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prettywordsyouleft · 4 years ago

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Forsaken | Part 5

Summary: As one of the Forsaken, Jinyoung had no right to covet anything as his own. When he stumbles across you standing in the middle of the village he had plundered, the memories of old make him risk it all, clutching at the past in hopes for a better future.

Pairing: Park Jinyoung x reader

Genre: warrior au / star crossed lovers / angst / romance

Warnings: death, kidnapping, cursing, a myriad of emotions - this is a really sad love story.

Index: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

“You’re a fool.”

Looking at the young man strung up beside him facing the same miserable fate as he now held, Jinyoung couldn’t help but scoff. “You are aware we’re both in this together, right?”

“I knew they would come for me one day. You, however, think you’re still protecting that girl and all those townspeople,” he mentioned with a hollow laugh. “You’re a fool, like I said.”

“Have you no hope in this world?”

“Why should I? No one has ever looked out for me once.”

Jinyoung glanced down at his clothing and then that of the young man beside him. There was a stark difference between the worn, tattered pants and shirt he wore to Jinyoung’s cleaner, newer outfit. Sighing, he wondered if you hadn’t saved him years back if he would be in a similar situation to the fellow prisoner, or worse off.

Jinyoung nodded sadly. “Is it bad to be a fool?”

“Only if you don’t wisen up to the way people use you. That girl really made you forget who you are, didn’t she?”

“Do you have a name?” Jinyoung asked and the man shrugged. “Mine’s Jinyoung. I was gifted my name by the person who led me to have hope.”

“And now you’re here and she’s back there. Doesn’t that anger you?”

Jinyoung shook his head. “Not if it keeps her safe.”

The man mumbled under his breath incoherently and then turned to look at Jinyoung. “How did she give you a name?”

“Part of it was from where she found me. The rest she gave me. Do you want one too?”

Thinking for only a moment, the man gave a short nod. Glancing around the surroundings as they trudged towards the closest camp for their kind, Jinyoung spotted a circus wagon abandoned in the nearest field. He then looked to the sign outside the farmstead they passed. He grinned. “Jaebum.”

“What does it mean?”

Jinyoung frowned, gesturing his head in one direction and the next. “Jae and Sons from the wagon. And Eunbum Estate. That’s how it works.”

“That’s how those people name one another?”

Jinyoung nodded. “That’s how I got my name.”

“Jaebum,” he repeated, looking at Jinyoung, smiling for the first time along their journey. “It looks like I might become a fool much like you.”

“Being a fool paid off,” Jaebum mentioned the following morning as he stopped at Jinyoung’s side, the pair watching as you helped with hanging out the washing. His friend’s sentence irked him, Jinyoung clenching his jaw momentarily. Jaebum noticed and clapped him on the back. “You need to relax. We both know they played us over the safety of that town. We stupidly did as they told us, mere puppets on a string, when their promises were as empty as our pockets remained. By some sort twist of fate, she lived. Isn’t that something to celebrate?”

“At the cost of all she knows and this wretched Rebellion. Doesn’t that bother you?”

Jaebum shook his head. “Not while I’m here. It just feels like a peaceful settlement.”

“Except all the men here are owned by the Rebellion.”

“We’re going to break free,” Jaebum proposed and Jinyoung looked at the man smiling at Youngjae running with the stray dog that had chosen this place as its home recently. “We’ll take the ones we care for the most and we’ll leave to someplace else entirely.”

“Nowhere,” Jinyoung murmured. He chuckled before nudging Jaebum. “Now who sounds like a fool?”

“Someone told me a long time ago being a fool isn’t a bad thing if you remain wise about your situation.”

“Wait, wasn’t that you who told me that?” Jinyoung corrected as Jaebum started towards the gathering of people.

He glanced over his shoulder, grinning mischievously. “Sounds like I’ve always been wise then!”

“And I’m still a fool?!” Jinyoung griped, dashing off towards Jaebum and shoving him playfully.

As his longest friend in this world, Jinyoung knew he could count on Jaebum to do anything with him. After hearing about your parents and the tragedy he had fooled himself not to believe could have happened all this time, he had gone to Jaebum to announce the need to leave the Rebellion. Dead or alive, he wanted out and wondered if Jaebum was along for the ride.

He needn’t question it; Jinyoung knew all of the names that came to mind would follow him into the depths of hell if he requested it.

Staring over at you now laughing at something Jackson said, Jinyoung chewed on his bottom lip. Would you follow him as well? He was used to leading his men all these years, but there was once a time where it was you who motivated his actions.

You still held that power over him too.

“You’re here,” you commented when you noticed his arrival in the back field, waving lightly. Jinyoung raised his hand in greeting, feeling shy when the others teased him for it. Taking his hand, you led Jinyoung away from the jeers and sat him down at one of the communal tables. You didn’t let go of him, instead played with yet another of his scars on the palm of his hand.

“Don’t do that,” he mumbled and you stopped to examine his expression. He could feel his ears growing hotter and ducked his head away. “Don’t trace my battle scars. I deserve each one of them.”

“You probably do,” you agreed softly and he glanced at you again. “Did they hurt?”

“Some.”

“Do they still hurt now?” He shook his head and you let out a shaky breath. “Some of them look like they would have been painful to receive so I worried that you-”

“You’re adapting to this world too easily, you know,” he blurted out, blinking with some of the sudden emotion he felt. You dropped your hand away and made no effort to respond. “It scares me.”

“Why?”

“You should hate it here. This isn’t a life I wanted for you.”

“Do you think I wanted this for you as well? It’s out of our hands.”

“Is it?”

“Jinyoung, you became a soldier of the Rebellion because of that day, didn’t you?” you questioned and he grew tense, pulling his arm back. You reached over to stop his retreat entirely, gripping at his hand for answers. “You seemed so surprised over my parents and the townspeople. I put it together with some of the information I sourced from Jackson and-”

“Jackson talks too much,” he grumbled and you tilted your head to the side exasperatedly. “What he does!”

“Well, at least one of you talks! It’s refreshing to have someone who isn’t afraid to tell me what this world is like and not treat me as if I’m a fragile doll who might break!”

Jinyoung went to respond, opening his mouth, only to close it again when he thought better of it.

It made you smile smugly. “See, you can’t even tell me the-”

“I had to steal a crown from the castle. Jaebum and I. If we got the crown, we’d be able to save the town and you. This was done three months after I left, which means they played us entirely.”

You gasped noisily. “You stole a crown?!”

“That’s the least of my sins, Y/N.”

“What else have you done that…” Your voice trailed off then, finally looking up at him, a sombre expression shifting away from your surprise. “Right, you’ve done a lot.”

“It’s not protecting you from a vicious truth that I don’t talk about it,” he replied, sighing a little. “I just don’t like to think of what I’ve done. One foot in front of the other. Until you returned to my life, I didn’t let myself think of the past, not even once.”

“You’re lying,” you whispered, tears welling within your eyes. “Tell me you’re lying.”

“Would it ease you if I had? Why think of a world full of hope when the one I live in had nothing of the sort within it?”

“I thought of you every day. I talked to you as I did the most mundane of daily chores. I wished for you to be beside me like today, putting out washing on the line to dry in the sun. To make a living together, eat together, and fall asleep together. Every day I thought of how doing that with you would make it worth living on. You’re lying, you have to be! You’ve thought of me over the years, Jinyoung. It’s why you’re still alive. Hope? You had it all along. If you had lost it, you wouldn’t be on this Earth. You wouldn’t kill anyone but yourself had you lost it.”

“Enough,” he stated, getting up from the table. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Scared you might share more with me than you want to?” you countered and Jinyoung paused in his retreat to stare at you.

He disliked how easily you were unravelling all the sections within him he had worked hard over the years to pack away into the corner of his mind, allowing him to focus on the task at hand. If you continued to pull at the strings and loosen off each part of him, it would become dangerous.

He was already born reckless; he didn’t need to have you encouraging it.

Deciding he had spoken with you long enough, he walked away hastily, heading to his home to escape the sunny world you had brought into this camp.

“Do you think if you walk away from me that I’ll stop talking?!” you exclaimed, stalking after his retreating back. Jinyoung groaned loudly. He needed space from you right now.

You weren’t prepared to give it, however.

“Jinyoung, Jinyoung, Jinyoung!”

“Y/N, please!” he implored, turning to face you and throwing his hands up in defeat. “You’re never going to stop are you?!”

“No, because when people fight they ought to resolve it!”

“Can’t you see I’m mad with you and need time to cool off first?”

“I’m mad with you also!” you proclaimed, marching past him, and taking the path around the back of the house towards the lake.

Cursing under his breath, he jogged after you, finding you stripping off your outer garments with vigour. He stopped at your side and let out another curse. “Put your clothes back on!”

“Why? I’m mad with you and need to cool off!”

“That water is far too cold right now for you to enter.”

“Then I shall cool off faster!” you snapped back, kicking off your skirt.

“You’re impossible!”

“That’s what I think of you right now!”

“Don’t enter that water.”

You smirked darkly, stepping back towards it. “Why should I listen, you wouldn’t when I said don’t walk away.”

“Y/N, come on, stop!”

You took another step towards it, your heels now within the muddy entrance. You grimaced at the cold surface yet made no attempt to back down. Jinyoung ran a hand through his hair in frustration and as you went to take another step backwards, he lurched towards you, pulling you firmly into his embrace.

“What are you doing?” you mumbled, now less brazen in tone. “This isn’t cooling me down any.”

“You’re like ice to touch,” he pointed out just as softly, holding you as close as he could to his body. “I need to warm you up.”

You stared back at him before crashing your lips upon his, kissing one another until the argument was all forgotten.

You approached him a few hours later, surprising Jinyoung with how long you had managed to wait. A wry smile attached to his lips then, waiting for your reaction.

He wasn’t as prepared as he expected himself to be.

Your arms wound around his back from the stool he sat upon, nestling into him. The book he held fell to the desk with a thud.

Jinyoung was certain his heart was beating just as loudly in his chest. “W-What are you doing?”

“You’re all I have left,” you stated in a voice barely louder than a whisper and Jinyoung swallowed roughly. “It amazes me that I can touch you now after all these years and you don’t turn into dust within my grasp.”

“One day I-”

“Together,” you mentioned firmly and Jinyoung turned around to face you. You blinked back your tears. “We’re not parting again, okay? We either live or die together.”

_________________

Part 6

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ranger-report · 4 years ago

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Theory: No One Is Real In Silent Hill 2

At last, for October, I present a Fan Theory nearly twenty years in the making. I’ve been thinking long and hard about this presentation, and for a moment nearly broke it up into a bunch of smaller posts. But where’s the fun in that? So below I present in its thirty-page entirety (I KNOW I’M SO SORRY) the idea that James Sunderland is the only physically “real” human in Silent Hill 2, and that everyone else is a manifestation created by the town. It’s a long, long, detailed long post, so if you’re here for it you have my thanks in advance. Go pee and get something to snack on.

Welcome to Silent Hill!

***

In the world of video games, true genre-defining experiences come few and far between. Often these benchmark releases inspire waves of imitators: some capture the spark of what made these masterpieces so memorable, most end up as cash grabs on a popular genre. Few games have inspired such imitation as the Silent Hill series. Provocative, psychological, and unafraid to tackle controversial content, the series is renowned for preying on player expectations, toying with perceptions of space and time and awareness. Many lesser games have made an attempt at reproducing the same magic, including later games in the same series.

Silent Hill 2 is singled out by fans and critics to be the best of the bunch. Hailed as one of the scariest games of all time, the story tackles the subjects of abuse (both emotional and physical), grief, and punishment. It does so in a very uniquely Silent Hill manner, in which nothing is real, and every step the player takes moves them closer to an abyss of terror. Developed by Team Silent, the group that created the first four titles in the series, Silent Hill 2 is categorized as a “survival horror” game, and the primary means of gameplay is that of tense combat with heavy emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving. Combat is by no means a “run and gun” escapade – the protagonist generally has a variety of melee weapons like a wood plank or a tire iron, and relatively few guns. Ammunition is sparse and requires constant management; the game recommends avoiding as many enemies as possible. Meanwhile, puzzles are mostly logic-based, involving riddles, the combining of objects to create a key, and choosing the proper item for the proper spot. The atmosphere is oppressively claustrophobic, even in its outdoor environments. Truly, this is an experience that is designed to make the player feel alone and isolated.

Despite this, Silent Hill 2 features a memorable cast; each character has distinct motivations and reasons for their journey to the town, but each person is also shrouded in mystery. After all, their purpose is not to tell their stories, but to enhance the journey of the protagonist. While at first it seems a given that these characters are all real – and they are presented as such – it is my belief that they are, in fact, manifestations of the town in order to provide extra torment for the protagonist, and also represent one of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This is a bit of a difficult pill to swallow at first glance, but the evidence is present throughout the game.

Before we dive into the reasons for this theory, let's first examine the story and setting of the game itself, in order to make sense of what is to come.

In my restless dreams, I see that town:

Silent Hill.

You promised you'd take me there again someday, but you never did.

Well, I'm alone there, now. In our “special place.”

Waiting for you.

-- Mary Shepard-Sunderland

In the opening of Silent Hill 2, James Sunderland reads these words, the beginning of a letter sent to him by his wife Mary. This is, of course, an impossible letter, as James quietly states that Mary has been dead for years, victim of a terminal illness. And yet, despite knowing this, James has come to the town of Silent Hill in order to understand how such an impossible letter could exist, and whether or not his late wife could truly be waiting for his arrival. For both the player and for James, this is an ominous way to begin the journey. Players familiar with the series will already know that the titular town conjures scenarios and creatures based on the psyche of the individuals in the town, making them see what it wants them to see. Those with, say, guilty consciences will see monsters and demons – innocents will only see an empty town. James, meanwhile, despite knowing full well that Mary is quite dead, is far too curious to understand what's going on here.

James begins his journey at a rest stop off the highway, above the town itself. This is the clearest view of the surroundings the game will give us until near the end. Forestry, tall trees, and waves of fog between them can be seen, with a large lake in the background beyond the town. Leaving the rest stop, James – and the player – is forced to walk a long path from the rest stop to the town, a full twenty minutes in-game. On all sides, the fog grows thicker, and the sounds of mysterious wildlife roaming the woods can be heard. As James enters the outskirts of Silent Hill, he cuts through a cemetery off the main road. Here he surprises Angela Orosco, who is sitting in front of a headstone, lost in thought. Immediately presented as anxious, cautious, stuttering and shy, Angela is a nineteen-year-old who claims to be searching for her mother – someone she accidentally refers to as “Mama” before correcting her choice of words to “Mother.” James tells her that he's looking for someone also, admitting that she may or may not be there. When he asks Angela if he's headed in the right direction of the town, Angela attempts to warn him off, saying that there's something wrong with the town, that he doesn't want to go there. James cuts her off, stating that he doesn't care if it's dangerous or not.

Returning to his quest, James finally enters Silent Hill. Here the fog is at its thickest, and the streets are clearly abandoned and in disrepair. James, thinking he sees someone walking through the fog in the distance, diverts course until he comes to a small construction site. A radio, blaring odd static, lies beside a dead body. James, cautiously, goes inside to pick it up, and turns around to face a strange, warped creature that looks like a shapeless human wrapped in a straitjacket made of flesh. In self-defense, James grabs a plank of wood and is forced to beat the creature to death. As he leaves, he thinks he hears Mary's voice coming from the radio, but the words can't be made out. He continues on. Now more of these creatures are walking along the streets, shuffling, shuddering, spewing acid from their gaping mouths if he gets too close. James can fight, or he can run, but out here where the enemies are multiple and fast, running is the best course of action.

James understands that his first objective is to reach Rosewater Park, where he and Mary shared an intimate moment during their vacation. But the streets have been cut off, so he decides to cut through the Wood Side Apartments. Inside it is dark, strange, and full of noises off-camera that exists solely to set James and the player on edge. In the apartment complex, he sees a key resting on the other side of some gated bars, which looks like it might be the one he needs to cross from one building to the next. As he attempts to reach through for it, an eight-year-old little girl appears out of nowhere. She kicks the key away and stomps on James's hand, laughing as she disappears into the darkness. This is the first living person James has seen in the town proper, and she has essentially made his life more difficult.

More creatures haunt the hallways of the apartment complex, including one that James sees standing on the opposite side of what look like prison bars in the middle of a hall. Tall, wearing a red triangular helmet and a flesh butcher's smock, this creature is called “Pyramid Head.” For now it merely stands opposite James, staring at him motionlessly. Later on, James will encounter Pyramid Head again, this time as it appears to be sexually assaulting another of the monsters. Hiding, James is forced to shoot at Pyramid Head with a gun he found in the apartments until it leaves on its own.

While searching through the apartment complex, James enters a room to discover Angela lying on the floor in front of a full-length mirror, holding a kitchen knife. As she gazes at the knife longingly, James tries to talk her out of whatever it is she's thinking of doing, stating that there's “always another way.” Angela's response is to compare the two of them, noting that it's easier to run away from their problems. She speaks in slow, exhausted tones, a stark difference from the stuttering hesitance of their earlier encounter. “Besides,” she concludes, still staring at the knife, “it's what we deserve.” James denies this, startled by the implication that he would consider such a way out. They continue to talk, James calmly and confidently holding Angela's attention, before they both admit to each other that neither of them have found the people they're looking for. James lets slip that he wouldn't be able to find his wife anyway since she's dead, which causes Angela to become nervous and animated again, and she gets up to leave. James says that they should go together since her warning about the town proved to be true, but she rejects the offer, claiming she'd only slow down his progress. James asks what she's going to do with the knife. Hesitating, Angela asks if James will hold on to it for her, that she's unsure what she'll do if she takes it with her. But when James reaches forward to accept the knife Angela screams and holds it out in defense. Surprised, James backs away as Angela has a near-breakdown, claiming that she's sorry and that she's “been bad.” She quickly sets down the knife and leaves the room in a flustered rush. James takes the knife, and it is worth noting that the knife cannot be used as a weapon in game, only as an item to be examined in his inventory.

James enters one of the apartments to discover Eddie, a portly twenty-something in an ill-fitting polo shirt and backwards cap, hunched over a toilet, violently throwing up. Eddie found a corpse inside of a fridge out in the living room after being chased in by some of the monsters, and a panicked Eddie became nauseous at the sight of it. In a difficult-to-stomach cutscene, Eddie continues to vomit while James talks to him. Eddie adamantly proclaims his innocence in regards to the dead body, claiming that he “didn't do it” and that he's not from Silent Hill. James, oddly, continues to converse with Eddie calmly, as though he's ignoring the man's explosive vomit. He asks if Eddie knows Pyramid Head. Confused, Eddie says he doesn't know what that is, only that he's seen some monsters that have freaked him out thus far. James infers that something brought Eddie to Silent Hill, but that whatever it is, he should try to leave town as soon as possible. Both men tell each other to be careful before James leaves Eddie to finish his business.

After several puzzles and strange occurrences, James is confronted by Pyramid Head, who is now wielding a huge knife that it has to drag behind it. Forced into a narrow room, the player must guide James back and forth, avoiding Pyramid Head's slow attacks, while shooting round after precious round into the beast. Eventually, an air raid siren can be heard in the distance; Pyramid Head descends a set of stairs that are submerged underwater, leaving James to his fate. The water drains, James follows – and the monster is gone.

Leaving the apartments, James finds the little girl who kicked him in an alley out back, perched on a high wall. Her name is Laura. She's precocious, bratty, and stubborn. James tries to get her to come with him, since there are monsters running around that could hurt her, but it seems as though Laura doesn't see the monsters. During their chat, she tells James that he “didn't love Mary,” and refuses to answer any other questions before running away into the fog.

As very confused James continues through Silent Hill, he arrives at Rosewater Park, hoping that this is where he will find Mary. But instead, James finds Maria, a woman who resembles Mary so much that he notes that she could be her twin. Yet Maria quickly establishes her stark difference from Mary. First, with her clothing: where the game shows images of Mary wearing a conservative pink cardigan and long skirt, Maria wears a revealing purple top and leopard print miniskirt. Her walk is sultry, her demeanor flirtatious, and her gaze holds a mischievous “come hither” look. Even her hair shows the change: where Mary had a darker auburn hue, Maria clearly has bleached hair, her brown roots prominent, a tint of red at the tips. James, taken aback by how different this woman is from his wife, at first decides to leave her be. But Maria quickly requests to come along with, wondering aloud if he was going to just leave her alone in a town surrounded by monsters. Guiltily, James tries to avoid this, but surrenders to letting her tag along. She asks if there's another place that Mary could be, and he realizes that they had stayed at the Lakeview Hotel, on an island in the middle of Toluca Lake. Together, the two of them set off to find a way there.

As the player guides James through the town, Maria follows at a decently close pace. Not quite as fast as James, but not so slow that she can't keep up. The artificial intelligence designed for Maria allows the player to not worry if Maria is nearby or not when running from or fighting monsters. In other games, the mechanics would force the player to worry about their companions, but not so Maria; she always catches up, and no matter how far away she is when James goes through a door into a new environment, Maria is immediately waiting on the other side. This ties in to the theme of Maria needing James to take care of her in the story.

Discovering that the highway leading out of town towards the docks has sunken into the earth, James turns around to seek out alternate means of getting to the hotel. Searching through the town, he comes across the Bowl-O-Rama, and decides to go inside just in case he can find any supplies worth taking along. Maria, notably, refuses to go with, stating that she hates bowling and would prefer to remain outside for him.

Inside, James hears two voices talking to each other: Laura, and Eddie. The scene cuts away from James, and focuses instead on these two characters. This is significant in that this is the only time in the game where two people who are not James are having a conversation, and their topic is significant. Laura mocks Eddie's weight, calling him a “gutless fatso,” and asks why he's running away from the police, why he can't just apologize for what he's done. Somehow he's gotten hold of some pizza, which he gladly eats while Laura sits beside him. Eddie states that he would never be forgiven for his transgressions, and continues eating. Laura mocks him for being a coward. Again, this is tellingly the only conversation in the game that James is not a part of, nor does it exist for his benefit in the game. It's only for the player to see and understand.

After this cutscene, James enters the bowling alley and finds Eddie. He asks Eddie if he's alone, which Eddie cautiously admits that he isn't. Laura rolls a bowling ball their way to get their attention, which causes James to see her briefly as she leaves the building. James tries to get Eddie to follow, but he declines, stating that Laura already said she was fine on her own, and that she claimed “a fatso like me would only slow her down.” James, in disgust, says, “Forget you!” before chasing after Laura. Outside, Maria tells James that she saw Laura headed towards the hospital, and they shouldn't leave her alone with the town being the way it is.

James follows Laura to Brookhaven Hospital at Maria's behest, and after Maria stops to rest in one of the rooms he goes on alone. Maria, it should be noted, has claimed to be hungover, but has developed a nasty cough and is taking pills from a prescription bottle. James, pressing on, eventually discovers the little girl playing with teddy bears. Laura is at first shocked to see James, but he assures her he is friendly and isn't going to hurt her or be angry. He just wants to know how she knows Mary. Laura, it turns out, shared a hospital room and nurse with Mary – only the week before. Hearing this, James shouts that Laura is a liar, which she brusquely receives, but she claims that there's something for James from Mary in the hospital and leads him to another room. Once inside, James finds himself locked in with a group of monsters hanging from the ceiling, tricked by Laura. James is knocked unconscious and awakens in an alternate form of the hospital to find Maria.

Maria is less than pleased that he left her alone, demanding comfort as she runs into his arms. But their reunion is short lived: as they attempt to flee the hospital, Pyramid Head appears and pursues them down a narrow corridor that leads to an elevator. James makes it, but the doors shut before Maria can get inside too. She is able to reach her arm in and flails for help as Pyramid Head stabs her to death. Grief stricken at watching Maria die, the woman who looks exactly like his late wife, James sees Laura running away through the front window, he decides to push himself onward. It's telling that as he exits the hospital, the town has changed from day to night, enveloped now in darkness as well as fog. After leaving the hospital, James attempts to find a way to cross Toluca Lake to get to Lakeview Hotel on a nearby island and find the last potential “special place.” In doing so, he discovers a hidden entrance to a strange underground prison beneath the Silent Hill Historical Society. Before this, however, James finds a painting in the historical society of an executioner surrounded by bodies in cages – the executioner looks exactly like Pyramid Head.

After a terrifying descent through impossible spaces – vertical hallways, vast drops into abyss-like blackness – James emerges into the underground prison. Eddie, somehow, is there as well. However, his aloof demeanor has been replaced with a chilling lack of empathy. Sitting on the ground brandishing a revolver, Eddie flinches as James shines his flashlight on him. He proceeds to smile vacantly, stating, “Killing a person ain't no big deal. Just put the gun to their head – pow!” He mimes shooting himself in the head as he does this. Lying on the table beside Eddie is a dead body with a head wound; Eddie claims it wasn't his fault, that the person was looking at him funny. James tries to rationalize with Eddie, telling him he can't just kill someone because of how they look at him. Visibly confused, Eddie asks why not, before continuing to reminisce about a “stupid dog” who'd also had it coming. After this, Eddie chuckles nervously, claiming everything he said was all just a joke, and that he needs to get going. As Eddie opens a door to go deeper into the prison, James asks, “You're going out there alone?” Eddie replies enthusiastically, “Yeah.”

Questing through the prison, James is shocked to discover Maria sitting on a chair inside one of the cells. Confused, James tries to speak to her, but her demeanor is odd: she talks about things that only Mary would know, including a videotape the two of them made together while at Lakeview Hotel. Stunned, James asks if she's actually Maria, to which she brusquely responds, “I'm not your Mary.” She implies a sexual reward if James finds a way around to unlock the cell, but by the time he discovers this path, Maria's body is on the cell's bed, bloodied, dead once again. Struggling with this, James forces himself to move on.

Angela appears in the prison labyrinth as well. Walking through a hallway, James finds scattered newspapers all over the ground, and if examined, reveal a news story about a lumberjack named Thomas Orosco, found with his throat slit in his own house. Moving onward, James hears Angela's voice scream: “Daddy! Please! No!” Rushing through a nearby doorway, James comes across a terrifying sight. Before him is a room made of fleshy material, with a television and makeshift furniture. Lining the walls are mechanical pistons which pump constantly and out of sync with each other. Angela is on her back, desperately trying to get away from a monster. Unlike anything else seen up until now, the monster resembles a person lying on top of another person in a bed, covered by a topsheet of flesh, and a twisted mouth emerging from the front. It shuffles forward on two legs with insidious humping movement. According to the game, this monster is called the “Abstract Daddy.”

James protects Angela and kills the monster; once this is done, Angela leaps to her feet, kicking the creature over and over before picking up the television and crashing it down on the Abstract Daddy, finishing it off. James tells her she can relax, but she screams at him, telling him not to tell her what to do. She accuses him of only wanting “one thing,” and that if he does, he should just force her and beat her, “like he used to do.” As she says this last part, she points at the dead Abstract Daddy, and breaks down, crying and dry heaving. When James tries to comfort her, she pushes him away, saying he makes her sick. She calls him a liar for claiming that Mary died from her illness. Departing with a sneer, she implies that James probably wanted to be with someone else.

Eddie's final appearance comes just before the end of the prison. James enters a cold storage room to discover Eddie standing over yet another dead body, but his mood here has deepened into something far more morose and morbid. James asks if Eddie killed this man as well; Eddie starts to shout about how it was deserved, how the man always called him a fat piece of shit, among other instances of verbal abuse. “It doesn't matter whether you're smart, dumb, ugly, pretty, it's all the same once you're dead!” Eddie shouts, concluding that “a corpse can't laugh.” James asks if Eddie has gone nuts; Eddie decides that James is just like everyone else, laughing at him behind his back, and points his gun at James. The player takes over, forced to fight Eddie, and after a few minutes of action Eddie retreats deeper into the meat locker.

The next room where Eddie has retreated is dark, foggy with cold air, and full of large meat slabs hanging from the ceiling. The meats are all wearing pants with suspenders. James proceeds cautiously as Eddie taunts him from the shadows. Eddie asks James if he understands how it feels to be made fun of just for how he looks. Eddie continues, ranting about how he'd shot a dog because it taunted him, before shooting the owner – his personal bully – in the knee. He laughs about how difficult it would be for the man to play football after that. James tries to tell Eddie that he needs help if he thinks it's okay to kill people, to which Eddie scoffs, telling James that the two of them are the same. After all, he says, Silent Hill called to James as well.

Eddie pops out of the shadows, and the player takes over for another battle. This time, once enough hits are landed, James kills Eddie. Once Eddie has fallen, James rushes over to his dead body, and shows remorse, shameful that he's killed a human being. From here, James leaves the prison and finds a dock with a rowboat waiting outside. He uses it to cross Toluca Lake and get to the hotel.

Startled in the hotel lobby by a loud noise, James finds Laura at a grand piano, having just struck a loud chord to get James's attention. Here they finally have a conversation about their purpose: Laura is here to try and find Mary based on a letter that Mary left for the girl, in which Mary says she's sorry for leaving and is in a beautiful place now. Mistaking this to mean she is in Silent Hill, Laura has come here to find Mary. Also of note in the letter is that Mary tells Laura not to hate James for being “surly” and for not visiting the hospital much, claiming that James is very sweet deep down. Mary specifically says that she had hoped to adopt Laura. James, learning Laura's age and recent interaction with Mary, is forced to admit that Mary couldn't have been dead for three years, and in fact may still be alive.

Upstairs however, James discovers the room he and Mary shared, as well as their videotape. It's a home video of a sickly Mary saying how much she loves Silent Hill before succumbing to a coughing fit. The image changes to one of Mary lying in bed; James leans over her, kisses her forehead, and then smothers her to death. It's this point in the game where both James and the player are confronted with the truth. All around the hotel there have been various video and audio cues that imply the nature of James and Mary's relationship during her final days: a tense, abusive atmosphere in which Mary constantly lashed out at James in anger due to her own negative self-worth, only to adopt a pleading, loving tone after fighting. James, bitter from years of slow decay and sexual frustration, opted to end Mary's pain. Was it a selfish act, or an altruistic one? The story leaves that to the player to decide. James is shown to be in torment over his actions, the memory of which he either repressed on his own or was altered by the powers of the town.

Contemplating the truth of his repressed memories after viewing it, James is found by Laura. He confesses his actions to the girl. Laura screams at James that she hates him, wanting to know why he did it, demanding James bring Mary back, telling James he never really did care about Mary. Filled with sorrow, James can only tell Laura that he's sorry, and that the Mary she's looking for isn't here. Laura leaves without another word. James is spurred on to keep searching for Mary when he hears her voice come from the final, static-filled moments of the video tape, calling for him, saying she's waiting.

Angela's final appearance is in the Lakeview Hotel. James enters a hallway that is engulfed in flames – something odd as the previous area had not been. Angela is here, standing at the bottom of a staircase, staring up into the fire that is consuming the hotel above her. At first she confuses James for her mother, and Angela is excited to see him before realizing that who she's seeing isn't real. She apologizes and thanks him for saving her before, but wishes that he hadn't actually done so. She says that her mother had told her once that she deserved the things that had been done to her, and when James refutes that, Angela simply asks for him not to pity her. After all, she says, what is he going to do? Love her? Take care of her? James doesn't answer. “That's what I thought,” Angela replies. She then holds out her hand and demands her knife back. James, showing genuine care for her, says he won't. She accuses him of holding onto it so he can use it, but James states that he would never kill himself. Hanging her head in sadness, Angela turns and begins to walk up the staircase, fire burning up part of the stairs behind her, effectively cutting off James from following. “It's hot as hell in here,” James muses. Angela's final words are, “You see it, too? For me, it's always like this.” Then she turns and ascends into the inferno.

Leaving the hotel, James finds a room with not one, but two Pyramid Heads, each holding a long spear. Maria is suspended upside-down on a rack, begging for James to help her, but the Pyramid Heads execute her in front of him. Up til now, James has slowly found more and more evidence of the town having supernatural properties, of the myths and legends surrounding it. Realizing that his entire journey has been placed before him by the town, he admits to his need for punishment and faces down the Pyramid Heads. Knowing that their purpose is complete, both Pyramid Heads execute themselves. James then climbs to the top of the hotel to discover one of two outcomes: Mary or Maria, waiting for his arrival. And, depending on his actions during the game, his ultimate fate.

This is an exploration of the psyche unlike any in gaming. Each place he visits holds clues to what is happening both to the town and to his fragile psyche, in the form of strange creatures and the humans he meets. At the end of his quest, James discovers that he has been searching for punishment for his actions this entire time, which has been granted by the strange power of the town itself. Established in the previous game, the town of Silent Hill has the ability to warp reality around those who are drawn towards it, people who are usually tormented by something horrific in their past. How this can be so is never really explained, only hinted at, particularly with the information that the land used to be a sacred place to native tribes that used to inhabit it. Previously, it had manifested a scenario based on the pain and suffering of a powerful psychic girl who been horribly burned as part of a ritual of the town cult. In this scenario, the Silent Hill has taken James's need for punishment and provided it tenfold, but because James is unsure of exactly what he feels he deserves, it also provides multiple angles with which to torture him. Even the outcome of the game itself is open-ended; based on the player's actions during the story, one of four endings will commence with a finale befitting James's decisions. None of the endings are considered the “true” ending by the developers, leaving players to define for themselves what should – or should not – happen to James. These decisions are based solely on items and characters James interacts with. Each decision is subtle, never overt, and first playthroughs often end with James leaving the town in peace. But each finale is very specific, and I believe is represented by each of the four characters James meets in the town.

MARIA

If, during the course of the game, the player has James spent significant time with Maria – including returning to the rooms she's either sleeping in or being held in to check on her – and if the player is careful to ensure Maria takes no damage from the monsters of the town, James will get the “Maria” ending, which is one of two endings that directly relate to one of the other characters.

This is the only ending in which James actually finds Mary at the top of the hotel. Realizing that he'd rather be with Maria now, he confronts Mary. Angered that he's choosing a lesser woman, Mary transforms into a monster, forcing James to kill her in response. After he does, he returns to Rosewater Park where he first met Maria, to embrace her once more and leave town together. As they walk back to James's car, the rest of Mary's letter is read aloud: Mary details her sadness at her stay in hospice care, her sorrow for being so terrible and mean towards James, and assuring him that their relationship was something she'd cherished over the years. She assures James that he had made her happy, and for James to live for himself and do what he needs to do to live.

After the letter is read, James and Maria arrive at his car. She begins to cough, much in the same way the player has seen Mary coughing in flashbacks. Ominously, James has this to say: “You'd better get that looked at.”

Through the events of the game, it is heavily implied that Maria is a construct of the town's powers, an idealized version of what James had wished Mary had been. Despite sensing this, James still chooses her in this ending. After his initial quest to find Mary, James, it seems, did not hold enough devotion to his late wife to see it through to the end. Knowing now that she's dead and gone and that nothing can bring her back, he has resorted to bargaining. He spent so long during Mary's sickness frustrated at being unable to have his life, that with the attractive option of Maria he has once again taken an easier way out – a way that he feels he deserves to have. “What if,” he must think, “I can have the Mary I always wanted without having to deal with Mary's death?” Yet, with the final moments foreshadowing a similar fate for Maria as Mary had, it seems as though the town is not as merciful as it might appear.

What further fleshes out this idea is a bonus chapter for the game that initially only came with the XBOX version before being added to the PlayStation rerelease. Titled “Born From A Wish,” the player assumes the role of Maria before she meets up with James at Rosewater Park. During the short chapter, Maria comes to understand that she was created for a single purpose: to try and entice James into being with her. She wrestles with this notion, even going so far as to put a gun to her head as her only option of getting out. After all, what if he rejects her? Will she be forced to stay in this town forever if that's the case? Finally, Maria accepts her fate and her purpose, and she begins her walk towards the park to meet James.

With the confirmation that Maria was manifested by the town in accordance with James's unconscious desires – even going so far as to reveal that Maria's look was based on a dancer at the local club Heaven's Night – this now opens the door to the possibility that the other characters in the game have also been manifested by the town to aid in James's torment. What's different about Maria is that it is explicitly stated in the game that she was created by the town, where it is naturally assumed by the player that the other characters are in fact real, and have been called to the town for various reasons.

Now that we have some details of the plot and the understanding of how these manifestations work out of the way, let's focus on the individual details of the other characters in the game.

LAURA

In many ways, Laura is a metaphorical hook on the town's fishing pole, bating James into going deeper into the town to discover the truth behind Mary's letter.

After viewing the videotape in the hotel, Laura is not seen again unless the player achieves the “Leave” ending. There are a few key actions one must take in order to get this. First, the player must examine the letter from Mary that James has been carrying since the beginning of the game. This item stays in James's inventory during the whole game, and can be examined multiple times, as it should be to ensure this ending. It's worth noting the fact that, late in the game, examining the note again reveals a blank piece of paper; there never was a letter written by Mary asking James to come to Silent Hill. He made it up in his head. Or, perhaps it was the town's influence.

James must also keep his health meter high throughout the course of the game, consuming items to keep his health from going too low, demonstrating a desire to live. Also necessary for this ending is listening to a lengthy conversation between Mary and James – a memory – that plays as James walks through a long hallway towards the rooftop. It's mostly dialogue from Mary; she is heard yelling at James for bringing her flowers, claiming to be disgusting after the effects of the disease and the medication keeping her alive, shouting at him to go away, that it would be better for her if the doctors just killed her. Then, the turn: crying, Mary begs James to stay with her instead, to tell her that everything will be okay. The player can ignore this conversation if they run quickly through the hall before the dialogue is finished, but in order to get the “Leave” ending, they need to listen to the whole audio. After fulfilling these tasks, James has demonstrated his devotion to Mary and his remorse for killing her.

When he reaches the hotel rooftop, he discovers Maria dressed as Mary, and he confronts her, telling her he doesn't need her anymore. She transforms into a monster and James is forced to kill her. In the cinematic that follows, James finds himself in Mary's sick room. Mary tells him that she wanted the pain to end and James tells her that's why he killed her, to take away her suffering. But, he continues, he admits that she'd said she didn't want to die, and that his actions were selfish. Mary sees the sadness in his face, and tells him to move on with his life, to live and to be happy.

Mary's letter is read aloud again, this time over a shot of the cemetery outside Silent Hill. It should be noted that the same letter is read aloud over each of the endings, taking on a different meaning with each scenario. As the reading ends, we see Laura walk confidently through the cemetery, following by James, and together they walk into the distance until they are swallowed by the fog.

“Leave” is considered by many to be the closest to a definitive ending for the game. James has faced his actions, committed to atoning for his sins, and finds redemption in the innocent girl who also came to find Mary. Since they are leaving together, it's reasonable to assume that James intends to adopt Laura in the same way that Mary had intended to. Or had she? Considering the manifestations of the town, and the fact that Mary's “letter” turns out to be blank by the end of the game, it's very possible that Laura's letter was also blank, something for James to see what he – or maybe the town – wanted. Laura represents moving on, similarly to how Maria did. But with Laura, James sees a piece of his late wife in the little girl, the daughter that they'd never gotten the chance to have together. According to the developers, Laura is a real person who came to the town, hinting that she'd hitched a ride with Eddie. The official novelization of the game follows Laura for a brief segment, seeing the town through her eyes. But this shouldn't stop us from considering that Laura is a manifestation of the town. After all, Maria told James multiple times that she was “real” and had a personality and memories of her own. Laura is also presented as an eight-year-old girl who somehow left the hospital she was staying in and found her way to this abandoned town, and is running around happy-go-lucky without a care. Even if we accept that Eddie gave her a ride into town, it still doesn't explain how a child so young could possibly have reached this place by herself without any other means. And let us consider Laura's role, drawing James deeper and deeper into the town to uncover the truth of his sins. Where Maria is happy to distract James and take him away from Mary, Laura's actions throughout the story are the catalyst for him to continue. She kicks the key out of his reach at the apartments, forcing him to find a new way around and encounter Pyramid Head. When she leaves both the bowling alley and the hospital, James follows her. Inside the hospital, it is here where James is first forced to consider that perhaps Mary hasn't been dead for as long as he thought, and after this Laura locks him in a room with monsters that forces him again to confront Pyramid Head. This is culminates at the hotel, where her words push James towards the truth, and her letter implies that Mary would have wanted to adopt this young girl. Finally, she judges him after viewing the tape, saying she hates him, and that he never loved Mary. She wants Mary back, and if James finds the “Leave” ending, it turns out that he does, too – but he can't have her. Here is where he must find acceptance. This spark of redemption, this eight year old girl, will have to suffice. Except she is just as false as the rest of the manifestations of the town, a fake promise of hope and happiness. James might believe he has found redemption, but at what cost? Notably, in the ending cutscene, Laura is the one leading James as they leave the town, as she has been leading him the entire game.

ANGELA

Utilizing symbolism and a “show don't tell” quality, this next story is one that the game trusts the audience to infer, but with enough detail as to make what is unsaid unmistakable. So, in order to understand the true meaning behind the “In Water” ending, we look to examine the story and interactions with the first character James meets on his journey: Angela Orosco.

Angela's knife is a key item for receiving the “In Water” ending of the game. James must examine the knife in his inventory at least once in order to trigger the potential of the ending, more times to ensure it. James must also let his health meter run into the red, staying at a fairly consistent – and dangerous – level close to death. This shows James's lack of care whether he's alive or not, which falls in line with the suicidal implications of Angela's knife. Maintaining a good distance from Maria and listening to the audio cues from Mary in the hotel are important. There is also a diary on the roof of Brookhaven Hospital, detailing the suicidal thoughts of a former patient there, that must be read. If these conditions are met, “In Water” will happen.

On the hotel rooftop, James discovers Maria dressed as Mary. Just like with “Leave,” he tells Maria that he's done with her, causing her to transform into a monster and he kills her. Once this happens, James finds himself next to Mary's sick bed, just as with “Leave.” But the dialogue here is different: James again admits that he didn't kill Mary to only ease suffering but to get his life back, however this time Mary doesn't bother pointing out James's sadness. Instead, she simply tells him that he killed her and now he's suffering for it, and that's enough. Mary begins to violently cough before dying once more, and a grieving James picks her body up off of the bed and walks off with her.

The screen turns black. We can hear the sound of footsteps, and a car door open and shut. James speaks aloud, a monologue, saying that he finally understands why he came to this town, wondering why he was so afraid to face it. In the background, the engine kicks over, revving to high speed. James admits that without Mary, he has nothing. The car is heard speeding down the road, growing louder and louder with intensity – before it abruptly cuts to silence. “Mary,” James says, “now we can be together.”

Mary's letter is once more read aloud, but this time over an underwater scene. Light from the surface can be seen, air bubbles rise past. It appears as though James has taken Mary's body back to his car and driven into the lake. There is no sight of him leaving, no further words from him, only the somber silence of the water and implication that James, after all of his confidence that he would never kill himself, has finally gone and done just that. It is one of the darkest and most melancholy endings to a video game ever written.

Now, we must examine the ties that Angela has to “In Water,” and what presents the notion that she is a fictional manifestation of the town rather than a real person. Firstly, it should go without saying that the theme of suicide is the most obvious tie. Angela wants to kill herself rather than face the trauma of her past, and so too does James. One of the implications hammered home over and over is that Mary was verbally abusive towards James near the end of her illness, something she addresses in her letter at the end of the game. She understands what she has done to him, and that he may hate her for it. James, for his part, admits that part of him killed her because he hated her, because he wanted his life back. Angela, too, did the same thing, only for her it was an act of survival. We can easily come to the conclusion that her father was physically and sexually abusing her based on the creature design and Angela's words. The sexual nature of the room where James fights the Abstract Daddy – with the pistons pumping in and out of the fleshy walls – brings this to a head. Killing her father, much like James killing his wife, caused a break in her. Wandering through Silent Hill to find her “Mama,” a source of matronly solace, is the opposite of James searching for his own wife, a woman who never had the chance to be a mother.

Reflections and opposites are what define the relationship between James and Angela, and I believe seals the notion that she is a manifestation. James has blonde hair, Angela has dark brown; James wears a dark grey polo under a green jacket with blue jeans, Angela wears a light grey turtleneck and red pants. When James and Angela meet in the apartments, most of their conversation takes place in a reflection. As she lies on the floor in front of a full length mirror, the camera primarily focuses on her, with James captured in the reflection. One shot in particular is telling: the camera looks down from the ceiling, Angela on the right, her reflection on the left, taking up equal sides of the screen, as she gets up off of the floor to turn to James. Before this scene, it's worth noting that Pyramid Head, James's own personal punisher, had been seen carrying no weapons whatsoever. But after Angela hands over the knife to James, when we next see Pyramid Head it is possessing a blade so large it has to drag the knife behind it. It's even referred to as the “Great Knife.” Angela provided James with more fuel for his own punishment, just as Laura led him closer to the hidden truth, just as Maria tried to pull him away from it.

For most of the game, James sees the town as water damaged from the fog. He sees wet environments, dripping water. The theme of water is present throughout the course of the game, except for one glaring instance: Angela's hallway of fire. For her, the world is always aflame, burning, the heat of her trauma a constant reminder. James, on the other hand, is always surrounded by water and drowning. At the end of their stories, when each of them decide to commit suicide, Angela does so by walking upwards into the flames, and James goes downward into the water. James has spent most of the game staunchly denying any desire or ability to commit suicide, but Angela has always known; in fact, she's embraced it. They are opposites in every capacity, down to gender identity, which is particularly of note in that Angela is the only female identifying member of the cast who has no relation to Mary. When we first meet James, he is introduced to us staring at his reflection in a dirty bathroom mirror. And when James and Angela first meet? She attempts to warn him away, to not go into the town, but James's reaction is exactly the opposite. He's going to the town to find what he wants, danger or no. Somewhere, a part of him was trying to get him to turn around, to run away, and that piece manifested in Angela's words.

It should also be noted that the game's creators have confirmed that from the opening of the game Mary's body is in the back seat of James's car. Her death is incredibly recent, within the last couple of days or hours. Perhaps James brought her here with the intention of committing suicide the entire time, having succumbed to the trauma of killing her, to the intense feeling of depression that he now carries.

But even if the previous evidence of opposites and reflections in the two characters has not been enough to convince you of their relation to each other, consider this: each of the first three Silent Hill games features a portrait of the main character on the front box art. Silent Hill 2?

The face on the cover is Angela's.

EDDIE

Up until this point it has been a relatively easy task to link the previous three characters to the endings of Silent Hill 2. Showing the relation of Eddie Dombrowski to the hidden “Rebirth” ending is a little more difficult considering both his story and the events necessary to unlock this ending. And yet, there is enough compelling evidence to demonstrate how this seemingly buffoonish man is essential to understanding the final ending to Silent Hill 2.

What's interesting about Eddie's story is how similarly it follows James's. While Mary did not bully James over his looks, she did verbally abuse him over a long period of time before he finally gave into his torment and killed her. So, too, did Eddie spend years being tortured verbally by those around him, the football player in particular, just because of his weight. Over a period of time, this harsh treatment turned the mild boy into a violent man, finally giving in to his urges and killing the bully's dog before shooting the bully in the knee. This is the event that Eddie was referring to in his conversation with Laura, saying that no one would ever forgive him for what he'd done; James no doubt felt much the same way after killing Mary. James laments his actions, aghast that he has killed a person. It turns out that Eddie is not his first murder, nor is it the only one done in “self-defense.” After all, with years of abuse stacked up, James wanted his life back and to not feel hurt anymore. In self-defense of his own emotions and life, he killed Mary, convincing himself that it was to end her pain as well.

But, unlike the other three characters we've examined, James's interactions with Eddie do not directly lead to one of the game's four endings. “Rebirth” is not an ending one can even achieve on the first playthrough of the game – it is only on starting up a new game after completing the story once can the player discover the necessary items to unlock “Rebirth.” There are four: the White Crism, the Obsidian Goblet, the Book of Lost Memories, and the Book of the Crimson Ceremony. Each of these items are found in locations scattered across Silent Hill, and without all four the Rebirth ending will not occur. If all of them are in James's possession, it will not matter what he did during the course of the game, or what ending was being led up to. “Rebirth” will take over, assuming James has been pursuing this course of action all along. As usual, James will find himself on the rooftop of the hotel, confront Maria disguised as Mary, battle her, and kill her. But then the player is treated to something unusual out of these endings: there is no scene of reconciliation with Mary on her deathbed, and Mary's letter is not read aloud. Instead, once Maria has been killed, the game fades in to James rowing his boat across Toluca Lake through the fog, with what appears to be a body in the boat with him. James narrates over the visual:

Mary. Forgive me for waking you. But without you, I just can't go on.

I can't live without you, Mary.

This town, Silent Hill...

The Old Gods haven't left this place...

And they still grant power to those who venerate them...

Power to defy even death...

As James speaks, the camera slowly pulls up and away from the row boat, which becomes more and more difficult to see in the swirling mist. But as it does, it reveals that James is rowing towards a previously unknown island in the lake. It is small, covered in trees, and has a dock for tying a boat to. As James approaches, he sighs, “Ah, Mary...” before disappearing behind the island, out of view of the player, the island the last thing we see before the credits roll.

What's chilling about this ending are the implications it delivers. First, is that the powers of the town are not simply metaphoric or metaphysical, but extend beyond the veil of the natural world. The first Silent Hill dealt with the cult who lived in the town, and their obsession with the Old Gods, but Silent Hill 2 chooses to focus more on the psychological horror of the town and the effects on the mind. While each of the monsters in the second game have horrific visuals, they can all be traced back to the trauma impacting James from his time during Mary's last days. Even Pyramid Head is explained through a painting found in the Historical Society of an executioner that bears the creature's image. But here, with this ending, Silent Hill 2 at last announces the connection to the first game in the sense of the Old Gods and the dark forces that inhabit the town. James is now crossing those lines, once a victim of them in his mind, now rising to the understanding of how to manipulate those powers to his benefit...if he venerates the Old Gods.

Secondly, this ending implies that James has been on this journey more than once. We can infer this from the simple fact that the ending can only be unlocked after any one of the previous endings have been seen. There's also the disturbing evidence left behind in the shape of the various bodies James finds along his journey. Both in the streets of Silent Hill and in the apartment complex, James finds bodies that wear clothing eerily similar to his own: black shoes, blue jeans, green jacket. Only the faces are bloodied and torn apart as to be unrecognizable. We could, of course, posit that this is just the town's way of predicting James's fate in the same way that interacting with Angela does. In fact, there are multiple ways in which the town predicts James's demise. One of them is found inside Neely's Bar (or, as it's listed in the game, Bar Neely's). A message written in what looks like blood reads “There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.” Later, when James returns to the bar after leaving the hospital, the message has changed: “If you really want to see Mary, you should just DIE. But you might be heading to a different place than Mary, James.” In multiple, subtle ways, the town is directing James towards one of multiple conclusions. It creates Maria, and pushes her in front of him as a means to have back a form of the woman he's lost. It creates Laura, who would have been Mary's adopted child with blessing, and with whom Mary implies she wants James to find reason to move on. It creates Angela, whose state of mind reflects his torment, who James sees is slowly preparing to die, and takes inspiration from. But it also creates Eddie, and Eddie's answer denies all three other routes. Once Eddie's method is chosen – the route which leads to a resurrection – then the story still unfolds, but refuses any other conclusion. Because the women in the game are there to add to James's torment, to force him to face his past and come to the conclusion of how best his punishment must be meted out. But Eddie, the only other male identifying presence in the game, represents what James has been doing before the events of the game: denial.

Eddie changes his story about his past multiple times. When we first meet him, he's vomiting, cowering, appears weak and harmless and denies doing any harm to the body in the next room. Next, he's having a pity party while confessing to Laura, however slightly, that he would be unwelcome by others after what he'd done. Again, remember that this is the only conversation in the game that doesn't involve James – Laura, the icon of moving on despite the past, and Eddie, the icon of denial. Eddie's denial deepens in the prison, when he claims that “killing a person ain't no big deal,” but then jokingly assures James that he was just kidding about causing violence. But his denial only goes so far: in our final meeting, Eddie has accepted the violence he's caused, but focuses the blame on those around him who made fun of him, who “had it coming, too.” Eddie has been hurt, his anger is justifiable, but his means cannot be so. It is extremely telling that the slabs of meat hanging from their hooks are all wearing pants and suspenders. Eddie has been pushed psychologically to the point where he sees the people around him as little more than meat. He understands what other humans are capable of, and has reached the point where he refuses to sit back and take it anymore. His gun, an oversized revolver, is symbolic of his power. James, too, has been pushed to the point of retaliation, but he still denies himself the truth, just like Eddie in the beginning. James is constantly pushed further and further into the realization that he has killed Mary, that he has done wrong, and that he must come to terms with it. In three endings, he faces this wrong. In the final ending, he simply denies the wrongdoing. He's been through this before, he's justified himself, he searched through his mind and come to the conclusion that he was justified in his actions. But how can that be? Well, James has searched through the town on his quest for redemption. He has searched high and low and discovered certain things about the history of the town that he didn't understand before. Books and information on certain items of mystical power. So perhaps when he eventually reaches his conclusion as to what he feels his actions require, a second thought forms in his mind. Perhaps he makes his way all the way back to the parking lot where he left his car – and Mary's body – behind. Maybe Laura is with him, or Maria is with him, or he goes to drive into the lake. As he goes to leave, he thinks, “This doesn't feel right. This isn't what I deserve.” Because he just wants Mary. He can't go on without her. But now he understands how to get her back.

So he turns around and heads back to town, but the town wants him to feel it all over again. He has to earn his wife back. And as the town resets all the players and the pieces, it knows it will get what it really wants: a new servant, someone willing to perform rituals to the Old Gods that have not performed in far too long. And James, calm, peaceful, finally comes to terms with himself as he rows out to the island where the ritual must take place.

Because when you can resurrect someone, killing a person ain't no big deal.

***

With video games, sometimes there are multiple endings one can achieve based on their actions during their playthrough, just like in Silent Hill 2. But oftentimes, the developers will state outright which of the endings is the “true” ending so players can have a sense of satisfaction knowing how the story truly ends. However, in Silent Hill 2 every ending is canon. Developers Team Silent have stated that it's up to the players to determine which ending out of the possible four is how James Sunderland's story actually ends. There are, of course, two joke endings that the developers wisely have ensured remain in the realm of satire, leaving us to wonder and marvel at how one game can present so much ambiguity, while still remaining a concrete experience.

This we know: if all endings are canon, if it's truly up to the player, then anything goes. This essay, after all, is a fan theory. At no point have the developers ever hinted that anyone other than Maria is not real. The official novelization shows backstory for some of the characters, and even goes into their heads. Based on this, why extrapolate information to support a theory that has obviously been shown to be quite the opposite? Because – and here's the fun part – Silent Hill has always been a series about misdirection. Illusion, hallucinations of visual and audio types, and concealed intention. Disguises abound in Silent Hill, in each game. Team Silent demonstrated that Maria is absolutely not a “real” person by any means, but still thinks and feels like one and has memories because the town created her to have them. She is presented as the only person in the game who understands who James is, what he's done, and her role in the story. It stands to reason that the town could have created these other characters, but simply not given them the awareness of their role to play. And, as I have hopefully detailed well enough, the compelling evidence linking them both to the town and to James is unmistakable and undeniable. Whether or not you, the reader, choose to support this theory yourself, well, there are many endings to this tale. Just as all of them are equally correct in their canon.

But the next time you play Silent Hill 2, perhaps you'll be invited to look a little closer, pay attention a bit harder, consider ideas that you hadn't considered before. One of the most beautiful things about this abstract masterpiece is that it opens itself to observation as well as deduction, and when a game this detailed and well-thought-out is kind enough to allow for this, it is only good of us to indulge.

Thank you all so much for your time.

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shownuslaugh · 6 years ago

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Humble (Part 2)

“…She’s the closest thing North America has to actual royalty.”

Maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe you need to be brought down a few notches.

Maybe you need to be humbled.

Siwon is correct, he realizes with a twinge of irritation.

The rest of the boys do like you.

They like you a lot.

The way they laugh, flirt, and accommodate you with little school boy grins on their faces only deepens his dislike for you. Don’t they see how airheaded you are? You asked about a fucking microphone and how to use it! If that doesn’t scream spoiled, ridiculous brat, Siwon doesn’t know what will.

“How often do you come visit lowly artists like us?” Donghae sits directly across from you, eyes bright and shiny, chin propped up on his fist. The smile he gives you could light the entire country for a year if the government tried to harness its power.

Siwon snorts at the obvious attempt to flirt. It’s so close to the what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this line that he feels actually sick to hear it. Nevertheless, he translates for Donghae.

You pointedly ignore Mr. Giant-Stick-Up-His-Ass and answer Donghae’s question. “In Seoul? Not often. The last time I was here was to visit-” Your throat closes up, stopping you from finishing your sentence. Even saying his name is difficult for you.

“President Moon?” Siwon offers.

“Oh, well, yes. I also have some friends here involved in the music industry. I knew a decent amount about SM as a company before I visited yesterday all thanks to them. I suppose I just wanted to see for myself.”

Siwon raises a brow. “So you lied to get here?”

“Excuse me?!” You stand abruptly, glaring at him in a manner that makes the other Super Junior members squirm uncomfortably in their seats. “I don’t know what you’re implying-”

“I’m not implying anything. I believe I said what I had to say.”

Your cheeks flush red out of anger. “You little-”

Jack rushes forward, whispering in your ear, “CAMERAS!”

When Siwon smirks, pleased to have gotten such a reaction out of you, it only makes you angrier. You want to smack him hard enough his nose bleeds. Instead, you settle for sitting back down and continuing the conversation. Out of the corner of your eye you see the flash of several cameras going off outside the conference room.

“My friend was in a terrible place emotionally and I believed part of it was due to stress from work. In a way, I was looking for something to blame his mental health on… I wanted to see if things were really as bad as he implied.” You straighten out your black skirt, rolling your shoulders back, and lifting your chin slightly. “Not that my motives should matter to you.”

“Your motives matter very much, I assure you.” Siwon folds his hands in his lap. The silver metal of his Cartier watch glints in the bright light of the room. “This company is very important to very many people. We don’t need some American princess meddling around in it.”

“I just want to help.”

“We don’t need your help.”

You put on your best, most charming smile. “I’m sure you don’t. That’s why I never said I was here to help you or this company. My friend was part of SM, but I’m here to help his mother with an organization she decided to start up.”

“How sweet of you.” Siwon smiles back. Just as sweet. Just as charming. To the outside world it looks like a pleasant enough conversation, but inside the room anyone could cut the tension with a knife.

“You’re Super Junior’s leader, right?” You turn to Leeteuk and ask in Korean.

He nods, concerned about exactly where this conversation is going. Especially once you stand and reach for your bag. Maybe his English isn’t the best, but his people reading skills are immaculate. He knows whatever has been said between you and Siwon wasn’t friendly.

“I’ll have my assistant leave my number with you. Call me and we’ll set up another meeting. Just us.” You bow to Leeteuk and leave the room, the scent of lilies trailing after you.

Jack approaches Leeteuk and scribbles down your phone number on a sheet of notebook paper. He gestures the First Family’s translator forward, whispering to them as he hands the number to Leeteuk.

“Do not allow this number to get out as it is her private phone number. Her schedule is quite packed for the next month so texting would be a better option. Please keep in mind any and all calls or messages received can be monitored at any moment. Refrain from lewd comments.” The translator bows when she finishes up repeating Jack’s orders.

“She’s not trying to date you,” Jack adds in English. “Business only.”

Siwon doesn’t lose his smile as he says, “I’m sure he understands already, but I will be more than happy to reiterate your points. To every member. Not only Leeteuk.”

Jack tilts his head, examining the casual, almost too relaxed way Siwon sits. There’s a smugness in the air that Jack just doesn’t care for. “I would appreciate that. I would also appreciate you remaining far from the meeting when it takes place. We have our own translators available.”

“Of course. The less I need to be involved, the better.” Siwon stands, bowing respectfully. “Please have a wonderful stay here in South Korea, Mr…”

“McBride.”

“Mr. McBride.” Siwon says the name carefully.

Jack takes careful, measured steps toward Siwon. The two men are of similar height and build, with Jack being a bit taller and a bit more muscular. The way he looks down his nose at Siwon makes Siwon bristle with anger. “This isn’t my first time with men like you, Mr. Choi.”

“Men like me? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Men who like to humiliate the people I love.” Jack tilts his head to the side. “You see what you want to see out of her. You know nothing about what she’s actually like.”

“Bratty heiresses tend to only come in one flavor.” The smile never leaves Siwon’s face. “Rotten.”

Jack, ever composed, ever calm Jack, briefly loses his cool and contemplates if it would be worth risking his job to punch this smug bastard in the face. What right does the son of one of the richest men in South Korea have to judge the daughter of one of the richest men in America? They’re on the same playing field, and from what Jack’s seen, you have the high ground.

Instead of balling up his fist and popping Siwon right in the nose, Jack settles for saying, “We’ll be seeing you tomorrow Mr. Choi.”

Siwon looks visibly thrown off. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh, did no one inform you? Tomorrow is Sunday and she never misses a day of church. Not even abroad. I asked your leader for suggestions earlier and he told me about the church you attend. Have a wonderful night.” Jack walks out of the room with a pleased grin on his face.

“Red headed bastard,” Siwon mumbles in Korean as he watches Jack leave. “They’re all awful. At first I just thought it was her, but-”

“Hyung,” Donghae’s voice is gentle when he interrupts Siwon. “You’ve been going on and on about how terrible she is, but she seemed perfectly fine to me.”

Siwon’s mouth falls open. “Really? Were you not paying attention?”

Leeteuk holds up the piece of paper with a wide smile and dreamy eyes. “I got her phone number! Oh, how long should I wait to text her? Now?”

“No, you’ll seem too eager.” Shindong takes the paper from Leeteuk. “Hyung, you should wait until tomorrow.”

“And keep it casual,” Heechul adds. “Don’t start in with your “I had a dream we got married” bullshit.”

“Fuck off, it was one time and I was twenty three.” Leeteuk snatches the paper back from Shindong and simply stares at it for a good ten seconds. He can’t believe his luck. He actually got your phone number. Yours. You’re so far out of his league it’s ridiculous you even looked in his direction. This is by far the best day of Leeteuk’s life.

Siwon is in the fucking Twilight Zone.

He has to be.

Is he seriously the only one who sees you for what you are? A spoiled, entitled, rich bitch, self-absorbed brat? Hell, even when you were talking about your friend- whoever the poor man must be, bless his soul- you managed to make it all about you. How you felt about what he went through. How it made you want to help in whatever way you came up with. You never even bothered to give a name. It was all about you and what you wanted to do.

“I can’t believe all of you,” Siwon says. “She’s not even attractive.”

“Oh, no, hyung! You’re going blind!” Ryeowook holds up his hand and shows Siwon a few fingers. “Quick, how many fingers am I holding up?”

Generally it’s Siwon being the teaser, not the teased. This time though it’s Siwon making the disgusted face and telling Ryeowook off.

“Seriously, Siwon, what did she do that pissed you off so much?” Yesung folds his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair. “I really don’t understand. She’s charming, funny, and seems smart.”

“She asked how a microphone works! A fucking microphone!”

Eunhyuk shrugs. “She’s a political figure, not an artist. Plus it’s a newer model of one of our professional studio sets. Can you really blame her for not being able to look at it and tell you exactly how it works?”

“It’s a microphone!” Siwon pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

Leeteuk and Heechul share a brief look. In the few seconds their eyes meet, they come to the same conclusion. Siwon is just having one of his bitch fits. They don’t come often (maybe once every year and a half or so) and don’t last often either. It’s Leeteuk’s opinion that Siwon’s fits are induced by stress brought on by work and family matters. Heechul thinks it’s as simple as the fact no one can be as nice as Siwon without letting out the frustration at least once a year.

“Siwon, have you spoken with your parents recently?” Leeteuk’s probing is as gentle as the expression on his face. “Are they asking you about marriage again?”

“Yes.” Siwon is miserable as he answers. “Sort of. They’re upset Lui and I split up. Mother is under the impression Father will pick a wife for me if I don’t “settle down” soon.”

“Would he really do that?” Heechul asks. “Make you marry someone?”

“That’s how families with money tend to work.”

“But your sister-”

“Is my sister. If she were my brother instead, things would be different.” Siwon sinks back in his chair.

Donghae grins a toothy, crooked grin. “Hyung, look on the bright side. Your father didn’t want you to be an idol at first either, but he changed his mind quick enough. Maybe this will be the same.”

“Maybe.”

#super junior imagine #siwon imagine #super junior fanfiction #choi siwon imagine #choi siwon fanfiction #humble masterlist

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frauleinsmaria · 7 years ago

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Chance Encounters

Based on the prompt “I don’t know who you are but we keep running into each other on the street and getting into screaming arguments over the stupidest things and I’m actually looking forward to our next meeting bc you’re annoying as hell but damn you’re hot and it’s kind of fun to argue with you”

Written for my match for the Captain Swan Spring Fic Formal. Surprise @welllpthisishappening! Laura, I’ve had so much fun interacting with you over the past few weeks- although it’s been hard to make sure I didn’t reveal myself talking to you elsewhere 😂 You’re such a wonderful presence in this fandom and I’m so glad I got to be paired with you. I know you like both friends and enemies to lovers and lots of banter, so I hope you enjoy reading this lil fic as much as I enjoyed writing it <3

Also thanks @distant-rose and @awkwardnessandbaseball for getting the @csficformal together! It’s been a blast

Also on AO3

It’s certainly not how he expects his Monday morning to start.

It shouldn’t surprise him though, considering the direction his day is already heading in from the moment he wakes up. A power outage in his apartment building the night before causes his alarm clock to reset, meaning he wakes up less than half an hour before he’s supposed to leave for work. He cuts himself shaving thanks to being in a hurry and hopes no one will notice the nick on his chin. He goes to make his regular cup of coffee after getting dressed and realizes he ran out of coffee beans over the weekend and forgot to buy more.

His last resort is leaving everything else he needs to do as is so he has time to stop by the coffee shop on his way to the office. Of course it’s not his biggest priority, but he’s already heard about the workload Regina has waiting for him today and knows he won’t be able to deal with it properly without some kind of caffeine.

Thankfully, the line this morning is short, and he’s able to order his drink and be on his way quickly. But it’s just his luck that his phone vibrates with a text from Liam as he’s turning to head out the door, and he’s reading it when he collides with a wall and spills coffee on the front of his white shirt.

“Damn it!”

Whoops, not a wall. A woman, and a very angry one at that, judging by the expression on her face and the similar coffee stain she now sports on her own grey blouse.

Killian shakes his head as the shock wears off and takes in the death stare he’s receiving from the blonde in front of him. She’s holding a drink in her hand as well, but most of it still seems to be in the cup rather than on their clothes like his. “I’m terribly sorry, love. I should have been paying more attention to what I was doing.”

“Yeah, you should have,” she snaps, pulling a napkin out of her purse and attempting to clean up the mess she’s wearing.

There’s a snarky comment on the tip of his tongue, but he manages to hold back and tries to think of a way to be the bigger person here.

“Love, if there’s anything I can do-”

“The best thing you can do right now is to leave me alone so I can go before I’m later for work than I already am. And I’m not your love.”

Any desire he has to be polite is out the window as the the events of the morning all catch up to him. “With that attitude, I’m bloody glad you aren’t!”

“So am I!” She turns on her heel and leaves the coffee shop before he has a chance to say anything else.

By some stroke of luck, he’s able to make it through the day without any other mishaps.

But he can’t explain why the thought of the annoying blonde from the coffee shop stays in his mind long afterwards.

-/-

It’s Thursday afternoon when Killian runs into her again- not literally this time, thank goodness. He’s on his lunch break, headed to the gym near his office when he sees her leaving the building as he’s walking up. She glances in his direction briefly when she sees him, doing a bit of a double take as she realizes where they’ve seen each other before.

“Afternoon, love.”

She makes a sour face. “I thought we established that I’m not your love,” she reminds him, using her fingers to draw air quotes around the word.

“Sorry, lo- lass,” he corrects himself. “Just a habit I suppose.” He blames it on Liam; their mother made quite the effort to ensure the two of them both had adequate manners, and he’d enforced the same ideals on Killian long after she passed.

But it’s clear by her unwavering expression that she doesn’t buy it. “Whatever.” It’s not unlike her reaction a few days earlier when he’d tried to apologize for the coffee incident.

As much as he wants to ignore her and go about with his day, something keeps him there. He’d be lying to himself if he said it wasn’t at least partly attraction; he hadn’t paid much attention to her in the coffee shop thanks to the circumstances, but now he can’t seem to focus on much besides blonde hair, green eyes, and the black and white outfit she’s clearly just finished a workout in judging by the way it sticks with sweat to her thin frame.

And yet, while he’ll willingly admit to finding her attractive, there’s something else- maybe it’s the attitude she’s developed toward him, or her unwavering stubbornness, he doesn’t know- that keeps him from letting things alone like he normally would. “Do you always act like this when someone tries to apologize or be nice to you?”

Killian watches as her jaw sets and sees he’s struck a cord, although he can’t say whether or not it was unintentional. “Do you always butt into other people’s business?”

“Regardless, it seems yours isn’t worth my time.” She rolls her eyes and walks away from him for the second time.

His annoyance with her is just the motivation he needs for his workout, but like the time before, his thoughts stay occupied with the woman he knows nothing about, aside from the fact that she must be some kind of a force to be reckoned with.

He can’t decide whether she intrigues or irritates him more.

-/-

The next Tuesday is when Killian becomes convinced that the universe hates him.

He’s walking to work, sans coffee after finally replenishing his stock at home, when he catches a familiar glimpse of blonde hair coming out of a store as its owner taps away at her phone. He doesn’t try to get her attention; she’s not exactly his biggest fan as it is, and bothering her for no reason certainly won’t change that.

It doesn’t matter how honorable his intentions are, though, since she notices him when she glances over her shoulder not a moment later. She stops in her tracks and he hears her groan as he’s walking up.

“Are you following me or something? Because I have a gun and-”

Killian holds a hand up to stop her. “Not to worry, lass.” (He’s remembered what not to call her this time.) “Believe it or not, it seems that you and I are yet again the victims of mere coincidence.”

“Seriously? Who talks like that?”

“A person who’s about as thrilled with our recent pattern of encounters as you are.”

“I’m not making you walk beside me to chat, you know! I think you and I both have better things to do.”

“Finally something we can agree on. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

He wastes no time leaving her behind and getting to work just as fast as he can. He’s annoyed yet again, something he’s convinced will be a common theme whenever he runs into her. But, bloody hell, he still can’t answer the question as to how and why she’s managed to get both under his skin and stuck in his mind so easily.

-/-

Killian goes a week without running into her after their last encounter on the street. He feels relieved considering how things between them are all but guaranteed them to go- or, at least, he thinks he does. It’s Liam that brings it to his attention when they’re at The Rabbit Hole sharing a drink after work.

“Looking for someone, are you?” his brother asks, seeing Killian’s eyes go to the bar’s entrance when the bell above the door chimes. A group of women arrive together, but he quickly loses interest in the redheads and brunettes.

He shakes his head as he takes a drink. “No. What makes you ask?”

Liam doesn’t look convinced. “Every time we’ve been out over the past few weeks, you seem to be waiting for someone else to show up. Not only that, but you’ve been examining every blonde within a mile’s radius, and I’d like to know just why.”

“You’re not going to leave me alone about this, are you?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Alright then.” Killian pauses as he tries to figure out how to explain his recent series of meetings to his brother. “To make a long story shorter: there’s this woman-”

“I knew it,” Liam mutters under his breath.

“There’s this woman,” he continues, ignoring him. “I haven’t the slightest idea who she is, but we keep running into each other and always end up having some petty argument before we part ways, only to see each other a few days later and do the same thing all over again.”

“Huh. And just what exactly are you and this lass always arguing over?”

“That’s just it; it’s usually just mindless bickering because I seem to annoy her as much as she does me.”

“Is she pretty?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Just a question.”

Killian rolls his eyes, but mutters, “Aye. Very much so.”

A moment of silence passes as Liam taps at the side of his glass and processes everything Killian’s just told him. “Well, I wish I could think of something to say to help you out, but all I’ve got is that you’re making this situation much more difficult than it needs to be.”

“How?! It's not like I'm intentionally trying to run into her.”

“No, but it doesn't sound as if you're trying to avoid her, either,” Liam argues. “Just admit it, Killian: you like her.”

“I don't bloody know her well enough to like her!”

“Maybe you should get to know her then. What’s that saying, opposites attract? She could end up surprising you.”

Killian wants nothing more than to argue with his brother and insist his suggestion is ridiculous. But as much as it pains him to admit it, he's up for having another run in with her just to see if there’s a way to make it out without yelling or sarcastic remarks. He doesn't tell Liam all of this, only says, “Maybe I’ll think about it. Maybe.”

He can already tell from the smug look on Liam’s face that he's going to get an I told you so if things turn out in his favor.

-/-

It's only three days later when he thinks maybe the universe doesn't hate him after all.

He's only been at work for a little over an hour, things going relatively well for a Friday morning, when there's a knock on his office doo. He looks up from his seat behind the desk to see his boss in the doorway.

“Regina, something I can do?”

To Killian’s surprise, the brunette actually smiles at him. He can't tell if it's genuine or not, but it's a smile just the same. Those can be far and few between where Regina Mills is concerned.

“Yes. But first, there's someone I'd like for you to meet.” She steps to the side and Killian has to bite his tongue to keep from cursing. “This is Emma Swan. Miss Swan, this is Killian Jones, one of our top family law attorneys.”

Her eyes widen as she recognizes him, but she doesn't say anything other than a quick, “Nice to meet you” and shakes his hand when he stands and offers it to her.

“Killian, Miss Swan is here for Humbert’s Bail Bonds. She’s looking for some information regarding the Lewis case from a few weeks ago; I figured you would be the one she needed to see.”

She's not wrong, the file he'd used to hold the casework from a messy child support ordeal is still in the top drawer of his desk where he'd left it once the trial was over. “Yes, I'm sure I can help with whatever's necessary.”

“Good to know,” Regina answers. “I'm due for a meeting downstairs, so I'll leave you to it.” The blonde- Emma- thanks her as she walks away, leaving the two of them alone in his office.

“So, the Lewis case, eh? I hope that's an incident I don't have to repeat any time soon,” he says, going through the desk drawer and pulling out the file she needs. He gestures for her to sit down as she takes it from him.

“Yeah. I'm the one who tracked the husband down, and my boss apparently needs the rest of the case information to turn over to his boss for one reason or another.” Her eyes scan over the words on the pages before she pulls a small notebook out of her purse and begins to scribble notes on a blank page.

Killian waits for her to say something about their past meetings; some kind of sarcastic remark, at least. But to his surprise, her focus stays on her work for the ten or fifteen minutes she's there, occasionally asking a question or two about his work or making a comment about the weather. Either she wants to avoid a confrontation, or she actually doesn't recognize him. The second option seems unlikely, but still believable.

Emma hands him back the Lewis file once she's collected all the information she needs. “I appreciate your help.”

“It was my pleasure,” he answers, for once remembering not to refer to her as love.

“Oh, and Mr. Jones?” She stops at the door. “It was...surprisingly nice to have a conversation with you without any yelling.”

She's out the door and gone before the “bloody hell” has a chance to leave his lips.

-/-

It doesn’t take long for Killian to think that maybe the universe does in fact hate him after all, because having a name to go with the face only makes it that much harder to get Emma Swan out of his head.

They’re still all but strangers- knowing the other’s name and workplace doesn’t exactly count as having an acquaintance- but he had to admit that he could accept the idea of that changing. Seeing they were capable of having a pleasant conversation has him believing that it’s possible, if only barely so. He toys around with the idea of somehow trying to get more information about her from Regina, but that could likely end with both women angry at him, his boss for using her influence the wrong way and Emma for going out of his way to get to know her.

Things soon take another turn and make him wonder just what kind of ridiculous dream he's stuck in.

Liam talks him into going to his girlfriend’s sister’s birthday party the next Friday night. He doesn't want to go- socializing with a crowd of mostly strangers isn’t something he goes out of his way to do- but he likes Elsa, and Anna seemed like a nice girl from the few times they've met, so he agrees. He and Liam show up at Elsa’s apartment precisely at seven, a bottle of wine tucked under his brother’s arm.

It should be no surprise that Emma’s is the first face he sees after Elsa lets them in.

She’s standing in the hall talking to a brunette with a pixie cut, laughing at something the other woman has said when she notices him and pauses. They’ve gotten so good at this now that she doesn’t have to wonder who he is or where she’s seen him anymore, especially thanks to her office visit. Speaking to her hasn’t always been the greatest idea, but he’s not about to waste the chance if she is indeed warming up to him. He tells Liam he’s going to speak to someone, but she’s standing right in front of him when he turns back around.

“Jones?”

“Yes, it seems we meet again.”

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“What are you doing here?”

“I asked you first.” He catches a glimpse of her quizzical expression as she takes a sip from the beer bottle she’s holding.

“Elsa is my brother’s girlfriend.”

“You’re Liam’s brother?!”

“You know him, too?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s tried to give me your number more than once.”

“Oh, bloody hell.” He glances over his shoulder at Liam who’s trying- and failing- to pretend he hasn’t been watching them. To think he’d already talked to his brother about her at the bar that night and he’d already known who she was.

“Yeah. But I don’t like it when my family and friends try to set me up with other people, so I thought I’d be nice and return, er, I guess not return the favor.” He can tell she was trying to save him from an unpleasant experience she’s likely had in the past, but it might be her way of letting him know she wouldn’t be interested regardless. He’d be lying if he said it didn’t deflate his confidence a bit. “Er, so how do you know Elsa and Anna?”

“They’re friends with my sister-in-law,” she answers, nodding her head towards the woman she’d been standing with earlier, who smiles when she sees them looking her way.

“Ah. It’s a small world, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Smaller than I thought.”

Killian chooses his next words carefully. “I would offer to get you a drink, but it seems that’s unnecessary,” he gestures to the one she already has.

“Maybe so, but rumor has it Elsa’s got pizza in the kitchen, and I haven’t had dinner yet.” Emma raises an eyebrow, indicating this is his chance and he’d better take advantage of it now.

“Give me five minutes.”

“I like pepperoni!”

-/-

“How long are you giving Liam to finally pop the question?”

“Honestly, love? I’m quite surprised he hasn’t already. Perhaps he’s worried Elsa won’t say yes.”

“Are you kidding? Look at her; she’s as much of a lovesick puppy as he is.”

Killian follows her eyes to where the couple stands outside together on the balcony, completely oblivious to everyone else around them. “Aye. They seem to be quite the good match for each other.”

“They remind me of David and Mary Margaret in that way; I couldn't have picked anyone more suited for either of them.” He senses a bit of disappointment in her words, but she doesn’t elaborate on the subject, and he doesn’t ask.

She’s asking about his job and the law firm when her phone vibrates. “It’s my boss,” she groans after taking a look at the screen. “Give me a sec?” He nods as steps out to answer.

Emma’s back not a minute later, frowning. “Sorry, I have to bail. A skip I’ve been tracking for almost a month was just spotted downtown, and my boss wants me to grab the jerk before he tries to run again.”

“Not a problem, lass,” he tells her, attempting to mask his own disappointment. “I can tell you put a lot of effort into what you do.”

“Yeah, maybe sometimes too much,” she mumbles, getting her purse and jacket from the seat beside him. “I guess I’ll see you around, Killian.”

He smiles as he watches her leave because he knows she’s probably right.

-/-

She’s right.

They cross each other’s paths three times over the next two weeks, twice at the coffee shop where they first unofficially met- with no coffee spilt either time, thankfully- and then at a local carnival that Liam has yet again coerced him into going to. (Killian thinks later that his brother wouldn’t need to go to so much effort to get him to do things if he knew Emma would be there.) Each encounter they’ve had since the party has been much different than the first few; although they both have a dry sense of humor and are too sarcastic for their own good, there has yet to be an instance that involves yelling or has someone convinced they hate the other.

It’s gotten to the point now that he’s begun to think of Emma as more than just a regular acquaintance, but maybe even a friend: He texts her corny jokes when she’s bored during a stakeout and she’s taken to willingly sitting at his table when they show up at the same restaurant for lunch. They haven’t gone as far as to share the more painful details of their pasts, but he’s convinced her background must closely mirror his own somehow based on her demeanor when something along the lines of childhood or family comes up in conversation. She always changes the subject or gives some kind of vague answer and he knows better than to push the subjects any further. It’s evident she’s been through quite a bit in her life and he sees no reason to make her reminisce any more than she already does.

And, yes, he likes her. A lot, if he’s being honest. And it’s just his luck that he realizes it about the same time Liam does.

“Why not ask her out already? The worst thing she can do is say no.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Killian groans. “I can’t complain; I’m lucky we’re even able to be friends considering the way we met.”

“And you’re always going to wonder what could have been if you don’t take that chance.”

Liam’s words stick with him for quite some time afterwards because he knows he’s right. Emma may hate him for going through with this, but he may come to hate himself even more for being a coward.

It’s Monday night when he goes over to Emma’s apartment after leaving the office.

“Hey, Killian,” she greets him when she comes to the door. “What brings you by?”

“Go out with me?”

“What?” The dumbfounded expression on her face makes him regret not thinking this through.

“Sorry, love, it’s just I know we didn’t exactly start off on the right foot, but I’ve found myself becoming more and more fond of you and I was wondering if...oh, bloody hell,” he curses, running a hand through his already unkempt hair. She was definitely going to say no. “You know what, Swan, forget it. I’ll just go.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry for botheri- wait, what?” He can’t have heard her correctly.

“Yes.” Emma smiles. “I was hoping you would ask eventually.” She leans forward and presses a kiss to his cheek before turning to go back into her apartment. “Tomorrow night, pick me up at seven. I’ll be waiting.”

Liam yells “I bloody told you so!” when he calls him on the way home. Killian’s too thrilled to care.

#cs ff #cs fic #cs fic formal #welllpthisishappening #cs fluff #cs au #captain swan #captain swan fic #meredith writes

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expurgatedversion · 7 years ago

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I hate explaining things, especially if they are transparent to everyone who participated, but Mads was kind enough to think it might make a difference to lay out exactly how that theme won. The funny thing is that none of those complaints or appeals had shit all to do with our methodology. Weird, right? It's almost like they were concerned with a completely unrelated thing. Unpossible!

With that in mind, this is not a post about The Theme That Dare Not Speak Its Name or Steter Week. This isn't even a post addressed to the people with all of those concerns.

This is (mostly) a post for anyone who has no idea what the Scerek Anon or anti-Scott sentiment has to do with Steter fandom.

The very short answer is that they don't.

If you want the longer answer, there is an entire investigative report that happened. No, I'm not fucking with you. It totally happened, and you can read it here.

If you want the other long answer about racism affecting fandom trends and favorite characters, you’ll have to do your own homework.

So am I saying that no one left Steter fandom over Scott-hate? Nope. I don't know everyone. I've also been told that learning about the Scerek Anon caused a lot of a big feelings in people who weren't even the targets.

Speaking of targets, let's not forget that the Steter fandom was barely touched by these events. The Scerek Anon seemed to enjoy several different Stiles-ships as long as Scott or Malia weren't involved, and they were known to leave positive comments on Steter fics. Steter writers were not the ones being harassed for their correct use of AO3 tags. They weren’t sent horrible messages wishing they or their families would die for daring to include Scott or write Derek in a less than perfect light. I find it infuriating that anyone would try to say that the Steter fandom ever faced the same kind of treatment that the Scott, Braeden, and Malia fandoms did.

But Nyx made some extraordinary claims, particularly about the “biggest Steter fans”.

"Steter fandom is so much smaller and quieter today than it used to be is because some of the biggest Steter fans of several years ago were bullied into silence or out of the fandom"

"One of the leaders and many of the biggest proponents of lolscerekanon were big Steter fans"

Okay. Credit where it’s due. The second one is pretty accurate. But the first is not remotely based in reality. With the mention of lolscerekanon, I have to believe that Nyx is specifically talking about Taylorpotato, and I'm sorry. Is this seriously an assertion that he was silenced or bullied by anti-Scott fans? I guess he was so bullied that he proceeded to write Scott-centric fic for the better part of a year. Yes, he was so petrified by the overwhelming hatred for Scott fics that he spearheaded a project to mock the Scerek Anon and eventually declared that they had won against the troll.

But no, he and all of those other unnamed Steter writers fled the fandom because the Scott hatred was too powerful.

There are plenty of older fans who are still here, but I can also think of several well-known people who no longer create Steter content. Some of them still read and comment on Steter fics. Many of them are writing in other fandoms. A lot of these people are awfully findable for being “in hiding”.

You know who I do remember being harassed over fics/blog posts and actually left fandom? Kinkyfics and Morallydubious. I can’t say if it was Scott-related. It seemed to involve several issues, including nasty comments, but regardless of their motives, it would be a huge stretch to call them Steter writers as most of their work was for other pairings.

Is Steter fandom smaller and quieter? The AO3 tag updates more frequently than ever. The @steternetwork gets new followers everyday, and they mostly don’t look like spam bots. The Network chat almost always has someone online, ready to talk about Steter, and there are some other Steter chats around.

None of that sounds smaller or quieter to me, but hey. Your mileage may vary.

Now, I'm going to get a little personal here. It wasn’t part of the original plan, but my annoyance level has increased a lot as I’ve watched the wank unfold.

Maybe it’s coincidental or just a case of weird optics, but I find it positively fascinating that Nyx hasn’t mentioned Steter Week since arguing with me and Bxdcubes about fandom’s ability to come to their own conclusions. Isn’t it funny how she claims that this will be the year... now that Mar isn’t involved and I’m on a different blog? I guess Nyx is ready to release about two years' worth of thwarted Steter smut. After all, there's no way that anyone has ever managed to continue posting fic in a fandom after disagreeing with people.

Looks pointedly at 220k of Sterek fic on Nyx's AO3.

Well, fuck me running. I guess the realization that the Steter fandom won't blindly agree with anything was harder to take than the frequent debates and callouts Nyx deals with now.

Folks, I am beyond tired of the character/ship squads and pro-anti-whatever fighting. I am done crusading for anything, even trash. I no longer have it in me to engage in The Discourse 24/7. One of the reasons I made a new tumblr home was to get away from the endless wank.

Yes, there are people in the fandom who hate Scott. Maybe they dislike his crooked jaw, or they disapprove of the actor’s life choices. I don’t care. They’re allowed. Plenty of people hate Peter/Ian Bohen, and I sleep just fine at night. I don’t even harass them or hijack their event posts, and from what I’ve seen of fandom, that’s downright amazing.

*My apologies if this winds up in the tag. Hopefully, it won’t show up if you use tagged/steter instead of the search bar. *Regarding the creators I’m aware of who no longer contribute to Steter: I don't name them here because they don't deserve to be dragged into this ridiculous shit. Quite frankly, none of us do. *I hope everyone realizes that I'm not minimizing what happened to the people who felt unable to continue in fandom because of any kind of ship or character hate, but the post specified "the biggest Steter fans", so that's what I examined. *I have answered and received more than my share of questions about Taylorpotato. If I receive any personal or intrusive asks on that topic, I will delete them. Anything I’ve said about him in this post is available on tumblr and ao3.

#mal has a life #get off my lawn #fandom wank #long post

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ericschumacher · 4 years ago

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A new post, (Christian Sloths: Lazy Reviews (and Review-Readers)), is available at Eric Schumacher

New Post has been published on https://www.emschumacher.com/christian-sloths-lazy-reviews-and-review-readers/

Christian Sloths: Lazy Reviews (and Review-Readers)

This post is part of an on-going series examining sloth in Christian communities.

Someone once said that Christians are a “people of the book.” It’s true (or, at least, it ought to be). We take our faith and practice from the pages of Scripture. The doctrine of “sola scriptura“—the belief that the bible is the sole inerrant authority for faith and practice—was at the Protestant Reformation’s center.

It is equally valid (or, at least, it ought to be) that Christians are a “people of the books.” In his last letter, the Apostle Paul asked Timothy to “bring the books” when he visited. In the 2,000 years that followed, books served to instruct Christians in the faith and spread Christian ideas. It is no less so today.

Of course, given the number of books published (not to mention the access to information provided by the internet), it is impossible to a fraction of the books published today. Who should we read? What should we read?

Book Reviews

One apparent solution is found in book reviews. Reviews consume the material (or are supposed to) and then tell us whether it is worth our time and money.

Good reviews, rightly used, can spare us time and resources. Bad reviews (or the wrong use of reviews) can rob us of new insights, silence helpful critiques, and ensure that valuable contributions never see the light of day. Bad reviews and its twin, the wrong use of reviews, are often sloth’s children.

“The golden rule of book reviewing,” writes Andy Naselli, “is to judge a book based on what the author is intending to do—not based on what you would do if you were the author.”

Slothful Reviewers

From Naselli’s correct and straightforward observation, it becomes apparent that a quality book review is hard work. One must labor in self-control to interact with the book itself, not with one’s perception of the author, the topic, or hopes for the book. It is hard work to summarize the author’s purpose, methodology, argument, conclusions, and skill in a way that the author would recognize as her own—and then critique the book on how effectively the author executed.

Much easier is to approach a book with expectations and demands—”The book should be structured in this way, deal with these ideas and sources, and come to these conclusions.” Disappointed that the author didn’t do what you wanted in the way that you would have, you can critique them severely and give them a lower rating. Likewise, being with pleased that the author came to the conclusions you hoped in the way you wanted, you may ignore a plethora of deficiencies in how they wrote or handled data, to dish out high praise and five stars.

Anytime you read a review in which the bulk of the reviewer’s critique and conclusion rests on what they wish the author had done, what the author didn’t do or the conclusion, you are likely dealing with a slothful reviewer—sheer laziness.

Spotting Sloths in the Wild

Dan Reid, writing from years of experience as an editor (who reads reviews), outlines several sloths in book reviewing:

“The author failed to write a different sort of book, the sort of book that I prefer; and so I dislike this book.”

“The author is an evangelical (or liberal or feminist or …), and we all know what they are up to. So this book, which barely deserves my attention, is a very bad book indeed.”

“The author presumes to know quite a bit about her topic, and there is evidence that this is the case. However, I happen to know a lot about the topic brought up in the last paragraph of chapter six and virtually nothing about the content of the other chapters. So let me take this platform to talk about a narrow slice of the book and judge the whole on its basis.”

“The author takes no account of my work on this topic. This is regrettable, and I shall now condemn the book on the basis of my being slighted—but not before I take the opportunity to tell you all about my thesis.”

“I have never liked this author. In fact she blocked my bid for tenure. So this is pay-back time. Oh yeah.”

“I have a deep-seated need to show my superiority, not least in my area of expertise. And so I will point out certain small but unforgivable failings in this book that will subtly cast it in a bad light.”

“It is clear to me that anyone who holds the views represented in this book has questionable or possibly bad (or racist or misogynist or _) motives, so I shall ferret out and expose those motives and then attack them.”

“I believe in reading for authorial intent, but that applies only to Scripture. In this review I shall employ a hermeneutic of suspicion and tell you what I think this book is saying despite the explicit protest of the living author to the contrary.”

“This book takes on a sacred cow of our discipline. It shakes the foundations of my academic cosmos. It quivers the posts of my sacred canopy. It shivers me timbers. It threatens to cause me to start again from the ground up. In this last decade of my academic life, I’m not about to let that happen. So here’s my fatwa.”

In his post, Reid offers commentary on several of these sloths, worth your time to read.

Christians would do well to take the time to understand the nature of these expressions of laziness and be ready to spot them in book reviews. Of course, such sloth is not limited to reviewing books. They show up frequently in Christian critiques of sermons, churches, other people, culture, politics, etc.

Slothful Users of Reviews

The temptation to laziness is not limited to the writing of reviews. We can also be lazy in our use of reviews. It is a particular temptation because reviews are written to reduce our workload. But anything created to lighten the load can become an excuse to avoid the responsibility to work.

One sloth in the use of reviews is skipping to the bottom line. Skip the review, what does the reviewer say in conclusion. Skipping the content to cut to the conclusion gives one no way of knowing the basis or methodology for the review. (I’ve seen some quality reviewers give a few lazy reviews.)

Another lazy approach is to look at only the stars. “3-star average? I’ll pass.” Too many people approach the ranking system this way. That’s why authors and publishers encourage reviews and rankings. But, as everyone knows, the system is easy to manipulate.

Your company makes widgets and sells them on Amazon. Your only competitor just released a new widget to compete with your new release. There are twenty-five employees in your company. On release day, each one leaves a five-star review of your product and a 1-star or 2-star review of the competitor. Each negative review mentions the same problems with the competitor’s product. Each employee then asks three members of their household to do the same. Your product has one-hundred five-star ratings within a week, while your competitor has one-hundred negative ratings, each complaining about the same problem.

If you don’t think this happens with book reviews, you’re naive. (The screenshots from the Genevan Commons reveal at least one attempt to sabotage a woman’s book release.) It’s easy to read a book review and then post a negative review on a bookseller website parroting the concerns. Unethical? Sure—but how is a book browser to know any different. All they know is that a brief skim of the reviews will reveal that many people had the same complaint (and several were pastors!). And the book (and your neighbor) is torpedoed before even leaving the dock.

It’s a quick way to get a feel for responses. But is one truth negated by a thousand lies? Does a falsehood become a truth by repeating it a hundred times?

Work Hard

Lazy reviews and the lazy use of reviews are quick and dirty ways to silence a voice or prop up yourself. But how do such promote the exchange of ideas, learning, scholarship? Do dishonest means celebrate the truth?

Both reading and writing are hard work. They have no place for laziness. If you want to take the easy path, perhaps you should avoid books altogether.

#Books #Christian Sloths

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feedbaylenny · 7 years ago

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I hate lazy people (and stupid ones, but that’s a blog for another time).

I can understand being sick. Last year, I showed up to work sick for three weeks since I wasn’t contagious and learned two lessons. First, I wasn’t appreciated and second, going to the doctor instead of assuming the bug would go away on its own would’ve gotten rid of it quicker.

Don’t know something? Then research or call! If you’re in the media, then your audience deserves better: all your effort to find the truth, wherever it is.

This morning, the author of one of my favorite blogs, FTVLive’s Scott Jones, showed how KYTV in Springfield, MO – News, Weather, and Sports in the Ozarks – copied an MMJ’s (multi-media journalist) biography from her old station’s website! I wonder if she did anything worth mentioning at that old station that could be included now.

http://www.ky3.com/content/bios/415143313.html

I just checked minutes before 9pm and it’s still there, more than 12 hours after most of the (TV) world found out. That mistake should not have been made. When I was Digital Media Manager, I wouldn’t publish a bio on the web until I approved it, and then the news director did the same.

But whatever the mistake is, it should be corrected or deleted as soon as possible. (Or “clarified,” as so many prefer to call errors, these days.) Does KY3, as it’s known and not to be confused with a Philadelphia station, need a Digital Media Manager?

I really wanted to give the MMJ a little credit since she probably publishes her news stories on a daily basis but not bios, which are not posted nor updated frequently. That’s why there’s a Digital Media Manager.

Unfortunately, Jasmine Dell’s resume on her blog doesn’t even include KY3! I’m not going to show you the link to download a Word copy of her resume which (not so bright) includes her name, complete address including apartment number; city, state and ZIP; and personal phone number and email address. Actually, I almost could since it’s all from when she worked at her former station, except the personal phone number and email address.

But you have to smile when her blog homepage contains the sentence,

“I am motivated to produce the best news results, media outcomes, and be successful when faced with challenging issues.”

Maybe she’s just slow.

What about WTXF-Fox 29 in Philadelphia, where I used to work? Its station history hasn’t been updated in YEARS! It even says so on top.

http://www.fox29.com/news/station-history

This 100th blog of mine continues with all the problems with this article – plus similar articles from Fox stations and FoxNews.com on Roseanne’s cancellation. I think I found the source. Now, I want to know, did they lie or stretch the truth?

So don’t look for American Idol, Bones nor Glee on Fox29, despite what the station claims. They are wrong and you know it, especially with Idol, since the other two shows ended quietly, but Idol made news when it went to the competition.

Quincy was such a gentleman when my parents visited

Also, no 11pm news and no The Q with Quincy Harris. Nah! Little oversights. They can’t be important, despite the months planning each!

Managers should know what they’re putting out on all platforms (not just over the air) since they’re responsible for it, and they should probably take a comprehensive look at all of their pages at least once a year and discuss whether the sitemap meets current needs.

Fun time with Bob Kelly

Also this morning, Good Day Philadelphia had a reporter at Field Day at Holy Cross Regional School. Traffic guy Bob Kelly, who I worked with twice, did “Kelly in the Classroom” segments and even some outdoors if they involved learning.

Today, it was Jenn Fred instead and she must’ve done two segments that were nearly identical and both spectacular, since both appear on the homepage Top 5 under Good Day Philadelphia with nearly the same headline.

Yeah, Jenn. They really know how to show they care about your work!

And they couldn’t come up with five different stories for the Good Day part of the homepage? (Miss you! Feel free to comment below how we worked together on story selection, titles, etc., so we looked the best possible on whatever story you were working on everyday!)

Of course, the mother of all Fox laziness is exemplified in this article I brought you back on Jan. 27. Fourteen different stations used identical copy!

https://cohenconnect.com/2018/01/27/facebook-twitter-and-fox-fox-x-14/

So let’s take a look at how Fox handled today’s Roseanne cancelation, in channel number order.

KTTV, Los Angeles

WTVT, Tampa

WTXF, Philadelphia

I’m not going to bother to look at any more stations, since the first three I examined were the same (and that includes L.A., where this was local news). I’ll bet the number goes to about 14, like with that last story.

Each one’s second paragraph read,

“‘Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,’ (ABC Entertainment president Channing) Dungey told Fox News.”

Pardon me, but I’m going to claim B.S. The reason is this 2:01pm (ET) tweet from Robert Iger, Chairman and CEO ABC’s owner, The Walt Disney Company:

https://twitter.com/RobertIger/status/1001523982997143552

Do you notice Iger quoted Dungey’s same three words – abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent – and then his ending? Now, take a look at the top story on ABC Entertainment’s website. It’s actually from the Associated Press!

Pardon me if I’m wrong, but those are the same exact words on the bottom of this part of the A.P. article ABC Entertainment carried, so why do the Fox station articles feel special with their attribution even though they end with the same phrase?

I’m referring to those three words – abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent, and the ending that followed everywhere – shaded above. Was Fox News or anybody associated with the company’s stations given special access to ABC Entertainment’s president and able to add

“Dungey told Fox News?”

I don’t think so.

Is it because someone at Fox is a liar or stretched the truth? I think absolutely.

Now, let’s narrow down who the alleged liar or stretcher is. We’ll start by examining the end of each of those local Fox stations’ articles.

I’m not sure the lead-in to the ABC tweet makes any sense following a reference to Roseanne’s, but click here for that article the stations link to, which is supposed to contain the full story.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/05/29/abc-cancels-roseanne-after-barrs-racist-tweet.html

It’s from FoxNews.com – the folks in New York who work with the network, rather than the stations. It’s longer but uses the same three words, with the same phrase that follows, in the third paragraph – as if the president of ABC Entertainment spoke specifically to Fox News, which I doubt is true.

So I clicked Sasha Savitsky, the author credited with the FoxNews.com article (below its headline). Up came her Twitter account which I used to get to the bottom of my question about whether the president of ABC Entertainment spoke specifically to Fox News or anybody associated with the company’s stations, as she reported. Her work email address was pinned to the top of her Twitter account.

https://twitter.com/feedbaylenny/status/1001593880851214337

I emailed Sasha Savitsky at 7:10pm tonight after Tweeting her at 6:39pm. (Both are above). I don’t know her work schedule, but

Her article says it was updated three hours ago. (Above, it said just one hour, but blogs can take longer to write than I estimate they will. In this case, I hadn’t imagined going digging like this over something that might seem minor to some, but the information may not be true and it was republished on dozens of “news” websites around the country.)

She probably has access to her Twitter account at all times, since she works for a network and mobile technology is inexpensive.

And I promise I’ll let you know as soon as Sasha gives me an update. (No white lies, stretches or exaggerations here!)

And Roseanne, among my thoughts concerning you is one I’ve shared four times on this blog this year alone (from the beginning: here, here, here and here). Only owners are entitled to the First Amendment. The rest of the public cannot use the public airwaves, even if they deserve to more than the license-holder (which is probably most of the time since corporations hold multiple licences – dozens – and their CEOs are not spread out around the country to ensure broadcasting for local audiences).

It’s after 9:20pm. No word from Sasha, Jasmine’s bio looks the same and Fox 29’s station history article is just as bad. So you’re up to date.

Take that from someone who just published his 100th blog and can’t imagine how many readers’ hit-lists he has made!

Please, if you like what you read here, subscribe to CohenConnect.com with either your email address or WordPress account, and get a notice whenever I publish. I’m also available for writing/web contract work.

The lousiness of laziness and liars I hate lazy people (and stupid ones, but that’s a blog for another time). I can understand being sick.

#Bones #Channing Dungey #corporations #First Amendment #Fox TV Station Group #Glee #Good Day Philadelphia #Holy Cross Regional School #Jasmine Dell #Muslim Brotherhood #Sasha Savitsky #Scott Jones #Valerie Jarrett

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briannafullerton-blog · 7 years ago

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corneliussteinbeck · 7 years ago

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Cultivating Self-Trust: What it Takes to Get On Your Own Side

I once was talking to a potential coaching client on the phone. As we talked about her fears and confidence around weight loss, she lowered her voice and said, “I just don’t trust myself with food, you know? I don’t trust that I’ll be able to stay away from it or make good choices for the rest of my life.”

Her tone was full of shame and embarrassment. Her feeling that she was so untrustworthy — that she couldn’t even be trusted around food, especially the delicious kind — and certainly not for the remainder of her life, was robbing her of any sense of value. Here was a talented, smart professional who graduated at the top of her law class. She was a mother, daughter, wife, and friend who provided for and cared for her people daily, and yet none of that mattered because she measured her value in her weight, not her worth.

Sadly, I’ve had similar conversations with dozens of women who felt at a loss when it comes to self-trust, especially as it relates to:

Food

Exercise

Overall life choices

“I am the worst self talker ever. I am always telling myself that I am messing something up.”

“You know how I know I didn’t trust myself? I controlled every morsel of food that went into my mouth. The more I controlled, the more I distrusted myself — it became a vicious cycle of micromanaging every single bite. I often think about those years. And just the sheer amount of energy and headspace I wasted on food.”

“For me, the voices in my head are usually telling me, why did I do that? Why did I eat that? That wasn’t worth the calories.”

“I joined a gym to start lifting and then couldn’t stand to see myself in the mirror — especially next to the all these fit women who had super defined bodies. So instead, I’d slink upstairs (away from the mirrors) and just spend a miserable hour on the elliptical. I eventually quit because it was the worst hour of my day.”

“The only time I’ve been consistent at working out was the years I did boot camp first thing in the morning. It was early and dark. But I also had these women cheering me on and telling me things that I personally didn’t believe I could do. I would have quit on me. But let down these women at boot camp and suggest I was anything less than they thought I was? No way.”

Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines trust as: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; one in which confidence is placed.

The fact that millions of women don’t believe they are trustworthy of the very choices they make for themselves is heartbreakingly sad.

In my own life, I watch my young daughters, ages 8 and 5, and am often amazed at how much trust and assuredness they have that the choices they are making are right. Trust me when I say, my 8 year old is always certain that she is right. Whether it’s knowing exactly how they want to play, what they want to eat for every snack and meal, or leaving a ½ plate of cheese covered nachos behind because their bellies are “full,” they turn to their inner voice to guide their every decision. If we are born with self-trust, what happens along the way?

Social Influence and Social Comparison

While we may start out with a strong sense of self-trust, body image and self-esteem, media messaging and social comparison can quickly erode those beliefs. Research has shown that more than 50 percent of six to eight year old girls worry about their weight [1]. In part, this preoccupation is due to the overabundance of social messaging young girls receive regarding the “ideal” female type.

It’s estimated that the average person is exposed to between 500 and 5000 ads each day. Female children and young adults may be particularly vulnerable. Research has shown that children and teens who are exposed to mainstream media are at greater risk for developing an unhealthy body image [2].

However, it’s not just media portrayal of societal ideals that influence our perceptions. We also rely on social comparisons to those we know to help shape our idea of who we are and how we measure up. These social comparisons allow for externalization of our values, desires and even our worth. Research has found that individuals who used Facebook most frequently had lower self esteem compared with those who used it less frequently or not at all [3].

A study that examined social comparisons with emotions and behavior found that the more frequently a person made social comparisons, the more likely they were to experience envy, guilt, regret, and defensiveness, as well as to lie, to blame others, and to have unmet cravings [4]. In other words, they were miserable.

If comparing ourselves to others makes us so unhappy, why do we do it? As social creatures we are hardwired to want to belong and fit in with the pack. Historically, fitting in meant we sat around the campfire with others instead of being socially isolated and vulnerable to attack in the woods. The upside of social comparison is that it can lead to self-enhancement and the desire to maintain positive feelings of self.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

And that’s where the trouble begins. We use comparison as a motivation to make changes so we can maintain a positive self-esteem, and the very act of comparison can lower our self-esteem. The more we look at perfect images of others and don’t find those same qualities in ourselves, the worse we feel. Two things typically happen:

We Sharpen Our Inner Critic

We become hyper critical of our actions, choices and all of the ways we don’t measure up. We develop a “not good enough” story that fuels our desire to seek validation from outside sources and look to answers outside of ourselves. The critical voice is one that questions every decision and choice. It’s the voice that wakes you up at night questioning your every move and word. It’s the voice that tells you all the things you “should” do or “have to” do. It’s the voice that says you’re lazy, unmotivated, awkward, weak, fat, etc. It’s the harsh drill sergeant that no one wants to be around.

In fact, if the voice in our head was made into an actual person with whom we worked on a daily basis, not only would we avoid that person like the plague, but we’d likely lodge a complaint for emotional abuse as well. This inner critic aims to do well by helping us correct the things we’d like to change, but it’s rooted firmly in a story of “Not good enough.” How can we trust what is, if we don’t believe in its worth?

We Seek Ways to Change

We scour the Internet, media and outside sources searching for the answers to our problems. We tell ourselves, “I’ll be happy when…,” and the when is simply a moving target that requires more but offers less and less in return. Certainly in many ways, the fitness industry doesn’t help. Scrolling through Instagram and social media, we’re met with promises of quick fixes and 30 day transformations, miracle diets and products and how best to fuel your body.

Should you count your macros? Do intermittent fasting? Perhaps the answer lies in that intense group workout program or following a keto diet? We follow shiny object after shiny object only to be disappointed and defeated. Instead of saying these programs failed us, we simply think, “We failed.”

The only thing we have failed at is listening to ourselves.

We’ve sought someone else’s answers to our questions and the answers we need just can’t be found there.

Six Strategies to Rebuild Your Self-Trust

If you find yourself controlling your every move, feeling aimless without a clear sense of what you desire, it’s time to start rebuilding self-trust. Use these strategies to help you turn up the volume on your inner voice.

1. Do You

We can’t be all of the things and choose everything to be good at. Find out what makes you unique. What do you love? What lights you up? What makes you excited? Mad? Fired up? Step into that. If we only have so many days on this earth, why waste them on things you don’t feel fully passionate and excited about?

Try: Make a list of all of the things you are curious or feel strongly about. Consider how often you are engaging in or trying the things on your list. Pick one you are not actively pursuing and find a way to begin to incorporate it into your life.

2. Be Mindful

Be aware of what you are feeling and experiencing. So often we ignore what our body is telling us. We’re hungry, but we tell ourselves we can’t eat. We’re tired, but we need to stay awake. We eat whatever food is served to us, because that’s the polite or expected thing to do. We eat food that we’re no longer hungry for, because it’s in front of us and tastes good. We constantly ignore what are body is telling us to do, to follow what our mind desires.

It’s time to stop. Spend some time listening to your body and yourself. Sleep when tired. Eat when hungry. Choose foods that make you feel your best. Cry when sad. Vent when angry. Be aware of your experience and allow it be enough.

Try: Set an alarm on your phone to go off periodically throughout the day. When it does, take a deep breath, check in and ask yourself how you’re feeling.

3. Sit With What Is

Honor your emotions, feelings and experiences, without trying to escape or fast forward through them. So often we choose to avoid feelings that make us uncomfortable. We feed loneliness and sadness with food. We are mentally exhausted and overworked, so we numb ourselves with food, drink, Netflix, or all of the above. Remind yourself that every feeling and emotion is temporary, even the negative ones.

The fastest way to get through an uncomfortable feeling is to lean fully into it, which gives us the opportunity to not only learn how to sit with it and handle it, but to recognize that we are strong enough to overcome it.

Try: Journal about your feelings when you’re feeling sad, lonely or overwhelmed. Simply set an alarm for 5 minutes, take out a pen and paper and free write until the alarm goes off. Allow yourself to write down whatever you’re thinking or feeling about the situation and then walk away from it. You can choose to go back to it later and ask “Is it true?” or you may simply decide to toss it in the trash. Either way, you allowed yourself to explore what you were feeling rather than escape.

4. Get Still

If we are being bombarded with thousands of ads each day, it’s hard to find space and time that is ours alone. Create space in your life by carving out time each day to disconnect and be distraction free. You can do this by sitting in quiet meditating, enjoying a cup of coffee or tea, being in nature, or any way you like to cultivate quiet and stillness. Give yourself enough time and space to turn up the volume on your own internal voice. Unplug the technology, turn off the sounds and allow yourself the chance to check in and see how you feel.

Try: Carve out the first five minutes of each day to sit in silence. Avoid checking your phone or email, and simply greet the day in solitude.

5. Let Go of Expectation and Attachment

So much of what we believe we desire is based on the expectations of others. Maybe your parents or family members always reinforced your looks, and so you hold expectations around that as your identity. Maybe you believed you needed to have a high powered professional job to be successful and that would lead to happiness. Whatever expectations you hold about yourself and your life, take some time to examine them.

Where did these expectations come from? Are they even yours? Consider how attached you are to that expectation and goal. Do you believe you will only be happy if you are in a relationship? Do you find yourself attached to and obsessing over weighing a certain amount? Do you feel as though there is always something between you and happiness? If so, you may be holding onto expectations that aren’t realistic or serving you.

Try: If you find yourself getting attached to a particular idea or outcome, get curious. Ask yourself, Why do I think I need this? What will it provide or create in my life that I don’t already have?

6. Celebrate Your Wins

What are you great at? What is something that is uniquely yours? In what ways are you moving toward the things you value and desire for yourself? Take notice of all the things you are doing right and begin to see the ways in which you are guiding your life exactly where you want it to go.

Try: Keep a gratitude journal. Before you go to bed each night, simply record all the successes of the day and/or anything you are grateful for.

Maybe what we need to seek more than any comparison, any answer, or any fix is this: belief. Belief that we hold the answers. Belief in ourselves and what we desire. And belief that we can make choices that support our best selves — exactly as we intend.

Coaches’ Corner

Are you a coach working with women? Help them to cultivate self-trust by using these strategies:

Guide clients to look within themselves for answers by asking them questions during training sessions and giving them things to think on outside of sessions. Consider: How do you feel? How did that exercise feel for you? What do you think is working or not working? What do you most desire for yourself?

Listen carefully to your clients when they are speaking about the goals they have for themselves. Accept whatever they say (after all, it is their body and their decision to make). Avoid judgement or sharing your opinion about their goals. Instead, dig deeper and seek clarification to make sure you fully understand what they are saying. It is important to remember that as coaches, it isn’t our job to decide if the goal is right for the client, but rather to help our clients find goals that align with their deepest values and beliefs.

Celebrate their strengths. Remind your clients of the things at which they excel that are independent of goals and outcomes. Emphasize things that support their effort and practice over achievement and success. For example: Do they always reset their form between each deadlift without prompting? Do they follow through with hard effort even at the end of a set when they are spent? Do they have a great attitude? Are they willing to keep working at something even though they’ve been struggling with form and execution?

Incorporate intentional enjoyment. What do your clients love to do the most? Consider adding in their favorite exercises where and when possible so that you cultivate the sense of play and enjoyment that can come from exercise. Allow programming to take an occasional backseat to movement that is fun, playful and that reminds your clients of how they like to move in their own body.

So often clients look to coaches as the experts who hold all of the answers.

By teaching clients to look within and discover their own answers, you have the opportunity to empower your clients to live their best life, in exactly the way they desire.

References

Lowes, Jacinta, and Marika Tiggemann. 2003. “Body Dissatisfaction, Dieting Awareness and the Impact of Parental Influence in Young Children.” British Journal of Health Psychology 8 (Pt 2): 135–47. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12804329

Ferguson, Christopher J., Mónica E. Muñoz, Adolfo Garza, and Mariza Galindo. 2013. “Concurrent and Prospective Analyses of Peer, Television and Social Media Influences on Body Dissatisfaction, Eating Disorder Symptoms and Life Satisfaction in Adolescent Girls.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 43 (1): 1–14. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10964-012-9898-9

Vogel, Erin A., Jason P. Rose, Lindsay R. Roberts, and Katheryn Eckles. 2014. “Social Comparison, Social Media, and Self-Esteem.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture 3 (4): 206–22. http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fppm0000047

White, Judith B., Ellen J. Langer, Leeat Yariv, and John C. Welch. 2006. “Frequent Social Comparisons and Destructive Emotions and Behaviors: The Dark Side of Social Comparisons.” Journal of Adult Development 13 (1): 36–44. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10804-006-9005-0

A message from GGS…

In our Strongest You Coaching program, we help women just like you reach their health, physique, and mindset goals. Strongest You Coaching is about more than just training and nutrition. It’s about changing your self-talk and inner dialogue, learning to let fitness enhance your life instead of rule your life, and finally healing your relationship with food and your body, all with the help of your Girls Gone Strong Coach, and your fellow Strongest You Coaching group.

Strongest You Coaching is a 9-month online group coaching program that gives you tools to succeed and puts the power to make lasting changes in your hands. We teach you how to finally eat and exercise in a way that you love so you can sustain it forever. We only open up this program 2-3 times a year and it always sells out fast. If you’re interested, put your name on the pre-registration list now!

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