#also directly contributes. stares DIRECTLY at the god complex takes

[cdroloisms]

the mainstream fandom was more willing to bend the narrative backwards to make c!Wilbur hero/good person while pinning his character's sins onto c!Dream because cc!Wilbur himself is a very attractive man, and at the time we didn't know what cc!Dream looked like so he didn't have the same kind of pretty privilege to shape the narrative

...i mean, lol. lmao. c!wilbur sure does get away with a lot (looks straight at the canonical zoophilia statements) very easily and like. c! (and cc!)wilbur's charisma sure was doing a LOT to make sure of that

[lottiecrabie]

🫣🫣🫣 analysis:

she seems to be motivated by her religious upbringing and the desire to adhere to the expectations placed upon her. there's probably an underlying motivation to find a sense of belonging and acceptance within her religious community specifically. she seems to have a negative perception of matty (sinful, disruptive and mocking). she experiences an internal conflict between her expected role as a devout individual and her suppressed emotions and his presence represents a conflict for her, as she perceives him as a disruption to her religious experience. she also interprets his laughter as him mocking the religious proceedings. she has a strong reaction to Matty's presence and behaviour. she seems to resent him for attending the religious service if he is only going to cause a disturbance. besides she could feel a sense of duty to defend her faith and prove her commitment to her faith. her discomfort stems from a perception that his gaze goes beyond merely seeing the mask she puts on for others. for some reason she feels that he has the ability to penetrate through her carefully constructed façade. the discomfort arises from the realization that his perceptive stare threatens to expose her. it may also stem from a fear of being judged for her true thoughts, emotions and desires. her fear of being exposed and having her true self revealed could trigger a defensive response leading to negative emotions such as resentment or hatred towards him. additionally, his ability to see through her may act as a reminder of the internal conflict she faces which could amplify her negative emotions towards him. the gaze represents an intrusion into her carefully crafted façade and challenges her ability to control how she is perceived. on the other hand, some part of her might envy his apparent carefree attitude. seeing him embrace a life that seems to defy the rules she feels bound by might intensify her feelings of resentment which could also contribute to her negative feelings towards him. alongside her envy, she may also feel a conflicting sense of admiration which might intensify her internal conflict, as she simultaneously longs to emulate his carefree nature while also resenting him for embodying the freedom she desires - this is a complex interplay between admiration and envy could contribute to her mixed feelings towards him.

she harbours unspoken anger and desires which she struggles to suppress and understand and despite her negative emotions (annoyance, discomfort, surprise and a sense of unspoken anger), she consciously tries to maintain a complacent and composed demeanor in front of her parents by masking her true emotions behind a smile thus conforming to the expectations placed upon her. instead of confronting her own internal conflicts she might project her negative emotions towards matty as a way to distance herself from her own discomfort.

Matty's motivations remain somewhat ambiguous at first. however, his actions during the service suggest that he has a desire to disrupt and challenge - it's not clear if he wants to provoke the reader directly or if he's simply expressing his rebellious nature in general. either way, his behaviour seems to be deliberate. matty's attention towards her as well as his apparent enjoyment of provoking her hints at a complex dynamic and a potential emotional connection & fascination. regardless, his fascination with y/n is evident through his attention-seeking behaviour (lmao @ the attention-seeking). his attraction to her seems to stem not only from physical desire but also from a genuine interest in exploring and push the boundaries between their contrasting views. he takes pleasure in challenging her beliefs, questioning the existence of God and engaging in intellectual and emotional battles with her. his interactions with her reveal a strong desire for authenticity and honesty. matty's character also demonstrates a certain level of self-assuredness and confidence. there is an air of mystery surrounding him. oh and his actions and words reveal a certain level of self-awareness of the impact he has on her. his motivations become clearer as he reveals his atheistic views and his intent to challenge and question her faith. his rebellious and non-conformist nature explains his enjoyment of provoking and taunting her as well as his desire to provoke thought and challenge her beliefs. their dialogue delves into philosophical aspects examining the nature of faith, the existence of God and the concept of finding meaning and purpose in life. the clash between her belief in God and his atheism creates a philosophical tension that intensifies as their conflict escalates. the reader seems to be drawn to Matty's unabashed and honest expression of his thoughts. on the other hand, matty might find y/n's devotion and attempt to reconcile her faith with her inner rebelliousness intriguing and attractive. the attraction they feel for each other may also stem from a shared desire to explore their own identities. they represent something novel and intriguing to each other. there is a sense of mutual fascination and attraction which culminates in a kiss that for the reader represents a moment of liberation and a surrender to her hidden desires.

by externalising blame onto matty, she seeks to alleviate feelings of guilt and maintain a sense of moral righteousness. this defense mechanism allows her to preserve her self-image and uphold the façade she has constructed. it serves as a way to protect her ego and avoid confronting her own actions. she may be attempting to regain a sense of control over the situation and assert her own moral superiority. one possible reason why matty doesn't seem to take any real offense to some of the things she says is that he may have a level of emotional resilience and a nonchalant attitude towards conflict or personal attacks; another possibility is that he may possess a certain level of emotional maturity and self-assuredness that allows him to brush off things he doesn't really like to her which could suggest that he has a strong sense of self and isnt as affected by external judgments or accusations. it could also be more evidence that he has a deep understanding of her internal struggles and defense mechanisms and for that reason he may recognize that her unkind words are a product of her own internal conflict. in this case, by not taking real offense, he may be demonstrating empathy realising that her words are more reflective of her own struggles rather than a genuine indictment of him. another interpretation, and this one upset me a little, could be that he is unfazed by the blame because he has his own emotional walls or defense mechanisms. maybe he is accustomed to deflecting personal attacks (😞). but another theory is that he may be willing to overlook or downplay her behaviour in order to maintain their connection and pursue his interests which would suggest a certain level of strategic mindset on his part but it would inevitably end up in built-up resentment so yeah, not very wise but that doesn't seem likely as he appears to be very passionate and authentic and not necessarily someone who's manipulative and calculating.

with that being said, Matty displays a sharp intellect and wit which suggests a keen mind and an interest in intellectual stimulation. additionally, he displays a unique ability to observe (he seems to be one of the first to notice the façade she puts up) indicating a perceptive nature. his engagement in philosophical discussions and his ability to challenge others suggests a potential for high intelligence. despite being highly intelligent, these individuals often show disinterest in school as it doesn't provide the kind mental stimulation that they need. his observations about her true feelings and emotions also indicate empathy and emotional intelligence as he seems to understand something that most people fail to notice. he is also independent and has a desire to assert his own perspectives. however despite his outwardly provocative demeanor, matty exhibits emotional depth during intimate moments (👀). his reactions during intimate moments are very emotional which show he has a capacity to freely experience and express deep emotions in a passionate manner. but while he exhibits exceptional emotional depth in certain moments he also displays emotional detachment and a sarcastic demeanor (probably a defense mechanism) and his deliberate challenging of other people's beliefs may come across as confrontational & insensitive to others. therefore, while he demonstrates exceptional perceptive qualities, it is unclear to what extent he truly empathizes with others, i.e., it isn't clear if his focus on challenging beliefs and his seemingly detached nature may indicate a limited capacity for understanding and relating to the emotions and experiences of others. my psychiatrist also said he'd like to know if his rebelliousness has a purpose because it's not clear to him if he's driven by a clear purpose/philosophy. if he doesn't have a purpose, then his own actions can become destructive in the long run and lead to a sense of aimlessness or irresponsibility in his actions. if, on the other hand, he does have a purpose then he has a purpose.

final thoughts on y/n:

she exhibits a complex psychological profile. she strives for perfection and conformity seeking validation from her community and family. but her struggle with anxiety is evident throughout this first part. she experiences pressure from her family and society to maintain a flawless image, leading to a constant fear of falling short. her attraction to matty represents a manifestation of her hidden desires and a longing for authenticity which serves as a catalyst for self-discovery. the intense emotional and physical connection with matty provides her with a temporary escape but also adds to her psychological turmoil. her behaviour suggests an underlying need for autonomy and individuality since she seems to be dealing with feelings of being trapped resulting in a desire to break free and explore her authentic self. additionally, her experiences highlight the importance of identity formation at that stage of her life and the search for meaning. it is also possible that she feels unseen by those around her (including her parents). despite her efforts to maintain the façade and living up to societal and familial expectations, there may be a deep-rooted and paradoxical desire within her to be seen and understood for who she truly is. while she consciously chooses to maintain the façade, there could be an underlying (take a shot every time I say 'underlying') longing for someone to recognize her true identity. despite disagreeing with him, she may experience a sense of validation and understanding through her interactions with matty. she may feel seen in a way she hasn't before. matty's ability to see through her façade and engage with the complexities of her character may have awakened a desire within her to be seen and accepted for who she truly is beyond the expectations placed upon her. this is a common longing in people who feel pressured to conform and hide aspects of their true selves which creates a contrasting mixture of feelings: desire to be seen + fear of actually being seen. she displays a strong sense of responsibility and conscientiousness, a capacity for introspection and a rich emotional inner world. her interactions with Matty made it clear that she's a very curious person. she exhibits self-destructive impulses andd explosive outbursts. her desire for validation and fear of falling short indicate underlying feelings of insecurity and a need for external approval. she also seems to be quite indecisive at times. she oscillates between adhering to her religious beliefs and succumbing to the allure of temptation. finally, she struggles to assert herself and communicate her needs and boundaries effectively leading to internalized frustration.

and this is it 🫡

- 🐥💖

OH I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!! i swear i have been religiously (ah) checking my askbox like When will i get this psychiatrist’s man thoughts on my porn. once again he is so careful and intricate with his analysis and it makes me so happy to see. (and you are very careful and intricate explaining his analysis, of course. i’m sure you had a big part in this) i think he went even deeper than i have, and he definitely drew an accurate portrait of their psyche which was Very interesting to see how someone with actual knowledge would therapize them.

ok here are my own thoughts, put under the keep reading line because Poor average crabette reader having to scroll through this novel

he has a great understanding of who reader is! everything he said was extremely truthful and well articulated. i think the important part of reader is that she’s an unreliable narrator. since she is so deeply into her own faith and resulting guilt, she sees the world in these very stark contrasts and tends to negatively perceive everything. we see her do it a bunch of times, referring to herself as a pit of darkness or whatever just for feeling horny. that also changes the way she sees matty. because she is ‘tempted’ by him, ie. she is attracted to him and doesn’t know how to reckon with that, she will push this sinful, serpent narrative on him. though his laugh in church was mocking and disruptive, the level at which she is bothered by it is because she is hyperaware of him. to me that’s what The Gaze represents, both matty genuinely seeing past her facade (he says in pfms2 that she has a ‘look in her eyes like she could burn this whole place. like she chooses not to.’ clearly indicating he does see beyond her mask, specifically recognizing the ‘unspoken anger’ she tries to hide) and reader wanting him to, sort of grandiosing this look because she pushes this narrative on him. a look can feel a lot more intense, a lot more meaningful when you want that person, and it’s a lot easier to deal with it by pushing the narrative that it’s all him, all his fault, all his doing. it happens most obviously when matty literally tells her ‘that cookie looks good’ and she snaps at him like he insulted her, like he’s taunting her.

he also completely hit the nail on the head with matty’s characterization. he is very much a rebellious, confident and honest person. i don’t think he has a purpose for that rebellion— he is uncomfortable in the town and hates the societal norms, so he provokes and rebels as a way of lashing out until he can finally ‘burn this place to ground’ or other emo expressions. he is definitely attracted to the depth she hides from people. he is fascinated by her and likes to tease and prod her to see her shed her mask. that’s part of the reasons he enters these philosophical debates and questions her faith; to then see her get angry and more ‘herself’. force her to reveal her true self, to feel. it’s because he coaxes these moments of sincerity out of her that she finally snaps and feels what she’s been trying to smother: anger, but mostly attraction. she finally kisses him.

matty not getting mad at her for pushing the blame on him is, as your psychiatrist theorized, because he does recognize that it’s a defense mechanism. it’s also pretty tame: she only says that he’s a bad influence and to leave her alone. when he teases her, she retorts by being angry and kind of merciless, which again only makes her act like her true self instead of this meek, complacent version, something he enjoys of her. it’s different from pfms2 when she didn’t exactly push blame on him, but more spoke that she was forsaken and disgusting, refused his touch, and then said not to ‘bring her with him’, implying he was forsaken and disgusting. that’s a lot more serious accusations and this, in contrast, actually hurt matty and made him stop speaking to her for while. the lack of severity and tame words are a big reason why he didn’t get offended that first time.

again, your psy completely understood the characters! reader especially with his ‘final thoughts’. it was so, so fun to read these Very official thoughts and analysis. thank you one billion times for writing it all down and making sense of what i’m sure was a long conversation. and for sharing it with me, it made me so happy to read i’m so so glad you talked to your psychiatrist about pfms (still surreal to think about😭😭) I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

[scribbly-dee]

Inspired by this post

I adore corruption arcs, so I graded how well the non-archivist characters would have damned humanity if they had been the archivist.

Sasha James 11/10, would be an ideal archivist, this plus her height is probably why the stranger monster targeted her before she could peak

I have a soft spot for any au that knows Sasha has never seen a brain cell in her life and that any unhinged!Sasha au is really just a regular Sasha au. Picture it with me. Sasha and Jon have parallel archivist tracks, until Sasha (my beloved show off) decides: you know what would make me more efficient at snooping? Becoming a Human Google. And things accelerate. The Web doesn't even need to bother with subtly magic lighters, it slaps all 14 marks on her at once by pulling up next to Sasha in a windowless van with "free secrets 👍" written on the side.

After the Unknowing, Sasha takes over the institute from Elias instead of Martin and Peter. With Tim dead, Jon in a coma, Martin lonely-snatched, Melanie compulsively homicidal, Daisy in the coffin, and Basira on autopilot, she quickly bonds with Rosie, the ultimate nosiness enabler. Sasha is a fully marked archivist for a good long while, but doesn't start the apocalypse right away because she's eager to read ALL the ominous notes Elias left, so the watcher's crown statement is in her to-be-read pile. When the apocalypse starts (Rosie: "Hey, Sasha, I just read something extra fucked up that Elias wrote, wanna see?" Sasha: "God yes."), she books it to become the pupil with Rosie as her anchor. Mayhapse an anchor-archivist polycule with Archivist Jon and Martin? Mayhapse Jon is just a normal eye avatar here and deeply invested in all of Sasha's eyepocalypse statements, so it's Sasha and her plus-three? Mayhapse it's a race across the eyepocalypse wasteland between Archivist Sasha and Archivist Jon to usurp Jonah and become the pupil?

Tim Stoker 2/10 dude's here for a good time, not a long time

The only way I see this working is if Elias disguises not-stranger clues as circus related so Tim is motivated to investigate. Otherwise, his archival assistants are way more curious than him and disobey his direct orders to 🍹chill🏝. Jon, Sasha, and Martin inadvertently bring marks home to him like cats bring home dead birds. He asserts his agency when he decides the best course of action? Actually? Just blow up the archives. This unfortunately puts him in a false sense of security, and Elias makes him read the watcher's crown statement by cat fishing him on grindr and sending the ritual as a dm mid conversation.

Daisy Tonner - 9/10 archivist, would have started doomsday before she was at the archivist job long enough to use her PTO

Daisy already had a lot of experience hunting down fear-entity-related people in sectioned cases, which means she possibly canonically already has all the marks from just hunting avatars who use their powers in self defense. The reason she lost one point is because she's too much of a jock to read, only nerds are culpable to watcher crown statements, so this would be the only delay but oh what a delay it will be.

Melanie King - 7/10 archivist, points awarded for achieving her breakthroughs by smashing her head against a wall until she literally breaks through, points deducted for doing so in full clown makeup.

If Jon got a handful of marks by just asking anoying questions in the same room as an avatar, imagine how much faster Melanie would get marks by bringing her trademark Chaotic Brat personality on fear entity investigations. The apocalypse would have started in like two seasons: one season to hire her off the streets and establish shakey, complex relationships with her new assistants (Jon and Sasha put in the time with the institute but were passed over on this promotion for some random YouTuber (plus they're tighter with Tim and Martin, so proletarian solidarity against the boss)).

Then a second season to stab every mark and get stabbed in return. Melanie would blitz through all 14 marks because what precious little impulse control she starts with is slowly replaced with slaughter juice. One fun moral ambiguity to explore could be if Melanie tries to use her new, dangerous Eye/Slaughter powers to revive her reputation and platform in the supernatural community now that she can, ya know, identify supernatural things for the first time ever. Does she acknowledge her entire career up to her hospital episode apparently only investigated fake sightings? A better question to ask is whether Basira, Tim, and Jon ever let her live down how Ghost Hunt UK's professional dignity was contingent on the legitimacy of her sCiEnTiFiC gHoSt eQuIpMeNt in those episodes, so the temperature spikes set to dramatic music were well and truly just temperature spikes and dramatic music. Sasha found a clip of that music playing as Melanie narrates "it's a message... from the other side..." and made it as her text tone.

Also, it would be hilarious if Melanie tried to kill Jonah on sight in the panopticon, once again botched assassination attempt number 1,963,538, and then Jon quietly snuck in to finish the job on his first try just like in canon.

Jon: "What, like it's hard?"

Basira Hussain 3/10 archivist, her eye alignment manifests as office gossip, like a normal person

Basira has the most formidable super power of all: the power to nope tf out of any conversation or plan she wants. She therefore would probably take 10x longer to start the apocalypse than any other archivist because her fatal flaw is refusal to directly engage with a lot of personally difficult things (like the slaughter bullet surgery she organized, Daisy In General, etc). The marks will be slow going if she resists putting her safety on the line or invests time in making good plans (which is smart, but unhelpful for dooming humanity). She would for sure still get marked and end the world because once she's convinced of a plan (aka Elias convinces her of a plan), she's ruthlessly efficient. So I'd stay out of her way that last year or two, she marks the entities right back at them.

Martin Blackwood 2/10 archivist, considering a prerequisite for creepy eye avatar staring is the ability to make eye contact.

S1 Archivist Martin would probably dote too much on the employees under him to be hugely susceptible to Elias' isolation-dependant manipulation. Any progress Martin inadvertently achieves toward the watcher's crown goal would have to be contingent on it helping his loved ones, which is perfect fuel for a "corrupted by good intentions" arc. This would be key because Martin has superb bullshit and manipulation detection, making the marks are tricky but not impossible to orchistrate considering Jon can't stay put in a safe corner for 10 minutes and Martin's mother would refuse to stay with him where she's safe from avatar threats.

Imagine the petty drama when Jon and Sasha learn he got the promotion they wanted because he lied on his CV.

Other than that, Martin would be even worse about pit stops on the apocalypse road trip than Jon because his Kill Bill mode would have no off switch. Does Archivist!Martin and his anchor Jon ever reach the panopticon? Eventually, but not until after they lose points for significantly reducing the apocalypse fear quantity. Would Annabelle survive to deliver her cryptic MaCHiNAtIoNs and achieve the Web's goal? Hard No, additional point reduction for neutralizing the multiverse invasion. Points potentially earned back if Martin's Web connection is strong enough to come up with the multiverse invasion plan on his own, though.

Georgie Barker 4/10, as a fearless coward, all the fear she feeds to the entities would be khaki flavored. They'd get their apocalypse, but they probably wouldn't enjoy the meal.

Similar to Basira, Georgie has the super power to Fuck This Shit I'm Out. She would overall be a subpar humanity damning archivist; a major archivist success factor of Jon's is that he has enough affective empathy to be afraid with every statement giver he reads, so when Jon archives a statement, he unintentionally contributes to the fear soup seasoning. Combined with how Georgie doesn't want anything to do with entity drama, so any corruption specific to the watcher's crown would stagnate. Even her casual exposition conversations would go like

Georgie: "I've connected no dots."

Melanie: "you've connected a lot of dots??"

Georgie: "I've connected shit all dots."

The reason she gets one more point than Basira is because Georgie's fatal flaw is the passive observer quality the Eye tried to stoke in Jon. Her level of engagement oscillates between two extremes, impulsive over commitment and judging from a distance. This would probably lead her to geting involved just long enough for her involvement to become irreversible, at which point she would try to cut that shit out of her life after it's trapped her. She'd linger, barricading herself on the margins of this problem as the marks that are targeted at her slowly tally up until boom. Apocalypse is on and she only half understands what's happening.

Georgie would wander around an apocalypse hellscape confused, but vibes and physical health fully intact. Anchor!Melanie would have quite the emotional journey starting with Georgie on that pedestal Melanie placed her, and ending with a slaughter avatar stabbing the person who convinced her to work on her slaughter inclination.

[the-desolated-quill]

If You Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own - Watchmen (TV Series) blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

If You Don’t Like My Story, Write Your Own feels like a tale of two episodes. One has well written characters, emotive storytelling and exciting possibilities, whereas the other contains ham-fisted, painfully obvious subtext and annoyingly long infodumps told to the audience with all the grace and subtlety of a brick to the face. 

Let’s start with the positives. At the beginning of the episode, we’re introduced to the character of Lady Trieu, played by Hong Chau, who buys a farmhouse from an Oklahoma couple by offering them a genetically engineered baby. I love this scene so much. It’s by far the most tightly written and engaging scene so far this series, and serves as a perfect introduction to a genuinely interesting character.

Lady Trieu is a Vietnamese born trillionaire industrialist who absorbed Adrian Veidt’s company after his disappearance and seems to take heavy inspiration from him, even going so far as to have a gold statue of him in her complex. It’s unclear whether she knows about his involvement with the squid (how could she possibly know?), but she clearly shares his vision of making the world better. 

Or... does she?

That’s precisely what I love about this character. Trieu is clearly the secret mastermind behind whatever is going on here (more on that later) and it would have been easy to just simply have her be a carbon copy of Veidt, but she isn’t. There’s a subtle, but clear distinction between the two. In my review of Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, I talked about the paradox of a liberal capitalist and how it’s often not enough for Ozymandias to simply save the world. He needs to be seen to be saving the world. He wants something with spectacle in order to appeal to his own vanity. This is true of Trieu as well, except, despite all his flaws, Ozymandias clearly at least wanted to help people, albeit in an incredibly flashy way for his own aggrandisement. Trieu doesn’t even want that. She just wants the attention and the good will. 

The opening scene is a perfect illustration of this. Giving that married couple their own DIY baby was one thing, but all the crap with the hourglass and the silly monologue and everything, there was no need for any of that. And lets not forget, she didn’t give this couple a baby out of the goodness of her heart. She did it solely because she wanted their land so she could claim a fallen object from space. The same is true of this Millennium Clock she’s building. I’m pretty sure its purpose isn’t just to tell the time, but that’s not the point. It’s described by her daughter as not the Eighth Wonder of the World, but rather as the First Wonder of the New World. Plus, of course, she is a trillionaire. If she just handed out even a small portion of her vast wealth, it would make a huge difference, but then there would be nothing in it for her. Nothing to gain. Unlike Veidt, Trieu is a character driven by pure cynicism. She has no interest in saving the world, but rather the attention and adoration of the world around her. She wants the world and the people around her to rely on her to save them. Basically if Ozymandias is an altruist tempered with narcissism, then Lady Trieu is a narcissist tempered with altruism. It’s a beautifully realised character and one I’m most excited to see more of in the episodes to come.

I also like the connection she has with Angela. Both were born and raised in Vietnam, except Trieu’s mother was a native to Vietnam before the US invaded and absorbed the country, turning it into the fifty first state. This puts Angela in an interesting position. Being an African American, her family obviously has history of being the victims of colonial oppression, but in this alternate history where Vietnam is part of America, Angela is also now in the role as one of the colonial oppressors. A settler in a country stolen and plundered from the natives. It’s an interesting position for her character to be in and I’m very curious to see where the show takes this.

After taking a backseat in the previous episode, Angela mercifully gets to take the lead again this time around and she’s great. With the FBI breathing down her neck, Angela continues to get to the bottom of the mystery involving her grandfather, the murder of Judd Crawford, and the Seventh Kavalry, and I really like where this is taking her character. She privately confides in Wade about what she has learned, even asking him to hide Judd’s Klan robe. This is the kind of character stuff I wanted to see in the previous episode during the funeral. How do you react to the knowledge that one of your closest friends was a hateful bigot? And from the looks of things, it seems as though Angela is doing her level best to protect Judd’s memory, at least until she gets to the bottom of what the fuck is going on here. I love this because it feels totally believable.There’s still a part of her that doesn’t want to accept Judd’s racist ties to white supremacy and clinging onto the idea that he might be misunderstood or that there’s something else going on underneath. This is an excellent internal conflict that has so far been handled exceptionally well. You don’t think less of Angela for not wanting to accept the truth because it’s totally understandable and believable.

Also I just want to briefly talk about what we learn about Wade, aka Looking Glass, in this episode. The man’s a doomsday prepper, living in a bunker in his back garden, preparing for another squid attack. I LOVE this so much. It makes total sense in the context of Watchmen and, like with Lady Trieu, it serves as a really nice inversion of an existing character. Like Rorschach, Looking Glass is a paranoid conspiracy nut, but unlike Rorschach, there’s actually some truth and logic behind his paranoia. Again, it’s a subtle distinction, but it’s enough to allow the character to go off in his own direction.

Here’s the thing. The bits I like about this episode, I really like. Unfortunately the bits I don’t like, I really don’t like.

Let’s begin with Laurie. What is she even doing here? Not only is she so utterly divorced from the character in the graphic novel, she doesn’t even contribute anything meaningful to the plot, other than to bicker constantly with Angela (which, considering this is the first time in Watchmen that we’ve had two female characters together interacting with each other, it feels immensely disappointing that this is the best the writers can come up with) or to spout gratuitous fanwank and pop psychology. The pop psychology in particular irritates me because it simply doesn’t gel with the tone and themes of Watchmen. I’m really hoping all that stuff about trauma and wearing a mask to hide the pain doesn’t in fact apply to Sister Night, otherwise I’m going to be extremely annoyed. Not only is that cliched beyond belief, it also stands directly against the whole point of Watchmen as a concept. Alan Moore’s intent was to scrutinise the reasons behind why someone would put a costume on and fight crime. Some just want the attention, others want to compensate for their own inadequacies, and some just want to live out their own violent, hedonistic fantasies. Only Rorschach fits the trauma model proposed by Laurie, and even then it’s not really accurate. Rorschach uses his trauma more as an excuse than a motivation. Watchmen serves as a deconstruction and criticism of superhero archetypes, so to potentially give Sister Night an obligatory tragic backstory would feel like a grave disservice to the source material.

The pop psychology also represents another problem this episode has. It seems to spend an awful lot of time telling its audience about its themes and commentaries rather than just showing them. One of the things I loved so much about the second episode was that it respected the audience’s intelligence. The connections it was making between the police and mob psychology, the superhero genre and its roots in US propaganda, and the KKK and the moral absolutism of most comic book heroes were apparent in the episode’s visual language and symbolism. It didn’t try to highlight them in fifty foot high neon lettering, instead trusting the audience to make the connections themselves. Here, however, completely the opposite. At numerous points, it feels as though the episode is sitting me down like a naughty school child and straight up telling me the plot, rather than trust that I’m a grown man who is perfectly capable of following this by himself, I pinky promise.

Take the whole subplot with Adrian Veidt for example. By watching the previous episodes, you can deduce that he’s trapped in a prison of his own making and is trying to escape (although admittedly it turns out that the clones aren’t in fact his creations, which is a pity because I think that’s less interesting, but still). Awesome idea. Love it. But showrunner Damon Lindelof is clearly worried that the idiots sitting at the back of the class didn’t get this, so Adrian spends his limited screen time here just explaining his subplot to the audience. It’s really annoying.

Or what about the Millennium Clock? The Seventh Cavalry are clearly in league with Trieu for some unknown reason, and in their video message to the police in the first episode, they say ‘tick, tock’ a lot, which is clearly a reference to the Clock. All a bit goofy, granted, but do you know what’s even goofier? Will getting up out of his wheelchair, staring dramatically into camera and saying ‘tick, tock’ for no fucking reason whatsoever other than to spell out the connection for the slow people in the audience who didn’t make the link. Dude, I promise you, we are following this. It was just pointless. But not nearly as pointless as...

Good God, do I hate Lube Man!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against there being humour in Watchmen. The original graphic novel had moments of dark humour, but there’s a time and a place. It just feels weird and kooky just for the sake of being weird and kooky. And again, it serves as a less than subtle reminder to the audience of the themes of the show. The police are abusing their powers and letting smaller crimes fall by the wayside, but rather than let that come up naturally in the story, we get a random excerpt from the Silver Slider here. All I can say is Lube Man had better play a vital role in the episodes to come, otherwise I’ll be pissed.

See, when Good Lindelof is writing the scripts, I’m enjoying this show immensely. When Bad Lindelof takes a turn at the keyboard, however, that’s when I start to get worried. 

[studentville-struggles]

Spontaneous Combustion // Loki Laufeyson

Prompt from @nooowestayandgetcaught @dailyau

Pairing: Loki x reader

Words: 2,265 - oops

Idek what this is anymore, but I kinda liked it

Proofread? Hell nah

Masterlist

Loki wasn’t someone you’d had a chance to talk to much since your arrival as a recruit. Most of your time at the Avengers site had been spent in the gym, doing drills or completing your trainee assignments. All you had wanted to do for as long as you could remember, was help people, and the presence of an actual god wasn’t going to change that now. Having passed all of your exams and being accepted as a full agent, you had started to become acquainted with a few of the original avengers over the last few months.

Loki was still earning the trust of those around him and all junior agents had been informed they were to be cautious around him. For that reason, you both wanted to know more for it seemed harsh to ignore someone without allowing growth, but also to stay away until you had found your feet in this world.  

As you continued to impress those around you, and above you, with your dedication and continuous improvements, your interaction with the Avengers became more and more frequent, meaning your interactions with Loki were also becoming more frequent. You weren’t sure if it was the stereotypical ‘bad boy complex’, or his mysterious nature, but you were developing a soft spot for the god. It was worrying you a bit; how could you work for/with someone – in a potential life or death environment – and have a schoolgirl crush on them. It simply wouldn’t do.  

You knew it would never amount to anything, his views on ‘mortals’ crystal clear to everyone on site, there was no hope of you being any different. You thought if you could ignore it for long enough, that your crush would go away. What long enough was, however, you had no idea and it was beginning to irritate you. Every time you were in a meeting with him, you felt like a total fool, a lovesick teenager. You couldn’t help but glance over at him, but you also had the horrible feeling that he knew. It wasn’t exactly within your training to learn how to hide a crush. Lies were no problem, physical attraction would take a bit more experience.  

Another month passed, and you still couldn’t ignore the schoolgirl crush you had on Loki. He was a distraction, thankfully not enough to impact your work, but paperwork sure took a lot longer when he was around. What you didn’t know, however, was that things were about to get a whole lot more challenging for you.  

“Agent Y/L/N, report to my office in two hours, in civilian gear, bags packed for a mission. You’ll need civilian clothes and combat gear.” With that, your superior turned and continued marching through the corridors.  

It wasn’t your first mission, but it was a new enough experience that it set a swarm of butterflies off in your stomach. Rushing to your room, you grabbed your to-go bag and began pulling a range of clothes out, deciding what to take. Combat gear was easy to pack, you pretty much just emptied all you had into the bag. Civilian clothes were a little trickier; you had no idea where you were being sent to, so best to pack a range of clothes so you had most things covered. You were always taught it was better to have a lot of normal or plain clothes so that you were able to blend in, in most locations.  

Upon arriving at your superior's office, you knocked and entered when called, immediately clocking the three other agents in the room. You were to join Sam Wilson, Loki, and Natasha Romanov on this mission. You were the only rookie. You stood like a soldier, to-go bag still on your back, receiving your mission plan.  

You were being brought along because of your incredible fighting skills. You had impressed Natasha enough that she was willing to recommend you for this mission. Primarily, it was intel gathering. If things were to go south however, it was handy to have agents capable of removing threats quickly, quietly and efficiently.  

The group of you headed straight to the hangar bay, into the prepared air transport vehicle to take you to your classified location. The flight was quiet. Natasha and Sam near each other, having been friends for years, Loki was sat quietly by a window on the far side of the vehicle, occasionally contributing to Sam and Natasha’s conversation when he felt inclined to. You sat near Natasha and Sam, close enough to be involved if the conversation should turn to the mission, but far enough both you and them had privacy.  

“One hour to touchdown.” A voice came over the intercom.  

“Right, time to recap the plan. Gather round.” Natasha’s demeanour switching to that of a commander immediately.  

With the plane being disguised as a private jet, you had the luxury of being able to sit around a table. You sat down next to Sam, wishing to focus all your attention on Natasha, who was taking point on the operation. Unfortunately, it meant you were also sat directly opposite Loki, who merely winked at you upon making eye contact.  

The final hour of your flight passed quickly, discussions of cover identities reviewed, base locations revealed and target persons and locations discussed. With landing complete, you all took on the role of a tourist from the moment the plane doors opened. Much to your joy and dismay, your cover involved that of a couples trip, with Sam and Natasha being one couple, and Loki and yourself as the other.  

You had barely spoken to the Avenger and now were supposed to act as though were engaged. All in a day's work, right?  

Reaching the main terminal, you all began laughing and joking as if this was a real holiday, now understanding the random acting classes you all called ‘dumb’ and ‘pointless’ in training. Natasha threw a look towards you over her shoulder, double checking all was okay, smiling back you reassured her without saying a word.  

“Come on darling, we don’t want to fall behind those.” Loki turned on the charm, grabbing your hand before picking up the pace in order to stick close to Sam and Natasha.  

This trip was one of the first where you had to leave the US and so you still had a few butterflies to mask going through customs. You knew your documents were good, you were still all too aware of the consequences that could arise should they not be good enough. Seemingly aware of this, the rest of the team were very good at joking around and distracting you from your worries, allowing you to settle into your cover further.  

The most surprising aspect of the mission, you thought, was the depth of character Loki took on. You ought not to be surprised, you pondered, since he is the god of lies, he should be good creating a fake persona. Even still, he seemed to always have a hand in yours, a hand on your back, putting in all the effort to create the illusion that you were a newly engaged couple enjoying the holiday of a lifetime.  

Once inside and out of sight, however, few words were spoken outside of the mission parameters. However, about a week into the mission, you had gotten up early to walk to the nearby bakery with Natasha, following a tip that the regulars were a chatty bunch and you might happen upon some new information. Loki was still asleep in your shared apartment when you had left, but was awake and sat silently at the dressing table, eyes fixed on the door, on your return.  

“Is everything okay?” You enquired.  

“Yes, just keeping guard in case you had been taken.” At this point, Sam and Natasha were coming through to your apartment for breakfast.  

“What she didn’t leave you a note? My fiancée left me a note.” Sam mused out loud, winking at you and dodging the slight punch coming from Natasha.

“Eat up boys, we got a lot from the bakery.” Natasha announced. The two women sitting down to note down all they had heard from the bakery and walk home.  

All throughout this time of eating and condensing information, you could feel Loki’s eyes on you. Occasionally you would turn to look and he would simply smile and give you a curt nod, but he would not look away. After fifteen minutes of this staring, the others were starting to take notice. Ever the loyal leader, Natasha leaned in towards you to ask if there had been any issues when the two of you had been alone. As far as you knew, there had been none. You were both professional and focussed on the task at hand, and you had shared this with Natasha. Her response was only to nod and smile.  

“Yo, what’s the issue man, you know you’re not supposed to stare like that?” Sam always was straight to the point.  

“I’m really sorry I keep staring but I dreamed about you horribly dying last night and I just wanted to make sure you don’t spontaneously combust” Loki responded, but not to Sam, to you. His eyes locked on yours, not for a second looking away.  

What on earth are you supposed to say to that? Thankfully, Sam had you covered.

“Is that a risk?” He sounded confused and then seemed to have a realisation. “Is that a threat?”  

“No, no, not a threat, it was just a strange and worrying dream compared to the normal.” Eye’s still locked on yours.

The remainder of a mission can only be described as strange. Nothing changed when out doing the tourist rounds, eavesdropping on as many conversations as possible. However, the touches seemed to linger a little longer, his touch a little lighter, when you would be sat in coffee shops or out having dinner, his gaze on you with an unreadable emotion whilst in your cover apartment. You had managed to push aside your crush on Loki, knowing it would only make this mission harder and more painful for you, but these small touches, long gazes, and general softness of Loki over the past few days were making this a whole lot harder than it had been initially.  

On the penultimate night of the mission, you had all gone out to a local bar. There was a salsa night on that you had heard was frequented by a lot of the local community, it was a good point to conclude the mission. If there was any information you hadn’t heard already, you’d find it here. Loki had you spinning around as if you hadn’t a care in the world, although there was every care and you were really starting to get dizzy now.  

Retiring to the bar, hoping to hear a few more tid-bits, Loki had you sat on a stool, with himself next to you, stood between your legs, ever the doting fiancé. Except this time, instead of the usual play pretend routine the two of you had down to a T, Loki was being far touchier and almost intimate, it was surprising.

He placed a hand on your cheek, leaning in to, you thought, whisper in your ears, however, instead you were met with an electric feeling of cold lips where your face meets your neck. A shocked gasp escaped you, something Loki seemed to find entertaining, a soft chuckle quiet in your ear.  You knew if you looked at him now you would kiss him, and you knew you couldn’t afford a distraction like that now, not in the field. You could feel Loki’s hands moving to pull you close, your will power beginning to fail.  

“We can���t, not here.” You managed to mutter, voice breathy.  

You could see the hint of pain in Loki’s eyes for the remainder of the night. Even through the walk back to your apartment block, he still performed the part of the doting fiancé, but without the additions of the previous days.  

Completing the nightly debrief, as well as receiving information for the pick-up point the next day, you and Loki retired back to your apartment to pack and rest for the flight home in the morning. Locking the door to your room you could still see the slight hurt in his eyes.  

Loki began apologising, thinking he had mis-read your looks towards him. “I’m so-”  

You couldn’t even let him finish, months of pining for a man you thought out of reach adding up. You all but jumped onto him, crashing your lips onto his. It took a second for him to respond, but soon his arms snaked around your back ensuring you couldn’t be anywhere but in his arms. Deepening the kiss, Loki moaning into it. The two of you began moving towards the bed, barely any space between you.  

Loki had picked you up, lips still peppering your skin with kisses, and was leaning you down onto the bed when there was a knock at the door. It was as if nothing had happened, both immediately on guard, you grabbing the nearest weapon.  

Again, there was the knock. Checking through the peephole, you lowered your weapon and swung the door open.  

“You scared the shit out of me.” You announced; a smirking Natasha stood in your doorway.  

“Just wanted to say to the love birds that you should really turn your comms off before getting it on.” With that, she winked at you and walked out again, leaving you and Loki alone again.

[birminghamblinders]

baptism by fire; tommy shelby

Business is not an industry which lends itself to possessing an empathetic nature. Business is by design the striving to procure profits, and businesses which succeed do not do so through weaknesses and by making excuses for the shortcomings of themselves or of the various inferiors which make up their labor staff. Businessmen, then, as the main extension of this cognitive, innovative, cut-throat machine, are also not by nature kind-hearted or gentle. Choosing to enter into business means that one must be capable of making very calculated decisions with their own money and with the money of others. They also must see the parts of their company-and to many, employees often registered only as a moving part in a greater machine-as disposable when they are broken. Thus, although business does not generally allow for strong expressions of emotion, Tommy Shelby believed there were “no hard feelings” when he had to release a person from his employment. He held no personal vendetta against the ex-employee, and did even earnestly hope they would realize the error of their focused labor and once again find fruitful employment elsewhere. But conversely, he would note to himself the error of his ways in allowing an employee of less-than-acceptable caliber to be hired, and would remember what traits made that person useless in the future.

Tommy had to let people go and hire new people on a fairly regular basis. He generally believed in hiring younger people to do menial labor, on the idea that they would have more energy and thus be able to execute these tasks over a larger spread of hours. The past month, however, Tommy had fired two young men or about twenty, who had been hired for menial labor but had proven to be prone to slacking off on the job. He bore no ill will to them, and in parting mentioned a shipping company which operated out of dock forty-three which was hiring, in the genuine if not deeply-felt hope they would reform and become contributing members of society.

Besides, Tommy had larger things to worry about than the performance of workers who neared the bottom of the Shelby Company food chain. In merely three weeks, if all went well, he was going to recite his wedding vows to the love of his life in the full and unyielding gaze of their pastor and before the gentle eyes of God. Tommy and his soon-to-be wife endeavored to make their wedding as small an affair as was possible, only extending invitations to those who they actually, truly wanted to he there. Eliminating the menial made the whole thing blessedly easy to plan, and he found himself mainly concerned with planning out the right words to say to his life partner when she arrived at the altar.

—

Thankfully, the wedding went as smoothly as any Tommy had ever attended, and the flurry of the day seemed to end as quickly as it began. When he settled into bed next to his newly acquired wife that night, slipping a gentle arm around her waist, he even entertained the fantasy that the wedding had taken away so little of his concentration from work that he might be able to take a few days and have a honeymoon of sorts with her.

This was not the case, as both the legal and illegal enterprises of the Shelby Company were growing at a seemingly exponential rate. He was no sooner able to take a few days off without consequences as he was to grow wings. His wife, the young, pretty, tough creature she was, shrugged this slight off, and told her husband he had things he needed to do for the good of his family, and that said family also included her now, and so he had better get to work. Guilted by his inability to properly celebrate his wedding with his wife, but also emboldened by her strong words of encouragement, Tommy dove right back into the chaos of the Company, cutting deals on firearms and horse races in equal stride.

Unbeknownst to either man or wife, the two young men who had just a short while ago been terminated from Shelby company employment had not shrugged it off as a loss of low-level job of which there were plenty in Small Heath, but had instead chosen to interpret it as a personal slight and a middle finger directly from Tommy Shelby. As uneducated as their interpretation of a routine firing might have been, they were not so ignorant as to think they could exact revenge on their perceived enemy in a face to face interaction with him. They instead chose to focus on his weaknesses, and despite the whole thing being a low-level affair, there was no one in Birmingham who didn’t know Tommy Shelby had recently gotten married.

—

The two young men whom Tommy had fired were not in possession of any particularly great intellect, or capability to plan a complex kidnapping and ransom plot, but part of the reason they were hired initially was that they possessed plenty of brute strength. It would seem fairly reasonable that considering her relatively high profile relation to the Shelby family that there would be some type of protection for Tommy’s wife, but she had insisted on being allowed to live independently. As often occurs, there was no real hindsight considered with this decision until it had already generated negative consequences. Tommy’s wife did not work for the Company, and after their marriage continued her job as a secretary for the largest newspaper in the city. It was on a fairly cold morning, while she was walking to begin her shift, that the two ex-lackeys of the Company grabbed her and dragged her out of the sight of the few other passers-by that were on the street that early in the day.

On the days which Tommy was not able to finish his workload in time to be home for dinner (which were fairly plenty), he would just sleep in his office, wake up early, and continue. These were all circumstances which the two ex-lackeys were aware of; though the Company employed plenty people, most of them got their orders from Tommy or one of this brothers and were in and out of the office daily, and knew the movements of the main heads of the Company. They didn’t know exactly on that day that Tommy would work late and stay in the office, but they were willing to take their luck.

Due to the circumstances of their both being employed in highly demanding jobs, and sometimes not being able to wake up together or eat dinner together, Tommy and his wife always spent at least an hour on the phone each day. This usually happened around noon, which left the two wanna-be criminals four hours before Tommy Shelby discovered his wife was missing.

They had, it so happened, taken his suggestion, and sought employment at the loading station at dock forty-three. This particular dock mainly handled night time shipments coming in from the United States or Canada, and so the two decided that with a little duct tape over the face, and ropes holding her arms back, it would be as good a place as any to keep Mrs. Shelby.

—

As it happened, the two men, who were not exactly in possession of god-like intelligence, got the timing right. They had her for four hours before her husband realized something was wrong with her. He called her office at noon, and was received by the voice of her supervisor, who told him his wife had not come into work that day.

At the same moment as Tommy leaned back to yell for his brothers, Polly came into the room and absentmindedly remarked that the postman had left something for him as she dropped a letter onto his desk. Dread built up in his chest as he stared at the sloppily folded paper, and he grabbed hold of the letter and nearly tore it open in his haste. The would-be kidnappers were not elegant nor were they educated, and so their ransom note was not exactly a masterpiece of the English written word.

Tommy Shelby, it read,

We have your wife. Come to dock forty three as soon as you get this. Bring ten thousand pounds with you and you will get her back alive. If you call the police we will know. Don’t bring a gun.

The letter was not signed, and as Tommy’s two eldest brothers crowded their way into the room, the middle Shelby son swore loudly and launched an ink pot against the room, where it shattered against the window and left dark black tracks down the glass.

“Some fuckers took my wife,” he informed them in a violently calm voice. “Get your coats and your guns. We’re going now.”

—

Upon arrival at the specified dock, the faded painting sign reading “43” swinging violently in the sudden gust of wind that had arisen off the waters, Tommy gestured for John and Arthur to stand back.

“I’ll call you when I need you,” he spoke quickly, and indicated for them to stand just out of sight of the door of the loading area, still close enough by to be of immediate assistance if needed.

Tommy grabbed the handle of the door and launched it open, bursting into the large, open room with his gun pointed straight ahead. At the same time as he gained his bearings, he heard a pistol cocking, and found he was looking at a gun pressed to the side of his wife’s head.

Tommy had been in the war, and had seen more men die than he ever cared to speak about. He was used to carnage, and hadn’t flinched at the sight of blood in years. At the sight of his wife with a gun pressed to her head, however, his own blood ran cold.

He felt his breath coming in shorter and shorter intervals, and he had to control himself to keep from hyperventilating, as his wife, a gag stuffed in her mouth, started crying at the sight of him, and leaning towards him as if to beg him to get her out of here,only to be grabbed roughly by the neck and shoved back into her chair by another man, who stepped out of the corner only for that brief moment before vanishing from Tommy’s sight again.

Tommy stopped short, only about four feet from the door he had burst from, and was so dazed by the sight before him he had to force himself to focus as the man holding the gun began to speak.

“We told you specifically not to bring a gun. Didn’t you read the fucking letter? Put that shit down. Where’s my money?”

Tommy still found himself unable to fully compute the situation before him, and so fell back on his usual bravado, scoffing at the man’s question even while wildly searching for a plan.

“I didn’t bring your ten thousand pounds. What were you going to spend it on, whores and cocaine? You’re a piece of shit. You’re going to give me my wife back and you’re going to apologize for the trouble you’ve caused the Shelby Company.”

Another man stepped out of the shadows, loudly swearing at Tommy, and he couldn’t believe the sense of these two useless criminals as they both started walking towards him, leaving his wife unguarded and making it far too easy for him to raise his gun once again and expel a hail of bullets on them, aiming for the head and then adding ten more in just for good measure and as repayment for the insolence of daring to touch his wife.

As he turned to face her, still bound to her chair, tears rolling down her cheeks, he felt his heart stop again as he sprinted to her, pulling the gag out of her mouth and untying the ropes from her wrists all while speaking to her frantically, begging for forgiveness.

“I’m so damn sorry, my love, I should never have let you walk around alone, I should have had a man with you all the time, I should have known someone was going to try something with you, I’m so fucking sorry-“ and broke himself off with a sob, curling into her shoulder.

He felt her take a deep breath and wrap her arms around him, stroking his back as he cried like a child into her arms, terrified by the ease at which two bumbling idiots were able to endanger the person closest to his heart.

She began to console him quietly, his sobs still echoing around the empty room, and Tommy could almost feel her grow harder, more tough, more like a Shelby.

[ksbwnotes]

Chapter 5

...reading this drains my soul...OTL <-- Me crawling forward in the same way I keep making myself read the chapters lol

1. Seriously, why Bum

Well, I say that, but the more I think of it, the more I can see other people reacting similarly, even if that wouldn’t be the common response. Bum doesn’t really know what else to do but follow Sangwoo’s orders and he does increase his chances of survival in the long run if he just does what Sangwoo says. He might die from the rat poison, but he definitely will end up getting something broken/cut off if he disobeys Sangwoo. 

Also, Bum doesn’t just have BPD (because if it was just that, honestly, Bum doesn’t fit the criteria from what I’ve seen), he has dp/dr disorder, psychosis, and complex PTSD. So I think all of that mixed together, it really effects the way he sees things, which explains his less...sensical conclusions. 

But that’s just a realistic outlook. From a more personally entertaining one, it’s kind of like Bum has this block that keeps him from doing things like lashing out at Sangwoo. 

If Sangwoo ended up eating the poison, Bum could allay responsibility by saying “well, that’s his fault for falling for it, I gave all possible clues that I poisoned it after all”, which could give another angle as to why he reacted so obviously. This is Bum’s way of keeping what little sanity he has in tact, even if it does mean staying with Sangwoo. I dunno, I have a lot of thoughts on KS and I have no clue on how to dump them all out in a way that would make fkkn sense...because, actually, a lot of them disconnect and branch off into alternatives, so are technically separate from each other, which ends up confusing me lol. 

2. Ohhhh okay

Oh this is why Sangwoo called Bum ugly...he also called him a bunch of other stuff earlier, but the ugly part--just contained to this scene--is also spurred by how Bum tried to poison him. 

It also does makes sense because Sangwoo knows that, even if someone smiles at him in the way Bum does, it can’t mean anything good because he KNOWS he has done nothing to deserve Bum’s smile.

And I dunno, the way Sangwoo ensures that Bum swallows it, reading Bum’s intentions to not swallow (which...how were you going to make that happen, Bum) and silently giving a physical warning to make sure he does swallow as punishment for what he tried to do. 

To be honest, now that I know Sangwoo’s mom killed the dad via poisoning, I’m surprised that this wasn’t a trigger for Sangwoo.  He beat Bum up for dropping plates, so why didn’t Bum trying to off him the way his mom offed his dad send Sangwoo off the deep end?

3. Wait, so what happened after this???

Did...obviously Sangwoo didn’t actually...finish eating it right??  So what the heck, what did they do after this?  Why is it that Sangwoo is just...treating everything normally?  I mean, he didn’t make Bum cook something different, but he had to have eaten something...but he wasn’t angry at Bum ruining dinner???  No seriously, there’s a huge gaping hole in plot here. 

Bum listening to Sangwoo’s orders actually did end up saving Bum. It appeased Sangwoo. Maybe because they were able to get past this pretending that everything was ‘normal’?  In a way, it’s like Sangwoo is saying ‘Yeah, I don’t blame you for trying to poison me. Thank you for being so goddamn obvious about it, btw. It was like you were trying to save me hahah.’

4. ...Did...

...Did Sangwoo just call the radio station he always has on in his house to ask them to play that song??

Seriously, it’s like everything Sangwoo does just shows how trapped he is in the past.

5. No seriously

What does Sangwoo DO in that basement???

6. Oh hey, the first time he does this

Like when Bum later tries to kill himself, Sangwoo is about to put him back in the downstairs bedroom, changes his mind, then brings him upstairs to his bedroom. 

So in here, he does the same because Bum is injured THE SAME WAY HE WAS TRYING TO KILL SANGWOO, but Sangwoo still decides to take care of him in a better way. He no longer doesn’t think it’s “right” for Bum to be in the basement, Bum has no place there anymore. 

And it shows that Sangwoo is really just...reactionary. He really means it when he later tells Bum “I don’t plan things” because...gahdang, man. The way he just reacts to his environment is really split second, it’s kind of unnerving and it really contributes to the worsening of his PTSD. 

7. Oh my god Sangwoo

Wth is going through your brain, seriously.

Okay wait, now that I’ve gone through more chapters and got to point #11, maybe Sangwoo is just...confused as fuck. As in, why Bum is this way. Since we later see Sangwoo treating Bum only after he tries to kill himself, then maybe Bum actually took the poison himself and here we see the aftereffects of the ‘suicide’. So maybe this is just an early parallel to what Bum will outright be doing in the future.

This also explains why, in earlier panels before collapsing, Bum is asking himself “what’s happening”, because him and Sangwoo ate the rat poison, but there was no reaction, so he maybe thought that it wasn’t enough or the rat poison was just regular salt pills or something. I don’t freaking know.

8. Wow, Sangwoo really going the extra mile here

I can assume that Bum actually vomited in the bucket, but it’s clean, implying that Sangwoo actually cleaned it up for him. 

9. Okay...?

So either Bum is having auditory hallucinations or Sangwoo brought back his next hunt.

So that could be another reason why Sangwoo doesn’t think Bum belongs in the basement, because he’s no longer the ‘prey’ that Sangwoo reserves that basement for. Bum means more than them.

10. *squints* is that...not blood??

Saliva? Tears? Sweat?? Water from washing dishes???  jfc

11. “Are you okay?” *WHEEZE*

I love how Koogi does not reveal whether Bum means that in a “shouldn’t you be sick too” or a “I hope you’re not sick” and...seriously, I’m just really confused at what’s going on.

Does this mean that Sangwoo DID eat the soup and whatnot??@?!?!?!?!?!   WAS BUM PUTTING THE GODDAMN RAT PILLS JUST HIS IMAGINATION!?!?!??!  I’M.  I’M SO CONFUSED!?!??!?!  IS THAT WHY SANGWOO IS TREATING HIM SO NICELY????  BECAUSE HE THOUGHT BUM WAS TRYING TO POISON HIM, BUT ACTUALLY THAT WASN’T WHAT BUM DID!?!?!?!?!?!  WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GAPS, KOOGI, YOU’RE REALLY JUST TRYING TO FUCK WITH OUR BRAINS HERE HUH (i seriously and sincerely applaud you).

12. ...*stares off into the distance*

What goes through your head whenever you end up asking these things, Bum?

13. I genuinely do think Sangwoo is fine with this

Even though there are parts of Sangwoo that are confusing--because he can be impulsive--for the most part, it’s easy to see what parts will trigger him or not. I think Bum being genuinely interested in Sangwoo and pleading for things that have the “let me be with you” vibe is what Sangwoo wants all along, so it won’t trigger him. 

But that’s only if Bum does things like stop trembling and actually looking like he wants to be with Sangwoo, since Sangwoo can very accurately read Bum’s body language and what not. 

14. Wait, sir, you are a fkkn unreliable narrator

Uhm...they died in a homicide three years ago, Sangwoo...that was when you were 21/22...are you saying the last time you sat at the little table with your mom, your dad overlooking you, was during high school???  I cannot trust your explanations lol.

15. First look into Sangwoo’s childhood abuse

Huh, this entire thing is interesting because it makes me go at an entirely different angle than what ended up actually happening at the end. 

If I read this webtoon while it was being updated, I would’ve never come to the conclusions I’m coming up with now because the ending gives the story an entirely different conclusion. 

For one, if it really is the run of the mill domestic violence situation, I honestly don’t think Sangwoo would be killing women the way he is now. There was something else to these memories. Something that was so much sinister than what happened growing up with his father, that it completely broke Sangwoo in a way that his father’s abuse did not. Something that he can never say until his madness ran so deep, that he could no longer suppress those memories. 

The one we see here, with the table, was actually the least worse of Sangwoo’s memories. That is why he is able to bring it up, even in a fond a way. Because, in a way, these were Sangwoo’s happiest memories. The least painful ones. The safest of them. 

That is why, as we get further in the story, we can see the descent into the truth of Sangwoo’s path directly correlating to how he is destroying himself in real time (I just wanna know when that occurs, because obviously, Bum is the catalyst for Sangwoo’s destruction).

16. Ooooh, Koogi’s art

I love the dichotomy between Sangwoo’s mom (Eunsoo???) and Sangwoo’s appearance. Eunsoo (even if it’s wrong, it’s easier just to type this lol) doesn’t actually acknowledge or see the reality before her, but her mouth is wide open in fear to show how she is still reacting to it. Sangwoo, on the other hand, only has his eye drawn because he does see the reality before himself. But because he’s powerless and he knows that using his words/making sounds will do nothing or even make the situation worse, he is mouthless.

17. “someone like you”

Honestly, for me, this was more derogatory than Sangwoo calling Bum ‘ugly’ and a ‘loser’. Here, it’s like acknowledging Bum is worthless that, if it weren’t for current circumstances, he would’ve never opened up to Bum like this. It’s just that Sangwoo has no better alternative, so he has no choice but to rely on Bum. This type of tone carries on throughout the series, where it’s obvious that Sangwoo is only with Bum because he would literally have no one else by his side.  

In another way, Sangwoo is saying that an abusive serial killer is the only type of person that could ever be with “someone like” Bum. 

18. Wait what??

Uh so this is the immediate reply after Bum saying sorry and...I honestly am at a loss over what Sangwoo means by this. 

19. Hmmmn...

Well, knowing that I know now, Sangwoo is saying this because he doesn’t want Bum to do this to himself and this is the only way he knows how to show his concern and desire to keep Bum alive. 

When Sangwoo is verbally abusing here, it seems to have a different vibe than the other times. I can’t really explain why without having to look back at my other notes, but when Sangwoo says things “I hate guys like you the most”, it’s his way of deterring Bum from trying to hurt himself again. 

And honestly, if I’m right and Bum actually swallowed the rat pills himself, then Sangwoo is thinking Bum was actually trying to kill himself and that is what spurred him even more into making these comments. 

20. l;earjgiejario;gejrogjreagpjrea’ fucking hell

This is more deranged when you know HIS MOM’S CORPSE IS LITERALLY BEHIND THE WALL IN THE LIVING ROOM HAHAHHAH. 

21. UhhhhHHHHHHHH

that...that ISN’T A GOOD THING THOUGH SANGWOO.  You'RE NOT DEALING WITH THE TRAUMA, YOU’RE JUST BURYING IT TO LET THE WOUNDS FESTER AND COME OUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY.  PLEASE SANGWOO.

“Why? How? I looked for the reason. And then I saw you. You might’ve been sprawled in the basement, but the fact that we were together made me feel relieved. And I’m even being loved! That makes me feel so strong. You wanted to know what you should do right? *kisses Bum’s wrist* I wonder if this is a good enough answer.”

...Honestly, I do not have the energy to parse out my thoughts on this matter. Not right now.  :’)

22. *rubs hand over face* And here comes the hard part

It actually is interesting that Sangwoo still kisses Bum despite the fact that he has been vomiting the whole day and didn’t actually brush his teeth.

He complained about Bum’s leg hair, so I would’ve expected Sangwoo to grimace and say that Bum was right. However, he didn’t. Actually, Bum’s reaction might’ve even made Sangwoo want to kiss him more (Bum blushing, obviously wanting to kiss, but trying to think of Sangwoo and worrying about being too gross). 

In a way, I do think this is all of Sangwoo’s way of trying to ensure Bum doesn’t leave him. He’s trying to ensure Bum doesn’t try to kill himself, to a point where he’ll give Bum some semblance of romantic love even if he himself doesn’t feel that. Because desperation to not be alone--to have someone who can love him unconditionally in the way he has never been loved--is different from truly want to be with someone.  

He’s using sex and romance as weapons to keep Bum, because he has never seen either used as anything healthy.

23. UggggghhhHHHHHHHHH

Honestly, the hardest part for me to go through is the sexual/romantic parts between Sangwoo and Bum.  😂  Because those are things that are supposed to only be between people who love, respect, and trust each other, and those two up there are so far from that those are not even an option for them. 

Like seriously, this was the part I was dreading reading, but I’m scared about missing a detail that’s important to the rest of the story.

And honestly, the thing that pains me the most is Bum’s response. He really loses himself whenever pleasure is involved. He is so low on feel-good neurotransmitters that he can lose himself in something like this and it really hurts because it makes everything so much worse and I’M DYING. 

24. *wheeze*

Okay, but this reaction actually made reading this less painful xD I’m dying for a different reason lol

So another poster did mention how this harkens to him most likely having a oral-based trauma. And considering how his mom did rape him before killing herself, this is a very, very likely possibility. 

I also don’t think this connects to him *ahem* “not being gay” because, honestly, getting a blow job doesn’t have to necessarily come from a female. Arguments can be made that a straight man can accept BJs from men. 

But either way, I frkkn agree with Sangwoo because Bum is SCARY. Like. Bum wanting to give Sangwoo a BJ honestly terrifies me too. And it cracks me up that Sangwoo genuinely looks unnerved and confused by Bum’s reaction, it’s hilarious. 

OH WAIT. 

Continuing on, Sangwoo allows Bum to touch his dick??  Huh. I dunno, maybe I just have a screwed perception, but touch seems like more...intimate than a BJ?  BJ has a more superior vibe to it that can easier objectify the giver. So Sangwoo refusing one does support more of the oral-trauma theory. 

25. Ooooh??

I think it’s really interesting that Koogi decided to not draw Sangwoo’s expression here. 

It really does seem like Sangwoo is only doing this because it’s a way to keep Bum with him. Later, as we see him get more sexual with Bum, we also see him lose more and more of himself to the trauma with his mom. 

26. Okay but this blush

Awh...he could’ve been such a cutie pie...:’)  Seriously, Sangwoo could’ve been such a good person, both him and Bum could’ve, so it really breaks me knowing that they couldn’t be.

Anyways, I don’t think this blush is in response to the hand job. I do think that the reason why Koogi didn’t show his expression is because Sangwoo was dissociating from the situation. Later, we see him confusing Bum with his mom during sexual moments, so I don’t even think Sangwoo enjoys sex with women. There is too much trauma for him to enjoy sex in general. If I’m correct (I might be able to see it more once we see Jieun), then Sangwoo can only have sex without dissociating if it’s violent and unhealthy. 

The moment he feels pleasure, his mind blanks out. The moment he feels happiness, he tries to destroy it. The moment he feels ‘normal’, his psyche breaks even further. And Bum makes it worse because--as you see here, he doesn’t actually pay attention to anything else but his own pleasure--and he takes things face-value so that he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences.  Bum is just as messed up as Sangwoo, only in a different way, so they both bring out the worst from each other. Which is difficult because the only time they can ‘feel’ the best is with each other. 

Anyways, I think this blush is because of what Bum said: “I wish we could mix together like this”...with...the sperm. God Bum, you’re killing me. 

Anyways, Sangwoo’s reaction is due more to the romantic aspect, with the thought of him and Bum being together forever. For that to happen, he’s willing to let his relationship with Bum be sexual despite how he can’t have a healthy sexual relationship. 

Yeah, okay, it was important for me not to skip that part, I can accept defeat. OTL

[whatisitworth-leo-anina-blog]

Pin Up 01: The act of [architecture]

Set up Camera «Out of character», staring, until it’s quiet

Mhmm… so we start…?

DARIA:

Getting into Character, looking into camera, moderating, selling, but serious, standing

Reflecting on architecture is a crucial part of what we do, especially during this time, where the pressure of capital is consuming the open spaces and under-used buildings that have typically provided the slack for the experimental and provisional uses.1

The intention is that the desire to experiment and speculate does not fizzle out, but ultimately benefits the discipline. This love of discipline, which some people envy us for, and others suspect us for, is what we call the autonomy of architecture.2

We must encourage the conditions of openness, mutability and inclusion to make the sustainable and democratic city of today.1

For that it’s important to engage with the masterpieces of our time that shape the world we live in and to show you the worth these types of buildings provide.3

Pause to play Video of Toni-Areal by EM2N (an 8 min video, irregular zooming in)

ANINA:

Uh… briefly losing the thread, then determined, fascinated

So yes, our Project evolved around the question of worth.

We realized, each of the designs that are created for a house, a city or a landscape also contains in itself the design for another world.2

The task was definitely not an easy one (smirk) but we know they call themselves very lucky to now have this to represent themselves internationally.

LEO:

“The building as city, the city as building.”5

So, to say… We find ourselves in a cultural "energy node".6

proving a point. 

It truly makes a substantial contribution to the unique quality of life in

this city."7 Particularly there, it acts like a vitamin drink."8

selling, story-telling, fascinated

"A typical, well-designed conventionality dominates". "This is a completely introverted building, almost hermetically sealed from the outside"9, a flagship of Swiss architecture and the Swiss creative industries.7 Students are talented and willing to deliver.11

ANINA:

moving, maybe standing up, hands moving:

A monument like this, uh… It’s secured by public funds, so that the rent can be paid to a general contractor.12

Casual, smiling, maternal, directly addressing the viewers

Just saying this to give you a general idea that it’s about money also13 – creating value with real-estate.

Better than the cuddly surroundings, …the rough environment is good, it creates more resistance, the people have to be much, ... much more active with the environment.15

LEO:

Telling a story, walking back and forth

"There are doors with badge, doors with lock, and rooms that have a door with badge and a door with lock. There are doors that can be opened in one direction with a handle and in the other direction only with a badge. There are doors that are allowed to be open, doors that are not allowed to be open, doors that are not allowed to be open, but are always open..."16

DARIA:

Feeling responsible, expressing knowledge

That, really is the responsibility of architecture… and I have to remind you... it’s my responsibility to remind you that the responsibility, of architecture, of architects, is to create environments that are distinctive to its habitants, to solve things. You cannot be part of everything, we all know it’s better not to... to know everything, you know.17 They were already asked to solve the wrong problems for sure.13

ANINA:

Out of nowhere, pointing somewhere randomly, bestimmend

They have proven that they know how to find plausible solutions for complex conversions.19 Architects always proofed to be something (thinking)– able to build these monuments that last decades, centuries, thousands of years even… just think of the Greek temple, god-like almost.20

LEO:

Looking towards the frame of the video, standing up, full of pleasure

… Look! What a space! …spatially it’s an impressive space. Structure, concept, context, light and contrast, lust, elegant elegance, vibrating, open,… proportion.18 

Very judging, distinction between architects and ordinary people, questioning, looking down

… that is... how I interpret it. Many might not understand… but I assume you can understand my point…?24

DARIA: 

Next person standing up

Well…, uh… This leads to the conclusion, which is what our project makes clear, that perception always revolves around an object of knowledge.

Pointing with fingers

One seeks to find out the state of "being", the “is” of an object. 

However, unavoidable is the process of reflecting on a thing and thus placing the objectin a fictional context. In the imagination, the ”is” becomes an "ought" to be, the “Sein-Sollen”

Instructive, knowing

According to this logic, under no circumstances are we able to make statements about the "is" state of an object. Because the "ought" to be differs from individual to individual.25 As Pierre Huyghe says: "An objective organism is formed from many subjective opinions". And yes, it’s not a problem that we mention Pierre Huyghe.27

LEO:

It is a fiction…28 (thinking, contemplating, agreeing, recognizing) … yes, an Institution.

moderating

„institutions are forces to control and dominate space“.29

Convinced, looking into the camera, into the faces, going back and forth

We enter institutions, we invest in them we internalize their values, their discourses, their ways of being, their modes of perception and classification. flowy talking And then we embody them, … then we perform them in our lives and in our roles within institutions and our relationships with institutions… (look up, stand still) that’s the social process. I am an… I am here. I am the same as you, you are the same as them.

ANINA:

Now, what’s that supposed to mean? Pause well…

Pointing down distinctively with both hands, up on toes, very emphasizing, enumerating (Handbewegung) 

What we see here is, …that fundamentally what’s productive, is a space of ongoing investigation, critic, reflexive analysis pause critic is a verb above all.30 Kopf runter This is an enactment Kopf hoch of a highly conflicted, ambivalent, love-hate relationship to this and its institutions.31

DARIA:

convinced

We have the firm believe it’s much more productive to not say “okay now we are doing the right thing”, … but to say “No, this is how we are not doing the right thing”, “this is how we are participating in the reproduction of relationships of domination.”30

ANINA: 

schneller, hand gestures that shape a globe, pointing left, right, centre,

It is a structurally conflictual social space. The field is radically divided between two extreme poles.

Warning, but suggesting we are a team

The space in-between where those two poles mix is where most of us are and it’s an uncomfortable place to be.30

LEO: 

Short break, looking into the faces, looking into the camera

So… Recognizing. Okay... Lets’s say... (thinking, just came into mind, knowing the answer)

ANINA:

Quickly, runterlesen

“A field is a Field of forces within which the Agents occupy positions that statistically determine the POSITIONS they will take with respect to the fields, these POSITIONTAKINGS being aimed either at CONSERVING or TRANSFORMING the STRUCTURE OF RELATIONS OF FORCES that is constitutive of the field.” at least that’s how Pierre Bourdieu explained it.32

LEO:

explaining, slower, knowing more than the listener

Let me break this down for you guys: This tells us that reality is a social concept: to exist, is to exist socially in relation to others. What is real, is relational. Power relations between and within fields structure human behavior. (looking in faces) 

There are agents… you could say the players within a structure – fast, mumbling, quiet, unimportant, obvious, propulsive hand gesture  …me, us, you, and so forth.

loud, clear, getting up, walking back and forth

All agents occupy a position within a field and either try to conserve or transform the rules of their social field. Within this discourse people make use of their power or capital to impose the rules to the field hat favor them the most.

Small pause

DARIA:

We as agents in relations with all other actors, carry a responsibility to fulfill a task, promising the best solutions, compromising, maybe our own beliefs, trying to be true, projecting our “ought” to be out into world, we as a builders must know the “is”, do we belief what we say, we assume, we hope, we hope not to be selling a fiction, their ought to be. How can we do what we do and say what we do?33

… concluding we can say that not everybody can distinguish this and that, here and there, yourself and them, maybe it is even stronger to limit yourself. Maybe.34

Smiling, concluding,

We now understand a field. Our answer are questions.

Well, that’s that.

looking into faces

We thank everyone that’s feeding our knowledge.35

Thank you – and you will thank us.

looking into camera to finish

Thanks.36

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

TF2 - Demo/Spy

A certain artist loves this pairing, so I threw this together in chat for them.  - - - - - -- 

-Title: Explosive Decompression -

. . . . . 

He hardly dared to breathe, lest it shatter the fragile moment that the universe had spun between them. Demo's expression seemed surprised, stricken, oddly conflicted yet awed, as they stared.

Spy could not seem to wrench his gaze from the man's eye, the shape of his jaw, his ever-smiling mouth and those lips... They were slightly ajar now, as the Scotsman tried to process whatever this was, happening right now between the two mercenaries. So stock-still that Spy immediately felt his heart, previously beating so hard he could have sworn Demo would hear it pounding away in fear; now sink to the pit of his stomach.

They should not have done this. It was unprofessional, to allow someone like himself to imbibe enough to become rather tipsy; not drunk, just... relaxed enough that he might answer a question directly, rather than with his usual level of mystique and subterfuge.

Spies must take in many secrets, and keep them caged between their teeth; for letting them out could prove disastrous. Their job was to ruin people, topple governments, blackmail, coerce, change the world for good or ill depending on who paid your wages... and to let out any of that information could be a crippling blow to your professional occupation.

But to let slip something personal, that was to sign your death warrant. It gave others power that they could, and would use against you.

Many spies from before, men and women with impeccable abilities that dared to dream of a normal life and settling down, who had confided in others about their pasts... who watched former adversaries hold weapons to their loved ones, or heard the people they trusted sell them out for money, for favours, for praise and promotion.

He would never have thought to allow such a thing to happen. He was above such things, and although he loved a woman once, just enough to foster silent fantasies of raising their son safe from the world and its perils... he had always known they were just that. Dreams. Fantasies. Comforting lies that helped you sleep at night.

Divorce yourself from attachments and emotions, remove all ties to living beings, let yourself feel nothing but satisfaction in your work. Each kill a thrill, every blackmail or topple bureaucracy a sadistic delight... let that fuel your desire to survive. For nothing else was allowed...

He had loved her, once. In a time far removed from the now; and even so, pangs of what once was, could have been in a different world, radiated through his chest. Especially on difficult nights of loss or hollow victory... in this endless game of war, where life and death held no meaning.

And he should have let that be it, be content with a hollow want for something long since out of his reach... and yet, even though he remained detached, curt, calculatingly cold and indifferent to the other mercenaries of RED...

In an effort of preservation; for himself, for their sakes too, one would surmise.

Even though he tried to be aloof and alone, as suited a Spy... the team wormed their way in. Conflicts were rife in the beginning, and sometimes there were feuds and spats that lasted months between various classes... but for every fight, so too was there interaction, learning, an odd familiarity that settled into the bones.

As one would expect when you lived and died alongside one another every single day for years without end. Only the scenery changed more frequently than the mercenaries' attitudes towards one another.

He could tolerate the stinking bushman's presence now, a man of few words but deeper insights was intriguing if you ignored the whole... 'jarate' utilisation nonsense. No sane person would collect their urine in jars and throw it on people, as far as Spy was concerned.

Medic was eccentric, but wrapped up in Heavy and his birds; always covered in blood and ready to tell a story of his wilder days as a mercenary medico. Snatching bodies and organs for the hell of it, the way he flayed flesh for revenge... Spy had learned many things from the man, in retrospect. Useful, should he need to... interrogate someone rather stringently in the future.

Heavy seemed dense, until you spoke to him in another language, and Spy had had the chance to polish several of his language skills with that man. A welcome surprise...

He detested Engineer, however. Too friendly, open, everything Spy was not... and the way the man so swiftly adopted the role of paternal figure to both the Pyro and his so-... the Scout, irked him. How dare he? Ugh, Americans and their apple-pie idealism. Disgusting, to his sensibilities.

Soldier was a unique man, under the brusque outward persona. To have been so resourceful in hunting nazi scum, even though his country denied him the resources to do so... it had intrigued Spy. Surely there was more than yelling and misquoting Sun Tzu? It had been a fun diversion, when they first arrived on base; going through the others' files. Everything about them laid bare in red folders filled to the brim with documentation... excepting the Pyro, of course.

An enigma Spy was loathe to solve, as the mask-wearing pyromaniac set his nerves on edge whenever nearby. The BLU firebug had a fondness for burning  him as often as possible... and Spy did not ever see himself becoming best friends with the RED look-a-like.

Of course, he knew Scout was... Yes. He knew. Telling him, however, was out of the question; their first encounter with one another left Spy feeling that the boy was an abhorrent mistake. A child with a loud mouth, bad attitude and an accent so thick it could choke a man... how could this be his?

He had been far more severe and unforgiving on that boy, compared to any of the others, in all honesty. Until more recently. The brash attitude had mellowed somewhat, now that the brat knew he had a place here and his inferiority complex didn't act up so frequently. Demanding that Scout bignote himself, be reckless, make so much noise and mess that the whole world had to stop and acknowledge his presence before he could calm down... assured that he was seen.

Spy knew that was partially his fault. No father, seven older brothers and a mother who split her time between parenthood and assassinations? Of course he turned out this way... But such knowledge had not shorted out the Frenchman's disdain of the boy on sight.

However now... they seemed to coexist, neither voicing what they both seemed to know. And if Spy ever found out which teammate told the boy of his paternity, then no god will save them from what he will do... Spy had hoped to tell the boy... in a mythical 'one day' that he would never allow to come. Indeed, one such altercation and hollow accusation of, "You're not my dad!" had contributed to this very situation in which he now found himself.

Of all the mercenaries, Spy found himself becoming more and more intrigued by the Demolitions man, or 'Demo'. The man merged the scientific and supernatural almost frequently, and his backstory was always fascinating to pretend you weren't listening to.

And he had a knowing, about him. "I've got a canny sense for some things, lad." he'd once said to Scout, who was asking Demo how in the hell he could guess that the bluer-than-it-had-a-right-to-be sky was going to be covered in dark, brooding clouds within the next hour or so. He had been correct, actually, it had stormed for several days so severely matches were cancelled until it ceased.

You could see in his eyes, in the slight tinge of a smile in his upturned lips, when he had seen something others had not yet. It made Demo the prime suspect in Spy's investigation as to who had told Scout about his father... And yet, this preternatural ability was as fascinating to Spy, as it was a curse for Demo.

As time passed, the Frenchman found he gravitated to the warmth of Demo's tone, his welcoming nature, could stand cloaked and watch the man tinker with his weaponry for hours in an almost trance-like tranquillity... he was peaceful like that, sometimes. Of course, he was also very much a lit powder-keg; not unlike the bombs he unleashed on the BLUs.

His knowing, the strange things that happened in his life before RED and all the things he never spoke about, like his family, the things you could see in the haunted shadows of his eyes... Those things were like a beacon to Spy; he was a curious person, as Spies often tend to be, and he could not help but build rapport in hopes of unlocking this mystery.

Demo drank. It was a huge joke to some, to make out that he did nothing but imbibe 'scrumpy' all the time. Though Spy knew different. He observed, he knew, he saw. There was a difference between celebratory drunk Demo, and social drinker Demo; and they were both far removed from the near-catatonic, slurring drunk Demo became when he thought no one could see, when whatever haunted him became too much.

It was... close to home.

Spy had been there... only he had switched to cigarettes, and wine; over... what he had once chosen to drown the memories in, instead. It didn't work for long, especially not if you had to put up a facade the whole time as well. Eventually you accepted the past as it was, horrors intact; or you broke, became beyond repair, by your own hand.

And... though he dared not voice even the vaguest notion of sentimentality... Spy had felt disinclined to allow Demo to take that ruinous path. Not while it could be prevented.

Spy was a people-person; it was his trade, refined manners and a natural charm allowed for it to be so. Gaining Demo's trust, however, had felt... more challenging than he was used to. The man could sense someone being disingenuous from across the room, so Spy had to step lightly, work carefully.

It began, not with a conversation, but the end of one. Spy happened upon drunken Demo, sorrowful and slouching, one night in the common room; something about the day had triggered a memory for him, and he'd been morose all evening. At least, under the fake smile he'd pasted on for the other mercenaries, who seemed to have only the slightest of inklings that something was amiss.

They had been a team for nearly a year, by now. Such a long time, and as yet many of the classes were all but strangers to one another. Or rather, like roommates that went to all the same classes, but somehow managed to miss each other in leisure time; except on rare occurrences.

Each class had interacted, and some had stronger bonds than others, but cohesion was a distant dream as of yet. It would take several more months, at the very least, despite the best efforts of the ever-hospitable Engineer and his perpetual barbecue get-togethers.

However, time would tell.

Spy saw Demo properly in that moment, surmised the situation, and told the man straight up, that Spy was going to put him to bed. He was a stinking mess, but that would be the problem of whichever hapless Mann Co. laundry service dealt with their blood-stained clothing and used bedding. Spy didn't care for the details...

In truth, he did. And knew them well. A subsidiary company, part of a chain of cleaning services, called 'Cooee Cleaners' took their laundry four times a fortnight and returned it within six hours. Spy knew when, where and how they did so; and what contracts each of the delivery persons had signed in order to be paid, and not... disposed of via a pink slip and Miss Pauling's pistol.

He rather liked the details, actually.It was his nature.

However, the situation had resolved with the Demolitions expert tucked in bed sans his boots; and Spy aware that he now had an inroads with the man. Whether the Scot recalled the exact events of the night before, or not.

Indeed he did, given the anxiety-tinged glances Demo probably assumed he was covertly throwing at Spy, all throughout breakfast. Trying to gauge whether the night before was real, or if Spy had a good, helpful twin who altruistically tried to ruin the Frenchman's sinister mystique.

He found himself cornered, after battle that day, but the concerned man. Demo was of his game, somewhat; having been blown through respawn a few dozen times in the first five minutes of battle, and things not improving from there on in.

"Look, whatever I said tae ye, could ye forget it?" he'd asked, tone laden with anxiety. It was so out of character, Spy nearly forgot to paste a smug look on his face.

"Oh?" he'd replied, "But I do so love getting new information on my teammates..."

But the normal deflection seemed not to have worked, as usual. Demo had gained that look, the one he associated with his 'canny feeling', and the expression went from concerned to pensive in a heartbeat.

"Aye..." he finally responds, "That ye do, Laddie. Well, ye'd best come along with me then, so we can talk about it... I dinnae want ye dogging my every step to find out why I drink. And I think we both know ye will..."

Spy had nodded. He was discrete, but when something interesting strayed across his path, Spy would chase it to the end of the line...

And so, Demo had taken them to his lab. Fidgeting, tinkering, moving pieces about as if the tactile task somehow helped. Perhaps it did. Spy would often play with his balisong, flicking it open and shut when he was deep in thought. And he had noticed... Scout tended to always do something with his hands when talking, or thinking; it was an invisible thread between them that he found highly amusing and yet, oddly endearing.

Finally... Demo had sighed, sagging in his chair, and gestured for the Frenchman to sit on the chair adjacent the explosive expert. He fumbled for the right starting point for a moment, but finally began... at the beginning, and did not stop until long into the early hours of the night.

Spy was astounded, surprised, sceptical, and slightly off-kilter by this sudden torrent of volunteered information. Certainly, there was the human desire to reciprocate, a story for  a story, that he tamped down. A question, as to when he'd earned enough trust from the man to warrant such a telling; Demo was as stubborn as Scout in many ways, and could have easily fobbed of Spy's persistent inquiries if he wanted.

And there was, too, an unease roiling in the pit of his stomach at the conclusion of their one-sided conversation.  Spy would never have revealed so much, such personal information; and now he knew everything in intricate detail, about Demo... no, Tavish, before him.

Knowing things made you dangerous. Knowing about governments, about the secrets of high ranking officials... made you dangerous. But knowing details about the people around you, personal information, made you a threat to them. What if it was tortured out of you?

Of course, Spy had doubted foreign agencies would be interested in the time eight-year-old Tavish got detention for blowing up the science lab at school, but you never knew these days. Torture had evolved, and Spy had played no small hand in its evolution.

Still, it had changed the dynamics.

He knew so much of Demo, of Tavish DeGroot, and the mystical, mathematical world he came from... and the man knew practically nothing of him. Certainly, Spy had weasled such information out of wooed socialites, high ranking officials and whomsoever else he had to seduce or coerce in order to complete his mission... but that was different.

Demo had laughed, when he'd stopped talking. "Ye don't need to tell me anything ye're not ready to, Spook... ain't the way you lot do things, is it? Spies?"

He'd felt his lip curl up in amusement as he'd deadpanned, "Non, monsieur DeGroot." before bidding the man goodnight, and cloaking. Stealing away to his own bed, to compartmentalise.

And it had been the knowing that drew him back again and again. Demo had lived a life so different, yet so full of the strange and indescribable, that it was like an odd reflection of Spy's own.

He'd even questioned if the interest was a sign of inherent narcissism, at one point. However, Spy eventually dismissed the theory, the more he started to notice things about the other man... dangerous things.

The light in his eye when a new idea struck, the pride in his tone when congratulating a teammate on a kill or capture, the vengeful angel he became when the same were being mercilessly dominated in battle...

The grace of those rough, scarred hands. How they gently coaxed colatile materials into harmonic alignment, ready to be employed in battle; yet those same hands could knock a man's head clean off his shoulders when necessary. The duality was...  

Well, Spy never let himself linger on the nature of those hands for long enough to choose a word for the feeling it gave.   Emotions were problematic, at best, and it did no one any good to dwell on phantom feelings.

Still, he noticed. Little things, words, cadence, interactions, moods. Spy could tell by the tightness around Demo's eyes if  he was caught in dark thoughts; in the same way he knew that, if Medic was smiling brightly, someone was about to play operation with him.

Things built.

From Spy watching the man work uncloaked, in silence... to simply visiting, and listening to anecdotes, stories, odd ideas and some accusations, it must be said.

"You ever going to tell him?" Demo had startled Spy with, not so many days ago. "The lad?"

"He knows." Spy monotones, recovering swiftly.

"Big difference between knowing something, and having it said aloud, having it confirmed. Not to push ye, but it... might make a difference to both of ye." Demo pressed, and then let it be, when Spy went silent. Eventually switching to a different topic altogether, as if the conversation before had never been.

However, it left Spy wondering what else the man could be picking up on. Of course Demo would have noticed the similarities, the inherent characteristics they both denied were even vaguely similar to one another's. Tavish just tended to know these things... not to say he was not a highly intelligent man who could work it out if he wanted to, but his intuition could trump thinktanks the world over.

And if the man had noticed, in what was not spoken, that Scout was his son... what else had he gleaned from Demo?

Then, like an arrow to the heart he suddenly wondered if it really was that terrible to have someone know certain personal information about him. If it was truly so horrifying a concept, when he thought about it...

And that was more startling than anything else that had occurred. The last time Spy had even considered such a thing was-... well... Her. But that was because he lo-... oh, oh no.

It was four am on a rainy Thursday night, and he had made a realisation that could shatter his nonchalant facade if it should get out or be acted upon openly. No, Spy could allow nothing of the sort... he would simply, ignore it.

Like always, such was was the life of an espionage agent. And so, resolved, the man had resolutely fallen asleep thinking of nothing, save how he would backstab the BLU Sniper the following day... in retribution for all the many, many impeccable suits lost to jarate attacks.

Of course, the complication came in the form of Demo's friendly offer to 'have a drink'. Usually, such invitations were a formality, underhandedly meaning that Spy was free to drop by the workshop later on, or even Demo's room, and talk. As he had a habit of doing after battle, these days...

Outwardly, he had raised an eyebrow, as if questioning. Scout had loudly laughed and made a rather crude joke about Spy being uptight, and how Demo would need far more alcohol than was available on the base to get the guy to 'hang out', much less 'relax'.

Both the older men suppressed their amusement at that statement. But when the siren went off to leave spawn, and Scout had disappeared into the wind as he often did, Spy met Demo's eyes... and nodded, before cloaking.

He would be there.

And so he was. Triumphant, the team had crowed and delighted in their victory through dinner and into the night. Spy had personally killed his rival four out of five times prior to being taken down by the BLU Soldier, so he was in high spirits and open to merriment.

"There you are, thought ye'd bloody forgot!" Demo greets, swinging open the door of the workshop and gesturing to the armchair Spy had mysteriously gotten hold of and had placed in the room for his visitations. He had contacts all over the world, he'd assured, and a comfortable seat was nothing compared to what he could get with a single phonecall to the right people.

Perhaps it was the merriment, a break in the week's losing streak, or it could be simply that he had started to trust in the Demolitions expert... but, Spy felt quite relaxed tonight. Did not even think to guard his thoughts, filter his words, or wonder where the first two glasses of wine had gone...

Sipping champagne or a good vintage wine during an evening by the fire, or whilst seducing a target was one thing... a moderated act, false sips, all compliments and distractions as the other starts to let slip the secrets you seek. This... this was another.

Spy could feel the edges of the world become a little softer, somewhat fuzzier and kinder than they'd been in years. It flagged a warning with his survival instincts, but whatever alarm it caused was muted at best, and tamped down upon at the persistent thought that Demo was not a threat.

Indeed, the man was the opposite, especially on the field. How many times had a stickybomb trap saved the Spy, recently? BLU were getting uncannily good at spotting disguised spies, and it meant he tended to die a lot more frequently...

Wait...

He reeled a little, mentally repeating his slightly convoluted chain of thought. Demo was not a threat?

Demo was not a threat.

Alright, that was easily settled.

Actually, Demo was looking at him in concern. He cocked slightly to the side, and brow furrowed; looking at Spy, like he was a bomb with a misaligned screw somewhere in the design.

"Uh, when was the last time ye got more than a wee bit buzzed from your fancy grape juice, Spook?" Tavish asks, somewhat bluntly.

Spy opens his mouth to reply, but an ugly snort of laughter escapes instead. "Fancy grape juice, mon cheri, I will 'ave you know that some of my wine collection are older than everyone on this team combined!"

"...not a point in their favour, to be honest, lad. Old stuff tends to go off, if ye havenae noticed..." Demo teases, plain on his smirking face.

"Wine ages gracefully, Demo... the older it gets, the more potent and delectable. Very few humans can say the same of themselves..." Spy retorts, laying it on thick at the end to sound mysterious and wise, even though some part of his mind was still stuck on how funny 'fancy grape juice' was as a wine descriptor.

"If ye say so..." Demo rolls his eye, reaching for his bottle instead. His hand pauses on the cusp of grasping it as a thought strikes, eye narrowing to a considering squint. "Oi, ye weren't taking a dig at me spare tire with the aging gracefully comment, were ye? Cause I'll have ye know... I've still got enough muscle to toss ye like a javelin across  the battlefield if ye're feeling cheeky..."

Spy nearly spat his mouthful of red wine across the room. "Non. My intention was complimentary, I assure you... I 'ave only known few humans to grow steadily more attractive as the yeas past. We are supposed to decay, and yet, beauty persists in the most unlikely of places..."

There was a pause as he thought about it. "You should 'ave seen Scout's mother when we met, nearly twenty-seven years ago now, I did not even know a word to describe her beauty... and it infuriates me more with every growing year."

"Och, don't sell yeself short, laddie, I bet you're not that bad off under that mask of yours..." Demo responds, skipping casually over the fact Spy just revealed something incredibly personal  about himself for no real reason.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Spy teases, automatically, before covering his own mouth in horror. "I think I 'ave had more to thought than I drink..."

It was too late, Demo was already in hysterics, and the mis-worded sentence only added to his amusement at the situation.

"I think ye have, Spook, can't even get your sentences the right way 'round, can ye?" the Scotsman beams.

"Perhaps..." Spy relents, "Or maybe I just 'ave not thought to let someone else in for a long time... and the wine 'elps somewhat."

Which immediately stifles Demo's laughter. An unintended side-effect of the gravity of Spy's statement.

Tactfully, he says, "Aye, drink'll do that to ye... loosen tongues and let secrets slide on out. I'd warrant ye have quite a few of those rattling around in your head, eh?"

Spy's lip curls up in amusement. "Oh, oui, mon ch-... amie. But if I told you... I would 'ave to kill you and all that dreary nonsense. I'd much prefer your company..."

Demo pounces on the statement like a cat on string. "Oh, would ye now, Spook? Thought ye couldn't stand me to start with... now I get front-row seats to your little secret-spilling show, and I wouldnae miss it for the world."

"It is, unfortunate that my occupation requires such secrecy, Tavish, but... it is as it is." Spy returns, sombrely. Like the words were bitter in his mouth, and he wanted rid of them. "There is much I can never say... even to those I care for deeply, for their safety I must not exist to them. Silence is a far sharper knife than any argument can ever be... even if both parties understand the logic of why."

Demo swirled the bottle, watching the liquid slosh about; a tiny alcoholic ocean thrown mercilessly against the green glass sides, as he mulled over the statement. It wasn't unexpected, but Spy was not one to make such statements lightly; sober or blackout drunk.

"And that is why Scout did not 'ave a father in his life, Demo. Why I had to let his darling mother, mon cheri, go before we got too tangled in emotions to do so. Before they became targets for the things I know, have done, will do... espionage is not at all as exciting as those silly Spy films make it seem. The pretty girls and boys you seduce will be followed by the old, the ugly and the cruel; some you kill, others you must keep alive. It all depends on the mission, and you feel nothing for any of them... you cannot, or it will ruin what you are. Your edge."

Demo does not interject as Spy pauses for breath, for reflection. Just nods along, having seen this storm cloud building from the moment the other man picked up the second glass of wine.

"If you are detached, tell noone anything... learn no secrets but those you are sent to find, then you will hurt no one when retribution finds you." Spy explains, as best he can. "There are few I can tell about anything, about my life and what I have seen, done, learned, lost... it puts them in danger. Mon cheri understood, she has been there herself but found a way to change her fate... a way I cannot follow. So we parted, amicably, if regretfully. And even here, to protect even that happy-go-lucky fool the Engineer, I cannot speak to anyone. But you," he jabs a finger at Demo, "you 'ave a way of making people want to tell you things."

For a split-second, Demo wrinkles his nose in offence, but seemingly decides to let it go. Spy is venting, and to be fair he does have that effect on people. That sense of his saw people confess odd things to him all the time... he couldn't turn it off, though.

"You just... told me all about yourself, everything! And I couldn't stop myself from listening... I should 'ave, to keep you safe, but your voice was-..." Spy coughs, "I mean to say, the tale was fascinating in no uncertain terms."

"Oh sure, just the tale and not the handsome devil telling it to ye, gotcha." Demo beams, giving an exaggerated wink in the drunken Spy's direction.

It earned him a frustrated scowl. "Exactly!" shouts Spy, tossing his hands up haphazardly and nearly slopping wine all over the place.

That pulls the Scot up short. "Ye what now?" he probes, trying to clarify if he's drunk too much or Spy has.

"You... are a very aesthetic-... aestheti-.... beautiful man, Tavish. We both know this, do not deny it; I have seen many people, conventionally attractive and decidedly not, in my life... and you are one of those awful humans that ages gracefully like wine. And you can captivate with your personality, your stories are exciting and informative, your hands are-... I mean, your expressions are always fluid and you are a fascinating creature to behold."

Spy pauses, staring at his almost-empty wine glass in accusation.

"You have no idea how much I want to tell people things, but most of all you, you attractive idiot of a man... with your friendship, and your physique and your-... your-..." he stammers off, looking for a word, only to suddenly freeze.

The gravity of his words seemed to sink in, for the first time that night, and Spy's heart begins to race. Fight or flight is taking over; restless energy floods his body, demanding the espionage agent cloak and retreat. But he cannot.

Everything in the room is trapped in this odd, ethereal moment where not even air seems to exist. He loathes how saccharine it feels, how cliche... and yet, what other descriptors are there?

It was like being paralysed in amber, as his eyes latched onto Demo's face; saw the shock there, and ascribed it to be negative of meaning, in his mind. Demo was staring back, a feature-length film of emotions whirring across his features too fast for Spy's less-than-sober mind to keep up with.

Spy couldn't think of anything to say to defuse the situation, every elongated moment of silence making his heart sink further into his stomach. He couldn't quite find the energy to make his hand stop reaching for the cloaking watch, though... Rigorously ignoring the thought that, even if he got away now, there was always tomorrow, or the next... when they would be face to face.

Of course he had had people rebuke his attempts at seduction, and even a few his active affections... but this was inherently different. Demo wasn't saying anything, doing anything... he was just still. It was eerie.

"Don't."

The words snaps him out of the elongated scene, as does the warm hand caught fast around his wrist, effectively blocking out the watch. Demo's grip could easily release, if Spy gave even the slightest indication he was going to cloak and leave anyway.

Spy stays his hand, feeling very much the foolish deer in headlights; something he hasn't felt in... so long, he almost forgot what it was like to be vulnerable. To be like this, open to rejection, without his usual wall of cynicism and apathy blocking it out.

He must have had too much to drink. It happened, sometimes things just come out when inhibitions are lowered...

"It's... uh, well..." Demo stammers, clearly attempting to be the diplomatic one here since Spy's normal suave tact is utterly failing him.

"You do not 'ave to respond," Spy manages. "And you need not give sympathy or express sentiment... I made a mistake, in admitting something personal, and we can both forget it."

"Oh, can we now?" Demo queries, raising an eyebrow with a strange quality to his tone. "Just go back to the way things are, even though I know?"

Spy nods, looking slightly over the other's left shoulder, expression tight and guarded once more. "If that is what you wish."

"Well," says Demo, dropping Spy's wrist and crossing his arms. "And what if I don't bloody want to, eh?"

"That is... also your choice." Spy interjects, voice monotonous and yet somehow defensive.

Demo wags a finger at him, "I wasnae finished talking laddie. Perhaps, I dinnae want to forget about the fact the bloke I've been trying to woo for the last six bloody months has finally worked out he likes me back under all that emotional repression. What if I want to act on that, instead, hey?"

Spy nearly falls over, but recovers as swiftly as he can. "Would you... care to repeat that, mon amie?"

Demo glares at him. "You're bloody right I do care to, and what's this 'my friend' business about, Spook?  You've been accidentally calling me 'mon cheri' for months, had to ask Heavy what it meant and he nearly choked on his sandvich telling me..."

That vivid mental image alone shatters the tension in the room as both occupants laugh aloud.

"Ah, but seriously boyo... you're not all that subtle after a wee bit of time living with the same people. Get to know your eccentricities... and you're as messed up as Scoot is, with your emotions. But if I'd known all it'd take was some fancy wine juice to get you to admit you were hankering for all this..."

He gestures to all of him in a sweeping motion that nearly sends the emotionally-exhausted Frenchman into hysterics again.

"I would have bloody bought you a tank full ages ago... save all this pining and self-realisation nonsense. Ye looked like I was gonnae kill ye just before, when you blurted it out..." Demo adds, thoughtfully.

Trying to piece everything back together mentally, Spy clears his throat. "You never know how people will react, these days, and you are good with explosives..."

"Good? I'm brilliant, Spook! And if ye want, I can show you I'm pretty good at another type of banging..." He accompanies the statement with a lewd grin that lightens the mood and finally dissipates the last shred of tension from the room.

Spy groans and drops his face into his hands. "Why am I attracted to you again?"

"Uh, dunno, ye didn't finish your long litany of the bits of me you like best... got to the hands and ye stopped, didn't even get to my perky ar-..."

This time Spy covers Demo's mouth. "Finish that sentence and I will leave you here alone..." he sighs dramatically, "How will I ever take you in public like this?"

Demo grins and mumbles something. Spy moves his hand to hear him better.

"I said, I can behave if I want to... in public, that is. Probably at one of those upper-class, posh restaurants you like too... the ones with fourteen spoons and expensive old fancy grape juice..."

Some part of Spy despaired at that phrase, but it was subsumed by the odd surge of amusement he felt at the casual way the conversation was flowing positively between them. Gently eroding the spiky emotional chaos of a few moments earlier.

"Please... do not ever use that phrase again, especially in public." he asks, tone slightly strained.

And Demo laughs back. "Anything for you, Spook... uh... actually..."

There it is, Spy had been waiting for the question.

"...if we adopt Scout, do you want to be Dad, or Daddy?" Demo asks, tone entirely innocent, and shiteating grin clearly stating he was enjoying the way Spy suddenly lost the last shreds of composure.

Alright that was decidedly NOT the question he had been anticipating. Spy let out his horrifying laugh, which he personally detested; sometimes he snorted or giggled oddly, and he hated it.

Demo pokes him in the cheek. "Cute laugh you got there Spook..."

"Oh shut up, Demo..." Spy finally calms down enough to say, waving off the other. "That was not what I thought you were going to ask, mon cheri..."

"No, but your face was bloody funny when I did. Or I think it is... hard to tell with-... nevermind." Demo smiles, suddenly realising that the base is very quiet and they're quite close together.

"No, do ask your question, if you have an actual one that is..." Spy invites, hands busily sliding under the mask hem. Meticulous in their removal.

"Well, and ye dinnae have to give me an answer now if ye wanna keep the whole secret identity thing going for a wee bit longer but... you know my name..." Demo leads.

"Indeed, Tavish, mon cheri." Spy smirks back, sans mask.

Demo nearly chokes at the sudden revelation, at how closely he had imagined it, based on mental mapping of the features beneath the identity-concealing mask. He clears his throat when Spy raises an eyebrow in query as to why he'd paused.

"Well, ye know my name... and I was kind of wondering if it'd be okay to know yours?" Demo asks, expression hopeful but trying not to be.

There it was.

Spy had been waiting.

He leans in quite close. "Of course, mon cheri... my name is," he leaned in to whisper hotly into the Scotsman's ear, before pulling back with a killer grin. "And I would adivse you not forget it... you will be screaming it later tonight..."

Then, in the space of a heartbeat... there's a kiss on his lips, something in his hand, and Spy has disappeared.

Demo clutches tightly at the mask, holding onto the physical reminder that everything that just happened was not just an elaborate fantasy... and beams through tingling lips.

This was going to be an adventure.

---------------

The End

_____________________________________________

I hope this makes sense bc it is 5am and I wrote this trash in a blur Need to edit it

[martinatkins]

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[esbagreestobeindecisive]

In Praise of Slowness By Henry Martyn Lloyd

IN AN ATTEMPT to view its treasures in less than nine minutes and 43 seconds, three youths run recklessly through the Louvre, laughing breathlessly. The scene, from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 Bande à part, is one of French cinema’s most famous. Invoked in the conclusion to Michelle Boulous Walker’s Slow Philosophy: Reading Against the Institution, it is made to capture the malaise that grips contemporary philosophy in its institutional context, where the demands of speed and efficiency dominate at the expense of considered contemplation, and where the rapid production and consumption of knowledge have almost completely displaced the pleasures of the text. As Boulous Walker bluntly asserts, “this is not how we look at art.”

Godard’s image is striking for its visual poetry. By contrast, the dominant if somewhat covert image of Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber’s The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy is striking for its banality. Teenagers working casualised jobs on a minimum wage serve homogenized products devoid of nutritional or aesthetical value to obese, diabetic, and utterly docile consumers. Fluorescent lights accentuate garish plastic furniture and everybody smiles, although nobody knows why. Welcome to McUniversity.

Much has already been written about the corporatization of higher education, the state of the contemporary academy, and particularly the state of the humanities. There has been enough diagnosis. What is needed now is a response that seeks to identify and cultivate a space for resistance within the modern corporate university, for keeping “alive the craft.” It is against the consumptive “student experience” model of education, the productive “publish or perish” culture and their corollaries, that Boulous Walker and Berg and Seeber set themselves. And they do so with a much-needed sense of optimism that such resistance is still possible.

Berg and Seeber are literary critics with positions in English departments. Their own disciplinary affiliation, however, sits very lightly on their book; they have deliberately avoided writing a “300-page scholarly tome [their] colleagues would likely be too busy to read.” While the subgenre of the “campus novel” makes a significant contribution to their task, rather than studying literature directly, Berg and Seeber have successfully adopted a personalized, testimonial, and self-consciously anecdotal approach. The result is that, regardless of disciplinary identification, very few academics will fail to find their own experiences reflected in those of the two authors. Recognizing that policy responses to the malaise of the university would only exacerbate problems caused by an already top-heavy institution, Berg and Seeber take the locus of resistance to be the working life of the individual professor. Their manifesto is structured around the quotidian and very practical aspects of the academic life: time management, teaching, researching, collegiality, and collaboration.

Boulous Walker’s project is, by contrast, to ground a specific rejoinder from within philosophy. In the terms she deploys throughout her book, philosophy as the love of wisdom is increasingly set against philosophy as the desire to know, a forensic and exhaustive desire that all too often stands in the way of the transformative potential of wisdom. Philosophy as contemplation is set against philosophy in the service of mechanistic appropriation, technological enframing, calculative thinking, and instrumental reason.

There are echoes here of the idea that the only locus of resistance to modernity is art: rather than running through galleries, we need to “understand how much there is to gain and to experience in standing for extended periods in front of major art works.” For Boulous Walker, “complex works of philosophy require a similarly committed viewing.” The cheap version of the idea that “only art can save us” is that in the face of ever-increasing technological enframing, and given the death of God, salvation can only come from the pen/brush of a brilliant artistic Messiah in a stunning work of avant-garde art. Much more plausibly, Boulous Walker makes it clear that salvation lies less in the work itself — be it artistic or philosophical — than in the form of contemplation with which we regard the work. She, too, takes the individual to be the locus of resistance to the McUniversity.

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The idea of slowness — of slowing down — is central to articulating a response to the crisis of the contemporary university. Boulous Walker and, much more explicitly, Berg and Seeber draw from the slow food movement as a curative to the modern McUniversity. Yet while the slow movement does challenge the pace and standardization of contemporary culture, it need not do so in the name of sloth or of a pre-urban pastoral romanticization:

The slow movement is not a counter-cultural retreat from everyday life, not a return to the past, the good old days … neither is it a form of laziness, nor a slow-motion version of life […] Rather it is […] a process whereby everyday life — in all its pace and complexity, frisson and routine — is approached with care and attention.

For her part, Boulous Walker has written an extremely classical work of philosophy that serves a progressive agenda. It is “classical” in the sense that it is a return to the discipline’s oldest and most enduring self-conception: philosophy as philosophia, the love of wisdom. And her agenda is “progressive” in the sense that at the heart of the work there is a reframing of philosophy that is simple, powerful, and startlingly original. Various traditions within modern philosophy have held that the locus of knowledge is internal to the subject and is to be found in the self-sufficient resources of the thinking self. By contrast, the attractiveness of Boulous Walker’s manifesto is its turning of philosophy outward. Philosophy is reconsidered as a fundamental engagement with the other, and the preeminent activity of the philosopher is the act of reading.

Boulous Walker’s observation that philosophers do not so much think as read is simultaneously startling and utterly banal. Yet in a tradition widely obsessed with the pure act of thinking, the shift in self-understanding is profound. If the model of the philosopher as thinker encourages the fantasy of the self as a heroic, self-reliant, first-person agent, the model of philosopher as reader necessitates a rethinking of this. A reader reads what is written by another; to read well is to open oneself to the authorial voice of the other. If the model of philosophy as pure thinking encourages the chauvinism that is too often a feature of philosophy’s self-conception, the model of philosophy developed by Boulous Walker is intrinsically open to disciplines that philosophy often defines itself against history, literature, and aesthetics more broadly. Reading, and reading well, can never be conceived of as something that is the exclusive purview of philosophy. Nor can what is read be limited to philosophy narrowly construed, but it must include literature, the arts, or film.

The real innovation of Boulous Walker’s book is its understanding of philosophia — the love of wisdom — in terms of the love of reading. The point is not that philosophers do not read, or that they ought to read more, but that philosophy needs to rethink what it is to read, and to think carefully about what it is to read better. Hence the importance of slowness.

The sense in which slowness is deployed here is very broad. “Slow reading” is not to be understood in opposition to “fast reading.” There is nothing per se problematic with speed- or skim-reading; there are occasions when speed is necessary. Sometimes, for Boulous Walker to read slowly means returning to a text to reread and reconsider it at whatever speed. At other times, slowness means carefully ruminating on a text while doing something entirely different: jogging, swimming, staring out the window, sitting in traffic. At other times, it means leisurely and carefully sinking into the mood of the work. Slow reading is often characterized by its intensity: it involves a fine-tuned attention to detail and nuance. And openness: “Slow reading is important precisely because it provides us with the attentive quality necessary for openness to occur.” Pleasure is important here, but so is a certain amount of discomfort. Boulous Walker is advocating reading as an act of meditative contemplation that has transformative potential, which opens the self to the possibility of a reorientation vis-à-vis knowledge and the other.

Berg and Seeber generally understand slowness in a more literal, temporal sense. This is especially true in their chapter on time management and timelessness, which is in direct response to a body of literature that includes such inviting titles as The Efficient, Effective Professor and which, among other things, suggests that professors “be smart about which work [they] save for the weekends,” and perhaps rise at 3:30 a.m. in order to write undisturbed from 4:00 to 6:45 a.m. This is apparently not suggested in jest. Berg and Seeber respond in part by using less frenzied literature to indicate that once we work past our productive peak, we begin to simply waste time; we can in fact achieve more by working less. They also invoke the idea of “timeless time” by which they mean objective time that effectively passes unnoticed.

“Flow” is the major metaphor here. Although it has some purchase in psychological research, the idea of “flow” has become something of a New Age-ism and so is resistant to deeper analysis. What Berg and Seeber are really calling for is perhaps better described as “free time” within which to work in an unscheduled, non-purposive, and therefore creative mode. “We need time to do nothing.” Here Boulous Walker’s deployment of the philosophical tradition allows her to say more, even if she does so in a genre that perhaps not all readers will find inviting.

Like the idea of slowness, reading too is understood by Boulous Walker in a very broad sense. One of the more interesting aspects of the book is a discussion of reading as listening. The point is made against a tradition that generally takes sight to be the privileged metaphor for knowledge; sight permits a certain distance between the object and the subject. But for sight to operate well, it requires interdependence with the “lower” senses such as hearing and touch. It is particularly the act of listening that provides a useful alternate metaphor for knowledge. Listening promotes proximity and nearness: immersion. Yet “the patience of attentive listening involves an open exchange where listening is not mediated by shared understanding, but by difference. Attentive listening respects the other’s difference.”

The return here to an understanding of philosophy as fundamentally dialogical is not accidental: listening to the other is the precondition for knowing. Attentive listening provides the necessary interval or hesitation that makes it possible to avoid consuming or integrating the other.

Reading is not a neutral activity; there is no innocent reading. Reading never is, nor ever ought to be, a complete abandoning of the self in favor of the text. Boulous Walker exemplifies what this means, as she draws on large parts of the established canon of philosophy — including Plato, Nietzsche, Levinas, Adorno, Beauvoir, and Irigaray — but also from less well-known figures such as Luiz Costa Lima, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, and Robert Musil. It is in her focus on Simone de Beauvoir’s reworking of Sartre’s philosophical ontology that Boulous Walker’s own model of philosophy-as-reading is exemplified: “Beauvoir remains philosophically connected and yet independent from Sartre.” This reading, which has been characterized by Michèle Le Dœuff as “operative philosophy,” only occupies a few pages of direct discussion in Boulous Walker’s book, but is an important exemplification of the model of philosophy she advocates. Without becoming side-tracked in a performative display of the language’s inability to refer to anything other than itself, Boulous Walker carefully reads Le Dœuff as she reads Beauvoir who in turn reads Sartre.

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What is needed is a rethinking of the relationship between professionalism and amateurism within the university. To be a professional academic is to be paid to work in a specific discipline. The professional academic teaches several courses a year to (hopefully) interested, engaged students; grades diligently and quickly; answers emails and attends to administrative duties; supervises their graduate students conscientiously; publishes regularly; applies for and hopefully occasionally gets external research grants. In this sense, the professional is contrasted with the person who does not perform these duties well enough.

The professional is also marked out as opposed to the “amateur,” the person who may read in their spare time and discuss what they read with friends, but who will likely not take it upon themselves to submit to the rigors of the professional life. The amateur may read an interesting article or whole books, but they will probably not read an oeuvre in full, nor will they read the voluminous and often boring secondary literature.

In both these senses, professionalism is marked out as a positive term through a disjunction with its negative other: you cannot be both a professional and an amateur at the same time. But there is another, older sense in which amateurism can be understood. The word itself stems from the Latin amator — lover. The amateur is motivated by love. In this sense, professionalism and amateurism are, in theory at least, perfectly compatible with each other. It is often forgotten that philosophia in its Socratic form is love of wisdom in the sense of an erotic desire for the good and the beautiful. Boulous Walker reminds us of this and develops the point using Plato’s Symposium and Irigaray’s reading of that text. But there is much more to be said about the modes of love, as well as the possibilities and dangers. Here Boulous Walker develops some of the most interesting and applicable sections of Beauvoir’s The Second Sex: the discussion of romantic and authentic love.

Berg and Seeber’s defense of amateurism takes the form of a call to retrieve the pleasures of the profession. The theme is developed throughout the book, but it is in the chapter on the pleasures of teaching that the theme is addressed most directly:

[P]ositive emotions facilitate learning, so it seems reasonable to suggest that they will also enhance teaching. It is neither frivolous nor incidental to ensure that we enjoy ourselves in the classroom: it may be crucial to creating an environment in which students can learn.

Their analysis here is quite specific with sections on nervousness, timing and non-verbal communication, breathing, laughing and humor, listening, pacing, and the use of narrative and storytelling. Pleasure is inimical to corporatization. It is here that the McUniversity model of homogenized product delivery can be most directly and successfully countered.

It goes without saying that an excess of amateurish behavior by those paid to behave otherwise is a threat to the contemporary academy. But this is hardly the problem. A far more serious danger is that posed by an excess of, or a misconstrual of, professionalism. Where professionalism is understood merely in terms of speed or haste, of the mechanistic, efficient, and too often thoughtless performance of professional duties, it sets itself against amateurism in the sense of love, desire, and pleasure. It is this malignant professionalism that prevents academics from being both professionals and amateurs.

In quite different registers, both of these books offer a much-needed curative to the rampant McUniversity. Neither relies on the hope that the upper administration will suddenly find a policy response to stop the rot. Both affirm the agency of the individual, and argue persuasively that they can effect change through the manner in which they construct their professional amateurism. Berg and Seeber offer a therapeutics ground in the pragmatic and practical, and their book deserves to be widely read for this. Boulous Walker operates at a higher level of abstraction drawing on a tradition that has since its ancient beginning taken philosophical therapeutics as central. In doing so, neither succumbs to the idea that the university can only survive if it can professionalize sufficiently to remain effective in the context of late capitalism. Nor do they suggest that the only future is a flight from the academy or for that matter from modernity.

Together they reconstruct a professional amateurism that is neither amateurish nor ill from malignant professionalism. The university continues to bring together willing students with professional academics and the moments of learning that continue to occur have transformative and subversive potential. Within the corporate university, love of wisdom, desire, and pleasure can still be found.