#and thus repressed any normal desires
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have yet to read conclave the book so i'm not sure if robert harris decribes lawrence/lomeli's childhood but how did the man's parents treat him for him to turn out this way as an adult. or was he just born this way, with infinite melancholy and a sadness in his eyes that you only see in eastern european gay porn
#i bring up his parents in particular#because christianity seems very fixated on the idea of god as their father#so like what was ur daddy not good enough lawrence#i think it'd be funny if his family was normal af#and his childhood too#like his parents did everything right#and loved him and his siblings equally#he was never bullied in school#he just chose to bear the burden of catholicism all by himself#and thus repressed any normal desires#that would have made him actually happy#aka the desire to fuck (both men and women)#but also other normal wants as well ofc#thomas lawrence#conclave#conclave (book)
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BEHOLD, MORE ENA OCS
I was rewatching the Dream BBQ announcement trailer when I noticed one of the spinning ENAs had the exact same colors as ThEna, just swapped, so I got the idea of making ENA OCs based on the other ENAs seen.
Here are my first three, the spooky siblings (based on color scheme), Enette, Enalise, and RegEna (left to right). I created GEna to complete the trifecta lol
Individuals + their "serial numbers"
Extra Info:
This group of sibs work with the ENA seen in Dream BBQ, under Froggy. They're pretty much the closest things she has to friends in her workplace, and they enjoy her company (GEna doesn't show it much tho)
Enatte (ENA-8532-01):
Orange - Efficient; the oldest ENA of any batch is expected to excel and be an example for their sibs, but this was driven into 01 more, as her batch was the first completely functional trio of ENAs that were created for a while. Unlike her sisters, 01 fully enjoys her job, even respecting Froggy a great amount. Her voice headcannon is Ben Balmaceda (specifically Kaveh from Genshin Impact, mostly just Ben himself).
Saffron - Mischievous; after years of conditioning to be a golden example for all Worker ENAs, her desires to be free and do what she enjoys culminated in her troublemaker side, which 01 does a good job repressing until she's off from work. The most important thing her siblings know about this side is that she usually goes along with what shenanigans they do. Her voice headcannon is Brianna Knickerbocker (specifically Hu Tao from Genshin Impact).
RegEna [GEna] (ENA-8532-02)
Purple - Haughty; she loves her older sister, she really does. But 02 hates how seriously she expects them to take this stupid job. Before they matured, 02 was known for her mean streak, often taking out her frustrations of the world on younger ENAs that were unfortunate to come her way. It wasn't until she accidentally hurt her younger sister that she started calming down. Now, she just a normal asshole. Her voice headcannon is Ryan Sean O’Donohue (specifically Demyx from Kingdom Hearts).
Orange - Guilty; when the sibs were assigned to work under Froggy, 02's siblings noticed that her other side became more downcast and self-deprecating, bursting into tears and continually apologizing for how she acts when her dominant side is in control, especially to 03. The youngest ENA in question does not know how to feel about this. Her voice headcannon is Erica Mendez (specifically White Lily Cookie from Cookie Run: Kingdom).
Enalise [Lisa] (ENA-8532-03)
Saffron - Thoughtful; unlike her older sisters, who either love or detest their job, 03 usually doesn't pay any mind to it, and does an average job. She actually is drawn to the oddness of the world around her, what secrets they hold, why things work like they do. She can't help but feel envious of Scholar ENAs since they have the access and knowledge 03 so desperately wants. Her voice headcannon is Khoi Dao (specifically Albedo from Genshin Impact).
Purple - Judgemental; experiencing 02's behavior before their full maturity shaped 03's annoyance into a need to reprimand everything she does and to communicate what 02's problem is in her own way, thus her snappy, but kind of well-meaning side. 03 is less shameful of this side than others think she should be, as the youngest ENA believes that "she was made the way she was, and she's going to let what emotions slip through happen." Her voice headcannon is Brittney Karbowski (specifically Mio from Ghost Stories Dub).
Next is Enaline, based on the ENA in the second picture on the right!
Alt. Outfit + her old Worker look
Extra Info:
Created as a Worker ENA, Enaline would become a Runaway after her other sibs went "missing under mysterious circumstances" and she "saw something she shouldn't have", as she puts it. Not much is known about her past other than this, as she soon becomes unresponsive after giving up too much information. She's mostly seen hanging out in the Karaoke Bar AthEna (ThEna) works at, and is very social, depending on which side is dominant.
Enaline (ENA-7450-03)
Sky Blue - Carefree; after experiencing The Horrors™, Enaline decides that she won't let her past and regrets tie her down, so she up and leaves the Sector she grew up in and ended up settling in the area overseen by The Clown. She is very jovial in this state, being more of an 'act first think about the consequences later' kind of ENA. Her voice headcannon is Kieran Regan (specifically Shikanoin Heizou from Genshin Impact).
Salmon - Existential; despite her attempts, Enaline can never fully leave behind the cause of her upturned life, and when she thinks about that, she becomes unpleasant (at least that's what she thinks). The former Worker feels a constant dread tugging at her in this state, something she can't remedy no matter what she does. All Enaline can do is not think about all of that while she's Carefree, and everything will be fine! Her voice headcannon is Monica Rial (specifically Momoko Koigakubo from Ghost Stories Dub).
@anniewuubelike 👀👀👀
#im finished help#ena joel g#dream bbq#ena ocs#ENA-8532-01#Enatte#ENA-8532-02#Enalise#ENA-8532-03#RegEna#ENA-7450-03#Enaline#ENA-8559-02#AthEna#ThEna#please read this it took me 2 days to type#tbh I was making the lore up as I go so sorry if it's cringe#it'll 104% be wrong by the time dream bbq comes out but let me have this#art#i have another ena oc that has a concept im really excited to make#hopefully I don't forget about her lol#I originally made these 4 for the laughs but now im attached to them damn#trivia! many workplaces have a strict hair code for ENAs#and enatte is really pushing it with her weird hair things lol#enatte the worker#regena the worker#enaline the worker#athena the worker
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Jekyll is repression while Utterson is restraint I think
And I'm dad, how are you?
While we all would love for Utterson to treat himself, his frugal way of life is respectable. He doesn't indulge himself in decadent things, but it isn't so bad that he denies himself any pleasure whatsoever. He just limits himself to smaller, more mundane pleasures.
I think that Jekyll saw Utterson as an ideal when they were children. Utterson was well-behaved and thus well-liked, while Jekyll was unruly and could never stop getting himself and others into trouble. Perhaps, he'd be asked why he couldn't be more like Utterson. So, he tried to be. But in order to imitate Utterson, he felt the best he could do was mask his true self (which Utterson notes he wasn't as good at as he believed) because he couldn't actually comprehend Utterson's approach to things. To him, it could only be one of two options: either Utterson was just like him but better at hiding it, or Utterson was completely unburdened by any baser desires and Jekyll was simply born wrong. He put his friend in a box and tried to no avail to shove himself in the same box. He wanted to be pleasant and normal.
But while Utterson is content to save his fine vintage only for when he has company, Jekyll is not so easily satisfied. He set out to find a way to express his unwanted desires with no burden of consequence. Perhaps then, he could isolate the wrongness within him. Maybe even fully get rid of it.
However, all this was for naught because Utterson's restraint was never him denying himself enjoyment but merely directing his attention elsewhere. He spent his time devoted to ensuring the well-being of his friends and found happiness in their company. Jekyll was always consumed with the goal of fixing something about himself, of eliminating his guilt so he could live a life unshackled by societal expectations but still get the praise and adoration he has always craved.
He destroyed his friendship with Lanyon over it. Then Lanyon. Then himself. And finally, the carefully curated image of himself he tried to convince Utterson of, unknowing that Utterson had always admired him for the person he actually was.
#this was gonna be me saying 'indeed' and leaving it at that but whoops#update#people ask me things#the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde#henry jekyll#gabriel utterson#how did you know... i have been thinking about them...
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The Horror Genre: An Invitation to Explore Personal Repressed Trauma
Professor Due sparked my first interest in understanding horror during our first lecture when she revealed, “Many people, including my mother, tend to enjoy horror as a way to process their own personal life trauma.” In other words, when real life horror has stepped foot on real life doorsteps, many find comfort in turning their heads away from internal processing and instead towards the television world of horror movies. Horror movies may frighten some, but invite others into their own world of repressed emotions through an outside lens.
As a Sociology major and a 21 year old who has survived my own life of trauma, our studies and analysis of the horror genre thus far have already begun to spark a revelation of the connection between the hard to access emotions that come with trauma and the hard not to feel emotions that come with horror movies. Movies that conjure fear, anxiety, pure frustration, feelings of misunderstanding, in other words emotions that may be uncomfortable to some but may be eerily familiar to others in a normalized manner.
The movie Get Out, for example, I believe is a great example of the connection between horror and repressed emotions stemming from traumatic experiences. In particular to the black experience, as trauma in America occurs within black lives at an exponentially larger rate than many races as a result from our history as black Americans in the USA, Get Out reveals the use of the horror genre for consumers in understanding our own repressed/unvalidated emotions,
but also the reality of how repressed emotions can manipulate your present experiences. Furthermore I think this movie dives deeply into the specific American tendency of forcing black Americans into traumatized lifestyles and using their repressed emotions that develop from childhood, as a way to control, victimize, and villianise older black Americans once older and still trapped in a system of trauma.
To further explore this analysis of the movie, I’ll dive into the Sunken Place scene for instance where in order for the character Chris, actor Daniel Kaluuya, to be sunken into a place of hypnosis and paralysation, he was first walked through a traumatic memory of his mother’s death as a child where the emotion of guilt, sadness, blame, and confusion both physically and mentally paralyzed him. As a black child in America where trauma is often normalized in our childhood, I think it is fair to say that this memory was only able to trigger a hypnosis in Chris at an adult age because of the repressed emotions it conjured and that were never processed.
In this specific scene, and the movie overall, I believe it reveals a way in which America manipulates the exposure of trauma to black youth and the consequential repressed emotions in the process of successfully trading, using, and enslaving black bodies while our minds are still stuck in any form of paralyzation from unprocessed trauma. It is essentially a step by step process of traumatic exposure leading to trauma wounds and repressed emotions, to then a result of an emotional processing delay in black minds that hinder the ability to move, think, and fight back freely. As seen in the movie Get Out, in other horror movies, and in real life, when our emotions are on backlog from being processed and understood, we typically stay stuck in a state of survival, fight back, or freeze… leaving our bodies and minds capable of manipulation by a system that is eager to enslave it for its own use.
Our first step into horror has already begun to start up the gears in my mind in wanting to better understand the tie between horror and emotions. It gets me excited to understand and see more of historical black horror, but also sparks an interest in me to create my own film eventually. I am eager to continue to learn the power of black horror in the way it can express our desire for freedom, emotional equality even, and a better understanding of ourselves as a collective still healing from a history of trauma.
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This is actually a wonderful illustration of dukkha, or the causes of suffering according to Buddhism.
Left to their own devices, our minds reflexively and incessantly vacillate between the poles of attraction-and-repulsion. It’s a habitual, runaway, psychophysical side-effect of the bad marriage between our primitive survival reflexes and our more recent acquisition of symbol-and-language making brain structures. Basically, we either desire some aspect of our present experience, or we want to get away from it. It’s not so much the physiological fight-or-flight mechanism as a subconscious psychological possess-or-reject mechanism. And it’s constant, flickering at every instance of attention. The whole fucking mess is utterly exhausting. Our modern hyped-up nervous systems constantly struggle, and often fail, to keep up.
Spirituality approaches this situation in many different ways. For example, concentrative practices quiet the noise—temporarily—by forcefully diverting mental energy away from its usual flighty paths and patterns onto a select, singular subject/object, which causes the (usually frantic but now de-energized) activity of “verbally thinking” to quiet and even silence completely. These techniques include direct concentration but also repetitive forms such as mantra (repetitive sound), chanting (ditto), rosary (tactile diversion), mudra (repetitive hand gestures), dance, drumming, etc. They all work, essentially, by manipulating the mechanism of attention.
Another approach to disassembling these reflexive patterns of desire/rejection involves mindfulness practices, in which the mind is “turned inward,” that is, introspectively directed towards its own processes—as opposed to its usual internal fare of its own content. In other words, instead of (habitually) focusing on the story the thoughts weave, attention is directed at the manner in which these thoughts (as both concepts and energetic patterns) arise and transform and dissipate. This systematic approach—which needs at least some basis in concentration in order to maintain a stability of attention towards the processes—serves to give a clear, precise picture of how the mind—our own mind—actually functions, and how these functions determine our behaviors, our reactions and relationships and responses.
Typically, both of these approaches—concentration and insight—are thought to be essential for any effective “spiritual” strategy. The problem at this stage, however, is that although the dual application of concentration-and-insight does yield an enormous amount of positive value and results within the mind and life of the practitioner, they are insufficient in and of themselves for any genuine (capital-L) Liberation. What’s needed at this point is usually referred to as Emptiness training, or Special Insight practices.
That is, although they are very much worthwhile and rewarding in themselves, these two prongs don’t go deep enough—literally, meaning they do not penetrate to the more deep-seated and enduring parts (or roots) of the psyche responsible for the root cause of the attraction/repulsion gesture that leads to suffering: namely the ego, the organic-and-energetic, historically-constructed and reflexively-regenerating conceptual sense of self. Not just our idea of “me” but the deeper elements, the non-verbal parts, the repressed childhood emotions, the buried somatic-memories of trauma, and even the “normal” psychological structures and feedback mechanisms that contribute to the feeling of being bodily (and not just mentally) present. The very act of directly seeing/understanding how the usual, ridged, limited and limiting sense of self is constructed moment-to-moment is sufficient to break it down, to deconstruct it, to see through its reflexive and unconscious pressures, its seeming solidity, and thus to become increasingly freer from all that madness.
Note that this ego, this “empty self” is represented in the above cartoon by the word “me.”
In other words, it’s not enough to simply stop the arm of the metronome from moving—it will simply start up again when the force stopping it is removed. Nor is it enough to just understand the mechanisms by which the metronome operates—although such knowledge does result in a substantial slowdown of the pendulum’s chronic activity. No, what is ultimately necessary—and what both concentration and mindfulness assist in—is a genuine appreciation of how this ego is chronically reconstructed, and by inference and direct apprehension, how unreal—or empty—it actually is. It’s pure experience, and only that; we simply reify it, imagine it to be a “thing,” and give it a solidity and importance it doesn’t deserve. The Real is what remains when all that noise is undone. Freedom is living from that perspective.
In still other words: see the emptiness, the mind-constructed actuality of (the false or psychological) “me,” and the whole damn thing falls apart. Take away the metronome and the maddening activity of the pendulation simply ceases. What remains is spacious Freedom.
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the question of will’s sexuality
(since will’s canon sexuality is ambiguous I’m gonna stress this is my personal opinion)
the fact that heterosexual relationships represent safety for will, while his relationship with hannibal represents danger and indulgence, suggests to me that will is in fact gay coded. as someone who has experienced compulsory heterosexuality (as a lesbian) I personally see will’s sexuality through this lens. like. will’s character centres around trying to repress “the urges he has kept down for so long”… that feels queer to me. he attempts to be what he perceives as normal, and blending into heteronormative society is part of that
almost immediately hannibal picks up on will’s paternal feelings for abigail and says “we’re her fathers now”. he frames them as a family, but they are the opposite of conventional society’s ideal of family. not just because the three of them are violent and dysfunctional, but also because they’re a queer family. after hannibal surrenders, will replaces this family with a safer one that he perceives as good for him. and what do you know, in this family the father and daughter are replaced by mother and son. a lot of hannibal’s dialogue in the red dragon arc calls this out. “I gave you a family, if you recall.” “you can go home now, if there’s any point. is there any point?” in fact the entire red dragon arc is about francis destroying “perfect” families, families just like will’s, and they’re all heterosexual. thus will leaving his family so readily for hannibal implies he has finally accepted his own sexuality, and leaving behind his ready made family is part of that.
in season 1 will kisses alana. hannibal calls it a “clutch for balance”, and personally I agree. what’s clear to me in season 1 is that alana is the only person who has will’s best intentions at heart, and will grasps onto her because of that. she brings him a sense of normality - he kisses her in his house after she makes him feel sane again. the fact that his feelings for her are so radically transformed in season 2 makes me feel like he was using her as a clutch. and by the time she begins her relationship with hannibal, he’s jealous of her, not of hannibal. it appears that the more he accepts his true nature, the less he sees her sexually or romantically
another instance that will engages with women sexually is margot. now margot is a lesbian and is using will for her own benefit, correct? but I also think that will is using her. before they have sex it’s established that will links her with hannibal heavily in his mind because of the fact she’s having therapy with him. when they actually do the act he imagines the wendigo there with them. the alana/hannibal sex scene is paralleled directly with the margot/will one for a reason - by having sex with margot, will is allowing himself to indirectly engage sexually with hannibal, the same way hannibal is using alana to get closer to/provoke will. to me, the hannibal/will dynamic feels more intimate and even a little softer after this episode, as if some pent up frustration has been released
the next example is chiyoh, who pushes will further towards sexual acceptance. before she kisses him she says there are means of influence other than violence (but violence is all you understand). by kissing him, chiyoh is implying that will’s relationship with hannibal could have a sexual element, but she also states that will doesn’t quite understand that yet and has instead expressed his suppressed urges through violence
and that’s the thing: for a long time will doesn’t even know he’s repressing his desires. that’s why he has to ask bedelia if hannibal is in love with him, because the concept of their relationship being romantic or sexual has been buried in his subconscious (or perhaps just blatantly ignored). she asks will, but do you ache for him?, as if this is the more important question. because it is. hannibal came to terms with his feelings for will three years ago when he said “we cannot control with respect to whom we fall in love.” it took will a lot longer… just as it took him a lot longer to succumb to his violent urges. I mean their relationship is canonically romantic like. will is bluebeard’s wife. it just took a while for him to accept it, not just because of the moral repercussions but because it’s a queer relationship.
and I’m sure one of the writers (probably fuller?) alluded to the finale scene as a “consummation”. will killing with hannibal is a moral sacrifice, but It is also a moment of self acceptance. and in the aftermath, bloodied and breathing heavily, will embraces hannibal - the consummation is sexual too. will has by now fully accepted that he and hannibal are in love with each other. while there are many ways to interpret this moment, to me it feels like will’s liberation from conventional and moral society also includes heterosexuality. will says “I don’t think I can save myself”: he knows he can no longer hide under the safer and more accepted persona of straight.
#mine#hannibal#will graham#nbc hannibal#hannibal meta#otp: love is a god#murder husbands#I feel like I didn’t word this very well but anyways here’s my thoughts#meta#gia hall of fame
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spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 4
part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons
part 2: “Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id
part 3: “Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic
*
“But I can’t fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.”: Buffy and Spike as a blended self
Before I get into seasons six and seven, it’s worth asking: why would the show do all of this? Why would it spend all of this time developing a supporting villain and joke id character? Why would it give him a romantic arc? I see people say that the writers only gave Spike these storylines because he was popular or they wanted to keep him around, but even that being the case, there was no need to give him the specific arc that they did. It’s more than possible to read meaning into the story that they chose from the array of possible options.
Here is the thing about the id. It’s not actually something separate from you. It’s not a ravenous monster you can blame your weaknesses on while remaining pure and dignified. The id is part of you. The immediate and enduring appeal of Spike is, I suspect, strongly influenced by the fact that the things the id wants are so very human and sympathetic. His foibles and mistakes are often painfully familiar, even exaggerated through vampirism as they are. In fact, it’s precisely because Spike is allowed to show a full range of reactions to love, because the writing is under less pressure for him to do the “right” or dignified thing, that he can at times be compelling in ways other characters can’t. If Spike just did nasty things, his appeal wouldn’t be much more complicated than the appeal of Angelus, who people tend to like as a villain or storyline rather than as a relatable character. But Spike doesn’t want to dismember nuns or construct elaborate murder tableaux. He wants familiar things like love, identity and meaning, even if the ways he goes about getting them can reflect people’s worst impulses.
Which brings us to Buffy, and Buffy’s story about growing up. Buffy is Buffy’s show, which means that every writing choice tends to revolve around her arc in one way or another. And this goes for Spike’s storyline even more than most. In the final three seasons of the show, the writing finally engages with how inextricable the id--and all of its impulsive, inarticulate romantic desires--really is from a person’s self. So instead of keeping Spike at a comfortable distance, both Buffy and the writing begin to take him seriously. They begin to invite him in.
Starting in season five, it’s telling how frequently Buffy herself projects on Spike, rather than just the writing setting them up as mirrors. She tells him that he’s the “only one strong enough” to protect her family, and later assigns Dawn specifically to his protection. In “Spiral” she describes him as “the only one besides me that has any chance of protecting Dawn.” This is a very intimate role that she otherwise only assigns to herself (and which is not really based on pure practicality, considering that she’ll later describe Willow as her “big gun”--yet never gives Willow the task of protecting Dawn). She tells him that he cannot love, which is the thing she fears most about herself. Her protests that Spike is a vampire, and thus cannot express or want human things like love, mirror her lamentations that as the Slayer, she cannot have a normal life.
From the Gilliland Gothic double essay:
More than any of her other lovers, Buffy and Spike overlap one another so often that at times their character arcs become nearly indistinguishable. With Angel, Buffy traveled a parallel path in attempting to master self-control. With Riley, her journey ultimately took her in the opposite direction. With Spike, Buffy’s journey is most closely shadowed, in that her interactions with him in many ways can be seen as metaphors for her feelings about herself.
So now Spike is multiple things. On the one hand, he’s the soulless id he’s been since season two. His vampiric behavior represents a morally uninhibited way of reacting to romantic frustrations, among other things. But on the other hand, his vampirism now also marks him as like Buffy, not merely her opposite.* Nor is he only her mirror in the realm of romantic love. The part of him that is a vampire is the part of him that is supernatural (ie, Romantically larger-than-life), that sets him apart from regular people, and dictates how he can and cannot behave. Just like Buffy’s slayerness. His vampirism is what makes him capable of protecting Dawn, while also making him (supposedly, according to Buffy) incapable of human feeling--again, just like Buffy’s slayerness. Instead of Buffy’s Slayer side being aligned with Angelus, who was an unmitigated evil, it becomes aligned with Spike, who is something more complicated.
*(Though it must be noted that this was a process that began in season four, with the show aligning Spike with the Scoobies by making him a victim of the Initiative. Spike being supernatural suddenly marks him as non-normative, just like the Scoobies, in contrast to the institutional conformity that the Initiative represents. The evolution towards treating the Romantic supernatural as something positive and associated with identity plays a key role in transitioning the show to the more complicated attitudes of the last three seasons.)
This shift in the show’s attitudes towards the id affects how Spike is used. In “Blood Ties” for example, Spike assists Dawn in breaking into the Magic Shop and in “Forever” he helps Dawn resurrect her and Buffy’s mother. In both cases, Spike could be read as embodying impulsive behavior that Buffy is supposed to be better than. Yet both cases specifically involve Spike helping Dawn, who is repeatedly portrayed as Buffy’s human side. As Buffy says in “The Gift”: “[Dawn]’s more than [my sister]. She’s me. The monks made her out of me. [...] Dawn is a part of me. The only part that I--”. In other words, Buffy’s id becomes closely tied to her humanity, even going so far as to become its safeguard. “Blood Ties” ends with Buffy affirming her connection to Dawn, which Spike’s rule-breaking directly enabled, and “Forever” ends with Buffy acknowledging how desperately she wants her mother back too, and becoming closer to Dawn as a result. (Compare to “Lovers Walk”, where Buffy acknowledging her id results in her breaking away from Angel, not drawing closer to anyone). Or in “Intervention”, Spike building the Buffybot directly parallels Buffy’s own anxieties about what she thinks she should be. She thinks she’s losing her ability to love, and that effusive fakery is her only recourse (as she said in “I Was Made to Love You”: “Maybe I could change. [...] I could spend less time slaying, I could laugh at his jokes. I mean men like that right? The joke laughing at?”), a fear that even has some merit, given that her friends cannot tell her and the bot apart. Instead of Buffy and Spike having separate arcs in the episode, Spike learning the difference between real and fake dovetails with Buffy’s own relationship to her realness and fakeness. It turns out that neither of them want a bot version of Buffy. They want real emotion, things like sacrifice and heartfelt gratitude. If even Buffy’s id would let itself be killed for Dawn, then maybe she has nothing to fear from herself. Maybe there is some beauty in the emotional part of her nature that she thinks she must repress.
In other words, part of the writing (and Buffy) fully engaging with romanticism and the id, means engaging with the ways they can be bad and good. There’s this weird thing that happens with Spike as soon as he falls in love with Buffy, where suddenly his actions are more uncomfortable, and to many, off-putting, because their object is Buffy (instead of another vampire like Harmony or Drusilla, who either enjoy the same vampiric things he does, or the audience might be inclined to see as a moral nonentity regardless). His comic id quality becomes somewhat darker and more serious, almost like the way Angel’s early season two darkness becomes more serious after he loses his soul. But at the same time, Spike’s actions are also more intriguing, sympathetic, and even noble...because their object is Buffy. It makes no sense that a soulless vampire should not only fall in love with the Slayer, but genuinely attempt to transform himself into someone worthy of her love. And yet that’s exactly what Buffy inspires him to do. By loving Buffy Spike’s dual nature, and the dual nature of his romanticism, is thrown into relief: it’s something that can be selfish and creepy, yes, but also something that hints at the idea that real romanticism does exist. Something worth feeling romantically about does exist. Thus the writing can at once criticize, say, the way the chivalric mindset conflates love and suffering, while also suggesting that there are kinds of love it’s worth being transformed by. (Meanwhile, Spike’s fumbling bewilderment over how to love Buffy, and what the rules of loving people correctly even are, creates a human middle ground between monstrousness and heroism). By leaning into the way that Buffy and Spike have been used as mirrors for three seasons, and introducing the mythology-bending idea of Spike being in love with Buffy, the writing is able to fully engage with this complicated, contradictory nature of love and romance.
All of which is to say. Spike becomes a potential love interest, and is given a convoluted inner conflict between monstrousness, humanity and heroism, in precisely the season in which Buffy begins to reckon with her own inner conflict between her darker impulses, her human reality, and her supernatural role. It’s no coincidence that season five opens with Dracula, an icon of romantic vampire mythology, tempting Buffy with darkness and promising her insight into her nature. Or that a vampire kidnaps Dawn--again, her human half--in the next episode. Or that the season’s antagonist is a super-strong blonde woman who wants to destroy Dawn instead of protect her. Or that she says goodbye to Riley, the boyfriend who embodied her hopes for a more normative way of being (notice how Riley is progressively destabilized by everything non-normative about Buffy’s life, and provokes those anxieties Buffy expresses in “I Was Made to Love You”). Over and over in season five, Buffy fears that her Slayer half is cold, destructive, and otherwise dangerous. That these Romantic things like gods and vampires have it in for Buffy’s vulnerable humanity. Yet Buffy’s vampire id simultaneously gives lie to these fears by proving itself capable of heroism and genuine human feeling.
In other words, Spike becomes a potential love interest in a season that treats the Romantic--ie the grand and mythical--as something more than just an attractive lie to be disabused of. Rather, the question that season five seems to posit to me, and which will not be fully answered until the end of season seven, is this: once you do clear away the attractive lies, once you accept the hard realities, once you’ve seen the darkest underbellies, what are the things that are left that are truly grand and beautiful? What are the stories that are really worth telling, and the heroes that are really worth having?
And the show asks and answers these questions on both a very personal level, and a more meta, systemic level. On the personal level, Buffy and Spike are forced to confront their illusions not just about the world, but about themselves. They are made to ask themselves what constitutes a heroic role or a demonic weakness, versus basic, unromantic humanity. And on the meta level, the show asks questions about our expectations for how both love stories and chosen hero stories are supposed to go.
part 5: “Everything used to be so clear”: Season six and the agony of the real
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9 P.M. - Alive!Luke Patterson x Reader Modern Day!AU
JATP masterlist
Warnings: swearing, mentions of suicide, painful breakup, and angst.
Words: 1991
Summary: Luke breaking up with you made your world stop turning, and when it finally starts moving again after four long months, Luke is back in typical agitator fashion.
A/N: Not requested, and I wrote this in about two hours so bear that in mind. I’ve been toying with an angst idea for a little bit now, and because all of my requests rn are fluff, I decided why not give Luke a little love since it’s been a minute since my last Luke fic. This isn’t proofread so proceed with caution.
“What are you doing here, Luke?” Dana’s voice cuts clear over the mindless chatter in the busy diner. She tucks a stack of menus under her arm to brush a loose strand of sandy blonde hair out of her face.
“I’m here to talk to Y/n. She isn’t returning my calls and she only has her phone on silent when she’s working.”
A solid four months ago, Luke Patterson had broken Y/n Y/l/n’s heart into a couple billion pieces in this very diner. After Luke requested to meet up as soon as possible, Y/n told him she’d be clocking out for the night around 9 PM, and true to his previous request Luke had arrived at 9 on the dot. He considered taking her to his car for more privacy but in fear of forgetting his long, crafted speech, he opted for a secluded booth in the very back corner of her diner.
He still remembers the evening, clear as day. They sat down across from one another on the red vinyl seats with nervous tension exponentially rising between them. He remembers the way she ruffled her loose hair after having it pulled back for an 8-hour shift. He remembers the way she rested her right ankle on her left knee to massage away the calf pain from 8 hours of waiting tables. And he remembers the way her warm smile disappeared after he uttered the words “I think we should break up.”
Y/n was so shocked she couldn’t respond. Everything seemed to be going well between them. They had said their first ‘I love you’s and she had even opened up to the possibility of giving him her virginity. And here he was, a mere week later, claiming that he had fallen out of love with her over the span of a month.
Tears clouded her vision. She was quick to wipe them away before they fell, something Luke noticed that she only did when she was crying out of anger. With her normal sadness or even stress she just lets her emotions run their course. But the anger swelling inside of her at that moment, she so desperately wanted to hide. As a result, she brushed them away. She bit her tongue. She saved face, not wanting to let Luke know just how much he had hurt her.
Luke expected a full-on interrogation. He knew Y/n’s mind was one of insatiable curiosity and she had to have at least a million questions. However, if she did, she didn’t show it. The only question she asked, “Is this really what you want?” Her voice was steady, but Luke knew how badly she wanted to tear him apart, to ravage him right then and there. But after losing such a huge part of herself, Luke, she held onto her dignity so tight it nearly crumbled into dust and blew out of her clenched fingers. Without asking for any more information, she slipped out of the booth and hurried to her car as fast as her walk could take her.
At the time, Luke felt guilty for making her cry. Now he feels guilty for ever having let her believe she wasn’t good enough for him. The only problem is she wouldn’t give him the chance. And her best friend, Dana, didn’t seem like she would give him one either.
“Well, she’s not here. Have you ever considered she’s not returning your calls when she’s off of work, too?”
“Dana, I need to talk to her-”
“What could you possibly have left to say, Luke? Whatever you said to her that night broke her, it absolutely destroyed her. She hasn’t been the same since.” Luke had no trouble believing that was true, which is why it hurt so bad to hear, granted it didn’t hurt as bad as how Y/n felt that night.
“What? No- I-I really need to talk to her.”
“You really don’t.”
“I have to get her back, Dana!” A tornado of shock and anger consumes Dana to the point where all she can do is let out a bitter laugh. The look in Luke’s eyes indicates how hurt he is by her laughter, and Dana’s desire for vengeance has never been so strong. So, she continues to tell the truth. The ferocious, unabridged, hurtful truth,
“You don’t deserve a second chance. You don’t even deserve an attempt at a second chance. Knowing her, Y/n would never tell you this, but I will: you fucked up so bad, you made her almost make the biggest mistake of her life.”
“What?” Luke almost hesitates to ask, knowing he won’t like the answer.
“That night, she came to my place and cried so hard for three hours before she could even get a coherent word out. She stayed with me for three days and, had my shift not ended early that Tuesday, she wouldn’t be alive today.” The dumbstruck look on Luke’s face is only more motivation for Dana to twist the knife, “She almost didn’t survive losing you, Luke. And god forbid she gives you a second chance because she won’t survive losing you again.”
The diner is just crowded enough that no one is paying the two of them any mind as they faceoff by the hostess stand. Dana spent four long months consoling her best friend back to life, and she was not about to let Luke destroy all the hard work Y/n had put into healing.
“I can make this right.”
“How could you possibly make this right?”
“I know more now than I did before. I’ve changed!”
“So has she.” Dana’s biting words render Luke speechless. Once she realizes her work here is done, she continues setting up tables as they’re disinfected.
__________________________
Luke’s conversation with Dana in the diner left him shellshocked, but it also lit a fire under his ass that he needed to move forward. Rather than discouraging him, Dana’s words gave him a greater incentive to win her back: proof that he was willing to do what he said he would. At least, that’s what Luke told himself. Rather than stepping into the future with greater clarity, Luke went into the world with confidence so large and blinding, his actions may sabotage his true intentions.
That’s how he found himself so determined to win Y/n back. And that’s how he found himself face to face with the front door of her home. It’s 9 PM, just early enough to where she’d be home for the day, just early enough to where she wouldn’t be asleep, and hauntingly just the exact time he had broken her heart all those months ago. Before giving his conviction a chance to back out, he was raising a steady hand to ring the doorbell of her residence.
Y/n opened the door without much thought, expecting a food delivery; she was drastically off-put by Luke’s presence at her doorstep this late.
“Oh.” Was the only response manageable for the tired waitress.
“Hi. Can we talk?”
There it was. The phrase that was a paradoxical toss-up regarding her emotional state. Half of her has been waiting for this day for so long, dreaming of the boyfriend she once knew to come genuinely heartbroken and remorseful to win her back. The other half was terrified of this impending day as she realized she wasn’t nearly as emotionally strong enough to handle the situation as she thought.
‘Oh’ was the only response manageable for the tired waitress.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please just give me five minutes and if you never want to hear from me for the rest of your life, I’ll never bother you again,” he rushes out, knowing his time is finite. For what short period of time he thought it over, Luke always imagined pouring his heart out on her front doorstep. That’s why her silent sidestep and opening of the door caught him so off guard. He hadn’t anticipated her to actually give him a decent chance. Why would she? He broke up with her in the very diner she works in full time and crushed her heart so completely, the only things left behind had to be contempt and resentment.
Luke crossed the threshold of her small, cramped LA home with his heart on his sleeve. Reluctantly closing the door behind him, Y/n walks to her living room and sits on the couch amidst a mess of popcorn, her favorite chocolates, used tissues, and a bottle of Advil. The night Luke broke up with Y/n was four months ago and she’s still spending her Friday nights alone crying on her couch with a rom-com on the tv. A sharp pang of guilt cuts through Luke’s chest like a machete and his previous confidence completely dissipates into sadness. Though, he can’t tell if it’s actually remorse or just general pity.
“What did you want to talk about?” Y/n asks as if she doesn’t know what conversation they’re about to have. Luke takes a deep breath to prepare himself as best as he can before explaining what’s been on his mind.
“I am so sorry, Y/n.” His hopes for any sort of reaction are crushed once her blank stare doesn’t waver. In spite of everything that’s happened thus far, this is the moment Luke realizes this would be a lot more difficult than he anticipated. “That night, you asked if taking a break from… us was what I really wanted.”
“I remember.”
“I said yes and you left right after that. I know you’ve blocked my socials, but you haven’t blocked my calls, you just don’t answer. I’m sure you’ve got to be interested in why, you’re a very curious person.”
Luke wasn’t wrong there, Y/n had been wondering why. She had been wondering why since the words left his mouth that night, but she repressed that curiosity. She repressed it because she knew that whatever the answer was, it didn’t make any difference. Luke wasn’t hers to have anymore and that was what really mattered.
“I did it because I thought I was falling out of love with you.”
“You thought?”
“I wasn’t actually falling out of love with you.”
“You weren’t?”
“No.”
“Then why’d you break it off?”
“I thought I was falling out of love with you but really my attraction was just changing. Instead of just spontaneous and passionate and exciting, I began to see our relationship as comforting and secure as well as those other things. I thought my comfortability was falling out of love, but really, I was falling in love. I was no longer just super infatuated with you, I was in love with you. Genuine love.”
“Luke…” Y/n trails off. She has no real idea of what it is she’s thinking so she opts to let Luke continue until she can figure it out.
“I love you, Y/n. And I broke things off because, before you, I didn’t understand love. Hell, with you I didn’t understand it was love, but now I do! I love you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“So, what does this all mean?” Luke draws in a nervous breath, identical to the one he used to soothe his nerves as he stepped into the all-too-familiar house.
“I know I don’t deserve it because of what I put you through… but all I’m asking is for a chance to prove that I really do love you.” The looking shimmering across Y/n’s eyes tells Luke how her thoughts are running wild. She’s experiencing a new train of thought at a mile a minute and it terrifies both of them.
“You hurt me, Luke. And I want to hate you so much for everything that you put me through, but I don’t, and I hate myself for that. But, I’m sorry. I can’t give you a second chance.”
***
Taglist: @caitsymichelle13 @kaitlyn2907 @itz-jas @crybabyddl @kcd15 @kinda-really-lost @calamitykaty @morganayennefertyrell @n0wornever @dream-a-little-bigger-x @mrstodorooki @vicesvsvirturesfanfic @curlybrownhairedboys @amazinggracy @kaitieskidmore1 @asdfghjkl-fanfics @ghostlygreenbean @juliefromaustralia @merceret @jemimah-b99 @ifilwtmfc @thesweetestsinner @imsydneywalker @lovesanimals @thebloodthirstyvampress @bumbleberry-pie @losers-club6 @tefilovesreading @dmcfarland1@joynerxmercer @kexrtiz @talk-on-the-street @phantompogues @konciousdreamer @sunsetcurvej @warmnesss0ul
#Julie and the phantoms#Julie and the phantoms fanfiction#Julie and the phantoms fanfic#Julie and the phantoms fic#Julie and the phantoms writing#Julie and the phantoms imagine#Julie and the phantoms oneshot#Julie and the phantoms one shot#Julie and the phantoms smut#Julie and the phantoms angst#Julie and the phantoms fluff#Julie and the phantoms x reader#Julie and the phantoms x y/n#Jatp#Luke Patterson#Luke Patterson fanfiction#Luke Patterson fanfic#Luke Patterson fic#Luke Patterson writing#Luke Patterson imagine#Luke Patterson oneshot#Luke Patterson one shot#Luke Patterson smut#Luke Patterson fluff#Luke Patterson angst#Luke Patterson x reader#luke patterson x y/n
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so a lot of people have been asking “in the coconut anakin au, is there anyone there with obi-wan?” which, first of all, is a very good question and I’m proud of all of you for asking it, and second of all, is complicated.
For you see, the goal of the coconut anakin au is thus: Get Obi-Wan to lose his shit as quickly as possible. This is accomplished by doing the worst thing in the world for him— making him be alone with his thoughts, and taking away all of his coping mechanisms. This is the reason there can’t be anyone there with him initially; if there’s someone there with him, he has someone to bicker with, and therefore a way to distract himself from the terrible monster of everything he’s repressed over the course of his very sad and very stupid life (which is quite a lot). We, dear fellow coconut anakin au enthusiasts, do not want this. We want to see Obi-Wan’s beautiful little funny mind break under the stress, and attempt to put itself back together via coconut anakin construction.
That isn’t to say, however, that he has to be alone for the entirety of his stay at hôtel de tropical mental breakdown. That would be too easy. That would be letting him off the hook. No, I think you are all correct, and we have to have someone greet him after week five of arguing with himself in a vague approximation of Anakin’s voice born out of the desperate desire to be literally anywhere but where he is.
Now, there are many possibilities for who shows up. Some have suggested clones. Some have suggested Ventress. Some have suggested Yoda.
But I think we all know what needs to happen. I think we all know who needs to show up. I think we know what this has all been leading towards.
Coconut Anakin’s namesake arrives just as Obi-Wan is tucking Coconut Anakin in for the night, redoing his little coconut-hair padawan braid, tenderly washing the sand off his precious coconut face, giving him the gentlest of kisses on his little coconut head. Did Obi-Wan ever do any of this for real Anakin? No. No he did not. He was a traumatized twenty five year old who’d just been handed care of a child. He was under the impression that if he did not train the child to be the perfect Jedi, the Republic would fall, the Jedi would fall, and Qui-Gon’s legacy would go unfufilled. Ergo: no tender kisses on the forehead, even when Obi-Wan was sobbing over how much he loved the little blond menace.
Anakin, as we all know, is deeply unhinged. He does not so much love Obi-Wan as another person as love Obi-Wan as an extension of himself. He cannot separate his own wants and needs from who Obi-Wan is to him, and so for years he has been hating himself for just wanting a hug. But not just that— no, that would be too normal for our little traumatized space men. Anakin does not only think that Obi-Wan does not love him back, that he is fundamentally unlovable— he thinks that Obi-Wan is incapable of love, period.
So what does he do when he sees Obi-Wan tenderly tuck Coconut Anakin into his carefully-constructed coconut room with its little coconut desk covered in coconut droid parts? He sets Coconut Anakin on fire with his mind, because if he can’t have Obi-Wan tuck him into bed at night, then no one (or, in this fringe case, coconut) can.
This is Obi-Wan’s worst nightmare. Not because he’s become obsessed with a coconut husk. Not because he now knows how inextricably attached he is. Not because he thinks he’s failed as a Jedi by loving and cherishing this coconut facsimile of the thing he loves above all else. No, Obi-Wan is too far gone to care about either of those things. This is Obi-Wan’s worst nightmare, because his precious, darling Coconut Padwan is burning in front of him.
Obi-Wan shrieks, high and shrill, a primal cry buried deep within the subconscious of every human, so ancient that there’s not a word for it. Then, without thinking, he grabs the flaming Coconut Anakin with his bare hands, and dunks it in the ocean. It does not stop flaming. Obi-Wan does not let go.
Obi-Wan clutches it tighter and tighter under the waves as its little coconut hair padawan braid burns up, its face charring into something unrecognizable. When it’s finally gone, finally ash, he lets out a giant, choked up sob, and every emotion he’s been holding in for thirty years spills out of him. Coconut Anakin’s ashes float away from his hands, revealing deep burns. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. The universe is vast and endless and uncaring and he cannot love but to end up losing, cannot hope but to end up breaking, cannot care but to end up burnt.
Then, from behind him, a voice comes— a voice so sweet that he can’t help but think he’s imagining it.
“Obi-Wan?”
#the coconut anakin au is actually something that can be SO personal#it really is just a vehicle for exploring what genuine freaks these little space men are#and i for one think that's great :)#coconut anakin au#star wars#star wars au#willow's aus#anakin skywalker#obi wan kenobi#long post
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here’s my analysis of a 14-yr-old supernatural episode
so remember that episode where sam fucked a werewolf? because he related to her unwilling monstrosity? well that episode is actually just about dean starting to come to grips with his childhood and his sexuality.
if you ship w/ncest do not interact. this post is not anti-sam either btw.
content warning: discussions of childhood trauma, internalized homophobia, guns, killing.
does include some images with Image Descriptions following them.
[ID: An over-the-shoulder close-up shot from the episode, focused on Madison, the werewolf, as she cries. Dean is standing behind her. They are both looking at Sam, whose shoulder is on the edge of the frame. End ID.]
Brief episode recap just in case u don’t remember. This ep is 2x17 “Heart.” Sam and Dean are hunting a werewolf. They discover that the woman they interviewed, Madison, is a werewolf (not THEE werewolf, but one of them). Sam develops a lil crush on her <3 I wrote the majority of this after watching it for the first time in almost SIX years, so i was just vibing the whole time UNTIL the last shot changed it all for me. So let me explain!
Three important points that i will refer back to:
1. The episode begins with Dean being excited to hunt a werewolf because "what about a human by day, a freak animal killing machine by moonlight don't you understand? I mean, werewolves are badass. We haven't seen one since we were kids."
2. Then the episode centers on Sam and his relationship with the werewolf woman and his own monstrosity: "[Dean: Sam, she's a monster and you're feeling sorry for her?] Maybe I understand her."
3. BUT THEN the last shot of the episode is of Dean crying as music plays (see below for the specific lyrics) and then Dean jumps at the sound of the gunshot. That's it! That's the end of the episode!
[ID: For all three screencaps, Dean is looking torturously sad. Each one is zoomed a little bit closer to his face than the last. In the last image, Dean sheds a single man tear. The captioned lyrics for the first one say "Relax, child, you were there." The second says "but only didn't realize" and the third says "and you were scared." End ID]
Even though the story is supposed to be about Sam and his monstrosity, and partly about his relationship w/romance since this is the first person he’s slept with since Jess died (at least with what is shown on screen)...the Dean Sandwich tells us otherwise. We're supposed to be taking away something about DEAN here. Like, that's the whole purpose behind the last shot focusing solely on Dean instead of Sam who is AT THAT MOMENT, KILLING THE GIRL HE HAS FEELINGS FOR. It's literally a heartbreaking, devastating, super traumatic thing for Sam to be going through, but instead we're watching Dean as a single tear slides down his face lmao. It's because this episode is about DEAN, and furthering his story.
Let’s not queer this just yet. The death of the werewolf is about/representing his loss of innocence. It's a violent disconnect from his childhood. Point # 1 shows that he is fascinated by werewolves because since he was a kid he thought they were badass, not to mention all the werewolf films he references throughout. Then, through the music lyrics over that last scene, they mirror that theme of childhood. They’ve done this before, having the diegetic music directly reference what the characters are going through. No different here: Dean is the child they’re referring to.
I have to reiterate that that's the last thing we hear before the gunshot cuts the music short and then the cut to black. "You were scared" is the last thing we hear before the gunshot, as Dean cries. ALSO I have to reiterate that Dean was looking forward to killing a werewolf and shooting it himself. So it's super fascinating that, not only is Sam the one that kills the werewolf, WE DON’T EVEN SEE IT HAPPEN.
[ID: A medium-close shot of Dean as he looks at Sam, who takes up the right half of the frame. The caption says, “Sammy, I got this one. I’ll do it.” End ID.]
Am i gonna have to say this now? The werewolf is a metaphor, okay? It's a metaphor for his innocence, which is long-dead, forever doomed. I mean, a lot of kids love werewolves because they ARE badass! It's a classic monster that anyone could easily obsess over, and with Dean's childhood it must've seemed even cooler, knowing they're real and having the power to kill this "mythical" beast. So the way he's looking forward to killing one is the way a child imagines themselves as a hero.
But what happens instead is a tragic mercy killing. It's flipping his fantasy completely on its head, and it makes Dean realize that.....his fantasies are just fantasies. They aren't real, never would be. There's nothing heroic about killing this werewolf. It's tragic as hell. When he offers to kill her himself, it's just to relieve Sam's burden, but he's reluctant still. Because, as he keeps saying, he doesn't want to be a hunter! He doesn't want this life! He's tired of killing! And that's also what he's mourning as he cries and startles at the gunshot. His fantasies will never be real and his childhood could never have been normal and he never got a chance to be a kid because being a hunter was thrust on him at such a young age. And now it feels inescapable.
[ID: A gif of the slow zoom on Dean’s face as the single tears slips down his cheek. He jumps at the gunshot, then blinks and his lip wobbles. End ID.]
So now we can queer it :-) Of course all monster stories can be easily queered, but werewolves are popularly queered. The first example that comes to mind is An American Werewolf in London (1981) isn’t an overtly queer film (though it is Jewish!) but it’s definitely read that way by a lot of people!! Anyway the film was directed by John Landis which JUST SO HAPPENS to be the pseudonym Dean goes by in this episode. hmm. (Also, interestingly, the BTVS ep where the first gay character comes out references this film too)
[ID: Sam and Dean are standing close to each other. Sam is in the foreground, not in focus. Dean, behind him, says, “Landis. And Detective Dante.” End ID.]
There’s this essay about the queer werewolf that you can read here (and they also talk about fandom in it! very fascinating), where they say in the intro: “the werewolf seems an obvious choice as a queer monster with its identity-disrupting hybridity, as well as its atavistic, and, thus, disallowable sexuality.” A lot like Kristeva’s theory of the abject body! which is popular in queer theory.
This episode is then queering Sam—his attraction to the werewolf makes him abject—but it also queers Dean thru the way his attitude towards the werewolf transforms (get it?) throughout the ep. His desire and eagerness to kill the werewolves is obviously ingrained in him from John’s parenting. Consider what he said in 2x03 “Bloodlust”: “And the way he raised us, to hate those things—and man, I hate them, I do.” In conjunction with the monsters in the show being seen as queer allegories (the gorgon, as an example of an explicit comparison), Dean’s excitement to kill the werewolf can be read as internalized homophobia and repressing any of his own feelings.
Remember, though, right before that line in “Bloodlust,” he also said, “What if we killed things that didn’t deserve killing?” He’s really beginning to question whether all monsters are bad, and what it means to kill them. Is he also questioning what he believes of queer people? What John believed of queer people? The loss of innocence and queering both slot together through that final shot, imo: he’s crying because he realizes his fantasies aren’t real, but he’s also mourning the fact that he never could have had the chance to grow up without John’s control, and now it’s forever tainted his worldview. What else could he have been without that? (The answer is evident in 4x17 “It’s a Terrible Life.”)
Dean was taught to hate queer people but he doesn't want to. He wants to get out of the life but it feels inescapable. He wants to kill a werewolf and then when he has the chance, he doesn't want to. He actually cries as it's killed. It scares him, having to confront that what he thought he knew was wrong, but he knows all the same that he’ll never have the chance to have grown up without that.
#is anyone up? anyone wanna read this? i finished this instead of doing homework#sorry the end is bad LMAO i'm notoriously bad at writing conclusions#also i want to say that the monster allegories in SPN more often have to do with race and not homophobia. but this episode sticks out to me#as representing queerness instead of race. especially because they set it up as compared to Sam's story which is SO queer.#spn#what do i tag this#ej.pdf#supernatural#bi dean#my professors would give me a bad grade on this#portfolio
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all of the issues of transvestia i've read thus far have demonstrated that in 1960s-era transvestite communities being "a normal heterosexual man who is happy with his male organs and enjoys being a man, and simply also has an appreciation for feminine garments" was infinitely more tolerated and preferred and advocated for than being a "transsexual" who expresses persistent desire to be acknowledged as (or belief that she is) a "real" woman on an interpersonal, systematic, physical, internal, etc., level. and the coercive effect of this is fairly clear in how many of the people who contributed letters/articles/etc come off as trans women remaining in some state of denial or repression wherein they're careful to accept being a proper/normative man as a base state as a means of self-protective, seemingly often unawares separation from the 'crazy' or 'extreme' "transsexuals" that so many other contributors (including the magazine editor) have implicitly decried as separate and less acceptable and worthy of advocacy. and this psychiatric review article being included (which the editor did not comment on to refute in any way, despite having a pattern of doing so for article segments she disagreed with) is just where this state of affairs is explicitly laid out for the first time in the magazine. and it is straight up indistinguishable from the very same viewpoints people espouse today, just with a newer paint of coat on
finding some sentiments expressed in this 1960s article on transvestites & transsexuals that are indistinguishable from the transmisogyny you see on here
#'you sound like a 1960s psychiatric review on transsexuals right now dude' new thing for me to think or say at people being covertly#transphobic
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I have to say, one of the oddest things about western fans who “hate” (idk how much you can dispose someone while actively engaging with all of their works) MXTX is this assertion that she’s just a fetishizing straight woman (a thought that trickled over from white—ha!—ppl in fujoshi discourse). Because even though I’m not Chinese or Japanese, I have friends who are, and they’ve said the reason why ppl who consume BL keep it under wraps is not only because they’re consuming gay content but also because it’s assumed they won’t be straight themselves. The Actual stereotype is that MXTX as a BL writer, within the context of China, probably wouldn’t be regarded as straight. So this whole anti agenda just reeks of western cultural hegemony and racism to me.
Hi anon,
I am no expert on these topics which are quite complex and multifaceted, and certainly do not have possess the cultural context to comment on the everyday perceptions of people who engage in BL in Japan and danmei in China. But let me say that I do find a certain irony that the same people who will label BL/danmei as “heteronormative” to argue it is homophobic will absolutely ignore the tensions that arise out of the fact that as a genre mainly produced and targeted at women, BL/danmei disrupts heteronormative schemes of desire and norms. It is from there that the sense of “abnormality” or of disruption originates, the one that explains the existence of the term “fujoshi”.
Originated in the 1970s, this now fully matured BL subgenre has been viewed as a way to express repressed female desire and create alternative narratives for women under patriarchal society by its bold utilization of the female gaze and its subversion of heterosexual conventions (Aoyama 1988, McLelland 2000, Nagaike 2003,Wood 2006).” (Wang 2019:47)
In her groundbreaking research on danmei fiction, Feng Jin demonstrated that danmei fans sought excitement in transgressing the boundaries of conventional heterosexual romance and undermining established gender and sexual norms. (Ni 2018:10)
So it is not really surprising that I, like you, have heard some Chinese diasporic people discuss that they do not feel like they can let their parents or family know of their interest in MDZS/CQL without risking bringing attention to their sexual orientation. That being said, and while I cannot talk to the everyday perceptions of BL/danmei fans in their cultural context, all the media studies works I’ve read on the topic tended to emphasise that the majority of BL or danmei fans are heterosexual. Of course, it is difficult to take these things as absolutely conclusive, because a lot of factors (such as stigma and discrimination) may influence this perception that straight women represent the majority of fans.
The thing I think that is often forgotten is that depictions of homosexual love or even same-sex experiences are not necessarily always received as a real or at least threatening disruption heteronormative order. Lesbian porn, for instance, does not displace women as objects of male desire and of the male gaze: it is thus not transgressive and there is nothing that is felt to be abnormal about a straight male consuming these works. In another line of thought, sexologists in early modern Japan framed some same-sex romances between the then-new shoolgirls as a completely normal part of their development, as a “kind of rehearsal for entry into adulthood, that is, heterosexuality and motherhood” (Suzuki 2010:27). However, at the same time, “postadolescent ome relationships, in which masculine and feminine roles were visibly defined [between female partners], were considered ‘abnormal same-sex love’ (hentai douseiai)” (idem). Perhaps mind-boggling for the tumblr university of queer studies but sometimes, due to spatiotemporally-specific contexts, a relationship between two people of the same gender that reproduces the gender presentation and roles of heterosexual relationships can actually be felt to be more of a threat to heteronormativity (in this case because it showed a sense of gender ambivalence that precluded one of the women from entering into normal married heterosexuality and because it offered a plausible alternative to heteronormative institutions like the reproductive heterosexual family). So even depictions of homosexual relationships between men, generally made for and by women, may actually be received as a disruption to heteronormative norms in some contexts--partly because of how female desires are made normal or abnormal in that iteration of heteronormativity. Things are complex, specific and shifting. Nothing about the social perception of sexuality, desires or same-sex love is static or global. Neither are heteronormative institutions.
To me it does not mean that BL or danmei are genres above criticisms, or that the fact that they can represent subversive and empowering genres for women, some of whom are queer, means that they do not have the potential of being at times homophobic or even transphobic. At the end of the day, my take on this is simply that considering the complexity of the context surrounding BL and danmei (a context that can be difficult to access or understand for Western fans) is necessary for critiques to hold any weight, and that we are poorly served by an all-or-nothing mentality. Dismissing from the start a work of fiction because of its association with a genre, without actually looking at what is in the text, is just lazy and dogmatic? And yes, may reek sometimes of the entitled white attitude that they, unlike the backward Other, know a thing or two about queer representation.
And those are my two cents to take, as always, with a grain of salt.
---
Ni, Zhange (2018) Steampunk, Zombie Apocalypse, and Homoerotic Romance: Rewriting Revolution Plus Love in Contemporary China(working paper)
Suzuki, Michiko (2008) Becoming Modern Women: Love and Female Identity in Prewar Japanese Literature and Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Wang, Cathy Yue (2019) Officially sanctioned adaptation and affective fan resistance: The transmedia convergence of the online drama Guardian in China. International Journal of TV Serial Narratives (V:2): 45-58.
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wip it out!
that time of the week again, babes! started working on a part where a desire demon tempts yuo from the demon's point of view 😘 enjoy~
Desire has been aware of the Bright One for some time. There’s scarcely a spirit that isn’t aware. The Veil is thin around them; that combined with the tease of blood has drawn a veritable mob.
The Bright One’s defenses are steadfast. There’s yet to be a spirit that’s made it through. Normally, this would spark Desire’s interest. But, in honesty, Desire does not care for crowds.
It is not afraid of competition, of course not, but Desire prefers privacy. Such a dance of wills should be limited to two parties. Desire does not like to be interrupted; it prefers to give its full attention to a persuasion. And despite what some may think, Desire is not the type to share a victim’s supplication of suffering.
But Desire has been lacking in satisfying meals—the drawbacks of being particular—and so it wanders a little closer to the Bright One’s horde upon passing. The light that pierces the Veil is loud. It thrums and rushes, like a waterfall, like a thundering pulse.
But this time, Desire comes close enough to hear it. The seductive whisper of a repressed desire. A thrill tingles through Desire’s form, hunger growing in its core. Oh, this wish is buried deep, and the Bright’s One defenses are indeed formidable.
Desire slips through the throng of spirits. They push against each other, murmuring and curious, from wraiths to fully-formed beings. The light is uncomfortable and magnetic; it is unsurprising that weaker spirits would be caught in its pull. The light’s enticement allows Desire’s approach to go unnoticed.
The thing about repressed desires is that there is no way to close them off completely. No matter the conscious effort to deny them, there is always some part of the mind that aches to have them met. And thus this part betrays the rest, leaving open the tiniest crack of unabandonable hope.
Desire feels along the edges of the Bright One’s mental walls, deftly avoiding any traps, until it finds this crack. The anticipation is exhilarating, and Desire slips through into the depths of the Bright One’s mind.
tagging @mrs-theirin, @gaysolavellan, @thegingerjedi, @cciarants, @midnightprelude
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ao3
“komaeda?” he coos softly, but he knows it isn’t enough to even shake the figure beside him. perhaps, subconsciously, he doesn’t want to shake him.
afterall, it’s hard to want to disturb the other’s rest, not when he looks so… peaceful.
it had undoubtedly been a long day- the foundation already had been no stranger to overwork, but this time, it had seemed even more like a drag. it had already been dark by the time hinata had been let off, and accompanying him close by, had been no other than komaeda himself.
when he had asked hinata for a ride, of course he didn’t hesitate to let him. afterall, they usually ended up driving to the apartments together. practical, considering their “roommate” status.
with the long drive and dark sky, hinata couldn’t blame komaeda for passing out. he had already looked exhausted when they met up, even if he had the same “bright” attitude he always had.
he hadn’t even been paying attention until they had finally parked in the driveway, finally turning his head to look at his partner.
hinata has become used to komaeda’s sleeping tendencies. normally, it always looks like he’s merely in a doze- one without movement or sounds, but still. he wouldn’t call it peaceful, usually, and that was especially apparent when komaeda was having a nightmare.
(that’s always the most obvious to tell. hinata had witnessed it quite a few times- his knuckles tight and face white, yet the only movement from him even then was just his faint shivering.)
but the way komaeda was now… hinata couldn’t help but stop and just stare, as though worried he would never be able to see the sight again.
he looked so gentle there, eyes softly shut and head tilted down ever so slightly, as much as his seatbelt would allow. breathing quiet and soft, fitting in with the nightly driveway atmosphere noises.
“pretty” is another word that comes to his mind. it’s an offhand thought, really, but he can’t help but find himself stupid for thinking about it in the first place.
(even if it’s a word he could easily describe komaeda with. everything about him is fundamentally “pretty”- even stuff that really shouldn’t be, like his worryingly pale, thin body, or his cold, almost shaky hands.)
hinata can’t help but lay his chin on the steering wheel of the car, gazing at the man with the corners of his eyes. besides the noises in the background mixed with komaeda’s faint breathing, it’s almost completely silent, and that in itself is comforting.
hinata can already feel his fatigue catching up to him as well- normally he was use to staying up for long nights, and thus wasn’t usually affected by it until he got to his bed, but with just how slow the world feels right now, it’s beginning to catch up to him.
the sight of his sleeping companion isn’t helping either, and hinata wonders if it really would just be nice to pass out alongside him.
...but no, komaeda would definitely wake up before him, and that would lead to just a whole bunch of teasing he’s not sure if he wants to go through.
and so, to keep himself awake, he reverts his full attention to the man in question, who has yet to even move an inch at all. hinata vaguely wonders how long he’ll sleep if he doesn’t wake him up.
this isn’t any kind of slumber he’s seen from komaeda before. not the content kind, or his usual tired, silent kind.
this was different: a gentle kind you would see from a dozing classmate only a seat away from you, looking completely ordinary, like nothing in the world could disturb them.
“ordinary”. “normal”. “domestic”.
perhaps the reason why hinata was looking into it so much was because he found it hard to associate those words with the komaeda he knew. the komaeda who he still barely understood.
he’s because so used to the abnormality of their relationship it had just become his normal. the idea that he’ll have to go his whole life always wondering about the truth of nagito komaeda being something he’s accepted, despite struggling not to.
because, truthfully, he wants to know the truth of nagito komaeda, but something in him also tells him he doesn’t. like a scientist digging into insane theories and timelines that he knows he’ll regret finding the truth of, but still finds it necessary because he wants to know.
the nagito komaeda who had shown him kindness in that simulation. the nagito komaeda who had broken down in front of him and everyone else, becoming this pile of nonsense about “hope” and “ultimates”, such figurative ideas that he had become obsessed with.
(and that once, hinata was obsessed with, to.)
the nagito komaeda who had scorned him the minute he learned the “truth” about hinata.
the nagito komaeda who had left the simulation, who was the manifestation of everything he had been in there.
(and in that way, perhaps he felt a familiar connection with him.)
the nagito komaeda who hinata had desperately tried to hate, but couldn’t find it in himself. the nagito komaeda who had made him feel intense and confusing emotions which he had never felt for anyone else, except for one girl, and even then, it had been so much more simple with her.
this was the nagito komaeda who was sleeping in the passenger seat of his car, sleeping like any ordinary, simple, overworked businessman you would see anywhere on the subway.
it almost makes hinata want to laugh, or even cry.
and yet, despite all of these complicated feelings stirring in his head, all of this that was between them, hinata didn’t want to become the scientist that wasted his whole life on the truth of the forbidden subject, just for it to break him to the point of becoming an alcoholic mess.
his desires to fully understand the komaeda he knew were futile, he knew that. he’d like to think that he’d be able to, someday, with his newfounds “talents”, but only to boost his fragile, non-existent ego.
it’s only fair, isn’t it? afterall, it was already impossible for komaeda himself to understand hinata now. the reserve course, the man who had wasted his life by obsessing over talent ever since he was a child, who signed his life away for a bunch of scientists to get their holds on a teenager, even the man who had been in the simulation, who had first met “komaeda”, was long gone.
replaced by the entity of izuru kamukura, parading the personality and memories of the boy who would never be able to recover himself, no matter how much he clawed at the surgery scars alongside his forehead.
to live a domestic life together, teetering on the edge of something bigger, more sinister, more tragic, something they couldn’t say to each other without risk of losing their holds. that’s what their relationship was destined for, truly.
and yet, would that be bad? a domestic life, even with repressed, dark thoughts, would still be domestic.
the idea of waking up to komaeda every morning, reading together, doing mindless, soft, sappy stuff together, until they were brutally torn apart in each other’s arms by the forces of a supernatural, screwed up thing like “luck”...
even if they would always be in confusion of the other, they would still always understand each other more than anyone else could or would. and surely, that was enough.
there was no such thing as a “perfect relationship” or a “happy ending”. there was only a future, the thing that had always remained as the one truth in this fucked up world, something that was relevant even when they were freaks who were causing it’s destruction.
when all you have is one another, you grow attached to each other.
and that was enough for hinata, despite everything inside him shouting at him that it wasn’t.
i wish that i could sleep like that, he smirks to himself, rising his head from the steering wheel. even through his whole introspection, komaeda had remained as quiet and peaceful as ever.
the only thing that had changed was some soft strands of hair falling into his face, and hinata, finding that they were kind of obscuring his view, hesitantly reached out a hand, gently stroking them behind komaeda’s ear, trying to be careful enough to not wake him.
still holding out his hand, hinata takes a second to just watch komaeda’s face. as calm as ever, and in this state, with the only light illuminating them being the car’s inside one, he was definitely even more pretty than usual.
that idea of waking up every morning to him begins re-entering his mind…
“isn’t it rude to stare, hinata-kun?”
it’s a miracle hinata doesn’t accidentally slap komaeda with how fast he pulls his hand back, straightening up with his eyes widened.
the man who he previously thought was deep in slumber chuckled, though it sounds more breathy than usual, opening his faintly-colored eyes to give hinata an amused look. the man feels his face going red, but furrows his brows.
“you- have you been awake this whole time!?”
as though to answer his question, komaeda yawns, stretching his arms out. he blinks a few times at hinata, as though still trying to wake up.
“oh, no, of course not. just for the past few minutes. when i did wake up, however, you were looking at me so intensely to the point where i could feel it, so i was scared to move, haha!”
“you- that’s-” it’s embarrassing how hinata finds himself stuttering like an awkward high schooler, so he bites his tongue and closes his eyes to regain his posture. it’s hard to do when he hears komaeda laugh at him, that same wheezy sound, but at the very least, he changes the subject.
“ah, i won’t blame you for it, though. rather, it was rude of me to fall asleep in someone else’s car, so i’ll apologise for that.”
“you don’t have to,” hinata immediately jumps on the subject. “today was pretty… tiring, so i don’t blame you either.” he ponders briefly if he should admit to wanting to fall asleep as well, but komaeda continues before he can add anything else.
“tiring, huh?” he murmurs almost to himself, before giggling to himself in the way he does when finding something funny for no reason. “ah, i suppose i can’t deny that.
“though, i am curious…” he looks at hinata with a newfound mix of curiosity and amusement, the suggestive kind that already has him blushing a little. “what hinata-kun could want, staring but not waking me up?”
hinata not so subtly looks away, covering his mouth with his hand to hide some remnants of his expression, though causing his response to be somewhat muffled. “i wasn’t staring. just zoning out. thinking.”
“oho? thinking about what?”
komaeda’s tone is playful enough to make hinata a little peeved, if not a little red. “nothing that you're thinking of, that’s for sure.”
this earns him another, genuine laugh from komaeda, which causes him to glance over to him again. a faint pink is dusting his face, though far from hinata’s more colorful blush. however, this only seems to make his expression, which has some underlying tiredness(most likely the cause of his boldness right now)to it.
“i would hope not, actually,” he muses, tilting his head a little. “i’d much rather sleep the rest of the night away. though, it’d be hard to go against hinata-kun’s desires.”
“oi, i want to sleep as much as you do,” hinata fires back, which gets him another grin from komaeda. it’s contagious, and he finds himself returning it.
“hm, even then,” komaeda leans towards hinata, raising a brow, “i’m sure you want something, right?”
the faux innocence of the question, mixed with that suggestive voice, agitates hinata for no real reason other than how effective it is for him.
komaeda would probably never be able to understand him fully, but he understood enough to get under hinata’s skin. and that itself almost infuriates him. it’s one of the many little things he both hates and adores about him- another conflict over something so simple.
“asshole,” he mutters affectionately, before leaning towards him as well. the only thing he gets is a small absentminded hum from komaeda, which hinata suddenly decides he wants to turn into something much more… gratifying.
it’s a small, soft kiss, but when hinata aims to deepen it, he finds himself confused when komaeda almost immediately pulls away.
his expression is lustful, as it usually is when they do stuff like this, but there’s a sort of a restraint to his eyes and stiffness to his smile. “though, you know, hinata-kun, if there’s something else you want to say, you should say it.”
hinata pauses, perplexed, before finally registering what he had said.
of course- komaeda knew there was more to that longing staring, to that hesitance to give him a solid answer when he had asked about what was on his mind. komaeda knew him best, afterall, and that makes hinata want to shut him up even more so.
yet, to the same degree, the other wasn’t a mind reader. he knew hinata best, yet barely understood his thought process, as did hinata for his.
there is many things hinata wants to say right now, but that’s always the case. always so many questions he wants to ask and so many thoughts to shout out, so much prodding of “what’s happening between us?” and “do you just like toying with me?”.
and yet, he’s come to learn that the only way to keep this peaceful, temporary, gentle lingering going was to not question any of it. to only open it when times for it appear, before it eventually does burst.
he wants this- the peace of being able to sit alone in a quiet car with komaeda, to give casual acts of affection that come as second nature. he doesn’t want to have to say anything, or question anything, between them.
to be in love with nagito komaeda was to be in love with a stranger who you knew every inch of, if only they could have that ‘in love’ part. if only they could have their silly little future together.
“i have nothing to say at all,” he lies, and remedies it with his lips, holding komaeda’s face and allowing him to live in this kind, terrifying ignorance.
#pineapple writes#awww yeahhh i can write apparently lolol#komahina#hajime hinata#nagito komaeda#confusement and betrayal: komahina
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Headcanon/Pokéninjago version of Lloyd’s identity crisis during season 5 of Ninjago
Got ab 12 likes on the announcement post so here we are: This is an essay-sorta-thing about something I thought and wrote some six years ago. It’s been so long since I wrote this I feel cringy reading it, but it’s tenable in Pokéninjago lore. It’s kind of a mix between my headcanon for the show, and canon of my AU, which is why there is mentions of “evolving” and Pokémon types.
Things to take into account:
Idk if there should be content warnings, but depression mention at least. Otherwise, this is pretty much as intense as season 5 went, just a little more angsty I suppose.
I must say that my version of Lloyd and his identity crisis were inspired by a certain artist’s version of him and by a comic they made about the Child’s Play episode’s aftermath. I don’t dare name the artist, since they don’t wish to be linked with the Ninjago fandom anymore, but some of you might know who I’m referring to.
I do not know how psychology stuff actually works, all of this was made on grounds of a couple of high school psychology courses and a lot of imagination `:D
I wrote this originally in Finnish and let Word translate it, so this might be v clumsy at points.
Most of the text is under the cut!
~***~
When Lloyd was just a small cub, closer to three years, his mother had left him in his father's care. Misako knew the boy would become the Green Ninja and Garmadon would become the Dark Lord. That is why she went looking for any ancient knowledge to avoid the final confrontation. Although her heart was torn since she had to leave her loved ones, she knew that she couldn’t just sit on her hands, and that perhaps she was the only one that could prevent the decisive battle between good and evil. It was also her wish that the father and the son could spend as much time together as possible. Thus, Lloyd's earliest childhood memories are about his father, and his recollections of his mother are blurry, obscure, and fading away as he grows up, or mixing with other memories.
Dad meant everything to little Lloyd. Although they lived in the same monastery with Lloyd’s uncle as well, whom he also liked, his own father was still the greatest. Garmadon also loved his child deeply and wanted him to have a happy life. Although the poison in his veins was starting to get a hold of him and he was increasingly drawn to the Golden Weapons, his love for Lloyd and the desire to be with him in anticipation of Misako's return kept him away from them for much longer than if the boy had never existed.
When Lloyd "evolved," he lost some important years of his life, during which a youngster usually developes a picture of himself and his changing body. Lloyd's body changed in a single moment and even though his mind also changed to some degree, it was still mostly on the same level as before, since artificial aging did not bring him the years of experience that growing up normally would. From that moment on, he had to form himself a new image of himself. Frankly, he was facing a fierce identity crisis.
After the episode Child's Play, Lloyd adopted an identity whose foundation was flimsy and unstable. It consisted of a few simple pillars that supported his image of himself. Some emotions, thoughts, and memories that he could not, wasn’t able to or didn’t dare to deal with, secretly and slowly gnawed at those pillars like erosion. They grew into doubt that settled into the cracks like rockfoil.
That flimsy foundation for his self-image, consisted of these elements: I am the Green Ninja. I'm the strongest ninja of all. I’m the son of sensei Garmadon. I’m the grandson of The First Spinjitzu Master. I'm one of the Elemental Masters. I'm a student of Sensei Wu. I'm one of the five elemental ninjas. It's my destiny to protect the world from evil.
This made it easy for Morro to destabilize and crush Lloyd’s self-esteem. Morro proved himself to be stronger and more independent than Lloyd, and that he could win him over and over again, no matter how hard Lloyd tried to fight back. Lloyd felt weak and desperate. Two pillars of his self-image collapsed to the ground and the masked emotions and doubts that chipped away at the other columns began to grow and intensify: He was not the strongest ninja and was therefore unable to protect the world from this evil.
This also affected his view of him as the Green Ninja. Although logically he still was just that – the Golden Weapons and his powers had proven it – he could not help but think that maybe Morro really was supposed to be the Chosen One. His identity was cracking, which ate away at his strength and self-esteem. Being a Psychic Type, his greatest strength resided in his psyche, and whenever his mind was in an unstable and vulnerable state, he couldn’t do his best, even if he had used everything he had learned. Losing his father fairly recently had already struck a dangerous notch in his mental stability.
Even though Lloyd was still his father's son, it didn't feel the same when he was no longer with him. Finally, he was only driven forward by his relationship with his other loved ones. He had to do everything he could to stop Morro from harming his friends. By protecting them he was also protecting the last intact remnants of his Self.
Lloyd did everything he could to resist Morro's possession. From time to time a memory of his friends and the will to keep them safe increased his "self-control," weakening the ghost's hold on him. However, a long, grueling time in constant motion, without water and nourishment, poisoned by a cold, vindictive spirit, steadily filled his mind with anguish and despair. Doubts penetrated deep into the tears of his self-image, breaking everything old until he no longer knew who he was. Only with the last bits of his mental strength could he interfere with Morro's possession so that he failed to clear the other ninjas out of his way.
Then, when Morro broke away from Lloyd's body, the Espeon felt like nothing more than an empty, broken shell floating aimlessly in the dark, beachless sea. He was unable to live up to any of the expectations and goals that had been set for him. Now, he was used as a trade-in item in the market of the world’s destiny. He longer had the strength or power to save even his best friends. He was as helpless as a newborn pup and all he could do was to stand by and apologize when he was traded for Realm Crystal.
Somewhere from his past, he dug up one last spark of strength. Already as a child, he had been left alone with unfriendly people, who then had ignited that stubborn flame in him: the desire to fight the cruel, unjust and repressive world. His body still had more strength than his mind, and this momentary burst of grit made him kick the Crystal out of Morro's hand. This, however, caused him to end up in the freezing stream, all his energy used up. There was not much left but a primitive desire to survive and a little strength to keep his head afloat before the cold numbed his muscles.
Lloyd's mind was in shambles. Images, memories, shattered fragments of his adopted identity… they all churned in his tired, blurred consciousness. Unintentionally, he began to go through the feelings of uncertainty, fear and inadequacy that he had denied from himself for years. The present seemed more surreal than the memories. He relived moments that had had a revolutionary impact on his life: When the golden weapons pointed him out as a Green Ninja; when he grew up under the influence of Tomorrow's Tea; when he met his mother and became to know her; when he unleashed the Golden Dragon in the Temple of Light; how he fought the Overlord who was possessing his father; how he harnessed his True Potential; got his father back; lost Zane; reunited his friends again and felt great togetherness with the other Elemental Masters. When he lost his father again. And when Morro possessed him.
Lloyd was lost. If it wasn’t for his friends and their care, he would have sunk deep into depression (and, on the other hand, drowned or, at the very least, died of hypothermia). When Kai carried him out of the FSM’s tomb, it triggered a very clear memory of the day when the Master of Fire had fulfilled his potential and Lloyd had been identified as the Chosen One. That day, Kai had come to save him from an erupting volcano and carried him to safety. Now, Lloyd felt like he was that little scared cub again, who had for a moment thought he was going to burn to the ground in the boiling lava of the volcano. He remembered how Kai's closeness had brought a feeling of immediate security around him. Even though the mountain had raged and wanted to kill them both, Lloyd had known he didn’t have to be afraid. Kai was there. He'd protect Lloyd. There was no reason to fight the fear anymore, he didn't have to pretend like he was tough. He was carried by someone older and stronger, whom to rely on.
The feeling was so intense, the memory so vivid that Lloyd was overwhelmed by an inexplicable, immense grief. The sadness of being forced to give up a carefree childhood so early on, to take on an enormous responsibility and assume a role that seemed too demanding for such a small boy to perform. He had had to grow up way too soon. He started shaking from holding back the tears. He didn’t mind since he thought Kai was probably assuming that he was shivering from the cold. But when Kai said quietly and understandingly: "Shh... It's okay... Don't worry about it," the last wall of pride and fear fell, and Lloyd could no longer repress his weeping.
At this point, he slowly began to build a new identity on the ruins of the wrecked one. He understood that even though he was the Green Ninja, it didn’t make him greater or more important than the others. He had more magical power than anyone else, but he was still only a person just like them. He could hesitate, too, and fail. There was no way for him to do anything more than what he was capable of, mentally, physically, and skill-wise. That’s all there was to offer, and if it wasn't enough, there were others whom he could rely on. Others, who would catch him when he ran out of strength. He wasn't the last link to hold the whole structure together.
These ideas developed slowly in Lloyd's exhausted mind. Slowly, he got stitched back up from the fragments of his previous self-image. This time, however, his new identity was not something that was given to him from the outside, in which he would have had to fit himself, but it was a solid, authentic self-image created as a result of self-reflection. It was still obscure, uncertain and seeking its form, and its growth was overshadowed by fear. But the conversation with his father drove away that last fear. The fear that Morro was supposed to be the Green Ninja instead of Lloyd. His father assured that Lloyd’s qi had no influence on how he should live and act. He should live the way his heart told him to.
In the end, although Morro managed to beat Lloyd one last time, this time he did not break down. He was more intact now, he had more inner strength, and he knew for sure he wouldn't be abandoned. That the fate of the world wasn't really up to him. He may have been part of the story, but after all, he wasn't the protagonist, at least not the only one of them.
#pokemon ninjago#pokeninjago#ninjago au#crossover#ninjago#ninjago lloyd#lloyd garmadon#lloyd montgomery garmadon#espeon!Lloyd#eevee!Lloyd#sylveon!Morro#ninjago morro#ninjago garmadon#sensei garmadon#ninjago wu#ninjago misako#ninjago kai#did i mention others..?#umbreon!Garmadon#espeon!Wu#eevee!Misako#flareon!Kai#writing#info#pokeninjago lore#also idk if anyone else feels like the way i write character interactions is sappy af#but i'd like to make it clear that i do not in fact ship kai and lloyd#they're bros 💪
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{Shadow Triad HC Dump}
{ ooc. This is more just to quickly put down all of the things that will eventually be fleshed out more in the bio section of the about page-
Please note these are secondary muses, and will only be used on request }
Names: Bhreac, Daithi, Fionn Gender: dmab, agender (He/They) Ages: 19 (BW), 21 (BW2), 23 (SUMO), 25 (SWSH) Heights: 6'2" (around 6'0" hunched over) Birthplace(s): Icirrus City, Unova Relevant conditions:
Oculocutaneous albinism type II / OCA2 (with photophobia and mild nystagmus)
Post-traumatic stress disorder (Varying severities)
Pre-BW
Born the first and only three children to a family descending from a group of clans responsible for the construction of Dragonspiral Tower in Icirrus City, their lives up until the age of 8 was relatively normal.
The abilities to vanish in and out of sight, teleport and immobilise individuals are quite common for the group they belong to, having its roots in a blessing from the Original Dragon thousands of years ago for their loyalty and service to the monarchs of Unova over countless generations.
Due to their family’s knowledge of the tower, and thus the Tao Trio, along with their abilities, the age of 8, an accident was orchestrated by Ghetsis in an attempt to separate the triplets from their parents. In the end, it ends up killing their mother and father, and almost taking their own lives, with Ghetsis stepping in at the last second to play the role of the saviour.
After that encounter, and the revelation of his royal heritage, the three pledge their loyalty to Ghetsis and leave with him. That was the last time they would ever be referred to by name, let alone as individuals. They were dead to the world, as the rest of the families in the group assumed they died somewhere just outside of Icirrus City, as no child could realistically survive out there on their own.
Were trained up mainly for the purpose of espionage, however were later also used by Ghetsis to silence people who were posing too much of a threat, but even that was rare and usually a last resort.
Unfortunately, in order for them to become as proficient as they are in their powers and as athletic, they were put through horrific training regimes on a daily basis, made to push past their limits until they were physically incapable to continue.
Alongside this, as they were still very much children with their own personalities, Ghetsis did resort to physical means or cruel punishments to discipline them or put them back in place. They would not tell a soul, and no-one really knew of their existence, so it was something he believed he could-- and did-- get away with. These methods would continue up until Ghetsis’ death.
Because of this, they are very much a threat-- they could very easily track down, watch or take someone out if given the order, or they feel the need to. From age 8 onwards, they have been trained to do nothing but that, and with failure not being accepted in the slightest.
Emotional and expressive repression quickly became a means of coping with their situation, however their care for one another did not suffer as a result of this.
They do grow to genuinely care for N as though he were a younger brother.
BW
They are, and have been, aware of the fact that N was being used by Ghetsis as a puppet, and what the real goal of Team Plasma was.
That being said, they all support pokemon liberation to some degree, if only because they believe that, once caught, pokemon are forced to obey the whims of their trainer without question (and no, they don’t realise that’s basically the situation they’re in just yet).
Between BW/BW2
As Ghetsis’ condition worsens, they attempt to care for him until, in a fit of rage, he order them to leave and not come looking for him.
This gives the triad a chance to start exploring who they are as individuals for the first time in 11 years. However, not knowing what do to with themselves, they resort going back to Icirrus City, and biding their time, but not integrating back into society.
A bit of soul-searching inevitably occurs, triggering the start of an identity crisis for all three, albeit to varying levels. But before it can really get any worse, Ghetsis is back in action.
BW2
Despite their attempts to push back the thoughts they were having during the two years on their own, two of the triad-- Fionn and Daithi, the ones with the Absol and Acceglor respectively-- find it worsening, and their identity crises kick back. This is ultimately what pushes Fionn to giving back Liepard to Hugh.
But, they do not question their loyalty to Ghetsis, and continue carrying out every order they are given without question.
Post-BW2
Due to Ghetsis’ condition yet again taking a turn for the worst, they seek out the BW2 protagonist to fight them every time the season changes. At first, it was fuelled by a grudge and a desire to reignite Ghetsis’ ambition, but after some time, it turned more into a way to cope with the fact that he was, really, very close to death.
Much like before, they continue to take care of him, however this quickly becomes a very distressing task, as they do not really know how to care for someone with a progressive and ultimately fatal condition.
After Ghetsis passes away, they remain in Icirrus City, once again unsure of what to do with themselves, and knowing that this time Ghetsis suddenly needing their services again just will not happen.
Eventually, the triad decide to resume their search back into their roots, and uncover the fact that Ghetsis had been behind the incident all those years ago. They cannot accept it as the truth, and it ends up messing with them quite a fair bit, but also serves as a catalyst for each one to start finding their own path.
None can or will really integrate back into society properly, due to how they were brought up by Ghetsis, but Fionn and Daithi decide to try and reclaim lost time in an attempt to find themselves. This starts with them trying to make amends from the shadows.
Bhreac, however, does not agree with their actions, and instead decides to seek out work in a similar kind of field, as he just cannot see living any kind of normal live. Nor does he want to live like that.
At the end of they day though, they are a very close-knit group of siblings (and have always been that way), as they have never had anyone but themselves, N, Concordia and Anthea.
#♔⊱⦃ ⏤ {headcanon.} ⦄⊰♔#tw: abuse mention#tw: manipulation#tw: death mention#{tell me if this needs more tags!}#{also before you ask... gaelic names were chosen because of the origin of brycen's name and the other npcs in--}#{--icirrus city also seem to have gaelic origins too}
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