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juju-on-that-yeet · 2 years ago

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At My Worst (Chapter 3)

Work Summary: Thanks to his enduring popularity in the fandom, The Author pops back into existence and the egos must suddenly contend with someone they thought was gone forever coming back from the dead. No one is more shocked than Dr. Iplier, who can’t help but remember how things used to be - and slowly fall back into bad habits, despite his better judgement.

Chapter Summary: In the days after his reappearance, The Author has once again become a solid part of the group. Dr. Iplier can’t figure out if he likes this development or not.

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Enjoy!

Somehow, The Author integrates into the egos seamlessly.

Most of them regard him with relative indifference, which is typical of new egos; it’s rare that an ego shows up and is instantly beloved by them all. But he hasn’t made any (new) enemies, and he’s even made friends and rekindled old friendships.

He’s slotted himself into Yandere’s gaggle of friends, joining them when they tear up the town and letting them pull him into their hobbies. By extension, he’s garnered positive relationships with the egos around them, too. The younger Googles like him well enough for getting along with Chrome, and even Blue regards him without suspicion. Illinois and Magnum like him too, given his friendship with Yancy (and it helps that Illinois and Author each have confident, fun-loving personalities). The newfound fondness Author and Yandere have for each other makes Wilford even happier to have his old friend back, and Dr. Iplier has to admit that it’s softening his own heart, too.

Dr. Iplier sees that fondness firsthand one day when Author comes into his clinic with a gash across his temple, blood already half-dried on one ear and down his neck. Yandere’s with him, but he’s nearly unscathed, with only a few scrapes that don’t even need a bandaid. It’s still an early night for the two of them, and it should be too early for such a severe injury.

“What the hell happened??” Dr. Iplier asks Author, practically pulling him to an exam table. Author chuckles a little at his insistence.

“Chill, Doc, I’m alright,” Author says, “Just had a run-in with some guy, that’s all.”

“He slashed you with a machete!” Yandere cries. He huffs. “His form wasn’t even that good, luckily for you. If he had half my skill you’d be dead already. You never pay attention to what’s around you when you write!”

“I know, I know, but consider the fact that I was writing to prevent the guy with the gun from shooting you. He was totally about to do it, and you were too busy with the rest of them to stop him, and my pen’s faster than my bat, so…”

“Whatever the reason,” Dr. Iplier interjects, examining the injury, “You’re lucky this wasn’t any worse. A machete could’ve taken off your ear or gone through your neck if his aim was lower.”

Dr. Iplier often sees Author and Yandere together and hears Yandere’s tales of their adventures, and it’s been very obvious that Author is actively keeping Yandere safer. Dr. Iplier knows that Author always takes a notebook and pen with him when he and Yandere go out at night, and Yandere has come to the clinic with mild injuries and crazy stories of being saved from much worse harm in the nick of time by his assailant suddenly keeling over dead. Dr. Iplier can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief at those stories, can’t help but be happy that Author was there, and by extension be happy that Author is here at all.

Tonight is the clearest picture of the aftermath he’s gotten so far, and he once again can’t help but be relieved – and a little impressed that Author would risk getting so badly hurt for Yandere. Feeling around the cut on Author’s temple calls to mind those times in the past when Author would get hurt by a feisty protagonist and Dr. Iplier would be there to heal him…and by the way Author is looking at Dr. Iplier, he seems to be remembering those times, too.

“Hey, Yan,” Author says, “You don’t have to wait up for me. I’ve done this song and dance before; I know I’ll need some stitches. Chrome or Yancy are probably free if you still want a buddy.”

“Are you sure?” Yandere asks, though Dr. Iplier can see in his eyes how he perks up at the idea of getting back outside and into another street fight.

“I’m sure,” Author reassures him, “I’ll catch up with you once I’m good to go. I’ll just write the knowledge of where you are into my brain.”

“Alright then, if you’re sure. See you later, and bye, Dad!”

“See you!”

“Bye, kiddo.”

Yandere grins as he skips off, whether to find a friend or go straight back outside Dr. Iplier can’t be sure. Author watches him go with a grin of his own.

Dr. Iplier finds that he can’t help but mentally compare Author and Yandere’s relationship to the one between Yandere and The Host. It might be too much to even call it a relationship; the two hardly talk. There’s no animosity, and Yandere enjoys reading manga in the library and Host doesn’t mind him there, but they aren’t friends. They like each other because they both like Dr. Iplier, and they get along well enough when they do interact, but they rarely ever do. Host hasn’t gained even a fraction of the fondness that Dr. Iplier has for Yandere, and it’s only partly because of their differing personalities and interests.

If Author is bothered by Yandere’s relationship with Dark, he’s good at hiding it. Dr. Iplier would’ve thought that he’d be wary of Yandere for that, the way Host has always been. Host lost his eyes to Dark years ago, after all, but it must feel much more recent to Author. Yet he hasn’t had Host’s personality change, hasn’t woken with his cautiousness. Author’s not a fan of Dark, but his feelings about Yandere’s relationship with him seem no deeper than those of Yandere’s other friends. Chrome and Yancy don’t much like Dark either, but like Yandere enough not to care, and Author seems to be the same. Host, though, isn’t, and may not ever be.

Host is also still wary of Author, still unhappy about his presence in the building and still unhappy whenever Dr. Iplier interacts with him. It’s as if he’s still worried about Author doing something untoward, and Dr. Iplier supposes he understands. Author is still Author, he hasn’t learned and grown like Host has. But Dr. Iplier also can’t help but be a little…not annoyed at Host’s insistent worry, but it’s certainly not fun to be side-eyed and grumbled at after he has to treat Author in the clinic or runs into him in the hall. The last interaction Dr. Iplier had with Author before he died was breaking up with him, it’s not like Host has much to worry about in that regard.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Author asks, and Dr. Iplier nearly jumps.

“Oh, n-nothing really,” he says, startled and also surprised at himself. He’d gotten so lost in thought that he’d started stitching up Author’s temple on autopilot. Fortunately, Author doesn’t seem to mind not getting a heads-up.

“You know, you’re good at lying sometimes,” Author says, “But not all the time.” He grins, not the same way he did when saying goodbye to Yandere, but cheekier, teasing. “Whatever you were thinking about there, it really had you lost in thought.”

Maybe Dr. Iplier should fob him off again, maybe it’s better to let his earlier thoughts lie and go unspoken. But Author always has a way of making Dr. Iplier bad at biting his tongue.

“Well…there’s a lot to think about, lately,” Dr. Iplier admits, continuing his stitching much more intentionally than before. “You know.”

“Mm,” Author murmurs. He does know. If not Dr. Iplier’s exact thoughts, then at least the basic subject of them.

There’s a pause.

“You and Host, huh?” Author finally says. Dr. Iplier’s stomach drops.

“Author, let’s not get into that.”

“I’m not trying to start anything, I’m just saying–” Author huffs out a sigh. “He’s…me, right? Kind of? So it makes sense, I guess.”

“He’s…you, kind of. That’s probably the best way to put it,” Dr. Iplier murmurs.

Another pause swallows the conversation, and Dr. Iplier is nearly done with stitching Author up. After that, Dr. Iplier will bandage him, and then Author will go, and Dr. Iplier will try to get these complicated thoughts out of his head.

“Does he at least treat you better than I did?” Author asks, out of the blue. His eyes are focused somewhere between the floor and the middle distance. “Has it…turned out alright, for you?”

Dr. Iplier’s mouth goes dry. How the hell is he supposed to respond to that?

That’s the one thing they have yet to discuss, the fact that Host and Dr. Iplier are together, the tumultuous relationship Author and Dr. Iplier had when Author was alive, the terrible way it ended. Dr. Iplier and Author could probably tiptoe around it forever if not for the fact that Author seems to want to talk about it. He keeps skirting around the edge of bringing it up, seemingly on purpose, and it’s always Dr. Iplier who redirects. This time has simply been the most direct on Author’s part, but it hasn’t been the only one. Maybe it’s silly to keep putting it off, but Dr. Iplier can’t help it. He doesn’t want to revisit everything they used to have, he doesn’t want to go back to that place, to the memories of being young and stupid and in love but so fed up and angry and terrified.

“Loaded question, I know,” Author answers himself before Dr. Iplier can figure out what to say. “I’m not trying to be a jerk, sorry to bring that up.” He grins again, in a third way: Apologetic, a little weary, a little sad.

“It’s alright,” Dr. Iplier says, finishing the last stitch. “I know this isn’t easy for you, either.” Maybe another pause would be beneficial, but Dr. Iplier feels bad and can’t help but fill in the silence as he grabs a bandage. “Thanks for rescuing Yandere earlier, by the way. I know you’ve done it before, and I’m grateful.”

“No problem,” Author replies, perking up considerably. “Yan’s a fun guy, and he’s even better at getting in trouble than I am. Someone’s gotta keep things from going too sideways, and it’s fun for me, too.”

“I can imagine,” Dr. Iplier chuckles, wrapping a bandage around Author’s head. “Yan has a knack for bringing out the destructive tendencies of his friends…not that you needed much help.”

Author simply beams in response, and Dr. Iplier laughs outright. He sends Author off with instructions to be as careful as possible, and though Author assures him he will, he’s already taking out his notebook to help himself find Yandere before he’s even fully out of the clinic. It’s so familiar and so like Author that Dr. Iplier is still smiling after he’s gone.

Having Author around doesn’t only bring up negative memories, after all. Dr. Iplier has quite a few good ones, like when he saw Author in a bar not long after they first met in the clinic. Dr. Iplier had been sitting alone with a drink to take the edge off a long day, and another man had sidled up to him.

“Hey there,” the stranger had said, eyes leering up and down Dr. Iplier’s form, “What’s a handsome thing like you doing in a place like this?”

“Relaxing by himself, thank you,” Dr. Iplier replied, taking another sip of his drink. He was wary of being too rude, though; the other man was taller and bigger than Dr. Iplier, and looked like the type to make things ugly if he was refused.

Fortunately, he only laughed at Dr. Iplier’s comment, but unfortunately, he also leaned in closer, and Dr. Iplier’s nose wrinkled at his breath.

“Don’t be like that, baby,” the man chucked, breath practically in Dr. Iplier’s ear. He snaked an arm around Dr. Iplier’s shoulder. “I’ve been looking for someone to take home, and I really want it to be you.”

“I’d really rather not,” Dr. Iplier muttered, trying to squirm away.

“Look, sweetheart,” the man had said, a hard edge entering his voice. “I don’t think either of us want to make a scene, and even if we did, how likely is it that anyone would care?” His grip on Dr. Iplier’s shoulders got tighter. “So just come along with me, huh? Maybe finish your drink first, loosen up a bit.”

Dr. Iplier pegged him right earlier. Goosebumps prickled up and down his skin, and he knew that things could only get worse from here. The man could’ve been wrong; people might’ve noticed and intervened if Dr. Iplier made a scene trying to get away. But they also might not have cared, or the man might’ve been able to play it off somehow. Dr. Iplier wasn’t sure which of his options was safer.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to find out, because it was at that moment that The Author had come up to the bar and sat down on Dr. Iplier’s other side. They’d seen each other at the clinic a few more times since their first meeting, but never outside it like this, and Dr. Iplier was surprised to see him – but also relieved to have a friend around.

“Hey, fancy meeting you here, Doc,” Author said cheerfully. He was grinning, but his gaze was just as much on the stranger as it was on Dr. Iplier.

“What, you know him?” the man scoffed, his arm getting even tighter around Dr. Iplier. “You’re interrupting something.”

“Weird,” The Author said, pulling something out of his pocket. A notebook and pen, Dr. Iplier realized. “I could’ve sworn I heard him telling you he wasn’t interested.”

“Fuck off,” the man growled, “You just barged in, you don’t know what’s going on here!”

“Hm,” Author hummed, writing something in his notebook. “I think you’ll find that you’re the one who doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“What’s that supposed to–” The man stopped short in the middle of his sentence, eyes going wide. He suddenly removed his arm from Dr. Iplier, got off his seat, and rushed away.

“What the hell was that?” Dr. Iplier asked. His adrenaline hadn’t left him yet, and he didn’t know if the man would be back. He looked at Author, who was now snickering. “What did you do?”

“You know what my powers are, right?” Author asked, still holding in laughter. “How I write stuff and it happens?”

Dr. Iplier nodded. He’d heard about it from the other egos, and he’d watched The Author’s videos not long after they first met.

“Well…” The Author pushed his notebook across the counter to Dr. Iplier. “Let’s just say that guy has more important things to deal with right now.”

In the middle of the page, below some unrelated notes, read “The man harassing Dr. Iplier shits his pants. Like, it’s terrible. So bad that he hides in the bathroom until closing time and still can’t clean himself up good enough.”

Dr. Iplier’s bewilderment must’ve shown on his face, because Author finally burst into laughter, cackling so much he nearly fell off his barstool. Dr. Iplier couldn’t help but huff out a laugh of his own.

“Of all the things you could’ve done to get him to go away, that’s what you chose?” Dr. Iplier chuckled. “Thank you, though, really. It would’ve gotten worse if you hadn’t shown up.”

“No problem,” Author replied, laughter dying down into only a smile, “I noticed you just before that guy put his arm around you, and then I saw how uncomfortable you looked. I heard you tell him no as I was walking over.”

“Just what I needed after work,” Dr. Iplier sighed, “I try to wind down and this happens.” He picked up his drink to take a sip, only for Author’s hand on his arm to stop him.

“What–”

“He might’ve dropped something in your drink.” Author’s expression was suddenly serious. “It was hard to tell with the crowd in here and the light, but I thought I saw him do it after he put his arm around you.” He let go of Dr. Iplier’s arm. “I could probably write the effects of whatever it is away, but better safe than sorry.”

“Jesus,” Dr. Iplier muttered, putting his drink down. “Maybe you should’ve done more than make him crap himself.”

“That’s a weird thing to hear from you. Aren’t you a doctor? “Do no harm” and all?”

“Maybe at work, but I’m off duty, remember?”

Author laughed again, and Dr. Iplier did, too.

“How about I buy you another drink, and the two of us hang out a bit?” Author asked. He paused. “If that’s cool with you, anyway. I’m not trying to be like Mr. Poopypants back there.”

Dr. Iplier couldn’t hold back a snort. Maybe it was because Author just rescued Dr. Iplier from a bad situation, but Dr. Iplier felt at ease around him. But it wasn’t just residual fear that made him want Author to stick around, he just plain liked his company. The few times they’d met up to that point had made for good conversations, and even though Author was flirty and a little – well, maybe a lot – immature, Dr. Iplier always found that he didn’t mind it. He had – still has – little tolerance for bullshit, yet Author somehow never set it off. Something about the genuine kindness Dr. Iplier could see in him, something about how nice it felt to be desired so clearly.

After a long night of drinking and talking and laughing (during which that stranger never returned), Author had smiled at him before they parted ways outside the bar.

“Maybe I could see you again?” he’d asked, “Not just at the clinic, but here?”

“Yeah,” Dr. Iplier had replied, smiling back, “I’d like that.”

The Author hasn’t lost any of that old charm, and Dr. Iplier can’t help reminiscing, as much as we wishes he could. Things can’t be like they were, especially if Dr. Iplier can’t acknowledge the elephant in the room that is their past relationship. But is it bad that he keeps those thoughts in his head? Is it bad that they stay away from that place? Author is a piece of the past, a reminder of all that was good and fun and nostalgic and frustrating and heart-wrenching and terrible.

Eventually, Dr. Iplier is sure that something will give, and one of them will do something they can’t walk back or let hang in the air until the conversation changes. And Dr. Iplier is afraid that it’s going to be him.

#dr. iplier #the author markiplier #danger in fiction #markiplier fanfiction #fanfic #kristin says stuff #my writing #at my worst #a shorter chapter and a quieter one #but it's all set-up for later babey ;3

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toiletwipes · 2 years ago

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Camper reader x faebur

You just wan to have a great time with new friends and new people who also share your hobbies.

But you instead get involved with a fae who wants to marry you / kidnapped you(?

We already had reader being a camp caretaker, now can we talk about reader being a camper?

Then you find yourself on your way to this new camp, which has just opened its doors, you have never been to one of these before, yet the very attraction was to be involved in the activities of your favorite hobby.

Sure you're not really a fan of Creepypastas, but the moment that for some strange reason in every picture you take with your new friends or just out in nature you keep seeing this tall guy with brown hair and staring at you you start to feel strange.

And it only gets worse when you ask people about him and no one seems to have seen him before or know his name or who he is.

An activity as simple as a group walk in the woods ends up being a paranoia switch for you, no matter where you are in line, it just doesn't seem to leave you alone.

If you go all the way to the front you can see him peeking across the path, if you go in the middle you can see him out of the corner of your eye peeking through the trees and as you stay behind the group you can feel his footsteps behind you.

What kind of weirdo decides it's a good idea to stalk someone in a group unless he wants to get caught, beaten and spit on the ground, although looking at the profile, he'd probably like that.

And stopping in the middle of the road two steps away from getting back to camp, you hear your friends and companions moving forward to the mess hall, and when you hear the footsteps stop and you're only able to hear a not so gentle wind.

Of course you should never judge a book by its cover, and the clearest sign of danger was to see how indifferent he was the moment you confronted him face to face, unashamed to stare at you, and then smile and bring his hand to your face.

You decide to confront him, in any case if he is an assassin, you can shout and easily the others will be able to see him.

And when you finally turn to see him you feel your heart drop to your stomach, although the photos in which he had appeared his presence was blurred, but recognizable enough, the person... Is it okay to say person? The thing? In front of you is almost totally different from what you thought it would look like.

And when you can swear that he is brushing against you you hear your nickname in a shout, you turn and it seems to be one of the girls in charge of the camp and when you turn again to face the brown boy again there is no trace of him...

What the hell...?!

-Brainrot anon without Internet;;;; help

Gasp!!!!! 👁👁 i am.. LOOKING. the suspense... who is he. why does no one know him... questions and questions i need ANSWERS TO

#brainrot anon #anon asks #wipes answers #c: faebur #Also RIP #I feel yer pain so hard rn

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chromes-corner · 2 years ago

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Ok. I’m thinking that self aware trope where reader gets teleported into the game cause of plot reasons, and the cookies are all ecstatic cause they revere reader and see them as a sort of god. Just that concept with lilac headcanons and rv headcanons cause they’re my two favorites. Tysm! Have fun with self aware!

IM FUCKING BACK TO WRITING LETS GOOOO!!!!!

Self aware is honestly a cute concept lol. Oh to have the little people in my phone worship me…..

—-

Lilac/Reader & Red Velvet/Reader

Notes: fluff, headcanons

Content warnings: a very brief “gore” (it’s just a mention of reds arm getting chopped when he was a kid) mention

A/N: I really like how people refer to the reader as the Baker in self aware fics so I stole that idea <3

Lilac

Lilac knows he was given a purpose, but what that purpose is, exactly, is unclear to him.

He has a faint memory that’s a bit fuzzy around the edges, but it’s a memory nonetheless. He figures it must be a remnant of another life, left in his “code” (if he really is to buy into the belief that he’s part of a game).

The clearest part of the memory is that he’s a mercenary-turned-bodyguard, but who he’s guarding remains a mystery. He knows it was some figure of royalty — someone very important, — but when he tries to picture the face of his charge, he always draws blanks.

When he hears that the Baker (as others referred to you as) has taken the form of a Cookie inside the game, Lilac reasons that it must be you that he’s to protect.

He starts off subtle, keeping his distance but also watching over you.

He silently dispatches a few wandering dangers before they can get too near to you, all while you remain none the wiser.

Some of the others have taken to the job of “protecting” you as well, but they mostly use it as an excuse to overstay their welcome around you.

As time goes on, and as you get more acquainted with the Cookies, Lilac finds himself drifting closer and closer.

The physical closeness translates to emotional closeness.

Eventually, he allows himself to set down his blades when you’re not in imminent danger.

He learns that you’re so much more than just a fabled figure. You may know him inside and out, but Lilac has yet to get to know you.

He listens to you talk for hours, content with silently sitting in your presence. Perhaps he’ll even allow himself to press his shoulder against yours, or to hold your gaze for just a few seconds longer before letting it flit away…

When you call, he’s there. Sometimes he’s there before you even need to call.

“I will protect you,” Lilac vows over and over. It’s the only way he’ll let himself say he loves you.

Red Velvet

What’s a god to a non-believer, exactly?

Red Velvet doesn’t understand, at first. Word of your power and otherworldliness reaches the corner of the Kingdom that he’s claimed for himself, but when he sees you in person, you just seem like, well, a person.

You’re not much different from himself, especially since you’ve taken on a cookie form.

Even Pomegranate looks to the ground when you walk by — a habit she’s only ever reserved for Dark Enchantress.

He could surely best you in every way possible! You hardly know how to swing a sword, much less block a swipe from his claws.

He’s wholly uninterested in the reverence the others take part in when you’re suddenly thrown into in the game itself.

One day, however, Red Velvet overhears you talking to some of the children, telling them some sweeping tale about your homeland.

^^Even Pancake has stilled to listen to your stories of massive mechanical steeds and vast kingdoms made of “concrete” (whatever that is).

Red Velvet hardly had a childhood, much less one of whimsy. The earliest memory he could recall was of his birth — waking into the white-hot as furious sparks cracked over the stump where his right arm once was.

He hadn’t even cooled off from the oven’s heat before he was forced to adapt and grow up.

Besides that terrible memory, all Red Velvet had was his imagination to occupy his time in the black nothingness before you set him free and called him “home.”

He wondered for so long if there was anything beyond that void, and now, here you were, weaving tales of grandeur beyond even that of his desperate imagination.

Red Velvet hungers for more. Every day, he sits just out of your sight and listens to your stories. He closes his eyes and pretends that he’s there, as some soft, round being with a fleshy nose and four fingers and a thumb on each hand.

Most of the time, you’re there with him.

You show him around the concrete kingdom in your steel beast and you take him to a huge indoor marketplace.

You walk through the corporate space and flick coins into big fountains in exchange for a wish and you eat cheap sodium-rich foods for extortionate prices and maybe you even sit next to him and hold his hand while you make up stories about each unique passerby.

Somewhere, beyond the confines of this liminal grassy plain, is a world where the average person doesn’t need to be versed in war tactics to survive. There’s a place where one doesn’t have to worry about their next meal. There’s a place where one can have a choice in who they are, rather than being written to be a specific way.

Red Velvet imagines being in that place a lot.

He would choose to be someone you can love.

#cookie run x reader #lilac cookie x reader #red velvet cookie x reader #lilac cookie #red velvet cookie

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dftreed · 2 years ago

Text

The Silence of It

MASTERLIST

(Chapter 1)

Summary:

Y/N has been with the group since the start of the apocalypse yet can’t help but feel like she doesn’t fit in anywhere. When they arrive at Alexandria, she should feel relieved. Instead she’s left feeling confused and stuck in her head. A certain someone helps her out of it.

It felt like there wasn’t anything simple about the apocalypse. If you had been told years ago that the world would end one day, you would’ve first laughed in their face, and then you would’ve tried to picture it.

You would have thought it would be loud, thunderous even. Disaster around every corner, fire and screams haunting your every moment.

It’s surprisingly still.

That’s what you’re thinking now listening to the creak of the large gate in front of you open. You’re looking at your group from the sides of your eyes, still smelling and feeling the dampness on each others clothes from the long sweat filled night you’d had.

Even when you hear voices and footsteps, an arrow shot from your right, it still feels all very still.

Surreal.

You’re on autopilot but your head is whipping around to take it all in around you. You sway slightly, shoulders bumping Rosita next to you.

She offers you an eyebrow raise, a question, wondering if you’re okay. You part your lips slightly in a half breath half attempt to speak but settle for a firm nod.

You’re okay.

You’ve been with the group since before the farm and you are okay behind these walls only because you’re holding the knowledge they’re safe for the time being. You’ll have to deal with how suffocating it feels.

Almost on cue you hear a gurgle from your left and look over to see Carl and Judith, the former resting his head against the babies soft plump cheek. You tilt your head with internal affection and do a sweep at the rest of the group as you stand and listen to… someone talk. You must’ve missed his introduction.

Suddenly Rick is leaving the group, turning back hesitantly to look at the rest of you. You catch each other eyes and you imagine yours must be wide with confusion and alarm. He gives you a nod and a slight squint of his eyes, more silent reassurance. You must look like a mess.

You realize that whatever you missed while zoned out must’ve entailed Rick’s reason for going considering no one else, not even Michonne, seems as tense as you feel.

You lean into the person next to you, opposite side of Rosita, and feel the body go stiff and hard. Daryl.

You wonder how he must be feeling now. You wouldn’t say you’re close with Daryl, but Daryl isn’t necessarily close to anyone so you can’t take offense.

Rick and some others like to joke about how you and Daryl must be the same brain split into two and considering you both stared through half slanted glares at them in response, maybe they were onto something.

You look up at him through your hair, shoulder pressed into the middle of his arm, and he takes a swift glance down towards you before looking quickly to his left.

You clear your throat

“Daryl,” You start, voice hoarse and tangled. You feel him jump a little, not expecting you to speak, or anyone at that matter.

Without Rick the group seems a bit lost on what to do, all standing in a semi circle, just trying to make out their surroundings. You mentally note that some of you instinctively formed your classic fighting stance.

Daryl’s hum pulls you out of your head again, you take it knowing it’s the clearest response you’ll get from him.

“What do you make of it?”

You’re whispering and you can’t help but wonder why considering Aaron and the other men aren’t paying you much mind now, talking to each other next to Carol who is, uncharacteristically, holding a half smile with bright eyes. She must feel your skeptical gaze because she looks over and gives you a short glare before returning back to her previous expression. You smirk a little at the fast paced swapping of character.

You feel Daryl take a breath, suddenly conscious of how close you are to him, but before he can speak and answer your question you hear your name called.

Daryl and you tense simultaneously and like a little kid called on at school, your foot falls forward before you even register it. You feel a hand wrap around your arm, right above your elbow, and freeze.

You know who it is before you check but you turn your head back and give Daryl a small smile over your shoulder.

He watches you for a beat and then gives a nod, slowly trailing his hand off your arm. You start walking forward again and you notice Rick returning now, a weight lifts off you knowing you aren’t heading somewhere you won’t return from.

You are completely out of your element now. In the middle of a room, similar to nothing you’ve been inside before, even before the world ended.

“Feel free to sit Y/N,” The woman on the couch across from you is the one speaking, you glare slightly at her before standing behind the chair across from her, leaning against the back. “This is being recorded. Is that alright with you?”

At first the word feels foreign until you follow her gaze to the small camcorder in front of her. You nod swiftly and she smiles at you, almost too warm.

She introduces herself and asks you questions as you feel yourself slip back into autopilot, answering her with short sentences or simple hums. You aren’t sure how long you’ve been standing there when she stands and claps her hands together softly, she smiles and gestures towards the door, leading you with her towards the entryway you came in from.

You aren’t too sure what happened during your talk and can’t help but feel insecure and fearful you said the wrong thing or didn’t assert your usefulness to this community. Then you wonder why you care so much if she finds you good enough to stay here.

You walk back to your group quickly, eyes swelling slightly at the sight of them, even against the unfamiliar background.

You nearly trip with your haste back to them, placing yourself right back where you were next to Daryl. He turns his eyes down at you, raising an eyebrow and you give him a curt nod in response.

Rosita is called next and you watch as she leaves and Rick takes her place next to you. He leans in slightly towards you.

“What did she ask you?” He mumbles and you note Daryl listening in too. “I don’t know how to feel about this place, it feels…”

“Too exact.” You finish for him, nodding as you talk. “Like they somehow took every dream and goal we had and made it into a place with walls.”

He scoffs slightly and nods, a dragged out yeah falling from his lips.

“You and Daryl keep your eyes open for me okay? Until we figure out what this is.” He looks between the both of you and you furrow your brows and nod. “Off of each other for a bit.” He smiles slightly nudging your shoulder and you give him a push.

He chuckles and turns on his heel walking back over to the head of the shape your group formed.

You glance up at Daryl, eyes shifting back and forth awkwardly. He’s avoiding your gaze and seemingly the whole entire side of the world you’re standing on. You watch him chew on his lip and look down at your feet.

Sleep has never come easy to you, even before the world ended. You can remember staying up until the sun would rise and then dragging yourself to the bus stop to work. You think that’s where your habit of floating off into your head began.

You’re grateful now however considering how useful staying up long nights has proved in this new world. And even in the spaces that feel like the old world, like tonight.

You’re perched on a window sill, hugging both your knees close to you. Daryl sits opposite of you, picking at something in his crossbow you don’t understand. You watched him tighten and loosen and clean the weapon with half closed eyes.

The knock on the door causes all of your heads, the whole group together in one room, towards the entryway. The sound is foreign and jarring and even Rick standing slowly and turning the knob doesn’t do much to settle your nerves.

The woman from earlier, Deanna according to Carl who slightly scolded you for not listening, is behind the door. You watch as she attempts a joke or two with Rick before her gaze falls on the rest of you.

You expect to see her eyes tighten, angered you don’t trust her or maybe even that you aren’t separate and easier prey. But she simply smiles and her eyes fill with something you think might be adoration.

“Staying together,” She remarks, you note Michonne turning her head up slightly at her words, almost waiting for the same thing you are. However Deanna surprises you again, “Smart.”

“No one said we couldn’t.” Rick casually offers.

She leans closer to him now. “You said you’re a family. That’s what you said.”

You let out a bust of air at that, struck at the words. You knew you all felt it but to hear Rick remark it made you feel more at ease in this uncomfortable spot.

You feel Daryl’s foot knock into yours and you look to him quickly expecting something urgent. However he just looks at you through his bangs and you turn your head slightly wondering what he needs. He shakes his head and looks back towards the door.

“Everybody said you gave them jobs.” Rick seems to question. You focus in on what they’re saying now, remembering the others talking about theirs earlier and wondering why you hadn’t been given one.

“I’m closing in on something for Sasha.” She smiles and you turn to the referred direction. You frown slightly noticing how guarded and isolated Sasha looks, you make a note to talk to her later. “And I’m just trying to figure those two out, but I will.“

She sounds certain and you look around, curious who she’s referring to that would be considered a pair. You look at Abraham, who laughs, already looking in your direction.

You realize everyone seems to be looking in your direction and you redden, not looking at the man across from you.

You deafen your surroundings just in time to hear the door close.

You stayed awake most of the first night, drifting off only for an hour when the sky turned blue with morning sunrise. Rick fidgeting and moving room to room did nothing to help your restlessness.

When you realized you had dozed off you sat up with a jolt, looking around frantically and luckily seeing Sasha and Eugene still there.

“Are you alright Ms. Y/L/N.” The latter questioned, just barely filtering through your ears past your sharp breaths.

You nod at Eugene, eyes softening when you look in his direction, he seems startled at the fact you aren’t glaring but you can’t help the relief of a familiar face.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” You push out, panic only slightly simmering down. You hear Sasha scoff from the other side of the room.

“No use for watch duty anymore Y/N.” Her voice is harsh but teasing and you mark that mental note of talking to her more important.

A new voice from the kitchen starts up and now you can’t help but smile. “Is that why you didn’t sleep at all?” Michonne affectionately scolds.

You stand now, brushing your pants off and pulling them down from where they’d ridden up your calves. “And how would you know that if you had been sleeping Chonne?” You mumbled, drifting past her to grab an apple.

She laughs and you give her a swift side hug before making your way to the porch where you see more silhouettes.

You hear Rick’s low drawl and you open the door and follow his gaze to see who’s receiving his story. You freeze a bit seeing it’s Daryl, remembering Deanna’s awkward remark from last night.

He’s sitting against the wooden railing on the floor and despite your slight uncomfortableness you know it would draw more attention if you didn’t sit near him so you take the spot diagonal, biting into your apple as you sit.

“Sleep alright Y/N?” Rick asked with his lip turned up slightly. You rolled your eyes at him playfully, knowing he slept just as well as you.

You took notice of other group members filtering out into the streets and frowned slightly, gaze shooting to Rick who gave you a knowing look. “They said explore.” He reasoned. “Let’s explore.”

You shook your head tightly as Daryl also offered his decline. Rick sighed softly but nodded, giving you a look that meant to stay alert and a nod to Daryl to be alert of him too.

Daryl scoffed at this, turning to you once Rick stepped off the stairs. “I don’t need no babysitter.” He mumbled, picking at his fingers.

“Not a babysitter,” You smiled at him, voice loose and teasing, “just an excuse for me not to have to go.”

He started to chew on his lip again and you stretched your legs out kicking his boot and offering him your apple once his gaze fell on you.

He took it and took a bite, turning away from you again. “You ain’t curious?” He questioned, a wondering tone in his own voice. You felt a bit sad for him knowing he obviously wanted to go, just didn’t feel safe enough to.

“Curiosity killed the cat.” You joked, scrunching your nose in his direction. “Besides the best company around is here.” You felt awkward saying nice things to anyone, especially Daryl, but you wanted to lighten the mood.

He snorted a laugh and tossed you back your fruit.

This is chapter one of something from my AO3 but I was curious how it would be received over here! It’s my first time writing something like this and I’d really appreciate any feedbacks! And feel free to leave suggestions I might just put your idea into the story.

#daryl dixon #the walking dead #norman reedus #daryl dixon smut #daryl dixon fanfiction #rick grimes #twd fanfiction #twd

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synesindri · 2 years ago

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alright alright getting back into the swing of this: so a lot of lucifer’s characterization is mostly ambiguous & implied rather than stated outright, and one of the the features of that is the role of Shame in his self-concept. so much of the basis for the character is the open invitation to make comparisons with sam, and sam is absolutely riddled with shame about so much of himself, so you gotta wonder how much that translates over, right? maybe? sure.

arguably this is one of the main differences between sam and lucifer: lucifer is infamous for his pride, and seems overconfident in the extreme, in at least his convictions — vs sam, who does stuff he thinks is for the best but keeps getting shot down for it and is full of guilt and has massively lost confidence in himself by s5. sam is a character built around shame and lucifer is a character built around pride; they are not the same in this aspect of their characterization. i think this is a very reasonable and accurate reading but i’m going to keep going because i think the text supports further digging and i am already down in this hole with a shovel. so.

the moment when it’s clearest that lucifer is not 100% proud of himself for what he’s doing is in swan song when he’s trying to talk michael into not having the apocalypse and says “god wanted the devil.” it seems hard to picture that The One-Time Favorite who still thinks he’s trying to correct god’s mistake would be thrilled about having that title be his; there’s a definite level of self-awareness there that he is not occupying a role with any glory attached to it. imo it’s impossible to say for sure if lucifer at this point sees what he’s doing as a good thing that everyone else is wrong about, or if he thinks of it as a bad thing that nonetheless has to be done. my interpretation is that it’s both: lucifer is an internally conflicted character in a lot of ways in s5; there’s no reason this wouldn’t be another example of that.

it does seem embarrassing to have only demons on his side, and if you take kripke’s comparison to paradise lost into account (which i will of course do at every hint of an opportunity lol), it would make sense for this to be a “it’s an awful job but somebody has to do it and i guess i’ve been nominated” situation, which suggests he’s maybe not thrilled about his actions.

but he also doesn’t seem actually to have a problem with anything he’s doing, and he does find humanity as a species to be reprehensible. so i don’t think it would be accurate to suggest he doesn’t really want to be killing humanity and he just has to because that’s what he’s supposed to do. he could do something other than that, but he seems to want to do it, or at the very least not to hate what the job entails (although he does concede ”i know it’s awful” in abandon all hope about killing a town full of people, which he probably does feel that it is, but it’s pretty flippant and the awfulness seems not to be a huge problem for him, especially since he chooses literally to get his hands dirty in that scene and others when he almost certainly wouldn’t have to). he seems to feel like he is doing the correct thing, even if the job title sucks, and even if he would also accept a few alternative courses of action if heaven(/michael) would give him a break. i like comparisons between the apocalypse for lucifer and sam’s demon blood arc, but i think sam was a lot more embarrassed about his actions than lucifer is about his.

i do think, though, that lucifer could very fairly be interpreted as being ashamed of how he’s perceived, even if he doesn’t think it’s fair that he’s perceived that way. it sucks to fall from universe’s prettiest princess & god’s favorite to the devil who recently crawled out of a hole in hell. it sucks that his whole family is trying to kill him now now. it sucks not to have any backup but demons, considering he and everyone else hates demons. it sucks to have to walk around in the body of the kind of creature that caused all his problems in the first place in order to get anything done. it sucks that the body he spends so much of his time in is visibly falling apart. it sucks that he has to drink gross demon blood to hold it together. it’s not just a shitty situation, it’s a humiliating situation.

so, considering that, i would suggest that while most of the pride and overconfidence is real, some of it is also compensating for how he has nothing else going for him. gotta be your own cheerleader if nobody (or at least nobody you respect) is in your corner, right? have to commit 100% to violence and wrath if the alternative is being hurt, hopeless, and ashamed — especially since he’s a character who used to have a lot of support and validation for his pride, before the fall. as always, things about lucifer manifest differently from how they manifest for sam given their different backgrounds, one being human and the other being an archangel, and ofc their different narrative roles, but i do think there being some underlying shame is at least a plausible part of lucifer’s characterization, even if there’s less of it and it’s less visible than it is in sam’s.

#spn thots #lucifer #my meta

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neonacity · 3 years ago

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LUCID | NCT DREAM ‘00 LINE X READER | CH.6

LUCID DREAMS - A TYPE OF DREAM WHEREIN THE PERSON IS AWARE THAT THEY ARE CAUGHT IN A DREAM WORLD.

Summary: It was supposed to be a harmless, professional transaction. You were to tutor a group of boys, get your pay at the end of the day, and go home to your loving fiance. Kids aren’t supposed to be dangerous, right? So why, then, are you caught up in a web of madness that slowly makes you feel like you’re in a living nightmare?

NOTE:This is a yandere plot featuring NCT Dream ‘00 line which means there will be mature themes in the story as well as obsessive, toxic behavior. If you’re a minor, please refrain from interacting. If this isn’t your thing, then just scroll and skip. In no way am I condoning anything written here— this is not love, this is obsession—nor do I think that any of the people mentioned here will act any way like in this story. This is purely a work of fiction.

Genre: yandere, horror, suspense

TW: abuse, obsessive behavior, toxic relationships, suggestive scenes, stalking, possible kidnapping, mental health. Age gap–though nothing dramatic. Everyone is of legal age, drugs, slight smut for this chapter but nothing graphic, questionable consent (?) I guess? Creepy, creepy, creepy! This will be updated as the story goes along.

CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 3 | CHAPTER 4 | CHAPTER 5

“EVERYONE HAS A DARKER NATURE. EVERYONE. GOOD MEN FEAR IT, AND EVIL MEN EMBRACE IT.” - JAMES ISLINGTON

The silent hum of the air conditioning filled the space like a foreboding chant. Nothing else but the sound of the hospital machinery and random noises outside pierced the stillness of the room as you stared, unseeing, at the green and orange numbers that blinked on the monitor above the bed.

You barely have any recollection of how you managed to find yourself in the hospital, but you do remember brief memories of Taeyong picking you up from the floor you found yourself crumpled on after you got the call. You remember seeing Jaehyun's parents at a brightly lit corridor and his mother pulling you into a hug as she broke down and his father telling you how his son hasn't woken up since he was brought to the emergency room.

You remember your heart breaking in shock, mind too numb from the godforsaken pills you have been taking and your own injury. So many times you wondered to yourself if you were still caught in one of your nightmares, but every time you tried to break free from it, you're slapped back with the reality of how all of this is real.

Your fingers gently tightened on Jaehyun's hands now as your gaze landed on his face. He looked so peaceful, like he's just sleeping, that you almost wanted to bend over and try to kiss him awake. You don't even have any idea what time and day it is already, but you have barely left his side since you were brought to him. The nightmares and sleeplessness? They're barely a problem for you anymore because right now, you're entirely not resting at all unless your body forces you to crash from physical exhaustion. Even then, you usually only sleep for about two to three hours at best to make sure that you never miss a moment with your fiance.

"Severe traumatic head injury. He was lucky enough that the airbag shielded him from the worst of the impact."

The words of his attending doctor echoed in your head again like a faraway voice. You could only remember bits and pieces of what he said to his parents back then as he reported his findings, but you caught enough context for you to draw a picture of the situation. You remember Jaehyun's mother asking the chances of her son waking up again, her voice barely holding up from her emotions.

"I cannot promise anything, Ma'm. I'd say he has a 60 percent chance. He's fighting."

And he is. You know Jaehyun inside out. He might be unconscious now, but there is no way he is giving up. Not from something like this.

"Keep fighting baby…" you whispered in the stillness of the room as you lifted his hand gently to your lips to kiss. "I'll wait for you. We still have a wedding to do."

The slight creaking of the door barely made you look away from his sleeping face. You only did at the gentle sound of a throat clearing, your eyes slightly widening as you recognized the man who just walked inside the room. Taeil had the same mildly shocked look on him as he stopped on the other side of the bed across from you.

"You…"

"Are you a relative of the patient?" He asked now as he tucked his clipboard under his arm. You simply nodded, watching him quickly glance at the numbers on the monitor before his eyes settled on you again.

"I'm his fiancee."

That made him raise his brows slightly. He pulled a pen now from the pocket of his coat to quickly write something on his file. "What a coincidence. Not a good one obviously. I'm sorry to hear about him. Mr. Jung, right?"

You swallowed. You didn't want to acknowledge anything that he just said so you tried to divert the conversation instead.

"You're not his doctor. Why are you…"

"Oh. He was turned over to me today. I am one of the resident neurologists here but he had to be moved to me because his first doctor has too much in his plate already. Don't worry, I was briefed properly about his case."

Your gaze followed Taeil as he bent over to check Jaehyun's oxygen level as well as the other wires attached to him. You don't know what to feel about him taking over, but at least you already know him previously.

"Are there any changes? Positive ones?" You asked in a frail voice that Taeil definitely didn't miss. You told yourself to not act silly and ask questions that probably do not have answers yet, but you couldn't help yourself now. The man seemed to think over his words first, noticing your state, before calmly giving his reply.

"No particular ones, but the fact that there are no negative developments is… something. I will have to request for some tests to be done on him again tomorrow so we can see if there are positive changes in his brain."

Neutral. Not good, but at least it's not bad either.

"How are you? I was about to check on you again. Is your head okay?"

You were still thinking over his words that you barely caught his question. Looking up, you tried to scramble for an answer to give. To be honest, you haven't given proper attention to your own injury since this happened. You would even only remember to take your medications on your clearest, less anxious moments, which, honestly, isn’t a lot.

"I'm uh… the wound has closed. But the headaches. They're still there."

He simply nodded. "Any other side effects?"

You didn't immediately answer. You didn't want to sound whiny, but it's not like you're going to lose anything by telling him the uglier parts of your recovery. You swallowed to try and dislodge the slight blockage in your throat.

"Nightmares…" you said now, voice soft. You briefly remembered the last one you had back in the manor before you woke up to the bad news and you felt your stomach turn again. "Lots of them. Hallucinations sometimes…"

The doctor watched you carefully and you know he is trying to compute things in his mind despite his face remaining calm.

"Have you been keeping to your schedule with your medications? Are you taking too much?"

You firmly shook your head no to his last question.

"No, I haven't been overdosing. But… I've been skipping my pills the last few days because of...because of this."

"How have you been feeling since you started missing your dosages then? Do you remember?"

That made you actually stop and think about it for a moment. Now that you are paying attention, you did notice how the nightmares have calmed down slightly. Even the hallucinations are almost gone. You frowned slightly to yourself.

"A bit… better actually."

Taeil took his time to observe you a bit more before writing something on a new page of his clipboard.

"You must have had severe reactions to the mixture of pills I gave you. I'm going to prescribe you new ones and ask the nurses to pick them up and bring them to you here. Can you promise that you'll try and take them though? You really need them to fully heal."

You nodded and gave him a slightly sheepish look.

"I will, thank you very much."

Taeil dug his hands into the pockets of his coat and gave you a gentle smile.

"Well, that's it for today. I'll come back tomorrow to give you updates about Mr. Jung." He had already turned and started walking away when he suddenly stopped to look at you again.

"Oh, and another thing. Please try and get some sleep. Recover… and then focus on helping your fiance."

******* You didn't really know what woke you up. Stirring from your sleep, the first thing that registered to you was the sound of distant traffic mixed with the gentle chirping of the morning birds from outside the window. A warm feeling radiated on your cheek and made the back of your eyelids glow red.

You flickered your eyes open and immediately rolled away to escape the ray of sunshine that slipped from the open curtains and shone directly at your face. You easily evaded it as you moved over to the other side of the bed which was empty and cold from the night before.

That was when you finally remembered that you were back in your home, in the same bedroom you share with Jaehyun. The day before, his mother offered to take the responsibility of watching over him so there was a sudden change of plans that finally gave you the reason to check back into your apartment after so long. If it were you, you would have preferred not leaving your boyfriend’s side until he wakes up, but you also knew that your future mother-in-law wanted to spend time with him so you relented.

Of course you weren't thrilled to be home alone, especially with Jaehyun not being there, but the comfort that a real mattress provided—over the small couch you used to sleep in back at the hospital—is definitely a welcome change for your body. You even tried to take your medicine properly, the new ones that Taeil had provided, in the hopes of getting knocked down fast. Your adrenaline and anxiety had been fueling you in the past days, but you know from the way your heart thumped and your hands shook that you need a solid rest.

And you got it. You still feel a little groggy now but your body is definitely lighter and your head clearer. The nightmares didn't even come, and while they were replaced by total darkness or dreams in white that still made you anxious, you are willing to take those anytime over the graphic ones that you used to have.

You gently sat back against the headrest of the bed now and reached out for your phone to check the time. It's barely 7AM but as expected, Jaehyun's mom has already provided you with updates from the hospital. He’ll have some tests taken today as Taeil advised and then they’ll hear more about his progress. From the looks of it, she seems still set on watching over her son, which means you still have at least today free to yourself.

You quickly typed a reply to her and sighed. You’re thankful that even though you weren’t related by blood, his parents have always treated you as if you were their own. Having a family is not something you’ve really experienced in your childhood, so that’s something you’ve always appreciated about them. That is also the reason why you wish for the best out of this situation, because you also couldn’t bear seeing your fiance’s mother and father heartbroken. He’s their only son, after all.

A quick look around your room left you feeling empty. The last week has been so hard that it felt longer and now you’re struggling to find your normal pace again. In an effort to bring yourself to focus, you decided to pick up your phone once more and started flipping through your calendar to check your schedule. It didn’t take long for you to frown when you realized the upcoming dates there. You’ve plotted important academic schedules in advance and one quick look at it told you how much you’ve obviously missed in the past week. You’ve been so lost in the mess of everything that has happened that you’ve entirely forgotten about your job at the manor. You realized that they didn’t even call you once to ask about your absence, probably because they also know about the situation, but even that is not enough excuse for you to entirely fall off the radar.

Biting your lip, you quickly scrolled through your contacts now to look for the number you need. Your thumb hovered over the call button momentarily, but you eventually pressed it anyway. Your eyes wandered towards the clock on the wall, hoping silently to yourself that it wasn’t too early for you to call.

“Rosewood Manor, how can I help you?”

You straightened on your seat.

“Hey, Taeyong. It’s me. Sorry if I called so early.”

The other boy seemed to have been taken slightly by surprise by the way he fell silent at the other end of the line. You tapped your finger against your knee, waiting for him to speak again.

“Hi. No, it’s fine. Work started for me about an hour ago. Are you okay? How’s things on your end?”

You nibbled guiltily on your lower lip and finally got off your bed to walk over to the window. You pushed the curtains open and stared at the slight snowfall that had started falling on the ground. You’ve missed so many days of reporting to them but the first thing he does is to check if you’re fine.

“I um—things are still the same. My boyfriend’s still at the hospital.”

“Oh… I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Look, I want to apologize. I haven’t really reported to work and I didn’t even call about it. It’s just that—things have been so crazy lately, but still that isn’t an excuse for me to just not show up.”

Taeyong, however, was understanding as always. You were about to go off for another round of apologies when he gently cut you off.

“Hey, it’s fine. We know you’ve been dealing with a lot lately so we also weren't expecting anything. Don’t worry too much about it.”

“But, the boys’ examinations and portfolio review is happening in three days and I haven’t really checked in with them. How are they doing now?”

“Oh...that. Well, we actually tried looking for a temporary tutor to help out but I...uh… I think he isn't really cutting it. Maybe because he isn’t the one who started the program with them. But he’s a big help still.”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry about that. I should have at least—look, I can drop by today and just try to fix things.”

“Are you sure? You really don’t have to. Don’t you need to be at the hospital?”

You started going around your room now, trying to gather the scattered papers and files that you’ll need. It’s a good thing you woke up early so you still have time to prepare for work. “My boyfriend’s mother is the one watching over him today so I have the day off.”

“And your injury? How is it?”

Your eyes landed on the new bottles of medicine sitting on your bedside table.

“Better. I’m feeling so much better.”

You heard Taeyong sigh in relief over the phone. “Thank god. We were so worried about that. Well, you really don’t need to go, but if you have time, I guess doing it today won’t hurt. It will help us a lot.”

A small smile tugged at your lips now and you switched the phone over to your other ear as you started arranging your bag. “Thank you so much for being understanding. I need a distraction anyway. I’d rather work than stay home alone… Thanks for not firing me.”

That made him laugh a little. “I’ll tell the boys that you’re coming over. Oh, and be careful on your drive here. The roads are a little bit slippery today because of the snow.”

“I will, thank you. I’ll be there by 9.”

******* “Noona!”

You have barely finished arranging your materials on your desk when the door to the room burst open and ushered an anxious-looking Jisung inside. You looked up quickly at him, only barely catching Chenle wobbling with his crutch before your vision of the entrance was blocked by Jisung’s tall frame. His hair looked swept up as if he ran and there was a slight flush staining his cheeks. He stopped right in front of you, stopping just in time for him not to topple you over.

“Hey, Jisung how are—” You tried to give him a smile but he was quick enough to grab your hands between his.

“Are you back? Are you really back for real?” He pressed now, eyes wide as he tried to bend over to look closely at you. He looked like a puppy, the only missing thing being a wagging tail to complete the look. You couldn’t help the brief laugh that passed over you as you tried to calm him down.

“I am. For the day, yes. Sorry I missed so many of your sessions.”

“We thought you left us,” Jisung continued, his lower lip protruding just a bit. Just then, Chenle had finally reached the two of you, a slightly embarrassed look on his face. This is actually the first time you saw him again since the day the two of you had your accident and you’re glad to see him healthy despite his broken leg.

“Hi, Chenle. How are you?”

The boy scratched the back of his head and looked away slightly. “Fine… I’m sorry, noona. I wasn’t able to visit you when you stayed with us. I’m really really sorry about what happened in the forest.”

You tried to give him a reassuring smile and freed one of your hands from Jisung’s hold to ruffle his hair. The action seemed to have calmed him down a little because he finally looked at you again, a small apologetic smile on his own lips.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. But be careful next time, okay?”

“Are you going to be our tutor again, noona?” Jisung pressed once more and you turned your attention back to him. To be honest, you’re still not sure how your schedule will turn out after this, but you couldn’t really bear to break the poor boy’s heart at the moment.

“Yes… I’m here to teach your big brothers today for their tests though. We’ll have to schedule you and Chenle’s lessons again. Is that alright?”

A brief look of disappointment flashed on his face but he was quick enough to pick it up. Jisung smiled and gave your hand a squeeze.

“Okay. We can wait. It’s good you are back, Jaemin-hyung was so—”

“Yah, don’t hog her by yourself. You’ll scare her away.”

A new voice made the three of you look back to the doorway. Haechan smiled at your little group as he strolled casually into the room followed by Jeno and Jaemin. The three of them joined your crowd and you felt Jisung finally let go of your hand as he stepped away to go over to his brothers’ side.

“Hi. Sorry, I only returned now. Taeyong told me that you—”

You weren’t able to finish what you wanted to say as Haechan gently stopped you mid-sentence. He leaned his head to the side, eyes briefly scanning you from head to toe. Unlike Jisung, he looked calm and only barely excited.

“It’s fine. We knew you’ll come back. How are you?”

“Oh… I’m good. My head is better. I haven’t had the chance to thank all of you for taking care of me when I was here.”

“How about your boyfriend?” It was Jeno who asked this time and you quickly turned to him to address his question. Your eyes briefly slipped to Jaemin who was standing behind him before you could even speak though, and for a moment you had the impression that Jeno was shielding him—or blocking him from you. You blinked a little bit in confusion, wondering if it was just your imagination that was making you think that way.

“He’s still… still unconscious,” your smile dropped a little but you tried your best to keep your voice casual. “We’re getting more tests for him. His doctor said that he isn’t showing bad signs at least.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about him,” Haechan said with compassion and you gave him a grateful look. Your gaze settled on Jaemin again, however, who for some reason had barely looked at you since he came into the room. You know that he can be quiet and reserved at times, but there is something in the air around him that makes you slightly worried. He’s so still, but the way he carries himself makes it seem like he’s so strung up at the same time. It also doesn’t help that Jeno seems to be almost pushing him back from view.

“Hi Jaemin… How are you?” You tried to gently ask him to make sure that he is okay. He didn’t look at you at first, but when he finally did, you felt yourself freeze a little. His eyes looked dark and almost emotionless when he met yours and there were shadows under them as if he hadn't slept properly for days. He didn’t even answer and just simply stared, his gaze blank and accusing at the same time.

Haechan casually glanced over his brother and chuckled. “Our Jaeminie here has been sick for the past couple of days so he’s a little out of it. But he’s going to be fine now,” he put a hand over the other’s shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze as if to calm him down. “Right, Jaemin? We’ll try our best to go to class today since noona is finally back, hmm?”

Jaemin, however, didn’t even seem to hear him. He continued staring at you the same way that kept you pinned on your spot.

“Are you leaving again?” he finally asked and you almost felt goosebumps rise on your skin. It didn’t sound like a question… but more of a threat. You swallowed.

“I’m going to have to arrange my schedule till things get better…” you answered carefully, as if you’re navigating dark waters. That didn’t seem to cut it for him, unfortunately.

“So you’re not leaving. Forever?”

You blinked. To be honest, you’ve been thinking of quitting and just finishing the rest of the month if things didn’t improve, but you don’t think that’s the right answer to give at the moment.

“No… not for now,” you finally managed to say. You watched as Jaemin seemed to visibly relax, his stiff shoulders loosening under Haechan’s grip. He didn’t say anything after that, but he at least looked away, seemingly more satisfied with your words.

“Great. I think we should get to work,” Haechan broke the silence and looked around the room as if the tension you were feeling was just something only you could feel. He nodded towards Chenle and Jisung then. “You guys go back to your own classes. You’ll have your share of noona once it’s your turn.” He then glanced at you, smile still in place. “Should we start then?”

You nodded. “Is Renjun still not back?”

“Not yet. He’s going to be here tomorrow though,” Jeno answered as he took his seat on one of the desks.

“I see…”

Haechan also found his spot, but not before you’ve noticed him urging Jaemin to do the same. Playfully, he took the pencil you’ve arranged on the desk and started tapping it against the wood of the table.

“Don’t worry. We’ll tell him you’re back. I’m sure he can’t wait to have his lessons again~”

******* You looked over the window for the third time in the last fifteen minutes and sighed. The day had been busy with you trying to catch up on the boys’ lessons that you barely even noticed the state of the weather outside. When you finally did, it took you by surprise when you saw how much of the ground was covered by snow—one look at it told you that it is at least a feet deep by now. Your first instinct was to try and maneuver your car out of the lot before your tires get entirely buried in it, but then you remembered that you promised to wait for Taeyong to come back before leaving the manor. The butler requested for you to temporarily watch over the manor while he tries to do some last minute errands back in the city, but it’s been two hours since he originally promised to come back. You eyes glanced at your watch now, then back at the quickly darkening view outside.

“...severe snowstorm has blocked some of the main roads in the city at the moment. Expect heavy traffic and don’t forget to drive safely.”

You turned to the television now to catch the last of the rambling dialogue of the reporter about the weather. You’ve been debating on whether to call Taeyong or not to check on him, but you didn’t want to seem impatient to go home when you only really wanted to make sure if he’s safe. From the looks of it, he’s stuck somewhere because of the hale, too.

You were on your way to get your phone from your bag to at least try to shoot him a message when you suddenly heard it ring. Getting it just in time, you almost sighed in relief when you saw his number there. You quickly took it and went over to the window to answer it to make sure you get some proper signal.

“Hello? Taeyong?”

“Hey. Finally. I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour, thank god it finally connected.”

“Oh, sorry, my phone’s in my bag. I think the signal’s getting bad because of the snowstorm. Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, about that, I’m still stuck in town. The traffic’s so bad here because a section of the main road is blocked. Road maintenance is supposed to come thirty minutes ago but I think there’s a delay because there are other roads they are working on.”

Your gaze drifted back to the television where scenes of the same blocked avenues were being flashed. “Yeah… the news says the same. Are you safe though?”

“I am. I’m really sorry for making you wait. I’d tell you to drive back and not wait for me anymore but I don’t think you’ll also make it home in time with all this traffic going on. I don’t think it’s going to be safe. Do you mind waiting for a little bit more? I’ll tell you once the roads are better.”

You thought it over quickly, a frown settling on your face. You really want to go home, but he’s right. There’s no point in trying to drive back if you’ll only find yourself stuck in the roads for hours. Not being a big fan of night driving yourself, you can already imagine the stress waiting for you if you add a snowstorm to the mix. As much as you wanted to leave, you’re left with no choice, at least for the moment.

“I can… I’ll just wait for you, I guess. Do you want me to do anything here while you’re gone? Dinner for the boys?”

“Oh no, no, you don’t need to do that, that’s not part of your job,” Taeyong sounded abashed when he said that. You stepped away from the window then and took a seat by the fireplace that Jeno started earlier. Half of your concentration was on the news which has now shifted to a different set of reports also caused by the snowstorm. “They’ll know when to go down and eat. Don’t worry about them. Where are they right now?”

“Ah, I think they went back to their rooms? I did tell them earlier that I’ll try to wait for you.”

“I see. Yes, I think that’s better. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated. If things don’t get better, I think I’ll have no other choice but find a hostel here and wait for the weather to calm down. You can stay there and just ask for help from any of them. You can stay in the same room just in case.”

You didn’t quickly react to the offer. Instead, your eyes flickered to the doorway of the room before refocusing your attention back to the conversation. It’s not like you have anything against spending the night again at the manor—you’ve done it before, after all—but it’s honestly not really something you’re comfortable to do again. Maybe it’s because you’ve never really been okay with overstaying at strangers’ houses but your gut feel is also telling you right now that it shouldn’t be your top option regardless of the situation you are in.

Still, you didn’t want to come off rude to Taeyong, not when he is only being kind to offer you temporary shelter while being stuck in the middle of nowhere himself. So instead, you went against your initial doubts and offered him your thanks in return. It’s just Plan B that he’s proposing after all.

“I will. Keep me updated though if you need anything you think I can help with.”

“Thank you and I will. I have to go now though. Please make yourself at home. I’ll try to call again after an hour.”

“Okay. Take care.”

You put your phone down now with a worried frown as you heard the line drop. You couldn’t believe this is happening the first day you got back to work but it’s not like you can really blame anyone for it. The only good thing is that you’re sure Jaehyun is being taken care of right now so that is at least one thing off your shoulders. You didn’t really need to rush anywhere, not especially to a vacant home. Leaning back against your seat, you tried your best to relax as your gaze travelled around the room once again. You deliberated on sending a text to your mother-in-law to tell her about your situation but decided against it, not wanting to worry her more. You sighed. For now, you guess you didn’t have any other choice but to wait.

You did try to distract yourself by watching the news for a few more minutes before finally giving up on it. With resignation, you picked yourself up from your seat again and turned the television off. For a moment you simply stood in the middle of the room, trying to figure out what to do with your time when your gaze settled on the door again. Everyone retreated to their own rooms after they finished with their lessons so it means the house is pretty much yours for exploring if you wanted to. You toyed with the idea for a little bit, before finally resigning yourself to it. It’s not like there really is anything else left for you to do, and Taeyong did say you can make yourself feel at home if you wanted to. With a sigh, you finally turned on your heels to leave the room and peered silently into the hallway. It was deserted as expected, but still your eyes travelled left and right to check if there’s anyone out and about at this hour. It was only after you made sure that you were alone when you finally allowed yourself to step into the corridor.

Of course, you have a plan. You’re pretty much sure that checking out the rooms on the first floor is acceptable since it’s where you’ve been rotating your classes so you’re going to stick to those areas. You remember finding a library there once and you focused on finding your way to it to maybe check out some of the books in the collection.

It did take you about five minutes to finally find the place you were looking for. For some reason, the sections in the manor always confuse you no matter how many times you try to memorize each one, probably because of how big and similar-looking they are on the outside. You’ve already tried four doors when you were finally welcomed by the familiar-looking bookshelves at the fifth one. You sighed and gave one quick look around the room before slipping yourself inside after making sure that you’re alone.

There will probably never be a time when you won’t find yourself fascinated by anything in this grand home. If the architecture of the mansion is not enough to convince anyone how rich the family is, their book collection is enough to assure that at the very least. You’ve only ever taken a quick glimpse of it once during one of your lessons with the boys, but one look of the titles in their shelves is enough to make any literature major excited. You looked at the floor to ceiling collection now, your fingers gently running over the spines of the books you could reach with a small smile on your face.

You were about to check out the rest of the collection on the other side of the wall when something in the middle of the room caught your attention. You didn’t really catch it at first because of the shadows that concealed it when you first came in, but you could pretty much discern the outline of a blanket covered standee now from where you stood. You frowned. Taking careful steps, you closed the distance towards it to try and figure out what exactly it is that you’re seeing.

A closer look revealed it to be an easel covered with white cloth. You could see the outline of the canvas where the blanket falls over it while shadows of colors peeked out into the thin fabric from the surface it was covering. How odd… you knew that Renjun had a different art room for his paintings so to see this now here in the middle of the library seems uncanny.

You didn’t know how long you remained standing in front of it, too. You know you should have walked away—after all, the white cloth hiding it away from plain view means whatever is on that canvas is not meant for everyone’s eyes to see, but you simply couldn’t tear yourself away from it. It’s as if there was a silent force asking you to pull that cloth to reveal what’s underneath, the inclination so strong that you could almost hear its voice breathing down next to your ear, unrelenting until you do what it says.

The next thing you know, you had your hand attached to one end of the fabric. You stared at it now, wondering last minute if you should go ahead or not. You swallowed and glanced around one last time around the room. If you’re alone… it wouldn’t hurt if you could take a peek, right? Nobody will know. You just have to see, then cover it back again. Before you could even think about it too much, your arm was finally moving on its own as it gently tugged at the covering. You watched as it fell gently on the floor, like a bodiless ghost melting into the shadows on the ground.

Your eyes couldn’t make out what you were seeing at first. The dim lighting of the room wasn’t helping at all, but you were sure that it was a woman’s silhouette that was staring back at you from the canvas. Colors swirled around her, like some unknown mass trying to drag her back into unknown depths. Shapes and tones jumped from the picture, but her form stood out from the rest, gracefully twisted as if she was in the middle of trying to fight and succumb to it at the same time. You frowned. Taking a step closer towards it, you tried to study its details under what little illumination the lamps above afforded you.

That’s when it all happened simultaneously. Your heart stopped beating the same time your eyes widened as they finally focused on what’s in front of them. It’s as if the ground suddenly vanished from underneath your feet and you were falling, falling, deep into the abyss despite your body being frozen in fear and shock.

You know this painting. You’ve seen it before. It was the same one by Renjun, the one that you saw on your first day working in the manor.

But it was different now. Instead of the unfinished state that caught your attention before, everything about the picture now is in sharp focus. The lines on the woman’s nude body, the hands—which you thought were simply dark swirls dragging her back—and her face twisted beautifully in pleasure and madness stared back at you like a nightmare.

But it was not those which truly shook you to your core. It’s the realization that it was your own face in the portrait that was staring back at you, silently screaming for you to run away.

You stumbled back in shock. Your chest felt tight as you tried to grasp for air while your hands fumbled to find something to hold on to keep you from crashing on the ground. Before you could even take another step, however, something hard hit your back and you felt strong arms wrap around your waist like a vice. You have barely realized what was happening when you felt someone lean over your shoulder, lips pressing against the shell of your ear.

“Isn’t it beautiful? You’re the perfect muse, don’t you think?” Renjun asked softly as he pressed a gentle kiss to your temple.

******* You didn’t know how long you stayed frozen in his embrace. For a brief moment you thought you were dreaming again until you felt his arms slowly tighten around your waist. As if a jolt of electricity shocked you, you immediately turned to push him away as you scrambled to put some distance between the two of you.

Renjun didn’t seem the least bothered when your eyes finally focused on him. He remained on his spot, his gaze on you unwavering. You, meanwhile, were shaking from head to toe, the vision of the painting still branded vividly in your head.

“Renjun—what’s this?” you managed to stutter as you pointed at the artwork in the middle of the room. You couldn’t even spare to look at it again while he merely gave it a casual glance.

“It’s you. I’ve been working on it for a long time. I was about to show it to you but it seems like you couldn’t wait for it yourself.”

You felt nauseous. A part of your rational mind was slowly losing it as you tried to process his answer. Something's not right. Something is so terribly wrong.

“Why—why did you do this?”

Renjun simply stared at you and leaned his head a little bit to the side as if he was only mildly curious of your reaction. Your stomach turned even before hearing his answer.

“You said it’s beautiful.”

“This is not right—!”

“I came home because they said you were leaving for good,” he continued speaking softly, effectively cutting you from what you were about to say. The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end and you took another step back as you watched him get close to his artwork. You watched in horror as his thin fingers lovingly ran over the corners of the canvas. “Jaemin almost lost it… It’s a good thing I got here on time.”

And just like that, everything seemed to have clicked into place. The glances, the touches, the words that seemed to have a different undercurrent under them… they weren’t just fragments of your imagination. Every little thing that has gnawed at you from the inside came into crystal clear focus and you felt your knees go weak from the weight of it all. It took every fiber of your being to try and keep yourself steady now, your legs moving on their own as they took small backward steps away from the boy staring at you now with dead eyes. You couldn’t breathe, but it was the last words he told you that finally snapped you to run.

“I don’t think you’ve realized it yet. But no, you cannot leave. Ever.”

You didn’t know where you got the energy for it but in seconds you were flying out of that room and running blindly down the darkened corridors. Your blood pumped noisily in your ears and your chest felt like it was going to split from the sudden exertion you put on it, but you didn’t stop, not even looking back as you tried to put as much distance between you and the library. You didn’t even know where you were going. All you’re focused on is to find the exit and leave the house as soon as possible.

A loud bang that sounded off to your right startled you and you screamed, the force of your shock making you whip around and almost lose your balance. Before you could even hit the floor, however, a pair of hands caught you and you immediately turned, grasping at the chest of your rescuer.

You froze. Haechan smiled down at you as he tried to steady you on your feet.

“Haechan,” you gasped as you took fistfuls of his shirt and tried to shake him in your panic. “Renjun—he’s—please, help me. He’s after me—” you gasped out, almost out of your wits. You’re on the verge of a total breakdown that it almost escaped you, the way he simply smiled down on your shaking form. It was only when you felt one of his hands gently caress the top of your head that reality slapped you in the face again. You suddenly stopped struggling in his hold, pupils shaking as you watched him study your features lovingly.

“Shh… it’s fine. I got you,” he whispered and you could swear ice pricked you from the inside. A slight movement to the right made you turn your head and you saw Jaemin lean casually against the banister of the stairs, his face serene. He gave you one quick look before a gentle smile finally lit up his features.

“Has it started?” he asked and you felt Haechan’s hold on you tighten.

“It has.”

You didn’t struggle. It was as if any trace of fight you had left you in that moment and you let your hands fall limply on your sides. Haechan also loosened his grip on you and you stared at the two boys blankly, your chest heaving as if fighting for air. They didn’t move from their spots and simply followed you with their eyes as if relishing the fear and realization flashing in your face.

Trapped.

You’re trapped.

You’ve always been.

You didn’t even realize that your legs had started moving again on their own as the pieces of the puzzle started to fall together in your mind. You were only shaken from it when your back finally hit the front door, the cold metal of the knob pressing against your spine. Jaemin and Haechan remained on their spots still, even as you blindly reached out for it from behind.

You were expecting it to be locked, so you were a little bit surprised when you felt it give way under your hand when you tried to turn it open. Just before you could even entertain the idea of escaping, however, any trace of hope you had quickly died as you turned and came face to face with Jeno standing right in front of the entrance. He didn’t look the least surprised seeing you there, as if he was waiting for you in the first place.

You eyes took in his calm countenance before slowly moving to stare downwards at what he was holding by his side. Your gaze locked on it in fear, and that’s when the flight response in you flared up again.

Jeno’s hunting rifle shone dully in the light of the entryway, his pale fingers wrapped on its handle.

“There’s really only one place you can run, noona, but I won’t advise it,” he said evenly and you felt your blood freeze in your veins.

“After all, no matter where you hide, I’ll still find you in that forest.”

It happened all at once. You broke into a run, your body screaming at you to go faster as you heard gunshots pierce the air.

---

CHAPTER 7

A/N: Good lord, I wasn’t expecting I’d finish this today but I got one large iced coffee and well... things happened. Anyway, enjoy! Let’s hope the format won’t mess up this time. T.T Finally, all hell broke loose~ <3

Tag list!

@negincho, @jhornytrash, @jaeminhyuckiii, @jungwoosswhore, @jsturkey, @aj-7, @pukupukupawpau, @tomiesgirlfren, @vsszn, @those-winternights, @xsnelly, @lihyuck, @laheyspizza, @miyeux27, @haoshitt, @mindofthescattered, @huangberryyy, @d1nne, @choppedupcactus, @neokat, @yutasnabi

#nct dream yandere au #nct dream yandere #nct dream yandere fic #jaemin x reader #jeno x reader #renjun x reader #haechan x reader #nct dream 00 line fic #nct dream 00 line x reader #nct horror au #nct dream yandere imagines #jaehyun x reader #yandere!nct dream #yandere!jaemin #yandere!jeno #yandere!renjun #yandere!haechan #nct-writers #yandere!nct dream 00 line

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sendouakira · 3 years ago

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A comprehensive essay on the effects of Sakuragi Hanamichi on Rukawa Kaede from Slam Dunk

Over the years, there have been quite a few rivalries portrayed in great detail between “dual protagonists” from famous shounen manga. Yet the relationship between Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede from the most influential sports manga Slam Dunk was and still is regarded as “the gold standard” for this particular type of dynamic. However, as great as the bond that these two share, it’s puzzling that there seems to be a greater focus on the impact that Rukawa has on Sakuragi. I have read some analyses that even claim “Rukawa, at best, thinks of Sakuragi as a really hard-to-get-along-with teammate,” or that, “Sakuragi only helps Rukawa build better teamwork to some extent”.

In this essay, my goal is to explore the natural progress of the relationship between these dual protagonists as well as the apparent development and growth of Rukawa Kaede as a character after he meets Sakuragi Hanamichi. For the purpose of this essay, I will focus only on Rukawa Kaede’s perspective as the effects that Rukawa has on Sakuragi deserve another essay entirely.

The first thing that we all need to agree is that, we, as readers, rarely have a chance to know what exactly Rukawa is thinking. Even when he does open his mouth, he has nothing but nasty things to say which may make him look detached and distant (minus very few instances when he actually encourages Sakuragi). We always get a glimpse of other characters’ internal turmoil, their struggles and emotions such as Mitsui’s regret, Akagi’s memories, or Sendou’s plan. But Rukawa is always this mysterious character who never truly reveals his thoughts and his intentions to the reader. This is precisely why he is often misunderstood as a cold person, or that the relationship between him and Sakuragi is overrated.

If we look at the early dynamic between the two, we can see that Rukawa indeed doesn’t care about Sakuragi. “An annoying teammate” is likely how he would describe Sakuragi.

Slam Dunk chapter 20, when Sakuragi is learning how to do a layup shot, Rukawa shows annoyance as he is forced to teach Sakuragi the techniques.

If his senpai is not there, he would not lift a finger to help Sakuragi.

Similarly, he’s again put on the spot and has no choice but to teach Sakuragi how to defend in the practice match with Ryonan (Slam Dunk, chapter 43).

Or in Kainan match, Rukawa instructs Sakuragi what to do as they are the first to arrive for defense.

Initially, Rukawa really has no interest in helping any of his teammates improve, let alone Sakuragi, even though he instinctively understands that the improvement of his teammates benefits him and Shohoku as a whole.

In the early stage of Slam Dunk, Rukawa doesn’t have any regards for Sakuragi whatsoever, even if he does give Sakuragi guidance from time to time. The only reason he does it is because he’s forced to do so, and he only guides Sakuragi enough to help Shohoku win since he himself wants to win as well.

So when does the shift in his attitude towards Sakuragi take place? In actuality, it’s a gradual, slow process. It starts with his encouragement for Sakuragi. Note that he doesn’t encourage anyone on his team. He may recognize other teammates’ abilities and talents but still, the only person who has this “privilege” is Sakuragi alone.

Let’s take a look at the first scene that Rukawa gives Sakuragi encouragment in chapter 95, when Sakuragi is afraid of committing fouls in the match with Shoyo

Even if you argue that, in this scene, he only does it because not being able to catch rebounds seriously hurts Shohoku’s chance to win against Shoyo, such words from Rukawa are profound and unprecedented since this is the first time Rukawa actually acknowledges out loud Sakuragi’s ability to catch rebounds. But what’s even more interesting is another scene from the match with Shoyo.

While previously we saw Rukawa helping and encouraging Sakuragi just enough to help Shohoku win, the same interpretation doesn’t work here. Sakuragi is leaving the basketball court. What good does it do to encourage him now? In my opinion, this is the first time that Rukawa temporarily sets his ego aside to acknowledge Sakuragi’s talents, not just because he wants to win; but because Sakuragi deserves it.

Then comes our most favourite scene between these two, when Rukawa “consoles” Sakuragi after Kainan loss.

Again, we have no idea what Rukawa truly thinks. We only know that other Shohoku players never blame Sakuragi for passing the ball to Takasago of Kainan.

Let’s shift our focus to Inoue sensei’s intention of not showing Rukawa’s thoughts. It’s very clear that Rukawa is...planning something. The panel which shows his eyes only is subtext, and the underlying message is that Sakuragi is no longer the annoying teammate that he couldn’t care less about. Here, it is HIGHLIGHTED by Inoue sensei (Rukawa is being SINGLED OUT) in that one panel that he’s thinking about Sakuragi not showing up for practice.

We can only guess what’s going on in his mind at the time. Is Rukawa thinking about finding Sakuragi and confronting him about not coming to practice? I think not. A safer bet is that Rukawa is thinking about how to talk to Sakuragi about it, and the reason which leads me to believe so is this scene.

This is Haruko’s failed attempt to cheer Sakuragi up after the loss against Kainan. This scene is the key reason why she fails. She unintentionally confirms that it’s indeed his fault by saying, “even geniuses make mistakes sometimes.” Thus, Sakuragi is still stuck in the same thinking pattern that he is to blame.

It takes Rukawa, who understands a newbie’s feelings and who previously thought carefully about what to say to Sakuragi to cheer him up. Rukawa knows Sakuragi still thinks it’s his responsibility that Shohoku loses against Kainan, therefore, the only way to get him out of that thinking pattern is for Rukawa to assume that responsibility.

I firmly believe that this scene shows that Rukawa really cares about Sakuragi as a teammate. Everything may look coincidental, that Rukawa happens to see Sakuragi in the locker room, that he arrogantly takes the blame for the Kainan loss which so happens to cheer Sakuragi up. But it’s only on the surface. Rukawa has now from this point on, grown to care about Sakuragi.

The direct impact that Sakuragi has on Rukawa doesn’t stop here. Sakuragi always has his own way to rile Rukawa up like no one else can. We know that Rukawa loves challenges, and characters like Sendou Akira or Sawakita Eiji are the ones who can provoke Rukwa on the basketball court but it’s because Sendou or Sawakita are truly skilled players, so it is understandable that Rukawa would be provoked to go all out in order to defeat them.

However, why does Rukawa go all out in a one-on-one game with Sakuragi back in chapter 191? Is it because Sakuragi is so arrogant that Rukawa wants to teach him a lesson? Is it because he takes basketball so seriously that he must always do his best? Or maybe it’s his personality since Mitsui and Miyagi somehow know that he would not go easy on Sakuragi?

Again, we never find out why Rukawa does the things he does. The narrative on his thoughts is always left out, silent, mysterious. What’s true is that unlike Sendou or Sawakita, Sakuragi doesn’t have skills on par with Rukawa in order to actually demand him to give it his all. It must be something else in Sakuragi that has this effect on Rukawa.

There is another curious detail which I would like to point out. When Rukawa consults coach Anzai about his decision to go to the US, he is advised to stay in Japan to become the number 1 high school basketball player first before moving to the US. This matter is of Rukawa’s concern only, yet somehow Sakuragi is involved.

I have always asked myself this question. What does Sakuragi have anything to do with this? Actually, a better question is: why does Inoue sensei intentionally let Rukawa become aware that coach Anzai values Sakuragi as much as Rukawa himself? Not to mention that Sakuragi is never brought up in his conversation with coach Anzai, but Sendou is.

Rukawa has shown us repeatedly that he’s actually impressed with Sakuragi’s raw potential, but this time is different. This is the first time Rukawa understands that in coach Anzai’s mind, the 2 of them are equal in terms of talents and it would be wrong to assume that Sakuragi is not regarded as highly as Rukawa himself.

Back to the question above: why Rukawa goes all out with Sakuragi in that one-on-one game. Is it because of what coach Anzai’s wife reveals to him, Rukawa now truly sees Sakuragi in a new light? I find it interesting that right after Rukawa’s flashback in the two pictures above, we have the match between Rukawa and Sakuragi in which Rukawa shows no mercy.

We will get back to this point later. Let’s move on to another important scene.

In the death match with Sannoh, when Sakuragi is hurt, Rukawa is perhaps the first person to notice something is wrong (it’s not clear if coach Anzai notices if first or if it’s Rukawa). Either way, he actually knows something is not right even before Mito Yohei.

By the time Shohoku meets Sannoh, Sakuragi has been playing basketball for only 4 months. In the span of 4 months, Rukawa has learned enough about Sakuragi to notice Sakuragi’s small slip of concentration, as if he’s been watching Sakuragi play all along.

Next, we have one of the clearest examples of how Rukawa truly feels about Sakuragi.

In this entire page, we see Sakuragi’s emotions, thought process, his flashbacks, and his gaze. But there is one panel that does not belong to his internal monologue: the closeup of Rukawa’s expression. I don’t think I have much to say about this panel. Rukawa’s worry is written all over his face.

Of course, this is not the first time Rukawa shows his worried expression like this. When Akagi leaves the court in the match with Kainan (chapter 105), he also shows the same reaction.

Or when Mitsui collapses in the match with Ryonan (chapter 180).

While it is shown that Rukawa is just as worried when other Shohoku regulars have to leave the court, it is important to note that he only shows this expression when an important player is hurt or injured. Rukawa may taunt Sakuragi for being a newbie, for looking clumsy; but just like Akagi or Mitsui, Sakuragi has earned this worried look from Rukawa as an important player in the Shohoku lineup.

And even more than that, it’s also hinted that Rukawa seems to be the person who understands Sakuragi the most as a fellow athlete.

The scene in chapter 270 which shows Hanamichi gundan (his loyal friends, including Mito who is his best friend) understand that Sakuragi has made up his mind, that he will not be persuaded to do otherwise.

And there is Rukawa who understands Sakuragi without the need for words.

Rukawa seems to know an aweful lot about Sakuragi, even more so than Mito Yohei when it comes to basketball. While everyone wants to convince Sakuragi not to come in, Rukawa is the only person that understands Sakuragi’s stubbornness without having to talk to him.

Finally, the infamous scene in which Rukawa encourages Sakuragi for the last time.

At first glance, it seems that Rukawa is only encouraging Sakuragi here. But on the 9th reading of Slam Dunk(yes, I have actually read the manga 9 times), I suddenly realized it may be deeper than that. This scene takes place right after Rukawa gives Sakuragi a compliment on his desperate attempt to win against Rukawa in the one-on-one game (chapter 191), which is also around the time when Rukawa becomes aware that coach Anzai values both him and Sakuragi equally.

I believe, this is not just encouragement. Here, Rukawa also indirectly acknowledges Sakuragi’s genius AND shows his willingness to pave the way for Sakuragi. He is no longer the person who is unwilling to guide Sakuragi, or to instruct him on the spot like what we saw above. After the suicidal save, Sakuragi has earned Rukawa’s respect and admiration as a fellow athlete. Rukawa now readily shows Sakuragi the way as long as he is willing to follow his examples. He always knows what’s best to do to cheer Sakuragi up or how to encourage him to keep going. He’s not the cold scoring machine that everyone hails him to be, but a caring teammate who understands Sakuragi well.

In conclusion, while it seems that Sakuragi has very little impact on Rukawa as a character, it’s actually the opposite. Rukawa rarely reveals his thoughts and intentions to anyone and initially, his method of communicating is unconventional in a sense that it always makes him look distant and detached. However, as the story progresses, Rukawa gradually becomes more sympathetic and caring towards Sakuragi. He shows his obvious admiration towards Sakuragi and eventually regards him as an equal.

#Slam Dunk #slam dunk manga #slam dunk anime #Sakuragi Hanamichi #Rukawa Kaede #kaede rukawa #hanamichi sakuragi #桜木花道 #流川楓 #King of sports manga #sports manga #inoue takehiko

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telomeke-bbs · 2 years ago

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Again, thank you for the thorough job you did on this series. One thing that stood out for me as a plot hole was that administrators would take away a scholarship from Dissaya and give it to Ming just on Ming's say-so. I know there's discrimination against women. Still, this seems way too sloppy a way to run a school. Thoughts? (Or if you did cover this and I somehow missed it, please point me to the post.)

Hey Anonymous! Thanks for dropping by. 😊

I didn't write about this in any post, but I had thought about it off and on. I do agree that Ming being able to steal Dissaya's scholarship just on the basis of something that he said appears too contrived at first glance, but I accepted it at face value for a couple of reasons.

The main reason was because of something that Director Backaof said at timestamp 1.41 in the Soonvijarn Recap Video for Ep.10 (linked here).

The translated subtitles are a little muddy, but when Jojo Tichakorn (above, wearing a cap) says about the scholarship-swipe, "...I've seen things like this in real life" Director Backaof responds, "Of course, because I'm writing here based on the real experiences of people I know." Director B. goes on to relate (at timestamp 1.53) how he could not forget the real-life incident that inspired this BBS plot twist, especially the sense of betrayal that the individual concerned had felt. And he saw this as a more convincing raison d'être for the bitter Jindapat-Siridechawat enmity, instead of just the original novel's plain business rivalry between the families (see timestamp 8.47).

They don't go into specifics (so it isn't confirmed that the real-life incident actually did involve scholarship thievery) but if the situation really did happen as alluded to, I do think this is perversely one of those times when truth is stranger than fiction, and you can't help but go "Hmmm?" 🤔 when it's actually put into a work of fiction. 👀

Another reason why I've accepted Ming's landing of the scholarship as plausible is the picture you can build up of Ming's modus operandi from the little details revealed about him along the way.

Within Bad Buddy, the way that Ming's theft of the scholarship unfolds in my head is not as a last-minute, out-of-the-blue slamdunk that overturns the game, but rather more like part of a long-drawn chess strategy that he was spinning in order to outplay the queen and win the whole match. I don't see it as Dissaya having been given the scholarship outright, only to have it taken away after Ming tattled to a teacher (which is the straightline depiction suggested by the subtitles, and was my initial understanding at first). I think he stole it from her, the more deserving student academically, by being underhanded about things while they were still in the running, making it unquestionably the school's decision and also one difficult to take down.

Throughout the series we are given glimpses of Ming the wily operator where people are concerned, someone able to play off social dynamics to achieve his own ends. In a commercial context this can be a positive – being able to tap into and profit from a network of social connections has always been important in East Asian business culture (especially Chinese business culture, noting that Ming is portrayed in BBS as a Chinese traditionalist and also a savvy businessman). The concept of guanxi in modern China is perhaps the clearest example of this.

The first time we are shown this aspect of Ming's character is at Ep.1 [1I4] 5.13, when we see him skillfully capitalizing on his network of connections (a little mock-conspiratorial and fawning about quite unlike his usual self) in order to rescue the family business from hard times:

It's not likely this call, but a similar one that allowed Ming to secure a very low price from a supplier in China (that Chai refers to at Ep.10 [1I4] 20.43), thus allowing the Jindapats to win a bid below market price and yet still make a profit. They outcompeted the Siridechawats with a bid so low that Pran's parents were led to believe (erroneously) that the exercise had to have been rigged. But really it was just Ming being shrewd – and also an opportunity for us to learn more about his way of engaging with the people in his world.

We are also shown in Ep.2 [4/4] that Ming is still in contact with Ajahn Pichai decades after graduating, nurturing the relationship even in the present day (e.g., asking him out for lunch at Ep.6 [1I4] 5.08). Significantly, Ming does not see Ajahn Pichai as a friend, even though they are definitely on friendly terms – at Ep.2 [4/4] 1.23, in response to Pat's question "Is he your friend?", he pulls a face as he replies:

This underlines how Ming's network of social relationships is maintained more because they may prove useful to him at some point, and not because he's inherently sociable and derives happiness from social contact.

Ming was able to find out, through Ajahn Pichai, that Pat was taking the Materials Engineering class and that he was also joining the Freshy Music Contest (as revealed in Ep.2 [4/4]). Thus it wasn't at all surprising for Ming to have discovered through his own channels (as we see at the end of Ep.8 [2/4]) that Pat had been skipping rugby practice to attend Archi musical rehearsals, despite his son's best efforts at subterfuge.

But while useful, lawful and I suppose arguably neutral when employed in the business world, this particular skill set of Ming's takes on overtones of malevolence when he crosses the line into manipulation of people and situations in his personal life.

An obvious example of this is when we see Ming working his brand of voodoo on Pat in the scene that begins at Ep.8 [2/4] 15.28, and that carries over into the beginning of Ep.8 [3I4].

Instead of confronting Pat directly about skipping rugby, Ming sets up a major guilt-trip step-by-step, crafting the situation so as to inflict as much emotional whammy as possible on his unsuspecting son. He goes from benignly hosing down the car, nonchalantly asking about rugby practice, to a sudden "When did I teach you to lie?" and throwing down the hose nozzle in disgust. And he gets the effect he wanted, at his son's expense – Pat is visibly hurt at Ep.8 [2/4] 16.43, and rendered emotionally fragile for quite a while thereafter (Ep.8 [3I4] from 1.10 to 4.33).

(I'm not a proponent or exponent of these dark arts, but have been an observer of clients, colleagues and one ex-friend parlaying them in various situations. Not that I approve, but to survive swimming with sharks you do have to know how the sharks behave, especially if you're not one yourself and want to avoid being eaten.)

It's possible (with the benefit of hindsight/rewatch) to see Ming's high school friendship with Dissaya in much the same light. Kruu Payao confirmed that Ming and Dissaya were always together, possibly in a romance.

But she's also not the most reliable source of information (contrast what she says at Ep.10 [3I4] 9.16 with what we find out at Ep.10 [4/4] 8.21), so I doubt that Ming and Dissaya's closeness was really (or purely) due to romantic interest (at least not on Ming's part). I think Ming was quite likely stringing Dissaya along (whether as a friend, or something more), working on competition projects with her and benefiting academically from the intellectual interaction.

Kruu Payao also points out the similarity between Pat and Ming, in that both were popularity hounds at school, always looking to grab attention (Ming also mentions his popularity in university at Ep.2 [4/4] 1.38, and Pat was voted class president in his first year of Engineering, while Ming was head of his class in high school, according to Kruu Payao). I think both Ming and Pat are naturally charismatic in a group setting, and learnt early on that people skills can also be a powerful resource in life. And both do not hesitate to use their good standing with others when they need to. (Pat, for example, was able to wrangle his friends into helping rebuild the bus stop, and also convince Ajahn Pichai to allow them to participate in the Freshy Music Contest, both in Ep.3 [4/4].) But the difference is that altruistic Pat uses his gift to help others, whereas Ming is more self-serving (and I would say his concept of self encompasses his family and their business too).

We see Pat drawing on this ability when he snatched Pran's LogTech presentation from tipping over the precipice into failure at Ep.3 [3I4] 0.30, by flipping it around to focus on LogTech's priorities instead. In doing so, he was displaying his understanding that you can look at other people's circumstances and motivations, and sometimes use that knowledge to your advantage – in deploying his 3D social awareness, Pat understood that the best sales pitch emphasizes what the buyer wants to buy, not what the seller wants to sell. It's not that their proposed design was inherently bad, it's just that it needed the correct spin to align with LogTech's interests (environmental sustainability).

And Pran's inability to convince the good people of LogTech with his presentation also tells us that his way of doing things is what a lot of talented people less adept at the finer points of social persuasion do – simply pour your very best into the work, and then trust that the finished result will do (most of) the talking, while minimizing the self and not looking at any other factors that might help push it over the finish line. If he'd learnt this from Dissaya (I see this as quite likely – she'd always been such a big presence in his life), it clues us in to what her situation may also have been like back in high school.

In the present day we can clearly see that Dissaya is forthright, plain-speaking and to-the-point, not given to shade or subtlety. She confronted Pran immediately upon discovering that he was somehow involved with Pat, waiting for him right by the door at Ep.10 [4/4] 4.26. And then she went on to confront Ming right after that.

I think Dissaya's time at school was probably also characterized by this same go-getter fearlessness and willingness to seize the bull by the horns, together with the same sense of pride in getting things done right that we see Pran displaying (although Pran perhaps takes the perfectionism to extremes). But like Pran too, Dissaya is unlikely to have had the same presentation and people skills that Pat and Ming have – doubtless she's not one to schmooze or win the popular vote (she got a certificate of participation in her high school beauty contest, but it doesn't say that she won the crown – see Ep.10 [2/4] 10.45). So while her academic achievements could not be disputed, I think she may not always have presented herself like a winner, especially if her personal style could also turn abrasive under conditions of stress (although it's possible she only discovered her capacity for white-hot rage after being betrayed by Ming). Her focus on results rather than on polishing her brand could have worked against her if any part of the scholarship evaluation had a subjective element (as it must have had).

It's no coincidence that Kruu Payao was able to talk about Ming right off the bat, recalling details and similarities with his son. But Pran had to jog her memory where Dissaya was concerned, before she was able to recall her – only remembering later that Dissaya and Ming were close. We are being told that Ming was overshadowing Dissaya in the public eye all the time in high school, even if she was the better student and they were always together.

It's clear that on paper marks at least, Dissaya was the best candidate for the scholarship. But a scholarship as prestigious and important as this one (that Dissaya's whole professional future hinged upon) would likely not have been based on pure academic performance alone. Ming would probably have realized that his only path to victory, a narrow one, would have been to work on the more qualitative aspects and try to sway the judgement his way using those. Where he went wrong was to incorporate deceit into the mix, instead of just being content to let his other credentials (e.g., in leadership and sports) make up for the lag behind Dissaya's exam results and competition successes.

In associating with Dissaya, Ming would have increased his visibility and burnished his academic record (possibly performing better than if he had done things on his own – you learn from working with the best, after all). And just as he was playing the long-game with Dissaya, he would probably have been doing something similar with the teachers and administrators too, ingratiating himself with them while developing familiarity and trust, not hard to do if he was head of his class. We know that he had been talking to Kruu Dang and he undeniably left an impression on Kruu Payao. In those circumstances, it would have been fairly easy to start chipping away at Dissaya's chances by planting the seeds of an idea in their heads – that she lacked ambition (not wanting to go to university) and that bestowing the scholarship on her would have meant wasting it on someone who didn't value it. And Dissaya of course would have been oblivious to this, because she didn't operate on this kind of a level at all. She would have been focused more on accumulating points via academic performance rather than on making a good impression in person, even while Ming busied himself acquiring and influencing allies in right places, marketing himself as the better candidate.

I can imagine Ming taking advantage of the inevitable question during the interview part of the evaluation process ("Why do you think you would be more deserving of this scholarship?") not to spring a surprising new fact about Dissaya's university plans (or lack thereof), but merely to reinforce the groundwork already laid – and one last, sly allusion about not wasting the scholarship on someone who valued it less would have landed with maximum impact, especially coming from someone whom the teachers and administrators by then would have come to trust and like (however undeservedly). But actually, he might not have needed to deliver this one final coup de grâce even, if he'd done enough undermining beforehand (and would have gotten away with it undetected too, if Kruu Dang – perhaps a dissenter? – hadn't told Dissaya about it).

If in the final tally of marks Dissaya and Ming were not too far apart, an extended gaslighting by Ming that had been started way beforehand could conceivably tip the balance away from Dissaya by coloring the evaluation panel's perception of her even before she made it to the interview round. And if she were less than stellar (or perceived to be so) there, nobody would have objected if the award were to go to the well-spoken, popular, athletic, intelligent, all-rounder golden boy instead, a shining symbol who would uphold the name and honor of the school, rather than the (supposedly) unambitious, less memorable schoolgirl of lesser means, always in the shadow of his bigger public persona anyway. The optics would have been all right, and could have been made unimpeachable if the subjective portion of the evaluation was where Ming was scoring his points.

In summary, I think Ming knew that despite his sporting and other achievements, and despite his popularity with the students and teachers, Dissaya would still have beaten him given her academic track record. Thus, he resorted to lying about her in a furtive campaign, while using every persuasive tactic in his arsenal in order to sully her image, damage her chances and elevate his own. And it succeeded, although it must have been by the narrowest of margins.

A whole lot of this is admittedly conjecture on my part, but knowing what we know about Ming and Dissaya, I really do think that Ming's wherewithal and lack of moral scruple would have enabled him to maneuver the scholarship away from Dissaya in this way. And if the school evaluation process had been anything less than unassailably robust – is it ever though? – his gaming of the system would have worked even better. 😢

Aaaaand a short question about the scholarship somehow turned into a super-long essay about Ming's character and motivations! I had hoped not to add any more to Ming's vilification, given how hated he already is by parts of the fandom and how small his redemption arc is in Ep.12. But really, the best-painted characters are the flawed ones (and that includes Pat, Pran, Dissaya and Ming too). Dissaya never needed much redemption in my opinion, but Ming most certainly did. I do hope the Ming-haters can see that he was as much a victim of his own unsound upbringing as Pat was, and that unlike Pat he was considerably less successful at breaking free of his own father's pressures on him.

It's possible that despite all he's achieved, in his own head he's still a failure because he could not succeed (by fair means) where it mattered – so Dissaya and even his own son have proved themselves more capable and worthy than he.

And maybe we should cut the ex-golden boy some slack for having to live with the shame of this realization, now that his glory days are over. At least we can see some signs that Ming is working on himself by the end of Ep.12 – he's still a work in progress, but as we saw with Pat and Pran, undoing a previous generation's emotional damage can take an extraordinarily long time. 💖

#bad buddy #bad buddy analysis #ming and dissaya #bad buddy scholarship #dissaya scholarship #bad buddy ming #telomeke

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royaltealovingkookiness · 4 years ago

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As much as I love Zuko's character and his journey to redemption a lot since growth isn't linear, do you still happen to have an analysis of why he sided with Azula in "The Crossroads of Destiny" though he states she always lies? Just curious 'bout your thoughts.

I think it’s important to understand the paths Zuko could see on the “crossroad” he was.

Book 2 was Zuko seeing the ugly reality of the war, starting to accept that he could never go home and finding a life in Ba Sing Se with Iroh, which personally didn’t make him happy, but it was something he pushed himself to accept because it made Iroh happy.

That choice was to shed his identity as Zuko, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, firebender and build a completely new life removed from war and politics as a simple tea server. In this life, Zuko and Iroh would not be Fire Nation anymore, but wouldn’t go against it either. They’d stop chasing the Avatar, but wouldn’t actively help him either. It was the path of neutrality.

But the moment Azula discovered them in Ba Sing Se, this path was closed for them. At worst, they would become prisoners, at best, they could keep running and live that precarious life they had to face as fugitives in an enemy territory. And Zuko was tired of running.

I don’t think that Zuko saw at that point clearly another path - the one where he joins the Avatar. For one, he was raised in the belief that the Avatar was the greatest threat to the Fire Nation. I don’t think that he was at a point yet where he would be able to see siding with the Avatar anything other than being a traitor.

Second, he had no reason to believe that the Gaang would even want him. To them, he was the “face of the enemy”. They managed to connect with Katara for a moment over their griefs and Zuko was visibly moved by Katara’s offer to heal him, but he had no time to process it, as their moment was disrupted by the arrival of Aang and Iroh.

And this brings me to Iroh. Zuko was completely blindsided by Iroh showing up with Aang.

Katara: Aang, I knew you would come. Zuko: Uncle, I don't understand. What are you doing with the Avatar!! (points a finger at Aang) Aang: Saving you, that's what.

And that’s because they have never had this talk with Iroh. Zuko wasn’t aware of things like the White Lotus or even how Iroh sees the role of the Avatar or the war itself. Iroh didn’t criticize openly Ozai or the Fire Nation - he tried to show the world to Zuko, hoping that he would heal and grow up to be a young man who is able to make good choices. I think this came partially from the fear that if he openly forced Zuko to choose, he would lose him, because Zuko was not over his need to earn his father’s love. And partially, I think Iroh didn’t want to repeat the mistake he made with Lu Ten and force on Zuko a destiny that would cost his life. Iroh wanted Zuko to find his own way.

So Iroh shows up with the Avatar, forcing them to have that talk he put off for so long.

Iroh: Zuko, it's time we talked. Go help your other friends. We'll catch up with you. Zuko: Why Uncle? Iroh: You are not the man you used to be, Zuko. You are stronger and wiser and freer than you have ever been. And now you have come to the crossroads of your destiny. It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose good!

But even at this point, Iroh is only giving Zuko this vague concept of “good”, something that is hard for Zuko to understand. After all, Zuko was trying to be good. He did everything he could to fulfill the mission entrusted to him by Ozai, he tried to do his duty to his father and his country, and once he’s chased away, he tried to be who he thought Iroh wanted him to be instead.

They never finish the talk when Azula interrupts - and I’ve written about how she masterfully manipulates Zuko here, promising him everything he thought he had already lost.

So no wonder that Zuko’s head is total chaos when he enters the fight. He knows that there is a chance that Azula is lying, so he hesitates. But the path Azula offers is at least clear - while everything else is fuzzy and confusing. And still, he only reacts to this.

His sister is seemingly alone, facing the Avatar and Katara (and Zuko knows how good both of them are as benders). I think this is what pushes Zuko over finally. He’s choosing his family and country in this moment, because with Iroh removed from the picture, this seems like the clearest path he has left.

I think his choice could have gone different ways - if only he could talk longer with Katara, if only Iroh opened up to him sooner, if only Azula already had an army of Dai Li agents behind her. But the way things played out, Zuko where he was at that point didn’t yet really see “joining the Avatar” as an option.

He had to go home. He had to see Ozai again with the experience he gained, he had to see the Fire Nation to understand that joining the Avatar was not betraying his country, but saving it. And he had to lose Iroh to realize who his family really was.

#atla #atla meta #zuko #iroh #the crossroads of destiny #2.20

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gilgil-machine · 3 years ago

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you know even having experienced all the media gil is in and read all his character materials... i still have no idea how his clairvoyance works lol. like it's supposedly always active he just usually represses it? or tries to? so like it's based on how in the epic he has clairvoyant dreams representing the future, and it seems like maybe in fate too his dreams give him the clearest view of stuff or something since he references wanting to find his dream tablet. and then nasu said like the reason why it doesn't allow him to win certain fights is that he rejects the possibilities he doesn't think make sense like him losing lol. so does he always see a bunch of futures at once constantly? or something? or are just small immediate things he can see clearly without purposely trying like when he plays chess against rani in ccc? it's one of those things i want nasu to explain more along with the whole thing with his charisma being "almost like a curse"

Honestly, I have also been thinking quite a while about that, and I just don't know where to start with this (so I deeply apologize for my ramblings) and I also wish that Nasu brought a bit more light on this but I guess it's a mystery or an open question that nobody can give a clear answer. Like, I don't really know the particular reason why he does restraining this power, but I have a few headcanons/theories:

it's just too boring for him to always being able to kinda foresee the future, so he decided to give himself a challenge;

he's too arrogant (like you mentioned before) to even listen to these "prophecies";

he doesn't want to overload his brain with information because you can clearly imagine that having all these premonitions after making each step can be too much to handle even for Gil.

Also, I like to imagine that he doesn't just have clairvoyant dreams but he also gets like a prophecy flash, like, when you remember something and it just hits you with a picture of the moment, you know, and his eyes also doing that thing like in fate zero.

Also, it says that his clairvoyance works in a way that he doesn't predict the future but he can see the different paths and possibilities of various parallel worlds (basically he can do the Doctor Strange kind of thing) but he can't fully see them because:

he's restraining this power for whatever reason;

the mud of the Holy Grail blocking him "the view". Like the moment in fsf that he tried to see the events from Fuyuki Grail War but the only thing that he saw was the fishing moment from Hollow Ataraxia or that he didn't know the real reason behind the Holy Grail War and the true identity of the Holy Grail;

and his arrogance (again). During the moment in fate zero when Kirei said to him that Tokiomi gonna use his command spell to make Gil kill himself, I like to think that Gil was shocked not because he didn't know about that, but because he didn't want to believe in this nonsense, you know.

And he always can see the right move when it comes to games like chess, cards and etc. But I was always wondering can you outplay him in video games? Because it's not that easy to foresee stuff while playing video games, right?

Also about his charisma, I think it's a curse because of his mood swings, you know. Like, when he feels bored he would just use his charisma to fuck somebody up or whatever, just to see what happens. Like in the situation with Kirei, Gil just gave him "the shovel" and showed him the path, and Kirei started to "dig out" his sceletons that he tried to hide all this time and accepted his true sadistic nature.

#phew that was A LOT #sorry if I misinterpreted some things #I also would like to read all of your thoughts about this as well:3 #but please (everyone who reads this post) do it without toxicity and negativity #I'm begging #because I would just block you or delete your ask or reply or whatever #thank you:)#answers #number1mongrel

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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“...On June 26, ad 4, Augustus adopted Tiberius. Livia’s son, forty-four years old, now became officially the son of her second husband. Henceforth he is called Tiberius Julius Caesar and is clearly the man designated to succeed the emperor. As he had in the past, Augustus made provision for the possibility that Tiberius might not necessarily survive him. Agrippa Postumus had not given any evidence of being temperamentally suited for high office, but Augustus perhaps hoped that in the general way of things an unruly youth could mature into a responsible adult. Hence the emperor adopted Postumus on the same occasion.

Moreover, Tiberius was obliged, before his own adoption, to adopt his nephew Germanicus, who would thereby become Tiberius’ son and would legally have the same relationship to Tiberius as his natural son, Drusus. The marriage of Germanicus and Agrippina followed soon after, probably in the next year. There is no reason why the unconcealed manoeuvring on behalf of Germanicus should have upset Livia unnecessarily, despite the clear implications of Tacitus that it did. Germanicus, after all, was her grandson as much as was Drusus Caesar. The arrangement reinforced rather than weakened the likelihood of succession from her own line, as was to be demonstrated by events.

The marriage would prove extremely fruitful. In time Agrippina bore Germanicus nine children, six of whom survived infancy. The first three were sons, great-grandsons of Livia: Nero, the eldest (not to be confused with his nephew Nero, the future emperor); Drusus (to be distinguished from the two more famous men of the same name: Drusus, son of Livia, and Drusus Caesar, son of Tiberius); and Gaius (destined to become emperor, and known more familiarly as Caligula). She also bore three surviving daughters, Drusilla and Livilla, and, most important, the younger Agrippina, mother of Livia’s great-great-grandson, the emperor Nero. The adoption of Tiberius in ad 4 would have been an occasion of joy and satisfaction for Livia, and would have helped to efface any lingering grief that still afflicted her over Drusus’ death.

If we are to believe Velleius, not only Livia but the whole Roman world reacted jubilantly to the new turn of events. Needless to say, his account should be treated with due caution. There was, he claims, something for everyone. Parents felt heartened about the future of their children, husbands felt secure about their wives, even property owners anticipated profits from their investments! Everyone looked forward to an era of peace and good order. A colourful exaggeration, of course, but there probably was considerable relief among Romans that the succession issue seemed at long last to be settled.

…In the immediate aftermath of the adoptions the ancient authors inevitably tend to focus on Tiberius and the campaigns he conducted in Germany and Illyricum, and they virtually ignore Agrippa Postumus, whose name was to be invoked later by sources hostile to Livia. A few details about Postumus emerge. In ad 5 he received the toga of manhood. The occasion was low-key, without any of the special honours granted Gaius and Lucius on the same occasion. It also seems to have been delayed. Postumus would have reached fourteen in ad 3, and under normal circumstances might reasonably have been expected to take the toga in that year. Something seems to be wrong. Augustus had certainly endured his share of problems with the young people in his own family. The pressures facing the younger relatives of any monarch are self evident, given the sense of importance that precedes achievement, to say nothing of the opportunists attracted to the immature and malleable, and prepared to pander to their self-importance.

As Velleius astutely remarks, magnae fortunae comes adest adulatio (sycophancy is the comrade of high position). These pressures must have been particularly intense in the period of the Augustan settlement, when no established standards had yet evolved for the royal children and grandchildren. Gaius and Lucius, the focus of Augustus’ ambitions and hopes, caused him endless grief by their behaviour in public, clearly egged on by their supporters, and on at least one occasion Augustus felt constrained to clip their wings. Gaius’ brave but distinctly foolhardy behaviour during the siege of Artagira is surely symptomatic of the same conceit.

There is no reason to assume that Postumus would have been immune from the pressures that turned the heads of his siblings. Whatever traits of haughtiness Postumus might have displayed in his early youth, they were not serious enough to have entered the record, and the exact nature of his personal and possibly mental problems is far from clear. The ancient sources speak of his brutish and violent behaviour. Some modern scholars have suggested that he might have been mad, but the language used of him seems to denote little more than an unmanageable temperament and antisocial tendencies.

For whatever reasons, eventually Augustus decided to remove him from the scene. The details of this expulsion are obscure. Suetonius provides the clearest statement, recording that Augustus removed Postumus (abdicavit) because of his wild character and sent him to Surrentum (Sorrento). The historian notes that Postumus grew less and less manageable and so was then sent to Planasia, a low-lying desolate island about sixteen kilometres south of Elba. Tacitus has no doubt about where the ultimate responsibility for Augustus’ actions lay. Postumus had committed no crime.

But Livia had so ensnared her elderly husband (senem Augustum) that he was induced to banish him to Planasia. Tacitus’ technique here is patent. The use of the word senem is meant to suggest that Augustus was by now senile, even though the event occurred eight years before his death. Incapable of making his own rational decisions, he would thus be at the mercy of a scheming woman, just as later Agrippina the Younger reputedly ‘‘captivated her uncle’’ Claudius (pellicit patruum). No reason is given for Livia’s supposed manoeuvre—which as usual, according to Tacitus, was conducted behind the scenes—except the standard charge that her hatred of Postumus was motivated by a stepmother’s loathing (novercalibus odiis).

Yet nothing in the rest of Tacitus’ narrative sustains his assertion, and the historian himself admits that the general view of Romans towards the end of Augustus’ reign was that Postumus was totally unsuited for the succession, because of both his youth and his generally insolent behaviour. Moreover, Augustus had made the strength of Tiberius’ position so patently evident that Livia would hardly have considered Postumus a serious candidate. This seems to be confirmed in a remarkable passage of Tacitus which uncharacteristically reports public reservations about a potential role for Germanicus, supposedly Tiberius’ rival.

After reporting the popular view that Postumus could be ruled out, Tacitus says that people grumbled that with the accession of Tiberius they would have to put up with Livia’s impotentia, and would have to obey two adulescentes (Germanicus and Drusus) who would oppress, then tear the state apart. Tacitus concedes that even the prospect of the reasonable Germanicus and Drusus being involved in state matters caused consternation. This surely offers some gauge of how far below the horizon Postumus was to be found. The precise reason for Postumus’ removal to Sorrento, if it was not simply his personality, is not clear. The initial expulsion may have been provoked by nothing more serious than personal tension between him and his adoptive father.

Whatever the initial reason, it soon became apparent that if Augustus had hoped that sending his adopted son out of Rome would solve the problem, he was mistaken. Dio places Postumus’ formal exile to Planasia in ad 7. If, as Suetonius claims, he was sent first to Sorrento, what might have precipitated the change in the location and the more grave status of his banishment? We have some hints in the sources. Dio suggests that one of the reasons for Augustus’ giving Germanicus preference over Postumus was that the latter spent most of his time fishing, and acquired the sobriquet of Neptune.

Now this could point simply to irresponsibility and indolence, but the picture of Postumus as an ancient Izaak Walton serenely casting his line does not fit well with the very strong tradition of someone wild and reckless. His activities may well have had a political dimension. The choice of the nickname Neptune could allude to the naval victories of his father, Marcus Agrippa. The fishing story might well belong to the period after Postumus’ relegation to Sorrento. This could have proved a risky spot to locate Postumus, because it lay just across the bay from the important naval base at Misenum that his father had established in 31 bc. The innocent fishing expeditions might have covered much more sinister activities.

Augustus may well have concluded eventually that Postumus was too dangerous to be left in the benign surroundings of Sorrento. During Postumus’ second, more serious phase of exile, on the island of Planasia, he was placed under a military guard, a good indication that he was considered genuinely dangerous rather than just a source of irritation and embarrassment. This final stage of banishment was a formal one, for Augustus confirmed the punishment by a senatorial decree and spoke in the Senate on the occasion about his adopted son’s depraved character. Formal banishment enacted by a decree of the Senate would be intended to make a serious political statement and should have buried completely any thoughts that Postumus might have been considered a serious candidate in the succession.

We cannot rule out the possibility that Postumus became involved, perhaps as a pawn, in some serious political intrigue, if not to oust Augustus then at the very least to ensure that he would be followed not by a son of Livia but by someone from the line of Julia. If Postumus was being encouraged to think of a possible role in the succession, it might reasonably be asked who was doing the urging. Although there is no explicit statement on the question in the sources, many scholars have accepted the notion that there existed a ‘‘Julian party,’’ responsible for much of the ‘‘anti-Claudian’’ propaganda directed against Livia and Tiberius that is found in Tacitus in particular and possibly derived from the memoirs of Agrippina.

…Whatever the intrigues in Rome, Livia’s son was able to keep himself aloof and to play the role that suited him best, that of soldier. Tiberius conducted a brilliant series of campaigns in Pannonia for which a triumph was voted in ad 9. (This was postponed when Tiberius was despatched to Germany in the aftermath of the disastrous defeat of Quinctilius Varus, in which three legions were lost.) When the Pannonian triumph was voted, Augustus made his intentions crystal clear. Various suggestions were put forward for honorific titles, such as Pannonicus, Invictus, and Pius.

The emperor, however, vetoed them all, declaring that Tiberius would have to be satisfied with the title that he would receive when he himself died. That title, of course, was Augustus. It also appears that a law was later passed to make his imperium equal to that of Augustus throughout the empire, and in early 13 his tribunician power was renewed. His son Drusus Caesar received his first accelerated promotion, designated to proceed directly to the consulship in ad 15, skipping the praetorship that should have preceded this higher office.

The virtual impregnability of Tiberius’ position should be borne in mind in any attempt to understand the final months of Augustus’ life. In the closing chapter of her husband’s principate, Livia reemerges in the record to play a central and, according to one tradition, decidedly sinister role. This is perhaps the most convoluted period of her career, where rumour and reality seem to diverge most widely. To place the events in a comprehensible context, it is necessary to note one later detail out of its chronological sequence. As we shall see, after Augustus’ death there was a rumour reported in some of the sources that Livia had murdered her husband.

In the best forensic tradition, a motive would have to be unearthed to make the charge plausible, especially since sceptics could hardly have failed to notice that Augustus had never enjoyed robust health and was already in his seventy-sixth year. Death from natural causes could hardly be considered remarkable under such circumstances. The requisite motive would indeed be produced, and the kernel of the intricate thesis that evolved is found in a brief summary of Augustus’ career by Pliny the Elder. Among the travails that afflicted the emperor, Pliny lists the abdicatio of Postumus after his adoption, Augustus’ regret after the relegation, the suspicion that a certain Fabius betrayed his secrets, and the intrigues of Livia and Tiberius.

Pliny’s summary observations are clearly based on a more detailed source, which suggested that Augustus felt some remorse about Postumus. This simple and not improbable notion is developed by other sources into a far more complex scenario that creates an apparently plausible motive, because it could be claimed that Livia would have wanted to remove her husband before he could act on his change of heart. This reconstruction of the events is clearly reminiscent of the closing days of the reign of Claudius, when the emperor supposedly sought a rapprochement with his son Britannicus, to the disadvantage of his stepson Nero, and thereby inspired his wife Agrippina to despatch him with the poisoned mushroom.

But it is important to bear in mind that as Pliny reports the events he limits himself to the claim that Augustus regretted Postumus’ exile, without further elaboration, and although Livia and her son supposedly engaged in intrigues of some unspecified nature, Pliny assigns no criminal action to either of them. Pliny’s ‘‘skeleton account’’ is to some degree validated by Plutarch. In his essay on ‘‘Talkativeness,’’ Plutarch, in a very garbled passage, relates that a friend of Augustus named ‘‘Fulvius’’ heard the emperor lamenting the woes that had befallen his house—the deaths of Gaius and Lucius and the exile of ‘‘Postumius’’ on some false charge—which had obliged him to pass on the succession to Tiberius. He now regretted what had happened and intended (bouleuomenos) to recall his surviving grandson from exile.

According to Plutarch’s account, Fulvius passed this information on to his wife, and she in turn passed it on to Livia, who took Augustus to task for his careless talk. The emperor made his displeasure known to Fulvius, and he and his wife in consequence committed suicide. This last detail was perhaps inspired by the famous story of Arria, who achieved immortal fame in ad 42 when she died with her husband Caecina Paetus, who had been implicated in a conspiracy against Claudius. Plutarch’s confused version of events does not inspire confidence, and in any case, although he gives Livia a more specific role than does Pliny, he follows Pliny in not attributing to Augustus any action, only supposed intentions.

Dio’s account is a much contracted one, but derived from a source that has added a very important wrinkle to the story and has Augustus taking action on his change of heart. Dio says that Livia was suspected of Augustus’ death. She was afraid, people say (hos phasi), because Augustus had secretly sailed to Planasia to see Postumus and seemed to be on the brink of seeking a reconciliation. This bald and surely implausible story, involving a round trip of some five hundred kilometres, is given its fullest treatment in Tacitus, clearly drawing on the same source as Dio.

He says that people thought that Livia had brought about Augustus’ final illness, because a rumour entered into circulation that the emperor had gone to Planasia to visit Postumus, accompanied by a small group of intimates, including Paullus Fabius Maximus. Fabius, clearly Plutarch’s ‘‘Fulvius,’’ was a literary figure of some renown, a close friend of Ovid and Horace. He was also an intimate of Augustus, consul in 11 bc, governor of Asia, and legatus in Spain (3–2 bc). He would thus be a plausible participant in this mysterious expedition. Tacitus reports that the tears and signs of affection were enough to raise the hopes of Postumus that there was a prospect of his being recalled. (It is striking that Tacitus is ambiguous about the meeting’s purpose and is too good a historian to bring himself to claim that Augustus had gone there to commit himself to Postumus’ rehabilitation.)

Fabius Maximus supposedly told the story to his wife, Marcia, and she in turn passed it to Livia. The text of the manuscript is corrupt at this point, but Tacitus seems to say that this indiscretion came to the knowledge of Augustus (reading the text as gnarum id Caesari). The subsequent death of Fabius, Tacitus says, may or may not have been suicide (the implication is that Augustus ordered it, as Plutarch suggests). Marcia was heard at the funeral reproaching herself as the cause of her husband’s downfall (this presumably is how the story got out).

After this detailed account Tacitus undercuts his own case when he goes on to say that Augustus died shortly afterwards, utcumque se ea res habuit. The force of this phrase is essentially ‘‘whatever the truth of the matter.’’ It hardly inspires conviction. The story of the adventurous journey to Planasia and the tearful reconciliation has generally been greeted with scepticism by modern scholars. Jameson is an exception. She uses the Arval record to argue that Augustus did take the trip, noting that on May 14 there was a meeting of the brethren for the cooption of Drusus Caesar, the son of Tiberius, into their order. Fabius Maximus and Augustus were absent from the ceremony, and submitted their votes, in favour of the co-option, by absentee ballot. But is there anything remarkable in their absence?

Clearly, the election of Tiberius’ son was not in reality a particularly important occasion, for Tiberius himself failed to attend. Moreover, Syme notes that no fewer than five other arvals were absent from this meeting, and that there could be a host of explanations for Augustus’ absence. Also, if the co-option was seen as an important family event, then it would surely have been the very worst time for Augustus to try to slip away unnoticed. The emperor was by this time in declining health, so weak that he even held audiences in the palace lying on a couch. In ad 12 he was so frail that he stopped his morning receptions for senators and asked their indulgence for his not joining them at public banquets.

Yet we are supposed to assume that he made the arduous journey to Planasia, and that he did so without Livia realizing what he was up to. It is also important to observe that both Tacitus and Dio drew on a source claiming that Augustus was on the verge of making amends with Postumus. An actual reconciliation seems to be ruled out by the later sequence of events. Certainly he did nothing whatsoever on his return to strengthen Postumus’ position or to weaken that of Tiberius. Finally, one might ask whether Augustus could ever have seriously considered recalling Postumus. He had put him under armed guard. There were plots to rescue him. His supporters published damaging letters about the emperor. It all seems implausible. Syme suggests that the details of the journey might have been added soon after Augustus’ death, a ‘‘specimen of that corroborative detail which is all too apparent (and useful) in historical fictions.’’ Syme bases his argument in part on aesthetic considerations. The episode as it appears in Tacitus is introduced in an inartistic fashion and appears to have been grafted on as an afterthought, introducing two names, those of Fabius Maximus and his wife, Marcia, that will not be mentioned again in the Annals. Moreover, neither Pliny nor Plutarch mentions Planasia.

…The plot described by Suetonius might then have been a last desperate effort to rescue her. In any case it seems to have come to nothing. In addition to the supposed political intrigues in the period immediately before Augustus’ death, there was no shortage of signs that the gods, too, were feeling distinctly uneasy, ranging from the usual comets and fires in the sky to more opaque portents, like a madman sitting on the chair dedicated to Julius Caesar and placing a crown on his own head, or an owl hooting on the roof of the Senate house. But Augustus seems to have had no premonition that he had little time left when he set out from Rome in August 14.

At that time Tiberius was obliged to leave the city for further service abroad, and he departed for Illyricum with a mandate to reorganise the province. Livia and Augustus joined him for the first part of the journey. This very public gesture is an affirmation of the emperor’s faith in Tiberius—a very odd signal to send if only a few months earlier he had become reconciled to Postumus and had changed his mind about who would succeed him. The party went as far as Astura, and from there followed the unusual course of taking a ship by night to catch the favourable breeze. On the sea journey Augustus contracted an illness, which began with diarrhoea.

They skirted the coast of Campania, spent four days in Augustus’ villa at Capri to allow him to relax and recuperate, then sailed into the Gulf of Puteoli, where they were given an extravagant welcome from the passengers and crew of a ship that had just sailed in from Alexandria. They passed over to Naples, although Augustus was still weak and his diarrhoea was recurring. He managed to muster up the strength to watch a gymnastic performance. Then they continued their journey. At Beneventum the company broke up. Tiberius headed east. As Augustus began the return journey with Livia from Beneventum, his illness took a turn for the worse. Perhaps he had a sense that his end was near, as he made for an old family estate, in nearby Nola, where his father, Octavius, had died.

Augustus was not to leave Nola alive. His condition quickly grew worse, and on August 19, 14, at the ninth hour, in Suetonius’ precise report, he died. According to Tacitus, as Augustus grew more sick, some people started to suspect (suspectabant) Livia of dirty deeds (scelus). Dio is more specific, but is still cautious about the charge. He notes that Augustus used to gather figs from the tree with his own hands. She, hos phasi (as they say), cunningly smeared some of them with poison, ate the uncontaminated ones herself and offered the special ones to her husband. As can be seen in his handling of other events, Dio does seem to relish rumours of poisoning.

He relates, for instance, that Vespasian died of fever in ad 79, but adds that some said that he was poisoned at a banquet. It was similarly said that Domitian murdered Titus in ad 81, although the written accounts agree that he died of natural causes. In the case of Augustus it may be possible to discern the origins of the rumour. Suetonius confirms that the emperor was fond of green figs from the second harvest (along with hand-made moist cheese, small fish, and coarse bread). Given Livia’s interest in the cultivation of figs (she even had one named after her), she may well have had an orchard at Nola to which she would have given special attention during her stay.

Dio in fact seems to have had little personal faith in the fig rumour, for he goes on to speak of Augustus’ death as ‘‘from this or from some other cause.’’ By its nature the fig story is unprovable yet impossible to refute. It falls in the grand tradition of such deaths, the best-known being the supposed despatch of Claudius by a poisoned mushroom. If Livia murdered Augustus, then her timing was oddly awry, for she had to go to considerable trouble to recall Tiberius, who was by then en route to Illyricum. Why not do the deed when he was still on the scene?

It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that Livia had an interest in curative recipes. It is possible that she would have inflicted one or more of her own concoctions on her husband. In the unlikely event that he was poisoned, alternative medicine might be a more plausible culprit than the murderer’s toxin. From Beneventum, Tiberius headed for the east coast of Italy, where he took a boat to Illyricum. He had barely crossed over to the Dalmatian coast when an urgent letter from his mother caught up with him, recalling him to Nola. There are different versions of what happened next. Tacitus describes Augustus in his final hours holding a heavy conversation with his entourage about the qualifications of potential successors. Dio and Suetonius allow him a lighter agenda.

They recount that he first asked for a mirror, combed his hair and straightened his sagging jaws. Then he invited the friends in. He gave them his final instructions, ending with his famous line of finding Rome a city of clay and leaving it a city of marble. In conclusion, he asked how they would rate his performance in the grand comedy of life. He seems to have taken a high score for granted, because just like a comic actor, he asked them to give him applause for a role well played. (The curious coincidence of the comic actors brought in during Claudius’ last hours should be noted.)

He then dismissed his friends and spoke to some visitors from Rome, asking about the health of Tiberius’ granddaughter Julia, who was ill. The most serious discrepancy arises over the part that Tiberius might have played during the emperor’s final hours. Dio preserves one tradition, which he says he found in most authorities, including the better ones, that the emperor died while his adopted son was still in Dalmatia, and that Livia for political reasons was determined to keep the death secret until he got back. Tacitus reflects a similar tradition, reporting uncertainty about whether Tiberius found Augustus dead or alive when he reached Nola. The house and the adjoining streets had been sealed off by Livia with guards, and optimistic bulletins were issued, until she was ready to release the news at a time dictated by her own needs.

The story is reminiscent of Agrippina’s arrangements after the death of Claudius. She was similarly accused of keeping the death secret and posting guards as Claudius lay dying. The suspicions about Livia do not appear in the other extant accounts. Velleius reports that Tiberius rushed back and arrived earlier than expected, which perked up Augustus for a time. But before too long he began to fail, and died in Tiberius’ arms, asking him to carry on with their joint work.

Suetonius is even more emphatic about Tiberius’ role. He says that Augustus detained Tiberius for a whole day in private conversation, which was the last serious business that he transacted. His final moments were spent with Livia. His mind wandered as he died—he thought that forty men were carrying him away—but at the last instant he kissed his wife, with an affectionate farewell, Livia nostri coniugii memor vive, ac vale (Livia, be mindful of our marriage, and good-bye), then slipped into the quiet death that he had always hoped for.

That Livia might have kept the news of Augustus’ death secret for a time is certainly plausible—there are all sorts of sound reasons why the announcement of a politically sensitive death might be postponed, although the similar delay after Claudius’ death is disturbingly coincidental. She also may well have put pickets around the house, but no sinister connotation need be placed on the action. The final hours of Augustus would doubtless have attracted the concerned and the curious, who in such situations follow a herd instinct to keep crowded vigils. After Agrippina the Younger had been shipwrecked near Baiae in ad 59, crowds of well-wishers streamed up to her house, carrying torches.

The same would surely have happened in Nola, and some sort of control might have become necessary to give the dying emperor some peace. The house certainly became a place of pilgrimage afterwards, and was converted into some sort of shrine. The romantic account of Augustus expiring in Tiberius’ arms may be highly coloured, and Suetonius’ claim that Augustus and Tiberius spent a whole day together sounds exaggerated, given that Augustus’ health was fading so fast.

But it is difficult to see how that whole sequence of events could simply have been invented if it did not have at least a basis of truth. In any case, rumours surrounding the events at Augustus’ deathbed were totally eclipsed by dramatic developments across the water. As an immediate consequence of the emperor’s death, Postumus also lost his life: primum facinus novi principatus fuit Postumi Agrippae caedes (the first misdeed of the new principate was the slaying of Agrippa Postumus), as Tacitus words it.

The events of this first and possibly murkiest episode of Tiberius’ reign have been much debated, and it is probably now impossible to disentangle fact from rumour and innuendo, since there is considerable ambiguity in the ancient accounts of the incident. The general outline of the events is not particularly controversial. The officer commanding the guard at Planasia executed Postumus after he had received written instructions (codicilli) to carry out the deed. Postumus had no weapons other than his powerful physique, and he put up a valiant but ultimately futile struggle. A desperate attempt by a loyal slave, Clemens, to save him was frustrated when the would-be rescuer took a slow freight ship to Planasia and arrived too late.

After the execution, the officer then reported to Tiberius, presumably still at Nola, that the action had been carried out. He did so, as Tacitus describes it, ut mos militiae (in the military manner), presumably in the sense of a soldier reporting to his commander that his orders have been discharged. Tiberius denied vehemently that he had given any such orders. According to Tacitus, he claimed that Augustus had sent the order, to be put into force immediately after his death, and insisted that the officer would have to give an account to the Senate. Tacitus at this point adds a new wrinkle to the story, and gives a role to a figure not mentioned in any of the other sources in the context of this incident.

The codicilli, he claims, had been sent to the tribune by Augustus’ confidant Sallustius Crispus. This man was the great-nephew and adopted son of the historian Sallust. Although his family connections had opened up the opportunities for a brilliant senatorial career, Sallustius chose to fashion himself after Maecenas and seek real influence rather than the empty prominence of the Senate. He rose to the top through his energy and determination, which he managed to conceal from his contemporaries by pretending a casual or even apathetic attitude to life.

He acquired considerable wealth, owning property in Rome, and among other landed estates he could list a copper mine in the Alps producing high-grade ore. More importantly, at least until his later years, he had the ear of both Augustus and Tiberius, as a man who bore the imperatorum secreta (secrets of the emperors). When Sallustius learned that Tiberius wanted the whole matter brought before the Senate, he grew alarmed, afraid that he personally could end up being charged. He interceded with Livia, alerting her to the danger of making public the arcana domus (the inner secrets of the house), with all that would entail—details of the advice of friends, or of the special services carried out by the soldiers—and urged her to curb her son. Beyond this general framework the details are highly obscure, and, it seems, totally speculative.

Tacitus says that Tiberius avoided raising the issue of Postumus’ death in the Senate, and Suetonius observes that he simply let the matter fade away. There would thus have been no official source of information. Yet fairly detailed narratives have been passed down, which could have come only from eyewitness accounts. In particular one has to wonder how the supposed secret dealings between Livia and Sallustius could ever have become known. This uncertainty over the source and reliability of the information clearly makes it impossible to determine who was ultimately responsible for Postumus’ death.

Suetonius summarises the problem nicely. He states that it was not known whether Augustus had left the written instructions, on the verge of his own death, to ensure a smooth succession, or whether Livia had dictated them (dictasset) in the name of Augustus, and, if the latter, whether Tiberius had known about them. Dio categorically insists that Tiberius was directly responsible but says that he encouraged the speculation, so that some blamed Augustus, some Livia, and some even said that the centurion had acted on his own initiative.

Tacitus found Tiberius’ claim that Augustus had left instructions for the execution hard to believe, and describes this defence as a posture (simulabat), suggesting that the more likely scenario was that Tiberius and Livia hastily brought about the death, Tiberius driven by fear and she by novercalibus odiis (stepmotherly hatred). Velleius may have been aware of these speculations, for he is very cagey about Postumus’ death. He insists that ‘‘he suffered an ultimate fate’’ (habuit exitum) in a way that was appropriate to his ‘‘madness’’ ( furor). Velleius may well have been deliberately ambiguous to avoid becoming enmeshed in a contentious and sensitive issue that might reflect badly on Tiberius.

Scholars have generally been inclined to exonerate Livia, and only Gardthausen has held that Livia was totally responsible, without even Tiberius’ complicity. Syme accuses Tacitus of supporting an imputation against Livia ‘‘which he surely knew to be false.’’ The implication of Livia has been challenged by Charlesworth in particular. He sees it as emanating from the same tradition that had her poisoning Augustus. Certainly Pliny’s brief summary imputes no criminal action against her. She seems on principle to have refrained from taking independent executive action. (The picket she set up around Augustus’ house would be the only known counterexample.)

At most, it is possible that she knew of such an order, but it seems highly unlikely that she initiated it. Even if a meeting did actually take place between Sallustius and Livia, as Tacitus alleges, this need not mean that anything sinister had necessarily been underfoot. Sallustius may have wished simply to appeal to the wisdom and experience of Livia to counter the political naïveté of a son who had spent his career on military campaigns and had not yet become adept in the complexities of political intrigue. The suppression of information about the activities of the soldiers could just as easily have been meant to refer to Augustus’ instructions as to Livia’s, in a system where secrecy for the sake of secrecy was considered a vital element in the fabric of efficient government.

If Livia had somehow been involved with Sallustius in carrying out Augustus’ instructions, there would have had to be secret and dangerous communication between Rome and Nola, unless Sallustius was also with Augustus at the end (and Tacitus would surely have mentioned his presence). Tiberius seems largely exonerated by his own conduct. If he had been guilty, he would hardly have wanted an investigation by the Senate, and could simply have claimed that the execution was carried out on Augustus’ orders or even have reported officially that Postumus had died from natural causes. We can surely eliminate Dio’s barely tenable suggestion that the guard might have executed Postumus on its own initiative, and the hardly more convincing notion that Sallustius Crispus similarly might have acted on his own initiative.

On balance, the most plausible suspect is Augustus, although plausibility is far different from conviction. Augustus might well have issued standing orders to the tribune to execute Postumus the moment news of his own death arrived. Sallustius could well have sent the announcement of the emperor’s death in Tiberius’ name (with or without his knowledge), which could account for the centurion’s coming to Rome to make a report to Tiberius.

When he needed to, Augustus could behave quite ruthlessly against those who threatened him. He put to death Caesarion, the supposed son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, for purely political motives. He also could be harsh towards his own family. He swore that he would never recall the elder Julia from exile, refused to recognise the child of the younger Julia, and would not allow either Julia burial in his mausoleum. It was he who had set the armed guard over Postumus. Moreover, Augustus did make meticulous preparations for his own death.

He left behind three or four libelli, with instructions for his funeral, the text of the Res Gestae, a summary of the Roman troops, fleets, provinces, client-kingdoms, direct and indirect taxes—including those in arrears— the funds in the public and in the imperial treasuries, and the imperial accounts. There was also a book of instructions for Tiberius, the Senate, and the people. Augustus went into considerable detail, with such particulars as the number of slaves it would be wise to free and the number of new citizens who should be enrolled.

He was clearly a man determined not to leave any issues hanging in the balance, and the future of Postumus would have been an issue of prime importance. Postumus’ death was the final blow for Julia the Elder. From this point on, she simply gave up and went into a slow decline, her despair aggravated by her destitution. She received no help from Tiberius, although he had earlier tried to win leniency for her from her father.

According to Suetonius, Tiberius, once emperor, deprived her of her allowance, using the heartless argument that Augustus had not provided for it in his will. As we have seen, Livia might well have helped the exiled Julia at one point by giving her one of her slaves, and she certainly helped Julia’s daughter when she was sent away from Rome. But she does not seem to have tried to intercede on this occasion. Julia died in late ad 14 from weakness and malnutrition. The new reign had got off to a bloody start.”

- Anthony A. Barrett, “The Public Figure.” in Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome

#livia drusilla #postumus #octavian #tiberius #roman #ancient #history #anthony a. barrett #livia first lady of imperial rome

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hotdemonsummer · 4 years ago

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Obey Me! and the hierarchy of Demons

alternatively titled Levi Is Just A Big Fucking Snake

This long, long post is a general examination of NTT Solmare’s choices in developing the lore of Obey Me, namely the choices of which demons to turn into the brothers from a demonology perspective. I was going to include a lot more, but I hit 1k words and was like, a third done so I decided to split this thesis into multiple posts. Disclaimer: I am not a demonology expert, nor have I been a magic practioner in years. I am a guy with an otome hyperfixation first and a comparative theology enthusiast second.

To start off, I need to state the obvious: Obey Me is a Japanese video game, made by Japanese developers. For those who are unaware, Japan is a very fascinating case study in that it is one of five or six countries that were never colonized by Europe, and only one of two that are in the global north. As such, Japan has a wholly unique relationship with religion, particularly Christianity. Most of the population describe themselves as nonreligious, with Shintoism and Buddhism making up the largest practicing religions. Christianity, as it exists in broader Japanese society, is wholly cultural. There are of course Japanese Christians (and Japanese Jews and Japanese Muslims and so on), but they are in the significant minority. Christianity exists in secular, cultural forms: a purely commercial form of Christmas (and it is purely commercial, unlike what your manager at Target will say about American Christmas when he tries to make you wear elf ears) and a Christian-style wedding, both of which are imports from Western cultures.

Why am I talking about this? Aside from now having some more context for the sheer amount of chain-smoking gun-toting Catholic priests in anime, you might be realizing that you probably have a wider understanding of Abrahamic religion than you thought. Even those who grew up with a completely different religious background or no religious background at all would be exposed to the sheer weight of religious hegemony, especially through television. You are probably not this kid.

This is all to say that Solmare had to do their homework, and it turns out they did generally pretty well. More than that, they didn’t rip off the world of Obey Me just from history, and they actually made some changes (beyond the whole anime boy thing) that I think are really interesting.

(Also quick disclaimer: generally when talking about the real-world basis of these things I called it Christianity, but this isn’t exactly accurate. Christians certainly don’t have a monopoly on heaven or hell or angels or demons or Jesus, and as Judaism and Islam generally have a more in depth understanding of angelology. However, most surviving texts and research on demonology comes from medieval and pre-Renaissance Europe, and Solmare does seem to be taking the Christian route in most depictions.)

Initially, something was bugging me about Obey Me: the brothers. Lucifer and Satan were clear inclusions, as were Asmodeus and Beelzebub as well known demons. Mammon is a little less known as a figure, but a clear choice for an Avatar of Greed. Belphegor and the Leviathan, on the other hand, seemed like they were out of left field. Belphegor comes from the same Levantine religion as Beelzebub, but he definitely not a very well-known figure. The Leviathan is also in a completely different ballgame. Outside of Hobbesian philosophy, the Leviathan is a sea serpent of chaos. Not a pagan god (like Beelzebub and Belphegor), but just a big old sea snake. In the Book of Job, he shows up as just a big old snake (implied to be a minion of Satan, and not a demon proper). In the Midrash, he (or rather, she) is still just a big old sea snake. He is likely taken wholesale from the Canaanite Lotan, who was also just a big old sea snake. Just like Lotan, the Leviathan is a part of the shared Chaoskampf myth, like Jormungandr and Illuyanka and Vritra, which is to say he’s just a big old snake. I cannot stress enough of how much of a snake he is.

There are plenty of well-known demons that just straight up don’t make an appearance in Obey Me (Belial, Ba’al, Moloch, Mulcifer, Buer, Amon, Abaddon, Astaroth, Baphomet, Paimon, this is just off the top of my head), so why these two as main characters?

You can (probably) thank one guy for getting the ball rolling:

This old bastard is John Wycliffe, a 14th century priest and scholar and a RIDICULOUSLY controversial figure at the time. This isn’t the time or place for a lesson in Catholic history, but this guy was basically Martin Luther before Martin Luther. He is the likely author of a 1410 tract known as The Lanterne of Light, which was one of the first pieces of Christian academia to link the main sins with a particular demon. Contrary to “popular belief” and Wikipedia, no, the tract does not link each sin to each brother perfectly (the clearest link is between envy and Beelzebub, sorry, Belsabub, and notably Leviathan isn’t included in this list because he’s just a fucking snake). However, prior to this the sins and demons were unconnected, and the earlier Psellus classification of demons was ENTIRELY different.

For the classification that Solmare clearly used, we have to jump forward to the late 16th century and talk about Peter Binsfield, who unfortunately does not have a surviving picture that I can easily mock. Anyone familiar with European witchcraft should definitely recognize his name. Binsfield was a German theologian whose 1589 book Treatise on Confessions by Evildoers and Witches was basically the leading instruction manual on how to torture people for witchcraft confessions. However, it also included a classification of demons and corresponding sins, one of the first to do so concisely since Wycliffe. While it is a very concise and simple classification, it is neither the most well-accepted or most popular (that would be Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis or King James’ Daemonologie, depending on who you ask). Binsfield’s classification goes as follows:

Lucifer (Pride)

Mammon (Greed)

Asmodeus (Lechery)

Leviathan (Envy)

Beelzebub (Gluttony)

Satan (Anger)

Belphegor (Sloth)

A few things to note here: Lilith is not included here (in certain classifications, she is equal to Lucifer), but it does include all the brothers. However, they are clearly out of order. I wasn’t able to find an actual copy on Binsfield’s Treatise, but the different secondhand sources I found all have varying orders and none of them are a match for Obey Me!’s order.

Why, then, is the order the way it is? Some things make sense from a narrative position but only if you dig deep enough. For example, Beel and Belphie being twins and therefore next to each other in the order makes sense if you know their shared roots in Moabite religion, because you won’t find any connection between the two written after the Iron Age. Satan being fourth-born is, I can only assume, a reference to tetraphobia (四 sounds the same as 死) but that’s just a guess. Levi and Asmo’s placement reasoning is a mystery to me.

Regardless, this is where the classification of “the seven princes of hell” comes from, and it is certainly not the only demonic classification out there! Like I said, Solmare clearly did their homework and thought about the brothers beyond just slapping the Wikipedia page onto a dev sheet and calling it a day (there are also other details, but I think those deserve a separate post)

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me demonology #my theories #PHEW okay next were gonna get into angelology but i need a break

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trixree · 4 years ago

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Feminist, Queer, Playboy, Philanthropist: Why Ironman Belongs to the Shes, Gays, and Theys

Introduction:

This material originally comes from a media critique project I did for an undergrad philosophy course and I've attempted to adapt it into a tumblr post that doesn't make your eyes bleed. I may or may not have been successful. Upfront, I'm giving you a trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault/rape. If you'd like to skip that part of the analysis, mind the red content warning [start/end].

Trix, what are you up to today? Well, I’d like to present an alternative narrative interpretation of the capstone of the MCU. At face value, Tony Stark shows us a wise-cracking, suave, and hyper-masculine superhero. His soundtrack is AC/DC and he arrives on the battlefield in a shower of gold sparks and hydraulics, wearing sunglasses that cost more than my uterus would fetch on the black market. However, this character presents us with so much more than just a hyper-masculine caricature of straight, cis heroism. Not only does he embody typically “feminine” film tropes—such as the hypersexualized “fighting-fucktoy” role, the policing of his body and promiscuity, and the climactic “rape scene” in which his predatory father-figure drugs him and steals his “heart”—additionally, he embodies classically queer film tropes. Unlike most male action-movie protagonists, his story line is an identity crisis at heart, culminating in a climactic “coming out” scene. His character is promiscuous and spurned for it, and camp is a constant underlying theme in his character design as a whole. I explore these themes in two main parts: the femme and the queer. We'll start with the femme.

Hyper-Masculinity & Tony Stark

In order to understand the subversive nature of Tony Stark, we must first establish the typical nature of hyper-masculine and the hyper-feminine character tropes. Before we can ask the question, “how is this character coded as femme?'' We must first ask, “how is this character coded as masc?”. Further, what do these tropes tell the audience about those characters? Ultimately, the hypermasculine caricature lends power to the subject while the hyperfeminine caricature strips the subject of all agency.

Hypermasculinity is defined, generally, as the exaggerated portrayal or the reinforcement of “typically male stereotypes” (typical male meaning, in this context, that of a Westernized man) such as aggression, strength and power (both physcial and otherwise), as well as sex appeal, and integrity. Hypermasculinity takes a keen focus on the physical male form as a dominating force (1). A hypermasculine character, then, would be one that portrays a domineering, powerful man that is above his peers in some way, and is sexually desirable, in that he exemplifies a pornified picture of a male physique. This desirable and desiring caricature of manhood “socializes boys to believe that being a man means being powerful and in control” (2).

In contrast to this idea of hypermasculinity is the media’s typical portrayal of women. The typical hyperfeminine characterization of women in media is that of a passive, pretty, and overtly sexualized side-character with little agency or autonomy within the story. This is true of both blockbuster hits starring men and movies starring women, too. “We had many more interesting characters on screen in the '20s, '30s, '40s than we do now… They could be the femme fatale and then turn around and be the mother and then turn around and be the seductress, and then turn around and be the saint, and we accepted that. They were complex human beings” (2). This is no longer the case for a typical role for women on screen.

The documentary Miss Representation (2) presents a common caricature that a woman in Hollywood might find herself portraying. Action movies with a female lead surely must exhibit agency in their own story lines. However, the female-action-movie-lead is dubbed the “fighting fucktoy” by Miss Representation. Although she makes her own decisions and it is her narrative that drives the story, she primarily exists as eye-candy. Thus, even the “fighting fucktoy” is just that to audiences--a “fucktoy”. She may be “strong” but primarily, she must be pretty. The MCU character Black Widow perfectly exemplifies the “fighting fucktoy”. Her physical strength may be unquestioned, but primarily it is her beauty that is the focus on-screen. Never do we see her fighting in a t-shirt and sweatpants. Even outside of the skin-tight deep-vee catsuit, Black Widow’s plain clothes outfits consist of tight jeans and even tighter shirts.

This is true for both hyperfeminine and hypermasculine stories. Both the men and women starring in mainstream productions are expected to exemplify a western ideal of peak beauty standards at all times. However, where the hypersexualization of male’s bodies is associated with power, dominance, and strength, the sexualization of women’s bodies is linked to submission, frailty, and possession. Hence the name, “fighting fucktoy”. Her beauty does not make her powerful, it makes her a “toy”, an object, a possession. The sexualization of men in media gives them power within their narratives. For women, it does the complete opposite. It makes them objects, even when they are strong. Beauty and sex make them the victims of their own stories. Ultimately, the hypermasculine male character is envied and emulated, not coveted.

Ironman: Femme Fatale

The storyline of the first Iron Man movie is one concerned with bodily autonomy in a way typically reserved for women--Tony Stark is presented as a fighting fucktoy with an unattainable heart. Not only that, he must struggle against the literal policing of his body by friends, family, and government agencies alike. This subversive, unexpected feminine story culminates in the pinnacle “rape scene” wherein a trusted older-male drugs and assaults Tony in order to take advantage of his “body”, the arc-reactor.

Let’s examine Tony’s coded “fighting fucktoy” persona in two parts: the “fighting” and the “fucktoy”. Miss Representation identifies what female leadership often looks like in movies. “When it comes to female leaders in entertainment media, we see the bitchy boss who has sacrificed family and love to make it to where she is” (2). Odd as it may seem, this perfectly encapsulates the metaphorical role of the arc reactor powering the Iron Man suits. First and foremost, the reactor represents Tony Stark’s heart. Not only is it literally located within his heart for the purpose of keeping it intact, it represents his rebirth as a caring, philanthropic man--it encapsulates Stark’s “fight”. Before his kidnapping and the subsequent implanting of the reactor, Stark was every inch the “bitchy boss who has sacrificed family and love” as well as morals themselves in order to be a war profiteer. His “fight” consists of standing up against the same system that had allowed him to amass his fortune. This “fight” is inextricably tied to his “bitchy boss” caricature as someone who has had to surrender love.

It is clear to the viewer that Stark has had to sacrifice love to get where he is in life. Many allusions are given towards the “will they won't they” nature of his relationship with Pepper Potts and Stark’s work is identified as the reason why they won’t. At the end of the movie, Stark attempts to seduce Potts, asking if she ever “thinks about that night” to which she replies, “Are you talking about the night that we danced and went up on the roof, and then you went downstairs to get me a drink, and you left me there, by myself?” The viewers are aware that the reason Stark ran off was because he had received news that Stark weapons had gotten into the wrong hands. Later, Potts will gift him the original arc reactor with the engraving: PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART surrounding it. In an unconventional way, Stark portrays the frigid boss who sacrificed everything to get where she is in his titular fight against a war profiteering machine.

Next, let’s examine his role as the fucktoy. This is a more subtle theme throughout the film, present in body language and subtext. I will focus mainly on scenes which present a femme-coded sexualization--scenes where emphasis on Stark’s body does not lend Stark power, but instead strips him of his autonomy. Take for example the scene pictured below. In this scene, Stark bares his chest to Stane. He is quick to cover up and fruitlessly attempts to redirect Stane’s curiosity. Much like a scene where an attractive woman shows skin, the emphasis is placed on Stark redirecting Stane’s predatory interest. Notice the tension in Stark’s stance, the challenge in his eyes and the contrasting pose of Stane, mid-motion, pushing so close into Stark’s space. Stane is clearly coded as the aggressor once the reactor comes out. The same effect is observed as when a woman bares skin--an apparent loss of autonomy as other characters (and even the cinematography itself) takes a pornographic view of her body. Instead of a powerful male character baring his chest in the heat of a battle, giving the audience a glimpse of corded muscle and strength, this scene leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable on Stark’s behalf.

[TW Start] This femme-coded sexualization that leads ultimately to a loss of autonomy again rears its head in the titular “rape scene”. This is the clearest instance of the reactor--a literal part of Stark’s body, symbolically present as his heart--lends itself to his victimization. Just as a hypersexualized female character with no bodily autonomy, Stark’s bodily autonomy is forcefully violated so that a powerful male figure in his life can exploit a part of him. This theme becomes horrifyingly clear when the scene is examined up close.

Notice the position of their bodies. Once again, Stane towers over Stark, pressing into his space on all sides. In the first image, to the right, he has an arm draped over the back of the couch--a parody of a romantic or perhaps affectionate gesture from one intimate partner to another. Stane visibly radiates power in this position, even if the viewer were unaware of Stark’s paralyzed state. Stane’s shoulders are squared, even sitting down. The position of the reactor in his hand is relaxed and undeniably taunting. Looking at Stark himself, the horror and powerlessness of his situation is clear. His eyes are open, but almost appear to be unseeing. He is not looking directly at the reactor nor at Stane. In fact, it seems as though his eyes are looking below the reactor and to the room at large. I can only describe his expression as hollow--the blank eyes fixed out to something the viewers cannot see, his mouth partially open, his skin sickly pale.

In the second image, pictured above, Stane leers over Stark’s body, cradling his head in, once again, a parody of a lover’s tenderness. He coaxes Stark’s now limp form down onto the couch, having just paralyzed him with a fictional, technological nerve agent. The horror is shockingly clear on Stark’s face and the perverse joy is just as clear on Stane’s. This scene itself is an undeniable parody of rape, or, at the very least, physical assault. [TW End]

Tony Stark presents us with a clear, femme-coded character as his story line draws upon classicly feminine tropes wherein the sexualization of the character’s body is exploitative at heart and leaves them vulnerable to physical predation. In this way, though he is strong, his “body” makes him the victim of his own story. Not only that, his character arc itself travels from the heart-less profiteer to the philanthropic man with a heart of gold, drawing upon another classically femme-caricature of the “bitchy boss”.

Queer Tropes & The Closet

Queer tropes are much harder to draw upon than that of feminine tropes. Queer tropes in film developed in a time of great censorship and as a result are often subtle. There are three main tropes I would like to reference for the purposes of this critique. Within the Iron Man franchise, there exists a distinct sense of camp, a problematized sexual promiscuity, and, ultimately, an identity-reveal/coming out storyline.

One of the most obvious of these tropes is camp. Camp is “defined as the purposeful and ironic adoption of stylistic elements that would otherwise be considered bad taste. Camp aesthetics are generally extreme, exaggerated and showy and always involve an element of mockery” (3). Camp is present in queer culture most commonly in the ball and drag scenes. Camp is the gaudy, the glitzy, the over-the-top, the classic-but-not, the in-your-face… Camp is all of the above and more. This is why it is so easily recognizable to audiences.

The Advocate identifies a series of seventeen queer caricatures in media for consideration, one of them being that of the “promiscuous queer”. Everyone knows the myth of the promiscuous bisexual, even when the reality is that bisexual individuals are no more or no less likely to view monogamy as “sacrificial” than gay or straight individuals (4). The stereotype of the promiscuous bisexual is inaccurate and harmful, and they are by no meals alone in being labeled overly promiscuous by a general audience. The “promiscuous queer” is defined as a character that may struggle with emotional intimacy and, as a result, sleeps around to mask the love they are missing in their life. “Films going back as far as the ’80s British period piece Another Country have featured gay male characters who use sex to cover for their inability to feel true intimacy with another human being” (5). Among their list of guilty perpetrators are Queer as Folk, The L Word, The Good Wife, and How to Get Away With Murder.

The last trope I’d like to present is that of the “coming out” story. Far from being problematic, the “coming out” is often necessary when telling a queer story. Coming out storylines can be problematized when they are presented as “Big Dark Secrets” that weigh heavily on a person until they are spoken. Ultimately, coming out is a choice. Many queer people choose to come out while many do not. There are many people who fall in between--some people may be comfortable being out to select individuals while not to others or to the world at large. In any case, people can be satisfied and fully fulfilled in any of those choices. Coming out stories are undeniably part of queer culture in media. Consider the recent hit, Love Simon alongside Transparent, Empire, Supergirl, and Glee.

Camp, Secrets & Sex

Through the camp of the Iron Man persona, the problematized sexuality of Stark, and the underlying theme of a “coming out” journey, Tony Stark presents audiences with a classically queer experience in film. Take the Iron Man suit itself. The iconic red and gold, the whine of the repulsors, the sleek metal edges and the furious glow of the arc reactor all scream camp. The red and the gold, the opening bars of Back In Black, the facial hair cut into odd spikes, and the sunglasses do, too. Each and every part of the Iron Man persona is camp. “Stylistic elements that otherwise would be bad taste”... talk about gold-plated biceps and a bright red, glowing chest piece! It's camp, baby!

The problematized sexuality of Stark is harder to see as reminiscent of a queer trope. Take, for example, one of the first scenes in the movie. “I do anything and everything that Mr. Stark requires, including, occasionally, taking out the trash”, Potts remarks in reference to a one-night stand she’s ushering out of Stark’s home. Here, Potts implies that Stark sleeps with “trash”. The following scene gives us the feeling that this is not a one-off occurrence. As Potts enters the room, Stark asks, “how’d she take it?” References to his repeated promiscuity are obvious. “Playboy” is an integral part of his persona. Equally obvious is Potts’ disapproval. Taking these inferences of his playboy lifestyle with what viewers know of Stark’s lack of attachments--his “bitchy boss” exterior, if you may--it appears as though his promiscuity is a symptom of the promiscuous queer stereotype.

“Don’t ever ask me to do anything like that ever again,” Potts says after removing the initial arc reactor model from Stark’s chest cavity. “I don’t have anyone but you,” Stark replies. The viewer has a clear picture of Stark as a playboy type who is truly lonely on the inside--who struggles with emotional intimacy. This struggle is evident, given that Potts, Stark’s secretary and co-worker, is the only person in his life he trusts to assist him in what is essentially open heart surgery. His playboy lifestyle mirrors the circumstances of the promiscuous queer trope in media.

Finally, we come to the last scene of the movie-- the climactic reveal. “I am Iron Man”, Stark says. This scene most clearly illustrates a queer story-line. Stark reveals his “identity”, shedding his last secret, and declares to reporters (and effectively the world) that he is Iron Man. To understand how this scene evokes such a strong sense of queer experience in viewers, I’d like to reference another recent in-universe identity reveal in the Marvel Cinematic canon. In Spiderman: Far From Home, the end-credit scene shows Peter Parker reacting in horror to his identity being leaked via doctored footage from the villain Mysterio. This scene can read as nothing but a deep violation. Even the main characters themselves react in abject horror at the news. The Spiderman identity reveal and the Iron Man identity reveal are two sides of the same coming-out process. In one, the character had full agency. In the other, the reveal was non-consensual, a complete violation. It is clear that both of these scenes draw explicitly upon themes that resonate particularly with queer audiences.

To Infinity(War) and Beyond

Growing up, I latched onto Iron Man and Tony Stark as an outlet for my “otherness”. I was well and truly obsessed with the character for reasons that I could not really put into words. He was weird, he was loud, and he was, frankly, unapologetic about any of it. I remember very clearly on my first day of tenth grade listening to Thunderstruck by AC/DC in the car and putting on the brightest shade of red lipstick I could find. Tony Stark gave me confidence. He gave me a voice. Throughout high-school I must have watched the first Iron Man movie upwards of twenty, maybe even thirty times. It was a comfort to me because it showed experiences I resonated with and it showed a strong character recovering from them. Tony Stark rose from the ashes every time and gave me the strength to rise from my own ashes every time he did.

Our heroes can be anything. And Tony Stark was mine.

#thechestnuthead #here you go #yall asked for it #long post #really fucking long post #meta #trixree speaks #ironman #tony stark #marvel meta #analysis #this took a long time rip #if yall want the full paper you can hit me up for a PDF #my posts #trixree gets meta

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rickrichards · 3 years ago

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𝘚𝘜𝘓 𝘚𝘜𝘓 ! — ( winston duke, cis man, he/him ) welcome to strangetown, [ FREDRICK RICHARDS ]. you’re working at [ STRANGETOWN GROCERY ], right? as [ NIGHT MANAGER ]. your birthday’s coming up, right? you’re [ THIRTY-FOUR ] right now, so you’ll be… yeah. okay. we have decorations for that. has anyone told you that you’re really [ RESOURCEFUL ]? what? oh… you’re actually really [ STUBBORN ]? too bad. good meeting you, though! ( kaya , 26 , est , she/her )

fredrick richards

Name: fredrick richards

Nickname: freddie, rick ( chill with whatever )

Age: 34

Gender and Pronouns: cis man, he/him

Sexuality: bisexual

Zodiac: virgo

Hometown: belladonna cove

Has been in Strangetown for: eight years

Occupation(s): night manager at strangetown grocery, freelance mechanic

Positive Traits: resourceful, neat, generous

Negative Traits: stubborn, uptight, naive

townie turned playable

you don't remember much from before moving to strangetown, just bits and pieces. it's not like you have total memory loss, but it has become difficult for you to actually visualize events. as though your memory is just made up of written facts you took note of rather than experiences that affect your entire being.

for example, you know you have two brothers, both younger, but you can't quite picture their faces. you know one's in a band and the other's at a high level in the gamer career, but what were their astrological signs again? where were they even living at nowadays? back home in belladonna cove? no, you're pretty sure geoff moved away. he's the one with the band... right? or was that frank? everything gets all jumbled up the more you try to remember.

the only thing you could properly remember was her. with her autumn red hair and chocolate eyes, she wasn't your normal type as you preferred hard-workers with mechanical interest, but something about her made the world seem brighter. you remember meeting her at a community lot, which one is lost on you, but you recall her warmly greeting you before offering you a coffee. a kind gesture from a complete stranger. you gladly accepted and listened as she talked for hours, hanging onto every word she threw your way. then, she invited you back to her place, and the rest was history. you both lived together in loving bliss. everything was perfect until it wasn't.

you still don't know what happened. out of the blue, he decided to end things and kick you out of her house. she went about how you two have no bolts of chemistry and that you were just and experiments to her. you listen to her, but it's hard for you to understand. if you weren't meant to be, then how could you feel so strongly for her? she doesn't listen and insists you leave, so after fiver years, you pack your stuff and go with one final look at the love of his life and her greening skin.

but now you're here, in good ole strangetown, and you hope to work on yourself and your dreams. you're hoping to own a bunch of businesses starting with an auto repair shop. for now though to make an income, most people can find you managing the overnight shift in strangetown grocery. you're just trying to take it day by day.

extra fun facts

his past is sort of a blur to him. as though nothing happened before strangetown. it stressed him out, but sometimes he doesn't mind seeing as this move was to be a fresh start. ( meta: he's a sim who was bundled to a lot and moved neighborhood which results in memory loss. )

part of a reddit group that discusses the bella goth mystery. he personally believes the alien abduction theory.

has a golden labrador retriever named johnny who is pretty much his best friend. he's a fantastic listener.

enjoys listening to classic rock when he takes long drives through the desert.

a real stickler for the rules. runs strangetown grocery by the book, which can be annoying to some, but at least, he always has your back against a karen.

outside of his necessities, the only things he ought from belladonna cove were paintings of his ex. it's the reason he recalls her the clearest.

his ex was a witch, plain and simple. she was a playable sim a player used to see all the spells a witch sim could cast. their favorite was getting townies to fall in love with her. fredrick had no idea.

#strangetownintro

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thegirlwhohasnochill · 4 years ago

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The Disease of Addiction

Euphoria Special Episode Part 1: Rue (Recap & Review)

Before I begin my official review of this episode, I would like to preface my thoughts with a bit of a primer about spoilers and trigger warnings. The show covers a range of topics from addiction to mental health. Still, I specifically want to warn anyone reading that I explicitly talk about and mention the topic of suicide in my review. If this is triggering for you in any way, please, don’t read ahead and take care of yourself! Okay, that’s it; I hope you enjoy my thoughts, and please let me know if you have any feedback or comments for my review and things I can change or fix in the future.

Where to begin with such a loaded episode...we knew the format and style of the episode would be simplistic based on the current realities of filming amidst a pandemic and what we saw to be a scene from Season 2 that the creator Sam Levinson expanded upon. Zendaya herself let us know that the episode's storytelling method would be vastly different from what we’ve already seen on the show. The format and simplicity of the episode, in contrast to the loaded dialogue and content of the scenes, are perfect. The camera takes you right into the middle of these conversations with Rue and Ali. But before we can even dive into what they talk about, we have to address the elephant in the room that is Rules. The episode begins with what is probably one of the most gut-wrenching sequences I have seen on the show. Because we know the reality and truth of their current predicament, Rue’s peppered kisses across Jules’ body and her tight squeezes and hugs from behind Jules evoke a strong sense of loss and pain for the viewer. The sheer intensity of the physicality of Rue’s affection for Jules is so overpowering and overwhelmingly present, we can almost feel the imbalance in their relationship through the screen. There is something to be said for the harsh reality of Rue’s dependence on Jules being reflected even in such a non-objective dream-like sequence. And yet, even in Rue’s wildest dreams and happiest stupor, she does not imagine the sobriety of her future. To me, that is indeed the crux of her character and the essence of this episode. Ali himself says, “The point is your sobriety.” And while it may feel like a focal point of discussion, the conversation flows in a way that seems to bounce back and forth between the two like a simple tennis match. It is easy to follow between Ali’s most potent clearest convictions about how the world works and Rue’s drug-addled hazy perception. The inherent contrast between their mental states and the different points of life in which they are both standing hit the viewer at alternate moments.

But we know Rue is not sober even as she lies to Ali and stumbles out of the bathroom, the shaky camerawork conveying her recent use. She is wearing the same shirt from the dream but has her signature hoodie on, her messy curly locks running down her back and glassy eyes staring straight ahead. The scene moves from her imagination of life with Jules to her lies about use. Her eventual admittance to being a high-functioning user happens as quickly as the conversation moves from sobriety to faith.

So I might be biased and hence don’t think I am incorrect in admitting that Zendaya has never given us a bad performance in her life. Even as she lies to Ali’s face and he is quick to call out her apparent contradictions, the faint slurring of her voice and her glazed eyes tell all. As striking as the conversation is, it feels even stranger for me to admit I felt comforted by Rue’s confession to thoughts of ending her life. And even as she admits to the darkest moments in her mind, Ali’s face and reaction are an even better neutralizer for what would generally be such an alarming thing to say to someone you barely know. As they continue to discuss her eventual relapse and all the reasons behind it (including racing thoughts encompassing “all the things I remember and all the things I wish I didn’t”), the viewer can envision the sequence of events that was shown to us in the finale - her fights with her mother and sister, her first time using when her father was fast asleep, her father’s death, her sister finding her after her overdose.

As much as I would like to quote the entire episode, I have to say Ali’s monologue about the idea that none of us are born evil and that society views mental illness and addiction as a personal moral failure rather than an overarching system many of us are incapable of overcoming, to be one of, if not the most decisive moments of the entire show. The line about coming out of the womb with “a few wires crossed” but still a beautiful baby girl eventually messing her way up through life struck a chord in me. I didn’t ask to be born this way. I don’t feel in control of my mind or the way it ever seems to work. And I’m always going to be a bad person. The disease of addiction and mental illness lets you - no, it makes you - view everything you have ever done in your life as not a consequence of the way your mind works, but as an active choice, you have consistently made, as you screwed up everything you’ve ever loved, and let down everyone you have ever cared about. The disease is not you as a person or even the way you think, and yet it is powerful enough to feel that way. Almost like the rapid cycling between mania and depression, the disease flips between, making you feel like the most powerful, invincible person alive and the absolute scum of the earth. There is nothing in between.

Ali’s backstory and his monologues about his change in faith from Christianity (when he was previously known as Martin) to Islam and the world's revolutions were fascinating. Side note: I did think the line about women converting to Islam was unnecessary, but I digress.

Rue’s understanding of the Narcotics Anonymous program's steps was the perfect way to bring in the conversation of faith. As she mentions her difficulty in coming to terms with the idea that there is greater power in charge of her behaviour and the way she surrenders herself to drugs, Ali chimes in with, “You don’t believe there is a power on Earth greater than Rue.” She disagrees and continues quoting and citing different sources she believes to be omniscient and great. And I absolutely agree with her. To me, there is no greater power than the source of art, the music that keeps me going, that feels like it’s the only thing keeping me from stopping the blood pumping through my veins. I understand Rue. But I also understand Ali. And yet, when Rue goes on to talk about the inexplicable workings of the world, my heart stops. There is no reason. There is no reason for the absolute pain and loss and suffering I’ve experienced, for the trauma I’ve witnessed and endured. For the absolutely horrifying things, the people closest to me have lived through. It is merely chaos. There is no reason I wake up every single day, regretting the fact that I did indeed wake up and that I am alive and breathing. So I Understand Rue. But Ali’s monologue about the moral arc of the universe and the unfathomable ways in which life and history line themselves up, to open our very eyes to the realizations we come to daily, is overwhelming. And yet, while he is waxing poetic about the intricacies of the world, we can see Rue’s exhausted eyes glaze over further, still unimpressed. “Maybe I’ll start a revolution like Malcolm X or something”, she quips back. But Ali is quick to counter; revolutions are no longer revolutionary.

Life as we know it is hypocrisy and foolish symbolism, only emphasizing his point about the universe's ridiculousness. Does any of it have meaning? Or is the meaningless void just another puzzle piece in a picture we will never get to see? There is also something to be said about Rue’s facial expressions as Ali continues his train of thought about her “generation”. As we often do when we hear our elders dismissively brush off our many concerns, she almost rolls her eyes. But he is listening, and he knows. “You think you’re out here fighting a revolution, and Bank of America is on your side? Give me a fucking break.” He’s not wrong. His speech reminds me of the masses of teens on TikTok creating video content specifically catered to an audience with an aesthetic that glamorizes the image of a revolutionary teen hero. But instead of a blazing bow and arrow, it is the common cell phone and a punchy soundtrack filtered through digitized audio. What would typically come across as preachy in any show catered to teens is, in fact, poignant. It also reminds me of how self-aware Euphoria is, knowing it’s guilty of falling into the same trap it accuses the viewer of doing.

You have to commit to bettering yourself, Ali essentially tells Rue. And to me, that is the most inherently human struggle we will ever face in our lifetimes. As long as we exist, we have to face the idea that each day is, in fact, not going to be easier than the last. And when he tells her that he believes in her and that the hope of her success (that may one day come) should be greater than the failure of her current demise holding her back, I want to cry. I keep thinking about that edit of Rue to this is me trying by Taylor Swift.

The music of the song that Jules has texted to Rue swells, and it is easy to get caught up in the angst of the moment. It accompanies the words, “I miss you.” And if it wasn’t for Ali’s conversation with his daughter as background noise, one would simply soak in the gut-wrenching pain of their separation. The juxtaposition of Ali trying his absolute best to cling to his family as Rue continues to isolate herself from her loved ones and push herself further into the abyss makes my heart physically hurt.

Ms. Marsha’s spell-binding words of wisdom about sobriety and relationships compared to Rue’s tired exhaustion imminently displayed on her face make the viewer a little wary of what comes next. Her misunderstanding of a juvenile relationship with Jules is made clear when Ali confronts her about the fact that the two of them never had a real conversation about their feelings for one another. Rue’s distrust in the idea that things will eventually work themselves out stems from the fact that she feels disappointed by how her loved ones have left her so far. She eventually spirals into this negatively destructive way of thinking. She cognitively recognizes and justifies getting left behind because she thinks and believes she deserves terrible things in life. She lists examples of past deeds to further cement her argument. But Ali counters back with the simple statement that “Drugs change who you are as a person.” Regardless of her actions, he believes she is still a genuinely good individual while she argues that she is absolutely not. My favourite part of this whole conversation and the entire episode is the manner in which Ali questions Rue’s negative cognitive patterns. Her brain and mind essentially excuse bad behaviour by convincing her that she will never be a good person. Hence she can never forgive herself, and thus, she will continue to remain in this cyclical pattern. Our actions may be inexcusable, but they do not line up with our intentions. The inevitable human struggle is not whether we are fundamentally good or bad, evil, flawed or perfect, but if we are (and again, not to quote my other favourite show, The Good Place) trying to be a better person than we previously were. If we recognize that our actions are wrong and we are capable of experiencing remorse and regret for said actions, who's to say we are entirely incapable of change. This reductive polarizing, and dismissive way of thinking is characteristic of the brains of most people living with a mental illness. Our outside influences, such as drugs, can all be contributing external factors to how we conduct ourselves through life. Ali’s short bit about redemption and human beings deeming actions unforgivable forever can easily be paralleled to direct conversations we have online about “cancel culture”. The phenomenon of dismissing and reducing someone to their mistakes instead of allowing them to grow from them is a nice sentiment. Still, if we do not truly take accountability into action and witness no real changes or remorse, we can quickly get stuck in that cycle. Even if our beliefs do not line up with our actions, drugs can eventually change that. The belief system we hold so dearly, the convictions we strongly feel, can all be washed away by the simple use of drugs, Ali explains as he tells Rue about his family background. His experiences with abuse and his eventual hypocrisy as he plays the role he always feared in his family leave the viewer speechless. As we watch him tell his tale of regret, there is no woe or sorrow in admitting he is or isn’t a fundamentally good or bad person, just the thought of his attempt to change his ways that impacts the viewer.

As the viewer waits with bated breath to see what comes out of Rue’s mouth next, it is not a surprise (to me personally). Rue has no intention of staying sober because she has no intention of staying alive much longer. Ali asks her why she feels that way. She responds with her sentiments about the cruelty of the world. Ali understands. We truly are living in dark times, witnessing truly horrific events, and the fact that we even have the capacity to care any longer is indicative of our will to stay alive. It doesn’t make much sense when you think about it, but when you are so sad, so grief-stricken by the news, by the world’s turn of events, by the mere thought of witnessing more tragedy that you cannot bear to be alive any longer, it means that you are deeply invested. Invested in the way things will turn out even if you do not personally believe you want to participate or even be privy to being complicit in a system that does nothing but churn out pain, anger, and hatred. When I was at the lowest point in my life and attempted to end my own life, I was overwhelmed by the goings-on of the world. As emotionally drained as Rue is, a part of her still cares. She wants her sister and mother to know that she really tried. Just as I wanted and still want my parents and friends to be okay without me when I do eventually leave this earth. Of course, I care about what happens to them. The idea that suicide or suicidal ideation is inherently selfish is so contradictory to the reality of how suicidal individuals genuinely feel. It is the opposite. We care more than most, and we care to the point that it hurts to extend another moment of kindness to ourselves amid all the chaos and madness of the world. But still, we try. We do our best. Ali believes in Rue. He has faith in her.

The entire episode ends on a melancholy note as Rue and Ali depart the diner with Rue wistfully staring out the window as he drives her home. Ali loves his conversations with Rue and vice-versa. The fact that two people can be sitting at a diner alone on Christmas Eve talking about the beauty and cruelty of the world and everything ranging from politics to addiction to suicide to love to family and anything in between goes to show us that humans will always find a way. The fact that two people struggling and suffering from addiction can find their own way about and amidst the chaos of the world and still have these meaningful conversations about life and existence tells us that ultimately, Trouble Don’t Last Always.

#euphoria #zendaya #sam levinson #colman domingo #rue bennett #jules vaughn #rules #hbo #recap #review #nanwrites #rue #jules #zendaya coleman

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