shard did and gave vague answers when pressed. At one point she told us an outright falsehood - That the material plane would instantly fall should hell invade. Even after we returned, we were subtly threatened by vale members for compliance. This could be evidence of double-speak and attempting to obscure details, although it is also somewhat consistent with typical demonic habits.

5 - Demonic presence of vale members. We suspect various vale members of consorting with demons that would undermine the crown, possibly through deliberate conspiracy or through domination. We have sighting of fanged members and unusual happenings, but due to the timeframe lack solid evidence at this time

For these reasons, we suspect the entirety of Shira's story is an utter fabrication. I believe she is using us to gain the shard, for power, in order to win the blood war, and may be manipulating the vale in it's entirety in order to do so. As such, I suspect returning this shard will do the exact opposite of what is stated, and may lead to the material plane's destruction.

Additionally, I suggest a thorough investigation of the vale in it's entirety.

....The DM seemed to state "Is my plot that easy to see through? What the hell" and someone made the joke "Profession (Lawyer)" to me.

This begins the saga of Charn: Master Investigator - I go around with my Armor Coat and Revolver solving crimes. This is my new life, and I eagerly accept it. I thought I was slowly becoming a cowboy accidentally, turns out, NO, I'm a PI.

...Ahem, I was given three months to figure out what to do. As well as 25 lashings for high treason; Arka had to endure as well. A rough night, but not an unwarranted one. And Pavia spoke out of turn and insulted someone in the king and queen's prescence, and so was put in the stocks.

---

...Adrick was in the bar that night with Alia, the Aasimar. Soon a tiefling bard strolled up and played them a song - Knocking out everyone but Adrick. They discussed some of their dark deals, and he made another demonic accord - One to get his homeland strength and power, to allow him to take the crown, to give him honor, and to ensure prosperity. At his darkest moment, he got a taste of the abyssal... And now he will run with it.

The Aasimar awoke, and confronted him on it. She couldn't see through his lies, but something was VERY WRONG. It seems she became somewhat headstrong, and is a bit less of a passive entity - a bit of character growth.

The argument was protracted, and the Aasimar refused to budge. Adrick countered by insisting this had to do with him and his home land, and was the private business of a Thane. In the end, the Aasimar was physically attacked by an unarmed strike as Adrick became enraged. Tosh, the party's fox, was here too observing, and brought the situation down by joking and getting everyone to leave, and joking with the bartender.

The next day, Adrick would speak to the king and arrange a trip to the dwarven lands to try and smooth over the currently-rocky relationship between Angelpoint and the Daarves. Once he is free, they will depart. And thus, his schemes begin.

---

Adrick came to meet Arka and I after we recovered from our lashings. He offered us a day at a local spa/bathouse... In-character, we knew nothing of his schemes and machinations, and took this to mean that he was apologizing for getting angry at us for dishonor. We eagerly accepted and decided to head to to decide what to do.

During the spa day, we mapped out our current quests... - A visit to the Dwarven Lands to ensure Diplomatic Relations - The murder of Princess Okra, and smoothing over relationships with the Orcs - Proving the Mistveil is a puppet organization to allow Shira to gain power, or proving their innocence instead - Fighting the threat of the Elven Lands and the plague therein - Figuring out what to do with the shard

...We all agreed that the Orcs are the most pressing issue, and so Adrick and Alia decided to take a ship ahead to try and calm them while we held back and gathered evidence. They had a long encounter fighting orcas commanded by merfolk (allies of the orcs, long story) and eventually got to the shore.

As for the rest of us, we had a mystery to solve - Charn, Arka, and our fox, Tosh

#dnd journal

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 9 Review: Early Bird!

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This My Hero Academia review contains spoilers.

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 9

“Save people to win.”

“Win to save people.”

My Hero Academia’s current season has done an excellent job in highlighting many of the series’ more neglected characters, but it’s also functioned as an opportunity to demonstrate how much Class A’s most celebrated heroes have upped their games. My Hero Academia begins with Katsuki Bakugo arguably as the second lead after Midoriya and even though the friendly rivalry between these two has never faded, the two characters have been pulled in very different directions.

Bakugo remains a pivotal character, but the previous seasons largely pull him out of the major battles and leave his progress offscreen. It’s for this reason that “Early Bird!” operates with such an exciting energy because it hinges on Bakugo’s big return and what this “new” version of him is like.

“Early Bird!” is an installment that accentuates the importance of teamwork, but the biggest reason that this episode works as well as it does is because it intentionally plays into both the audience and the characters’ preconceptions around Bakugo. “Early Bird!” comes to life when it dawns on everybody that Bakugo has actually bolstered the perfect team here with a leadership style that both supports and trusts them. Bakugo’s fiery personality will never disappear, but his ego has transformed for the better and it’s a joy to see him receive such a showcase. “Early Bird!” celebrates Bakugo’s power, but also his personality, and it’s a standout entry from the season.

Bakugo and his team are up against some powerful and diverse opponents from Class B and “Early Bird!” goes through a flurry of emotions as Bakugo takes charge. He pushes a tough love approach as a leader and develops a strategy that stems from recklessness and forced opportunities rather than accurately weighing out the situation. Bakugo’s team warns him about Class B’s proficiency with counterattacks, but he largely ignores them in favor of a headstrong rampage. Bakugo’s actions here initially come across as frustrating, but it’s an approach that increasingly makes sense.

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 8 Review: Match 3 Conclusion

By Daniel Kurland

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 7 Review: Match 3

By Daniel Kurland

The events of seasons three and four made it seem like the more impulsive and self-serving version of Bakugo had shed these unappealing traits. It was only a few episodes back that Bakugo had a mature conversation with Midoriya about power and culpability that’s a testament to how much he’s evolved. It therefore feels somewhat regressive for Bakugo to bully his way into being the leader and push a very selfish strategy that makes him the star, but it turns out there are layers to Bakugo’s attack and it manifests into a triumph of teamwork where everyone shines.

What’s interesting about Bakugo’s approach here is that it almost feels motivated out of fear. He’s determined to use this battle as a chance to prove to everyone–but especially Midoriya–how much he’s improved and why he deserves to be taken seriously. This pressure causes Bakugo to switch into autopilot to some extent, but in doing so it actually reflects how he naturally embodies a hero. Bakugo’s strategy is strangely complex since it doesn’t necessarily minimize his teammates and it actually trusts them with endless freedom. Bakugo basically just tells his team to go nuts with their Quirks so that they can quickly acquire the upper hand and if they happen to panic–hey, that’s what grenades are for.

Bakugo does most of the heavy lifting in “Early Bird!,” but this is also an excellent episode for Jiro–or “Ears,” as Bakugo mockingly refers to her as–that helps legitimize her as a credible hero. Previously, Jiro’s atypical earphone jack Quirk has turned her into a bit of a gimmick at worst and a decent support hero at best. Jiro evolves her Quirk in a way where she can now actually weaponize it and now holds quite the advantage in battle. This battle makes smart use of Jiro’s abilities and the Daredevil-esque way that it visualizes her Quirk gives her even more depth. Jiro’s Quirk also directly comes in opposition with Class B’s Setsuna Tokago, who leads the charge for their team.

Class B’s Setsuna Tokago and her Lizard Tail Splitter Quirk are genuinely frightening. Her Quirk allows her to dismantle her body into fifty separate pieces, which can move around for both reconnaissance or helpful platforms for her team. It’s one of the more conceptual Quirks to come around, but it’s a curious take on camouflage and other reptilian traits. There’s also very much a Sorcerer’s Apprentice vibe as all of these little pieces of Setsuna march together in unison. It’s interesting how between her, Kuroiro, and Togaru “Jack Mantis” Kamakiri, Class B really has some frightening characters that could easily double as villains based on appearance alone.

“Early Bird!” reiterates that Bakugo has something to prove with this fight, but so does the entirety of Class B. The episode addresses the larger reputation of Class A and B and how this competition means more to Class B since this is their opportunity to surpass Class A and rewrite the narrative over which of them is superior. In some ways Class B has a lot more to prove in these battles and that extra level of drive is felt in each Joint Training Arc altercation, but especially so in this one.

There are some tense moments where it looks like Class A is overpowered, but Bakugo rises to the occasion every time and proves how much he care about his team at the same time. He’s willing to sacrifice his own safety to help his team and doesn’t think twice about it. Granted, part of this performance does seem like Bakugo is eager to show off how strong he’s become, but this is far from a hollow act. His bond with his team is genuine. It’s still a very aggressive form of affection, but Bakugo reiterates that he’ll be his team’s safety net so that they can freely function and do their best. He wants to help them become the very best heroes that they can be, even if he’ll throw snide nicknames at them while he does it.

Not only do Bakugo and his team score a perfect win, but they accomplish this in only half of the episode, while the majority of these big battles have taken two full installments to finish. Such flagrant fan service can sometimes feel manufactured and unearned, but Bakugo fans and haters alike should be moved by his victory. This comes at the long tail-end of heavy character development and it hits as hard as it does exactly because Bakugo has been complacent and preoccupied for so long. It’s absolutely adorable when All Might and Midoriya gush over Bakugo’s performance and become his biggest cheerleaders. It shows how far these authentic relationships have come where words of kindness can carry as much impact as the winning blow in a fight.

The results of this fight are satisfying, but it also just looks gorgeous. There’s nearly constant movement and the episode makes this battleground that’s been used for three previous battles still feel fresh. Scenes find fresh ways to explore the space and nothing comes across as recycled or lazy. Kojiro Bondo’s spider-webbing glue adds new variety to the space, especially when Hanta Sero’s dispensed tape also litters the arena. The apex of this battle has everyone throwing Quirks at each other at once and it’s quite a visual masterpiece.

There’s a fearless energy behind this episode’s action that just punctuates the animation. Bakugo catapults through scenes as his explosions pepper the screen and it’s a cornucopia of chaos that’s worthy of Bakugo’s character. It looks beautiful and is lovingly choreographed. These episodes continue to develop inspired ideas that combine Quirks together, like latching Bakugo’s grenade to Sero’s tape, which latches onto Setsuna and turns into a heat-seeking missile in the process.

Additionally, My Hero Academia’s score remains the unsung hero of the season and there are lots of great, new compositions throughout these battles. There are some amazing piano compositions that play during Bakugo and Kamakiri’s showdown that compliments the action so well.

The second half of “Early Bird!” is considerably lighter. Everyone regroups and there’s really not much substance to it, but it’s still a satisfying breather from the episode’s busy first half. It’s important to allow everyone a chance for reflection as the Joint Training Arc heads into its supposedly final battle. Monoma delivers a slightly erratic speech about how everyone in this competition views themselves as their own protagonists and no one is a supporting player. He announces this to inspire those around him, but this message is the subtext that’s been present in every episode of this season. It’s easily one of the most satisfying aspects of these new episodes. In this case, that narrative pushes Bakugo into the spotlight, but “Early Bird!” provides glimpses of each hero that frame them as the centerpieces of their own journeys.

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“Early Bird!” is another excellent My Hero Academia episode that effectively combines character and action in a way that subverts expectations, yet simultaneously plays into them. Each battle in this competition teases higher stakes and so it’s only fitting that Midoriya and some other heavy-hitters are about to enter the fray. My Hero Academia’s fifth season begins to prepare for what follows the Joint Training Arc and hopefully it will retain this broader perspective where everyone gets to be their best selves whether a hot-headed hero is screaming in their face or not.

The post My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 9 Review: Early Bird! appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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breeeliss · 7 years

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Oh no, why was the season so bad in your opinion?

i mean, there were a lot of reasons, but if you want the short version a lot of this season felt very all over the place. and by that i mean a lot of what was set up in season 3 in terms of character development, character motivation, and allusions to future important plot points were pretty much abandoned during this latter half of the season in favor of focusing on the coalition and this big blow to the galra empire they dealt in the last two episodes (which, after the finale of season 2, this didn’t even compare).

i’m probably gonna go episode by episode for this because there’s just so much that bothered me so if you want to read the rest of it just peek under the cut

tl;dr: this was by far the weakest season

episode 1so admittedly the blade of marmora stuff was just aesthetically cool. i got really excited when it was keith on one of those missions. the get up looks great on him and he just does so well with their fighting style. seeing the brief fighting moments with him and how BOM functions in general was really cool and i liked that bit.

the only problem is that it came out of nowhere

at no point in the entirety of season 3 did keith indicate that he was thinking of going to train with the blade. we learned that because shiro told us that. and like….keith training with them isn’t a bad thing. but it certainly becomes a huge thing when he’s pulling away from the team so much that shiro had to hop into the black lion and take control of the team again. and then once shiro is finally back in the black lion, keith straight up decides to leave team voltron because he wasn’t meant to be the leader anyway.

there’s so much about this that’s weird and it has a lot to do with the character development keith was set up with in season 3. he was a reluctant leader. this wasn’t the job he wanted but it’s the job he has to do because there’s no other choice. he’s learning to listen to his teammates. he’s becoming more comfortable leading. he’s taking shiro’s direction and using the advice of a more seasoned leader to try and improve his own leadership. he actually did a really good fucking job of it and i was excited to see that improve. …..and then it all gets shot to hell because, oh well, keith can’t lead, shiro’s back in the lion, guess it’s time for me to peace out.

there was not enough of a look into keith’s motivations so it all felt very sudden. and it’s also at this point that the lion switching that happened before feels even more useless than before.

why bring shiro back and have him not be able to pilot his lion if you were going to give it back to him anyway once keith left the team? why give keith a character arc to develop his leadership if you were just going to have him leave the team? why make lance go through an emotional arc where he has to put aside his ego and trust in his skills in order to pilot the red lion and become a better supportive teammate for keith if literally none of that is going to be referenced in the new season? at this point, it feels like the only reason this lion switching happened was to give allura a lion and develop allura.

anyway, the group hug at the end was cute i guess.

episode 2perfect. so perfect. and not just because i love pidge. the flashbacks to her brother, her search for him, that fucking heart breaking moment with her at the rebel cemetery, their reunion, them fighting together, all of it was perfect. best episode in the season. no complaints.

episode 3so, positives out the way first. the kaltenecker scene is still genius. pidge showing matt around the castle was precious. not super warmed up to matt yet but i like the relationship that he has with pidge and i love how much happier pidge is now that he’s here. that’s wonderful.

zarkon is darth vader now i guess. also his return was the single most anti-climactic part of this season. i literally almost forgot he came back as i was typing this. he seems to be obsessed with finding lotor while his wife fucking does everything as usual.

this episode was pretty tame although it starts to show why i’m annoyed with lotor this season. beforehand having his motivations and intentions kept secret was cool. he seemed to be going against his father’s methods while also trying to act in the interest of the empire – like a “i’m going to do this my way” kinda guy. that’s starting to fall apart this season in a way that’s not mysterious or appealing but in a way that’s just flat out confusing.

he has so many different plans doing on. the trans reality comet to make those ships. trying to go through the rift. and later on in the season, actually trying to help the voltron coalition for reasons we’re not totally clued in on yet (but more on that later). i don’t know what lotor wants. i don’t know what’s driving him. i don’t know what he’s after. i don’t know why he hates his father so much. i don’t know……literally anything about him. and it’s been a whole season. i know what he’s doing, but i don’t know why and it’s making him a very confusing character.

also….his generals ditched him very quickly. killing narti i actually kind of liked (even though, fuck, i liked her) since it seems he values his personal goals more than his generals. and based on how much his generals practically worshipped him before (especially acxa) i would’ve though they’d take that as a warning. except, the minute lotor became a fugitive they totally abandoned ship bc they wanted to save their own skins. that’s a…..huge 360. and of course lotor escapes anyway so their fates are in limbo and for now they’re not in the story anymore. that whole thing just seemed rushed and like it should’ve taken more episodes to accomplish.

episode 4hated it. i can’t believe i sat through it. ignoring the fact that hunk got demoted down to fart jokes (except let’s not ignore that fact because what the fuck) it was a useless episode. the coalition stuff in general was an interesting detail to place in the first episode but after that it seemed heavy handed. to devote an entire comic relief episode to a heavy handed process of putting on performances to gain coalition support seemed really useless. it also didn’t help that….we didn’t see….anyone really join. we’re told they are. but there was no emotional speech. no shots of people signing up. like it was stripped of all emotionality and therefore became annoying. it was campy and childish and honestly really fucking annoying.

episode 5 +6just gonna add these together since it’s essentially a two parter.

matt’s role sort of really delved into the background in a way that i didn’t like. he’s kinda just there now – could’ve been easily replaced with literally any random rebel officer. i expected him to be a captain and i expected him to run shit. instead he spent days of his life just listening to radio frequencies and he answers to this mysterious captain of the resistance (olia? who are you? what’s your deal? we’re not told? okay cool?) and that’s p much it. sorta expected him to play a bigger role in things but whatever.

it was a cool couple of episodes but so much of it was fighting. what made the end of season 2 so amazing was the emotional aspects of it brought in. the BOM agent sacrificing himself. the fight with zarkon where the stakes were incredibly high. voltron almost dying. shiro talking everyone up. everyone literally willing to die to take zarkon down. it was done really really well.

this time for some reason the big “oh my god we might die” moment didn’t feel as dire. and i think it’s because everyone was so fucking calm with the reality that they were going to freaking die. there was no emotional impact in this part of the episode at all and it’s what makes these sorts of fights cool. when things get bad, that’s the time when we need to see people’s emotions and honestly the end of this season felt so effing stale. about the only really great part was the allura and lance bit at the end of the episode. and even though it kinda came totally out of left field, it somewhat saved what was an otherwise bland final battle. i mean come on they were on a fucking bomb that was going to blow up five solar systems you’re telling me they were just cool as a cucumber about that? bullshit.

keith gave me a heart attack for half a second i’ll admit, although the power of his almost-sacrifice was lost because he was fucking gone this whole time. now had he done that as the black paladin/leader of voltron, hell yeah i would’ve started crying. instead i was anticipating his death and planning to be fucking livid about it later. but hey! no problem! because lotor came and saved the day. and…..is trying to cozy up to the coalition.

which is the single most random thing that happened this entire season. it makes no sense. why is this happening? i know we’re not meant to know and i know he probably has his own plans as to why he’s doing this, but again. because his motivations are completely shrouded, lotor helping keith isn’t interesting. it’s just confusing. he’s a black sheep that just runs on his own agenda and we don’t know why and we don’t know what that agenda is. so that episode ended and i was just really really perplexed.

final thoughts: all the interesting character arc set up from season 3 was scrapped, any further character development was also sidelines this season, idk what the fuck lotor is doing and it’s annoying now, why is zarkon back he’s literally so useless now, fuck the coalition i don’t care about it give me exposition instead, and i want keith back on team voltron….

AND WHAT THE FUCK IS PROJECT KURON? DID WE FORGET ABOUT THAT? WHAT IS SHIRO’S DEAL? WE TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THAT!

i’m……..going to rewatch season 3 and pretend none of this ever happened.

#voltron #voltron spoilers #vld spoilers #voltron season 4 #Anonymous #ask

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sugurushimura · 7 years

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Thoughts on Suguru Shimura’s relationships with the other Yotsuba members.

The individual members of the Yotsuba group and their many, many interlocking relationships have been a constant source of unending fascination and speculation to me for the past few years, as anyone who has known me for that long will tell you. Although each of the eight members is interesting in their own right and I could undoubtedly go on about them for hours, the member that I have for a while focused the majority of my attention to is – as, again, anyone who has known me for that long will tell you – Suguru Shimura. As the title should hopefully have clued you in on, this post is mostly going to consist of me talking about his relationships with the other seven members of his fellow (mostly) unwillingly murderous businessmen.

It is no little-known fact that the Yotsuba members are not exactly major characters. As an example, Eiichi Takahashi has only two actual lines of dialogue in the entirety of Volume 6 – and the majority of them only appear in Volume 5 and Volume 6 (with the exceptions being Kyosuke Higuchi, who is also in the beginning of Volume 7, and Arayoshi Hatori, who is only in Volume 5). As such, it would not be unreasonable for one to assume that solid relationships between them are … well, for the most part, non-existent. There is some truth to this – not all of the pairs of Yotsuba members have concrete interactions, and Ohba is not always consistent (as, alas, is often the case with these poor dudes) – but I would argue that for a good majority of them, there are certainly defined relationships, even if subtle in nature, and while they are proportionate to the characters they come from, there is something to be taken from each of them if one cares to look.

Essentially, this post will be divided into seven subsections, not counting this introduction and the end, with each subsection focusing on a different coworker of Shimura’s. Naturally, these will vary greatly in length, with the section devoted to, say, Reiji Namikawa being longer than the section devoted to Masahiko Kida, since Namikawa and Shimura have far more to go off of than Kida and Shimura do. Each section will offer each interaction between the characters, and then delve into bridging any possible inconsistencies (because our Good Friend Tsugumi Ohba is Very Kind And Careful with his characters) and discussing different interpretations. In some cases, I might offer my own personal headcanons, but of course they will be labelled as such and you are free to take away from them whatever you’d like. That’s one of the fun things about minor characters; in most cases, there are multiple valid interpretations.

Arayoshi Hatori

Right off the bat, Shimura is extremely uncomfortable with the meetings. His very first line is in protest to them. Hatori, along with Namikawa (and one unseen member from a previous panel), are the ones who try to reassure him.

For the rest of the meeting, the two of them aren’t seen speaking to each other much. The next time they’re seen together, well…

Scandalous. The bathroom, really, you two? I’m only joking, but the fact that they’re the two to stumble across Touta Matsuda leads pretty directly to the two of them leading him away from the meeting room and asking him some questions while the other six discuss poor Matsuda’s fate. It’s a brief enough scene and focuses mainly on Matsuda and L’s phone conversation, but it does give us this:

It seems that, at the very least, these two are able to work together well enough to be sent together to talk to Matsuda in the first place (although their position relative to him probably had a lot to do with it), and this scene shows that that much seems to be true.

Following their return to the main meeting room where their coworkers have wrapped up their murder plans, the two of them don’t interact for a while until a couple of chapters later at the following meeting, when Hatori decides that he doesn’t want to be a part of the meetings any longer and that it’s a good idea to profess so to the rest of the participants in the middle of a meeting. This is, predictably, a bad decision on his part, and Higuchi (who, funnily enough, turns out to be Kira – who would’ve imagined?) tells him that he’s going to die. Subtle, Higuchi. Shimura is the only one who protests this.

Thank you for the insightful commentary, Namikawa. Anyway, come the next meeting, others (read as: Takahashi) are visibly upset about Hatori’s death, but Shimura was the only one to directly try to convince the others not to kill him. It didn’t work, of course, but there was at least an effort. On top of this, he is obviously upset when the rest of them (specifically Takeshi Ooi) don’t pay much attention to it:

… And thus ends any interactions between Shimura and Hatori. Sorry, Hatori.

One could take the way the two of them interact different ways. Although Shimura is the only one to protest killing Hatori, he is also the most vocally against killing people in general and it’s possible that he was trying to narrow the deaths as much as he could while having no real relationship with Hatori. Since Hatori dies so early in, any further interactions that they could have had are cut short, but we do know that they are able to work together and Hatori did try to reassure Shimura at their introduction. The most we can say for sure is that their relationship was more positive than negative, which is not a whole lot. In the end, most of the interpretation is up to the reader.

Personally, although I do believe that Shimura was partially motivated to prevent yet another unneeded death, I also think it’s likely he did care about Hatori on as a person, even if they weren’t necessarily close. It’s not hard to imagine them being something like friends, but it’s hard to interpret them as complete besties or anything like that. Again, it’s pretty much up to your own interpretation.

(Another thing I’d like to add is that, while there are a few slight changes in seating during the meetings, Shimura sits by Hatori at every single one, and continues to sit by his empty chair after Hatori dies. Take this as you will.)

Masahiko Kida

You may remember when I used Kida as an example of someone who Shimura had a less defined relationship with. To be blunt, the two of them have almost no interactions. The most we have to go off of is a fairly subtle comment Kida makes, which is indicatory of his views on Shimura not because of what he said, but because of who he directed the comment to.

In Chapter 44, Shimura suggests that Kira reveal himself so that he can personally explain the rules about how they can kill people to the rest of the group (real opaque excuse, Shimura). Namikawa agrees and offers no real meaningful contribution. Kida (and Mido, but I’ll save that for later) responds as such:

By directing his criticism to Namikawa, who didn’t even come up with the idea in the first place. He completely ignores Shimura, who did come up with the idea. Ignoring Shimura is something that most of the group does at one point or another, and Kida is obviously not innocent of it. All we can really get from that is that he most likely doesn’t think too highly of Shimura – not enough to acknowledge him, at least. Or perhaps he just particularly dislikes Namikawa. Without going into Kida and Namikawa’s relationship, I’ll say that either seems plausible enough.

Shimura, on the other hand, shows no real opinion on Kida at all. You’re free to interpret it pretty much however you please. I’d have to say that I personally do not headcanon him as having much of a personal knowledge or opinion of Kida, but again, it is what you make it.

Takeshi Ooi

In Shimura’s attempts to consult in his worries with the other Yotsuba members, Ooi is the first that he tries to speak with outside of the meetings.

This is before he’s started trying to unmask Kira, and the topic is instead Eraldo Coil, who Shimura (accurately) believes to be untrustworthy. Ooi, however, promptly brushes him off, and tells him to bring these things up during the meetings and relax some.

He also makes a poor joke about blasting missiles at people, which Shimura does not take favorably.

A small thing to notice is that Ooi asks Shimura why he “always thinks so negatively,” implying that they’ve known each other for awhile. This would make sense, as they are coworkers and have likely worked together before, but I thought it would be interesting to note anyways that Ooi and Shimura know each other relatively well before the start of the Yotsuba arc.

The following meeting takes place directly after Hatori’s death. As seen above in Hatori’s section, Shimura is visibly confused when Ooi moves on from Hatori’s death without much discussion at all. Despite this and Ooi’s prior disregard for his worries, Shimura voices his concerns (notably, just like Ooi had told him to), particularly directing them at Ooi…

In the very next panel, Ooi changes the subject, completely ignoring that Shimura had said anything at all. This just after he had specifically told Shimura to speak out more during the meetings. There is also an instance where Ooi directs the conversation specifically away from Shimura’s concerns, effectively ignoring and silencing him, treating his concerns as if they’re entirely irrelevant. Following all this, Shimura makes no further attempts to ask Ooi for assistance, instead skipping straight to Mido.

It is obvious that Shimura is well aware of Ooi’s position within their group and, at least at first, is under the impression that he will value his opinion. Ooi, however, pretty blatantly defies this. He doesn’t act at all like he wants to hear what Shimura has to say, and he hardly seems to want to deal with it; given the rest of the group’s reactions to Shimura, it seems likely that Ooi also simply believes that he’s too easily concerned over things and doesn’t want to indulge him in it. Even though he tells him to speak out more, he cuts off any attempts Shimura makes to do so, which eventually causes Shimura to give up on finding any support in him. It seems to me that they actually knew each other pre-canon and that Shimura trusted him a good deal, which just makes the whole situation feel more like a betrayal, in my opinion; after all, he clearly keeps a close eye on people and is not someone who gives his trust easily. While Shimura seems to hold a positive opinion of Ooi earlier in the meetings, I doubt he does later on.

Shingo Mido

The first interaction between Mido and Shimura is a bit difficult to discern as them in the manga. We cannot fully see their faces, but from what I can tell, it seems most likely to be them. Although the anime, in my opinion, butchers a lot of the Yotsuba group’s scenes and characters, the equivalent of these lines are spoken by them.

Shimura (who had just reentered the room with Hatori) voices his doubts about the situation to Mido, and Mido updates him on the what the other six had been discussing. It’s also interesting to note that this makes Mido the first to bring up the idea that it would be easier if they knew who Kira was, making it a possibility that this is actually what gave Shimura the thought to mention this in a meeting in attempt to make Kira reveal himself.

However, when Shimura does eventually bring this up during a meeting, Mido does not act favorably. As shown above in Kida’s section, Mido (and Kida) directs his criticism to Namikawa, who didn’t even bring up the point in the first place. Shimura is completely ignored.

Despite this, Mido is still Shimura’s first choice to confide in when he decides he can’t let Kira’s plans continue. How exactly this discussion went is majorly unknown. Mido implies that Shimura was in a state of obvious distress, but that’s … really all that can be said for certain. They end up setting up a private meeting, to which Namikawa is also invited to attend (as well as Ooi, but he declines).

It’s obvious that they had been discussing something before Namikawa arrived, and while it most likely was related to their current situation, we’re never given any specifications.

After Namikawa shows up, Mido explains how they can be sure Shimura isn’t Kira. His wording makes him seem annoyed with Shimura, but the fact remains that he did still hear him out and set up this meeting with him. Shimura also acknowledges that Mido doesn’t need help to succeed and isn’t stupid enough to willingly take part in the meetings.

It is obvious that Shimura thinks relatively highly of Mido. While he acknowledges his abilities, he also apparently has enough trust in him to know that he would side with him and to approach him as a potential ally. Mido, on the other hand, does not appear to view Shimura as favorably; there are times when he completely disregards him or expresses annoyance towards him. That being said, he is still willing to hear Shimura out and even provide him with assistance. The interpretation that I take from this is that while Mido seems to find Shimura irritating at times and would sooner give his attention to others (“others” meaning Namikawa), he does recognize that they are on the same side and Shimura has the potential to be a useful ally.

Eiichi Takahashi

Shimura and Takahashi are initially shown to be on seemingly friendly terms. Although they don’t have any telling interactions within the meetings (Takahashi is notably probably the member that talks least), they do have an interaction outside of an elevator during Matsuda’s infiltration of the Yotsuba group.

It is pretty odd that Shimura, the most cautious and nervous out of all his coworkers, is the one to thoughtlessly clue Matsuda in on the meetings. This is most likely nothing more than an inconsistency in Ohba’s characterization, which tends to show when one looks into these two’s relationship … but we’ll get to that soon. As this scene is, the two of them are conversing in what seems to be a friendly tone. The above dialogue speaks for itself in that respect.

Takahashi and Shimura don’t have any more notable interactions like this -- in fact, Shimura is one of the few members who doesn’t ever try to reprimand Takahashi in some way. The other point about their relationship – or at least about Shimura’s feelings about Takahashi – comes during the private meeting between Shimura, Mido, and Namikawa. Upon being asked by Namikawa who he believes Kira is, this is Shimura’s response:

Unless Takahashi had said something we, as readers, never saw (which I find unlikely), there really hasn’t been any reason for Shimura to suspect Takahashi of being Kira. Given how observant Shimura is, the fact that he shows suspicion of Takahashi, of all people, especially given their prior amiability toward each other, seems off. One might speculate that something changed to make Shimura suspect him between the elevator scene and this, but Takahashi’s behavior has been less in favor of Kira since Hatori’s death, if anything. One might speculate that Shimura was merely acting friendly during the elevator scene, but this strikes me as out of character. Never does Shimura suggest anything close to a duplicitous personality – he is really quite upfront about his feelings from the start, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason for him to treat Takahashi differently. Even if one did go with either of those theories, that doesn’t change the fact that there is no reason for Shimura to suspect Takahashi more than anyone else. Mido even points out that it couldn’t be him.

The answer to this issue is, from an out-of-universe perspective, merely that Ohba made an oversight in characterization. Any in-universe views would have to be based in headcanon, because there is no in-universe explanation for this. Perhaps Shimura was just so anxious that he offered Takahashi’s name by some slip of the tongue. It’s possible that he mentioned two people in order to avoid accusing just one and chose Takahashi specifically to appeal to the group dynamic, which is the idea I tend to go with, but it’s entirely subjective, and really my own personal cover-up, for lack of a better word, because I refuse to leave any characterization issue unexplained for the sake of my own peace of mind.

Kyosuke Higuchi

From off the bat, the fact alone that Shimura was invited to the meetings shows that Higuchi does value some of his abilities.

Namikawa theorizes that it’s because he’s “sharp” (stellar wording, Reiji), and I’d have to agree with that. Shimura has no connections to speak of, having apparently risen from low social standing to his current position within the company, and certainly isn’t particularly charismatic. He certainly isn’t there to make Higuchi look good. Even despite his presumed purpose at the meetings, Higuchi doesn’t act much like he values Shimura’s opinion.

Higuchi does not treat Shimura and his ideas particularly well. Outside of this, neither of them show any particular opinion on one another during the meetings. This presents an something of a contradiction in Higuchi’s opinion on Shimura. His objection to the first point makes sense, as Higuchi is Kira, but he has no reason to feel threatened by the second point. Perhaps he was acting rude to Shimura for the sake of consistency after talking down to him before. Perhaps he was just in a bad mood and felt like calling someone an idiot, and couldn’t abuse Takahashi since he had fallen completely silent by this point in the meetings. Perhaps he was just annoyed with Shimura for bringing up theories with no solutions. Perhaps his opinion on Shimura had changed since the beginning of the meetings. I tend to go with a combination of the former three options, but it could also be an inconsistency. Ultimately, there are multiple valid interpretations that one could take away from this.

As shown above in Takahashi’s section, Higuchi is one of the names Shimura mentions as a suspect. Unlike with Takahashi, there are no inconsistencies in this accusation; Namikawa and Mido both agree that Higuchi is almost certainly Kira, and, of course, he is. Thus, we can assume that this was a genuine accusation on Shimura’s part without any dispute, and given his views on Kira, he likely doesn’t think too highly of Higuchi, either.

After this, Namikawa and Mido go on for about a page or so to trash talk Higuchi before moving on to talk about Ooi. Even though we can safely assume Shimura has no love for Higuchi, he still doesn’t take part in this particular part of the discussion. One could interpret this in different ways, but I tend to believe the most likely explanation is that it’s not really relevant to the discussion and Shimura would rather get somewhere in his plans to stop Kira than sit there being petty about a coworker who they dislike (and who is also Kira).

The last point regarding Higuchi and Shimura’s relationship – and, chronologically speaking, the last point in this post – has to do with a line spoken by Higuchi in regards to all six of his co-conspirators while alone at home.

Although not directly stated, the implication here is that Higuchi is planning to kill all of them after he becomes company president. This speaks no more of Shimura’s relationship with Higuchi than it does anyone else’s relationship with him, but the result remains: for whatever attributes Shimura (and the others, as well) has, they are not enough, in Higuchi’s eyes, to merit him escaping with his life at the end of the day. There has never been much of a question about this, but it’s abundantly clear that he views his coworkers as nothing more than pawns to further his own plans. He was planning to dispose of them as soon as their use passed, and likely had been planning to do so for some time.

Regarding Shimura specifically, Higuchi acknowledges to himself that Shimura is intelligent, but does not make this opinion public and seems to enjoy putting him down. Any acknowledgement of his abilities is not equivalent to anything resembling care on a personal level, as Higuchi was planning to kill him without a second thought. Shimura seems to hold a dislike of Higuchi, but is more focused on the fact that he is Kira and less on having a personal disdain for him, like Namikawa and Mido seem to be.

Reiji Namikawa

As you may remember from Hatori’s section above, Namikawa agrees with Hatori in his attempt to reassure Shimura about their relationship to Kira (even if it doesn’t work). Throughout the meetings following this, Namikawa does acknowledge Shimura’s opinions a few times later on, which is … more than any of the others do.

It’s not too much, but, again, this is more than any of the others give during the meetings. Shimura, on the other hand, doesn’t ever outwardly react to any of this. In fact, the only major acknowledgement he makes of Namikawa is after “L” (who, of course, we all know is really Light Yagami) calls him.

Yeah, Namikawa, he’s obviously not buying that excuse, sorry. He doesn’t mention it for a while, but that’ll come up soon enough.

The majority of their interactions come from the meeting between them and Mido. Interestingly enough, Shimura entirely bypasses Namikawa as an option for support. Even though Namikawa has expressed verbal support for him during the meetings, however minor it was, Shimura never goes to him after Ooi proves to be unhelpful even though Namikawa is quite an influential voice in the meetings (not to touch on whether or not he is well-liked; that’s an entirely different matter) and goes straight to Mido when he can’t stand for the meetings any longer. This could be interpreted different ways, but it seems obvious to me that Shimura does not trust Namikawa. Not entirely, at least – and after Namikawa said he was happy their coworker died, why should he?

Nonetheless, Namikawa is still invited to their meeting. He states it was Mido who called him, but whether it was Mido or Shimura who first suggested his attendance is up for debate. Mido, from their interactions, seems to have a favorable enough opinion of Namikawa, so I tend to believe he suggested it and Shimura went along with it, but this is up to the reader’s speculation.

As you may remember from Mido’s section, Shimura states that he knows Namikawa (as well as Mido) is capable of achieving success on his own and is smart enough not to start up those meetings. This shows that he does have some level of respect for Namikawa, but doesn’t make it seem like he necessarily likes or trusts him. Namikawa, on the other hand, shows some actual interest in what he has to say. A couple of these instances are already shown above, in Mido and Takahashi’s respective sections, and while there are a few more that I could add, they only serve to further the same point, so I’ll leave it at those two.

Finally, Shimura brings up the phone call Namikawa received.

Just to speculate some – and these are merely my own thoughts – I’d say it’s likely that part of the reason Shimura agreed or suggested to have Namikawa come to this meeting in the first place was partially for the purpose of asking him this question in private. He does acknowledge that Namikawa is capable and intelligent, yes, but this doesn’t change the fact that he has priorly expressed verbal support for Hatori’s murder and generally shown no unwillingness to participate in the meetings. A disdain for Kira, sure, but nothing that proves on its own that having him join them would be helpful. Perhaps the opportunity to ask about this phone call helped further the reasons for his involvement? But, again, this is mere speculation.

As seen in Higuchi’s section above, Namikawa responds to this question by complimenting Shimura (and taking the chance to diss Kira some more). Shimura doesn’t respond to this at all, although Namikawa’s phone probably prevented him from doing so if he wanted to. Nonetheless, Namikawa quickly reveals the caller to be L when Shimura asks him to.

After this call, Shimura is visibly shaken up, but Namikawa attempts to provide him with some comfort.

Following this, Namikawa gives his little speech about “the true purpose of a Yotsuba employee,” to which Shimura goes along with unenthusiastically. To quote Mido, “Good one, Namikawa.”

It is fairly obvious that Namikawa likes Shimura. He doesn’t seem to pay him much mind for a while, but begins to acknowledge him during later meetings and realizes that he is really rather clever. He grows to have genuine interest in what Shimura has to say, and tries to make him feel more optimistic about their situation. On the other hand, while Shimura seems to have some level of respect for Namikawa and acknowledges his capability and intelligence, he doesn’t trust him on a very deep level and doesn’t seem to particularly like him, either. If you want to take their death scene in the anime into account, Shimura seems to grow to have a more positive attitude toward him over the months after Higuchi’s death, but there is no such scene in the manga and the anime isn’t always accurate in its portrayal of the Yotsuba members, so whether or not you accept this is up to you. Frankly, I don’t consider it manga canon; there is far less available characterization for anime Shimura, but manga Shimura shows far more discomfort around Namikawa than anything else, and I can’t imagine him overlooking Namikawa’s obvious disregard for human life (especially Hatori’s) enough to befriend him, or even trust him at all.

One final interesting thing to note is a line Shimura gives us in Chapter 50.

The fact of the matter is, Shimura’s coworkers have been far from kind. Repeatedly, the majority of them have ignored him and paid no mind to his opinions, and even Ooi, who he tried to seek help from multiple times, let him down in the end. Most of them have expressed no hatred for their situation, and when Hatori tried to leave, no one else spoke up or tried to convince the others to spare him. Despite this, somewhat bafflingly enough, Shimura believes that those of them who aren’t Kira will rally together with him and his two co-conspirators. Perhaps this would have worked (I’m of the opinion that they could find enough support to manage it), but either way, it shows a surprising amount of faith in his coworkers on his part. Even after all of their shortcomings, he still believes they will ultimately chose to do the right thing and try to help take down Kira. Shimura has every reason to believe otherwise, and yet he still places that much trust in them.

#Yotsuba #Suguru Shimura #Arayoshi Hatori #Masahiko Kida #Takeshi Ooi #Shingo Mido #Eiichi Takahashi #Kyosuke Higuchi #Reiji Namikawa #thoughts #spoiler: no one cares #....... anyway i love suguru shimura with all my heart and soul

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azukibeanghost · 7 years

Photo

EMP, and the focus of each episode

One of the weirdest things about series 4 was that it seemed to be missing a lot of the Sherlock/John dynamic (platonic or otherwise) that has always been at the center of each episode. And it’s not just that Mary and Rosie are present – we hardly see Rosie distract John from crime-solving at all, and Mary was already a major figure in series 3. I wouldn’t attribute it to Mary’s death, either; this weird shift in focus happened during TST, before anything traumatic happened to cause a rift between Sherlock and John. It felt like John was barely in TST at all, especially after he was such a constant presence in TAB.

So, let’s take the events in order:

TAB was definitely still about our two main leads. It started with a return to their first meeting, showed John neglecting Mary in favor of spending time with Sherlock, and featured such lines as “There’s always two of us” and “Why don’t you two just elope, for God’s sake?” It also painted John in a rather heroic light, even if he was kind of a dick to Mary:

Aside from the obvious ACD reference, the Victorian setting of this dream has been generally attributed to Sherlock’s suppressed feelings for John. He imagines them back in a time when homosexuality was illegal, so that the lack of a real-life, possible relationship doesn’t sting as much. This can also reflect how he sees John’s psyche: John is quite repressed, and doesn’t like talking about his feelings; this interpretation of John is actually quite comfortable in a Victorian setting.

But then we get to TST. I actually wrote something yesterday explaining why I think that TST is part of EMP, and at the same dream-level as TAB; what’s weird about this is the sudden shift of focus between the two episodes. Sherlock had his big “there’s always two of us” moment, dove off the waterfall, and told Mycroft that he didn’t need drugs anymore… and then suddenly Sherlock is ignoring both Mary and John while waiting for Moriarty to return, but the whole episode gets thrown into Mary backstory and ends up turning into a sort of spy movie. Mary is the star of the episode; John hardly speaks, and when he does, it’s to supplement her narrative.

I keep saying “spy movie” because that’s really what it is: we have assassins, double-crossing, an entire montage of traveling across the globe while adopting new disguises, even a physics-defying leap in front of a bullet. If you want a good example of a Sherlock-style take on a mysterious woman’s past life in international crime coming back to haunt her and ultimately resulting in her death, just watch TBB. This is tonally different.

One of the big things that threw me off about TST was the Samarra story; we’ve never heard Sherlock do voice-over narration that wasn’t directly related to a case or the best man speech. The closest thing I can think of is John’s narration in TAB, which just reinforces the idea that this episode is likewise in Sherlock’s head. The obvious metaphors of sharks and water, and the big heavy theme of predetermined fate, all make this a very interesting contemplation on the Mary situation. If this is a peek into Sherlock’s mind, well then the subject matter makes sense: he’s just been shot by Mary, and is trying to figure out what sort of other dangers she might pose. TAB was just to sort out Sherlock’s relationship with John, and it came to a neat conclusion (“there’s always two of us;” John won’t leave Sherlock when he needs him most), so TST is his way of figuring out what to do about Mary.

It doesn’t end well.

Unfortunately, Sherlock is probably on a lot of drugs at this point (either in the hospital or on the airplane, depending on what you think Reality is), and it starts to really show. While cocaine came up in TAB, and Sherlock started off TST with a “natural high,” TLD tackles intense drug use and dissociation from reality head-on.

There are a number of things going on here, which I think can be attributed to real-life drugs influencing Sherlock’s thought process. We have John’s issues with hallucinations, shown through Mary (who is still very threatening, if you ask me); Culverton Smith’s memory drug, which could possibly be invented by Sherlock’s brain to explain why he feels like he’s forgetting something important; Eurus’s disguises, and Sherlock/John’s inability to recognize her as a threat; and the crazy drug sequence which just emphasizes how much Sherlock is losing it.

We also see techniques such as slow motion or ambiguous cutting (like in the scene with the scalpel, or the flashes of TV clips), which add to the surreal feeling of the episode as a whole. The fact that things that shouldn’t be there are clearly shown, like Mary’s “ghost,” is also very unnerving. The “case” (if you can really call it one) isn’t very important, in the long run; instead, Sherlock’s deteriorating mental state is given full focus.

In short, TLD is all about Sherlock losing his grasp on reality.

Then we get to TFP, which I would argue is probably another dream-level down, if we haven’t already descended a few. This is because John gets shot at the end of TLD, and so the entirety of TFP might just take place inside John’s head, within Sherlock’s. (Like a dream-within-a-dream, but all imagined by Sherlock.)

Now, at first I was a little bit unsure of exactly what the focus of this episode is: is it Eurus? (Does Eurus even exist? I don’t think so.) It doesn’t seem to be John, nor Sherlock, really, not in the way that TLD focused on him.

Could it possibly be… Mycroft?

Now, of course, I’m not saying that the whole point of TFP is to provide some sort of deep character exploration of Mycroft Holmes, but he certainly gets more screentime than usual. He showed up as a source of advice for Sherlock in TAB and TST, but now is given the chance to do some real leg work. He is also responsible for the Holmes family dynamic, since he has been managing Eurus and Sherlock from childhood, while probably also doing damage control with the parents.

There are plenty of Mycroft moments in this episode: we open with him watching an old movie, then there’s the umbrella-sword-gun, him as the client, the flashback to his childhood with Eurus, the whole Lady Bracknell thing, the patience grenade, breaking into Sherrinford in disguise, and the “brother mine” moment where he offers to die. Personally, I enjoyed him more than any other character in the episode, just because the rest of them felt a little flat. Mycroft, on the other hand, seemed to be softened slightly, and so that at least was interesting to watch.

So, basically, I would explain EMP like this:

TAB – Sherlock examines his relationship with John

TST – Sherlock considers the potential dangers that Mary poses

TLD – *interlude as Sherlock starts really feeling the drugs/dying faster*

TFP – crazy nightmare with some family themes, through Sherlock’s relationship with Mycroft (Eurus kind of came out of nowhere so I don’t think she counts as a deep familial bond)

This is why it doesn’t feel like the Sherlock-and-John show anymore. If we want to see that dynamic return, we’ve got to get back to reality first.

@sherlockians-get-bored @sarahthecoat @doveandfrog @221bloodnun

#mara does meta #mara's emp series

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sg2tiger · 7 years

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Commenting on your post about Lion's death in EP7, I doubt its Ryukishi's bullshit. Mostly because I doubt that a guy like him would make shit up as he went along. Anyway going back to Bern, considering how she never lies, I can see how a massacre of some sort would go down. However, because Bern is known to twist muddle the truth (some parts of the EP7 Tea Party were inaccurate to Prime) I think she's trolling on how the massacre is carried out.

Whoa there - I’m getting the impression that you misunderstood the point of my post!! I guess I’ll go through this point by point.

“I doubt its Ryukishi’s bullshit. Mostly because I doubt that a guy like him would make shit up as he went along.”

Well…setting aside the fact that Ryukishi himself has admitted that he does sometimes make up aspects of the story that weren’t originally intended (source: pending), that wasn’t what my post was actually focused on. My argument (backed by various pieces of evidence from the EP7 tea party itself) boils down to this: the ‘ingredients’ that lead Rudolf and Kyrie to commit the massacre should fundamentally not exist in Lion’s world.

The argument was then whether this was Ryukishi - a human author who can, and has, made other mistakes before - who failed to consider this (his message for this scene in EP7 is to show ‘as long as the gold exists, the adults will be driven to violence’, which is true, but my point is that the tools that allowed it to extend from violence to massacre should not have been in place)…or if it was Bernkastel’s fault, who lied intentionally, spinning a false tale for the sole purpose of driving Lion (and by extension, Beatrice, for whom Lion was the only hope) and Ange into deeper despair.

But let’s focus on that ‘Bern lied’ part first.

“Anyway going back to Bern, considering how she never lies”

Can you show me where, exactly, in the VN it is ever stated that ‘Bernkastel never lies’…and then show me where it’s said in red? Because as far as I’m aware no such passage exists, and in fact there’s evidence in the story to the contrary. The only thing in Umineko that never lies is the red truth, and even then one of the themes of the story is that you can’t always believe in a ‘single truth’. The red is CONSTANTLY abused with various loopholes, so in essence, it’s possible to even ‘lie’ with the red. And yet nowhere are we ever told ‘Bernkastel never lies’…so I’m not sure where you’ve gotten that idea from.

(and let’s not get too far off-topic here, but wouldn’t the entirety of EP5 be a primary example of Bern, in fact, lying? She rigs the entire trial in favor of humiliating Natsuhi as a culprit and claiming she slept with Kinzo, who she knows is dead. The entire ‘truth’ of EP5 is one big fat lie.)

Realistically, the only canon justification for Lion’s world also having a massacre, I’d argue, is in fact Bernkastel lied. Since she’s hungry for revenge against Beato, she spun up a fake tale in her expanded catbox world wherein Lion is also gunned down by Kyrie following the exact same sequence of events as Prime. After all, she’s the Game Master, right? Game Masters can lie about scenes on the board - isn’t that what all of the magic scenes in Beato’s game show us? So it’s entirely possible that Bern created a fake scene showing Lion the massacre, because she never says it in red (she only says the truth of Prime that Ange saw is the truth in red).

And she’s got no opponent in this game, to boot. Who’s going to stop her from doing this…?

Oh wait. Will. Bern didn’t know that Will was still around, but he was. And he comes back to save Lion and buy him time to escape. Except he’s unable to hold off Bern for very long, and loses an arm as a result. In the end, Will and Lion are overcome by Bern’s kitties, and the game fades to black. I cannot speak of what happens to them in EP8 (which you also seem to be referencing? As I’ve said before I have not yet read EP8, so I can’t comment on any of that yet), but the fact of the matter is that Will comes to buy time for Lion…and fails.

But there’s something about the idea that Bern lied that bugs me personally. If she had done so, deliberately…shouldn’t Will have brought this very argument up and been able to buy more time? As long as she refuses to repeat it in red, she won’t get a Logic Error, but it would be a painful argument all the same and keep her occupied. He should have been able to prevent these facts and buy Lion time to escape. She should not have been able to easily defeat Will, who would be able to argue back these facts that the tragedy could not happen in Lion’s world. And yet, Will is defeated…and seems like he barely has anything to argue against in the first place. Maybe it’s because Will hasn’t even accepted Prime as truth so he didn’t think of it, but…

I feel like ‘Bern is lying’ was not actually intended to be the conclusion when Ryukishi wrote it, but that Ryukishi simply didn’t think about these little details as to why it shouldn’t have happened. Note that I didn’t actually attack Ryukishi and say that he ‘made it up as he went along’ in my post. What’s interesting to me is that other people I’ve shown this post have also told me that they (the kinds of people in the fandom who love picking apart and analyzing it) never stopped to think about a lot of the factors i pointed out tells me that it’s entirely possible it slipped by Ryukishi, too.

Remember - he is human. And a doujin (non-professional) author. Just because he wrote a story of a quality surpassing many professional works doesn’t mean he’s incapable of mistakes - and I feel like a lot of Ryukishi fans like to put him up on a pedestal simply because they love his work (not saying you do, but I have seen this attitude among 07th Expansion fans a lot). My thing is that you can love Umineko and still be critical of potential mistakes and errors in judgment. And you can author a great story and still mess up on smaller details. It’s human. I think he simply made a mistake that, while it doesn’t break the story overall, is, nonetheless, mistaken.

That said, I’d advise you to go back and reread the post in question again, but I’ll sum up my basic point - the factors that caused the massacre in Prime do not exist in Lion’s world. Because Yasu, inherently, does not exist in Lion’s world. And without Yasu, there would be no guns, no knowledge of the bomb, and most importantly of all there would be no 2 billion yen cash card.

Let’s ignore the first two, though. Let’s say that, somehow, Rudolf and Kyrie got access to the guns and learned about the bomb in Lion’s world (despite my post also going over how little sense this makes, but let’s just do a ‘wouldn’t put it past kinzo’ and say he left the guns and told them about the bomb). So their plan is…what, exactly? To kill everyone for giggles, escape to Kuwadorian, and wait for the bomb to clean up the mess? What do they have to gain for this? Absolutely nothing. Because the entire reason Rosa argued with Eva about the bomb was that the pile of gold would be wiped away by the explosion as well.

Remember. The reason it still benefited Rudolf and Kyrie in Prime to use the bomb was the existence of the 2 billion yen cash card, which would let them be set for life. Who put the money on that card? Yasu. Who doesn’t exist in Lion’s world? Yasu. How much does a single gold ingot weigh? A fucking lot. How much does ten tons weigh? …well, ten tons. Which is even more of a fucking lot. It’s not something they could escape the island with, and as I also pointed out in my post, Krauss was stated to be the only one who could easily convert the illegal unmarked gold from 40+ years ago into usable cash. So not only would the gold itself be difficult for them to do much with…setting the bomb would destroy it all in the first place.

The only reason they commit the massacre is because they are able to take the already-converted 2 billion on the cash card and leave the island.

That. Is. Fundamental. Truth. And in Lion’s world, that cash card should by right not exist. Kinzo has no reason to convert 2 billion to cash and have a card and pin number ready to give his shitty kids. He hates his kids. Lion is his successor. He doesn’t think the others can solve the epitaph. Which he decided to present to them on a whim. Compared to Yasu, who prepped all of this in advance. If they solved it all Kinzo would do is say ‘enjoy your gold’ and leave the issue of how to turn it into cash in their hands - he wouldn’t hand them that kind of shortcut.

So???? There’d be no cash card in Lion’s world. Period. There is simply no way this makes sense given Kinzo’s character.

It can be simplified down like this: no cash card, no reason to set the bomb and lose all the gold, no reason to kill everyone, no tragedy. And that’s ignoring the other points I made about why they shouldn’t know about the bomb in the first place or have access to the four rifles and case full of bullets.

That was the point of my post. The factors that actually lead them to kill, by their own admission, wouldn’t have existed in Lion’s world, so Bernkastel saying ‘it happened the same way as the truth you just saw’ is incorrect. As fans, we can ‘correct’ this mistake and say ‘Bern lied, and because she didn’t do so in red Lion’s catbox is about as valid as the idea that Zombie Kanon killed Nanjo and Kumasawa in EP2′. That’s fair. We can absolutely say that Lion’s massacre was because Bern lied, because that’s the sort of thing she’d do. Featherine already got her answers, and Clair had already passed on. What happened to Lion after that had no obligation to be true, so we can simply say it wasn’t, and she did it for her own amusement. But to me, it seems more likely that Ryukishi probably just slipped up and ‘Bernkastel lied about Lion’ wasn’t actually the narrative intent.

Maybe my use of the word ‘bullshit’ was a point of confusion, in which case, I apologize. My intent was saying ‘somebody messed up here because these details won’t make sense’, not ‘OMG RYUKISHI A SHIT AUTHOR WHO PULLED THE STORY OUT OF HIS ASS’ (which in fact I made a post about once before as to why I don’t think he pulled the story out of his ass as many Ryukishi-negative people claim, so). But the fact of the matter is…there are too many reasons that the massacre wouldn’t have happened in Lion’s world to just throw up our hands and accept Bern’s truth. Either she straight-up lied, or Ryukishi goofed.

People can make mistakes. Authors can make mistakes. Ryukishi is not some kind of god, and we are allowed to criticize him (nothing stopped him from criticizing the readers, after all…). He’s made other minor mistakes in Umineko, as well. We can love Umineko as a story, and still analyze it as, well, a story, and acknowledge that the story’s author is not perfect, too. I may not like Ryukishi, but I don’t attack him baselessly, either…and I wasn’t even attacking so much as pointing out something that doesn’t make sense with the information presented.

In the end, Lion’s world is entirely separate from Prime. This level of mistake doesn’t break the logic of Umineko as a whole, or ruin the meaning of the story Ryukishi set out to tell. It’s indeed a very minor thing…but it’s still a mistake, all the same, and one I wanted to analyze in greater detail.

#asks #umineko #SG2 rereads umineko #SG2 rereads requiem #down-the-rabbit-well #umineko spoilers #umineko asks

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