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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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A continuation of NHS invites WWX to JYL's wedding, and what happened there? Perhaps about how the estemed Hanguang Jun ended up running off and eloping with the Nie sect heir's intended?

continuation of that short fic, now it’s own fic on ao3

Plus One - Chapter 2

“So,” Nie Huaisang said, sidling up to his brother and his two sworn brothers now that they’d finally gotten to the party part of the wedding and they could all huddle up in a corner to be anti-social together.

Or, well, for Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen to be anti-social and for Jin Guangyao to be forcefully restrained from attempting to perform hosting duties, which he incessantly tried to do - it was like he had no idea what servants were for. Which Nie Huaisang supposed was understandable, given everything, but the way Jin Guangshan encouraged him to do it certainly wasn’t.

“So,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice only mildly ominous in a way that suggested, to Nie Huaisang at least, that he was still finding this whole thing incredibly funny.

Accordingly, Nie Huaisang ignored him. “How much do you think I can milk being horribly dumped?” he asked. “Because I think I’m about to be horribly dumped.”

“By your new ‘intended’?” Lan Xichen said, looking amused. “Really, Huaisang, I don’t know what you were thinking by bringing him.”

“Uh, that he deserves to attend his shijie’s wedding? Obviously?”

“But to bring him to Lanling…”

“He’s my guest,” Nie Huaisang said haughtily, bringing out his fan and doing his best ‘rich young master who is better than this and is most certainly above your petty questions’ Jin sect impression. “You aren’t suggesting that the Jin sect would take back an invitation they freely issued, would they? Or breach the rules of hospitality?”

“Huaisang, Xichen didn’t mean it that way and you know it,” his brother said, sounding annoyed, but in his relaxed run-of-the-mill ‘I hate parties’ type of annoyance, rather than specifically about his behavior. “Obviously the Jin sect won’t do anything about it. Regardless of any other considerations, anything they did would be refusing to show our Nie sect face, and then I’d have to make an issue of it.”

He sounded wistful. Probably thinking about how he could use it as an excuse to storm out and go home early.

“We’re only worried about you, Huaisang,” Jin Guangyao murmured, looking remarkably calm for someone who was definitely (if unobtrusively) being blocked from leaving by two very tall men with excessive mother hen tendencies. “You’re all grown up now, not a child – you need to think about the political implications your actions might have. Aren’t you concerned about your brother’s reaction?”

Huaisang was about to explain that he’d gotten his brother’s permission, but then he remembered that they were in Lanling, full of spies, so he decided to tell Jin Guangyao about that later.

“It’s not my problem that Sect Leader Nie has to think about politics at what should be a happy family event,” he said instead, nose in the air, and Lan Xichen frowned even as Nie Mingjue sighed, probably at Nie Huaisang’s total lack of caring about even the basic obligations of etiquette. Or possibly his reference to their little inside joke, but these were his sworn brothers, so they’d have to figure out sooner or later that Sect Leader Nie and Nie Mingjue weren’t always the same. “Besides, that isn’t what I asked. I asked about how long I can milk my terrible heartbreaking break up.”

“I thought you were getting dumped?” his brother asked, passing him a jar of wine. A good brother, even if he was mocking him.

“Getting dumped leads to a break-up,” Nie Huaisang insisted. “Wei-xiong is a thankless white-eyed wolf who was just using me with absolutely no consideration of my tender feelings.”

“You have tender feelings?” his brother said. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

Nie Huaisang kicked him in the shin.

As usual, it had no impact whatsoever on his brother and only hurt his own toes, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Huaisang,” Lan Xichen said, his voice oddly gentle, even softer than normal. “Did you – really – for Wei Wuxian –”

Nie Huaisang, who’d been taking a drink of wine, nearly choked. “Er-ge,” he said, mildly horrified. “Please. Wei-xiong is a very handsome gentleman, fearless and dashing, with all the skills one might ask for in a son-in-law –”

“Brother-in-law,” his brother muttered, as if he hadn’t been Nie Huaisang’s de facto father figure for years.

“– and, yes, I suppose we have similar tastes in drinking, carousing, and pornography –”

“Of course you do,” Jin Guangyao said, looking up at the ceiling as if it would hide how his lips were twitching.

“– but let us not forget: he lives in a trash heap. With Wen sect. I have standards!”

“I thought he was marrying in?” Lan Xichen asked, smiling again now that he had confirmed that there was no actual heart-breaking occurring in the vicinity. “He’d live in the Unclean Realm that way, wouldn’t he?”

“He would not,” Nie Mingjue put in. “I don’t care if they’re all enlightened saints that do nothing but charity all day, no one surnamed Wen is living in my home.”

“You see what I’m up against?” Nie Huaisang said, holding out his hands in appeal to his brother’s sworn brothers. “My da-ge doesn’t understand, he’s only good for swinging a saber! How cruel and heartless must a man be to stand in the way of true love?”

Lan Xichen covered his smile with his sleeve. Jin Guangyao pressed his lips together in such a way that made his cheeks especially round and quivering with suppressed laughter, like a mouse stuffing its face to bulging with rice.

“Er-ge, you wouldn’t be nearly this cruel if it were you, would you?” Nie Huaisang asked, reaching out and tugging said sleeve. “You’d be kind and generous about it – I bet you’d find them a nice little place to live, maybe next to those foothills you’re always saying you want someone to use but that you’re not willing to sell…”

“Were you planning on moving in with er-ge after your marriage, then?” Jin Guangyao asked. He looked much more amused and relaxed now – maybe he’d been stressing over this being some sort of scheme and was feeling much better now that he realized it was actually just Nie Huaisang’s nonsense. His paranoia had always been deeply endearing. “I don’t think your brother will like that.”

“Not me,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes at him. “But if it was Lan Zhan sweeping him away, er-ge would definitely support him. Right, er-ge?”

“I always support my brother,” Lan Xichen said with a smile.

“Good,” Nie Huaisang said, taking another swallow of wine. “Because he and Wei Wuxian just had a very intense conversation in a secluded corner that ended with them kissing and running off together, so it’s about to become your problem.”

Nie Mingjue choked, Jin Guangyao’s jaw dropped, and Lan Xichen’s eyes got really big.

“Not joking,” Nie Huaisang clarified cheerfully. “Totally serious.”

“Excuse me,” Lan Xichen said, getting up very quickly. “I need to – go see –”

He didn’t even bother finishing the sentence before rushing off.

“Go with him,” Nie Mingjue said to Jin Guangyao, who blinked owlishly at him. “It’s going to be a shitshow, isn’t it? Politically, I mean.”

“Uh,” Jin Guangyao said.

“Really, da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said. “The notorious ostracized-by-the-cultivation-world demonic cultivator Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, is abruptly reintroduced to society as my intended bride, only to be stolen away by the Lan sect’s Second Jade, the second most desirable bachelor in the cultivation world, in the middle of a wedding party thrown by Lanling Jin? I have no idea why you think this would so much as raise an eyebrow.”

“That’s a lot of words to say ‘shitshow’, which is why I didn’t,” Nie Mingjue said. “Meng Yao – Jin Guangyao – oh, fuck it, A-Yao, someone is going to need to keep their head about them and think about the political implications long enough to keep Xichen from getting himself into serious trouble, and you’re better at it than I am. Go help him. I’ll cover for you two here.”

Jin Guangyao still looked torn.

“Don’t listen to da-ge, he’s worrying too much,” Nie Huaisang volunteered his own opinion. “How much trouble can the Lan sect really get into over a matter of love?”

“I’m going at once,” Jin Guangyao said, and ran after Lan Xichen.

A moment later, Nie Huaisang handed the jar of wine back to his brother.

“Well done,” he said, voice much more neutral than it had been a moment before. “Assuming your goal was to deprive Sect Leader Jin of san-ge’s assistance while we define the situation to make it come out the way we want.”

“Couldn’t have done it without your timely assist,” Nie Mingjue said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He did so hate politics, and he hated being good at it even more. Truly there was nothing better, in Nie Huaisang’s opinion, than forcing his brother to relent and give in to the sneaky bastard half of his heritage. “Anyway, Sect Leader Jin is drunk and his heir is the groom, and thus occupied. It’s only reasonable that I, as the person with the next highest status, take charge of dispersing the news.”

“And by ‘dispersing the news’ you mean rehabilitate Wei-xiong’s reputation, get him reinstated in the Jiang sect, and arrange an appropriate marriage between him and Lan Zhan before anyone can complain about an inappropriate elopement, of course.”

“It’s called being efficient, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said.

“It’s called creating a countervailing alliance to the Jiang-Jin sect connection, getting both the Jiang sect and the Yiling Patriarch to owe our sect a favor – not to mention the Lan sect, too! – and conveniently also undercutting Sect Leader Jin’s authority just at the moment he’s trying to install himself as the new ruler of the cultivation world.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said, finishing off the jar and putting it down. “I’m far too stupid to be considering any of that. Only good for swinging a saber, remember?”

Nie Huaisang sniggered.

“Yes, I remember,” he said. “You won a whole war against a much stronger, more numerous, and more unified force on Baxia’s strength alone, no brains required. How can I help? You want me crying or excited?”

“Whatever you think is best, Huaisang.” His brother solidified his scowling angry face, just the sort of thing a dumb brute might wear when dealing with politics that he was far too ignorant to understand. “Let’s go right some injustices, shall we?”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #lan xichen #my fic #my fics #plus one #mentalcarebear

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a-froger-epic · 3 years ago

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tw: mention of eating disorders

hey i read something about freddie having an eating disrorder, and I hate asking this but could you please explain if you know anything about it. my poor baby :(

Hey anon!

I’m sorry it took me a while to reply. This is a sensitive topic for many, so I wanted to take my time and give you the nuanced reply it deserves.

I’ve talked about this a little before, but I might as well take the opportunity now to speak about it at length. This is only my personal opinion based on everything I’ve read about Freddie and many different takes I’ve seen others put forward.

So, did Freddie have an eating disorder?

The shortest answer to that, as far as I’m concerned, is... maybe?

Before I carry on, I’d like to say that I think everyone is free to speculate about this and make up their own mind, as well as creatively explore this in their writing, and I don’t consider my opinion to be any more correct than anyone else’s.

Why do people think Freddie might have had an ED?

There are a few things about Freddie and food which could be interpreted as ED behaviours. First off, here is what Phoebe has to say about Freddie and his eating habits:

His taste in food changed over the years I was with Freddie. When I started the group of us would make monthly visits to the restaurant Shezan, an Indian eatery, in Knightsbridge. Freddie never had a menu as they always provided his favourite selection of foods without asking. As his illness progressed, his taste buds could not take the assault of spicy foods and he tended to more bland foods. He also turned his eating habits around. He used to have a lighter meal at lunch and then have a big meal in the evening, usually at a restaurant with a big group of friends. Towards the end he would eat more at lunch and a smaller meal in the evenings.

Nothing much out of the ordinary here, as far as I can see. Freddie definitely had favourite foods he enjoyed, but then, a common misconception is that people with EDs don’t like/enjoy food, and that isn’t true. Phoebe also says this:

As I have said before, Freddie was a very light eater. Some of us live to eat, but Freddie was one of those people who ate to live. He was the master of moving food around the plate to give the appearance of having eaten a good amount. He did enjoy good food, but really didn’t need to consume very much. He loved entertaining guests at meals in the dining room at Garden Lodge and was able to disguise his non-eating by making sure everyone else was ok during the meal. Don’t get me wrong, Freddie always ate enough to keep him going, but I can’t remember one time when he leant back in the chair saying ‘I’m stuffed!’

Now here we have a lot of things to unpack. There are three things in here - moving food around the plate to give the appearance of having eaten more, disguising his non-eating and never eating enough to be full - which are definitely known ED behaviours.

However, people who just do not care about food all that much and are light eaters do also exist. In fact, I’m one of them myself. I did struggle with Disordered Eating in my teens and my early 20s, but I have a healthy relationship with food now and I never like to eat until I’m stuffed because it’s not a nice feeling, physically, to overeat. I’m also someone who easily and genuinely forgets to eat when I’m in a creative haze. Just as an example.

Also, seeing as Freddie most likely was made to finish meals all throughout his boarding school times, like many children in lunch halls, which is usually not a great experience for children who are picky or light eaters, the “moving food around the plate to make it seem he’s eaten” could well be an old habit stemming from there.

Either way, Phoebe doesn’t seem too concerned about Freddie’s eating, and even though people with EDs are very good at hiding them, Phoebe did know him for a long time and very, very well. Phoebe could also be withholding information that he considers too private. All of that is possible, all of that is speculation.

There are other things which point to the fact that Freddie was definitely preoccupied with his weight/appearance. In this interview in 1974, he says:

“Oh really,” he exclaims in disgust, “this paper has no flair - I mean to print this picture three times in succession … and just look at my arms!” He was horrified, “look at how fat they appear, now my arms aren’t like that at all - what do you think?” He rolls up his sleeves for me to inspect and I’d like to state here and now that the poor dear’s arms are quite, quite slender!

The photo Freddie is most likely talking about, is this one:

It’s not a very fortunate angle, admittedly. So I think it’s possible to see where he was coming from, but even so, he was worried about his arms looking fat at a time when he looked like this:

Yes, it is important to keep in mind that people were generally thinner in the 70s than we are used to now. (Brian, for example, was also incredibly thin.) But in this picture it really is evident that Freddie was very, very thin at this point.

Other things which are often brought into the discussion around Freddie’s eating habits is the account of him throwing a fit when Brian ate one of his biscuits once, choosing to walk after a meal at a restaurant while his driver drove alongside him and his friends, eating cereal on the floor in his dressing room, this picture where he clearly prefers salad to chicken wings (unlike Roger “What Even Are Vegetables” Taylor):

All of the above, to me, are things which can be heavily read into but ultimately don’t prove very much.

And there is this bit from Mercury & Me:

The Sun did later print a photograph of Freddie taken while he was performing at the festival, which he didn't appreciate. It showed off "Flabulous Freddie" with a slight paunch, wickedly describing it as his "midriff bulge". When he saw the picture he looked at me and shook his head in despair. 'It's typical,' he said. 'If I'm slim the papers say I'm too thin and if I put on a little bit of a belly they say I'm too fat. It's a no-win situation.'

Now, that doesn’t give off the impression to me that Freddie was particularly distraught about that article, at that point in his life. But it certainly appears to have bothered him to some degree.

So what’s the conclusion?

To me, personally, it seems quite likely that Freddie did suffer from Disordered Eating in the early to mid 70s. That’s really not uncommon, sadly, although it usually afflicts young women more than young men. But he was in the spotlight and had to care about his appearance. He was clearly very preoccupied with it, not only when it came to his body, but his looks in general - there is plenty of evidence regarding that. He was very selective about which photographs of himself he did and didn’t like. However, I find it impossible to say just how much this preoccupation affected him exactly. 1974 especially was also a very taxing year for Queen. Their management was shit, they struggled with money, they almost lost Brian, their touring schedules were brutal, the press was bashing them, Freddie was struggling with his sexual identity. There were a lot of immense stress factors, and he could have very well been someone who responded to stress by not eating - just like others respond to stress by eating too much. And Disordered Eating is not classed as an eating disorder. It is, if you will, the beginning of one.

Or, he absolutely could have developed or already had an actual ED which he was hiding fairly well, and it could have affected him a lot, but nobody would have ever known because he would have been unlikely to ever speak to anybody about it.

Both is possible. I simply don’t think that there is enough information to do more than speculate on the matter, beyond: He had a preoccupation with his looks and minded what and how much he ate throughout his life.

However, in the second half of the 70s as well as the 80s, he was still thin but had started working out and looked more “athletic” thin rather than gaunt. I think it’s entirely possible that whatever issues Freddie had with food were not a constant thing but something that may have been worse and better at times, depending on his overall mental well-being and his levels of confidence.

Or, it could have been something that he always struggled with.

Again, as far as I am concerned, both is possible and I don’t feel I can say for certain. And so, my take leans towards Disordered Eating when younger and less preoccupation with it later on. That’s the impression I get.

But I wrote all this out so that others can make up their own minds, and rather than share my exact opinion, I encourage you to do just that.

#Freddie Mercury #Tw eating disorders #meta #ask response

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amphibious-entity · 3 years ago

Text

TMBS Book 1 Brain Dump

~An Embarrassingly Long Post~

I don’t know why I’m writing this or why I’m so determined to do it. Maybe to finally assume my true form and become a mega dork on main, or maybe just for fun!

This is basically a compilation of all the main points running through my head after reading The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007) for the first time. Rather than posting a ton and spamming the tag, everything’s here in one neat package! (hopefully this gets it all out of my system rip)

Contents:

The Book Itself

The Book Itself, for real this time

The Characters

A Funny Parallel

The S.Q. Section

Lines & Scenes I Liked

Spoilers abound!

The Book Itself

Upon acquiring the first three books (don’t judge me pls), I was surprised at just how long they are. Like, they’re still pretty light being paperbacks and all, but these books are hefty lads.

The first book has this Disney+ Original Series circle thing printed on it, which is kind of unfortunate. Regardless, I love the cover illustration and yellow is actually my favorite color :D It made me weirdly quite happy whenever I saw the book lying around in my room

Also, it’s really cute how there’s a letter from Mr. Benedict at the end! (It only reveals that you can find out his first name if you “know the code”, meaning the bit of Morse printed below the summary on the back.) Shock and horror, though, as I realized I’m starting to recognize some of the letters

The Book Itself, for real this time

It’s wonderful how the tone of the book really shone through to the show adaptation. Something about the deliberateness of the aesthetic, from the set designs to the fashion to scene compositions, that really sells that particular style— like it’s very clear that this story is being told to us, rather than one we’re seeing unfold, if that makes sense.

Where that narration style stood out to me the most was the first chapter. We are told (rather than shown) how Reynie gets himself to the point of the second test, and there’s this whole twisty time maneuver for that whole sequence of events that’s really interesting

A super secret fun fact about me is that I wanted to be a writer when I was younger! So this particular balance of show vs. tell is really neat, since it runs counter to my own tendencies. The sheer amount of commas in every sentence is also kind of comforting, since Ahah, I Do That in those few serious-ish attempts at writing lol

Overall this book’s style reminds me a lot of Roald Dahl’s books, which are very nostalgic for me :D The whole “kids are more competent than adults” angle helps a lot too haha

The Characters

Oh boy here’s where I get a little bit critical! Overall I did really like this book!! it’s just that that expresses itself in all this weird “”analysis”” lol

Reynie - much better in the books than in the show

It’s sort of a lukewarm take but I feel like show!Reynie is kind of boring? He doesn’t have a lot going on flaw-wise, and obviously since he’s the protagonist he can’t have too many weird traits or else the kids watching can’t project themselves onto him as easily

(I call it the difference between an aspirational protagonist and a vessel protagonist. Going off of the Roald Dahl vibes, think Matilda vs Charlie. show!Reynie is more of a Charlie)

Thus when we get to see him really struggle with the Whisperer and doubt himself it gives him a lot more dimension, at least in my opinion

It is a federal crime that the white knight scenes were not adapted into the show

Sticky - my son

I’ve long held to no one besides myself and my long suffering sister that Sticky is The Best Member of the Society

He happened to hit a lot of the Bingo squares of Stuff I Like In Characters: glasses, anxious, nice :), kind of a coward but ultimately is there for his friends, etc

For some reason I don’t talk about him nearly as much as you-know-who, but I love him just as dearly

Kate & Constance - I don’t have much to say

Kate is really interesting in this book! I like how we get to see more of her depths, in particular that one passage about her belief that she is invincible being the only thing that keeps her from falling apart? :c

Also her constant fidgeting is relatable lol

Constance is somehow a lot more tolerable in the book. I think I’m just one of those people with no patience for small children, unfortunately lol

(Some of) The Adults

It’s interesting that they had such an offscreen presence for most of the book. Giving them more time was probably one of the stronger changes of the show

However if that decision was made at the expense of the white knight scenes I think the choice should have been clear

I like the way Rhonda and Number Two are written

Milligan always on sad boy hours 😔✊

The “mill again” passage is touching but kind of messes up the pacing of the getaway, at least for me. Maybe I should read it again to make sure I didn’t miss something

Miss Perumal is much better in the show. We see so little of her in the book she doesn’t function well as an emotional anchor for Reynie, imo

The Institute Gang

Jackson and Jillson serve their purpose well, and Martina was surprising to say the least. I like the direction they took her in the show! I can’t imagine how funny it must have been to watch the tetherball subplot come out of nowhere lolol

These sections were written out of sequence, so random tidbit I couldn’t fit in The S.Q. Section: I like how he stumbles over his words. relatable

Mr. Curtain

While I think I know why they decided to not give Curtain the wheelchair in the show, we were totally robbed of Actor Tony Hale’s performance for the reveal during the final confrontation

Speaking of the wheelchair, it’s such a powerful symbol of his need for control or rather, his fear of losing it

The Contrast between him and Mr. Benedict. This point is expanded on in A Funny Parallel

Mr. Benedict

Oh boy, Mr. Benedict… How do I say this

I find it hard to trust Mr. Benedict, unfortunately

I mean to say, I do in the sense that I know he would never hurt the kids, thanks to knowing that a) this is a children’s book series and b) the meta (tumblr) states that he is really nice and lovable and stuff, but seriously. Why do the kids trust him at first?? I probably missed something somewhere

I like to think I’m an optimistic person, but unfortunately I’m also super paranoid. The premise of “a bunch of vulnerable orphans team up with a strange old man” is just so odd to me I don’t know how to explain it

I don’t know!!! I really want to trust Mr. Benedict

One of the strengths of the show is that we get to see him more often, and thus he gets to acknowledge more often that the plan is weird and that he feels really badly for putting the kids in danger and that he’s trustworthy and genuine

But his lack of presence for most of the book just makes him into something of a specter, invisible and unknowable, speaking only in riddles from across the bay

Which is why the white knight scene is so important!! I loved that scene ;-;

Because here’s an actual emotional connection! We can actually see it happening, rather than only being told that it exists

Reynie asking for advice and receiving encouragement, in words that demonstrate that Mr. Benedict actually cares about him and worries about him and agghh

It is a federal crime that the white knight scenes were not adapted into the show

But overall this whole issue didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the book at all! It’s just ->

A Funny Parallel

Okay, ready for my biggest brain, hottest take ever??

Mr. Benedict and Mr. Curtain…. are… the same

I mean obviously not entirely, given that one is benevolent and kind and the other is… Mr. Curtain

But seriously. Genius old man seeks out children (mainly orphans) to enact a plan. Said children often end up incredibly devoted to his cause and deeply admire him this is a little flimsy

Undoubtedly that’s intentional and is supposed to show the difference between them, like some kind of cautionary tale? “Let yourself be vulnerable and let others help you, lest you turn eeeeviiillll”

I guess that’s where the aforementioned epic contrast comes in. You get Mr. Curtain, strapped into his wheelchair and hiding behind those mirrored sunglasses, terrified (but unwilling to admit it) of ever showing the tiniest hint of vulnerability, vs. Mr. Benedict, who can let himself fall knowing that someone will catch him :’)

Anyhow I have nothing against the parallels, I just think it’s funny

The S.Q. Section

The S.Q. Quarantine Thread so it doesn’t leak out everywhere else <3

I’d like to meet the emo angstlord genius who read this book and decided to make SQ into Dr. Curtain’s son. What in the world

Okay I should probably preface this by saying that I absolutely adore both book!S.Q. and show!SQ with all my heart. Somehow, despite being a completely different character in both mediums, he has managed to be one of the best characters in either and certainly one of my favorites (besides Sticky of course) in the entire franchise, despite the fact that I’ve only read the first book/watched the show so far. I am confident in this statement.

But seriously! How?? Why?? I could probably write a whole other essay about why show!SQ is such an interesting character, and the change works so incredibly well. I’m just. Baffled

Okay, focus. book!S.Q. is such a sweetheart, oh my goodness. Like, 100% one of the most endearing characters in the book. Poor guy. I don’t even know where to start!!

He just seems to be a genuinely good guy at heart, despite being technically one of the bad guys. He’s genuinely happy for Reynie and Sticky when they became Messengers and helped Kate when she “fell” and was concerned about Constance when she looked sick and how he was in that meeting with Mr. Curtain and Martina?!!? aaahhhhghgh ;-; he just wants people to be happy TT-TT

Comparing him against literally every character at the Institute is probably what makes him so endearing tbh. When everyone else is so awful to the kids, it really makes him stand out. Like a cheerful little nightlight in the worst, most humid and rank bathroom you’ve ever been in

It’s kind of pointless to theorize about a book series that’s already concluded (I think?) but. Is the implication of S.Q.’s forgetfulness supposed to be that Mr. Curtain used him in brainsweeping experiments somehow? The timeline probably definitely absolutely doesn’t line up but like. How did he get to being a Messenger being the way he is now, given how cutthroat the process is? And then of course Mr. Curtain keeps him around as an Executive because he’s fun to mess with and presumably his loyalty. I’m very curious as to how their relationship develops in the other books, if at all. Those are probably where the seeds of the “let’s make them family” logic were planted

But wouldn’t it be hilarious if the reason we don’t know what “S.Q.” stands for in the books is that he just. Forgot

Another thing that occurred to me. Given that he and the other Executives were Messengers at some point, what were their worst fears? What is S.Q.’s worst fear?? Inquiring minds need to know

One last horrible little anecdote: I was thinking about book!S.Q. while eating breakfast, as one does, and suddenly it hit me.

I want to believe The Author Trenton Lee Stewart had the name for a character, S.Q. Pedalian, and was like, “Hm! What sort of quirky trait should this young fellow have?” Because, of course, in this style of fiction every character has to have at least one cartoonish or otherwise distinguishing trait to stand out in the minds of children. (For instance, Kate has her bucket, Sticky has his glasses, Constance is angry, and Reynie is Emmett from the Lego Movie)

Anyhow, he looks around the room, searching for inspiration. Suddenly he comes across a jumbo box of plastic wrap. Completely innocuous in design, save for one line of text. 300 SQ FT.

“…large… S.Q. …feet? THAT’S IT!” i’m sorry

Lines & Scenes I Liked

In no particular order!

Sticky quotes Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Evil combination aerobics/square dancing in the gym with the Executives

Everyone being happy at the end :’)

Everyone partying after Sticky reunites with his parents, and later finding Mr. Benedict asleep at his desk from the moment they shook hands :’’)

Literally any scene with Sticky in it

Any time Kate says “you boys” or “gosh”

[“Um, sir?” S.Q. said timidly, raising his hand. “A thought just occurred to me.” / Mr. Curtain raised his eyebrows. “That’s remarkable, S.Q. What is it?”] clown prince of my heart </3

S.Q.’s determined monologue about searching for clues after he bungled up the first time

Literally any scene with S.Q. in it (please refer to The S.Q. Section)

Reynie trying to resist the Whisperer.

[Let us begin. / First let me polish my spectacles, Reynie thought. / Let us begin. / Not without my bucket, Reynie insisted. He heard Mr. Curtain muttering behind him. / Let us begin, let us begin, let us begin. / Rules and schools are tools for fools, Reynie thought.]

NO MORE HURTIN’ WITH CURTAIN

Milligan showing up on the island!!

Remember the white knight hhhhhh

“controle”

A Super Secret Bonus Section

I would be extremely surprised if anyone read through all the way down here lol. Regardless, here’s a little acknowledgements section :D not tagging anyone since I don’t want to bother all of these people

Special shoutout to tumblr blog stonetowns for unknowingly yet singlehandedly demolishing my reluctance to read the books by posting a ton of cute quotes. Thank you for your service o7

Thanks to the two OGs that liked the post I made right before this one, for being my unwitting enablers and for sticking around despite being a) technically an internet stranger (hello!) and b) someone I haven’t spoken to irl in literal years (hey!!)

Last but not least thankz 2 my sister for putting up with me ranting about the book when I first got it and for asking about “CQ” sometimes lol. (i desperately hope you’re not reading this orz)

#the mysterious benedict society #this took me like three days to finish rip #it’s worked though! i feel less of a Mighty Need to think about this stuff constantly now #however!!! today through some conniving i have gotten the Second Book #now I’m at 3 out of 4 infinity stones. muahahaha #was going to include my villain origin story about why i like show!SQ so much but cut it for being too long and irrelevant. however #if the words jeff naomi and Sweet Dreams are Made of These mean anything to you please hit me up. it’s kind of a funny story

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literateleah · 4 years ago

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the paradox of emily prentiss’ audience perception and character design

some of y’all about to be real mad at me, but it must be said:

emily prentiss’ character design makes no sense: my personal opinion + an objective analysis

i think it can be challenging to separate the versions of characters we have in our little brains from actual canon content, but doing so is important for understanding what those characters are truly like, especially within the context of their environment and in contrast to others around them. plus developing a deeper understanding of the media we consume is super fun and interesting! with that being said: emily prentiss should not work for the fbi and here’s why (in three parts regarding who’s responsible: cbs, paget, and fans) (sit down and grab a snack i promise this is over 3k words)

quick disclaimer: i don’t dislike emily at all! that’s my girl, i just looked closer and realized some funky things the writers did and felt the need to analyze her of course: so let’s get into it

part one: what cbs did

cbs set the stage for emily’s introduction on the heels of the departure of lola glaudini as elle greenaway! lola has clarified that she decided to leave the show because filming in los angeles was not the best environment for her personally, and after one successful season on a major network (but not much established long term plot or drama beyond elle’s departure as a character) a consistent ensemble cast was required- particularly because the bau had been criticized for being predominantly male in the first few episodes of the show and not much development was given to penelope or jj yet. enter emily prentiss.

for the duration of seasons 2-3ish, emily was framed as a chip off the block that was elle greenaway, just slightly…richer? in her first few episodes emily was hesitantly polite but ambitious, clean cut, intellectually concise and held her own within the team. she seemed equal parts intimidated and frustrated by her male superiors (gideon, hotch) but certainly proves herself among other profilers. her childhood was explored only within reference to her strained relationship with her mother (which was only ever referenced once more after the fact) and we received a short overview of her educational and career history in her first few episodes. emily fit right into the hole elle had left, and didn’t have many major storylines yet.

seasons 4-6 brought a bit more development and depth to emily’s character! she begins dropping more snarky remarks, one liners, and socially deepening her relationships with the other team members. this seems more within the lines of elle’s design, but emily arguably took more time to grow into her place within the team. during the foyet arc she was vulnerable and supportive, and the doyle arc gave her some independence and agency she didn’t have previously. this era also solidified her appearance and persona as more edgy, which falls in line with general fanon perception of her character (especially when compared to jj or penelope). i can’t address this era or season 7 without mentioning that cbs was actively trying to remove paget from the cast, similar to how they did to aj cook as well. paget has spoken about this instance before, and i believe it slightly affected her portrayal of her character, and “lauren” was somewhat of a goodbye for both paget and emily (thus why she wished for mgg to direct since they were best friends).

season 7: in my opinion, one of the best seasons for emily. she was wisened and deeply wounded by her experiences with doyle, which was understandable of course. she returned to the team she loved and learned to appreciate life in a different way, remaining mature during this time period as well! though her departure was a bit less than graceful and sudden at the end of this season, it made sense compared to some other exits the team had seen.

now *sigh* all the rest.

paget as emily appears in two separate guest appearances (once in s9 and once in s11, and she is referenced offscreen as well) before permanently reprising her role as unit chief of the bau. these appearances were most likely to boost ratings and get the team back together (i.e. 200) or just to pepper in international cases (tribute). emily’s personality remains pretty consistent here, just more mature and comfortable in leadership positions (seeing as she is running an entire branch of an international law enforcement organization). then season 12 hit.

upon the departure of thomas gibson as hotch, cbs reached out to paget to see if she would be interested in fulfilling her role as emily within a longer term unit chief position. i’ll get into why this is wack in a few paragraphs, but the remainder of her time on the show is spent on a mature portrayal that seems very distant from her previous versions. emily is more authoritative, gives orders with ease, and has no qualms about leading a team of agents or even receiving promotion offers as director of the entire bureau.

thus concludes a general summary of the canon content cbs gave us as viewers. now let's talk about what they didn’t give us, regrettably

the primary aspect of emily’s design that comes to mind for many is her queer coding. though not much was to be expected from cbs, a prime time cable tv network, each of her relationships on the show (all with men) seemed oddly forced, and without much chemistry as compared to the SOs of other main characters. rumors of scrapped plotlines have floated around about what may have been, but the ultimate lack of acknowledgement of any queer characters in the main ensemble still leaves a feeling of disappointment to audiences, and leaves more to be desired as for how emily navigates social bonds.

part two (sidebar): what paget did

i think it could be agreed within audiences that paget brewster’s portrayal of emily made the role what it was! her dry witty delivery and emotional prowess combined with sitcom acting experience made her performance a mainstay for years. i think she did the best she could with a confusing and at times flat characterization, and brought the role to life.

paget also heavily contributes to fanon indirectly with her comments outside of the show (press, cameos, twitter etc). her general continued interest and fondness for the role post production affects fan perception, particularly in what she chooses to elevate and comment on. she and aj have both spoken about viewing jemily content, and paget and thomas have both also commented on hotchniss. most cast members feel free to comment on their characters in the appropriate timing, and seem open to discussing fanon ships and theories outside of canon!

part three: what fanon did

as we can tell from this fan space as well as the presence on insta, tik tok and twitter, fans LATCHED onto emily super quickly. she’s remained a favorite over the years, and this fan persistence is what brought her back so many times after leaving (so many times). in my opinion, queer coding and a bolder female trope (in contrast to her female counterparts) are the main pulls because they resonated with so many fans- new and old. with that being said, newer fans of the show in the past year in particular have been heavily influential in fanon, solely because of the large influx of fan content and popularity of it.

fan content began to take coding and bite size moments and snippets from the show as canon, and cemented it into much of the content and discourse they created. these small pieces of emily’s character are significant, but have become magnified by how easily they are to share and edit. for example, a collection of catchy one liners from emily over the seasons makes for a great video edit intro, or gifset! there’s absolutely no problem with this content, it just all combines to create a certain fanon perception no character escapes (this isn’t a phenomenon limited to emily or the cm fandom!)

these droves of content also solidified emily’s personality as much more defined, but at the same time, simplified it in a way that’s slightly harder to explain.

fanon: more emo/goth than canon basis

fanon: more introverted/anti social than canon basis

fanon: more violent/chaotic when canon emily is relatively well mannered and doesn’t start many conflicts (particularly in the workspace)

fanon: much less maternal when canon emily displays desire on multiple occasions (even crossing professional borders) for children, particularly teenage girls (possibly projection)

(again, nothing wrong with this interpretation at all and it still varies! This is just a generalization based on most of the popular content i have seen)

part 4: why it doesn’t work

let me start with this: emily prentiss does not like her job.

we don’t receive much in depth information about emily’s internal feelings and thoughts towards her mother beyond resentment. this stems from wanting to make it on her own, as a professional and as an individual (cough cough college deposits). this makes emily’s insistence on proving herself to authority figures in her earlier seasons is interesting to watch in different circumstances. she cites her experience and denies help from her mother when justifying her placement in the bau to hotch, she is extra vigilant about being helpful on her first case with gideon, etc. nevertheless, emily forges her own path outside of diplomacy and becomes a successful profiler and agent, with the help of her privilege, wealth and name whether she likes it or not. but if we read between the lines and fill in the blanks cbs neglected, these ambitions may subconsciously be oriented towards pleasing her mother.

example one: emily’s authority issues go further than just “rebellion” or “anarchy”, she frequently questions the ethics and sustainability of the work that the bau does. every team member does this, but emily much more so than anybody else.

in “amplification”, emily almost breaks federal protocol to inform civilians of anthrax threats. she butts heads with both hotch and rossi on this front, and ends the episode with having a conversation with rossi about the ethics of lying in their line of work. emily resigns to a solemn “it be like that” and moves along, accepting this reality.

on multiple different occasions emily laments to derek about the darkness she sees on the job, and it’s shown that this gets to her quickly on particularly bad cases. this is another contradiction of the design that she can supposedly “compartmentalize” better than others on the team, when she cannot unless the lives of others are at risk (doyle arc, s7 finale).

emily also responds in this way to many cases involving children, a similarity to jj many don’t notice upon first watching the series. “seven seconds” and “children of the dark” come to mind, during the latter in which emily is prepared to cross multiple professional lines to adopt a teenage girl left orphaned by the case, until hotch stops her and establishes that her emotions can’t rule her judgement on the job. regardless of hotch’s thoughts about her attempted caretaking abilities, these actions and impulses deeply contradict the typical bureaucratic pathways of the work the bau does.

the looming reputation of her mother’s diplomatic history hangs over emily, and after going to law school and working for the cia, she most likely did want to forge her own path as far away from being a socialite: being a spy. her inner nature doesn’t always reflect this profession, and leads me to believe that with her knowledge of psychology, law procedure and care for children: emily prentiss might be more inclined to working in social work, placing suffering children and teenagers in homes they deserve.

and finally, the hill i will die on: emily prentiss was an bad unit chief

this wonderful post touches on my general sentiment, but there were many reasons as to why emily prentiss’ career arc makes little to no sense (plot holes included).

first: her background. emily attended chesapeake bay university as well as yale and achieved a ba in criminal justice. keep in mind that though timelines evidently don’t exist in the cm universe, emily prentiss is ONE YEAR older than aaron hotchner (for context). in her first episode, she professes that she has worked for the bureau for a little under ten years in midwestern offices- something the audience laters knows to not be true. emily worked with the cia and interpol as a part of a profiling team and undercover agent up until roughly TWO YEARS before her canon introduction. plot holes and time gaps aside, this makes me wonder, why didn’t she just say the cia was a backstop without revealing the highly confidential nature of her work with doyle (similar to jj’s state department backstop and cover story)? penelope or hotch could have easily accessed her file and seen that she did not in fact have experience with the bureau in midwestern offices recently, and given the fact that erin strauss set up her bau placement, i’m presuming these formalities or references were overlooked.

second: her experience within the team. emily worked as a part of the bau with the bureau for roughly 6 or 7 years. after this, she is invited to run the entire london branch of interpol, one of the most renowned international law enforcement organizations. i’m surely not the most knowledgeable on requirements or standard timelines for such matters, but with the fact that emily had never led a team in her life (not in the bau or interpol previously) and had roughly 10 years of field experience, i don’t believe she would have ever realistically been considered eligible to run the whole london department.

third: her return to the bureau. fanon depiction of their relationship aside, if you believe aaron hotchner’s last wish before going into witsec was to entrust his team to emily prentiss, you’re dead mistaken. bringing emily back was clearly a pull for ratings after the loss of two main characters (hotch and derek), but logistically a bad decision. let’s suppose emily has had 4 or 5 years of experience in london now, this established authority position would be unlikely to change at the drop of a hat, even for old teammates or friends. also considering how close they were after a decade of working closely in bureaucratic and field contexts, i firmly believe hotch would have referred jj for the job of unit chief but that’s another discussion for another time.

emily’s reign as unit chief is odd, because of the many chaotic storylines crammed into it. but amidst bad writing and viewings plummeting, emily’s character is completely flattened. completely. emily is unrecognizable, both in appearance (that god awful wig) and personality. at times she acts as a complete wise authority, giving orders and delegating local authorities as hotch did. but at other times she makes multiple illegal, emotional, and incorrect judgement calls based on personal circumstances that lead to further chaos (deleting the recording of her and reid’s mexico conversation and reprimanding luke in “luke” for the exact same thing she did in season 6 even though she enabled her to do so come to mind).

i’m not sure if this is due to paget trying to find her footing in the role again, or the writer’s bad decisions towards the end of the show wrecking any previous design for their ensemble. then, there’s the infamous “wheels up” scene in s13e1. notoriously cringey, this seems like a vague caricature of something rossi would say many years in the past (the same goes for her pep talk in “red light” in the hunt for diana reid). these moments are meant to mature emily in the audience’s eye, but instead completely removed her from who we understood her to be, and made her an unreliable leader.

part five: and why it does

in theory, emily was a bolder foil to jj, similar to elle who she arguably replaced at first. she came into her own, and stands as a more uniquely developed character than almost any other in the main ensemble. she isn’t as maternal or domestically inspiring as canon jj, less bright and sunny than penelope, not quite as stoic or intimidating as derek or hotch. And yet at the same time, she’s a fairly blank slate. stripping fanon content away entirely, canon emily has few defining traits (all of which are constantly changing), and that may be the key to why we love her so much.

#long post #emily prentiss #ITS HERE #and its a doozy #read if you'd like #leah writes #if there's typos i apologize #this was a fever dream

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waywardwrestlewritingwaif · 3 years ago

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Raise the Stakes, part 14

Aaaaaaannnnnnd we're done! I literally decided on this ending today and I'm posting it before I start to get THE DOUBTS. I hope you enjoy it and thank you so, so, so much to everyone who's liked/ commented/ messaged along the way.

There's mention in here of an interview that did actually happen a couple of days ago and what's included is pretty much what I've read online. That said, I've embellished some for the purpose of the story, so I'm not claiming to know anything.

Previous sections are on the Master List.

Pairing: David Finlay x OFC x Jay White

Word count: 2,767

Content advisory: other than the usual language, nothing really. Should I be cautioning people about angstiness? Because there's angst.

Thought you should see this.

The toneless message with its link is ruining your day. You can’t stop looking at it, but you don’t want to open the link again because you don’t want David to see it. Not that you have any reason to feel guilty. If anything, he’s the one who has some explaining to do but he also has the biggest match of his life tonight, the one where he can finally put the years of tension and rivalry with Jay behind him. You want to be supportive but you also want some answers.

It can wait, you tell yourself for the hundredth time. You’ll talk about it tomorrow. Or next week. All the time in the world. At least, that’s what you hope.

The whole day, the two of you are together but you have to keep a little bit of distance. Don’t want to get distracted and he has to conserve all the energy he can. Doesn’t stop you from touching each other, of course, but even when you do, it feels like you’re still at a distance. He’s trying not to think about anything except tonight. Or maybe it just looks that way. Maybe he’s thinking about his future beyond tonight, when he moves on. It would be nice to know if he wanted you to move on with him but he’s not letting you in on his plans. Hell, if it were up to him, you wouldn’t even know that there were plans.

You’d expected Jay to have some sort of mocking comments. How come the boyfriend you’re so in love with is giving interviews talking about signing with another company, moving to another state, changing everything about his life, and you don’t know anything about it? How Jay had looked at that interview and immediately known that you weren’t aware of it is beyond you. It’s unnerving sometimes, his ability to figure things out when it comes to you. You suppose it’s one of the reasons he’s always been able to get under your skin and make you do what he wants.

But aside from the initial message, he doesn’t say anything. You think that maybe it was a ploy to see if you’d confront David and start a fight before their match, because that’s exactly the kind of ugly trick Jay loves. When you arrive at the venue, though, you see him getting out of a car at the same time. He doesn’t look scornful, doesn’t shout something insulting, doesn’t strut like a damn peacock in mating season, nothing that you would normally expect from him. He looks straight at you and doesn’t smirk or sneer. On anyone other than Jay White, the look might be interpreted as concern.

Technically, you’re supposed to be there for all the performers but at this point, there’s very little left for you to do. It’s all on them now and if everything turns out to be a garbage fire, it won’t be because of any failings on your part. So you do your rounds to make sure everyone has what they need, knows their cues, gets any questions answered. But you always circle back to where David is and stay for as long as you can before your nerves get the better of you.

And then there’s the one person you should check on, but don’t. You aren’t completely derelict. You check with the people he has around him, you even lower yourself to telling Chris Bey that he can text you if his majesty needs anything. Strangely, you don’t hear anything. You text Jay once to say that you’re available to help. You keep it professional and don’t mention anything about the link he sent earlier, so you’re expecting him to needle you about it, or at least act like you’re useless because you aren’t spending your entire day catering to him. Nothing. You’re almost tempted to go check to make sure he’s not sick because one thing Jay White has never been is one to stay quiet when something is bothering him. Maybe he feels sorry for you, in which case you’d rather he yelled.

You enjoy as much of the show as you can but you spend the last minutes before his match with David, largely quiet, just holding each other’s hands. You walk as far as you can with him and, as his music hits, squeeze his hand extra tight. He turns and gives you a soft, quick kiss before leaning back and doing it again, deeper.

“I love you,” he says, cupping your face in his hand.

“I love you too.”

He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of something. You sound like you’re calling after a train that’s already left the station.

Against your better judgment, you stay where you are. Jay arrives, already acting his part, hands tapping idly on the belt that, in theory, is the reason they’re fighting. You stare at him waiting for him to acknowledge you but there’s nothing. His music swells and he heads out like you’re not even there.

“Just like old times,” you mutter to yourself.

And still.

You watch from backstage as Jay holds his belt up, grinning and preening like he never had a moment’s doubt. You know him well enough to know that’s not true. He keeps cutting looks back at David as if he’s expecting to have to defend himself again, as if he doesn’t believe that he’s truly vanquished him.

The audience doesn’t share his insecurity, cheering him on like he was the hero and David the villain. He’s obnoxious and self-centred but they love him anyway. It makes you feel a little less stupid for the years you’d spent doing the same.

A couple of assistants help David backstage, holding ice to his neck and making sure he doesn’t collapse on the way to the locker room. He looks angry, sullen, and bitter, but not injured, which is a relief. You turn away from the scene in the ring and follow him back to his dressing room, taking over from the dojo students on ice duty when you get there. You don’t speak. You figure it’s better to let him decide when he’s ready.

You’d love to, of course, because despite the fact that you don’t want to make his night worse, it’s becoming unbearable to keep everything inside.

“Where does it hurt?” you ask quietly, picking up a new cold pack.

“Everywhere,” he mumbles.

You hold the ice against his lower back, remembering the awful hit he’d taken on the ring apron.

“You looked great out there.”

“Didn’t feel so great.” He gives you a little smile. “Onward and upward, right?”

“Or southward?” You don’t even mean to say it out loud because this is absolutely not the time to bring it up and certainly not in this passive aggressive way.

“Southward?” He raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t know what you’re talking about but you can see immediately that he does.

“Nothing, it’s ok.”

He sighs. “What’s southward?”

“Do you need another ice pack?”

“Uh oh, sounds like someone’s been reading the dirt sheets.”

“Just making a joke.” You wish you hadn’t brought this up because now you have to try to cram it back into its hiding space in your brain. And you have to suppress the fact that you’re actually kind of angry.

He watches you, trying to gage your state of mind. “Shouldn’t listen to idle gossip.”

That hits like a slap across the face.

“It’s not gossip, David. You did an interview with Wrestling Observer. If people are speculating or have questions, it’s because of what you said yourself.”

“It’s just talking. I didn’t confirm anything.”

He seems a little proud of this, like he’s very clever for getting people talking about what they don’t know. He doesn’t seem to have an issue with the fact that you’re one of those people.

“It’s all there, though,” you murmur. “Talking about how much you want to work in the States, that you want to try somewhere new, that you’re moving to Florida. You’re going to NXT, right?”

He shrugs and avoids your eyes.

“Were you ever going to tell me about any of this or did you figure I’d be able to piece together where you’d gone from news clippings and Reddit posts?”

“Of course I was going to talk to you. Nothing’s final yet.”

“So you were waiting until you bought a house in Florida and signed a contract with another company? Then what? You’d wake me up one morning and just say ‘bye babe, I’ll be living in another state from now on?’”

“The opportunity came up. This,” he gestures to the two of you, “is still really new. I didn’t want to introduce all these complications.”

“David, I’m not some girl you picked up in a bar. We’ve known each other for years. You’ve talked to me before about your contract renewals. Seems like you could have told me something.”

“I was going to tell you something. When I had a better idea of what I wanted to do.”

“You told a journalist, a ‘dirt sheet’ in your own words, that you’re in the process of moving to Florida. That seems like you have a pretty clear idea.”

“Ok, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to find out. You don’t even read that stuff normally.”

“You’re aware people are talking about this on social media, right?”

He grunts but doesn’t say anything more. It’s infuriating. He looks resentful that he has to explain himself, like he didn’t think this was going to be an issue for you. Finally, he meets your eyes, guilt very clearly evident now.

“I don’t know why I didn’t say anything. I’m an idiot, I could have figured out that you’d see something, or that someone would tell you.”

“It is my job to know stuff like this, all other considerations aside.”

“Believe me, I did not want you getting this from some random dweeb on Twitter.”

“I wish it had been a random dweeb on Twitter.”

He looks surprised and then it’s like part of him collapses when he realizes what you mean.

“Got up this morning to a one line text and a link to the article from our old pal. You know, making sure I’m not out of the loop.”

“Asshole.”

“In this case no. Somehow, you managed to cede the high moral ground to a man whose morals are generally nonexistent.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Well, this is hardly the ideal moment to have this conversation, but I want to know if and how you see me fitting into this new life you’re going to have.”

He shrugs a little. “How do you want to fit in?”

The realization hits you hard. “You don’t think this is going to last, do you? You didn’t think I was serious.”

“Wanting is a lot easier than having.”

“Maybe for you.”

“No, that’s not what I meant, it’s just that I… You’re right. I didn’t think I needed to consider you. It wasn’t part of my decision-making process.”

“You’ve been setting this up for weeks. All this has come together at the same time you’ve been with me almost every day. If I wasn’t part of your process, that was the decision right there.”

The two of you stare each other down but there seems to be nothing left to say.

Eventually, you rise to your feet and stammer, “I’m just going to… I need to take a walk or something.”

You wander around the place, watching the crew rushing to pack up. Eventually, you find yourself outside, where the ring still stands, bathed in the glow of the safety lights. It seems forlorn in front of the empty seats but there is still a kind of magic about it. That’s what draws people to this business, you suppose, the feeling of magic.

Since no one else is around, you climb up and through the ropes, kicking off your shoes. You’ve been in one before, but always just to set it up or break it down. You’ve never had an in-ring moment. And there’s a reason for that, which is that you can barely wrestle your way out of your winter coat. But as long as you’re here and you need to do something to take your mind off the sensation that your chest is about to rip.

You run, or jog, from one side to the other, bouncing off the ropes as you do, the way you’ve watched dozens of men doing for years. Although you know the “ropes” are actually steel cables with a plastic coating and you’ve handled them before, it surprises you how much it hurts when you hit them too hard. It’s not the worst pain you have right now.

You pick up speed a little and then practice letting yourself “bump”, a fancy way of saying fall flat on your back. Each time, you knock the wind out of yourself a little but you get right back up and continue your running. Finally, you have enough momentum that you’re able to just roll yourself into a somersault, and sure, it’s not the most perfectly executed thing, but you keep your body straight and you pop right back up. Just like a pro.

“Ta-da!” you say to yourself.

That’s when the tears come. It’s not falling to pieces, but the stew of emotions inside you just starts to leak out. What the hell do you do now?

There are some footsteps behind you, echoing a little in the empty arena, and you see a man’s approaching shadow loom behind you, pushing his long hair back from his face as he crouches down. So you’re not startled when a thick pair of arms wraps around you and you feel his face pressed against your neck.

“Come home.”

You give an unhappy laugh. “Home is kind of a weird concept right now, Jay.”

“You’re always home for me. I guess I was hoping you felt the same way.”

You snap your head to look at him, pulling back enough so that you can focus on his eyes. In all the time you’ve known him, you don’t think he’s ever looked as calm as he does in this moment.

“Congratulations on your win.”

“Yeah, I get to be a target for a while longer.”

“Stop pretending you don’t love it.”

“Sure, I love it. It’s nice. There are other things I love more.” He runs his fingers over your cheeks, cleaning away the remains of your tears. “I’m sorry about sending you that story earlier.”

“All the shit you’ve pulled over the years and that’s the thing you apologize for?”

“Oh I meant I’m sorry that I had to be the one to send it. I don’t want you to shoot the messenger or anything.”

“If I haven’t shot you by now, I think you’re safe.”

He laughs and pulls you back against his chest, kissing down your cheek and neck. Then he stands, pulling you right up with him and letting his lips trail over the crown of your head.

“Come on.” he whispers, taking your hand.

“Wait, I need my shoes.”

You dart over to pick them up and he’s right there to help you into them and to lead you through the ropes and down the stairs. That’s when he plants his lips on yours, firmly, so that you can feel it in your knees.

“I need to go get my suitcase inside.”

“Do you always carry everything with you wherever you go?”

“I’m headed straight to the airport from here. Catching a red eye back.”

“Skip it. Leave tomorrow.”

“Just like that?”

“Sure. I have a really nice room.”

“I know you do, I booked it.”

“Always taking care of me, aren’t you?”

“Oh wow, he noticed.”

He kisses you again, a little longer, digging his fingers into your back, and your body melts against him of its own volition.

“I’m not coming back if everything is just going to go back to the way it was, Jay.”

“I didn’t come running after you because you’re good at managing my schedule.”

You give him a sceptical look but you can't entirely keep from smiling.

“Look at me,” he grins, “I’m a god. Any woman would want me and you have me. You should feel like you won the lottery.”

“Yeah,” you drawl, letting him wrap an arm around you as you walk away together, “I won.”

#jay white fanfic #jay white imagine #david finlay fanfic #david finlay imagine #njpw fanfic #njpw imagine #wrestling imagine #wayward wrestle writing

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foilfreak · 3 years ago

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Beauty and Her Beast: Chapter 7 (aka the ‘big boobie vampire mommy’ and ’mutant servant girl that is very horny for her’ chapter)

WARNING PLZ READ BEFORE CONTINUING: This fic is rated NSFW and contains graphic depictions of things some people may find disturbing or alarming, including, but not limited to: violence, gore, unhealthy family relationships, Oedipus complexes, gratuitous amount of pornographic literature, ableist language, physical, mental, and emotional abuse, etc. If you are someone who does not enjoy fiction with these elements in them, then I suggest you refrain from reading this, because this fic will have all that, and probably a lot more. So, this is your first and final warning to turn around and go somewhere else if stuff like this just isn't your vibe, because from this point forward, your emotional wellbeing is in your own hands, and I will not be accepting blame if you disregarded my warnings and ended up reading something you didn't like. Idk why I feel compelled to write one of these despite this being Resident Evil fanfic, but I figured I'd cover my ass just in case.

(AO3 link below:)

“Good evening, sir. Is there something I can assist you with, tonight? It’s quite late, and my mistress has already retired for the evening due to the strenuous nature of today’s events, so while I’m sure the good Lady Dimitrescu won’t be too terribly displeased if you’ve come with urgent news that requires her immediate attention, I’m afraid anything outside the realm of absolute importance will have to wait until morning, when my mistress will be better rested and therefore better able to address whatever concern you’ve brought” The low and smooth voice of an older teenage girl said, staring slightly downward at Salvatore with a level of such blank indifference that he would have wondered if the girl hadn’t seen him had she not outright greeted him upon opening the door.

With piercing red eyes, dark skin and long, black curls tied up neatly and carefully into two thick buns on either side of the top of her head, and dressed in a pretty, but still practical dress, the older teen looked every bit as much the role of a dignified estate’s head servant as she acted, right down to the pencil straight stiffness of her body. Despite how uncomfortable the stiff position looked to Salvatore, the subtly bold way she carried herself did give the older teen an air of confidence and reliability, however what it didn’t do was answer the multitude of questions flying around in Salvatore’s head about who she was, and more importantly, where she came from.

And then it hit him.

“Y-you’re… Alcina’s g-gift… aren’t y-you?” Salvatore asks aloud, though seemingly more to himself than the girl standing in front of him. Said girl furrows her brows in confusion for a moment before huffing in, what appeared to be, mild offense. Though what on earth Salvatore could have done to offend the young teen, he had absolutely no idea.

“I have no idea what you mean when talking about these so called “gifts”, however I think it's important for you to know that I am a very busy woman with a great many things to do, so if this is all some kind of sick game you’re playing to waste my time then I’m going to have to politely ask that you take your rotten whale behind and go throw yourself into the nearest body of-”

“Anastasia?” a low, feminine voice booms from somewhere behind the older teen standing before him. The girl immediately stiffens, her skin around her nose and cheeks darkening even further, her eyes growing wide and her breath catching in her throat as she turns around. Immediately abandoning Salvatore at the still open front door, the young servant clumsily made her way further into the room before disappearing out of the narrow view the hooded man had been given of the castle through the crack in the door.

Taking a step forward and opening the door enough to slip inside, making sure to close it securely behind him, Salvatore lingered along the walls of the room, merely observing the events before him unfold as the young girl, Anastasia, quickly moved to stand in the center of the circular design on the floor of the entrance hall. Waiting for her on the landing at the top of the stairs was none other than the lady of the house herself, Alcina Dimitrescu, standing as tall, proud, and intimidating as Salvatore last remembers, though it would appear that the disfigured man’s fear of the much larger woman was not shared amongst everyone in the room.

“Y-yes Lady Dimitrescu! Is there something I can do for you this evening, my Lady?” Anastasia asks, hands clasped together in front of her and eyes blown wide at the gargantuan woman leering from above, like a lovesick puppy dog waiting for a command from its beloved owner. Eager to perform. Eager to please.

“Why yes, my sweet, I was just wondering what on earth all that racket was and if it could wait until morning to be finished? The girls and I have had quite the taxing day and I do so wish to retire to the sound of peace and quiet” Alcina coos warmly, causing Salvatore to pause in confusion.

“Oh goodness, I apologize, mistress. It’s just that there was a visitor at the door and despite my repeated attempts to convince him to come back when you were rested, he insisted upon making a nuisance of himself. Please forgive me if my attempts to preserve your restful evening were for naught” the girl said sadly, bowing deeply in apology as she continued to speak.

Alcina practically purrs in delight at the teen’s polite, but genuine behavior. “Fear not, my dear, I had only just taken off my earrings when I heard the commotion. I came out here merely to see if things were getting out of control, but it would appear as though you’ve handled things perfectly.”

The girlish blush on Anastasia’s face only darkens in color as the young teen casts her adoring gaze to the floor, joyous glee from having been praised by her mistress evident all over the younger girl’s body.

Not wanting to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary, especially if this is what he’d have to witness the whole time, Salvatore gathers all of his strength and uses it to clear his throat and take a step forward, revealing himself to both women as he gingerly comes out into the light.

“YOU!” Anastasia yells, immediately turning on her heel and making a beeline toward the increasingly anxious Salvatore. “So not only have you made enough of a nuisance of yourself to disturb the lovely Lady Dimitrescu just as she’s about to retire and rest from a very long and taxing day, but now you’ve decided that you’re so above everyone else that you can just waltz right into someone else’s home without even the slightest hint of respect or admiration for the incredible woman living in it, how dare you be so crash and selfish you overcooked blowfish, exit this castle immediately, or I’ll shove my boot so far up your rear end you’ll be fishing around for it for weeks you-”

“Anastasia, calm yourself, dear” the loud, but calming sound of Alcina’s voice said, causing the young teen to pause in her angry scolding of Salvatore.

“My Lady?” The young teen asks, dutifully awaiting orders.

“Let the wretched man inside, he’s the furthest thing from a threat to us, even if he is an annoying little manthing. Although, I’d be lying if I said a visit from you at this hour of night is something I’ve come to expect of you, dearest elder brother.”

The disfigured man swallowed thickly as he stepped past Anastasia to fully face his other younger sister, who looked all the more intimidating from her looming perch upon the upper story.

“I-I know this is s-sudden…” Salvatore begins, hoping he’d at least be able to explain himself before Alcina tossed him back outside on his ass.

“I’ll certainly say” Anastasia bursts in angrily, but she’s quickly silenced and sent away to tend to her other duties by Alcina, who motions for Salvatore to ascend the large set of stairs leading up to the rest of the castle and join her on the landing for a moment.

“Spunky little thing, isn’t she?” Alcina says when Salvatore finally makes it to the top of the stairs, panting slightly as he follows the much taller mutant’s gaze to the door that Anastasia had just exited the room from.

“Th-that’s certainly… one way… o-of putting it” Salvatore stutters, not wanting to offend Alcina by calling her servant rude, but clearly not seeing what’s so great about someone who just yells at you a lot the second you walk through the door.

“Yes! She apparently received a strain of cadou that was quite similar to mine, however her need to consume blood to maintain herself is far more similar to that of leeches. Rather than having to consume it regularly in smaller doses, like myself, she’ll only require one feeding every few weeks or so, which I thought was quite interesting. The only issues Mother Miranda brought up was the fact that her hunger, if it gets bad enough, can trigger both her transformation, as well as some sort of feral and animalistic meltdown that only ends once she’s finally had her fill. Apparently more than a few villagers were lost in the process of learning this information” Alcina comments casually, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Mother only brought her over earlier today, just before dinner, and yet she’s already managed to carve quite the little space for herself here. I hadn’t realized how dirty this place was without any girls left to take from the village until she went through and washed all the walls in the west wing spotless. It was like night and day, I could hardly believe how open and bright the halls looked” Alcina stated.

“W-wow… so th-then… d-do you think y-you’ll keep her a-around… long term?” Salvatore asks curiously, craning his neck so he could get a better look at his sister’s face.

“Perhaps. I’m certainly thinking about it. Not only is she an incredibly hard and fast worker, but she’s also got such a lovely spark of energy and excitement to her, and she’s always very polite and respectful, if a bit obvious in her “admiration” of those she looks up to… not that that’s a bad thing, necessarily. It’s quite sweet, actually!”

“S-she did look… q-quite taken… by y-you” Salvatore comments, having noticed the girl’s far-too-eager-to-be-innocent disposition when Alcina was in the room, vs. when it was just him. Not that it was a terribly surprising turn of events. Alcina, for all her monstrous height and sheer mutant bulk, was still a very beautiful, and very desirable woman at the end of the day, meanwhile Salvatore was only about 2 rolls of the genetic dice away from sharing a more recent common ancestor with the blobfish than he did humans.

“I know, isn’t she adorable? She came exactly like this, too. Mother Miranda has no idea if this is a result of the mutation process or if it's merely her former personality finally returning now that she’s awake and out of containment, but I suppose the logistics of things aren’t really important in the end. I'm so glad I chose her over the other two, I don’t know what I would have done had such a promising and delectable little morsel like her go to waste on the rest of you imbeciles” Alcina coos in amusement. “Regardless of what Mother Miranda said however, I was almost certain this whole “gift” situation was going to be nothing more than a pile of useless drivel that I’d be left to clean up all on my own once the novelty wore off, however after having Anastasia here for these past few hours, and seeing all that she’s willing and capable of doing, I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps I’d been too hasty in my final decision.”

“Funny… K-Karl thought m-much the… th-the same thing i-initially… w-when I t-talked to him… th-the other day… th-though… knowing him… I doubt h-he’s having q-quite as much… of a ch-change of heart… as you a-are” Salvatore said suddenly, more than anything due to the incredible shock that was the concept of Alcina and Karl sharing a similar opinion, at the same time, while both occupying the same dimension of reality.

Alcina’s face immediately turns sour at the mention of Karl. “Oh, did he now? That’s an unfortunate thing to learn,” she says in annoyance, clearly displeased by the notion of agreeing with Karl on anything.

“Y-yes… he… he th-thinks that maybe… M-Mother might b-be using the g-gifts… to d-distract us w-while she’s g-gone away… o-on her mission… b-but that maybe… sh-she also wants… s-something else out of a-all this… something… th-that she isn’t t-telling us… f-for some reason” Salvatore explains, unsure if he should be revealing all this information to Alcina, notorious and open critic of Karl and quite literally everything the younger man has ever done and said, is doing and saying, and will do and say sometime in the span of his chaotic lifespan.

Contrary to what Salvatore assumed, however, instead of looking bored and uninterested in what Karl thought about this whole situation, Alcina looked just the slightest bit… intrigued, if still clearly wary. “Really? And what, pray tell, does our dear sweet little brother Heisenberg believe will come of this whole situation then? Did he say?”

“H-he… he never m-mentioned anything s-specific… but he th-thinks that the g-gifts… might p-play a l-larger role… in all th-this… than M-Mother has been l-leading us to believe.”

“I see,” Alcina says, remaining silent for a moment as she thinks, looking almost concerned by what she’s heard. “And what do you think of this whole mess, Salvatore?”

“U-um… well… I-I think it’s nice… th-that Mother trusts us e-enough… to g-give us her p-previous experiments… and u-use them however w-we want… b-but I’d be l-lying if I s-said… that I d-didn’t think Karl… was o-onto something… I-I don’t know w-what I believe to be t-true a-at the moment… but I d-do know… th-that I’d like t-to give… g-give a gift of m-my own… to Nadine… and that… and that y-you might be… s-someone else who c-could help me… w-with that” the hooded man explains nervously, hoping that Alcina was in a good enough mood to feel like humoring him and his sudden request.

“Nadine?” The tall, pale woman asks in confusion, before suddenly nodding in understanding. “Ah, your gift…”

Salvatore nods. “D-Donna… is f-fashioning a n-new dress… for her… a-and even gave me… this b-beautiful nightgown… to hold h-her over until… until the real one is c-complete. I th-think she w-will… e-enjoy the nightgown b-but… but I’d like to… l-like to get her something else t-too… like a… like a necklace… a-a gold one… o-one that w-would… c-complement her skin tone… j-just right.”

Alcina briefly stares at Salvatore with a blank expression, momentarily making the hooded man worry that he’d overstepped his boundaries and said something to offend the much larger woman. His nerves are thankfully calmed when Alcina turns and orders Salvatore to follow after her, which the disfigured man happily does if it means what he thinks it means.

The two siblings arrive at Alcina’s personal chambers just as Anastasia is exiting them, her arms filled by a large basket of blood soaked towels and clothes, some collected from Alcina’s room, the others likely from either Bela, Cassandra, or Daniela’s rooms.

“Good evening, Lady Dimitrescu! Are you finally retiring for the evening?” Anastasia asks, bowing cheerfully as she finally notices her mistress approaching her. “I’ve already gone ahead and prepared your bed for you, as well as collected all the soiled laundry from today’s harvest. Is there anything else I can do for you tonight?”

“Thank you, my dear, but not quite, I have one more matter to attend to before I fully turn in. Since you were so kind to offer however, I would greatly appreciate it if, once Lord Moreau and I are finished with our affairs, you would be so kind as to escort him to the front door and bid him a good night, for me. You are free to retire to your own chambers for the evening once he’s left” Alcina orders softly, which the young girl obediently nods her head to.

“Of course, mistress, thank you very much! And I’d be happy to see Lord Moreau out for you, so please don’t hesitate to call me once you’re finished with your meeting” Anastasia says, bowing lowly to both Alcina and Salvatore before wordlessly skittering off to do… whatever it was she planned on doing to those dirty garments.

“Now, about that gift you were talking about” Alcina says upon entering her personal bedroom, immediately striding over to her vanity and beginning to sift through several boxes worth of jewelry, “you said you wanted gold, correct? And a necklace specifically?”

“Y-yes! I-if you have anything y-you’re willing to… g-give away… of course… I’d feel t-terrible taking something i-if it meant a g-great deal to you” Salvatore answers, standing awkwardly in the doorway as he waits for Alcina to return to him with whatever she finds.

Of all 3 of his siblings, Alcina was the one Salvatore was easily the least close to, despite having been the only two around for a considerable amount of time before the eventual arrivals of both Donna and then Karl. It wasn’t that Salvatore was displeased when Mother Miranda first informed him that he’d be getting a “sibling” all those years ago, but Alcina’s natural personality, coupled with her terrifying size and strength from the mutations, had made the very meek and timid Salvatore hesitant to reach out and form any kind of sibling bond with the younger woman, like he had with Karl.

Karl was a royal pain in the ass to deal with on even his best days, but at the end of it all, there’s still only so much a 6 year old can do to you, anger issues and mutant metal bending powers or not. Alcina was both a royal pain in the ass to deal with more often than not, but also a fully grown adult when she first joined the family, so needless to say the 2 oldest siblings hadn’t been given very many appropriately opportune moments to bond or get along.

That being said however, the simple but elegant golden locket that Alcina procures from one of her many boxes of jewelry has Salvatore wondering if maybe he had misjudged Alcina, having never expected her to show him something as luxurious and real-looking as this, especially when the understanding was that she’d be giving it away whatever item of jewelry Salvatore took a liking to.

“This is an old locket I received for my 3rd birthday from a relative who died long before I was old enough to care about who they were, though all those diamond star details on the front do make me think they could have been close with us at one point, or perhaps they just had that much money to throw around? It’s an old and well-loved piece of my collection, but Duke has been bringing back such wonderful treasures from his travels that I just have to start getting rid of some of these old sentimental trinkets so I can make room for all the new additions I plan on purchasing once he finally returns” Alcina explains, gingerly handing the necklace over to Salvatore, who could do nothing but gawk at how extravagant and, to be perfectly honest, expensive the necklace looked.

With 4 small diamonds, likely real knowing Alcina, embedded into the surface of the locket’s front cover, surrounded by small engravings that give the glimmering stones the appearance of stars in the night sky, the necklace looked like it belonged upon the neck of a fair and noble princess, into which the radiant beauty could then place the photo of the man who’d stollen her innocent heart. Nadine wasn’t actually a princess and Salvatore all but gagged at the idea of a picture of his face, mutated or not, being put somewhere for anyone to see, however the necklace was far too perfect for the hooded man to possibly turn it down.

“So what do you think? Will something like this do?” The taller woman asks, curiously. “I could continue looking if that isn’t quite what you’re after, however if that is the case, then I would like to politely request that you come back and look at them tomorrow. It's already so late and I’d have to have the rest of my collection fetched from the vault downstairs.”

“N-no no… th-that’s alright… this i-is perfect… thank y-you… Alcina… this w-was very k-kind of you to do… f-for me” Salvatore says, carefully tucking the glittering necklace into the bag Donna had placed the nightgown in.

“Don’t fret about it too much, I only did it because I had a bit of time to spare prior to going to bed, and you happened to catch me in a good mood. That’s it” Alcina states firmly, though something in the back of Salvatore’s head can’t help but take the taller woman’s words with a grain of salt, feeling as though there was more to Alcina’s sudden generosity than just pure coincidence. “Besides, who knows what gaudy thing you’d have shown up with had you not made the surprisingly wise decision to invoke Donna’s and my vastly superior knowledge of the feminine experience. I don’t even want to think of what tacky little trinket you’d have tried to gift her. Why the thought of that alone is enough to make me want to run for the hills, how on earth do you think your poor little gift would have felt? I’d have had to murder you on the spot if I found out you tried to pass some disgusting pile of garbage off as an appropriate gift. In fact, if I didn’t know that Donna was working on a more fitting dress for her already, I’d have half a mind to skin you alive for only having a flimsy nightgown to take back with you, but I doubt any of the dresses I have, that would be appropriate to wear with that kind of necklace anyways, would come close to fitting her, and I really do want to start making room for some newer, more exciting pieces. So, with all that in mind, count your blessings that the stars have aligned in your favor tonight, dear brother, because I won’t be doing this for you again… unless, you’d be willing to do me a few favors in exchange for some of the other pieces of my collection, that is.”

Aaaaaaaaaaand there’s the Alcina that Salvatore knows and secretly likes. In vehement denial that she feels anything positive for her 3 siblings and also actively trying to get someone else to do her dirty work for her. It's certainly not how the hooded man prefers to operate, but he supposes that if Alcina can somehow convince everyone around her to do all of her work for her, why wouldn’t she take advantage of that as much as possible?

“I-I think that’s e-enough… for t-tonight actually… maybe i-if I decide I’d l-like to get her s-something else… I’ll c-consider that offer y-you brought up” Salvatore says, bowing politely to his sister as he makes his desire to leave obvious.

Thankfully, Alcina seems more than happy to send her older brother on his way, calling Anastasia to come lead Salvatore back to the front door so he could finally begin making his way home.

“Th-thank you again… Alcina… I really a-appreciate this… an-and I'm sure Nadine w-will love the gift t-too” Salvatore says just as he’s about to bid Alcina goodnight and begin following the young servant girl.

“Yes, yes, you’re very grateful of my wondrous kindness to you, I know, you’ve made that fact more than clear already, brother” the taller woman says with an only mildly annoyed roll of her eyes as she stands just outside the door to her chambers. “Just make sure you don’t waste the opportunity my graciousness has afforded you, do you understand?”

Salvatore stiffens nervously as Alcina shoots him a pointed look that screams ‘don’t fuck this up or I’ll fuck you up’, a threat which the hooded man knows she’ll make good on, should Salvatore make it necessary for her to do so. Salvatore wasn’t sure how Alcina had picked up on the nature of his budding affections for Nadine so quickly, or how she seemed to instinctively know what he was planning despite having never asked directly, but clearly she’d noticed something and was now in the process of making the matter of whether Salvatore successfully courted his gift her business.

Heavens above have mercy upon whomever is unlucky enough to have their problematic situation noticed and meddled with by Alcina Dimitrescu.

“Y-yes… I u-understand… an-and I’ll be s-sure not to w-waste... waste the g-golden opportunity you’ve g-given me… OH! An-and Donna w-wants her mannequins b-back... too… sh-she wanted m-me to tell y-you” Salvatore replies, his anxiety only mildly calmed when Alcina makes a face at the mention of Donna’s yet-to-be-returned-still mannequins.

“Oh for goodness sakes, I always forgot about those stupid things. Anastasia?”

“Yes, Mistress?” The young servant dutifully answers.

“Please make a note to remind me to have Heisenberg come by so he can collect and return the manequins Donna leant me while I was commissioning some dresses from her earlier this month. That foul-mouthed mutt owes me a favor, and so if all goes the way I’d like I’ll be making this his problem in the morning” Alcina says devilishly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Of course, Lady Dimitrescu, I’ll be sure to remind you of that first thing tomorrow morning” Anastasia replies warmly, though her amicable grin is quickly replaced by a flush and a girlish giggle when Alcina waves and turns on her heel, swaying her hips in an obvious fashion before bending down to enter through the door of her chambers.

Salvatore passed exceptionally confused glances back and forth between his sister and the young servant standing in front of him, totally clueless as to what just unfolded a moment ago as a feeling of disgust, the kind you get when you see something you wish you hadn’t, began to curl in the pit of his stomach. Whatever it was that was going on in the Dimitrescu house, and more importantly with their new servant girl, it was clearly none of Salvatore’s business. Not that he’d wanted it to be in the first place.

Salvatore had enough problems to deal with regarding his own gift, he didn’t have time to worry about whether or not Alcina was already making moves on hers.

“Have a safe journey home, and do make sure to stop by with Nadine if things turn out well between the two of you. Based on how today played out, it would seem as though things are about to get a lot more interesting around here… and a lot more fun too. Goodnight, Dear Brother” is all Alcina says before gently closing the door to her chambers, effectively ending their conversation without so much as a single word from Salvatore, not that he minded being handed the chance to finally get out of here, especially after… whatever the hell that exchange between Alcina and Anastasia was.

Best not to think too hard about it, probably, especially when there was another woman back at the reservoir who was much more deserving of Salvatore’s lustful and impure musings.

“Uuum… the front door is this way… Lord Moreau,” Anastasia says suddenly, her face still dark from embarrassment, though whether it was from her earlier treatment of him before she learned he was another Lord and not just some random man from the village, or from… that thing he just saw that he doesn’t feel like thinking about anymore, the hooded man couldn’t tell.

Nor did he particularly care to find out.

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gayestnerdsinfiction · 3 years ago

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Pet Shenanigans

Jonathan had never been a good host. His grandmother would roll over in her grave if she knew just how awful he was at having other people in his home. The gene for Southern hospitality must have skipped a generation, because he was sorely lacking in that department. His cooking and cleaning skills were passable at best, and he saw little point in honing either. After all, he did not live with or for others. His home was his own, and he only bothered with the chores that he deemed necessary—and he deemed very few of them truly necessary.

But those days were over, and Jonathan had to learn how to play well with others again. He had to figure out how to exist around the space that his partner took up, which was no easy feat. Having Edward at his home had certainly been an exercise in hospitality, as the man demanded such a high level of care and attention from nearly everyone he encountered. Edward forced him into a role that he didn’t know how to execute, forced him to perfect a skill he had never valued. Because that was how he operated. If something was unsatisfactory, he would tinker and test until the thing in question was performing suitably. And, at this moment, Jonathan was the thing that needed molding, fixing.

“Jonathan,” Edward said sharply, placing himself directly in the other man’s field of vision so he could not be ignored. He was holding one of his many green blazers in his hands, knuckles white as he gripped the fabric.

Jonathan looked up from the book he’d been reading quite contentedly, frowning. “Edward,” he replied, matching his tone. “Do you need something?”

“What I need,” he snapped, “is for you to keep those rats of yours away from my belongings.”

“I don’t have rats,” he said pointedly. “Are you referring to the birds I acquaint myself with?

“I refuse to refer to those things as birds.”

“And why not?”

“Birds are pretty. They sing. They eat little insects that threaten our gardens.”

“I’m still not seeing the issue,” Jonathan said, gaze returning to the open page in front of him. “I believe crows fit that criteria.”

“They don’t sing, they squawk,” Edward countered. “And they leave those coarse, disgusting feathers all over the place. And I know they would pluck my eyes right out of the socket if I let them near enough. You can’t convince me those beasts would ever be satisfied with a diet of fruit flies and seeds.”

“You know,” Jonathan began, closing his book with a soft thud, “it sounds to me like you’re being racist.”

“Crows are not a race, Jonathan,” he said. “Ergo, I cannot be racist against them.”

“Speciesist, then.”

“Jonathan, can you please be serious about this?”

“About what, Edward?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. “You haven’t yet articulated what exactly the birds have done to inspire this diatribe.”

“Look!” he exclaimed, thrusting the green garment he was holding into Jonathan’s face. “Look what they did to my jacket!”

Indeed, several buttons had been plucked clean off the jacket, which was also sporting a few new threadbare spots. This explained the bright green threads that had been left lovingly on the windowsill for him. “Hm. Unfortunate,” he remarked flatly.

“That’s it?” Edward sputtered, his face turning its signature shade of red. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Well, I’m sorry, Edward, but they’re not exactly trained pets.” He shrugged. “Wild animals do wild things.”

“Don’t you see any issue with allowing wild animals into your home?”

“Well, I let you stay here, so—”

“God, you’re such a prick,” he huffed, cutting Jonathan off. “You snap your fingers and those vermin do whatever the fuck you want, and you can’t keep them from tearing up my clothes? You’ve got them bringing you stolen jewelry, for chrissakes!”

“I didn’t ask them to do that,” Jonathan retorted. “Anything they do for me is simply because I feed them and keep them clean. If that means I have inadvertently rewarded their behavior, then I suppose it’s just a simple feat of operant conditioning. But I’ve never taken any intentional measures to train them to do my bidding. Humans work better for that, I’ve found.”

“Well, could you please condition them so that they don’t attack the remainder of my wardrobe?” Edward asked tersely. “Is that possible, dear?”

Jonathan held his gaze, unfazed by Edward’s tone. “I’ll see what I can do,” was all he said in response.

Edward replied with an annoyed scoff, throwing the jacket down on an unoccupied armchair and storming out of the room. Jonathan returned to his book, having absolutely no intention of doing anything about this situation.

#scriddler #scarecrow #riddler #jonathan crane #edward nygma #batman #dc #fic #my fic #writing #my writing

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

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The University of California system is getting rid of its SAT/ACT requirement. More will follow.

There’s a lot to say. First, we must distinguish between two types of tests, or really two types of testing. When people say “standardized tests,” they think of the SAT, but they also think of state-mandated exams (usually bought, at great taxpayer expense, from Pearson and other for-profit companies) that are designed to serve as assessments of public K-12 schools, of aggregates and averages of students. The SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, and similar tests are oriented towards individual ability or aptitude; they exist to show prerequisite skills to admissions officers. (And, in one of the most essential purposes of college admissions, to employers, who are restricted in the types of testing they can perform thanks to Griggs v Duke Power Co.) Sure, sometimes researchers will use SAT data to reflect on, for example, the fact that there’s no underlying educational justification for higher graduation rates1, but SATs are really about the individual. State K-12 testing is about cities and districts, and exists to provide (typically dubious) justification for changes to education policy2. SATs and similar help admissions officers sort students for spots in undergraduate and graduate programs. This post is about those predictive entrance tests like the SAT.

Liberals repeat several types of myths about the SAT/ACT with such utter confidence and repetition that they’ve become a kind of holy writ. But myths they are.

1. SATs/ACTs don’t predict college success. They do, indeed. This one is clung to so desperately by liberals that you’d think there was some sort of compelling empirical basis to believe this. There isn’t. There never has been. They’re making it up. They want it to be true, and so they believe it to be true.

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2. The SATs only tell you how well a student takes the SAT. This is perhaps a corollary to 1., and is equally wrong. They tell us what they were designed to tell us: how well students are likely to perform in college. But the SATs tell us about much more than college success. Let me run this graphic again.

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3. SATs just replicate the income distribution. No. Again, asserted with utter confidence by liberals despite overwhelming evidence that this is not true. I believe that this research represents the largest publicly-available sample of SAT scores and income information, with an n of almost 150,000, and the observed correlation between family income and SAT score is .25. This is not nothing. It is a meaningful predictor. But it means that the large majority of the variance in SAT scores is not explainable by income information. A correlation of .25 means that there are vast numbers of lower-income students outperforming higher-income students. Other analyses find similar correlations. If SAT critics wanted to say that “there is a relatively small but meaningful correlation between family income and SAT scores and we should talk about that,” fair game. But that’s not how they talk. The routinely make far stronger claims than that in an effort to dismiss these tests all together, such as here by Yale’s Paul Bloom. (Whose work I generally like.) It’s just not that hard to correlate two variables together, guys. I don’t know why you wouldn’t ever ask yourselves “is this thing I constantly assert as absolute fact actually true?” Well, maybe I do.

In general, progressive and left types routinely overstate the power of the relationship between family wealth and academic performance on all manner of educational outcomes. The political logic is obvious: if you generally want to redistribute money (as I do) then the claim that educational problems are really economic problems provides ammo for your position. But the fact that there is a generic socioeconomic effect does not mean that giving people money will improve their educational outcomes very much, particularly if richer people are actually mildly but consistently better at school than poorer for sorting reasons that are not the direct product of differences in income. That is, what correlation does exist between SES and academic indicators might simply be the metrics accurately measuring the constructs they were designed to measure.

And throwing money at our educational problems, while noble in intent, hasn’t worked. (People react violently to this, but for example poorer and Blacker public schools receive significantly higher per-pupil funding than richer and whiter schools, which should not be a surprise given that the policy apparatus has been shoveling money at the racial performance gap for 40 years.) All manner of major interventions in student socioeconomic status, including adoption into dramatically different home and family conditions, have failed to produce the benefits you’d expect if academic outcomes were a simple function of money. I believe in redistribution as a way to ameliorate the consequences of poor academic performance. There is no reason to think that redistribution will ameliorate poor academic performance itself.

5. SATs are easily gamed with expensive tutoring. They are not. This one is perhaps less empirically certain than the prior two and on which I’m most amenable to counterargument, but the preponderance of the evidence seems clear to me in saying that the benefits of tutoring/coaching for these tests are vastly overstated. Again, a simplistic proffered explanation for a troublesome set of facts that then implies simplistic solutions that would not work.

6. Going test optional increases racial diversity. This one, I think, must be called scientifically unsettled. However both Sweitzer, Blalock, and Sharma and Belasco, Rosinger, and Hearn find no appreciable increase in racial diversity after universities go test-optional. “Holistic” application criteria like admissions essays almost certainly benefit richer students anyway. What’s more, we have to ask ourselves what “diversity” really means in this context. Private colleges and universities keep the relevant data close to the vest, for obvious reasons, but it’s widely believed that many elite schools satisfy their internal diversity goals for Black students by aggressively pursuing wealthy Kenyan and Nigerian international students, whose parents have the means to be the kind of reliable donors that such schools rely on so heavily. I’m not aware of a really comprehensive study that examines this issue, and it would be hard to pull off, but the relevant question is “do various policies intended to improve diversity on campus actually increase the enrollment of American-born descendants of African slaves?” I can’t say, but you can guess where my suspicions lie.

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All of that is prologue to the bigger point: the controversy over college entrance examinations stems not from the examinations themselves, but from the fact that they reveal profound differences in human capital that make progressives uncomfortable. The SATs don’t create inequality. They reveal inequality.

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The racial achievement/performance gap is a curious thing even in the context of an American political discourse that seems to get more bizarre by the day. That the gap exists is, on balance, not controversial. Gaps in performance are observed on essentially every measured academic metric, though the size of the effects vary from context to context, and the general distribution is Asian American students at the top, white students next, then Hispanic, then Black. The Black-white gap in particular has shrunk from the era of (explicitly) segregated schools but progress has not been consistent or linear. Most people in academia and politics admit it exists: prominent Black politicians like Barack Obama and Kamala Harris reference it, every major think tank and foundation operating in the educational space identifies it as a major priority, and the NAACP used to address if often, though their Education and Education Strategy pages have recently disappeared so it’s hard to know where they stand now. These things are faddish but once upon a time every other dissertation written by someone getting a PhD in Education was about the gap. We can observe it even outside of reference to controversial tests, such as noting that the white high school graduation rate is 10% higher than that for Black students. The achievement gap is a thing.

And yet I also find a rapidly-congealing social prohibition against talking about these gaps in progressive spaces. If you refer to a racial achievement gap in a lot of liberal or left contexts now, you’ll find that people clam up fast and get visibly uncomfortable, even if you take pains to point out that an academic achievement gap does not imply an academic potential gap. People just don’t want to acknowledge that gaps exist at all; our racial discourse appears to have become such a blunt instrument that the acknowledgement of racial difference is controversial even when you preface discussion with the belief (that I hold) that the gap is the product of innumerable environmental and sociocultural factors rather than genetics or other inherent differences. Simply saying “Black students consistently score lower on tests like the SATs, have lower average GPAs, and have worse metrics on ancillary concerns like truancy” - again, Barack Obama’s position, Kamala Harris’s position, Cory Booker’s position - is enough for people to start launching into harangues about the inherent violence of those comparisons. People just do not want to talk about this stuff.

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Those concerns with group differences, at least, have some sort of basic political logic and are amenable to complaints that they are the product of systemic inequality. (They are, but not the inequalities that people think, and again the SAT gap is a result of systemic inequality, not a cause of systemic inequality.) More disturbing to me is the rise of resistance within academia to the notion of inequalities between individuals. When I was in grad school more than a half-decade ago, I observed with some considerable unhappiness that it had become increasingly socially unacceptable to speak of some students as simply better students than others, as being more talented, harder working, or more prepared. All of this was seen as inegalitarian and, eventually, as “white supremacist” even if every student being compared in a given context was white. There were many instructors back then who bragged about giving all students As, etc., and I must assume this practice has only grown over time. In the humanities and social sciences especially there is a growing movement to reject assessment, including grading - the means through which we sort better students from worse - as the hand of illegitimate power that “does violence” to the students who voluntarily attend college.

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Of course, that complicity in the neoliberal machine is not some recent injustice; it is the very reason that colleges and universities are funded by our society at all. If this trend continues, not just eliminating SAT requirements or increasingly refusing to hierarchize students with grades but in rejecting the entire sorting function of the university, academia will collapse. Wealthy parents aren’t paying Harvard to enrich their children in the humanistic sense. They’re paying Harvard to act as a marker of their child’s superiority in the labor market and the social hierarchy. Employers value college because it provides at least some meaningful information about who will succeed as a worker; remove that function and the financial justification for a hideously expensive system dies. I would love if education dropped its association with meritocracy, but that cannot occur within our current system. The professors who self-aggrandize through their rejection of their hierarchizing function, if successful, would cause the doom of the modern university. (These tenured radicals, of course, never are so moved by the inherent inequities of academia that they quit the profession.)

Today, it is somehow controversial to say “some people are smarter than others,” a reflection of one of the simple brute realities of human life and something that has been accepted as true for thousands of years.

Here is the essence of it: hierarchies of relative academic performance are remarkably stable throughout life, due to differences in inherent or intrinsic academic ability of whatever origin, and the SATs and similar mechanisms reveal those differences in a way that liberal America is increasingly unable to accept. This is the source of all of this angst, not the technical details of whether a test is fair or valid or just, but a liberal intelligentsia that is incapable of honestly confronting the fact that different human beings have fundamentally different intrinsic abilities. I believe in political equality, social equality, equality of rights, equality of dignity, equality of protection under the law. But the notion that all people are equally talented, in academics or anything else, is an absurdity, and as much as people will rush to deny intrinsic difference, I suspect that pretty much everybody knows that they are real. When you were a child you casually assumed that some of your classmates were naturally better at school than others, and you did because it was true.

This is the conversation that I tried, and failed, to force with my book: left-of-center political movements, from center-left to radically socialist, cannot achieve the goal of the greater good for everyone, including greater political and economic equality, while pretending that we believe in equality of human ability. The only way to intelligently address various social, economic, and political equalities related to differences in human potential is to acknowledge that those differences exist. The current rending of garments regarding inequalities within our education system has led to certifiably bizarre situations like the movement, currently gathering steam, to teach math as if it is as subjective as literature or art. But this won’t make Black kids or poor kids or girls or anyone else actually better at math. And if the universities really give up their function of creating an academic hierarchy for political reasons, employers will find new systems that do that, or a lot of people will get hired and quickly fired for not being competent. This is not an intelligent policy approach. Getting rid of the SATs won’t make unprepared kids prepared. It won’t make naturally untalented students naturally talented. It won’t make kids who aren’t smart into smart kids. All it will do is hide the reality of those unpleasant inequalities.

#freddie deboer #read the whole thing #substack

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fallenrepublick · 3 years ago

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Hi ! Back again with some ridiculous questions... First , what kind of students would Thrawn, Thrass, Maul, Savage, Vader, Eli, Tarkin, Krennic and Grand Inqui be ?

And then, what kind of teachers would they be ?

And btw, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my dumb questions and for brightening my days. You're such a talented writer, I absolutely love your works ❤❤❤

Ahhh back to the good 'ol school days...

As a student, Thrawn was Mister Perfect. He showed up, sat silently in class, took notes with the most illegible handwriting you've ever seen in your life, and maintained perfect scores. However, what many never saw coming was his tendency to be argumentative with teachers. He finds their strategies boring and obsolete, and is not afraid to tell them as much. He's been threatened with disciplinary action more than once, but only ever replied, "The truth is not equivalent to disrespect."

As a teacher, he's thorough. The goal is not good scores, but rather students who know not only what is happening, but why, whether it be military or art history. People in his class are never afraid to ask questions, as he openly encourages it, and is willing to explain the same concept a million different ways if it means it's helping them.

Student life for Thrass was about as skewed as you'd expect. He excelled at debate, writing, and government, and those teachers loved him. But he's stubborn, and he will not do something that he doesn't want to do. This means that his math classes saw him maybe once a week, and he only barely passed. Perfect he was not, but that didn't stop people from falling at his feet left and right. Which... he never enjoyed either.

As a teacher, he seems like a strict hardass from the outside looking in. People would tell stories about him and how much he expects and how he grades. But really, it isn't nearly that bad. He discusses a lot about how he wants good, honest efforts, but he also isn't uptight about it either. Every so often, he'll look at his lesson plan, say, "I don't feel like doing this, do you?" Which means that they spend the rest of the time playing games.

Maul was the competitive student, the one that had to be the best at everything. He would have silent bouts of anger each time he wasn't at the top of the class for grades. Although... rumour had it that it wasn't exactly by choice. Still, he excelled at languages and anything relating to physical activity. An odd pair, but it worked well for him.

But as a teacher, he's quite casual about it all. At the beginning of the year, the students always dread it, as he makes everything seem like the worst experience they'll ever have. He's got a specific title you have to refer him to or he'll End You, there's no excuse for anything below a 95%, no freebies, etc. etc... He forgets about all of that literally the next day. People began realising it when they mentioned they didn't have time to finish assignments or homework. He'd just shrug and tell them to bring it the following week. Multiple people began calling him Maul, and he would answer as if it were a normal occurrence. The class average on an exam was a 70 once, and he only said, "Well, you passed, at least."

Savage was the student who looked like he could kill you, and could, but also most likely wouldn't. He was the one that followed Maul around everywhere, and was also himself followed by an even smaller sibling. He wasn't competitive, only here for the sake of getting through it at all, and never had much interest in the subjects outside of... geology. Random, yes, but he found it fun.

When he teaches, he's the gentler one, the type that listens to the students' troubles, whether class related or not, and is always there to help when he can. He stays late to give help, comes early for even more extra help, and knows the value of a good sticker on your paper when you scored well.

You know what Vader was like as a student. He was horrendous. Bad. The rules are his rules, and if he doesn't like them, they don't exist. No teacher wanted to deal with him, and when they did have to, they didn't dare try to call him out for the times he was late or ignored simple instructions that he didn't like.

His teaching style is... interesting. It isn't overly suffocating, but it isn't fun, and it definitely isn't cushy. He needs everything in on time Or Else, and yet he takes for heckin' ever to grade. A hypocrite, just as he always has been, but are you really going to try to argue with him? Yeah, I thought not.

Eli's experience as a student was fairly standard. He was a bit in the higher range when it came to grades, he participated enough that he was known but not favoured, he always seemed to have a promising future. He's the master of Hindsight 20/20, though, so much of the issues that he has with scheduling could be fixed if he payed more attention. And yet he always found himself running across the halls to his next class.

As a teacher, he's... the boring one. Well, by the student's standards, anyways. It certainly can be worse, but his students know next to nothing about him, and his tendency to keep to himself means that the students don't feel all that comfortable around him either. But he's good, great even, at teaching his content, his averages always high, his performance admirable amongst his colleagues.

Tarkin's student experience was filled with rich-kid nonsense, extra extra after school study sessions, cram school, high level courses, an unreasonable amount of clubs. Everyone from teachers to other students worried that he worked himself too much. He did, of course, but no one needed to know that.

Now this. This is the ice teacher. This is the teacher everyone warns you about, the one no one wants to be stuck with. He's the teacher that Maul pretends he is. The one with no leeway, the one that runs everything like a damn prison. I shudder at the mere thought.

Ah Krennic, the classic case of believing talent can get you anywhere. His days as a student were filled with one-sided competition with Tarkin, trying to get better grades, one-up him, prove himself superior. Nevermind that their classes were completely different, and that Krennic was actually at the low end of the class rank. He was always so convinced he could do it. When he talks about his old school days to people who weren't there, he will often claim that he did do it.

His teaching is about as good as his engineering... there are a few holes. His descriptions lack sometimes, he tends to leave out info. And after exams, when students cry out that he never talked about something, he will insist that he did, and they were not paying attention. He answers question by repeating the same things he just said.

The Grand Inquisitor was the quiet student, the one that sat in the back, the one that never volunteered to answer, did all the projects by himself, and to many, never existed at all. Students used to say that he was a ghost, and he was actually just haunting the school until he could move on. He never bothered to correct them. Instead, he continued to listen, allowing himself to be both a skilled student and a gold mine for the latest scandals. Truly an inspiration of our time.

As a teacher, he's the type that prefers to show, not tell. Instead of lectures there are videos, examples, real life discussions about where the subject would appear, and how it would be used. He wants his students to hunt for the answer rather than be given it immediately, which he is certain will give them a benefit later on in life, as it's a useful skill. Surprisingly, the students like him, despite how quiet and odd he is.

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toaarcan · 4 years ago

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One ship exposes everything wrong with TRoS

Heaven help me, I’m back on my bullshit.

Alright, so, I enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker when I watched it. I actually watched it twice, once on my own when I rushed to see it as soon as possible in order to beat spoilers, and once with my family, in what was a semi-annual new year tradition for us during those four years that a Star Wars film released.

But that doesn’t mean it was good. I enjoyed Transformers: Dark of the Moon the first time I watched it, and that movie’s still a steaming pile of shit. I was admittedly fifteen when I saw DotM, but still.

My point is that I’m fully capable of enjoying crappy films.

But there’s one thing, one thing about TRoS that exemplifies so many of the problems with TRoS as a whole, if not everything (And by that I mean with TRoS specifically, the woeful treatment of John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran is a Whole Trilogy Problem). And it’s a ship. Specifically this ship.

The Resistance Y-Wing. I hate this ship with the fiery passion of an exploding star, and to talk about why, we need to first go back to The Last Jedi and its conspicuous lack of Y-Wings.

One of the things that I disliked most about the Sequels before TRoS put all the other problems into stark light was the lack of new ships. Instead of new vehicles, we got shinier, sleeker versions of the ships from the original trilogy. And I disliked this because it’s the opposite of what the Prequels did.

Episodes I-III don’t feature more primitive versions of the X-Wing and TIE Fighter, but instead have similar vehicles that evoke the classics while still having an identity of their own.

The ARC-170 looks kinda like an X-Wing, but it’s bigger and has more weapons and crew, and you get why the well-funded Republic can afford things like this while the scrappy Rebels can’t.

The Eta-2 is a predecessor to the TIE Fighter, but it being employed exclusively by Jedi makes a lot of sense, of course a precognitive wizard with superhuman reflexes can do well in a light, unshielded ship, while in the hands of the Empire’s military they’re just expendable swarm fighters.

But then in the Sequels, rather than evolve the ships into new forms, they just made new incarnations of the X-Wing, TIE Fighter, A-Wing, TIE Interceptor, B-Wing, and of course the Y-Wing.

Well, except for one movie: The Last Jedi.

At the outset of the film, we’re introduced to this ship.

This is the MG-100 StarFortress, AKA “That ship all the Star Wars Youtubers hate”. It’s designed to be a much heavier and bulkier version of the B-Wing Starfighter, and is even made by the same people.

From questions about how the bombs “fall” toward the Dreadnought (The answer is magnets) to claims that they’re completely useless because most of the ones in the film died so easily, these things have been put through the wringer by the fandom, and honestly they don’t deserve it? What destroyed the StarFortresses in the film wasn’t their own weaknesses, but them being deployed in too tight a formation. It was a tactical fuckup, not a problem with the ship’s design.

And given that the whole point of the battle over D’Qar is that Poe makes a tactical fuckup to kickstart his development into the new leader of the Resistance as a whole, adding another layer makes sense to me.

But we live in a post-CinemaSins world of media consumption, where every plot-point that isn’t spelled out with a flowchart and an audio commentary by the writers is actually a plothole.

We also live in an era where Star Wars fans pine for the days of the Legends canon where everything about new ships, species, and worlds was explained in background lore and books, and are angry that the new Canon is... doing exactly the same thing?

Seriously, how much exposition and lore dumping is actually present in any of the Star Wars films? Not a whole lot. And that applies to all three eras.

So the StarFortress’ appearance in the film and the lack of Y-Wings led to a bevy of armchair writers demanding to know why the Resistance weren’t using Y-Wings and why they were using those “Resistance Bombers” that are just ‘terrible’.

Answer? Because the Y-Wings sucked shit.

Seriously, go back to the Original Trilogy and try to keep track of the Y-Wings, and see what they actually do, and you’ll find that what they do is “Explode, mostly.”

We’re first introduced to the Y-Wings in A New Hope, and they’re supposed to be the ones performing the Trench Run while the X-Wings cover them, and to their credit, they try.

And then they all get blown up by Vader and his wingmen before they can even take a shot at the exhaust port. Well, except that one that appears with the rebel ships flying away from the Death Star.

Where the fuck were you when the X-Wings were doing the attack run?

The Y-Wings got absolutely wrecked.

Ancillary media would go on to explain that the Y-Wings were beat-up old vehicles that were no longer fit for purpose, but the Rebels had to use them anyway because they had basically no money. They’d stripped down the ships and removed a bunch of their more costly features just to make them viable, and the results of that were pretty clear.

Of course, the Y-Wings were still present in the later films. They don’t do anything in The Empire Strikes Back, but they play a role in Return of the Jedi.

Naturally, that role is mostly “Get blown up while the other ships do the important stuff”.

Despite supposedly being a fighter-bomber that was designed to do significant damage to capital ships, does the Y-Wing play a role in the destruction of the Executor? Does it fuck. Destroying the Imperial flagship’s deflector shields and the subsequent suicidal ram attack on the bridge are tasks that are both performed by the goddamn A-Wings. Y’know, the light interceptors?

The Y-Wings get shown up at their own job by the ships that are there to protect them from TIE Fighters.

Ancillary media again explains why they’re still there. While the Rebels have a newer, better fighter-bomber in the B-Wing, the B-Wing is expensive as fuck and also really difficult to fly.

A non-centreline cockpit that rotates will do that to a ship.

Still, the B-Wing was a better bomber than the Y-Wing ever was (And the StarFortress was better than them both at that role).

All this adds up to a simple fact: There were very good reasons why the Resistance weren’t using Y-Wings. And there were even reasonable reasons to choose the StarFortress compared to the B-Wing itself, given that the Resistance are still undermanned and under-funded, especially with the New Republic getting nuked midway through The Force Awakens. It being easier to fly and having more armaments would have made it a viable choice for the Resistance.

Buuuut oops, people didn’t like the StarFortress and we can’t make the Internet angry at us again! Better put the Y-Wings back in for Episode IX, and show them destroying a Xyston-class Destroyer, that’ll make them happy!

And sure, okay, giving the Resistance a fighter/bomber is probably a good idea. And they already have New X-Wings and New A-Wings, so where’s the harm in a New Y-Wing?

Alright, alright, sure. But why the fuck does it look like this?

If this is a new ship, why is it already stripped-down like the ones in the Original Trilogy? Why doesn’t it look like the actual brand-new Y-Wings we saw in The Clone Wars?

Now that’s more like it. Still visibly a Y-Wing, but with more of an identity of its own.

Seriously, “Literally the same ship but without its armour pulled off” has more of a unique identity than the crowd-pleasing New Y-Wing.

And that, in and of itself, is the essence of The Rise of Skywalker.

It’s blind, empty fanservice, rushing to include as much nostalgia-pandering as possible to try and get the fanbase back on-side after The Last Jedi didn’t do what the fanboys wanted it to do.

This is a whole near- three hour movie whose only message is “Yes, Youtubers making TFA critiques longer than an entire season of TCW, we hear you, we’ll make it for you, please love us!”

And, almost entirely predictably, it was shite.

It was riddled with plotholes and none of the scenes had any time to breathe because the movie was too desperately trying to rush itself to the next crowd-pleasing scene in a desperate attempt to wank off as many disgruntled fanboys as it possibly could.

Luke with his green saber! Jedi Leia! Chewie gets a medal! Lando! Luke raises his X-Wing out of the water! The main villain is a testicle in a bathrobe again! Snork origin! Original-flavour Star Destroyers! Rose doesn’t exist! Rey had a super-special secret magical bloodline the whole time and Luke and Leia totally knew even though Luke has literally no idea who she is in Episode VIII! Luke actually was just afraid of the bad guys in Episode VII, none of that self-imposed exile for his own mistakes nonsense! Y-Wings.

I mean fuck. Disagree with Luke’s portrayal in TLJ all you like, I certainly have my issues with it, but I lay those at the feet of JJ for making Luke’s absence into one of his fucking Mystery Boxes, and then deciding that, even though last time Luke sensed Leia and Han might be in danger, he abandoned his Jedi training, hopped in an X-Wing, and flew halfway across the galaxy to try and save them, he wouldn’t do shit when the First Order pointed a star-powered System-Killer 9000 at Leia, and Han got himself killed trying to redeem Kyle Ron. Like how in fuck was Rian supposed to explain Luke’s inaction in VII?

But regardless of the problems with that Luke portrayal, at least Mark Hamill gave it his all. Hell, it might be his best performance in the Star Wars franchise!

In TRoS, he shows up in a bad wig, waves a middle finger at TLJ, and ascends to his final form as a Lightsaber Delivery Boy, because apparently all you need to kill a Sith who literally clawed his way back from death is two lightsabers. Haunting Kyle Ron? Nope. Providing guidance as a ghost? Not really.

And y’know what the kicker is? It didn’t fucking work. Lucasfilm and Disney fucking gutted this trilogy, sliced out the integrity, surgically removed the soul of Episode IX in a desperate effort to make the Internet’s most unpleasable fanbase happy, and it didn’t work. They still hate it! Now they just concoct hour-long videos about how much they would’ve preferred to have the Trevorrow script (Which is admittedly much better, albeit still with it’s far share of giant flaws), which was probably thrown out because it wasn’t fanservicey enough!

The Rise of Skywalker is an awful film. It’s a loose collection of nostalgia-baiting moments, roughly stapled together around the skeleton of a plot that was never properly developed. It’s a Frankenstein’s Monster of a movie, but, and I say this with full offense, the Victor Frankenstein in this tragic story isn’t Lucasfilm or Disney or Kathleen Kennedy or Rian Johnson, or even JJ Abrams. It’s you, Star Wars Fandom. It is your monster.

#Star Wars #The Rise of Skywalker #Disney #Lucasfilm #Episode IX #Episode VIII #Episode VII #The Last Jedi #The Force Awakens #Y-Wing Starfighter #B-Wing Starfighter #MG-100 StarFortress

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hcpelessly · 3 years ago

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shin ryujin, cis woman, twenty, she/her ⟨ ✽ ⟩ hey, you haven’t bumped into soojin “dawn” jeong lately, have you? they have been living here for the past two years and during that time, locals have gotten to know them as ambitious & independent. a little birdie told me they can be quite distrustful & controlling though. explains why they’re a(n) architecture student. they really remind me of sleepless nights, biker boots, clenching your jaw in anger, a different hair color every month. if you’re ever looking for them, i bet you can find them around bluey’s diner.

hello my loves, i am finally doing it, my intros ! this is my absolute menace of a child, dawn, whose only goal in life seems to be crushing men and other inferior existences under the heels of her platform boots. she’s a lot but also a lot of fun, so let’s go pals !!

FACT SHEET.

name: jeong soo-jin aka dawn. nicknames: well… u could push your luck and try. age & dob: 20 & march 23rd 2001. birthplace: seoul, south korea. gender & pronouns: cis woman & she/her. romantic / sexual orientation: panromantic, pansexual family: jeong hyunwoo (father), cha yejun (mother), jeong siwoo (sister), jeong hyunki (twin brother) spoken languages: korean, english, a bit of japanese and french. occupation: student at whitby, cashier at xp, drummer/rapper with r.a.d. mbti type: intj (the mastermind). hogwarts house: slytherin (what else.) zodiac sign: aries.

BIOGRAPHY.

tw: blood mention.

i. you were born with the weight of the world upon your shoulders, at least that’s how it often felt to you. hyun-ki and you were the excitedly awaited first children of your parents, the new stars on the jeong family heaven and stars are obviously expected to shine as brightly as possible. your parents take the lead, your father with his successful real estate development company and your mother, a politician. not only where you expected by them to blossom under the excellent care they offered, you were also always aware of the risk of each of your mistake being broadcast to the public, due to the notoriety of your family in south korea and seoul specifically. most of the time the press left you alone but the children of such high profile individuals messing up would obviously be delicious to all of them.

ii. messing up was not an option, instead you quickly became the over-achiever your parents had banked on. not only were your grades at the absolute top of your class but you also picked up the violin, horseback riding and swimming (lol all the rich kid shit u feel me). later on you became student body president - an absolute dream child or at least that is what you exuded. they say pressure creates diamonds and you certainly looked shiny from the outside, but inside you always felt like you were performing. painting the pretty picture for the whole world to see, while inside you mostly felt a glaring emptiness. and emptiness that should become accompanied by a raging anger. when you were thirteen you came back with the blood of one of your classmates on your fists. the incident was kept under wraps, some money was paid to keep said classmate’s family quiet and you were dragged to see a doctor. what is wrong with her ? what is wrong with our perfect daughter ? anger managment issues. that is the diagnosis you got and a list of recommended activities you might pick up in order to get a grip on your little... problem. one of them was drumming, something you’d otherwise never been allowed to do and that quickly became your favorite hobby.

iii. graduating high school at the top of your class and without any further incidences, you were still in your parents good graces. however, you felt increasingly restless, unhappy with your life that felt like a charade and so you begged them to let you study abroad. there were too many eyes on you here to ever be able to express yourself or figure out who that person even was. luckily your parents thought studying abroad would make for a positive experience for their daughter and so you ended up an architecture student at whitby’s. there you finally got to live life the way you wanted to, in a country where nobody had ever heard your parent’s names - and even if, you changed your own. dawn.

HEADCANONS.

character wise she quite controlling and ambitious, which can be difficult for social interactions, especially since she is absolutely unwilling to compromise in her ideals or to admit defeat. also she is pretty smart which can add to the intimidating effect.on the positive side, she has quite the dry sense of humor, can be incredibly charming if she wishes so. has absolutely insane stage presence.

is having the time of her life in port briar, she is now dressing completely different than she used to at home ( sort of goth gf meets e-girl meets tomboy influences ). she has also started expressing her own thoughts and opinions a lot... most would say too much.

very much a destroy the patriarchy, anti-capitalistic, eat the rich, acab kind of babe. a snowflake that drops like a bomb tho.

AH YES R.A.D. dawn is the youngest member of the band and their drummer as well as rapper, whenever they need it. just like at uni, she’s known exclusively as dawn in this context bc she’s still kinda trying to avoid people back at home finding out eek (hello ms hannah montana lol) - esp since r.a.d.’s specialty is angry feminist punk rock.

studies architecture and actually rlly loves it? like she will def geek out about roman/greek architecture if you give her the chance.

dawn of justice was funnily enough the name of her first horse back home, so do with that info as you will.

she works at xp… which might damage their business if we’re being real because can’t you just see her looking down upon all the gamer boys? i certainly can

she has the kind of personality that makes her a natural leader even though? she is an introvert? so yeah, she does prefer her solitude most of the time but don’t expect her to keep her mouth shut in social situations.

she sleeps very very little, which only adds to her high-strung personality. most of those sleepless nights are either spent performing with the band or studying at bluey’s.

definitely speaks faster than you can think xx

when speaking she does have a slight korean accent which you, however, can’t hear when she’s rapping.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

roommate/flatmate — bc who wouldn’t want to share their place with a drummer ? well, you’re warned now but yes i would definitely love for her to have one or multiple people she lives with. could be they get along great and hang out on the couch regularly or maybe they fight about absolutely everything. we love either.

enemies / antagonists — basically, dawn does tend to be a rude lil dickish so she’d def have quite some people who dislike her. for example that could be somebody she made fun off at xp or maybe somebody she fully stomped into the ground during class discussion or one of their extracurricular activities.

study friend — somebody who likes to study through nights alongside her. this is a weird friendship, bc they don’t speak a whole lot and it’s more like an agreed upon silence that they both enjoy.

former hook ups — she did hook up with some people, especially just after she had gained her newfound freedom. this was definitely just casual, especially on her part. clean, no strings attached fun. well, unless maybe it wasn’t for your muse ?! that could be a fun option as well. open for all genders.

the rare friends — this is the exclusive group of people she likes to be friends with asdfahd. it just be like that but ya def hmu and give my antisocial gal some friendss. maybe somebody who is really into music and they got into contact through that, or perhaps architecture. or maybe the one xp regular she actually likes.

ex — she was in one relationship ever since coming to the us and it was honestly never supposed to work out well. i kinda want this to have strong doomed from the start but both tried to make it work for a little while until it got increasingly toxic and they eventually broke it off. would love to brainstorm this. open for all genders.

lightning round — r.a.d. groupies, somebody who actually knows her from seoul, rivals, fwb, people she has tutored.

#briar.intro #new and v slightly improved #w a little guest appearance by addie #( about ) 𝖔𝖋 𝖉𝖆𝖜𝖓 𝖏𝖊𝖔𝖓𝖌

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gallavictorious · 4 years ago

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“Will you suck my dick whenever I want?” Sex, Power, and the Gallavich Modes of Communication.

Becaue of reasons I want to talk a bit about the rather infamous “suck my dick” scene of 4x08.

This is a complicated scene and I have complicated feelings about it, which is pretty much the above-mentioned 'reasons' for writing this exploratory meta: when in confoundment, hash it out by putting all your thoughts down on paper. Fair warning: this is long, and since it deals with dubious consent you might want to give it a miss if discussion of that sort of thing upsets you. Same goes if you believe that Ian really is just asking for unlimited access to blowjobs, or find extensive (over)analysis of fictional works silly.

The accusation sometimes levelled at Ian in regards to this scene is that he's being manipulative and practically forcing Mickey into performing sexual acts he would otherwise not perfom, taking advantage of Mickey's emotional vulnerability to secure sexual pleasure for himself. He certainly issues an ultimatum and this scene is uncomfortable to watch because of that, but at the same time it's always seemed pretty obvious to me that endless blowjobs isn't really Ian's objective here. If that's all he wanted, he could easily get that without having to resort to extortion: finding sexual partners has never been a problem for him. No, there are other things at work, and below I try to figure out what.

Let's kick of by a quote from Oscar Wilde: “Everything is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”

Because yes, this is about power rather than sex – which is another way of saying that what Ian truly wants isn't for Mickey to give him a blowjob, but for Mickey to agree to do it in spite of his initial reluctance. Which still isn't a very flattering look for Ian, because neither demanding blowjobs nor demanding your partner's submission is particularly charming (outside of negotiated kink, of course). However, I think it's fair to say that the power Ian seeks here is not the power to (permanently) place himself above Mickey, but the power to once more level the playing field between them and regain some sense of the agency and control that Ian felt he lost during the whole mess leading up to Mickey's wedding.

From the very start, Ian's been wanting more from Mickey than Mickey's been willing or able to give (not because Mickey isn't as into Ian as Ian is into him, but because of all that other shit: you know well what I'm talking about). To a large extent, Ian's been reining himself in, wary of asking too much, lest he scare Mickey off. Whenever he's openly pushed for more – trying to kiss Mickey, putting his hand on the glass, insisting that Mickey do not murder his father – Mickey has brusquely rebuffed him. However, he's had quite a bit of success with less direct methods, as when he 'gets' Mickey to kiss him by explaining that one of the reasons he likes Ned is that Ned isn't afraid to. (And for the record, I don't think this was a conscious ploy by Ian: he was simply being honest with Mickey, in a way that also conveyed his disappointment in Mickey's continued unwillingness to kiss.)

Ian's been in love with Mickey for a long time. For a long time, he doesn't tell Mickey this, which is partly due to the above-mentioned fear of scaring Mickey off, and partly due to Ian genuinely not being sure if Mickey likes him back. (“How do you know if a guy you've been hanging out with likes you?”) But following the very obviously jealous beatdown of Ned, the kiss in the van, and the invitation to a sleep-over, Ian is finally convinced that Mickey does indeed like him too – only 3x06 happens and Mickey is not only shutting him out again, he's getting married to someone else.

But knowing what he now knows – i.e. that Mickey is in love with him – Ian doen't back off or try (to the best of his feeble ability) to play it cool. He puts himself out there, he puts his emotions on display, and he repeatedly begs Mickey not to get married.

Mickey gets married all the same.

Now, Ian has a strong sense of integrity and does not enjoy having to depend on someone else. Ian is not very good at admitting when he's wrong. Ian is proud. Because of this and quite apart from the heartbreak of losing Mickey to marriage, I'd imagine that he's feeling less than great about being scorned after having been so open about his wishes. (Well. Scorned is a somewhat strong word: Mickey's obviously still down for him, but he's not willing to give Ian what he wants – a real relationship, as Ian defines it.) As far as Ian is concerned, the situation has created a tangible power gap between them, with Mickey having the upper hand. (It might be argued that the power gap's been there the entire time, with Ian wanting more than Mickey was willing to give, but up until that point Ian has not actively asked for things Mickey's made clear is out of bounds but has accepted Mickey's marking of boundaries with a shrug and an 'oh'.)

Mickey's broken “don't” as Ian announces his intention to enlist isn't enough to bridge that gap: it's an admission of feeling, of need, but does not indicate any intention on Mickey's part to further act on that feeling. It doesn't change anything: Ian still wants a commited relationship, Mickey still wants Ian around to fuck him even while he stays married to Svetlana.

And for all that we sympathize with Mickey – which we bloody well should, because he was the victim of a horrible crime and trapped in the shittiest of situations through no fault of his own – it isn't unreasonable of Ian to not want to be the secret 'mistress' of a closeted man. He's been there, done that, and quite understandably wants more from Mickey. He isn't wrong for trying to extricate himself from that situation, even as it's utterly understandable why Mickey isn't able to give him what he wants at the time.

Life's like that, kids. Sometimes there are no good choices, and sometimes no one's at fault even though everything's an absolute mess and people get hurt. (I mean, Terry's at fault. Terry is a huge fucking cunt.)

It bears saying that Ian isn't a saint and doesn't behave perfectly in this situation: he shows little understanding for Mickey's entirely justifiable fears, and rather than telling Mickey that he loves him, he insists that Mickey admits that he loves Ian, which I do find a bit presumptuous. Ian's small smile when Mickey comes close to breaking when Ian announces his plan to leave indicates that he finds some small measure of pleasure in knowing that he's hurt Mickey the way Mickey has hurt him: though I think it's not primarily pleasure in the hurt itself, but rather pleasure in what it signifies, i.e. that Mickey does care about him too. But that isn't enough; that isn't really news.

So he enlists and that goes the way it goes and then Mickey seeks him out at the club and brings him home, to the bed Mickey normally shares with his wife. This, I think, tells Ian something; it suggests something beyond Mickey just having feelings for him. It's just a suggestion, mind, so it doesn't actually resolve anything, but it's enough of a something that Ian's willing to have a conversation about possibly returning when Mickey comes to see him at the Gallagher house.

But Ian has a problem. If he simply goes back to be being with Mickey without anything changing he has effectively agreed to the sort of arrangement he joined the army to very pointedly escape. Quite apart from him not wanting that sort of relationship, it would signify a failure to proud guy Ian, and following his failure to even make it through basic, I think that's not something he's willing to allow. He still wants to be with Mickey, though. Knowing that Mickey is as unlikely to divorce his wife now as he was to call off the wedding, Ian can't ask for that; he can't ask again for the type or relationship he really wants – but he can't go back to what they had previously either. This puts him in a pretty tough spot, and I think this is why he asks for Mickey to suck his dick. While not achieving exactly what he wants it still gives him enough of a something that he feels comfortable resuming his relationship with Mickey:

Firstly, it serves to even the score and redistribute the power between them. Yes, this is him asking Mickey to submit to him and for Mickey to acknowledge Ian's power over him, but it's a request made from what Ian perceives to be a position of weakness (because of the whole Ian putting himself out there and Mickey getting married in spite of that). By momentarily placing himself above Mickey, Ian seeks balance the scales, bringing them back to an even level. This is a one-time thing, over and done with once Mickey agrees. Evidence suggests this works very well, too: look at their interactions the next day, when they're back to their normal and easy back and forth. Even so, it's a pretty fucked up thing to ask for, but we need to remember that Ian has a fairly complicated relationship with sex, given all that he's been through, and probably doesn't take this kind of thing nearly as seriously as we might want him to.

Secondly, Ian wants Mickey to commit to an emotional honesty he has so far resisted. If they can't be an official couple, he still wants that much. They were getting somewhere before Terry fucked everything up, and Ian has zero interest in going back to a relationship where Mickey pretends that it's only about the banging and shies away from any notions of an emotional involvement.

Ian wants Mickey to let himself be vulnerable with Ian, and while performing a sexual act to signify a commitment not to let things be only about sex seems pretty damned contradictory at first glance, this specific type of sexual act – which is bitch-coded in the enviroment Mickey has grown up in and which he probably finds hard to admit that he likes (until he doesn't: “I suck his dick and I love it” – but this line really supports both the idea that Mickey doesn't in fact mind sucking Ian's dick and that it's something that isn't “appropriate” for him to like; else he wouldn't have thrown it in Terry's face like that) – signifies more that just the sexual act itself: Ian knows that Mickey likes sucking his dick, and he wants Mickey to own that (as Mickey owns being a bottom): he wants Mickey to lay off the bullshit and be honest about who is and what he wants, to Ian, if not to anyone else at this point. The last time Ian asked this of Mickey, Mickey kicked him in the face, so I don't think it's too hard to see why Ian would go about it in this way rather than asking for what he really wants outright.

What he seeks here is a promise of a long-time commitment, and that's why the “whenever I want” bit is significant, because it points ahead to the future, even if Ian has no intention of enforcing the actual sucking of dicks bit.

And I think it's very important that both Ian and Mickey are ver clear about the fact that Ian will not enforce this. I think they are: for all that they have trouble communicating at times, this is the sort of subtle signalling they are pretty good at. I guess it comes down a bit to character intepretation though: I just don't think Ian would seriously ask this of Mickey, and I don't think Mickey would agree to it either. They both see this for the one-time act of submission it is, with all that it signifies and symbolizes.

(Let's be clear: if Ian had actually continued to enforce this demand, leading them down a path of a 'blow me right now or I'm leaving' that would have been pretty damned horrible. The reason I don't think this happened, apart from finding it OOC, is the complete lack of evidence that things are weird between them going forward, and if Ian had been forcing Mickey, a rape victim, into performing sexual acts, things sure as hell would have been weird between them. After this, they're back on an even footing: they sure have conflicts, which culminates with Mickey coming out [and, yes – demanding that someone come out isn't great, especially when that someone is facing the kind of threats Mickey is, but at the same time it's perfectly reasonable for Ian not to want to stay in a secret relationship: again, it's a fucked-up situation with no good choices], but they're on level fighting ground. It's not the sort of conflict resolution I'd recommend, but it apparently worked for them, and given their generally messy dynamic, I'm not really surprised.)

In fairness, Ian isn't really being nice about this whole thing, and there's absolutely some glee and triump when Mickey actually agrees to do it. A sense of vindication, surely, after what happened between them just before Ian left. But do notice that while Ian kind of does rub it in – “suck my dick, whenever I want” with that pleased smile – he doesn't in fact make Mickey say it, even though Mickey's request – “don't make me say it, asswipe” – does make it clear that if Ian demands it, Mickey will. There is an element of payback to this whole exchange, there's no denying that, but Ian's not out to actually be cruel to Mickey: he wants them to be back on even and equal ground, and he wants Mickey to own his desires and emotions.

So yeah, it's still not great by any means, and it's still uncomfortable to watch, but if we take into account Ian's somewhat causal relationship to sex in general, as well as Mickey's unwillingness both to emotionally commit and to actually talk about things, I think it's fair to say that Ian is not trying to manipulate Mickey, but rather to stand his ground and express his wishes in a way that he believes Mickey can and will play along with. (I, incidentally, think that Ian might be wrong, and that it's possible that Mickey has missed him enough and worked with himself enough that if Ian had made instead asked “will we actually talk about our feelings” Mickey would have gone along with that too, to the best of his ability – but this is actually way easier for Mickey to roll with.) It is pretty messed up, but viewed through the lense of their shared history and less than straightforward modes of communication, it does make a whole lot of sense.

To me at least – as always, feel free to disagree or add your own perspectives. I view meta as an invitation to discuss, not as a finalized argument to end discussion, and there are certainly aspects I haven’t touched upon here. And if you have seen this discussed before, I'd be super grateful if you'd point in me in the right direction.

#gallavich #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #4x08 #tw: dubious consent #meta #yeah i might have gone a bit overboard with this whole thing #but it IS a very complex scene #and this is how i make sense of things #rambling endlessly about them #my stuff

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fiddlepickdouglas · 4 years ago

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Reasons I Care About Bobby Wilson (this post is for people who wonder why I do):

Sorry, just saw an anti-Bobby post and I shouldn't get like this over a fictional character, but here I go, I guess.

The things people don't like

We can agree that not crediting Luke, Reggie, and Alex for their songs was awful. That is a serious line to cross and he's got to make up for that if he's ever to be seen as a truly good guy.

It can also be agreed upon that his shady/not as cool character is set up by the way he interacts with the boys and Rose. Lying about being vegetarian, trying to send the boys off to eat hot dogs so he can flirt more (from which we have a thousand heacanons about him being in a relationship with Rose and also theories that he somehow killed his own band).

These things don't paint him as brightly as the rest of our himbos. I'd like to assert that we are being shown a mere glimpse of this character and the intro showed him in a weak moment. We can discuss good and proper flirting tactics elsewhere, but these methods aren't uncommon, especially for a teen in 1995. The song stealing - absolutely inexcusable. There's no way I, or anyone else, would or should try to dispute that.

This next part is in response to the tag I read saying 'he acts like a douche' and aside from the above things, what else do we see?

What he really does

Let's look at Bobby as a teen briefly. He plays Now or Never with the boys, and upon finishing the sound check goes right into celebrating their performance. Then he sees a cute girl who is also celebrating the performance and wants to get to know her better. This attempt is momentarily interrupted by the rest of his band, and while he is slightly annoyed, he isn't outright rude. He reminds them of plans they already had to send the message that he wants a chance with this girl - if I were in a similar situation I don't imagine myself handling it too much better. I understand that's really up to individual scrutiny, but I don't take this as 'oh he's a jerk'.

We don't see him again until the issue of copyright comes up and they visit his mansion. In these moments, we see him the way Luke, Reggie, and Alex do: an intolerable thief. However, the use of the songs is already a thing of the past. The Bobby, now Trevor, we see presently makes a practice of checking in with his daughter briefly, meditating, and has a therapist. We can all laugh at Reggie's line about the sunglasses, but without the boys there, he just comes off as a chill dad who sticks to his cool dude aesthetic even when his child finds it embarrassing.

The fear he experiences when the boys haunt him is clearly very mixed. Regardless, resurfacing the trauma of his band dying and then seeing paranormal activity in his own home that is targeted toward him in a mildly antagonistic manner is sort of a weighty subject. That poor therapist.

Then he sees the Edge of Great video. Can I just point out that he takes interest because he sees Julie? She's what grabs his attention. Whether it's because of Julie's goddess-like talent or because he recognizes his daughter's friend and notices his daughter bringing her up in a way she hasn't in about year, we don't know yet. But Julie is the star and he knows it. And then he sees them. His old band from 25 years ago, back from the dead and not a day older than 17. He doesn't even have to feel guilty to respond the way he did - that's just the response of a 42 year old man who is seeing straight *read: it's never straight* witchcraft before his eyes.

I'm not sure why he would call to get himself and Carrie into the show on the spot aside from pure curiosity. The who, what, when, where, and why of it all is a lot to take with his guilty conscience on top. Seeing him shake at the end is definitely a combination of all those things.

I almost forgot to include him playing in Unsaid Emily, but not much can be said about it. I still think it's sweet that Luke felt comfortable enough sharing that song with his whole band and that they rehearsed it. As a bandmate and a friend, Bobby must have been at least cool enough to gain that confidence, and more not to include it in the songs he claims as his own later.

Anyhow, those things are what we see and it's somewhat polarizing apparently. Julie's mom, Rose, retained a fairly close friendship with him, which says a great deal. If Julie is anything like her mom, or if we extrapolate from Julie's character how good of a parent Rose was, we can imagine how good of a character judge she was. As a teen, maybe not quite as good (although she is played to be specifically in tune with her feeling about how good the band is, so I don't think so). Maturing into adulthood and still having Bobby as a friend implies that either he was extremely fake with her the whole 24 years they were friends, or he actually wasn't that terrible to be around.

What we don't know

As much as we all love our headcanons, there's still a great deal of mystery about Bobby. And frankly, I feel like it depends on which headcanons we choose to like that cement our feelings toward him (although enjoying Taylor Kare as an actor and a human being can also have great influence here as well). I've seen some hcs that say he was a big brother to the guys and that make him seem soft and I really enjoy them. I choose to believe we are shown some of his worst moments and he has potential for good. Others really like the drama and mystery behind the "he somehow murdered the boys" and frankly I can't say they're wrong for it. But there are certainly details that could help define him that we've yet to see:

What was he actual relationship with the guys? Was he really a fourth wheel, just a rhythm guitarist they needed, or was he just as close?

What happened right after the boys died? Did he go on with the show or did he cancel?

Was he involved in telling their families the bad news? Did he attend their funerals? Did he disappear before he could get involved?

How did he manage to bury his old identity and keep his friendship with Rose?

Was he victimized by the music industry? Was taking the credit his idea or was he put in a difficult position that made him make a bad choice?

Who in the world is Carrie's mom and is she a part of their life? How does this affect them?

What is he going to do about the boys now? Could he actually do anything to harm their career as a band? Would he or does he want closure?

I guess what I want to accomplish here is explain that you're welcome to feel what you feel about Bobby, but you can't tell me "it's not that deep." It is. Plus I love the representation we get from both actors who play him on the show and anyone who is mad about that can assume I don't take their opinion seriously.

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #bobby #bobby wilson #trevor wilson #long post #sorry i got carried away #when i swerved into this lane i stayed

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plotbnuy · 4 years ago

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KarpReviews - Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) and End of Evangelion

It took me a good while to really get into anime. Well, maybe that’s technically not true, as I grew up with the Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh anime series. That’s really where my exposure to the medium stopped for a long time, though. There was scattered influence, such as an ephemeral viewing of Spirited Away on Cartoon Network, and access to one of the Naruto fighting games. Ultimately, though, I hardly knew what anime was until high school. It was around this time that I would occasionally stay up late to watch Toonami on Saturdays. Toonami provided me with several of my first and favorite anime series, including Cowboy Bebop, Deadman Wonderland, and Soul Eater. One night, however, I found myself treated to something completely bizarre.

I can’t say for sure exactly what I had watched, though my current knowledge suggests it was one of the Evangelion recap movies. These are abridged versions of the series that tell the story in a more condensed format, though it’s possible I just caught a few episodes of the regular series. The show itself was overwhelmingly confusing and bizarre, with concepts my teenage mind struggled to grasp, and characters that seemed strange and depressing. It certainly didn’t help that I was watching this show in the dead of night while sleep repeatedly attempted to pull me down. I was mesmerized regardless, and the images I saw never left my mind.

It wasn’t until now that I decided to finally watch the series in its entirety. I was excited to figure out exactly what I’d seen, why the robots in the show looked the way they did, why the “monsters” had such abstract and strange designs. Most importantly, I wanted to experience one of the major pieces of Japanese animation that had influenced so much of popular media. Thankfully, Neon Genesis Evangelion did not disappoint.

To briefly summarize for those who still haven’t seen the show, the main premise is that, for one reason or another, Earth has become assaulted by powerful beings known as Angels - strange monsters that threaten humanity with their otherworldly power. An organization called NERV, led by Commander Gendo Ikari, plans to protect humanity and destroy the Angels with mysterious and strange humanoid mecha named “EVAs.” They can only be piloted by particular children, one of whom is the main character and Gendo’s son, Shinji. The Angels themselves, as well as their lore, hearken to Christianity, though in the same way that American media loosely uses Greek mythology. While the premise of the show seems to match that of other mecha, such as Gundam or Macross Saga, Evangelion is more about it’s heavy, layered theming as opposed to mecha and kaiju battles. Evangelion’s storytelling is rich and layered, yet I never found it to be overwhelming or poorly paced. Even though it’s dark tone is prevalent throughout, the battles between EVAs and Angels are still exciting and enjoyable on their own, each encounter building the stakes higher and higher, until it almost feels that everything will suddenly explode. Almost.

Visually, I think Evangelion holds up phenomenally. The animation style is instantly recognizable while still carrying the same charm that many 90′s anime have. Characters are expressive and animated when they need to be, and backdrops are detailed and colorful. I was blown away especially during the show’s numerous fight scenes. Unlike the bulky mechs featured in most media at the time, the EVAs are nimble and powerful, often performing acrobatic feats or creating stunning displays of destruction. I was absolutely captivated by the designs of the EVA’s and Angels, just like I was in high school. The EVA’s are both incredible and sinister, immediately intriguing just from their design alone. Just looking at one makes you want to know more about them. The character designs are simple but still memorable, which matches their personalities well. What I love most about the visuals of this show, however, isn’t the fluid action or expressive characters, but the implementation of long shots and surreal visuals. Several times throughout the series, the show will linger on a single frame for an extended period of time. There’s no dialogue in these segments, just ambient noise or background music. These moments are some of the most engrossing, trapping the viewer in a single uncomfortable moment, such as the gruesome aftermath of an Angel attack, or a long elevator ride following an argument between Asuka and Rei.

Speaking of, the characters in this show are truly fascinating. Nearly every character is layered and interesting, and each one has their own ways in which they deal with the pressure and terrors of the world around them. I was surprised with how much I ended up liking Shinji (during the main series that is, but we’ll get to that) whose awkward and conflicted personality can be easily polarizing to viewers. I thought Asuka was a nice foil for Shinji, and an entertaining character on her own. She is a bit rough around the edges, and her loud and often self-centered personality can be grating at times, but ultimately her presence is a positive one, and I feel she inadvertently pulls other characters out of their shells. Rei, the third part of our pilot trio, is quiet and mysterious, and she adds to a lot of the show’s intrigue. My favorite character is easily Misato. On top of keeping the younger character’s intense personalities in check, her own story is one that the show graciously gives a lot of attention to. Watching her start to work through her demons was thoroughly compelling to me, and I felt that even through her faults she always tries to be mindful of the people around her. Ryoji was another character that I was a bit worried about after his introduction, but thankfully he had much more going for him than his flirty, aloof attitude. The one person that I never got totally sold on, though, is Gendo Ikari. While he’s certainly integral to the plot, his character was too nuanced for my liking, and it dampened his impact on the story. He’s also one of the characters who I can confidently say isn’t a good person, making his presence even more distasteful. Important for sure, but generally unpleasant.

Perhaps the most memorable piece of this show is it’s music. Truly, every single track within this anime screams “iconic.” The catchy drumming of “Decisive Battle” constantly plays within my head, a track that helped every Angel encounter feel like an elaborate chess game. “Angel Attack” has a memorable, intense melody that felt appropriate for the show’s surreal and powerful monsters. Of course, nothing needs to be said about one of the most iconic anime openings ever, “Cruel Angel’s Thesis.” By far my favorite, though, has to go to “Komm, süsser Tod.” Playing during the finale of End of Evangelion, this hauntingly beautiful song fits the show perfectly, from it’s use of choir-like vocals to the chaotic mess of strings towards the end. Every song in the show’s OST is wonderful, and I often listen to various tracks while I’m working. Even if you don’t want to watch the show, I strongly urge you to check out the soundtrack anyway.

Deep within these varied, elaborate pieces, behind the catchy music and incredible action set pieces, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a show about depression. Each character struggles with this in a different way: Shinji keeps his distance from those around him, despite needing more than anything to connect to another human being. Asuka searches for validation from the people around her, becoming angry when anyone takes attention away from her, afraid that she’ll be ignored or forgotten. Rei struggles in general to feel like a real person, to become more than her birthright and her purpose. Misato tries to drown herself in her work and in alcohol, keeping herself in denial while she tries to distance herself from her past. In some ways, the EVAs represent the responsibilities of everyday life, highlighted by Shinji’s struggle to fully commit to his obligation of protecting mankind. The characters in this show are broken, messy husks, and for almost the entire show these struggles seem impossible to overcome. These themes and motifs become especially true starting with episode 16, where the show begins to slow down and focus on its characters as the final Angel threat is thwarted. Ultimately, however, the message of the original series is a hopeful one, sending the viewer off with the message that only when you’re able to help yourself can you finally start to truly connect with and help others. It’s a poignant message and one that I think the show earns by weaving it’s theme of depression throughout the entire show, not just focusing on it near the end.

The end, however, is where Evangelion becomes a truly fascinating piece of media. Part of what makes this true is that, actually, Neon Genesis Evangelion has two endings: the final two episodes of the show, and the movie appropriately titled End of Evangelion. The series has separate endings for a couple of reasons, actually. While I won’t explain it in depth here, the summarized version is that the latter episodes of Evangelion, starting with episode 16, are subjected to a bit of a paradigm shift following production issues and budget cuts. These later episodes are where the various characters’ faults take the forefront of the narrative, and the action scenes become scarce. The final two episodes take on an especially bizarre nature, analyzing the characters within the context of the show, using abstract visualization and disjointed dialogue to do so. Personally, I’ve grown to appreciate this ending. As I mentioned before, while the focus does change towards the end, I still believe the show was always more about the heavy themes than it was about the robot fights. Many, however, do not share my opinion. When the finale originally aired, many viewers were incredibly unhappy. Unreasonably so, as thousands sent angry letters and death threats to the studio, griefing the creator for his vision. They called for a different ending, one with a more satisfying conclusion, with more action and a clearer sendoff for Shinji and the other characters.

Needless to say, creator Hideaki Anno obliged them.

Releasing in 1997, End of Evangelion is perhaps the most spiteful piece of artistry ever conceived. While the original series ended with a message of hope, this film turns the series on its head and creates a narrative that simply reeks of despair. Junko Enoshima could only dream of creating something so explicitly hopeless. While Shinji takes his first steps towards healing in the original ending, this film features a Shinji who has completely and utterly given up. He’s succumbed to his base desires, numb to the world around him in a way that’s turned him into a monster. His thoughts and actions are violent and abusive, he becomes completely deaf to the needs of those around him, and in a few short minutes of this film, he becomes almost completely irredeemable. He knows he’s become a despicable shell of a human being, but he almost seems to revel in that fact. This version of Shinji is utterly useless, and his actions - or rather inaction - causes the complete destruction of everyone he loves. This film is depressing, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s absolutely unconscionable...

And I loved it.

In context, it’s hard not to imagine that End of Evangelion is a deliberate slap in the face to the fans who so ruthlessly tore apart the original ending of the show. It completely reverses the progress that was made in the original series, opting to create an ending that is more intense and action-packed, but at the price of turning Shinji, the audience surrogate, into a complete bastard. Watching the film for the first time is almost infuriating, especially as Shinji repeatedly destroys everything in his wake through his own self-loathing. Yet, after letting the film sit in my mind for a while, I found it to be a truly unique piece of art. It’s hard to stomach, and I don’t think I can recommend it, especially on its own, but End of Evangelion is a truly fascinating film.

As a whole, I’m extremely happy I decided to go back in time to watch this old classic. I believe it holds up incredibly well overall, and it has so much to say in just 26 episodes. Watching it reminded me a lot of Samurai Jack and Cowboy Bebop, especially with its use of masterful long takes and thick atmosphere. If you haven’t given this anime a shot, I strongly recommend checking it out on Netflix or wherever you can get your hands on it. It may not be for everyone, but for this kaiju-loving gal, it exceeded every expectation.

#anime #anime review #movie review #neon genesis evangelion #shinji ikari #end of evangelion #review

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