#Still under partial influence of the programming I see

[hydrasheadscientistmcu]

…..I’m back-

*Soldat stands awkwardly. He knew he shouldn’t be here but he couldn’t help the programming in his mind demanding he go in for a monthly check up*

”Ah, so you are.” Artemia greeted smoothly, “Take a seat if you would like, I have no traps set.”

[heyclickadee]

In fact, here’s a Tech Lives theory.

And by theory, an explanation I would accept for having Tech come back elsewhere but also explain what the hell was going on with CX-2 this season, should they choose to pursue a retcon (or if they just moved all the Tech stuff to the next show to have more room to deal with it).

Basically, Tech wasn’t CX-2, exactly, but he also sort of was. Tech was physically stuck in a pod in the necromancer chamber, maybe with amnesia from the fall, maybe not, because Hemlock realized his CX process wasn’t working on defective clones yet (or perhaps because Tech was too injured to be of any use as a CX) and, so, he decided to use Tech for “other purposes.” And, in this case, that purpose was midichlorian experimentation, because injecting Tech of all people with midichlorians in an attempt to see if force sensitivity could be artificially enhanced seems like the exact brand of stupid Hemlock has going on. We do, after all, hear Hemlock threaten to use Crosshair for other uses since he’s resisting re-education, and we also hear he and Nala Se talk about a partially successful m-count transfer and never learn anything more about it. Why couldn’t that have been Tech? So Tech’s in a pod, in the necromancer room, it’s basically a sensory deprivation chamber, he’s been souped up with midichlorians, and suddenly The Force is happening, so things get very weird for him very fast.

In this theory, Tech’s consciousness starts to wander, and in a weird version of the merge senses ability from legends, attaches himself to the clone that’s CX-2. And he attaches very easily, because CX-2’s been wiped clean and has no personality of his own anymore, so Tech is very much in there feeling and experiencing everything CX-2 is and having a lot of influence to the point that he affects how CX-2 moves and speaks.

But Tech’s confused, he doesn’t know what’s happening, he’s not doing this on purpose, he might be heavily disassociated from his own memories because what the hell is happening, and he’s sort of landed in a mind that’s been heavily brainwashed and just knows orders. It’s a little like being someone else in a dream. He maintains a sense of self, hence CX-2’s use of “I” and general attitude, but it’s hard for him to tell where the clone that was CX-2 ends and he begins. He’s lost and stuck under CX-2’s programming. He can’t get out or go back to himself. He doesn’t know how he got here and he doesn’t know how to change it, and he spends so long in there and probably being subject to Hemlock’s programming alongside CX-2 that, for all intents and purposes, he IS CX-2 for a while. But his personality and not memories exactly, but feelings about those memories come through when triggered by Crosshair, Phee, Pabu, or Omega. But then CX-Tech returns to Tantiss with Omega, gets shoved in a CX pod, Tech’s still attached but buried deep down—until CX-2 gets impaled and Tech wakes up back in his body in that necromancer pod.

It’s wooey, sure, but it’s no more stupid or wooey than anything else in Star Wars. And this is just to demonstrate that there is absolutely nothing keeping Tech from coming back. There are so many ways they could do it. They just have to pick one.

And they might really have to pick one eventually. There are no in-universe incentives to keeping him interminably falling through the mists, and doing so just makes everyone involved look like an ass.

[theflyindutchwoman]

Hi. I'm back for your integration). This time to an episode from the first season when Tim visits Isabel on Valentine's Day.

Why do you think Tim was the first to talk about divorce?

I remember when I first viewed it, it surprised me. He waited for her, fought for her, endured this nightmare and it seems he still loved her. Isabelle apologized, talked about the past. She tried to understand herself and explain to him why it happened. I don't think she's thought about the future yet. And then he offers to divorce. Does he no longer see a future together?

I can only explain this by the fact that Tim, having heard how Isabel felt his pressure on her, that she did not meet his expectations, decides to rid her of herself. (I wonder, by the way, if this is objective or just her feelings, interpretation or just excuses)

Sorry for the mistakes and hopefully not too confusing, English is not my native language.

This is a delicate (and complicated) subject so I hope I'm not saying anything wrong or offensive here. And as always, this is only my interpretation.

The way I see it, when Tim went to the rehab facility to see Isabel, he didn't know what to expect, what her state of mind would be. Hence why he admitted almost turning away twice. What he did know was that he wanted his wife back, that he loved her… But as he had learned the hard way, that might not be sufficient. Still, I don't think he was envisaging divorcing her. It's only once she opened up about the pressure she felt when they were married that he considered it.

At first, Isabel was simply trying to make amends, apologise for all the things she did. It's actually part of the 12-steps program, which supports recovery from substance disorders. Step 09 is about making direct amends to the people you've harmed. Now, I don't know if she was at that stage already but her wording was very similar. Here's what she says : "I don't want to talk about it, either, but it's part of my recovery. […] The whole point is to make amends with the people that I've hurt. And I hurt you most of all". She wanted to acknowledge all the hurt she inflicted… But he wasn't really listening. From what we saw, Tim had a major blindspot regarding Isabel's addiction, where he blamed everything on the drugs. That was his coping mechanism. But it skewed his perspective as well, as Lucy tried to tell him, calling him out on this several times. In his mind, Isabel didn't do the lying, the cheating… It was the drugs. He was compartmentalising. And now that she was in recovery, he thought everything would go back to normal.

Unfortunately, this isn't as black and white. She was under the influence, but she also did those things. And most importantly : she may be in recovery, but addiction can last a lifetime. This is a disease, it doesn't go away just like that. So while she might no longer be using drugs, she was still an addict. He needed to accept that if he wanted them to move forward. But instead, he was unintentionally dismissing what she was saying - something he tends to do when he gets uncomfortable. He wasn't ready to address any of that and she got frustrated, unloading on him, telling him how she used to feel this pressure to live up to his standards. So once he understood there were deeper issues in their marriage that might have contributed to her addiction, his blinders came off. He felt he was at least partially responsible for her addiction.

Now, I don't really think she was trying to blame him at first. She genuinely wanted to apologise and was not skirting responsibility, even when Tim was offering her an easy way out. This tells me that she was sincere in her approach. I also doubt she wanted to divorce him. Addicts are usually asked to refrain from making life-altering decisions like this in their first year, to avoid any major change that could trigger a relapse (and I'm glad the show didn't go there by the way). The problem was that Tim got caught off-guard. He had no idea what he was walking into and as a result, didn't have time to prepare himself. You can't force someone to talk about something so sensitive or accept your apologies. The other person has a right to know first and to choose whether they are ready to discuss this.

Like I said earlier, Isabel got frustrated when he was deflecting and she vented out. And whether that was her intent or not, she did place some of the blame for her addiction on Tim. Deserved or not. In 5.20, she implied there were things from her past she was running away from, developing unhealthy coping mechanisms in the process... So there were clearly other factors at the very least. But regardless, this whole conversation really highlighted the dissonance and the breakdown of communication in their marriage. Because he was never aware of how she felt while they were together. She never told him how she was always afraid of disappointing him. Anyhow, Tim internalised what she said and took on the blame placed on him. Hence why he decided to divorce her. If he could be a potential trigger for her, then staying married would do her more harm than good. He would always be a reminder to that low point. So he did what he thought was best for Isabel's well-being. It wasn't for him. It was for her.

(Don't you worry or apologise about your English - I'm not a native speaker either!)

[xenodile]

Do you have any more thoughts on g’raha Tia and the crystal tower, the brainwashed angle is so big brained

Thank you so much, I'm glad my theory is appreciated.

And do I EVER have more thoughts on him, I have to avoid thinking about him lest I become overwhelmed in my day to day!

One of the big things that I get hung up on is how conflicted he must feel about Allag, with all that's happened to him. The legacy of Allag saw him cast out of his birthplace, but his study of it then helped him build a new home and find a place to belong as a scholar and historian. The machinations of Allag conspired to rob him of his life, stealing away his very personhood, but then granted him the tools he needed to save not only the world but the one person he loves and admires more than any other, and a chance to see them again when all hope had seemed lost. They were a culture of decadence and cruelty, with uncountable sins that plague the people of the modern even now, yet even among the Allagans were those that were good and just, kind and hopeful, whose actions in the past would save lives thousands of years later.

There's no way to neatly fit all that into Good or Bad, especially not when he's reminded of everything they did, all they took from him, all that they gave him, every time he looks in the mirror and sees his ruby eyes. For good or ill, the legacy of Allag is a part of him, and he has to live with that.

Another thought I've had is just how he goes back to being himself after he does get brainwashed in the World of Darkness. The clones said that "the royal blood would fade in time", intending it to be a temporary measure to seal the tower, and to ensure G'raha fulfilled his purpose, yet some 400+ years later he still possesses the Royal Blood and command of the Tower as the Exarch. My theory is that the crystallization of his body is responsible. That as time went on and it became necessary to prolong his life, his flesh being turned to crystal solidified his connection to the tower in place of the Royal Blood, and as more of his body crystallized the amount of Royal Blood in his system, and by extension its influence on his mind.

Could you imagine how horrific that must have been? To be trapped in sleep within your own mind, perhaps dreaming of what your body does under the control of a manufactured personality, and when you finally begin to awake your body has been irrevocably altered, partially turned to stone and intrinsically bonded to your prison? To finally wake and regain his sense of self only to learn that the Allagan construct that controlled his body has doomed him to an even crueler fate, yet to fight it would doom everyone he loves? Is it any wonder he was resigned to death? To finally seek any kind of respite or escape from being a slave to masters that manipulated and controlled his life thousands of years after their passing? Any surprise that he was afraid to hope, knowing that even if by some miracle he escaped his crystallized body and his soul returned to the Source, it would be forced back into a vessel saturated with the Royal Blood and subject to his Allagan programming?

God I'm getting all worked up again, I feel so much about G'raha Tia.

[sora-kinomoto]

Okay. I’ve been trying to restrain myself with this one but I love my boy too much not to do it.

Danny Phantom Wandavision AU

Yes of COURSE Danny is Wanda.

It’s a Danny in a timeline where Clockwork doesn’t save his loved ones. Where Danny has to live with that grief. He’s sent off to Vlad’s but runs away when the man lets his guard down. He finds his way back to Fentonworks, where he finds a lot of the stuff inside packed up and a for sale sign out front. He wanders downstairs to see the portal is still on and the lab untouched.

It is here that he lets his powers loose. What he makes is sort of reminiscent to how Sidney’s mirror lair works, but with more control on Danny’s part and a sitcom through the ages set up. He constructs shades of his loved ones and blankets the entirety of Fentonworks. But only Fentonworks. He more or less unintentionally claims his home as his lair. And the ghosts of the zone’s appearances become significantly lessened as a result.

The show broadcasts all over Amity Park. The title is Fentonphantom. And the way it’s shown still runs with the illusion that Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom are two separate people. Still keeping the secret in the show a secret to the audience. Danny Phantom is treated as a Deus ex Machina and Danny Fenton is the main character.

The GiW come to investigate. Vlad rushes over on his own, concerned about Danny. And the Red Huntress investigates as well. Valerie and the GiW conclude, partially based on the evidence and partially via their own biases, that Phantom kidnapped Danny Fenton and is currently exploiting his recent loss to deceive him for some nefarious purpose. The Red Huntress convinces the GiW to let her go in, they agree as it will cost them less resources to allow her to do so.

So she goes in, with Vlad following behind. The two of them filling in the roles of Monica and Agatha. Valerie tries to hunt Phantom and ‘snap Danny out of it’ while Vlad slips into Danny’s lair and tries to blend in to see what he can do. While also attempting to resist getting too pulled in.

Eventually Valerie majorly slips and Danny loses his temper, revealing that he’s the one doing it but not that he’s Phantom. He doesn’t even really acknowledge Phantom while blowing up in her. He tosses her out, where she reveals to the GiW that it’s Fenton not Phantom.

The GiW also plan to gain control of Fentonworks, so as to proceed with their own plans with the Fenton’s works—like the Portal. So finding out that this is Danny’s doing only benefits them. Danny is now a danger to society and needs to be dealt with. In removing Danny, they will have the ability to take the Fenton’s inventions for the GiW. So they start sending in more agents and weapons.

When Valerie realizes they’re attacking Danny Fenton, she protests vehemently only for the GiW to ignore and talk down to her. Danny, upon being attacked and intruded upon a fair number of times, storms out and tosses everything back at them.

“This is your only warning.” Danny says to them, ignoring Val trying to get his attention.

Then he spins on his heel and returns to his home.

The GiW don’t listen to the warning and continue their maneuvers on Fentonworks. Danny extends his territory to all of Amity Park Valerie escapes with her father and half of the GiW agents get way—half getting stuck. Danny exerts his influence on all of the people he grabbed and goes back to his regularly scheduled program.

Val and the GiW all go back in when the sitcom reaches a more modern day. And eventually it is Val who talks Danny down, after he ends up revealing to her that he is also Danny Phantom. Vlad ends up being the one holding off the GiW, with some helps of Danny’s ghostly allies. Valerie convinces Danny to limit controlling his lair’s reality to Fentonworks and to undo his shades. Danny accepts this with some difficulty and lets Amity go. But doesn’t unmark Amity Park as his lair.

They kick the GiW out and Vlad buys Fentonworks and lets Danny stay there under the condition that he doesn’t lock himself up in there and visits/talks to Vlad. Valerie visits Danny often.

[lilbunchofflowers]

A letter from a Christian to Muslim women

March 7th, 2007

By Joanna Francis

Writer, Journalist – USA

Between the Israeli assault on Lebanon and the Zionist "war on terror," the Muslim world is now center stage in every American home. I see the carnage, death and destruction that have befallen Lebanon, but I also see something else: I see you. I can't help but notice that almost every woman I see is carrying a baby or has children around her. I see that though they are dressed modestly, their beauty still shines through. But it's not just outer beauty that I notice.

I also notice that I feel something strange inside me: I feel envy. I feel terrible for the horrible experiences and war crimes that the Lebanese people have suffered, being targeted by our common enemy. But I can't help but admire your strength, your beauty, your modesty, and most of all, your happiness. Yes, it's strange, but it occurred to me that even under constant bombardment, you still seemed happier than we are, because you were still living the natural lives of women. The way women have always lived since the beginning of time. It used to be that way in the West until the 1960s, when we were bombarded by the same enemy. Only we were not bombarded with actual munitions, but with subtle trickery and moral corruption.

Through Temptation

They bombarded us Americans from Hollywood, instead of from fighter jets or with our own American-made tanks. They would like to bomb you in this way too, after they've finished bombing the infrastructure of your countries. I do not want this to happen to you. You will feel degraded, just like we do. You can avoid this kind of bombing if you will kindly listen to those of us who have already suffered serious casualties from their evil influence. Because everything you see coming out of Hollywood is a pack of lies, a distortion of reality, smoke and mirrors. They present casual sex as harmless recreation because they aim to destroy the moral fabric of the societies into which they beam their poisonous programming. I beg you not to drink their poison.

There is no antidote for it once you have consumed it. You may recover partially, but you will never be the same. Better to avoid the poison altogether than to try to heal from the damage it causes. They will try to tempt you with their titillating movies and music videos, falsely portraying us American women as happy and satisfied, proud of dressing like prostitutes, and content without families. Most of us are not happy, trust me. Millions of us are on anti- depressant medication, hate our jobs, and cry at night over the men who told us they loved us, then greedily used us and walked away. They would like to destroy your families and convince you to have fewer children. They do this by presenting marriage as a form of slavery, motherhood as a curse, and being modest and pure as old-fashioned. They want you to cheapen yourself and lose your faith. They are like the Serpent tempting Eve with the apple. Don't bite.

Self-Value

I see you as precious gems, pure gold, or the "pearl of great value" spoken of in the Bible (Matthew 13: 45). All women are pearls of great value, but some of us have been deceived into doubting the value of our purity. Jesus said: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you" (Matthew 7: 6).

Our pearls are priceless, but they convince us that they're cheap. But trust me; there is no substitute for being able to look in the mirror and seeing purity, innocence and self-respect staring back at you. The fashions coming out of the Western sewer are designed to make you believe that your most valuable asset is your sexuality. But your beautiful dresses and veils are actually sexier than any Western fashion, because they cloak you in mystery and show self-respect and confidence. A woman's sexuality should be guarded from unworthy eyes, since it should be your gift to the man who loves and respects you enough to marry you. And since your men are still manly warriors, they deserve no less than your best. Our men don't even want purity anymore. They don't recognize the pearl of great value, opting for the flashy rhinestone instead.

Only to leave her too! Your most valuable assets are your inner beauty, your innocence, and everything that makes you who you are. But I notice that some Muslim women push the limit and try to be as Western as possible, even while wearing a veil (with some of their hair showing). Why imitate women who already regret, or will soon regret, their lost virtue? There is no compensation for that loss. You are flawless diamonds. Don't let them trick you into becoming rhinestones. Because everything you see in the fashion magazines and on Western television is a lie. It is Satan's trap. It is fool's gold.

A Woman's Heart

I'll let you in on a little secret, just in case you're curious: pre- marital sex is not even that great. We gave our bodies to the men we were in love with, believing that that was the way to make them love us and want to marry us, just as we had seen on television growing up. But without the security of marriage and the sure knowledge that he will always stay with us, it's not even enjoyable! That's the irony. It was just a waste. It leaves you in tears. Speaking as one woman to another, I believe that you understand that already. Because only a woman can truly understand what's in another woman's heart.

We really are all alike. Our race, religion or nationalities do not matter. A woman's heart is the same everywhere. We love. That's what we do best. We nurture our families and give comfort and strength to the men we love. But we American women have been fooled into believing that we are happiest having careers, our own homes in which to live alone, and freedom to give our love away to whomever we choose. That is not freedom. And that is not love. Only in the safe haven of marriage can a woman's body and heart be safe to love. Don't settle for anything less. It's not worth it. You won't even like it and you'll like yourself even less afterwards. Then he'll leave you.

Self-Denial

Sin never pays. It always cheats you. Even though I have reclaimed my honor, there's still no substitute for having never been dishonored in the first place. We Western women have been brainwashed into thinking that you Muslim women are oppressed. But truly, we are the ones who are oppressed; slaves to fashions that degrade us, obsessed with our weight, begging for love from men who do not want to grow up. Deep down inside, we know that we have been cheated. We secretly admire and envy you, although some of us will not admit it. Please do not look down on us or think that we like things the way they are. It's not our fault. Most of us did not have fathers to protect us when we were young because our families have been destroyed. You know who is behind this plot. Don't be fooled, my sisters. Don't let them get you too. Stay innocent and pure. We Christian women need to see what life is really supposed to be like for women. We need you to set the example for us, because we are lost. Hold onto your purity. Remember: you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. So guard your "toothpaste" carefully!

I hope you receive this advice in the spirit in which it is intended: the spirit of friendship, respect, and admiration.

From your Christian sister with love.

* This article is published with the kind permission of the author. The original can be found on Crescent and the Cross. Joanna Francis is a writer and journalist. She manages her own blog.

[freelancerwaddledee]

soooo update on the whole psychonauts self insert thing

I Have Done It (appearance and psychic specialty were influenced by my animal crossing character, Lily)

Her name is still being worked out (probably gonna be Citrine or something like that) but she’s an intern studying under Compton. She’d be in the intern group after the one we see in the second game, and her specialty once she’s a full agent would be zoolepathy!

All I have for her backstory so far is that she went to Whispering Rock Summer Camp from 7-10 years old, often gravitated towards Sasha, and had chalked those experiences up to a series of vivid dreams. Now, at 16, she’s going into the intern program partially for extra credit, partially so her parents would be appeased, and partially for the sake of updated nostalgia.

[maxwell-grant]

Odd-ish question. Imagine, if you will, that a new The Shadow film or prestige TV Series is being made. In your head, what's the trailer?

I gotta say, it was rather disheartening to learn in film school that most directors/producers/showrunners don't actually get to have much say in how their work is promoted, because, at least as far as I know, that stuff is outsourced to a separate team. I mean, I get why this happens, it's ultimately for the best, but it's still kind of a bummer to me personally since I do like making trailers and teasers (I do make my living as an editor and all).

I'm not gonna get too into what I imagine said trailer to be like, because it's one of those things I'd rather keep to myself until I get to make something of it, but I will talk a bit about how I think a marketing strategy for a new Shadow film or series could be like.

First and foremost, I think anyone who wants to tackle The Shadow, even just to promote him, has gotta understand what about the character works, what influenced his creation, what's he got that can be promoted, what can grab audiences, what can get them to stay, and so on. "Fandoms" nowadays rule the way media is consumed and sustained, and you see it especially in modern cartoons that live or die on the audience's devotion. That is one of the reasons why I made this blog, because I want the character to thrive again and I want to provide people with a catalogue of information they can dig into.

The Shadow was, for a decade and then some, arguably the biggest crimefighter of American media, figurehead of not just one but TWO mediums, and the only reason he existed at all was because Street & Smith's marketing ploy for a faceless narrator turned out far more successfully than they could have anticipated. That he's survived the total downfall of American pulps and decades of mismanaged adaptations, as still one of the most famous of all pulp heroes, is testament to how strong the original concept still is, the appeal the character held. I made this post partially to highlight that.

And first and foremost, is to build up the character. Take advantage of the fact that the general audiences only have the vaguest idea of what this guy is like, and treat him not like an old character making a comeback, but like he's about to debut for the first time. As I mentioned prior, 1930s radio audiences were enthralled by The Shadow not just because he was the most interesting part of the stories he was promoting, but because he was completely unlike every other narrator in radio at the time, a hissing disembodied voice taunting and cackling malevolently, taunting and daring you.

Think of the marketing strategy for Godzilla 1998, and the waves it made as, instead of just plastering images of the monster front and center, they built up the idea of Godzilla through ads like these, instilling in your head the concept of an unfathomably large monster trodding it's way into the city and wreaking devastation with every footstep, even if you couldn't see what it actually was. It was a particularly genius move because even at this point, most Americans had at least a slight idea of what Godzilla was, or they were at least familiar with the concept through parody or pop culture osmosis. So what the marketing did was break down and fragment the Godzilla concept, and gradually put it back together under the heads of viewers. The movie sucked, mind you, and that reinforces my point: It didn't turn a profit based on it's stellar critical reputation or a prior American following for Godzilla, it turned a profit because the marketing was that good.

Joker is another example of a movie that managed to do well by essentially "re-selling" you it's titular character and through incredible marketing. IIf the idea seemed beyond stupid and unnecessary to most people at first, the Joker trailer did such a fantastic job at selling people on the concept that it immediately turned a lot of heads around. In fact, the trailer was so good, I suspect most people who went into the movie already had made up their minds on it's contents based entirely on the trailer, but I digress.

The film dissassembled the Joker bit by bit, both in marketing as well as it's story, and gave each of it's pieces it's own story. From the laughter as a replacement for tears, to the clown paint starting off as a form of confinement until it replaces the face of the broken man within, to even elements such as the green hair, gaunt physique and fondness for colored suits, all of these got a story, all of these had a "hook", all of these were given significance separate from the history of the character as a franchise supervillain, all of these were made interesting in ways people would be interested in learning more about. Why does The Joker laugh? Why is crying? What's "Arthur" like? What's he gonna do on the show? What the hell is this film going to have to do with Batman?

It got people talking and asking questions, and that's exactly what you want your audience to do. Even for a character as old and overexposed as the Joker, the movie still succeded, at least in marketing, in presenting as if we were going to see him for the first time, to the point all the film needed to secure it's Batman connection was just the name.

And Street & Smith was doing this even back then, when they were in the middle of transitioning The Shadow from radio narrator to pulp crimefighter. They started putting out shows where The Shadow would take a more active role, they started getting him to show up in other programs, they put out this contest where they gave out small lines where The Shadow told a detail about himself, and listeners had to piece it together. The radio show was told as if The Shadow was a real, active person, and this was something carried over to the pulps. This was, mind you, before Walter Gibson got to touch the character, but it shows that right upfront, Street & Smith knew how to market this character effectively, through mystery and build-up. I think there are ways to do that nowadays even besides the usual avenue of teasers and trailers.

And if I was going to make a trailer, if I was in charge of designing a marketing strategy or video and so on for The Shadow, this is what I think needs to be emphasized.

None of the promos show his costume in full. We get glimpses of it, like a slouch hat and red scarf abandoned in the middle of a square as a public ad, intense eyes leering over an urban landscape for a poster. A popular podcast gets hijacked in the middle of an ad break for The Shadow, and they act like nothing happened. An entire teaser goes by, and in it, all you see from him in costume is a hand with a Girasol Ring. We don't know who is the actor who's gonna be playing him, we hear laughs in the ads but never a speaking voice. A different rumor is confirmed every week.

The trailers show us scenes of agents interacting, policemen looking for him, criminals hurting others only to run terrified. All sorts of cryptic remarks, or terrified statements. We get an image of Harry Vincent standing on a bridge with gloved hands holding him, and to people unfamiliar, they think The Shadow's about to throw this guy off a bridge, and the fans know better.

Some people think this is all unnecessary, I mean, they know who The Shadow is, he's a 30s radio vigilante who inspired Batman and who Alec Baldwin played once. He's got a girlfriend named Margo, he shoots people. What's the point of all this?

And then The Shadow starts to show up a bit more, and he does the things that people seem to forget he's capable of, for good and bad. And gradually, the trailers and teasers and ads start to unveil just how little general audiences really know The Shadow. And, hopefully, they start wanting to learn more.

[16woodsequ]

The Alternative Timeline; A Journey

If you don't know, I have spent the last two years writing a 2012-alternate timeline AU Marvel fanfic. (You can find it here).

It has grown way past anything that I could have ever imagined. In celebration of completing the final chapter of the fourth part, I thought I would make a post detailing this journey for anyone interested, because when I started this in 2019, I definitely did not expect to end up writing an epic of over 500,000 words.

Spoilers under the cut.

First off, I think it is important to note that before I started the first fic in this series, Alternatively, I had published a total of two (2) fics in the mcu universe. My very first Marvel fic Lessons Learned was posted January 2019. My second Marvel fic Never Again was posted March 2019. (Both of which combined have a total word count of 5,716.) And then, on May 4th, 2019, I watched Avengers: Endgame, and lost my mind.

Upon watching Endgame, I was struck immediately by the time-travel scene to 2012. The fact that 2023!Steve told 2012!Steve that Bucky was alive...and that he said 'Hail Hydra' to the STRIKE team in the elevator...never mind the fact that Loki got away with the Tesseract...

There was just so much potential there. I wanted to build an AU where Steve and Tony could be friends, and I was pumped to explore the consequences of 2023!Steve's 'Hail Hydra'. I thought this universe had the potential to right a lot of wrongs, and I just had to try it.

So first I had to start planning. This was right after Endgame was released, so there weren't a lot of posts going around about the alternate timeline. I had to come up with most of my theories and ideas myself.

Also, there were hardly any Youtube videos of the specific scenes I needed from Endgame, and there was no online script yet, because the movie was still in theatres. So I had to resort to shaky illegally filmed videos from people in theatre to get the dialogue I needed from the 2012 time-travel scene. It was a struggle. XD

Writing Alternatively

One big hurdle I had to figure out was how Steve would go undercover in Hydra. I knew I wanted him to, because that would be super interesting, and would allow him to find Bucky and take down Hydra from the inside, but I had to figure out how he convinced Hydra of his loyalty in the first place.

The path I chose (Steve claiming he is disillusioned with the modern world etc.) may seem rather obvious to the outside observer, but it might amuse you to learn I played around with the idea of Steve trying to claim he was secretly partial to Hydra even during the war. I honestly did spend a few days contemplating Steve somehow trying to say he was on Hydra's side even while he was actively fighting them. It makes me laugh to think about it now.

Obviously I went with a more believable lie, and eventually figured out everything I wanted to have happen in the story. At this point, I had no plans to write more than a single story.

Because Endgame had just come out, and I was so excited about this idea, I wanted to write it and get it out as fast as possible. For some reason I was worried that someone else would write the idea before I did. It felt like such an intriguing concept that I thought for sure other people would do it too. As such, I had several WIPs that I put on the back burner while I focused all my attention on writing Alternatively. (These WIPs still haven't been published, my writing has improved immensely over the last two years, so I think I might have to re-write them XD).

One thing that helped me a lot writing this story is I already had a lot of headcanons about the inner lives of the characters, and I was desperate for somewhere to put them. I hadn't had a chance yet to really write about Steve's PTSD, so that became a major theme in the story that helped push it along.

Alternatively was the longest story I had ever written when I first got started. Before writing Alternatively, the longest (published) word count I had was 7,544. And, I had only published one (1) multi-chapter fic, that had three chapters, and 4,621 words.

Looking at that, I doubt anyone could have imagined what I was about to undertake. Not even myself. But I really really wanted to write the story, so I ran with it.

I decided that I was going to write all the chapters first, before I published it. This is what I had been doing with my WIPs anyway (and I'm glad I did, or those things wouldn't have been updated for like, two years). I will admit that once I got to chapter 10 of Alternatively I was really tempted to just start posting it, because I was so excited and really wanted to start sharing it.

I managed to restrain myself though. It took my four months to write all twenty chapters of Alternatively. It was a frustrating process at times, because I had an idea in my head of what I wanted, but I felt like my writing skills were not on par with that ideal. I wanted this fic to be good, and it was hard to get it to where I wanted it. This got easier over time though, because one thing a project like this does is give you writing practice.

At the time, I didn't even have my own laptop, so I was writing on school computers, or my family computer. (I got a laptop once I started The Alternate Handler though, this story is actually part of what pushed me to get a laptop in the first place.)

Finally, I finished the last chapter, and I edited it for the final time, and then, on August 29th, 2019, I published the first chapter.

I was amazed at the response I received. Before this I had only written twelve stories, most of them oneshots. I'm not saying my story went viral or anything, but I got a lot more feedback than I was used to. This was super awesome, and made me even more excited to share what I had written.

Even as I was posting Alternatively, I didn't really expect to write any more in this universe. Except...there was so much about Bucky in this story that the reader didn't get to see. I knew all about it because I had to know what was going on in his head while Steve did his thing, but the readers wouldn't know more than Steve knew.

And so, as I posted Alternatively, a very determined plot-bunny began to work away at my brain. I actually gave into it at one point and wrote a little bit of what would become The Alternate Handler, but I stopped after the first four chapters for a while.

Fun fact: The first four chapters I wrote are actually the first two chapters of The Alternate Handler. Each chapter was only about 2,000 words long, so when I started writing the story in earnest, I combined the first four chapters into two.

I don't remember what exactly was the trigger that made me really want to write Bucky's side of things, but around the time that I posted chapter 10 of Alternatively, I started getting the same insane urge that had pushed me to write Alternatively in the first place, and I decided to go for a sequel.

Writing The Alternate Handler

I started posting this story Jan 2020.

I was excited to write this story, because of how interesting Bucky's thoughts were, but part of me was a little nervous that people would not be interested in reading the same fic from another pov. I knew it would be interesting, but I wasn't sure if people would give it a shot.

I decided to go for it anyways. I was pretty amazed at myself because I had just written something that was 100,000 words long, and people seemed to be liking it. (Of course, I never could have imagined that The Alternate Handler would double that. I definitely expected it to be about 20 chapters long like the first one.)

I decided that I wanted to get as much of The Alternate Handler finished before I finished posted Alternatively as I could, so that I could started posting The Alternate Handler right away. I felt that the best way to keep a steady readership was to make sure they could follow the next story right away.

That meant that I had only about 10 weeks to write as many chapters as I could. For all my stories, I had an outline of basic plot points, so I could keep track of everything I wanted to have happen. It was helpful, but also did not anticipate the scope of what would happen.

I had a general idea of what would happen, and I had vague ideas of scenes I wanted, but none of it was nailed down. As I wrote it felt like I was walking forward a few steps to illuminate the path I needed, and then snagging the right plot points out of the air.

Bucky's mindset also took some work to figure out. How do you write from the pov of someone who barely remembers anything? Does he know how to use metaphors? Does he know what a microwave is? How dependent is he? The first few chapters where Bucky is deep in his Winter Soldier programming took a lot of thought.

One of the fun things about writing this story was that I got to dive deeper into my headcanons of exactly how Hydra brainwashed Bucky. Before this I had some vague scenes and ideas, but this story really forced me to come up with a coherent timeline for Bucky's experience under Hydra, which is pretty cool. Once I had that, I could decide how and when I would reveal the pieces throughout the story.

Anyway, I managed to write 12 chapters of The Alternate Handler before I finished posting Alternatively. (Which is super impressive.) And somehow I managed to keep ahead of my posting schedule for twenty-eight more chapters.

I honestly can't believe it sometimes. I actually wrote a 40 chapter fic, and posted once a week for forty weeks, with only a head-start of 12 chapters. (And at the same time, I was like, finishing university and working. So no, I don't know how I survived.)

Reader influences: Unlike Alternatively, where I had everything written ahead of time, this story was still being written as I was posting, so the readership did have some influence on what I put out, which you may find interesting.

Bucky's arm: When I first started writing, I didn't have a concrete plan to replace Bucky's metal arm with something better. That may be a shocker, but that arc starts happening way later on into the story (around chap 32). Because of how long and intricate the plot and story is, there is simply no way I could plan every detail when I first got started. I didn't start offcially planning to have an arc around his arm until a reader mentioned in a comment that they hoped it would happen. (And I was like, 'oh yeah, that should definitely happen...eventually.' And made a note to work it in when it became appropriate.) The comment happened pretty early on in the story, so it was easy for me to start laying down the foundation for that arc.

Bucky's arm part two: Another thing a reader had a direct influence is the blue star Bucky has on his new arm. Originally I wasn't planning to have a star at all. I was going to have Bucky decide he didn't want one. But then I had a reader request that I keep the star, and I decided that keeping it would not upset any character development. I had already set up blue as an important colour in the story, so I decided to change Bucky's decision and have him request a blue star. I like it. It is a clear symbol of this Bucky, versus any other Bucky.

Surprises

One thing that surprised me while writing and posting this story, is the readership prediction for Bucky's choice of whether or not to fight. I posted a chapter that focused on Bucky watching himself react to being drafted, and then remembering himself choosing to follow Steve, and then cliffhangered on him having to decide if he wanted to join the Avengers.

I asked something in the author's notes about 'what do you think he will do?', and a surprising amount of people (to me anyways) thought that he would chose to fight. I had always planned to have Bucky retire from fighting, so I was a little shocked. I thought with a whole chapter about Bucky learning he never really wanted to fight at all, that people would think he would want to take a break.

I think the consensus came from the desire to see Bucky and Steve fight together like old times. I think Bucky joining Steve on missions is a common indication of him overcoming his past and avenging/revenging on Hydra, so in the end I am not surprised that a lot of people might expect that to happen.

Because of that response I was a little nervous people wouldn't be happy with Bucky's choice, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Bucky's arc and choosing not to fight is really important, and I think everyone is happy with how it went.

It took ten months to post all of The Alternate Handler. As I was writing, I was not planning to write anymore. I was mostly focused on finishing the story, and didn't expect to write a third part...

But, my traitorous mind whispered, this universe could fix everything. We can make Civil War less painful. We can keep them from fighting. We can do it properly.

To be honest, it didn't take a lot of convincing for me to give in and start planning An Alternate Approach.

Writing An Alternate Approach

I started posting this story Oct. 2020.

I started planning this with a lot of time to spare. I still had most of The Alternate Handler to write and finish posting when I decided to go for this fic too.

Some challenges were that I wanted to show the Avengers going through the same things as the original Avengers, but doing it better. I had already gotten rid of the Winter Soldier problem, and Tony knew about his parents, so we didn't have to deal with any of that, but I still wanted to do the UN bombing and that drama, because T'Chaka's death is very important to T'Challa's and Wakanda's development, so I felt it still needed to happen.

Of course...I had nipped Ultron in the bud, meaning Sokovia wasn't destroyed, and Zemo had no reason to go after Bucky.

Thankfully, I came up with the idea of having Rumlow do it in time to foreshadow it a little in The Alternate Handler (the fact that they never find him, even though they know he is out there etc.)

Like last time, I wanted to post The Alternate Approach as soon as I finished The Alternate Handler. It was a bit of a crunch time for me, but I managed to get all eight chapters finished in time. I basically finished writing The Alternate Handler and immediately started writing An Alternate Approach. I finished The Alternate Handler August 1st, and finished the last chapter of The Alternate Approach September 10th.

Originally I was expecting An Alternate Approach to be a bit longer, but things happened quicker than I thought they would.

A challenge for this story is that most of it happens during a movie. There was a lot of original stuff happening and interesting inner thoughts, but I was restricted in what I could do because of the script I still had to refer to. Also because this story was only eight chapters long, I didn't have as much space to work through character development.

Reader influences: Like with Alternatively, I managed to finish the story before I posted it, but the readers did have a little influence on the content.

Mostly it had to do with their reaction to Everette Ross. I think a challenge with this story is there is Everette Ross, and there is Thaddeus Ross. Thaddeus Ross is much worse than Everette Ross, but I think the readers mixed the two up sometimes because they share the same last name.

To top it off, I wanted to show Everette Ross' character arc a little, because he obviously changes from Civil War to Black Panther. There wasn't a lot of space to show the glimpse of his character and how he could be better than he seems. The readership really hated him at times, so I did edit his lines and facial expressions a little to try to make it clear that he thinks differently than Thaddeus Ross.

Actually, in chapter five, Steve has a nightmare about Hydra trying to wipe Bucky and trapping Steve in the SSR capsule he got the serum in. Originally, I was going to have the main villain in the dream be Thaddeus Ross, to symbolise how Steve was uneasy around him, and how Ross thought of Bucky. But the readership was already literally out for Ross' blood, and suspected him to be Hydra (which was not canon in the story). They really wanted something bad to happen to Ross, but I knew that wouldn't happen, so I decided to change Ross to Rumlow in the dream. This helped foreshadow Rumlow's later involvement, and it also didn't give the reader any more reasons to hate or suspect Ross.

If I were to write this again, I think I would try to make it more clear which Ross it which, since I think the same last names really didn't help the situation.

Writing The Alternate End

I started posting this story Nov 2020.

For a long time, I never intended to write The Alternate End. I had The Alternate Approach all planned out, but I was adamant that this time, I was 100% not going to write any more.

This not because I didn't like the series. I loved it, and my readers loved it too. But at the time, I hadn't finished The Alternate Handler yet, and I hadn't even started The Alternate Approach.

The thought of trying to write an Endgame fic felt a little overwhelming. I was worried I would run out of momentum at some point, and I would leave my readers hanging. I had been writing and posting a chapter a week for over a year at that point, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep it up for as long as I needed.

While I was trying to dodge plot-bunnies, I tried to convince myself that an Endgame fic wouldn't be interesting. I figured it would be just the same as any other Endgame fix-it fic. I was truly convinced that the readers would be satisfied by me bringing them all the way to Civil War, and then just, ending it there.

It makes me laugh to think about it now. I really thought I could just be like "The End! I'm sure you can imagine the rest" XD.

And then I was at work one day, thinking about the next chapter of The Alternate Handler, and thinking of how much I still had to write, including The Alternate Approach...and thinking pointedly that I was not going to write an Endgame fic...and then my traitorous brain decided to speak up again.

I had exactly two (2) thoughts that were my downfall. First my brain was like: What if we wrote it from Tony's pov? We've never written it from Tony's pov before.

And plot-bunny-brain was like "ooooh". But I was like, "No! It will still be a normal Endgame fix-it fic. People can read other fix-it fics if they want to know what happens."

And then my brain was like, What about the fact that they know about the time-travellers? What if they decide to leave a message about Thanos when they time-travel?

It makes me laugh to think that the simple warning message that Tony gives his alternate-self is the spark that got this story going. Once I started writing it, that scene was not what I looked forward to the most. But at the time, knowing about the time-travellers, and leaving a message behind was something completely unique to my AU, and so that is what I needed to jumpstart my desire to write this story.

As soon as I had those two thoughts, I knew I was done for. I actually stopped dead at work and stared ahead in betrayal and amusement. I was like, 'I really am going to write this, aren't I? I haven't even finished The Alternate Handler, but I'm going to plan out two whole stories to write after this, aren't I?'

And I did. I finished The Alternate Handler in the summer. Because I was already planning to write two more parts, I was able to set up some of what I needed for those parts in The Alternate Handler. (Such as Clint's family and Scott's introduction.)

I started writing The Alternate Approach as quickly as I could. I knew I only had a short window before school started again, and I wanted to get to The Alternate End as soon as possible so that I could get ahead on that.

Once I started posting The Alternate Approach, I had about eight weeks to write as many chapters of The Alternate End as I could. In the end, I managed to write ten chapters ahead of time, and I somehow managed to keep that lead for the rest of the twenty or so chapters.

I was a bit nervous about this fic, because it followed the movies for a while. I tried to keep at least one original scene in each chapter, and I thought Tony's pov was interesting, but I knew I wanted the Snap to happen. I also knew we had to start at the beginning of Infinity War, because we needed those scenes to establish character development and such.

Writing Tony was also its own challenge. Tony had already had a lot of character development, but we didn't see his side of it. He was in a better place than mcu!Tony, but I still needed him to be able to improve. It was a tricky balance trying to show the results of the character development he'd been having for three stories, while also making room for more.

Another thing about writing Tony is he has a lot more relationship dynamics to work with. In Steve's stories, his relationship dynamics are mostly between Bucky and Tony, and in Bucky's story the dynamics are mostly between him and Steve, and then eventually him and Tony, with a few snapshots of the other Avengers and his sister.

Tony has dynamics with Steve and Bucky, Rhodey, Pepper, and Peter. Plus any other Avengers who happen to be there. And then, Nebula and his relationship became unexpectedly important. It was a challenge to balance the relationships. I wanted to show Steve and Tony, because we had been watching it grow for ages now, but I also wanted to establish his relationship with Pepper, something we had only barely caught a glimpse of before.

On a different note, one thing I cursed Endgame for all the time was the sheer number of characters it has. In scenes with the whole cast I could be juggling 15-20 characters! It was a lot!

It took a lot of work, but I managed to finish The Alternate End three chapters ahead of time. It was a relief to finish, and I was excited for the approaching time I could start posting the oneshots I had planned for this universe.

Writing Alternative Options

I started posting this story May 2021.

I'm not sure exactly when I first got the idea to write oneshots within this universe. I think I had some readers suggest oneshots of different character's povs, and at that point I didn't even try to resist the plot-bunnies. I was just like, "why not?"

I had one reader request an alternate scene to chapter 10 of Alternatively waaaay back at the beginning of this adventure. It intrigued me, so I wrote it and shared it with them privately. I also had a scene I had to take out chapter 35 of The Alternate Handler, so since I already had those two documents sitting on my computer, it was nice to come up with somewhere to share them with everyone.

Also, like Bucky's pov in The Alternate Handler, I had a lot of extra content in my head of other character's motivations and povs that don't get spotlighted in the other stories. It's all in my head anyways, I might as well share it somewhere.

I wrote the first eight or so oneshots of Alternative Options whenever I felt particularly inspired. I wrote the very first chapter back in February 2021, but I actually wrote the second chapter way back in August 2020 (same with the onshot A Change in Protocol.) I rearranged the first eight chapters into what I thought would flow best.

Writing the oneshots was sometimes a nice break from my main project. I think the oneshots are a nice way to end off too, because there is less pressure on them. The story is done now, I can write and post the oneshots whenever I feel like it, but readers will always have a complete story to go back to.

Unexpected Things

Everything about this series was unexpected (even if most of the plot was pretty scripted), but some things still amuse me. As I got deeper into this universe, I was surprised at the amount of people who were concerned I would kill characters or end things angstily.

I remember when I announced I would be writing a Civil War inspired fic, many people were concerned that Steve and Tony would fight like they did in the movie. It didn't even occur to me to reassure people that this wouldn't happen, because it seemed so impossible to me.

To me it was obvious that I had fixed so many things already in this universe. It seemed so straightforward to me that certain things simply could not happen. (Of course, it would always seem obvious to the author.)

I think people were a lot more nervous for my Civil War story than I intended them to be.

And then, when we got to Endgame, people surprised me by hoping I wouldn't do the Snap at all. It had not occurred to me that people would hope that. I felt the Snap needed to happen. If it didn't happen, then we couldn't see any of the other painful things be fixed.

Then, people surprised me again because they were very worried that I would kill Tony and Natasha. I had basically spent the last two years writing a 500,000 word mcu fix-it series. I wasn't about to kill Tony and Natasha at the end.

Still, I am very good at pulling on angsty heartstrings, so I can see why people were concerned.

(That is another thing I did not expect, the amount of people who told my I made them cry with my writing. It touches me every time it happens.)

Take Away

If you made it to the end of this long post, congratulations!

What will I take away from this amazing experience? Well, first off, not to be intimidated by long story ideas. I probably wouldn't have written this if I had conceived how long it would be. Lucky for us, I dived head-first into this, and just kept swimming.

Another thing that I think is important, is you don't have to be a super experienced writer to write big things. I had written nothing even close to this when I started. And my writing improved a lot during this journey.

I think looking at the finished product it is easy to think that I am just naturally an awesome author, but two years ago that wouldn't have been the case. Don't be intimidated by the finished products of authors. That is the culmination of hours of work, and it does not mean you can't do the same thing if you feel a similarly insistent plot-bunny.

Finally, I would like to thank all my readers! If you've been around since I first started posting, then that is 94 weeks (plus whatever Alternative Options turns out to be) of reading a chapter a week from me! That is amazing!

If you joined later along the ride, that is just as awesome! Thank you for plunging into such a long series!

If you have any questions or want to chat with me about plot choices I made, or my thoughts behind certain scenes—or anything really—feel free!

I hope you enjoyed! :D

Tl;dr:

I never planned to write any of the stories after Alternatively, until about halfway through posting the preceding stories. Plot bunnies are really insistent, and I had stuff planned in the background anyways, so I had to share it. By the time I was about halfway through The Alternate Handler I had accepted that I was going to write two more stories in the universe.

It was a lot of work, and I had never written anything anywhere close to this giant project. It was a lot of fun though, and I'm glad I did it.

[tempoaryblogformightyjensblog]

After a Longass time, I'm gonna make a response post to a post from @itsclydebitches. Not sure if I'll acknowledge All

Of it, but still..

1.Thats, the opposite of what the First episode shows, the first episode shows that the Military presence in Mantle dosent really do anything to actually help them with the Grimm. With it even being joked about as usual for the Military by Nora. The next episode also states that wasn't even the reason James had for it. It was to handle the 'eventual' Panick.

2.This and the recurring point of this later on is something I kinda want to address, because it's sort of what I was trying to say in My ask but I should go into more detail.

The point is basically that If James was shady for what he did, then So is Ruby for being willing to work with him for that long...I kinda want to mix this with a different Criticism I heard. That Ruby not trusting Ironwood was horrible and ungrateful because of all the good stuff James had done and how sympathetic and well meaning he was. The issue is that they are both 2 halves of the picture that ignore the other half, wich was what the heroes actual response was.

Him being sympathetic, clearly just trying to help and all the Good stuff he was doing is why they are willing to work with him and help with things. But Ruby didn't like his shadier actions either, wich is why she didn't trust him completely. And also? ""Nora dosent agree...But Ruby, the leader, does. She pushed Ironwood to finish Amity somwhow", that....isnt What happens, we see After Nora yells at James, ruby walks up to him and tells him more calmly that his actions, his management of Mantle and such were only helping Salem and it's what was making it easy for Salem to frame him. And earlier on we saw her with the other protags suggest working with Robyn. That's not 'Reaping the benefits of his actions even if they don't like them', that's not liking some of his actions but still trying to Understand him, and hope to reason or talk him down. Basically...Well it's a display that the other charachterization for Ruby, that she was a judgmental child who considered anyone who went beyond her standard of perfection to be Evil, isn't true. She tries to help and Understand James because she knows despite his flaws he is trying to do good, she tries to reach out to him and get him to see his actions were flawed.

Hell, the Jobs they were actually given were jobs where they could actually help soften the consequences of James actions, like Ren and Nora guarding the wall. the Robyn thing was a direct display that they weren't just doing anything James asked or were perfectly fine with his morally ambiguous actions. When ordered to attack a Huntress who was just trying to help, they instead went against his orders and even tried to actually fix things in a better way.

3.This is a few different issues, I'll start by saying that, that wasn't Ozpins problem in the Previous Volume, Some fans and some of the Heroes in there Angrier times think that, But the big thing was basically that Ozpin wasn't trusting anyone With that Info, that's what separates it from Rubies situation with James, Ruby wasn't trusting James because he actually did have many traits that made him look untrustworthy. And...well Finishing Amity and the plan is not pointless even with Salems immorality. Ruby dosent 'Know' That her being immortal means that the whole plan is pointless for 2 reasons, 1 is that she never had the mindset that it made it all pointless, she was actually distinctly against that when the others thought that under the Apathies influence, and makes her stance clear later, that Salem being Unkillable doesn't mean she's unstoppable. And 2, she dosent 'Know' that because....Its not true. Even if they can't directly kill her like James is planning...Were explicitly, directly told in Salems first actual appearance in the show that Humanity United was a threat and that was why she was going to ensure she divided them. Not to mention that...It isn't even all about the plan? It's made clear that global communications being down was a really bad thing and fixing that alone would help.

4.Im just gonna address one point here...It was not 'The Majority of Mantle' Being taken, were told that they were not even close to being done evacuating.

5.Basically what I said at 2, But to also state, James wasn't an Unambiguous Bad guy in Volume 7, He was in the Wrong In Volume 7, but he wasn't meant to be a Villain yet. The point of James charachter is basically he's someone who meant well but was highly flawed and made bad decisions, and instead of growing from his mistakes, he doubled down on them and let his flaws consume him. I'll get to it more later, but, that doesn't mean he was always evil or meant to be, Also...Jaunes license was given to him by James but, he was not part of the Military being fused with Huntsman, especially by this point. And with Winters words in her and James fight, I have my own issues with that fight or Winters Arc, but I don't think that point holds up either because we weren't meant to see Winter as unambiguously a good guy in Volume 7. Her words in there fight was after she had changed, that dosent mean we're supposed to believe she was a hero while working under James. It just means her POV changed after leaving him, now she wasn't following her programming of being blindly obedient anymore. Penny called out Winter for her being willing to follow through with euthanizing the Winter Maiden, Marrow calls her out in Volume 8 asking the Weiss question.

6.Well, to answer the questions there, were told in episode 5 what the recources were. Clover says how they were taking 'Construction resources', were told this again by Penny in the Car ride, wich makes total sense. They are changing Amity so that it could serve as a shuttle, so needing Construction stuff makes sense. While we may not be told how much power James had explicitly, they do give us a decent idea, that he had way more then he should. It's said in the Council meeting that they set in Checks and balances to keep him from overstepping with his seats, and that he basically just Ignored them to pull the actions he did in Volume 7. And Watts gives us both one Major decision that shows James flaws and gives a Clue as to part of the reasons Mantle was crappy as it was, saying how James updated most of the code in Atlas after the fall of Beacon, but 'As Usual' None was updated in Mantle. Aside from showing a...Truly Spectacularly callous move on James part, it also gives a big clue as to part of the reason Mantle is as crappy as it is, That Atlas and James basically treat Mantle like an afterthought and neglects changing things there to make things better, resulting in the City's state that we see. And, I imagine that being surveillanced and patrolled almost constantly wouldn't be ideal, and it's established by Winters line in that first episode that not cooperating with Personal was a punishable offense. I think you also....Picked a really bad example with Rhodes, if anything, Rhodes is probably a perfect demonstration of why being complacent or loyal to a system is bad for Huntsmen. I think if he would have loved to help Cinder more, it's just that he was loyal to the System and wasn't doing anything to upset the status quo despite knowing it was wrong. If issues like that existed, then it makes James specialist program, wich is specifically supposed to be Huntsmen trained to be loyal to the system, an even worse idea. Also I sort of feel like the bits at the end are sort of a false equivalency. I explained Ozpin amd Rhodes but also...Well for one, while we don't see portals line up in those specific areas, the plan was to have Jaune explain what was going on with everyone. And Qrow, Marrow and Robyn were still taking in the other Ace ops,they knew the plan so they would likely just head over to the nearest portal after, and...Maria and Pietro weren't there. And in James case, it wasn't just him 'saving who he could', it's that he could have tried to do more but didn't because he didn't want to risk it, and as Volume 8 showed, they really did have lots of time to evacuate people and could have found a way to Launch Amity. And...Well in his case there's the little fact that, as his Convo with Oscar makes explicit, James plan involved leaving the rest of Mankind To the dust and at Salems mercy.

There are problems with RWBY, but I don't think it's shoddily written, partially because I don't really find it 'particularly' flawed and think the good far outweighs the bad. And you know what? To some degree, I agree. I do think there's a weird bias towards authority in the FNDM, but maybe alot of fans are too dismissive of criticism, I do think to some degree we should acknowledge the RWDE and such aren't all right wingers and there's now a Vocal part of it that are on the left or members of minority groups. I don't agree with a ton of the things they say, and think most of it dosent hold up, but instead of just dismissing, perhaps it's better to look at things in detail and give proper arguments agaisnt them. So I won't treat you like an idiot, I'm going to give a full rundown on why I don't feel like it holds up under analytical scrutiny.

For one, while it doesn't have those specific issues like in the real world, I don't agree with this Criticism because I feel it is the one that sort of ignores the worldbuilding and what's been shown or said about the Military and the world itself and not the show, It sort of feels like people just bring up the basic concepts that would seem reasonable and ignore how the show executes certain things. For one, the military was a leftover from a time when they were meant to fight against other humans, It was something an Authoritarian state held over after its defeat and reformation, James and the Military helped Jac as he turned the SDC into the horrific corporate empire it is, Covordin shows that Nationalism is indeed a bit thing and that there were high ranking officers who were fully comfortable with the possiblity of just waging war on the other Kingdoms again. And then there's the specialist program, I've seen people sort of distill it to its very basics to make it seem more reasonable, describing it as just stuff like Huntsmen having rules and such, when the show displays it being way more screwed up then that. It literally involves indoctrinating people as students, were shown Elm reprimand the protagonists saying how they don't need to think about Orders just follow them. As both Volumes show, the culture of the program is deeply screwed up and unhealthy for them, were shown how they taught stuff like repressing your emotions and how deeply unhealthy it is for them.

And...Furthermore? If we're judging by how things are In Universe with the show the world built...James way of doing things is, completely absurd. I already dislike Cynical 'This is the REAL world 'Types IRL. But....In the world James is in, his strategy is just....

He lives in a world where negativity causes monster attacks and the villains whole Shtick is manipulating narratives to cause disarray and ensuring people stay divided. James strategy involved closing off Atlas from the rest of Remnant after they were framed for causing the Fall of Beacon, never bothering to clear there name when sleet and Camilla say he could easily do so, he dismisses both his image across the Globe and in Atlas, and dismisses what the people of Mantle want and the stuff his actions currently cause, all as Neccesary sacrifices when that's all completely insane and Relies on basically ignoring absolutely everything about the situation they are in and how there enemy works, wich again, Ruby points out, that he was actively playing into Salems hands and making it easier for her.

I think it's a decent display of the Tunnel Vision James has, he's prepared for the negativity of the END result of his plan and made preparations for it, but he...Basically ignores the consequences his actions are having right now and how that will affect his ends.

Overall...I think the issue is that James is not meant to be the Bad guy through Volume 7, and I feel like its not that the show 'contradicts' it's pure black and white take on things, it's just that it wasn't there to begin with. Whenever a Major flaw Ironwood had from the start is brought up, it's claimed that it means he was supposed to be 'Always evil'(admitedly some fans as well), when it dosent, it just means his flaws and darker aspects were always there and he didn't jump off the slippery slope instantly like some claim.

Were meant to sympathize with James, understand him, ECT. We're meant to want to see him get better, to be escatic when he does almost get better.

Overall, I don't agree with the idea that James was a reasonable charachter who was bastardized, the show set him up as flawed pretty well already, he's sympathetic because he's designed to be sympathetic. He's not potrayed as a Villain through 7 because he wasn't meant to be til the end.

Also...Well, even if you still felt that him 'Just' abandoning Mantle was still just morally gray...That isn't dropped in V8, it's bascially dropped not 2 episodes later. Where not only does he shoot Oscar but Oscar pointed out not only was he abandoning Mantle, but abandoning the rest of Mankind. Wich James just responds calling it an 'excellant philosophical point'.

[spookyc]

Thank YOU for answering! And omg is there more than one mastermind? Spill the tea! ❤

There sure is! Okay, so initially I planned on just Kiibo being the mastermind, as opposite to kokichi, he takes his position as ultimate supreme leader very seriously and so no one takes him seriously in turn. This results in the twist being that he actually did genuinely mean everything he said and was in fact the villain he portrayed himself to be. And while I liked this idea, I didn't think it was enough, I mean, "the bad guy was actually a bad guy" isn't really that fulfilling by itself. But then I had the idea of having two masterminds and suddenly things became interesting. But enough background, let's get into it.

So, the two masterminds we have in this au are Kiibo and Miu, and their partnership was formed during the killing game, or rather, right before. Orginally, Kiibo had no intention of seeking help from his fellow classmates as he simply saw them as subjects under his control. Or, you could even say he them as machines under his control. And the most dangerous of these machines was Miu, because she's the ultimate survivor in this au. Kiibo knew he wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible due to her unfair advantages and inconvenient talent.

He planned to have her killed until an idea suddenly occurred to him. Why get rid of the threat when you can use it to your advantage? He saw how frantic Miu was about not knowing her talent, and so he formed a plan. He asked to meet her in the library and once she arrived, he told her he knew where she would be able to find about her talent. When she asked where, he revealed the hidden door and used his card to enter the room inside. Then he beckoned her inside and closed the door behind her and revealed his true identity as the mastermind of this killing game.

When she inevitably didn't believe him, he referred back to the idea that the mastermind must have a machine that can create Monokuma and reveals Motherkuma. He then tells Motherkuma to "birth a Monokuma" and Motherkuma creates a new Monokuma on the spot. After witnessing this, Miu replies saying, "how fucking typical" this is and asks Kiibo if he intends to kill her now that she, "knows too much." Kiibo is of course offended by this notion and he corrects her saying that he has no intentions of harming her, as long as she listens to what he has to say. Miu rolls her eyes but reluctantly hears him out. Kiibo goes on to explain that he will do his best to uncover the secret of her talent as long as she helps him run the killing game.

He states that he cannot reveal her talent outright because he himself does not know everything it entails and wishes to properly inform Miu when he has figured it out. He also adds that agreeing to this deal will guarantee her survival in the long run. Now, I know this may seem like a one-sided deal on Kiibo's part, and while partially it is, you have to think about this through Miu's perspective. See, Miu is far more antsy about learning her talent than Rantaro was. Because of her inquisitive mind, she can't stand not knowing something, even more so when it's concerning herself. Secondly, I think that Miu might fear that her forgetting her talent had to do with her accident that landed her in a coma.

She might think that she's relapsing and so she's desperate for any clues towards her missing talent. Also, as much as I love Miu, she's kinda selfish, no, more like really selfish. Yeah a lot of things that Miu did in the canon ended up helping others, but she did all of those things out of her own self interest. So, while Miu isn't cool with killing people, it's a necessary evil so that she can discover her talent. And this deal will also ensure that she doesn't die before she's able to find it out. So, she agrees and this is how the two masterminds are established.

Kiibo then tells her everything, the truth of the outside world, his plans for the killing game, etc. He also allows her access to Motherkuma and the creation of Monokumas. From here on, the two work together to monitor the students and to subtly influence the killing game. Or well, Miu does at least. Kiibo leaves most of the technical work to Miu, monitoring the students, asking Motherkuma for security footage, directing Monokuma and the Monokubs according to Kiibo's instruction, and distributing the flashback lights. Kiibo is too preoccupied with his image around the other students to be bothered to do any of the work himself. And while Miu despises having to do all of Kiibo's dirty work, she finds her own enjoyment in her work.

Often times she'll program Monokuma and the Monokub's AI to say something crude, or she'll place one of the flashback lights in a particular obscure place. But regardless of her own enjoyment, if doing this will help her grow closer towards finding her talent, she'll put up with it, if being very snarky about it. She deals with this corrupt bargain for 2 chapters without much complaint, but after the third she goes impatient and begins to doubt if Kiibo intends to keep his end of the deal. When she confronts him about this, he tells her he's working as hard as he can but that the only thing he knows is that her research lab is located on the 5th floor. Miu did not know of the research lab as Kiibo hid the survivor perk from her. Miu grumbles about the lack of info and contradictory story, but after pondering the information about the 5th floor, she starts to conceive a plan.

After the 4th chapter, when Kiibo tells the class about the truth of the outside world, he demands that Miu come up with a way to reinvigorate the killing game. Miu says that she will, as long as Kiibo tells her what her talent is. When he refuses, she tells him that she can summon as many Monokuma as she wants. He argues that he can do the same, and that's when Miu pulls a knife she had hidden under her clothing. She points it towards Kiibo with a smug grin on her face. She says that he is free to try, but that ultimately he will still be outnumbered 2:1.

Realizing that he no longer has a choice in this matter, he finally reveals that Miu is the ultimate survivor. When she asks him what that means, he gives her the key, the survivor perk, and the usb port to her research lab and tells her she can learn more there. She thanks him, and extends a hand saying that she'll take care of the killing game issue as soon as possible. With his signature naivety, he takes her hand and she pulls him close, plunging the knife into his stomach. As he gasps in pain and grasps onto her, she gets close to his ear and says, "How's that for starting up the killing game?"

And she gives a extra twist in his stomach for measure before she retrieves her knife and leaves him to bleed out on the ground. And so the power becomes transferred to Miu, making her the new singular mastermind.

Now I'd love to get more into Miu's character and what she does from here on out but I'll save that for a Miu specific post. Had a lot of fun with this one, especially because it's one of my bigger divergences from canon and I'm quite happy with it. Anyways, thanks for the ask!

[redantsunderneath]

I’ve Never Seen David Lynch and George Lucas in the Same Room at the Same Time…

The thematic parallels between David Lynch and George Lucas are something I keep coming back to again and again, but their careers and evolution have a lot of overlap too.  They were born in the earliest Boomer cohort (George Lucas in May 1944, David Lynch January 1946) and had experiences growing up that were colored by the idyllic 1950s, but shifted into a distrust of authority structures that was common for many of their age cohort in the 1960s. They both came of age wanting to do something physical with her hands that felt creative to them in large grimy spaces - fixing cars for Lucas, and painting and installations with a fascination with organic materials, industrial metal, and rot for Lynch. They both fell into film because they were looking for something that satisfied their artistic bent (although film was never a primary aspect of her life to that point).  They wound up making a handful of short films over a 3 year period, culminating in a longer short-film that would eventually get them noticed at roughly the same age (Electric Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB [1967] and the Grandmother [1970] for Lynch).

These films netted both of them a patron (Francis Ford Coppola for Lucas, the American Film Institute for Lynch) and started filming their first feature-length film two years after those films.  They both got their biggest name recognition bump by films released in 1977 and pulled away from the power of the studio system in roughly 1984. Famously, Lucas offered Lynch a chance to direct what would become Return of the Jedi in about 1981 ( I prefer the story where Lucas does this by picking him up in a Lamborghini - I’ve heard a phone call version too, but it’s not as perfect) and Lynch answered something like “it’s your movie George, you direct it.” They both spent the mid 80s in movie jail, and although they took very different paths in general after (I’ve been emphasizing the similarities) there are still things that jibe in the history - they both reminded people of what they liked about them with a late 80s movie, spent a lot of the 90s on TV projects, did one project around classic radio, returned to theatrical notice around the millennium, all the while generally keeping their own council and disappointing a lot of fans.

There’s obviously a world of difference. Lucas is a left brained technologist who equated freedom with an owning of the means of production.  Lynch is it right brained impressionist seeing freedom-as no one ever being able to tell you what to do, acting as a solo artist with collaborators who merge with his sensibilities.  Lynch is a production lone wolf, depending mostly on people believing in him and funding him, and losing out in the popular consciousness by making uncompromising art that may not be what the audience wants, meaning funding is sometimes hard to come by. Lucas is like the Democratic party controlling the Congress and presidency - having total power but unable to turn that into what he really wants to make, somehow. The idea of Lynch selling his body of work to Disney is absurd.

But the correspondences in this are telling and help to explain the thematic similarities and divergences.  Plus, the differences often relate to the similarities - Lucas identifies with corrupted controlling paternalistic power as a horror of inevitable capture of the individual by larger structures, while Lynch sees the corrupted masculine influence as an archetype, the call coming from inside the house, agency coopted by a collective taint in the universal pattern .  But on some level these are the same thing - what is this person I am capable of becoming seeing as I am in control but yet not, doing horrific things?  Lucas’ constant commentary on slavery is about hegemony and a systemic oppression he is complicit in, while Lynch has whole pantheons of beings that turn people into vessels that oblate the self and make them act on subconscious programming.  Neither probably think the word neoliberalism too much but tend to communicate similar things about it is almost diametrically opposed ways.  

The thematic similarities are rooted in a few areas that unpack in to a variety of subspaces which overlap – patriarchal structures as psychoanalytic dynamics (more Freudian father fixation for Lucas, Jung for Lynch), boomer generational failure as socio-first-but-economics-ultimately, the artist as in struggle with larger forces (largely of the self), and an eastern religious metaphysics that is American Christian in flavor.   The major line of difference running through this is gender/sex/desire, Lynch being on main with a lot of spiritual overtones of sin, guilt, and “the fall” and Lucas finding this kind of guilt and sin as a secondary phenomenon that is mostly actively suppressed and unconvincing when it shows up; yet both wind up often finding physical consummation at direct odds with art in a gendered creation way (that also links Eraserhead to Age of Ultron and the original Frankenstein). Try doing a psychosexual reading of Howard the Duck sometime.  

Lucas’ developmental through line is this: dude in love with 50’s culture but informed by 60s counterculture makes a movie where the young granola-ish revolutionaries win against the fascists in an effort to rewrite society but, having secured rights for “independent spirit” reasons now finds himself in control of something huge and immediately starts making art about boomer men becoming their controlling fathers and then moves on to movies where powerless freaks are the real focus.  After a creatively fallow period, he comes back to make a sequel/prequel trilogy that is one of the most misunderstood complicated statements about people becoming what they hate as an eternal cycle at the level of the personal, the societal, the political, the spiritual, the artistic, you name it!

Lynch’s developmental through line is this: dude in love with 50’s culture but informed by 60s outsider/art counterculture makes a movie where the young artist struggles with the idea of a regular life, initiated by fatherhood, which attempts to destroy the artistic spark, after which he enters the Hollywood system and makes an artist as freak movie and a movie about plucky rebels conquering space authoritarianism (that the future of is books about that ending in messianic authoritarianism) and then disavows that system.  He then proceeds to make art about subject and object as a supremely gendered thing, in a land that has fallen from grace, moving inexorably towards the idea of eternal cycle at the level of the personal, the societal, the political, the spiritual, you name it!

They both have an idea of the father-artist identified with the abject oppressed, under siege as figure, resentful from being kept from creation, over a career realizing that their “self” is the horrific villain of their own story.  For Lynch, this is psychosexual, then spiritual, with a resisted toxic masculine urge to control and overwhelm, often in a violent way.  It is the artist’s own urges that get in the way of making art, of desiring in the universe that has an unbalanced power structure from some far off echoes of an original symmetry breaking inherent to the archetypal gender dynamic. For Lucas, it is the realization that the artist in control has a tendency to become the controlling dad and sexual relations are inherently problematic in a political and spiritual way.  Real art seems impossible if the artist has control, identifying with the downtrodden is a bit of a lie, happy endings can’t happen not because of the happiness bit because of the ending bit.  For both, there is a fundamental flaw in the cycle, which is patriarchal in nature, but Lynch just approaches this much hornier.

The boomer part probably requires the most discussion, but the TLDR is that they are both are crawling out, through Vietnam, from the 50s social order, and grappling with how badly the 60s idealism failed.  Lucas does this in the prequels as a big canvas critique of how the social revolution was co-opted by the generation not being able to see its own flaws, of not seeing the system taking over again, an Empire calling itself a Republic.  An inability to look in the mirror and really see.  The wisest oldest hippie is the only one who sees what’s happening, but is powerless as his apprentices are inevitably spit out, and the next generation has to be raised not by a skeptic but a true believer in “liberal” “democracy” (cynic quotes theirs).

Lynch is interesting here in that he most directly addresses this only in Twin Peaks, but we see more naked reflections, divorced of contemporary politics, in his other works. In Twin Peaks, Ben Horn is the Palpatine figure, who winds up a sweet old man buying off the harm his life’s work and progeny have produced while ignoring the poor and next generation personally. Jacoby the neutered, fried Yoda that eventually slides into Alex Jones territory (the canonical Boomer ethos in a nutshell – “what me” neoliberalism and change the world ideology going crackpot).  All of Twin Peaks except for Fire Walk with Me is directly socioeconomically generational (Bobby Briggs becomes a young Republican in season 2, the mill, the trailer park), but the other works are full of class issues informed by Lynch’s age.  From Blue Velvet’s suburban kid exploring his darker side by going to the poor part of town through a career of classist low-life encoding (Bob is a denim jacket wearing homeless person, all the covered in grime by the dumpster/trailer park characters, Ronette as the factory floor version of Laura, etc), culminating in Inland Empire and Twin Peaks the Return chronicling the fall of man as partially an (generationally specific in TP) economic fall into a unequal class defined world of needing an opening and leaving the house to labor as where evil is born. TP OS is about how boomers turned out just as bad, the Return is about how we inhabit the world of their ideological blindness.

All filmmakers seem to, at least to a certain degree, bring the question of creation of art directly into their work via distant or close metaphor. In Eraserhead and Elephant Man, Lynch values the spark of art which the downtrodden protagonist is trying not to lose. In Dune, the visionary with a big project that seeks to upend the system (but that we know eventually become something even worse) is a project that fell apart due to studio interference.  Blue velvet is about the act of watching awakening something uncomfortable in us that is incompatible with normie life (it wouldn’t be weird to say it was about porn). Twin Peaks is about television, FWWM about movies, and all at least partially about closure being a death act in art.  Lost Highway is about the artist tortured by desire, Mulholland Drive about desire being central to be eaten alive by the Hollywood system.  Inland Empire is about filmmaking as a way into understanding the world on a deeper level (as is its unofficial sequel Inception) to cure its ills.  All of this is art’s struggle against power, with an element of the major powers being subconscious forces that control us leading to desires that ablate the artistic impulse.

Lucas' projects have over time been about a young upstart independent filmmaker, losing his soul by becoming successful, and becoming the system, man.  He then tries desperately to identify as really not the one in charge, until he admits to what he has become.  He consistently dips back into filmmaking as an adventure or a good fight, but he has to set these in a time period before his birth.  As in Lynch, having a child is equated with not being able to fulfill the kind of artistic destiny, but Lucas goes further in equating it to an excuse for why the powerful artist goes bad and needs redemption.  He had a naïve or-is-it canny motif focused on the short inhuman outsider, often related to music or primitive settings (often with wooden cages) as a recurring thing for a while.  These characters are often wise, or at least no filter tell-it, and are similar to the Elephant Man.  This is a trope, sure, the wise different wavelength other, but there is also an identification of the artist at knowing and right yet impotent and a clue to the author’s metaphysical system.

Lynch is the mainline protestant in upbringing and very much influenced by a kind of proto-eastern religion (you can just say the Vedas for shorthand).  Lucas is not very religious, but was brought up Christian, influenced by Christian symbolism and became interested in world religion as narrative via figures like Joseph Campbell.  Hence, they both gravitate towards some kind of Gnostic Proto Christian, So-Cal zen, Thomas Aquinas “gets” Plato kind of amalgam, which informs their work.  Lynch has veered towards an eternal cycle framework, and the very physics compatible idea of something in the past breaking and causing consciousness/suffering, through which we can achieve joy as a counter only through letting go of the self, and the recurrence of ruptures on all scales demonstrating a fractal pattern of hurt and redemption.  Lucas also sees a big cycle, but it is one more of human existence as narrative that has a tendency to return, with a little bit of Nietzsche and movie eastern spirituality thrown in. Both believe in a recurring pattern that plays itself out in a way that is terrible, but hopeful, as the struggle is where hope derives from.  Both have inherently Christian ideas and symbols in their work but lean back on non-Christian ideas that the Christian ideas have a history with. Lynch has his virgin Mary as the real Christ figure female angels that show up, while Lucas has turnt space Jesus.

Suffice it to say that the tree trial scene in the Empire Strikes Back and the lodge sequences in Twin Peaks are a very good place to start looking for how the two auteurs meet.  Compare Anakin/Luke Skywalker to Mr C, look at the 90s turn they both made, register their seeing the “sleeper must awaken” of fiction being terribly fraught, compare the force vs. the universal field, the way their relationship status and partners carve their work into eras, and their continued existence as mainstream experimental filmmakers. 

[justoneday-namjoonii]

Too Sweet. Part- 13 BTSvampire!au

Genre: Angst | Fluff | Mature themes / Descriptions of blood and…other things/ Supernatural

Biased: You X Yoongi X Jungkook X Vampire!au BTS

Type: Vampire!au

summary:  y/n is on a botany retreat to a dreamy island that leads to a surprising encounter and startling discovery!

A/n:Thank you for reading and enjoy!!❤

| INTRO I Pt. 1 I Pt. 2 I Pt. 3 I Pt. 4 I Pt. 5 I Pt. 6 I Pt. 7 I Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Pt. 10 | Pt. 11 | Pt. 12 |

In the corner of the library at 7 o’clock in the morning, you sit curled up on a study-chair with your reading glasses stuck to your face. Finals week. Every other paragraph you write down a few notes and your handwriting is beginning to look more and more like hieroglyphics. Despite the stress from a bunch of classes, your glad that your classmate just informed you of the donor requested break policy—a policy that no one had bothered to mention to you. 

Basically, you can request a period where you don’t feed and they respect it. You requested two weeks, and despite the cries from Tae and Jimin to make an exception, you declined—you need a break. After everything that’s been happening, Rain coming here, Jungkook acting out, and even Yoongi, it’s been really stressful and Jin actually thought a break was just what you needed to regroup.

“Y/n, I was wondering where you were,” Namjoon peeks around the corner, “still studying I see.”

“Yeah, I have a test at 9 so just thought I’d just get some extra studying in.”

“Hm,” He nods, “so how are you liking your break?”

You furrow your brow and look up at him briefly. “It’s nice.”

“That’s nice.” He nods, leaning against the bookshelf for no reason.

“Um, did you need something or?—”

“I was wondering, what is your field of study?”

“I’ve been in general studies up until now, why do you ask?” 

“Jin wanted me to ask you if you were interested in the botany program. An internship just opened and he thought you’d be great for it.” He finally gets to what he came here to say.

Your eyes brighten. “Really? Well, I’ve always thought about botany but I never knew much about it. Would I have to change any of my classes if I started the program?”

“No, we might switch one of your classes around with one of the required courses for the program but it won’t be difficult. Besides, your grades are good so I don’t think an extra class would put you in a rough spot. I’ve skimmed through your test scores and I’m proud, especially of your biology test. Honestly, you were struggling so much in our study sessions, I didn’t think you were gonna make it, but you did.” He grins like a proud teacher and you giggle because that's not the first time Namjoon has shared his concern regarding your lack of promise during lessons. “What? I’m proud.”

“Namjoon, you sound like my advisor or something,” You laugh, putting your book down to stretch your legs and pull your hoddie hood off your head.

“I kind of am in a way,” He takes his hand out of his pocket to comb it through his hair, “your academic life is important to me.”

“Quick question, why didn’t Jin just tell me about this himself? He normally would tell me something like that over tea or something, is he really busy this morning?”

“You know the whole Jungkook situation is stressing him out so he’s relying on me to relay the message, but he sends his love. He’ll be out for a majority of the day and if you accept the offer, you’ll be packing for the botanical sciences retreat so you’ll see him tonight.”

“A retreat?” You have the widest smile, “You mean like a vacation?”

“No, not a vacation- Although, the botanical gardens on the Island are exceptionally beautiful this time of year the spas there are amazing-”

“Islands!? I get to go to the Island and its for school? I’m definitely accepting now.” You glance up at the clock on the wall and sigh, “I’ll see you later, I gotta go sign in for testing.” You pack up your books and Namjoon watches you run off and out of the library.

Namjoon has been thinking a lot about your time here at the college and over the past year, he’s realized some things. Firstly, he’s recognized that there aren’t many donors that get the opportunity to spend as much time as you do with people like him. He’s got scholarly titles that he’s not even sure you know about and some of the top-paying families have paid him to mentor their children. But here you are, not rich by any means, in fact, you’re here on a well-deserved scholarship awarded by Jin. And he’s felt like he’s taken you under his wing and all he’s wants is for you is the best.

It’s almost a maternal feeling he has towards you and your education. That’s a lot coming from him, he’s not the type to just dish out his help like a tutoring center. Normally he wants compensation of some sort. He has an extraordinary mind and one lesson with him can cost a pretty penny if they’re willing.

Namjoon left the library and went back to Jungkook’s lovely little abode across the campus. But rather than Jungkook being inside looking for something to get into, he was out on the track, running to his heart's content.

Namjoon approaches the track and Jungkook’s personal trainer is standing at the finish line with his hands on his hips.

“He’s doing well. Working out has lightened him up a little bit,” The trainer says, watching Jungkook run up to them when he caught Namjoon’s eye.

“Hyung,” He slows down, panting lightly with his damp hair sticking to the side of his face, “hey,”

“Hey, Jungkook. You look refreshed,” Namjoon grins, “I came to let you know that we’re leaving tonight and your uncle will be stopping by tomorrow morning to check on you.” The trainer says Jungkook can go shower because they’re done for the day so they make they’re way to the house.

“Where are you going?” 

“Botany retreat, it’s a three-day trip. Jin is going and for the first day and since Y/n has entered the program, she’s going too.”

“Oh...” Jungkook looked down for a moment, a bit shy suddenly, “H- How is she by the way?”

“She’s good. Right now she’s taking a donor break so she’s living like a normal human girl.” Namjoon was slightly taken aback but he answered nonetheless. “Why do you ask?”

Jungkook runs the back of his neck and sighs. “Uh, I don’t know, I was wondering if she was still mad at me or something.” 

“You’d have to ask her. She’s been busy with her studies lately, so I’m sure the last thing she’s worried about is being mad at you.”

Jungkook had to laugh, knowing you two were always at odds made him like you even more.  “Beleive it or not, I do feel bad for what I did to her. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t take back what I said but I can see why I went about it in the wrong way.”

“That’s a start I guess.” Namjoon scoffed, not surprised by Jungkook’s partial apology. “Well, while we’re gone just call if you need anything.” He gives the younger a hug before saying his final goodbyes as he walked back to the main university building.

“Last time I checked, you aren’t in the botany program, Taehyung. So you won’t be joining us.”

Jin is sitting in the office part of his bedroom as a maid packs his suitcase with the appropriate attire for the island. Taehyung came in here not too long ago and he refuses to leave because he’s trying to get Jin to let him tag along.

“But I can transfer over, can’t I?”

“Taehyung, that’s so short notice, what program are you in now? Psychology, right?”

“The only reason I’m in that program is because of my abilities. My parents want me to know how to use my gift with a well-rounded understanding of how the mind works. It’s so boring sometimes.” Tae leans on the desk with a pout.

“Look, you have to finish your program. Your parents are right, your gift can really help people if you know how to use it. But,” Jin sighs, “I think we have room for one more guest.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Taehyung bolts out of the room to pack his bag and Jin just shakes his head. If there’s one person who could talk him into something, it was Taehyung—that’s the only time he’s annoyed by his powers.

“Sir, your bag is packed, is there anything else you need?”

“No, thank you, Bella, you can go.” Jin dismisses her and his eyes go back to his computer. This trip has always been something he’s looked forward to. Even though he normally can’t stay for the entirety of the trip, the first two nights are always beautiful. The gardens are very well-maintained and every time he goes he learns about new medicinal herbs that he purchases to bring back to the schools. 

Namjoon slips through the door after mentally sending Jin a little warning.

“Do you come bearing gifts?” Jin grins to himself when he sees the plate in Namjoon’s hands.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He sits a plate of assorted pastries in front of him. “The pastry chef just put these out, she let me have first pick.” He smiles, taking the chocolate croissant for himself with swiftness. 

“Thank you, I was getting a little hungry,” JIn takes on and sits it on a napkin so he can finish typing, “did you talk to her by the way?” Jin peeks up at Namjoon whos sitting idly in the chair in front of the desk.

“I did, she accepted and she’s pretty excited about it.”

“Oh, I’m glad,” He sighs in relief, “this program will be good for her.”

“Yeah, I think so too...But, just curious, what’s the sudden interest in her entering this program?”

“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve been doing my job very well. Ever since she’s started attending this school, I’ve realized forgotten that she’s not just here to give blood. I know that’s the exchange for her degree but that’s not all she is. I’ve let her unusual situation influence what I allow and don’t allow. I mean, she’s close to me, I have a relationship with her that I don’t and never have had with any other donor. I feel like during this trip, once I leave she’ll have time to just be a student, no blood-related pressure or anything like that.”

“I get that, but you do have to remember her situation as well, she’s not just any donor, she’s the only one with blood like that in this country, let alone this school. That comes with a different set of rules and you shouldn’t feel guilty because you’re trying to figure that out.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But I do need her to spend some time outside of the university for a little bit, just so she can take time to focus on other things other than everyone wanting her for blood.” 

It was finally over, your last test of the day and midterms were no longer holding you mentally captive. You’re strolling through the campus to meet up with Jimin at the campus bakery before you leave this evening. He said he had a few art pieces he wanted to show you and you thought you’d make it a date.

When you open the bakery door, he’s sitting at one of the windows and his eyes land on yours. “Y/n,” His smile brightens as he stands up to pull out your seat, “how are you, love?” 

“I’m good, done with finals.” You give him a hug and he pecks your cheek. You take a seat and so does he.

“Well, to be honest,” He opens up his folder, “your donor break is killing me a little bit. But I’m glad to see you, spend a little time with you before you go.” 

“Yeah, I’ll be back before you know it. So, what are the pieces you wanted to show me?”

“This one,” He pulls out a sheet of paper and puts it in front of you, “it’s inspired by the pond near my family's retreat.”

“It’s beautiful, Jimin.” The pond on the painting is filled with lilies, the reflection of the trees nearby. The colors remind you of Monet, the impressionism is something you wish you could do as effortlessly as him. “What are these for?”

“The universities are having a joint exhibition and they want artists from royal families to participate in the collection. They chose me from my family, I was surprised they didn’t choose my mother. She’s got more talent than my whole family combined.”

“Is this something you want to do professionally?”

“I thought about teaching classes on the side, but I don’t know.”

You smile. “That’s a great idea! I know a lot of people who’d love a lesson with you-” 

“But I don’t think I can...My parents, they want something else for me. They’re fine with me continuing art but they can be really particular when it comes to my interests. They’d want to practice the art a prestigious art academy and feature in global exhibitions, that’s all a little too much for me right now.’

Your excitement dies down as his statement reminded you that he isn’t entirely free, he’s under his family’s jurisdiction in more areas of his life then you realize.

“It wouldn’t hurt to just try, you might end up loving teaching,” You have such a hopeful expression, “and your parents might just be okay with that,”

“Maybe,” He smiles, “Hey, I wanted to say that I’m so sorry for setting you up with Jungkook, I never formally apologized to you.”

“Jimin, it’s still hard for me to grasp anything that happens in this place,” You scoff, “You put me in a position where I was vulnerable, he could have done anything to me.” His eyes lower and you know he’s just beating himself up right now. 

“But he didn’t do anything to me, so we got lucky. I know it was your feeding cycle and you probably didn’t take your medicine, right?” He shakes his head. “You need to get back on that medicine, it keeps you and others safe. But Jimin, it’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it.” You place your hand on his and give him a genuine smile

“Y/n,” Namjoon walked into the cafe, “we’re leaving in 20 minutes, you should make sure you’re all packed before we put the luggage on the bus.”

“Oh, ok,” You stand up and walk around the little table to Jimin, “bye Jimin, I’ll see you when I get back.” He stands up and you hug him for a few seconds. 

He pecked your cheek and bid you farewell, already eager for your return as you follow Namjoon out of his sight. You rush to the common area where the students were advised to take their luggage. You look around for your suitcase and carry-on, you find it right where you had put it and let out a sigh of relief.

“I have everything.” You state confidently.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, of course.” You nod, “well, I might have left-”

“Your toothbrush, you can run and get it, be quick.”

Of course, he knew. You run to your bedroom and to your bathroom where you skim over everything just in case you might have forgotten anything else. Quickly, you grab an extra perfume, your toothbrush and walk down the hall—that’s when you realize you haven’t said goodbye to Yoongi. Even though he’s been a little standoffish lately, you thought it would be nice to at least say goodbye to him.

It takes you a little while, but you walked all the way from your dorm to their living space upstairs. At times like this, you wish you could initiate the whole mental bond where you can talk to one another. But now that you think about it, the bond might have weakened because of the lack of contact you two have had. That makes sense. You look around, the living room and his room and he’s nowhere to be found.

“Yoongi?” You call for him, assuming he might be napping or something.

“Y/n, come on! We’re leaving. What are you doing up here?”

“I was trying to say bye to Yoongi-” Namjoon places his hand on your back to lead you to the stairs.

“You’ll see him when we get back, we gotta go.” 

All you wanted to do was say goodbye and you can’t help but you feel like he’s trying to hide from you. 

When you finally get downstairs, the botany professor tells everyone to get on the bus. You stay close to Namjoon and follow him onto the bus, he’s kind of like a comforting presence in a bus of students you don’t know. Namjoon gestures for you to take a seat and you grudgingly oblige. Students are already chattering and giggling, excited about the trip. But you on the other hand, just want to go wherever Jin is because you feel socially awkward.

“Ok, do we have a headcount?” He looks at the professor in the front seat.

“Yes, we’re all here.”

“Great, I’ll be riding with Dr. Kim but we’ll meet you at the airport.” Namjoon turns to you with a tender grin. Y/n, you need to socialize with your peers.

Talk to someone, make some friends.

And that’s all he says to you before leaving you on the bus with no one you know except for Taehyung, and he’s chatting with his friends. You hug your sweater to your chest and sigh—this isn’t what you thought it’d be.

“Hi,” You hear a voice coming from above you and you peek up, “I’ve never seen you in a botany class before, what’s your name? I’m Xiaojun.”

“Hi, I’m Y/n.” You reach your hand out and he shakes it before moving to go sit with you. “Oh, you didn’t have to leave your friends-”

“No, it’s okay, I’ll spend all my time with them on the trip. You look a little,” he hesitates when you furrow your brow a bit, “shy?” He smiles, and his little fangs peek out. He’s a vampire.

“I’m not shy I just, I’m a little reserved when I don’t know a lot of people.” 

“Well, let’s get to know each other, then you’ll know someone. I’m actually from the island. I don’t know if you know but my island is famous for our medicinal herbs, plants, and organic and humane animal blood sourcing. We’re Pure Bloods and we do a lot of agricultural work. My family sent me to this school to get exposure to other places and people, broaden my horizons I guess.”

“Do you like it at Jin—” You catch yourself, you can’t just call him by his first name with everybody, “I’m sorry, Dr. Kim’s school?”

“I love it. There’s a reason my family sent me here and not to some other university, the education is top-notch, they know I’ll be healthy with whatever blood I’m given here. Plus, the university has prided itself on the human-vampire integration efforts.”

“Yeah, it is a great school. Not gonna lie, I do miss my family and friends back at home sometimes. But I have to remember that the education I’m getting now is for my future. When I go see my family, they’ll be so proud to see that I’m making something of myself.” 

“I feel the same way.” He slouches back in to chair. “Um, forgive me for asking but how come I can’t smell your blood at all?” 

“Oh, I was on a donor break so the nurse gave me scent-suppressants.” You push back a piece of hair, your face heating up when he leans in just slightly to confirm for himself.

“Wow, they must have given you a lot.” He pauses to laugh, “You have no scent whatsoever.”

“Yeah, they had to give me a little extra,” You glance out the window to remember your excuse, “I have somewhat of an immunity to them.”

3 times the regular dosage to be precise.

“Oh, that makes sense.” 

The rest of the ride, you realized how kind and easy-going a majority of the students were. Xiaojun introduced you to Melanie and Caterina, and eventually, you all began talking.

This isn’t so bad.

There you went, overthinking things and making yourself crazy over nothing. These people are sweet and you’re lucky that Jin let you switch to this program so last-minute. He treats you so well. Sometimes it feels like you’re undeserving of the special attention. Then you remember, you’re in all of this in exchange for your blood. Your blood is your free pass and it seems precarious—but a lot of things feel that way since you’ve been here. Other students seem to not notice but you’re pretty positive there are some students who suspect you. Nonetheless, you’re confident that you can hold your own and stand firm in the fact that you’re like any other student.

Soon enough, the bus pulls up at the airport and all of the students hurried out of the bus. You debated following Xiaojun, but when you saw Taehyung coming toward you, you figured you’d be sitting with him. 

“Everyone, follow me so we can get on the plane, it’s in gate G. The luggage is already taken care of so don’t worry about grabbing anything.” The professor signals to all of the students and you find yourself zoning out a little bit because you’re looking for Namjoon or Jin.

“Y/n,” Taehyung walks up to you and looks at you funny, you notice he dropped the pet name, “looking for Jin hyung and Namjoon hyung?” You nod. “They’re over there,” He points to the two of them and their small entourage, “but you can’t go with them, you have to stay here with the other students.”

Confusion flashes in your eyes, “But why-”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be here.” He smiles, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. 

“I’m not worried, I just- I was just wondering where they were.” You shrug, thoroughly disappointed that you were being kicked to the curb by those two. You guess that’s a little entitled that you think you’re supposed to be with them 24/7, but it’s what you’re used to. Taehyung stays by your side as the class is led to board the plane after FSA and a few bathroom trips. When you walk onto the plane, you’re greeted with a pretty flight attendant. 

“Good evening, miss.” She bows and you return it with a kind smile.

You’re led to a comfortable chair with a table in between the chair directly in front of you. To your delight, Namjoon comes to sit directly in front of you with a thick book in his hands.

“So, how did it go?” He inquires.

“It was good, I met Xiaojun and his friends, Melanie and Caterina, they were nice.” You cross your arms and sigh. “I socialized, happy?”

“Very.” He smirks. 

“Where’s Jin?” You look around, noticing that he had disappeared.

“He’s in the personal suite, he’s got a lot of business calls to take care of.” Namjoon sticks in his earphones in his ears and continues to read his book. You lean against the window and gaze out of the window, soon enough, your eyes slip shut and you drift to sleep.

When you wake up, everyone is unbuckling their seatbelts and taking their carry-ons and such. You blink, rubbing your eyes and sleepily unbuckling your seatbelt. You follow every one of off the plane and you inhale deeply when you walk out into the fresh air. A few vans pull up and you’re directed to get in the one with Xiaojun and a few other people. Everyone buckles up and the driver pulls out. Some of the students were talking about how beautiful the resort was, and how it's covered in thriving wildlife and surrounded by beaches.

Even though it’s dark out, you can still appreciate the beauty of the island. Judging by the tiny airport, it's not a highly populated place. 

You're pretty quiet on the ride to the resort but your mind wanders. Yoongi. He comes to your mind. And you know you shouldn't feel this way, but you're a little upset at him. He tends to be a little distant when he wants to be. Sometimes it makes you feel a little weird. Due to the bond, it's hard for you not to feel like he should at least validate you in some way. 

“Y/n,” Xiaojun calls your name from the seat next to you, “tonight they’re serving dinner out on the beach where they always serve it on the first night for the retreat. Some of my friends and family members will be there, I’ll introduce you to some of them.”

“That sounds nice,” You grin, finding it endearing that he’s taken such a liking to you. Then again, some of these people tend to like you so much because of your blood. What Jin regards as a gift, you see as a burden sometimes. You’ve come to terms with the fact that you’re just seen as a fulfilling meal to some of them. But you know Jin and the others see as more than that—Yoongi definitely has to see you as something more than that.

Eventually, you all made it to the resort and there was a group of women who lead you to your individual rooms. As they called everyone's names to take them to there rooms, you were the only one left in the foyer, awkwardly holding your hands.

“Hi, honey, this unit is actually taken,” A woman with beautiful long brown hair and bright eyes comes up to you, “what’s your name?”

“Y/n.”

“Oh! You’re the one Dr. Kim wanted in the other unit, that’s where your belongings are,” She smiles, putting her hand on your back to lead you out of the door, “you must be special.”

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” You let out a nervous laugh. She walks across the tropical plant-adorned walkway connecting the beach-houses and leads you to the one not too far from the other. She guides you up the stairs and into the house, when she opens the door, you immediately notice that it looks a bit personalized. Like personal touches were put on it, probably by Jin.

“Okay, your room is upstairs, I’ll show you,” She walks up the stairs and points to the room with the sunset-colored flour on the door. When she opens it for you, you instantly fall in love. The room is so charming and tropical, there’s a balcony and you see your belongings in there. “What do you think?”

You walk further into the room. “It’s beautiful, I love it. Thank you,” You sit your purse on the chair near the balcony and take a moment to take in your view of the beach. It’s so tranquil. 

“I’m glad you find it to your liking. My name is Layla, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask, okay? Also, dinner will be served outside in about fifteen minutes. Your muumuu is in the restroom, you can slip that on for dinner, it’s very comfortable.”

“Alright, thank you,” She grins before closing the door to leave you to wind down for a minute.

You walk into the large bathroom to see a multi-colored floral two-piece wrap hanging on the closet. You get undressed and put the dress on, it’s soft and sits right above your knees. You’re hoping you could buy more of these because you actually really like it. 

When you wash your face and freshen up a bit, you walk out of the room and you hear Namjoon.

“Layla, could you have brought here after the dinner? Preferably some of your freshly picked floral teas, surprise me.” He’s standing in the foyer on his phone and he changed as well. He’s wearing the same print but with white paints and a floral shirt, and a little necklace. When you walk downstairs, he immediately notices you and the biggest smile comes to his face.

“Aw, don’t you look precious.” He giggles, watching you walk down with the same slides that were provided for everyone in the house.

You can’t help but roll your eyes and laugh. “Thanks, you look nice too.”

“I love the clothes they give us here, they’re so comfortable.”

“Yeah, um, how come Jin has me in here with you guys? I thought I’d be with that other students.”

“I thought so too, I’m not sure why he changed it. Anyway, let’s head over to the eat, I’m sure they’re about to start bringing dishes out.” 

The two of you walk out together and Namjoon leads the way of course because he knows where it is. When you start walking into the sand you can see the light lit by fire and a huge mat of some sort where a long table is. You can see other students coming from their rooms and taking seats wherever. And you get excited as soon as you see Jin, sitting next to Taehyung and someone you’d never met.

“There’s no need to be nervous, it’s just dinner.” Namjoon teases, taking his rightful seat next to Taehyung and you sit next to him.

“I know that it’s the new people, not the meal,” You mumble.

“Y/n,” You hear a small call of your name and look to where it’s coming from, it’s Xiaojun, “this is my cousin, Kun.” The guy next to him waves.

“Hi,

“Hi, nice to meet you.” He smiles and you feel a warmness from him. “Xiaojun says you’re new to the program?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Well, I hope you enjoy your first experience here. Our people have been supplying medicinal herbs, plants, basically anything you can grow right here on this island. Vampires all over the world buy from us and humans as well.”

“Really?”

“Yep, and we discover new plants and herbs on our sister islands every year or so.” 

He goes on and on but you actually get really drawn into what he has to say about the contributions the island makes. It draws the attention Jin and you don’t even notice. He’s talking to some other people and Namjoon so he’s not going to talk to you now, but he wants to know how you’re doing. By the time the conversation comes to an end, dinner is over. The food was delicious and you’re already ready for breakfast.

“It was nice talking to you Kun,” You stand and give him a small bow, “have a good night.” 

“You too, Y/n.”

You walk back to the house, slides in your hand so you can feel the sand under your feet. When you get up the stairs, you enter the house and go straight to the shower. Overall, this day has been pretty successful. You met people, learned some things, and even ventured out of your comfort zone. 

Before you head to the shower, you pull your toiletries and pajamas out of your suitcase. The shower is tiled with smoothe gray pabbles that feel heavenly under your feet and the showerhead is like a gentle rain. You get out of the shower after a good fifteen minutes and do your routine. The pajamas that Jin gave you are the ones you decided to bring and they’re your favorite. They’re super soft, long-sleeved, and surprisingly breathable.

After you jump into the king-size bed and relish in the comfy bed sheets, you decide to go talk to Jin. You leave your room and go search for him, and it doesn’t take you long to find him and Namjoon with tea in the living room upstairs.

You walk into the room and he beams when he sees you. “Y/n, I was just about to come to see you. Please, come sit,” He gestures to the couch next to Namjoon whos looking very relaxed.

“So, how are you liking everything? I’m sorry I haven’t been able to be with you, I’ve had a lot of business to take care of.”

“It’s okay, it’s been nice actually. I met a few people and I learned some things about the island.” You sit cross-legged, expression bright since you get to talk to him finally.

“I’m glad, I was telling Namjoon that I thought this program would be great for you.” He takes a sip of tea. “Also, I wanted to let you know that if I’ve ever made it seem like your blood is more important to me than your job as a student, I apologize. I don’t ever want you to feel like I’m neglecting your studies for your blood. I know sometimes I let your circumstances dictate a lot but I don’t ever mean to isolate you from your peers, you just have to understand that I’ve never had a student like you.”

“I mean, I’m a student at the university in exchange for my blood. But I will admit that sometimes it’s hard because some students notice when I’m getting special treatment and things like that...I don’t want anyone to think that I’m not meeting my academic requirements if that makes sense.”

“I assure you, ” Namjoon looks at you, a slight smile that shows his dimples, “I will make sure you meet your academic requirements, that’s not a problem, kitten.” Jin nods in agreement.

“I also want to mention Director Rain, what did you think? Do you feel okay with him being around?”

Rain.

His name gives you chills.

“He- He seems kind of intimidating, I felt a little nervous around him...Remember when bit me? He had me do things that I’d never had to do before, it was weird.” You admit. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, he wants to spend some more time with you, just to get to know you and learn about your blood. He’s genuine. He’s not one of those higher-ups that want to steal donors and treat them like nothing but a means of nutrients. He’s very knowledgeable and he’s going to be monitoring Jungkook for a while until his awakening is under control, so he’ll be around more often.”

You furrow your brows. “Jungkook’s awakening? What is that?”

“He’s awakening. In his bloodline, its called The Eyes of Eclipsia.”

This is all new to you. “Who’s Eclipsia?”

“She was their great-great-grandmother and she was very powerful. She was born with no vampire traits but her deep violet eyes that glow saffron red were the mark of her strength. Rain has it, Jungkook’s father has it, and now, so does Jungkook. I really don’t know how to help Jungkook through this so he’s going to assist me with him.”

“Do I have to spend time with him?...” You say that hesitantly.

“You don’t have to, of course, I’m not forcing you, but it would be nice if you just gave him a little of your time. Just think about it, okay? No pressure. I’m gonna head to bed, and I think you should do the same, we’ve had a long day.” 

“Wait,” You catch him before walking out, “I was wondering, why am I not with the other students?”

“The suppressants in your systems could where off and I don’t want any of the vampire students to get any ideas. I think it’s safest that you stay where we are, I hope you don’t mind.”

You shake your head, “No, I was just wondering.”

He gets up and walks over to you. He rubs your head lovingly, leaning down to look you in the eye. “I’m gonna balance out your energy, okay?” You nod. He touches your forehead for a few seconds and you can feel your body relax slowly. Namjoon suddenly places his hand on your shoulder and your eyes open to looking over at him.

“Her energy has been off all day,” Namjoon reveals, “I think it’s because she was nervous and all the suppressants we gave her don’t go without side effects.” 

“Well,” Jin pulls away, “that should help. Good night.” Jin leaves you two and you were about to get up to go to bed as well but Namjoon grabs your wrist lightly.

“Beleive it or not, I’m at the end my feeding cycle but I’m having bad cravings...Do you feel up to giving blood? If not I can get blood from someone else but your blood is much preferred.”

“No, that’s fine, just please don’t make a mess, I just showered.” You grant him his request and he stands up, hands eagerly grasping your shoulders.

”When have you ever known me to be messy?” He giggles, leaning down to your neck and biting down you with a sharp inhale. You stiffen. It’s been a week or so since you’ve last been fed on and it hurt. “It hurts...” 

I’m sorry, just give me a minute, it’ll feel better in a second, he speaks into your thoughts. He doesn’t move but you can feel him gulping down considerable amounts of blood. It starts to burn, your heart is drumming and you feel your head getting loopy. 

Slowly, his hands leave your shoulders and slide down to hold your hands. He simultaneously opens his mouth and latches on a little tighter, sealing your skin to his mouth completely. You squirm in discomfort, trying to get away from the sting on impulse. 

After a few seconds of him not letting you move, a fuzzy feeling starts to set in. He’s releasing his venom into your bloodstream and you sigh in relief. It doesn’t take long for your head to be in the clouds.

“That’s better...” You breathe, letting yourself go pliant. 

Your legs suddenly feel like jelly and your legs give way. It didn’t bother him though. He made sure to slide down with you, kneeling right in front of you. Finally having your blood in his system makes him feel a thousand times better. Recently, he’s been trying to get through the feeding cycles with as much self-control as possible. But sometimes, it’s hard for him to keep himself from craving the blood.

“Namjoon,” You know he has the ability to basically numb his pray out, but you were already sleepy and you’re about to pass out, “I know you-...I know you’re doing that thing to take away the pain, but I feel like I’m gonna pass out.”

He acknowledges you with a hum, but instead of stopping, he just drinks slower. Instead of complaining, you take the bratty liberty to push all of your weight back. He loses his bearings for a second, but he doesn’t let your tactic stop him. He just gets on top of you and continues, holding your hands to the ground and finishing the last few gulps of blood. 

“Ah,” He pulls away with a pop, “you’re so dramatic.” He sits back on his heels, smiling down at your flat expression. “Can you walk?”

“No, my legs are numb. You should know, you made them numb.” You sulk, trying to move your head up but even that felt numb. 

“I was trying to make it comfortable for you, its not my fault that you succumb to it so willingly.” 

“Whatever...” You sigh, eyes slipping shut.

He scoops you up in his arms and walks you to your bedroom. He pushes the door open with his foot and easily lays you in bed, covering you with a blanket. Namjoon pats your head with a fond smile and leaves.

Jungkook was drinking his second portion of blood and all of a sudden, he heard the most disturbing statement—goodnight, kitten. 

He nearly choked. 

“The hell?”  

Yoongi and Hoseok glance at him from their spots on the couch, brows furrowed when the young vampire sits up.

“Uhm, what’s the matter?” Hoseok looks up from his phone, judgment engraved in his features.

Jungkook looks puzzled. “Did you hear that?” 

“Hear what?”

“You mean you didn’t just hear that?” He looks at both of them. “Neither of you heard that?”

“Jungkook, heard what? What are you talking about?” 

“I heard, ‘goodnight, kitten,” like, very clearly.” 

Yoongi looks at him. “Goodnight, kitten? That’s what you heard?” Jungkook nods surprised that Yoongi even acknowledges him. “The only person who I’ve ever heard say something even close to that, is Namjoon. That’s what he calls Y/n. Why would you be hearing that?”

“Yeah, are you sure you aren’t imagining things?”

Jungkook scowls, disgusted that they would even consider that he would think that. “Why would I even want to imagine someone saying that to me??

“I don’t know, we all have intrusive thoughts that might sound weird to others.” Hoseok snickers, going back to his phone.

“I don’t know why I would be hearing that,” Jungkook mutters, giving up on trying to find an explanation. He goes back to watching his movie but Yoongi looks away from his book in thought.

There are times where he’d connect with your consciousness and it was rare, but sometimes, he could hear when others spoke to you. Is Jungkook connecting with you? But how could that be? You and Jungkook haven’t bonded and you’re hundreds of miles away. Assuming Namjoon is on the trip with you, then it would make perfect sense for Namjoon to be the voice he heard. 

_

Meanwhile, on the other side of the island.

“Director, I prepared your flower-petal-soak in the sauna,” Yona, one of his personal maids peeks into his quarters, she’s a short little girl with short brown hair, “do you need assistance?”

He’s adorned in a luxurious robe, it’s opened in the front and she tries not to look at his bare chest. His fingernails are long and pointy, he let them grow out recently. Traditionally, power-bearing Jeons are known for their luscious locks and long manicured nails. His long black hair drapes down his back, some strands fall on his face and it makes her swallow—he’s stunning.

“I can manage, thank you, Yona.” She bows, leaving the director to do what he needed to do. He left his room and went down the stone pathway to the natural sauna. 

He undresses and sits his robe on a marble stool near the water. The water is filled with freshly picked flowers and he steps into the steamy oasis. “Ugh...” He sighs, sinking down into the water and leaning back on the ledge, inhaling the floral fragrance.

“Master Rain, may I come in?”

“You may, Lilian.” He looks up at her.

“I have a few updates for you, do you want me to read it to you here? or in your bedroom?”

“Here is fine.” He gestures for her to have a seat. 

“Okay, I’ll read the updates of the board, then the extra things.”

Lilian reads off of the papers, reciting the same old updates as always, but she says something that catches his attention.

“Wait, what was that?”

“Dr. Kim is on the other side of the island on a botany trip. You also have an appointment with him late this week for your nephew.” 

“He’s here? Hm,” He sighs, tapping his nails thoughtfully, “can you squeeze a meeting in with him tomorrow, at any time.”

“Sure sir,” She writes some things down and nods, “may I ask why?”

“I need to talk to him about my nephew and a few other things.” She nods, satisfied with his answer.

And you would be other things.

taglist: @hodginss @forevermoremagcon

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

I have been trying to write something about separatism almost since my first dawning of feminist consciousness, but it has always been for me somehow a mercurial topic which, when I tried to grasp it, would softly shatter into many other topics like sexuality, man-hating, so-called reverse discrimination, apocalyptic utopianism, and so on. What I have to share with you today is my latest attempt to get to the heart of the matter.

[…] The theme of separation, in its multitude variations, is there in everything from divorce to exclusive lesbian separatist communities, from shelters for battered women to witch covens, from women’s studies programs to women’s bars, from expansion of daycare to abortion on demand. The presence of this theme is vigorously obscured, trivialized, mystified and outright denied by many feminist apologists, who seem to find it embarrassing, while it is embraced, explored, expanded and ramified by most of the more inspiring theorists and activists. The theme of separation is noticeably absent or heavily qualified in most of the things I take to be personal solutions and band-aid projects, like legalization of prostitution, liberal marriage contracts, improvement of the treatment of rape victims and affirmative action. It is clear to me, in my own case at least, that the contrariety of assimilation and separation is one of the main things that guides or determines assessments of various theories, actions and practices as reformist or radical, as going to the root of the thing or being relatively superficial. So my topical question comes to this: What is it about separation, in any or all of its many forms and degrees, that makes it so basic and so sinister, so exciting and so repellent?

Feminist separation is, of course, separation of various sorts or modes from men and from institutions, relationships, roles and activities which are male-defined, male-dominated and operating for the benefit of males and the maintenance of male privilege–this separation being initiated or maintained, at will, by women. (Masculist separatism is the partial segregation of women from men and male domains at the will of men. This difference is crucial.)

The feminist separation can take many forms. Breaking up or avoiding close relationships or working relationships; forbidding someone to enter your house; excluding someone from your company, or from your meeting; withdrawal from participation in some activity or institution, or avoidance of participation; avoidance of communications and influence from certain quarters (not listening to music with sexist lyrics, not watching tv); withholding commitment or support; rejection of or rudeness toward obnoxious individuals. Some separations are subtle realignments of identification, priorities and commitments, or working with agendas which only incidently coincide with the agendas of the institution one works in. Ceasing to be loyal to something or someone is a separation; and ceasing to love.

[…] Most feminists, probably all, practice some separation from males and male-dominated institutions. A separatist practices separation consciously, systematically, and probably more generally than the others, and advocates thorough and “broadspectrum” separation as part of the conscious strategy of liberation. And, contrary to the image of the separatist as a cowardly escapist, hers is the life and program which inspires the greatest hostility, disparagement, insult and confrontation and generally she is the one against whom economic sanctions operate most conclusively. The penalty for refusing to work with or for men is usually starvation (or, at the very least, doing without medical insurance); and if one’s policy of noncooperation is more subtle, one’s livelihood is still constantly on the line, since one is not a loyal partisan, a proper member of the team, or what have you. The penalties for being a lesbian are ostracism, harassment and job insecurity or joblessness. The penalty for rejecting men’s sexual advances is often rape and, perhaps even more often, forfeit of such things as professional or job opportunities. And the separatist lives with the added burden of being assumed by many to be a morally depraved man-hating bigot. But there is a clue here: if you are doing something that is so strictly forbidden by the patriarchs, you must be doing something right.

There is an idea floating around in both feminist and antifeminist literature to the effect that females and males generally live in a relation of parasitism, a parasitism of the male on the female… that it is, generally speaking, the strength, energy, inspiration and nurturance of women that keeps men going, and not the strength, aggression, spirituality and hunting of men that keeps women going.

[…] The parasitism of males on females is, as I see it, demonstrated by the panic, rage and hysteria generated in so many of them by the thought of being abandoned by women. […] If it is true that a fundamental aspect of the relations between the sexes is male parasitism, it might help to explain why certain issues are particularly exciting to patriarchal loyalists. For instance, in view of the obvious advantages of easy abortion to population control, to control of welfare rolls, and to ensuring sexual availability of women to men, it is a little surprising that the loyalists are so adamant and riled up in their objection to it. But look.

The fetus lives parasitically. It is a distinct animal surviving off the life (the blood) of another animal creature. It is incapable of surviving on its own resources, of independent nutrition; incapable even of symbiosis. If it is true that males live parasitically upon females, it seems reasonable to suppose that many of them and those loyal to them are in some way sensitive to the parallelism between their situation and that of the fetus. They could easily identify with the fetus. The woman who is free to see the fetus as a parasite might be free to see the man as a parasite. The woman’s willingness to cut off the life line to one parasite suggests a willingness to cut off the life line to another parasite. The woman who is capable (legally, psychologically, physically) of decisively, self-interestedly, independently rejecting the one parasite, is capable of rejecting, with the same decisiveness and independence, the like burden of the other parasite. In the eyes of the other parasite, the image of the wholly self-determined abortion, involving not even a ritual submission to male veto power, is the mirror image of death.

[…] There are other reasons, of course, why patriarchal loyalists should be disturbed about abortion on demand; a major one being that it would be a significant form of female control of reproduction, and at least from certain angles it looks like the progress of patriarchy is the progress toward male control of reproduction, starting with possession of wives and continuing through the invention of obstetrics and the technology of extrauterine gestation. Giving up that control would be giving up patriarchy. But such an objection to abortion is too abstract, and requires too historical a vision, to generate the hysteria there is now in the reaction against abortion. The hysteria is, I think, to be accounted for more in terms of a much more immediate and personal presentiment of ejection by the woman-womb.

[…] Male parasitism means that males must have access to women; it is the Patriarchal Imperative. But feminist no-saying is more than a substantial removal (redirection, reallocation) of goods and services because Access is one of the faces of Power. Female denial of male access to females substantially cuts off a flow of benefits, but it has also the form and full portent of assumption of power.

Differences of power are always manifested in asymmetrical access. The President of the United States has access to almost everybody for almost anything he might want of them, and almost nobody has access to him. The super-rich have access to almost everybody; almost nobody has access to them. The resources of the employee are available to the boss as the resources of the boss are not to the employee. The parent has unconditional access to the child’s room; the child does not have similar access to the parent’s room. Students adjust to professors’ office hours; professors do not adjust to students’ conference hours. The child is required not to lie; the parent is free to close out the child with lies at her discretion. The slave is unconditionally accessible to the master. Total power is unconditional access; total powerlessness is being unconditionally accessible. The creation and manipulation of power is constituted of the manipulation and control of access.

All-woman groups, meetings, projects seem to be great things for causing controversy and confrontation. Many women are offended by them; many are afraid to be the one to announce the exclusion of men; it is seen as a device whose use needs much elaborate justification. I think this is because conscious and deliberate exclusion of men by women, from anything, is blatant insubordination, and generates in women fear of punishment and reprisal (fear which is often well-justified). Our own timidity and desire to avoid confrontations generally keep us from doing very much in the way of all-woman groups and meetings. But when we do, we invariably run into the male champion who challenges our right to do it. Only a small minority of men go crazy when an event is advertised to be for women only–just one man tried to crash our women-only Rape Speak-Out, and only a few hid under the auditorium seats to try to spy on a women-only meeting at a NOW convention in Philadelphia. But these few are onto something their less rabid compatriots are missing. The woman-only meeting is a fundamental challenge to the structure of power. It is always the privilege of the master to enter the slave’s hut. The slave who decides to exclude the master from her hut is declaring herself not a slave. The exclusion of men from the meeting not only deprives them of certain benefits (which they might survive without); it is a controlling of access, hence an assumption of power. It is not only mean, it is arrogant.

[…] When those who control access have made you totally accessible, your first act of taking control must be denying access, or must have denial of access as one of its aspects. This is not because you are charged up with (unfeminine or politically incorrect) negativity; it is because of the logic of the situation. When we start from a position of total accessibility there must be an aspect of no-saying (which is the beginning of control) in every effective act and strategy, the effective ones being precisely those which shift power, i.e., ones which involve manipulation and control of access.n.

[…] When our feminist acts or practices have an aspect of separation, we are assuming power by controlling access and simultaneously by undertaking definition.

[…] The powerful normally determine what is said and sayable. When the powerful label something or dub it or baptize it, the thing becomes what they call it. When the Secretary of Defense calls something a peace negotiation, for instance, then whatever it is that he called a peace negotiation is an instance of negotiating peace. If the activity in question is the working out of terms of a trade-off of nuclear reactors and territorial redistributions, complete with arrangements for the resulting refugees, that is peacemaking. People laud it, and the negotiators get Noble Piece Prizes for it. On the other hand, when I call a certain speech act a rape, my “calling” it does not make it so. At best, I have to explain and justify and make clear exactly what it is about this speech act which is assaultive in just what way, and then the others acquiesce in saying the act was like rape or could figuratively be called a rape. My counterassault will not be counted a simple case of self-defense. And what I called rejection of parasitism, they call the loss of the womanly virtues of compassion and “caring.” And generally, when renegade women call something one thing and patriarchal loyalists call it another, the loyalists get their way.

Women generally are not the people who do the defining, and we cannot from our isolation and powerlessness simply commence saying different things than others say and make it stick. There is a humpty-dumpty problem in that. But we are able to arrogate definition to ourselves when we repattern access. Assuming control of access, we draw new boundaries and create new roles and relationships. This, though it causes some strain, puzzlement and hostility, is to a fair extent within the scope of individuals and small gangs, as outright verbal redefinition is not, at least in the first instance.

[…] It is our experience in the movement generally that the defensiveness, nastiness, violence, hostility and irrationality of the reaction to feminism tends to correlate with the blatancy of the element of separation in the strategy or project which triggers the reaction. The separations involved in women leaving homes, marriages and boyfriends, separations from fetuses, and the separation of lesbianism are all pretty dramatic. That is, they are dramatic and blatant when perceived from within the framework provided by the patriarchal world view and male parasitism. Matters pertaining to marriage and divorce, lesbianism and abortion touch individual men (and their sympathizers) because they can feel the relevance of these to themselves–they can feel the threat that they might be the next. Hence, heterosexuality, marriage and motherhood, which are the institutions which most obviously and individually maintain female accessibility to males, form the core triad of antifeminist ideology; and all-woman spaces, all-woman organizations, all-woman meetings, all-woman classes, are outlawed, suppressed, harassed, ridiculed and punished.

To some of us these issues can seem almost foreign… strange ones to be occupying center stage. We are busily engaged in what seem to us our blatant insubordinations: living our own lives, taking care of ourselves and one another, doing our work, and in particular, telling it as we see it. Still, the original sin is the separation which these presuppose, and it is that, not our art or philosophy, not our speechmaking, nor our “sexual acts” (or abstinences), for which we will be persecuted, when worse comes to worst.

- Marilyn Frye, Some Reflections on Separatism and Power in The Politics of Reality: essays in feminist theory (1983, Crossing Press)

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #310

“i get pretty just to fuck my face up.”

Do you have a clock in your room? No. What book, movie, TV show, or video game have you been wanting to start up? I *want* to read The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, but I care more about reading Wings of Fire, so I probably realistically won't for a long time. I don't read enough for that; Sutherland will surely keep pumping out books in the series so I'll never catch up, haha. As for a movie, I've been interested in seeing Jacob's Ladder for a very long time; it served as a very large influence on the Silent Hill series, and boy, anyone who brings up video games in front of me knows SH is my SHIT. I also just know I'm bound to like it with how essentially legendary it is in the psychological horror genre, which is my favorite. Onto TV show, I'm not certain. Shows don't really interest me. I would like to keep watching A:TLA w/ Sara, but "start up" implies beginning something new, so. Lastly, video games. There are a LOT of games I want to play, but yeah, I have no operational gaming console above a PS2. I'm dyinnnngggggg to play a ton of PS4 remasters (namely the original Spyro the Dragon trilogy and SoTC), but as for a fresh game I've never experienced, Ico, which is from the same producers of Shadow of the Colossus. It's an old game, and Mom's bought it off of Ebay for me twice, but neither disc worked - they froze only minutes into the game. It's hella expensive in new condition though because of its age... so who knows when I'll actually get to play it. Do you put anything else on your grilled cheese sandwiches? Just butter. Have you ever read a book in a different language? I've read some simple fairy tales as well as the play Faust in German courses. Do you want to go to the Harry Potter theme park at Universal? I have no connection with the franchise, but I mean, I'd go if you're paying, haha. If you had a secret room in your house, how would you decorate it? I'm trying to think what kind of room I'd keep a secret... Ha, actually, IF my love of tarantulas expands so largely to having dozens (which I doubt, but I acknowledge the possibility once I get my own place), a room kept on the down low to others just for them would be pretty cool. Imagine someone not knowing they're sharing a house with like, a hundred Ts, haha. As for actual decor, I'm unsure. I'd definitely keep it generally dark for them as nocturnal creatures, maybe with some Halloween decorations, like lots of fake webbing and neon green or orange lights. Man... that sounds dope. What did you get your dad for his last birthday? I couldn't buy him anything, nor did I actually make anything since I didn't know what to create. I just told him happy birthday, of course. Do any of your relatives live in another country? No. Are you claustrophobic? In some spaces, yes. Ever seen Blair Witch? Without spoilers, you know "that part" near the end? Yeah, if you've seen it, you know. That would be a fucking NIGHTMARE for me. Even watching it made me squirm. When grocery shopping, do you usually buy brand names or store brand? With most items anyway, we just get the store brand bc we cheap. Around what time do you usually eat dinner? Generally between 5:30-6:30 nowadays. Do you have any clothing that you get dry cleaned? No. Do you like foods with coconut in it? Eugh, not a coconut fan. I don't hate it as much as I used to, but I still don't like it. Have you ever researched your family history? No, but some past relative researched our family tree. Have you ever had surgery that kept you in the hospital for over a day? No. Do you like carrots more if they’re raw, or cooked? I hate carrots. Did you play with Legos as a kid? Nah, I was more into Lincoln Logs. Which bothers you more… spelling mistakes or bad grammar? It really depends on the severity and simplicity of the spelling or grammar rule. Grammatical misuse of "there/their/they're" stand out very strongly to me, though. Have you ever bought anything off of eBay? Yeah, a good number of things. Is anybody in your family schizophrenic? If so, what is their life like? I have a scizophrenic half-sister that I've never met, so I couldn't tell you. How organized is your mind? How do you know it's organized/disorganized? My mind is running Windows '98 with multiple windows and even more tabs open, all of them not responding. :^) Why do you follow the religion that you do? I don't follow one. My personal religious journey was a train wreck liberating to jump off of. Do you feel superior to others because you're that religion? I don't care if you're atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, whatever - you are by no means superior to another person in any way just because you believe different things happen once you die. If you do, it's time for some introspection. Are you a blind believer, or do you frequently challenge your own beliefs? Seeing as I went from Catholic to Christian to briefly Neo-Pagan-ish to what I am now, just believing there's some higher power/knowledge and some form of sentience after death, I obviously challenge them. What's the greatest thing about science? Life itself. This universe, this planet, your state of just knowing is a product of science, and that's pretty damn beautiful. Are you emotional or very stolid? I know I'm too emotional. I'm trying to get better about it. Do your siblings look like you? To a degree, but not NEARLY as much as they look like each other. Ashley and Nicole have been mistaken multiple times in their lives and even asked if they're twins. How many states have you lived in? Just this shitty one. How many states have you traveled through/vacationed in? Traveled through, a whole lot. Up and down the east coast. I've stayed in New York, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, South Carolina briefly, and I think possibly Michigan as a baby. Which state was/is your favorite? I don't know. Not NC, haha. You have two weeks alone in any place in the world; where would you go? Alone? Um... I dunno. I'd get lonely through two weeks in absolute isolation. How old were you when you first moved out of your parents' home? I want to say I was 18 when I briefly "moved in" with Jason and our roommates. Did you ever have to move back in? Yeah; the apartment didn't last very long. None of us were ready. How old were you when you thought you were "in love" for the first time? I was in love at 16. I'd fight God literally for eternity to prove that fact. How many exterior doors are in your home? Two, or maybe three, depending on your outlook. We have like this deck in the back with a roof and mesh separating you from the outside, and then you properly go into the yard from the door beyond that. How many cars have you owned? I myself, none. How many email accounts do you have? Ummmm my very first one I misspelled, so I didn't use it long before making a new one with the correct spelling, then later I had no choice but to make a Gmail to use YouTube, and I know I've had at least one email specifically for school. I'm probably forgetting some other oldies I used for small things. What was the last movie you watched alone? The Shining. What (if any) one television program do you watch religiously every day/week? None. What (if any) is your favorite sport? Dance. Scoff at that shit and then try one dance session and tell me it's not one. What is your favorite musical? None. Have you ever seen a live opera production? No. Dressing up for an evening out: Pants or skirt? Pants. I don't show my legs. What do you currently hear right now? I'm listening to Dance With the Dead's "The Man Who Made a Monster." I LOVE the aesthetic of synthwave and rock mixed together, but the only problem I have with this song is that it's very repetitive. Still stuck in my head though, haha. What type of survey do you refuse to take? I'm not into bolding surveys, specifically. Do you like to run? bitch fuck no Do you think you could run the mile in 10 minutes? Zero chance. What was the longest movie you watched? Hm, I don't remember... It's faintly there in my head, I just can't identify it... Have you ever been to a job interview? Well yeah. Who was the last person to call you? My psychiatrist. Now that I'm doing the partial hospitalization program again, he calls once a week. When was the last time you talked to your last ex boyfriend? Uhhh I think around the start of this month? Missed him and felt like chatting for a bit. Is your dog mixed or full? I don't have a dog, buuuut... we're getting one soon! I'm quite sure she's a mutt. What was the last thing you and your mother did together? Rode to the pharmacy to pick up my meds. Do you take good pictures? I like to think so. What is your display picture on myspace/facebook right now? The most recent selfie I took and liked. I'm finally comfortable using makeupless photos as a display picture. :') Not that I like my body by any means, I just don't care enough to feel like I HAVE to wear makeup to be even remotely pretty in the face. As for everywhere else... ahahaha. What is going on outside right now? It's raining. Like it has been for what feels like literally weeks - and it might actually have been. There's been one or two sunny days in a huge streak of just nothing but rain. It's so gross outside by now; we've been under a flood warning for days on end. Who was the last person you kissed? My best friend, but we were dating then. What color looks the best on you? Black. Have you ever bought the wrong size because you were too lazy to check it? Oh, absolutely. I LOATHE trying on clothes. You have to essentially drag me to go do it. I don't have a good reason other than I don't want to, lol. What was the last thing you bought over 5 dollars? I put down the deposit on my tattoo. c: Do you have any mag subscriptions? No. What is something you're not scared of but a lot of people are? Snakes are probably the highest on the list. I adore snakes, all snakes. Would you ever have a threesome? No; I'm strictly monogamous and to me would be cheating even if your partner was in on it. Are you an U.S. citizen? Yep. Do you have any step siblings? I have a stepbrother, yeah, but I don't see him as my brother, honestly. He's a very quiet and reclusive guy I've had almost no conversations with, and they've only ever been short. Do they annoy you? Nah, he's fine. How many times a day do you talk to your mom on the phone? Well, we live together... What did you wear yesterday? The same pjs I'm in now. I'm changing when I take a shower later. The tank top is a Day of the Dead-esque skull pattern, while the pants are mostly navy with skulls and candy can crossbones that say "nice until proven naughty" arching over and beneath them. They were a Christmas gift from my sis and are really soft and comfortable. Really don't care that it's now out of season, I wear them anyway. I do not match colors AT ALL, but again, I don't care. What color straightener do you have? We don't have one; neither Mom or I use one. Do you listen to music really loud or really low? Turn that shit up LOUD. I'll be nearly deaf one day, but... worth it? lol Do you live with anybody other than your siblings and your parents? No. Both my sisters have moved out. I'm still here because I'm just not emotionally or financially equipped to live on my own yet. Who was your last crush? I still like my best friend, but agree with her that right now isn't the time for anything. How many tattoos do you have? Currently only six. :( What is your favorite thing to do? Car rides with Mom while I ride passenger, controlling the music nice and loud with my iPod. It's odd, considering I'm very afraid of being on the road, but it's just such a freeing, wild feeling to blare music and just go, letting your mind wander. How many pets do you own? I only have a cat and a snake right now, but we're getting a dog hopefully very soon, preferably today actually when Mom has to go to the appropriate city for her normal check-up to keep her cancer at bay. Her name is Vanna and sounds so perfect for us. Mom can barely wait. Are you close with your parents? Yes, very, Mom especially. Where do you shop the most for your clothes? Hot Topic or Wal-Mart. I'd really like more stuff from Rebel's Market; they have such a wide range of stuff that just scream my aesthetic. I got my purse from there, and it's fantastic quality and so cool-looking. Have you ever read a whole series of books? Well, one trilogy that I remember: Shiloh. I adored those books and the movies. I got very, very deep into Warriors by Erin Hunter, but then my interest in reading waned, and I'm immensely behind. I don't think I'll pick it up again, but I've thought briefly about it. When you tell someone you love them do you mean it? Yes. Are you going to walk at your graduation or just pick your diploma up? I walked. Do you ever eat anything everybody else thinks is gross? Hm, perhaps. I'd have to think for a while. What did you do for your last birthday? I just ate pizza at home with my one sister that was free that day, Mom, and a family friend, as well as opened presents. What do you plan on doing for your 18th birthday? I don't recall, but I think that may have been when I was in the psych hospital. Or was that my 21st? I don't remember. Do you have to type with good grammer? Yes. I type pretty much exactly how I talk. What is your favorite quote? It's hard to pick one singular favorite. Are you allowed to cuss in front of your parents? Dad could care less, but I try to limit myself with Mom, especially with "fuck." She's not a fan, nor does she like if I just swear too much in front of her. Like she won't yell at me or anything, she just makes it clear she wants me to stop. How long was your last phone conversation? Just a couple minutes. I didn't get the Zoom link to group therapy one day and let the place know. Turns out their email was fucking up. Which one of your friends annoy you? The family friend I mentioned a few questions above has the ability to be incredibly aggravating. I love her, but she has zero issue with inserting herself into everything (and sometimes we just don't want to see her), and she voices incredibly rude opinions literally no one asks for a whoooole lot. She's got a strong tendency to try to take control over every situation. Her being our landlord now makes it harder to speak up, and besides, no one wants to hurt her feelings. Don't be mistaken though, she truly is an incredible person with a heart more caring than probably any person I know. Have you ever lost a close friend to death? No, thank fuck. I mean, I think. I do believe one of my childhood online friends committed suicide because of sexual abuse from her own fucking brother, but I guess I'll never know. She was talking to me one night horribly depressed and scared and then just vanished. Bless her, I loved her. Do you know someone who suffers from addiction? Yes. Do you have a lot of pictures in your room? Tons of posters and artwork, anyway. I currently don't have any photographs, but I got this shadowbox thing for my bday to decorate with pictures of Teddy so I can use it in my "tribute shrine" or whatever for him, and I'd also like to frame the picture of Sara's and my first hug and maybe put it on my bedside table. Do you have Facebook? Yeah, I do. Have you ever found a dog/cat on the side of the road? I myself, no, but a friend's mom did find two poor kittens thrown aside in a fucking plastic bag... Some people are abominable. Knowing how much my family loved cats, she reached out to us, and we took them in and named them Aphrodite and... I can't remember the other's name. She disappeared kinda early. Aphrodite wound up being one of my most beloved cats and was even the mother of a kitten that same family adopted. Delilah is still alive, doing wonderfully, and incredibly loved. <3 Aphrodite, meanwhile, as well as all our other cats at the time, were taken by animal control because our neighbors were tired of them wandering, even though they were too fucking cowardly to confront us first. I've said in many surveys that I am very much against outdoor cats, but I wasn't then because I was uninformed and really didn't understand. I wailed and sobbed and just pure shrieked like a banshee outside when we came home to learn they were taken. I have no clue how any are now, and that's the worst part. Do you go bowling in your town? We are in the middle of a pandemic, lol. Even beforehand though, I rarely went. Last time I did was on a date with Girt. We had fun. Do you have a drive-in theater? No sir. What brand is your favorite shoe? Converse. Is your best friend's mom like your own? They're quite similar, yes. Both are very sweet and caring for others. Do you have anxiety or depression? Try both. What is your favorite fast food restaurant? Sonic. Do you own a pair of brass knuckles? Nah. Have you and your friends ever made up a word? Likely as kids. Do you have any embarrassing baby pictures of yourself? Not that I know of. What is the worst smell in the world? Anyone remember that survey I took mentioning my dog's old tumor? Yeah, that after he spent overnight in a diaper and inevitably peed himself in his old age. And he had a UTI. You probably can't even imagine how fucking vomit-inducing that smell was. Do you dye your hair a lot? No. :/ I really wish. I have so many colors I wanna try. Do you have anybody in your family who rides dirtbikes/fourwheelers? Not really? No one in my family owns one. My younger sister would totally go if you asked her and had one for her to use, though. She's done it plenty before. Have you ever rode a dirtbike/fourwheeler? Yeah, a fourwheeler, and it's really fun! Tell me how you got one of your scars? Hmmm, let's think of a unique one. Ah, my shins, left one especially. When I shave my legs, they get unbelievably itchy, even if I use lotion, and I would scratch my skin absolutely raw so often that I have permanent scars. It's partially why I barely shave my legs anymore. Have you ever had a friend who cut themselves? I know many, sadly. I don't know of any that still do, thankfully. I promise, it never helps. If you ever have the urge, I can't suggest enough running where you want to self-harm under cold water or slap the location (like your wrist) with a rubber band. The latter is especially helpful. It's a similar burning sensation and doesn't leave marks. It would help me refrain sometimes. What is your favorite thing to do in the summer? Swim in a nice, warm pool. Otherwise, become a hermit and wait for the outdoors to not be prepared to melt the flesh off my bones. x_x Do you go tanning or do you lay out? Neither, ugh. As you can guess from above, I hate the sensation of heat on me. What is your favorite skin lotion? I just really like cocoa butter. Smells really good and is perfectly moisturizing. Do you use a lot of hair products? The only hair product I use is shampoo, haha. Do you have a cousin you dislike? No. Well, one is incredibly brainwashed and misled by her psychopath of a father, but I love her nonetheless. We talk now and again because family is important to her. Have you ever heard Theory of a Deadman? Yeah, they're good. What is your comfort food? Absolutely ice cream. Who is your celebrity crush? Mark Fischbach/Markiplier is a perfect human being with the looks of a god and heart of a saint and you cannot convince me otherwise. What’s the song you most wish you had written? "Imagine" by John Lennon is a high contendant, for sure. Definitely something I'd write. Have you ever been stuck by someone very annoying on a plane/bus/etc? I think so at one point or another. Did you get lost at all on your first day of high school? Ha, for sure. Have you ever been interrupted during sex? A bitch knows how to act asleep if she hears a door so much as barely squeak, I'll tell you that much lmaooo. Have you ever been recorded doing stupid things while drunk? No. Has a significant other ever called you by the wrong name? No. Have you ever cooked anything and it turned out horrible? I've barely actually cooked anything in order TO fuck up. Have you ever made a bad first impression on someone’s parents? I can't say with certainty, but I think Jason's mom had her doubts about me at first because she commented on the ripped jeans I wore when I went to his house for the first time. She came to love me like her own though, and I love(d) her. I was actually just thinking about her and how she's doing the other day. What is a food that you always are in the mood to eat? Always? Perhaps sour candy, like Sour Punch Straws in specific. Ever held a newborn animal? Many kittens, yes. Do you make a wish when you blow out your birthday candles? I do, but just for the annual appeal of it. I don't actually believe it will have any effect on what I wished, it's just... normal, ig. What is the last thing you searched for online? Medical coding classes. Having trouble finding any free ones that are actually legit... Is it wicked hard for you to sleep when it's hot in your room? It's borderline impossible. Do you dunk your cookies in milk? Sometimes, and almost always with Oreos. Do medical terms make you uncomfortable? Ha, speaking of medical coding... No, not really. It's unnerving to hear "you have _____," but I understand it can be something so, so minor. Of course, it could be the exact opposite, but. I also actually find it quite interesting to learn the Latin roots of the terms. Are you afraid of failure? Beyond measure. Have you been called a bad influence? Yes, to my former friend's son. Not that that witch of a woman was a great person. I'd love to know how an infant can be negatively affected by receiving nothing but love from his "aunt," also having no concept of understanding about me being unemployed and not very "adult-ish" in general, which I'm sure is what she meant. Normally judgment hits me deep, but that shit I just rolled my eyes at.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Over Analysis ‘The Gawas will be the Death of Me’ Stage 2: The Ark Fight(s)

… What do to when home sick from work (I’m okay, I think I know what it is).

Do the other half of your Zero-One over analysis. Slowly.

So. Skipping over some stuff, where Aruto becomes president of Hiden again, and we have MBJR just… Mooning around, including a shot of Horobi’s hand that makes me think the camera crew is reading my conversations… Anyway. Jin chills in the tunnel for a bit until he seems to resolve something and gets up, while Raiden hangs out in the usual part of the base, and Naki and Horobi go for walks. While I disagree w/ certain choices made in this sequence, it’s interesting that Horobi’s apparently aimless wandering leads him to… A daycare centre.

There he is, the prettiest gargoyle ever. I mean, I have Feelings about things in this part… But this isn’t about that! This is about how Horobi stands around and stares at the kids and the two HumaGear playing w/ them. My theory, which has yet to be at all disproven by anything, remains that Horobi originally got ‘Ark’d bc in the past, maybe partially bc of Soreo’s data, he grew to want to create his own child and tried to build Jin pre-Ark, maybe not even that he wanted to raise Jin instead, but just wanted to raise Jin alongside the other children, but as a child, not programming him to serve a purpose for humans. But the humans around him reacted badly to the concept, and immediately tried to put a stop to it, and the Ark promptly preyed on a father’s desperation to protect his son. Going by that interpretation… Horobi’s trance-like state just… Staring at the two HumaGear having fun w/ the kids is heartbreaking. Is he only looking at his past? Or is he seeing something he and Jin should have had, that was taken from them.

To continue ignoring my Feelings, we have Horobi promptly attempting to erase the source (?) of his uncertainty in the only way he knows how at this point. Interesting that he’d end up targeting some random kids, but couldn’t follow through attacking Jin. More deflection/projection? He can’t attack his own son, but maybe if he ‘proves’ he can overcome his instincts here, he thinks he’ll find peace? But Horobi’s never been good at following through w/ attacking children, not even when they attack him first. Especially not when there’s a father on hand.

But before Horobi can even pull back the… Arrow? He’s getting hit w/ flashbacks. Jin looking dejected. Himself lowering his weapon rather than follow through w/ what the Ark would want. All while Aruto’s challenge about wanting to protect Jin rings in his head.

… And he can’t do it.

Also please note he lowers the bow before Jin shows up. I saw something that said ‘Horobi almost kills some kids before Jin stops him.’ And… No. Horobi stops himself. He may have trouble comprehending why, but he does. He finds himself thinking about his own son, and can’t follow through w/ it. He never even gets so far as pulling back the arrow (?).

Then Jin shows up.

Jin’s wobbly as he approaches and holds onto the… Thing. Like he’s still injured and limping. Instead of seeking out Raiden or Naki, who seemed much more open to the idea of leaving the Ark, he specifically goes after Horobi. And says something that makes me kind of wonder if Jin is actually falling into something parallel/perpendicular to what I think Horobi is doing next ep. Now that he seems to be shaken out of whatever had him thinking that That was a good plan, or necessary (I do have to admit, I like the concept of Jin, whether by manipulation or otherwise, having come to the conclusion that there was no way to save Horobi and that at best his father would always end up dying, and that the only thing he could do was try and save him from a more drawn out, painful death or some worse fate, but they would have needed to imply that earlier for it to really land), he kinda feels like he’s… Chasing what was taken from them? Like, I mentioned my theory earlier, and I haven’t thought much about the implications of if Jin knows or doesn’t know, but him trying to use that incident to prompt something in Horobi kinda feels like, along w/ his pleading looks before and the fact that he came after Horobi… Like he wants to try and reclaim the chance/right to be a family that got stolen from them. Like he wants to try again. Meanwhile, the impression I get from Horobi’s behaviour, as I see it, next week, is that Horobi has just accepted that they can never really recover that, and has decided the only thing he can do is make sure the future is better for Jin and other HumaGear, no matter the cost. I feel like that’d be a lovely, tragic angle to the whole thing.

Anyway.

… Horobi is, once again, bewildered by the concept of wanting something for himself? This is why I feel like, even if his motivations next week are what I hope, we may not hear it from him unless it’s a dying or emergency confession. Horobi has been conditioned for years, since he was created, to never think or want for himself, and my theory is that the first time he tried, he suffered for it. He’s been under the Ark’s control for so long that it’s… Easier. Less painful to just let the Ark be in charge. And gods know we see very clearly that the Ark will get aggressive when he doesn’t.

Horobi’s second emotional outburst, and it’s… Again about rejecting the concept of freedom and choosing for himself. On the one had, he can’t imagine doing that, on the other… He’s quite possibly traumatised by the concept.

No, wait, Ark, let him finish, I want to know what he thought he was doing. Additionally, this is the second time the Ark has apparently reacted to Horobi having an emotional reaction.

We get this little… Uncertain sort of lip bite before he turns to face the Ark. The Ark’s influence trying to squash the doubt/emotions that Jin prompts in him?

Oh, honey.

… Oh, typo.

Jin’s reacting to multiple things here, the Ark jumping in, and the fact that she’s announced she’s going to destroy HumaGear. I appreciate that we don’t get any ‘smug about being right’ or anything, and that he also seems to be upset about the fact that he was getting somewhere again, only for the Ark to jump back in. There’s also the fact that the Ark is using Horobi to say this, and Jin has shown he’s aware (in this ep, at least) that Horobi actually is doing this for HumaGear. To Horobi, this was always about HumaGear. Hearing those words out of his father’s mouth must be… Really jarring.

Anyway, the Ark promptly starts attacking.

Jin stays on the defensive the entire time during this fight, seems to just be trying to restrain Horobi, and doesn’t try to henshin once. This is Toku, the franchise that essentially invented the ‘transforming is a free action’ trope (okay, maybe that was technically magical girl anime), so if he really wanted to, he could. The Ark makes no move to transform, either—but that makes sense, we’ve seen her fight just fine untransformed, the whole magic grey goo thing. But if the ark remains untransformed and Jin transforms… Is he afraid he’d end up actually hurting Horobi? This is one of the things that convinces me that Jin really does understand what he did wrong and that he fucked up, and now he’s trying to make up for it/regrets it. He knows this is partially his fault, and it’s coming right on the heels of Horobi making something like progress bc Jin actually bothered trying. That’s gotta be another sucker punch, understanding that if he actually had bothered rather than… I don’t know, trying to take the easy way out? Then again… Looking at how his own death played out… Maybe he was taught by experience.

Anyway.

… I’m saying that a great deal in this one, aren’t I?

Anyway, the ark predictably gets the upper hand, sends Jin flying only to 

So. Let’s talk about Jin’s hands again.

Namely… I don’t think that’s how you get a foot off your chest.

In the previous stage/section, I was talking about Jin’s hand twitching upward when Horobi lowered the bow, and here… I guess, in theory, he could be trying to… Pry it off or something, but his hands aren’t going through the motions of that, they’re not really tense or straining to pull the foot upward. He’s just… Hanging on.

The Ark holds that position for an unnecessarily long time, just, staring down at Jin, like she’s trying to force him to face how much control she has over Horobi, and maybe take the time to enforce to Horobi that he’s merely her pawn.

… I’m absolutely sure that is not how you get a foot off your chest.

It’s hard to show w/ still images, but Jin’s motions do not seem like he’s trying to escape his situation. His hands aren’t gripping or pulling, they aren’t tense. He’s not squirming or yelling or anything. His behaviour feels less like ‘get off me, Ark!’ and more like… Well, more like he’s trying to reach out/hold onto Horobi, like he’s given up on ‘fighting’ and is just desperately hoping contact will do it. More like ‘it’s me, Horobi, look, please, it’s me.’ Like when a character is knocked unconscious and someone who cares about them rushes to their side and is grabbing and touching their shoulder, maybe their face, like ‘look at me, please look at me.’

At last, the Ark raises the katana w/ similar pointed slowness—it really, really feels like she’s trying to drag this out as much as possible.

There’s so much to this reaction. For one thing, I mean there’s a sword bearing down on him, so obviously he’d be frightened. But it’s also not just a sword, it’s his father holding it, his father who is possessed by a homicidal satellite that sees him as nothing more than a puppet, and he’s possessed bc Jin raised the bloody thing and planned to sacrifice him to kill it (would that even have worked, though? Or would the Ark have just jumped to another host?). What’s more, earlier, Horobi stopped and couldn’t follow through when Jin asked if killing him was what Horobi wanted, and we already know he remembers Horobi rushing to protect him. He’s at least reasonably sure about the fact that Horobi himself doesn’t want to hurt him, and at least some idea that he’s able to get through to Horobi is he tries (I don’t know if he actually knows he’s Horobi’s singularity Point… my gut says no). There’s not only the fear of death, but probably the sense that if this happens, it will be the final nail on the coffin of any chance Horobi had of breaking free of the Ark. It’ll be the end for both of them, honestly.

Despite Aruto yelling, the Ark brings the sword down, and, understandably, Jin looks away…

… Only to, very noticeably, you know, not die. So he looks back up and…

This look is already… So much emotion. But don’t y’all just wanna hear me talk about hands again? Right? Right?

Well, too bad. Bc Jin’s reaction kills me every time. Literally. I keep going back just to watch this moment. Bc when he looks back up and takes in what happened, w/out looking, w/out saying anything, completely instinctively…

… He reaches for Horobi.

This seems like… A whole combination of things. A kid reaching for his father for comfort, but also at the same time… Like he’s trying to comfort Horobi, reach out to him. Bc he knows this has to be Horobi. The Ark wants to kill him double, has announced she’s going to destroy HumaGear. She wouldn’t stop. But Horobi would. Horobi’s instinct was to protect him before, he couldn’t kill him even when he had the chance, couldn’t kill the kids. Someone else pointed out that, normally, given the chance, someone would be frantically getting away from someone who tired to stab them, but Jin’s reaction is to reach for his father, despite the whole ‘possessed and holding a sword over his head’ thing. Again, not ‘get off me’ but more like ‘it’s you, it’s okay, I’m here, it’s going to be okay, you can do it.’

The camera pulls back to show a scene that is very clearly from a different take (but, I mean, why would you not use the one where Jin reaches out like that?), then closes in on Horobi again. The Ark is clearly struggling—I like the way it sounds like she’s putting all her effort into trying to push the sword down, but Horobi refuses to budge.

Then the flashbacks start. Bits of Horobi’s memory while his own voice echoes behind them.

The first one is obvious—the first time he moved completely w/out the Ark’s command, possibly the first action that was totally of his own volition in over a decade. Which was, notably, and action that is the complete opposite of what the Ark is now trying to force him to do.

The Ark reacts like she’s getting a headache, clearly baffled by Horobi having any resistance to her will.

Then we get interesting.

ForceRisering Jin. Notably, Horobi’s initial flashback was to the time he reacted on his own, as if he’s finally realising what he truly wants, to protect Jin… But then he flashes back to this moment, which was… The time he did the opposite, according to the will of the Ark. We know, via Project Thouser, that Horobi was extra manipulated into this by Gai via Naki suggesting it would benefit ‘their’ (read: the Ark’s, none of this was ever Horobi or Naki’s plan, though it was half Gai’s) plans. So he goes from a moment where he acted like the father he wants to be (that was a signal of him nearing singularity, that wanting to be Jin’s father is his dream) to a time when the Ark’s influence caused him to be the opposite. For me, this is really fuel for my theory about Horobi’s behaviour next ep—that he believes that he and Jin can never get back what was taken from them by the Ark and therefore humans, and that the only thing he can do is try to make a safer, better future for his son, no matter the cost, even if he dies in the attempt. This also makes my other theory all the more heartbreaking, that Horobi originally got into this to protect Jin, and then the Ark’s control warped and twisted him, and now he’s starting to remember himself and seeing that and ends up convincing himself he can’t go back.

But. Anyway (again).

The next one is from the hospital arc. This was the incident where we first heard Horobi’s ‘we are not the slaves of humanity’ sentiment, and also the first time he and Jin henshined together. He’s thinking back to the times when his son was w/ him, when he believed they were fighting for freedom for their kind. I’m not entirely sure about any implications regarding this scene following the other one, other than chronology. Is Horobi regretting having involved Jin in the fighting? Is he veering between things that he regrets and things he doesn’t? Guilt and remorse for hurting his son, but also the fact that he enjoyed being w/ Jin and fighting together w/ him? Given that he doesn’t seem to be involving Jin in his actions next ep, perhaps, while he cherishes this memory for certain aspects, he may also conclude that he needs to keep Jin out of things for his safety. Perhaps he sees involving Jin in the fight as a failure on his part, too.

Next is the moment when he confronted Aruto for Ikazuchi’s data… Which lead to him kidnapping Midori, encountering the father and son, and the exchange on the bridge, and his first choice in over a decade. I’m not as sure about what I think this one might be about, but like I said, it did lead to the conversation w/ Midori, and more questions about what he really wants, brought up his relationship w/ Jin  (and then belittled it). Is he thinking about everything that lead to this? Thinking about wanting to reunite his family? About what was sacrificed to raise the Ark? Or does this have to do w/ Jin’s admittedly plan?

The last memory is of the moment when Jin was making graves for Ansatsu-chan and Ikazuchi. On the one hand, we have HumaGear who died for the Ark’s plan, and Horobi was directed to not care, but Jin was also highly effected by those deaths, and Horobi snapped at him for grieving for them. Additionally, Jin expressed a desire to get revenge on the humans responsible for their deaths. Horobi may also be carrying something like resentment and a desire for revenge on the humans who were ultimately responsible for everything he and Jin went through, everything the Ark caused him to put Jin through. And they’ve been through a lot.

But first…

MY MAN.

I feel like it’s significant that Horobi starts this question facing away (but this post is already so picture heavy), kinda hunched and looking down—the way the scene cuts makes it comes across as Horobi just being ‘transported’ into the Ark’s space like how Aruto and Izu do into Zea’s, while the Ark stands a distance behind him, back turned. It really does give the impression of Horobi being forced to watch while the Ark just casually uses his body w/out even really ‘looking.’ Horobi is the one the situation is in front of, while the Ark is indifferently facing away. Horobi turns toward the Ark to ask why, probably his first question in twelve years. And it’s bc of Jin. Not only is the Ark trying to force him to destroy HumaGear, she wants him to start w/ the one person who means the most to him. The one person Horobi himself doesn’t want to hurt.

The Ark… Doesn’t take it well.

Horobi gets swarmed by the floating words, and it sounds painful, enough that he’s brought to his knees. One question, just asking why, in twelve years, and he gets this. And he’s just asking why. The Ark doesn’t even bother faking a reason, just responds by torturing him, trying to force him back into compliance. W/ a method that has perhaps worked before.

Except this time, Jin’s life is actually on the line.

I love the way he brings his hand up to his face. I don’t know why, I just do. Anyway, Horobi fights through the pain, his hand curling into a fist.

… And…

THAT’S MY MAN.

Hey, that setup looks familiar, I think we’re just missing a sunset (come at me w/ comparing Horobi to Gai now, you… Jerk faces!).

You know what, I think I’m gonna break this into parts to prevent anymore mishaps.

Please hold.