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ktheist · 4 years ago

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in another life (i would be your man)

muses. hero!yoongi / assassin!yoongi / father!yoongi / lawyer!yoongi

word. 2.5k

genre. reincarnation au

time and time again, you find yourselves in the other’s absolute mercy.

mercy, which both of you know, the other will not grant.

“have you any last words, hero?” the grass shrivels up around yoongi all because hot air wilts the greenest of life.

a single bead of sweat trickles down the side of yoongi’s face as he looks at you without a shred of fear in the face of death.

“all the gold you’re hoarding... does it bring you happiness?” he says, as though already finding serendipity before you can even drive your talon into his chest.

“happiness!” you roar, mockery dripping off your word, “such humanly sentiments. you forgot who you’re speaking to, hero.”

“yoongi... yoongi’s my name” he sighs softly, eyelids fluttering shut, “say it.”

it is you who fall silent this time.

to say the name of the soul who’s bound to you not for love but for destruction... have you the right?

in your last life, a good few hundred years ago, he’s the one that drove the cross into your chest.

in the one before that, you burn him at the stakes for the wretched powers he held.

in this lifetime, even the armor made of the silver cannot withstand the weight of your paw, talon digging into his chest as he lays underneath you, ready to accept the heroic death.

“very well, if not in this lifetime, then perhaps the next...”

you live for three human lifetimes as the great dragon who brought the continent together. the humans, without their hero, are mere mortals. they learned better than to put their faith in one man.

in the next lifetime, you find yourself kneeling in front of a silver haired man - what a striking hair color for someone who’s supposed to be on the low.

“my hand’s gonna slip,” that gravelly voice still sends shivers down your spine.

“what-” you breathe out, eyebrows knitting together.

he takes his aim.

but there’s something wrong.

the angle he’s pointing at will graze your cheek and ear at most.

then he shoots.

when the bullet bounces against the cement somewhere a few inches away behind you, your body moves on its own. your leg sweep out to send him tumbling down onto the ground. your thighs pin his hips down so he can’t get up and you push the gun farther beyond his reach.

“why are you doing this?” you hiss, knife against his throat.

“don’t you think we owe it to ourselves to be happy?” yoongi says simply, too complacent for a man who’s about to lose yet another life to his enemy.

“that’s not how it works,” teeth gritted together, you press the dulled side of the knife harder against his snow-kissed flesh.

“then, how does it work?” he asks.

for a moment, you’re frozen in place. then you’re taken back to where it all begins.

you were a queen who poisoned her king before proceeding to ruin the kingdom until it remains but a memory to those who’ve lived through your tyrannical era. yoongi was the crown prince from a small country who enticed you into his chambers and kept you locked in a tower like a caged bird while he went to war with the neighboring kingdom with your kingdom’s army.

“i- i hated you for seducing me and locking me up in that tower,” you murmur, breath shaky, “a- and you hated me because i-i couldn’t be killed... because i was...”

“a blood sucker.” he finishes for you.

a flash of anger crosses your eyes and paint your vision red. you press the knife harder - no doubt there would be a bruise, “no matter how immortal i was... i died because of a broken heart. you killed me!”

“i was breaking my own heart for having to keep you locked in that tower but if i let you go...” he trails off, his hand coming to settle on yours.

it’s the first time you hear him choke up.

“so many died because of our love,” yoongi’s voice comes out barely above whisper.

“your sin is mistaking hate for love,” you flick your wrist, switching the side of the blade pressed against his neck to one that could cut through clean and swift.

but before you can seal yet another lifetime of your surviving, a sharp pain cuts into your arm, forcing you to release the blade, your free hand cupping the familiar circular wound that’s gushing with blood.

you push yourself off him, going over the ledge and jumping off to your safety. and yoongi’s left in the cold, night air, the coms in his ear buzzing back to life.

it’s six months later that he finds you, dressed in deep red, smiling seductively as you cling on a man twice your age. all of a sudden, he finds himself ignoring whatever his partner’s saying in the coms and approaching you and the man.

yoongi can barely remember what he said but he remembers the overwhelming feeling of relief when the man pushes you off and march out of the room, shouting russian vulgarities.

“planting a bullet hole in my arm isn’t enough, you just had to sabotage my mission, don’t you?” you’re on top of him once again but the ground isn’t cold and hard as he’s always remembered in the series of you pinning him down in differing lifetimes.

“have you thought about what i said?” he doesn’t look like he minds it anymore.

being pinned down by you, that is.

rather, yoongi quite likes the view of your cleavage when you lean down close enough to whisper into his hears, “i reflected on my past mistakes... and truly, i wish nothing more than to have you gone from my sight once and for all.”

then his index finger ghosts over the softest protrusion of the healed up scar on your arm. and you feel goosebumps on your skin.]

you leave in the morning, slipping out of the hotel room in that skin tight maroon dress, noticing the woman in the lobby, looking like what you would’ve looked like if you were waiting for your partner who went against orders and checked into a room in the very same hotel he was supposed to eliminate his target at.

sloppy. fucking sloppy.

yoongi never sees you after that. he got reprimanded and almost got eliminated by his own agency if it hadn’t been his father, the head of the extermination department who pulled some strings and buried the matter.

it’s a surprise he’s still alive at the age of of thirty-one, owning a lawfirm of his own and living the life he’s never thought he’d have.

a normal one.

then, he spots you, walking down the sidewalk holding a toddler’s hand and smiling down at him like he’s the most precious thing you’ve ever hold dear to.

“stop the car,” yoongi orders.

“s-sir?” the driver, surprised by the sudden request, hesitates.

“pull over!” it’s the first time the young man has ever hear his boss raise his voice.

so he does just that, but a block away from where yoongi last saw you.

he runs as fast as his legs could carry him. but the sidewalk is empty of a woman holding a child’s hand.

it takes another year of him searching records of faces and names. for you have many and unlike yoongi, he’s sure you have no one to pull the strings and make one blunder disappear.

then he finds you, under a pseudonym, of a certain kim hana whose child is named kim youngsoo.

“it’s me,” he announces, stepping into the light that pours past the window and over not even half of the room.

“mommy, can we order pizza?” youngsoo’s lively voice rings from outside of the room.

“yeah, why don’t you decide what toppings you want and i’ll be out there in a sec, sweetie,” your voice sounds heavenly - none of the guarded strain that he usually hears. but your eyes, they look like the eyes of a woman who would give everything to protect her most precious possession.

“so it was you... one year ago,” you say, ambling to the dresser where yoongi easily finds out your motive.

“the gun’s not there anymore, you really think i’d break into the house of an ex-assassin and not think to look for weapons tacked up somewhere out of sight?” he hears the frustrated sigh you make before you stand with your feet apart.

looks like you believe his words.

looks like you’ve got no problems taking him on with bare hands.

“he’s mine, isn’t he?”

a scoff.

“you’re pretty dumb if you think one night’s all it takes to get pregnant with your bastard child.”

“who’s the father, then? why isn’t he around?” he presses on.

and his questions have always been intrusive but you notice the weight of his every inquiry. as if he’d drop dead right this instant if you don’t answer them.

“he walked away, couldn’t accept that we had to always be on the move just because he had a baby with a wanted woman.”

and it’s not the police that wants you.

“his social security number?” yoongi shoots you another question.

“i don’t know. i don’t remember,” you say simply, a shrug accompanying your answer.

“number one rule of being an assassin: never forget anything,” yoongi recites easily, even after five years, he still recalls the drilling his mentor forced him through, “so that leaves us with one possibility: he doesn’t exist, this ex of yours.”

“mooooom.” youngsoo calls out, sounding too close for comfort.

“just a minute, sweetie. why don’t you take my phone out of my bag and get ready to dial up the number to the pizza place?” there’s a lightness in your tone.

envy wraps around yoongi’s heart before he even realizes it. how he wished you’d speak to him in that delicate, loving tone as well.

“look, i’m tired, i’m done playing games, i’ve been done since that night. i know i fucked up and i know some day i’ll pay for it but not tonight... tonight... at least let me have one last night with my kid.”

it’s the way the word ‘my’ and ‘kid’ fall naturally off your mouth that makes yoongi realize that he’s the one stuck in the beginning all along. that he’s the one who couldn’t move on from the past even though he sought to change the present and threw your world upside down when he decided not to take the shot.

before he can say anything, you’re already out of the door but he senses no rush in your footsteps.

“do you have the pizza place’s number down?” there it is again, the soft, tender tilt in your voice.

it’s a little faint but he hears it clearly.

and it may very well just be a trick to make him sympathize but what is he to sympathize with when he’s only here to ask for confirmation?

why do you treat him like death who’s finally come to take back your borrowed time?

well, the answer was simple.

“i paid off the bounty,” yoongi meets you at a cafe where he knows you’ll feel safer.

no assassin will make a move in broad daylight, in public, with his face out for the cameras to record.

“how much?” you sound like you just got another loan tying you down.

“enough that they can’t resist,” he states.

and before you can even say anything, he goes on, “i want to see him.”

“no.” you say curtly.

“he’s my child too.” he slides the white envelope he pulls out of his pocket to you.

it contains the dna results from the hair on the comb youngsoo complained he lost and yoongi’s own hair.

“he’s doesn’t need a father,” you don’t even give the envelope a second glance, “if that’s all-”

“that’s not for you to decide on your own,” he cuts you off.

it’s the firmness in his tone that makes your eyebrows rise. min yoongi has always been a gentle soul. even when he was driving a cross into your heart, he’d done it with the heaviest heart.

and for him to place his foot down like this - how very unlike him.

which is why, when he pulls, you pull harder.

“if you so much as appear in front of youngsoo, we will disappear and i’ll make sure you’ll never us again.”

and with that, you take out the blank check from your purse and slip it over to him. the check and the envelop laying side by side.

money isn’t the issue, you’ve managed to wire every single penny you have to different bank accounts before the agency could even freeze the one in seoul. it took several trips to japan, hong kong and china but you eventually got enough to start a new life with your new life.

and that new life of yours is being shaken by the presence of an entity of the past.

you begin noticing the men and women dressed in plain clothing standing a few feet away from where you and youngsoo go. they’re there, acting absolutely normal which makes it unnormal. always watching, always being on guard as if their lives depend on you and youngsoo’s security.

it goes on for another three months before you finally get tired of it and approach one of them, “call your boss over.”

youngsoo’s blowing bubbles at the park when a sleek black car pulls up at the curb and a familiar face steps out.

“you can see him every week on saturdays, one no-show and you’re out. also- i decide when he finds out,” you set the rules and yoongi looks like he a little kid who’s about to perform at his school’s talent show, “do we have a deal?”

“absolutely,” he nods readily.

yoongi’s hand moves on its own and he almost hooks his index finger around your pinky finger as if asking for some kind of emotional support. but he stops himself.

he walks beside you, watching as you walk out from under the shades of the tree, your expression instantaneously brightening when the sunlight hits, “youngsoo-ah,” you wave the toddler over.

his little legs comes running towards you, curious, bright eyes staring at yoongi and right through his soul. he’s never felt so bare and defenseless.

the only thing that keeps him from running away is the fondness in your voice. and the smile on your face that he’s never seen before, “youngsoo-ah, this is uncle yoongi, he’s mommy’s friend...”

yoongi musters the best smile he can - he never needed to try. it’s the people around him that force smiles to please him. never the other way around. never him having to smile so he wouldn’t scare off his son.

he crouches in front of the child that’s partially hiding behind you, “youngsoo-ah, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

#bts fic #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #yoongi fic #yoongi fanfiction #yoongi fanfic #yoongi smut #bts smut #yoongi imagines #bts imagines #bts scenarios #yoongi scenarios #bts au #yoongi au

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halfwaythereroyalwrites · 4 years ago

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I Don’t Know (The Mandalorian x Reader)

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Reader

Warnings: Anxiety. Depression. Angst. A look into how an anxious and depressed mind thinks

Word count: 1,413 words

Summary: You’re feeling down, and you can’t figure out why.

Masterlist

_______________________________________________

You’re not sure what it was.

Maybe it was work. Work was never a source of joy. More of a difficult means to an end. Maybe it was the stress of taking care of everyone around you. Your makeshift family depended on you to do things right in order to provide. Maybe it was the sense of never getting anything right. Maybe it was the lack of support from your coworkers. Maybe it was the harsh words of the very people you served. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the lack of appetite.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe it was everything. And nothing. All at once.

You should be happy. Off the top of your head, you can list several reasons why you should not be feeling like this. Like you would rather a Krayt dragon swallow you whole than to be sitting in the hull of the Razor Crest feeling like there is an empty space in your chest, and a sandstorm of anxiety tearing through your brain. You looked to your right, and The Child was peacefully snoring away, oblivious to the frenzied, fraught feelings fluttering in the very fibers of your being. His safety, happiness, and well-being should have been enough for you to dismiss these damned thoughts and feelings of yours. He and Mando should have been enough for you to feel joy and motivation as you once did.

They weren’t, and it made you feel even worse.

The thud of Mando’s boots coming up the ramp brought a brief sense of relief to you. He was a welcome intrusion to the pervasive feelings of dread that anchored you to the floor of the hull and drained you of any energy.

“Hey,” Mando greeted.

“Hey,” you gave a forced small smile in return. The slight action took up more energy than you expected, and your smile was quickly wiped away to conserve what little energy you had left. Your eyes followed his every move as he put away his equipment. There was a sense of comfort in watching Mando go through his routine. It was almost like watching him strip himself of the things that made him into a bounty machine, and by then end of it, he was...Din.

You took your eyes off of him and stared ahead at the wall in front of you, letting the thoughts come to the forefront of your head and trying to address each and every one. This proved to be a difficult task because as soon as you came up with an answer for your own question, the question would grow three heads in its place, making the buzz of your brain impossible to quell down. As the questions grew more and more proverbial heads, the tension that formed a belt around your head constricted, as if trying to keep these thoughts in your head rather than have your brain burst at the seams. The questions and thoughts were growing to be too much. The never-ending slew of thoughts. The weight on your chest that seemed to constrict your breathing. This fluttering feeling that seemed to make you want to hurl the contents of your stomach. It was coming together. As one. To form a hideous monster of your own creation. The anxiety. The guilt. The sadness. It was all too…

“What are you doing on the ground?”

Your head snapped to meet the gaze of his visor. “Huh?”

“I asked what you were doing on the ground,” Mando gestured to your form leaned up against the wall. “You have a bed you can sleep in.”

“The floor was more comfortable.” Mando met your response with silence. He walked over to you, faced the same wall, and folded his beskar-clad body down on the ground next to you.

“Well...you’re a liar,” he groaned, his joints popping at the movement of his body. His small quip made you scoff out loud, and a real smile made it way to your lips.

“Maybe it would help if you weren’t wearing your body weight in armor,” you giggled. Mando responded with another groan as he adjusted himself to sit next to you as comfortably as possible. You adjusted your blanket to be able to drape half of it over his legs. This was probably a futile gesture, but it brought you comfort nonetheless to share a blanket with him.

“So what’s actually going on?” Mando asked, keeping his gaze straight ahead just as you were.

You took a few seconds to ponder over your answer. Trying to pick apart your brain for a suitable response, and coming up with...

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Mando asked in confusion. His helmet turned to the side to face you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him as you said the next words.

“I’m just so...sad. I don’t know what’s going on. And I can’t help but feel anxious over every word, action, and thought I’ve ever had. There are times where it gets to be so much that I wanna throw up. I’m tired all the time no matter how much rest I get. I’m hungry, but I also don’t want to eat. It sucks because I love taking care of the kid, and I love traveling with you, but I...I-I can’t explain it. I feel...so sad.”

Mando had no words to offer, and your chest was slightly heaving as if you had lifted a physical weight off of you. You frowned at the wall in front of you. You must have sounded so stupid and needlessly emotional. The silence was getting to be a bit too much for you, and you grabbed the corner of the blanket to lift it off you, ready to leave to your own bed.

You were surprised by the warm touch at your back that it froze you into inaction. Mando’s hand moved to cup your shoulder, where he gently pulled you into his side. He kept his arm around you, and you felt your body go limp, relaxing into his touch. Your lips were quivering slightly, surprised at how much the simple gesture could be so comforting.

Mando cleared his throat and said, “You don’t have to explain.”

The five words prompted your tears to begin falling freely from your eyes. You pressed your lips together in an attempt to stop sobs from coming out, but when Mando fully embraced you from the side, a broken sob tore through. You wrapped your arms around his torso, and began to cry, and cry, and cry. You leaned your head against his chest plate, and when you opened your eyes for a brief moment, you saw your tears smeared against the beskar. Mando’s embrace never faltered as you calmed down from the sobs that tore through your body. You slightly pushed against him to be able to sit up straight and gain some composure. His arms fell to his sides as he watched you try get yourself together. You sniffled, and wiped away the tears with the backs of your hands.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized.

“Why?” Mando asked.

“I don’t know,” you laughed, at a loss for how to move on from here.

“There’s no need to be sorry,” Mando said in his low, modulated voice. “I’m here...if you ever want to...you know...talk.”

You smiled at his words. A genuine smile that took almost no energy at all. You leaned on his shoulder and looked up at the dark gaze of his visor. “Thank you. I’ll hold you to that.”

Mando brought you closer to him by pulling you to his side once more with his arm, and in turn, you wrapped your arms around his torso. You took one deep sigh and rested your head against his chest, willing your brain to shut up for this one moment. The warmth of Mando’s body seeped into yours, filling the empty space in your chest momentarily and allowing your body to relax against his.

You’re not sure when the thoughts will stop. When the anxiety will calm or when the sadness will go away. It could be next week, or it could be within the next year. In this galaxy of uncertainties, what you do know for sure is the kid and Mando are here, with you. And Maker willing, they will stay here, next to you, as you pick yourself up over and over again.

_______________________________________________

Masterlist

A/N: Life is still hard, and for me personally, a lot of that stems from work and being at a high-stakes job as a new graduate with no prior experience in a toxic workplace. I’m lucky enough that I have reading and writing to turn to for comfort. As I was writing this, I had to stop a couple times because I was crying or my anxiety/depression got to be too much to write about.

To my fellow writers, thank you for your incredible work and support that never fails to comfort me. To my readers, I love and appreciate all of you for reading my work.

If you, or anyone else you know, is going through mental health problems, know that you’re not alone. There are resources and people willing to help, and the first step is acknowledging that there is a problem. You may not know me, but I am rooting for you. It’s okay not to be okay.

Resources for Mental Health

Taglist:

General: @peppermintvanilla @fantasticcopeaglepasta @panda-angela

Star Wars: @multifandomlife22

#the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian imagine #mando x reader #din djarin x reader #mando x you #star wars imagine #din djarin x you #mando imagine #halfwaythereroyalwrites

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mfkinanaa · 4 years ago

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MOON IN ARIES.

Born with the Moon in the sign of Aries, you are likely to have a pronounced need for independence, as well as an assertive streak. Aries is a Fire sign, governing impulses, initiative and action. Accordingly, you are likely to feel at your best when you involved with exciting, challenging or new experiences – anything that lets you express your pioneering side.

Aries is also a Cardinal sign, highlighting the need to act. You may experience yourself as a dynamic, pioneering individual, and enjoy getting things started – lifting them off the ground. Your need for independence suggests you may be happiest when left to do your own thing, and will detest being told what to do.

This is a sign of emotional independence. You are likely to give, and expect, much stimulation, vibrancy and freedom from the people in your life. You may be quick to react, ready to forgive and but also easily hurt. You are likely to enjoy the space to be your own person, and will feel trapped if others try to limit you.

You may also be uncomfortable with sentimental displays, or what you may deem as ‘weak’ expressions of emotion. You have an innate warrior-like quality which means you will prefer to deal directly with what is. Social niceties or protocols that mask the truth are usually not your cup of tea. You are likely to call ‘a spade a spade’, and be largely self-sufficient on an emotional level.

You have the capacity to endure hardship and negation when it will suit your purposes, and usually expect others to do the same.

Quick to React.

Your ability to marshal your energies can be pronounced. You have a capacity to draw from an instinctive level the inner resources that you need. When you identify an objective that you wish to pursue, you can do so with an almost military-like precision, removing all distractions in your quest to attain your goal. You have the kind of temperament which thrives upon hard work and perseverance. The gusto with which you approach these goals can leave others in your wake. Yet you may have trouble finishing what you start, or compromising so as to include others needs. For these reasons, you may run in to difficulty with others who are unable to react as easily as you, or when negotiation is required. You will need to learn when it is time for you to do your own thing, versus time to include others. The influence of others features in your birth chart will reveal how easily this can be done.

A Need to Pioneer.

As a pioneer, you are likely to find that you are drawn to avenues of expression which allow you do your own thing. You may have a particular knack for recognizing the seed in an idea, the potential in an opportunity. Your emotional nature is likely to be such that you feel most invigorated or alive when you are starting something new. The energy needed to get something off the ground fires all your passion up, and gives you an immediate focus.

You are likely to be responsive, impatient and enthusiastic, so suited to any kind of self-employment or contract opportunity. For some born with the Moon here, there will be entrepreneurial qualities, and you may feel frustrated in your life unless you have the chance to test your ideas on the market and see what else is possible to create. Aries is a sign of vision combined with action. You may need to find ways in your life to do your own thing, and are likely to resist others attempts to define you.

Simple and Direct.

Aries is considered the “infant of the Zodiac”, and you may have a peculiar blend of brashness, innocence and sensitivity which means you will say whatever is on your mind. Yet you can easily be hurt should others do the same. You are likely to be strongly affected by criticism and can be stopped in your tracks by unkind words. You may rush forward when feeling sure of yourself but fall in heap when others disagree.

Like the proverbial Fool of the Tarot, you tend to leap in where angels fear to tread, possessing a courage to face the unknown which means you rarely question the road ahead. Your valiant spirit can be your best asset but also your Achilles heel. You may completely underestimate the calculated actions of those with a more complex emotional response, or you may unintentionally hurt others with your own ill-considered words.

In this sense, you may be somewhat taken aback by those who are prepared to use underhanded or calculating methods, for yours is a fairly straightforward and usually honest style of relating that is characterized by direct expression, honesty, forthrightness and a lack of guile. Those born with the Moon in Aries tend to react quickly to circumstances, and you may speak directly from an emotional place before having stopped to really think.

You may get angry easily, but will get over it quickly as well. You are likely to be most comfortable with others who let you be yourself, and recognise that there is rarely any malice or hidden agenda when you say what’s on your mind.

Moving On.

Aries is connected with the planet Mars, the god of war. You may be at times aggressive, with a quick temper and little patience when it comes to getting what you want. Your reactions tend to be spontaneous and direct. You are likely to rely on intuitive flashes or hunches, making decisions quickly before moving on to whatever’s next. Your emotional nature may mean that you tend to jump into things, especially friendships, quite quickly.

You make your decisions based on initial feeling, and once excited will happily rush in. This can lead to errors of judgment with you overstepping the mark, until you learn to balance this tendency with common sense. Try to spend a little time getting to know what others really think and feel, before you make your move. For best results, you should learn to trust your strong intuitive streak, but temper direct action with balanced consideration to help determine the correct approach.

Spirit of Nobility.

You are likely to be both noble of spirit and innately idealistic. Because of this, you will fight for ideas or people you hold dear to heart. Aries embodies the archetypal qualities of The Spiritual Warrior or The Chivalrous Knight. You may care little for money or prestige, but can be motivated to move mountains should an ideal or individual be at stake. You are likely to hold high ideals, and will believe in Truth and Justice as ultimate entities.

Finding ways to channel your warrior nature into tangible outcomes should prove rewarding for you, and when you feel you are ‘fighting the good fight’ then you will feel at peace within yourself. If other factors in the chart also concur, then physical activity is likely to be most important for you, and with plenty of fuel in your tank, you will need to expend a lot of energy on a regular basis in order to feel settled and on track.

Born with the Moon in Aries.

At its best, Aries is a passionate and independent sign. Born with the Moon in Aries, you are likely to have an innate need to do things on your own. Your dynamism is your best asset and gives you much energy to draw upon. You will feel at your best when in charge of your own life, and in some way doing your own thing. As a natural pioneer, you can see the opportunity present in seed-potentials, and will bring much creative energy to get things off the ground. Your sense of justice and idealism means you will fight for what you feel to be fair, and in many ways your innate innocence means you can succeed through sheer courage and purity of heart. Your courage can be an inspiration to others, and you do best in life when you direct your considerable energies toward the achievement of worthwhile causes bigger than just yourself.

#astrotips #astrology #astroworld #zodiac #zodic signs #aries sign #taurus #moon sign #aries moon #gemini #cancer sign #leo #virgo zodiac #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces

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coolmagazinemagazine · 3 years ago

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In Search of the Reddish Sky

Juliana Pires n22 e Maria Luiza Thuler n25

Synopsis:

What would happen if Napoleon's faithful squire gave up? Animals are working harder and harder. The cold weather made his bones shake and the crops were getting scarcer. Boxer is the strongest, but hope is at stake. Will he make it? Maybe there will be a war, the ground will be stained with blood, maybe some will be forced to do things they don't want to. You'll find out by reading this new version of the Animal Farm book.

Fanfic:

It was another ordinary day on the farm, light rain was falling on the barn, Boxer stretched tiredly, he had slept badly last night, the cold would not let him rest.

At breakfast the food was scarce, but he was motivated to go to work. He repeated in his mind several times to motivate himself the phrase "I will work even harder"

The construction of the windmill was practically finished, but there was a lot of work ahead. The wheelbarrow that was carrying the stones to the construction area was very heavy, but Boxer was going slowly and steadily.

After a long and exhausting day of work, Squealer announced that that night, Napoleon would have a very important announcement to make and anyone who did not attend would be considered a traitor. Boxer was exhausted, he had been working without rest for many days now, but he remembered that Napoleon was always right, so he was excited to attend.

- Thank you for everyone's presence, today is not an ordinary day, today is an important day for the history of animalism, however, comrades, don't get excited, we're not here for a good reason!

Meanwhile, Napoleon was after Squealer with his dogs, and the animals watched, but now, apprehensive.

- There are many things we don't tell you to preserve you, be thankful for that, many of you may think Snowball is far away, but I can bet you know how close it is, hen Matilde, step forward.

- Matilde trembled all its feathers, its beak almost withered.

- Yyyesss sir Squealer. - said Matilde stammering

- Matilde, can you confirm that you had relations with Snowball after his escape?

- No, Mr Squealer.

- Oh, really? And would you confirm this answer even after seeing this document here where it is written that you met on Wednesday last week?

- But Mr. Squealer, I can't even read!! - said desperate Matilde

- Are you by any chance questioning me?

- Never Mr Sque... - before Matilde can finish justifying herself, Squealer motions for the dogs to attack her. Soon, Matilde becomes a pile of feathers and blood, surrounded by the hatched animals.

That had happened to other animals besides Matilde, dear friends of Boxer who would become traitors according to Squealer and Napoleon, the horse did not know that there were so many traitors among them. Between one execution and another, Squealer began to speak, saying that snowball had been against Napoleon since the beginning of the revolution, Boxer then could not contain himself, in a neigh he said:

- That's not really true, snowball was on our side in the first battle, he fought us! He wasn't a traitor at first.

- By chance is vice opposing official documents?

- But I don't have a clear memory of your bravery during the battle!

At that moment, without Boxer noticing, Napoleon sends a signal to the dogs to attack Boxer. The horse is startled at first, but because it is too strong it ends up overpowering the dogs, was about to crush one of them with one of its heavy and strong hooves, when he looked at Napoleon asking for his approval. The pig signals him to let the dog go, and like a good follower, Boxer obeys him.

With the end of the executions, everyone went to sleep, they were emotionally tired, some even thought about the commandment that said that one animal did not kill the other, but soon put the thought away, after all, they deserved it, they were traitors. Boxer was almost asleep when he heard a noise:

- pissuu

- Benjamin was calling him.

- Hey boxer, meet me in the pasture.

- Boxer nods and goes to the pasture.

- Boxer, I need you to know that Napoleon sent the dogs to kill you, just as he ordered the other animals to be killed.

- But what are you talking about, Benjamin? I'm loyal to Napoleon, I would never do anything to harm him.

- That's not what he thinks, you were supposed to be one of the animals that night, he's suspicious of your loyalty, your time is running out if we don't do anything. We have two options, either we run away as soon as possible, or you'll end up dead, I'm your friend, I want your best, please believe me.

Time goes by and Boxer doesn't say anything, he was shocked by the situation, it was hard to believe, but Benjamin was his best friend, he really wanted his best. Boxer trusted him a lot, so he was convinced.

- Want to know something? I’m exhausted, both physically and mentally. I don't want to hear about revolution anymore, yesterday's killing was all it took for me to explode, let's leave at dawn, I want peace.

- That's right Boxer, let's go to a better place, to be happy together, without having someone bossing us around, from the time we wake up until the end of the day. I don't like Jones or Napoleon, let's go in search of freedom.

And so Benjamin and Boxer follow in the red sky at dawn, in search of freedom and a better life.

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f-117-nighthawk · 3 years ago

Text

Playlist Update Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Part 2! Here lies Endless War, Dystopian Fiction, and Filaments. EW hasn’t changed much, DF has a bit and it's all INFECTED's fault, and Filaments has more than three songs finally. My explanations for these aren't quite as fleshed out (partially bc there's less in my head to flesh out with and partially because these aren't nearly as set in playdough as the main playlist. more like set in syrup)

Part One

In chronological order:

Endless War

Dark Matter is here because it always is, twining through everything else.

(Don’t stop, don’t think, don’t look back/You’re a bolt of lightning in the sky now/Don’t stop, don’t think, don’t look back/I’ve pulled you in, nowhere to hide now)

I Am the One links into Eater of Worlds as sort of the aftermath, sort of during Apocalypse 1992. Our Fifth General has her realization about [REDACTED] far, far before Team Voltron does because she’s there in the thick of it during Through Apocalypse Skies.

(I am the one/I hold the dreams from fallen heroes)

(We are gods, we are monsters/We create to devour/Not for love but for power/What’s a life worth in the end?)

(From the caves beneath Dundee/Ancient hermit arrives/A messenger to the war in the stars/Korviliath is nigh!)

The Truth Beneath the Rose is from the perspective of our last (and first) Blade in the aftermath of Through Apocalypse Skies, as she realizes just what she helped create. Also… kinda connects to a song in the main playlist, but not very obviously.

(Blinded to see the cruelty of the beast/It is the darker side of me/The veil of my dreams deceived that I have seen/Forgive me for what I have been, forgive me my sins!)

Raise Your Banner is The Fifth General’s newfound resolve as she starts collecting allies against Zarkon’s empire.

(Wake up/I’m defying you, seeing right through you, once I believed in you/Wake up/Feel what’s coming deep within we all know)

Obey is a bit of a weird one. It’s in the same vein as You Keep What You Kill in the main playlist, but it’s more specifically about the creation of the first Druids and how Haggar uses them against the Fifth General and her team.

(Obey, we're gonna show you how to behave/Obey, it's nicer when you can't see the chains)

Silver Moonlight is cracks forming in The Fifth General’s new set of alliances and her desperate and occasionally rash attempts to get them to believe in her goal. Not just the main one to take down the empire, but the one that will allow them to do that.

(I’m impatient, but it’s colors that I need/Too many shades of grey, I cannot breathe/The dreams I have ain’t tainted, I need you to believe/The only way to make them real, oh)

Endless War is the title track, connected to Holy Ground and I’d Rather Burn as a specific event but also sort of encompassing the Fifth General’s motivations throughout the series. She’s “hunting a miracle” that is also those colors from Silver Moonlight, and then the end of Endless War kicks in with Holy Ground, and the Fifth General’s final stand in I’d Rather Burn.

('Cause you’re fighting an endless war/Hunting a miracle/And when you reach out for the stars/They just cut you down/…/Is it worth dying for?/Or are you blinded by, blinded by it all?)

(You got inside my head, I want you out/'Cause I’ve been betrayed on holy ground)

(Won’t let you take my soul away/I’d rather go to the stake/I’d rather burn)

Empty Eyes is [long spoiler beep]. (and yes! I found it on Spotify finally!)

(I don’t know where I’m going/In search for answers/I don’t know who I’m fighting/I stand with empty eyes/You’re like a ghost within me/Who’s draining my life/It’s like my soul is see-through/Right through my empty eyes)

Dystopian Fiction

Dark Matter is on here because title track, but also it does end up with effects. Especially by the end… and of course, the Thing that is Wrong With Earth.

(Don’t stop, don’t think/Move up, don’t blink now/On your knees pray for rain/Don’t breathe when you take your aim)

The Human Condition is the Éskhayklos manifesto. A warning of the end times. The condemnation of the parasites. The reveal of the only cure. The final extinction cycle. Also their new image song, as Cross the Line got moved.

(We have the cure for the disease/Locked down inside us/When all is dead, then we will see/We are the virus)

INFECTED is the Éskhayklos’s slow, well, infection of the Sol Federation, and their descent into full-blown terrorism. (And yes, I know the actual lyrics have ‘he’. Shhhhhh. It’s a STARSET song, it’s about a Shirogane, even if it’s sort of from Cascade’s POV)

(Here's a challenge for all mankind/The preacher man is warning of the end times/The weatherman agrees but she don't know/So she's got to go now)

Who Will Save You Now here is about Sam, and the aftermath of Here to Save You, in addition to its referenced role in the main playlist.

(Alone with this vision/Alone and blind/Go tell the world I’m still alive)

Codebreaker is Adam’s song! But here it’s also in conjunction with Cross the Line as the final Éskhayklos mission before...

(Codebreaker can’t you find/Can you read between the lines of code?/Tell me all that you know/How far down the hole does it all go)

(Cross the line, redefine, break away unbent, unafraid/Together we stand in the dark/Seeking the light and what is right, together we cross the line/Our journey will come to an end and then our human cause will be/Justified)

The Day the Earth Collapsed

(How much time has been elapsed/Since the day the earth collapsed?)

Dystopian Fiction is the title track for this part. With the events of The Day the Earth Collapsed, the Garrison and our heroes on Earth are at their lowest point. It really is a piece of dystopian fiction, between [spoiler] and [spoiler]. They’re fighting for something that, at that point, must seem like ‘superstition.’ And also: “Nobody can shoot me down, not just yet” is about Adam bc Fuck Canon. Even if he does, technically, get shot down.

(I’m a dead man/In the wasteland/I’m a soldier fighting for superstition/Under searchlights/In the long nights/We’ve been written like dystopian fiction)

World on Fire and The Reckoning are the two of their subset that make it over here because they’re the two that happen before the result of This is a Call can come to fruition, and are more focused on our Earth heroes anyway.

(Sent by forces beyond salvation/There can be not one sensation)

(We’re all alone, walking in twilight/The night has been long and so many have fallen/Feel no remorse, light will be breaking/Our freedom is worth it all)

Filaments

Filaments is still in flux but does have way more solid than it did. Like, you know, most of an ending. I just don’t really know how they get from A to B yet.

Dark Matter is here because, well. A) Title track, B) yes, it still has effects. It’s the overarching theme, after all. Filaments sort of has a subtitle itself, which is ‘The Undoing,’ after the other part of the lyric that the subtitle of the main playlist comes from. It’s about undoing a past mistake (that wasn’t obviously a mistake until much later) and reconciling the events of Your World Will Fail.

(I am the keeper/I am the secret/I am the answer/I am the end)

Filaments is the title track of this part. It’s… a little hard to explain without giving away the entire plot but it’s about the connections between different parts of the universe, and some fall-out of Cosmic Vertigo and Louder Than Words.

(These glowing filaments/Conducting this enchanting/Sarcophagus that’s holding us)

Starlight is, again, Adashi song, and this time the happy part

(Don’t leave me lost here forever/I need your starlight and pull me through/Bring me back to you)

Carry Me Home is its eponymous fic.

(Carry me home to the morning light/carry me home before you wave me goodbye/Oh, carry me home…)

And then we get to the new part. Know that stuff in Carry Me Home about “The record skip that only [Keith and Krolia] can remember”? Yeah, Prognosis is a huge step to figuring that out.

(How long is the body beholden?/How long 'til we run out of road?/Deep down in the black of the ocean/Fading from the glow)

The timey-wimey ball gets tossed around more in Blackstar. Partially due to [REDACTED] and a certain terrorist’s reemergence, but also due to Prognosis-related stuff

(They'll let you try/To reverse everything/Don't waste your time/Sing Hallelujah 'cause you can't change anything)

Eon straight-up plays Calvinball with the timey-wimey ball and gets the Paladins stuck in a groundhog-day situation, and the only way out? Isn’t good.

(If time's a song, I won't wait for its reprise/I am done wishing farewells and goodbyes)

The Art of War and Centigrade are the beginning of the end. The Art of War is Cascade finally showing his true colors, and the Sol Federation not having a good time. Centigrade is the other side of it, Team Voltron having a realization of just what they’re going to need to do.

(I can remember all the days of violence/I can remember all the days they fought for rights/When men united all by fear and interest/I mustered them with hopeful promises I've broken)

(What did you hope to find adrift and lost in time?/Is this the end ready to begin?/It's time to escape the fate of destruction, excavating within until salvation/No longer pretend the future's a lie from a past you cannot hide)

The Future is Now and A Theater of Dimensions are. Well. You’ll see. It’s a little hard to pick a lyric from AToD, I'll say that much.

(They said there was no way/But they forgot the black hole in the sky/Yesterday is nothing/I have half a life to rewrite)

(I’ve seen our freedom in the mist of time/The old signs I’ll follow and the day of relief will be yours and mine)

And then there’s Afterlife. Fitting to end on a UtA song, after everything, especially since The Immortal has repeatedly throughout DM been a metaphor for Voltron. Also fitting that it’s this one, considering the parallels between the end of The Immortal’s story and Filaments

(But with such power, think how you could rule/Hold to your promise to watch over those in despair/Why would you choose to serve when you could be master of all?/Be true to your honour and fight for a world that is fair!/Out of shadow, out of darkness, welcome to the light/As the day shines boldly over night/Follow me to finally be who you are inside/Open wide, embrace the afterlife)

#i am dark matter; your road to ruin #long post #at least this time was only an hour and a half?#dm playlists

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advena87 · 4 years ago

Link

Lambert and Keira Metz after the events of Wild Hunt run a joint business in Lan Exeter. Unexpectedly, a stranger witcher appears on their doorstep with an unusual task.

So the translation of the first chapter of my fanfic where it turns out that Aiden is alive after all.

My English is shitty, so please forgive me for mistakes. I will be grateful for feedback, both in terms of language and story. I don't know if I will translate it further, it's really difficult and exhausting for me, at the top you have a link to the Polish version.

I dedicate this translation to @gridelincarver @marbienl13 @all-my-queens If it wasn't for you, this text wouldn’t have been written, so thank you very much for motivation!

______________________________________________________

Granda

granda (polish) - rumpus, ruction, brawl, bunch but also fraud, hoax, humbug

Chapter 1

Lan Exeter was a beautiful port city, full of vivid but narrow houses and canals instead of streets. The winter capital of Kovir and Poviss, like the whole country, was favorable to sorceress and sorcerers who escaped from war-torn Redania from Radowid's witch hunters. Magicians from the Northern Kingdoms found here a safe haven, job and had great freedom in conducting their research and experiments.

Despite these many advantages Keira Metz didn’t like to live here. It was difficult for her to explain it rationally, she really couldn’t complain about anything, especially after what she went through hiding in Velen. But Lan Exeter got on her nerves. She couldn't focus here and felt something hanging in the air.

Lambert on the other hand was very pleased with the new location. Despite the fact that it was Triss Merigold, who arranged for them enter to Kovir, it was the witcher who indicated the winter capital as the right place to start their small project. He had acquaintances here, in the past he has made several large contracts for important officials. Thanks to these acquaintances, they didn’t encounter any major problems to rent a small, but well-kept tenement house not far from the city's main square. At the start they paid for it from what Lambert saved from contracts, Keira's savings went to the apparatus for the laboratory she arranged in the attic of the building. Now the sorceress has already run her own business, from which she had considerable profits and they divided expenses in half.

She couldn't complain here either. Despite his difficult character, Lambert was a resourceful and responsible man when it came to finances. He systematically searched for contracts and efficiently bargained with clients. He wasn't wasteful and basically the only thing he spent money on was weapon. As for the alchemical ingredients and components, Keira made sure he didn't run out of anything. Always taking orders for her business, she took into account the witcher's need for potions. Before they looked back, they worked out a routine for functioning and cooperation on both: private and professional grounds. And that was another thing that had been bothering her for some time.

Her relationship with Lambert was turbulent at times, but it was exemplary. The Witcher didn’t cause problems, except for the fact that he sometimes returned half-dead from work. And that was basically the only thing they could argue about. Both of them had an explosive temperament, arguments could sometimes alarm their neighbors. However, it always found its finale in bed, which didn’t diminish the amount of decibels they generated and Keira finally cast a silencing spell on their building, because tenants from behind the wall intended to report noise to the owner of the house.

Either way, her life under one roof with the witcher slowly and disturbingly began to resemble a marriage. And just thinking about it, Keira shivers. That wasn’t her ambition. She never dreamed of hiding in a charming house at the end of the world with the One. Keira wanted power and fame, constantly thinking back to the time she sat on the royal council of Temeria, she still remembered the conventions of sorcerers and the feast of the elite, where her word was sacred. That Keira Metz wore the most fashionable and provocative outfits, every night she had a different lover, drank the most expensive and exquisite wines on the Continent, and pulling the strings on the political scene of the country was her element. She had a reputation, people knew her name and felt respect for it. She wanted to create history and have fun, she wanted to taste life. Meanwhile, she was sitting in the politically neutral and boring Kovir, where no one knew who she was, she was selling her knowledge to the populace and slept with witcher.

Well, it was always a few steps better than forgotten by gods Velen, a bunch of illiterate peasants paying her with eggs and shareing bed with bugs. Not to mention the threat of burning at the stake still hanging over her then. So she knew it could always be worse. And she really couldn't say she was unhappy here, just ... it wasn't the kind of happiness she wanted. And Lambert himself was a completely unsolvable matter for her. They weren’t officially together, none of them came up with the funny idea of having a serious relationship. Lambert was supposed to help her with her research, and sex was just a nice addition for both of them. They didn’t claim any rights to each other, they didn’t swear allegiance and devotion, they just went with the flow and in some unexplained way they found themselves in this place. In a shared apartment, with shared business and shared life. Keira didn't remember when she had spent so many nights in her own bed with the same man by her side. She was beginning to fear that it had never really happened before.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a bell. In the tenement they rented, ground floor was adapted for Keira's magical business. At the front door, which was constantly open for the public, they hung a bell that signaled the arrival of a potential customer. The sorceress rose from behind the table, closed the book, which she reviewed to make a mixture ordered by one of the townsmen, and headed for the curtain separating the back room from the main part of the store.

She saw the figure next to the bookcase and thought it was Lambert for a short split second. She was fooled by two swords on his back - such characteristic accessories for her witcher. But it wasn't Lambert. The man was slightly taller, but thinner, he was standing back to her, and he had a hood on his head, but the sorceress knew her witcher too well to confuse him with someone else, she had no doubt. However, newcomer wasn’t interested in books, but in other objects based on a bookcase. Kiera shuddered a little, of all the things that were in this room, he had to choose that one.

"How can I help you?” She finally said, hoping that would surprise him and divert his attention from the things he was watching, but nothing like that happened.

The man, unmoved by her question, still with his back to her, reached into one of the hilt of two swords leaning against the bookcase. He grabbed it and pulled the blade out of the scabbard.

"It's not for sale," she said firmly, and finally got a reaction.

The stranger turned slowly toward Keira, looked her up and down, and a pair of amber cat eyes flashed from under his hood.

"Witcher,” she noted with surprise.

The man weighed the sword in his hand, ran his fingers over the carved runes. Keira didn't miss the way he was holding it. To be sure, she looked at his own swords protruding from his left arm. He was left-handed.

Lambert once told her that a left-handed swordsman is a real pain in the ass. A left-handed witcher, on the other hand, is a death sentence. Admittedly, it doesn't matter with monsters, but warriors trained in swordsmanship don't have much chance against someone like that. Regardless of school, master or experience, almost every swordsman has a dominant right hand. Even if he was born left-handed, when he enters the training he is immediately switched to the right one. Those who decide to train on the left have more difficult learning, but the advantage they gain thanks to it is huge. Left-hander is accustomed to right-handed opponents, they are his daily bread, but people relying on their right have a very difficult task fighting a mirror reflection. As a result, it was also established that a left-handed swordsman was a cheater without honor, so there were only a few schools and masters favorable to teaching left-handers on their dominant hand. Unless they want to train the assassin.

“The devil does not sleep,“ witcher read the inscription from the blade, still carefully examining the sword. ”Silver blade, witcher gear. Where did you get it from?”

"It's not for sale," she repeated and walked over to him, emphatically raising her hand, expecting that he would give her the weapon. “It belongs to my business partner, also a witcher”.

"I see...” He smiled at her, which revealed dimples in his cheeks, but it was hard to call that smile cordial. He obediently gave her the sword and finally pulled off the hood.

Keira blinked in surprise. She may not have been an expert, but apart from Lambert, she was also dealing with his brothers from the Wolf School and that assassin of Foltest. The witchers were interesting in their own way, but it was hard to enter them into the standard canon of beauty. And the one in front of her was a little more unusual than the norm she knew.

First of all, he was redhead. She lived among the villagers long enough to know that redhead was for them a synonym of a soulless freak. So the red-headed and left-handed witcher would probably be cursed three times for them. Of course, these were only nonsense superstitions of the illiterate pleb, but someone with such qualities had to have extremely hard on the path. His appearance alone was enough for people not to trust him.

Secondly, he looked young. The Witchers in general grew old very slowly, but she has never met monster slayer who looks as young as this one. It wasn’t about the number of wrinkles, but about the youthful charm of teenage daredevil, and when he smiled, two deep dimples appeared on his cheeks. However, his cold gaze revealed that he was long after his teenage years. These eyes could see enough to look distrustful and insensitive now. Combined with this beautiful but predatory smile, he looked like a hungry shark.

Thirdly, he had no scars on his face except for one, thin as a thread that cut his lips vertically to the right and disappeared just above his chin. It was visible mainly because the witcher had a stubble on his jaw, if it weren't for it, it wouldn’t have been visible at first glance. Keira hasn’t yet met the witcher without the obvious scars that disfigure face. The only noticeable defect was the damaged right ear. The helix was clearly jagged, and although the flaw was completely healed, it seemed to be a fairly recent matter.

"Your partner left without swords?” witcher asked with a sneer, and Keira felt uncomfortable.

The tenement house was storeys, there could have been two dozen partners upstairs, but the newcomer knew she was here alone. The sorceress wasn’t particularly fearful and usually she felt more than at ease with men, but he gave her goosebumps. And not the good one.

In general, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to her that he exactly knew who was and who wasn’t around. She lived with Lambert long enough to learn that he hears from the ground floor a falling pin upstairs, but for some reason she attributed this skill only to him. Meanwhile, superhuman senses were a feature of all witchers.

"These are souvenirs," she explained and invited him to the table where she was hosting clients. Before she joined him she put the sword back into its sheath and laid it on the table. "He doesn't use them, so I wanted to hang them on the wall for decoration, but he didn't agree. And then I forgot to put them back in their place.”

"Why didn't he agree?” He asked in a tone of conversation about the weather and sat down, taking off his fingerless leather gloves.

"Like I said, these are souvenirs," she repeated, shrugging. “These have sentimental value and, as he said: ‘these aren’t ceremonial sabers to hang on the wall’."

"So neither for show nor for use," he said, looking at the weapon in front of him for a moment, then looked up at Keira, clearly stopping his gaze on her décolletage. A short grimace ran over his face, and Keira could have sworn, it was amusement. But it disappeared as quickly as it appeared, and after a moment the witcher was looking straight in her eyes, his face expressing nothing. “So much good steel is wasted. I will gladly buy them, I can offer a good price for them”.

Keira frowned. She had already told him twice that swords weren’t for sale. However, that wasn't what worried her. Not even that he was looking at her decolletage. She noted it with relief, because it was something she could deal with and finally he showed some human impulses, even if this view amused him for some reason. What she didn't like here was how quickly he decided to make a purchase. He didn't even look at the second sword!

She witnessed how Lambert bought new blades. The whole process lasted almost a month. A month of watching and comparing weapons at various craftsmen, a month of whining and fussing, and finally commissioned them to be forged. But he was still dealing with materials, because it was necessary to import a special steel alloy. It cost her witcher a lot of nerves and even more money, but he told her then that his life depends on these blades. They must be an extension of his hand, no compromises.

And this witcher wants to buy swords that he didn't even look at properly.

Maybe he collected them, or maybe he was just stupid, it didn't matter, Keira wasn't going to sell them, even if he had a mountain of gold. These swords were important to Lambert.

"Not for sale," she repeated for the third time, this time in the tone she extinguished the royal advisers in the council, when they began to be a pain in the ass. “Please, better tell me what brings you to me. And to Lan Exeter if I can ask. The witcher in the city is quite an unusual thing.”

"From what I have found out, you live with a witcher,” he raised one eyebrow. “You are one of the last people who should be surprised.”

“That's why it's unusual. Two witchers in the capital are a crowd.“

“I must admit that this is not a coincidence. I’m looking for a partner to fulfill a big and difficult contract. A large and strong imperial manticore come along from the mountains to nearby villages. Kidnap people, slaughter cattle. Three villages funded reward.”

“So you didn't come to talk to me, but to my parner," she said, ready to end the discussion here. She couldn't take contracts on behalf of Lambert.

And it sounded really bad. Maybe the money could be good, but the manticores were extremely dangerous. If the monster flew here from the mountains, then the trip to track it down will be long and exhausting. She didn't like it at all.

“It's not just about the manticore, I also have a request to you. It is very fortunate that I find a sorceress and witcher in one place, although this is an unusual thing.“

“Maybe here in Kovir. Where I come from bards even sing ballads about the union of the witcher and sorceress. A few of my colleagues value such cooperation very much, so I decided to take their advice and enter into ... a partnership with the witcher.“

“I know master Dandelion’s ballads,” he smiled mischievously, and she had to admit that he looked attractive with that grimace on his face, even if it lifted her neck hair. For some reason, his smiles were like a bad omen for her. “And please forgive me boldness, but is your deal just business, or do you also aspire to ballad heroes?”

Keira raised an eyebrow and finally clarified what she didn’t like in this witcher. His cat's eyes were vigilant, just this how he surveyed the room and looked at her... without doubt it was a predator's gaze. A predator who just smelled a prey and was getting ready to jump. The sorceress repaid the same and finally began to analyze more closely what she saw. Neither the weapon nor the armor he wore had any distinctive school features. And most importantly and most disturbing in this all - this witcher didn’t have a medallion around his neck. And a witcher without a medallion can't use signs.

What the hell? She was beginning to conclude that everything was wrong with this stranger. And no wonder that he was looking for a partner to kill the manticore. Lonely expedition for such quarry, when you can’t use signs, is suicide.

"Interesting question," she said finally after a little too long pause. The witcher narrowed his eyes as if he sensed she was uncomfortable. “Are you asking out of professional curiosity?”

"Entirely private,” and that beautiful smile again, but this time it clearly contained a threat. Like an animal that bares its fangs before it attacks. “You're a beautiful woman. I was wondering if you want to replace a witcher.”

Keira frowned threateningly and looked at him with disdain, finally openly letting him know that she didn’t like the direction in which this conversation was going. Far more than once in her life she had to deal with not very subtle advances, and all in all, this witcher hadn't crossed any boundaries yet, but something was very wrong here. Keira never avoided men, even those not very subtle, if she was in a good mood, could count on flirting with her. This one, however, didn’t flirt. Contrary to what he just said, he wasn't interested in her, not in the way he was suggesting. His gaze was cold and calculating, but she saw no desire in it.

“Please forgive me if I sent any wrong signals,” she announced finally icily, although she knew that she didn’t send any, and her exposed breasts, which was often interpreted in this way, mainly amused her interlocutor. “So now let me be clear, to avoid any further misunderstandings: me and my witcher are loyal to each other. Both professionally and privately. I’m flattered by your interest, but let's get back to business. My witcher would be very unhappy if he knew that we raised such a topic.”

She said this to give him a clear warning. What she meant by this was that if he has bad intentions towards her, he must take into account that she has another witcher behind her, who will deal with him if even a hair falls from her head. However, she was surprised to find that the words she said were true. She wouldn��t turn her back on Lambert, she wouldn’t betray him, even if this witcher turned out to be King Tancred himself. And she was sure Lambert wouldn’t turn his back on her either. The awareness of this alerted her more than the bizarre conversation she was having with her annoying visitor. She quickly put those thoughts out of her mind, this wasn’t the time to analyze her relationship with Lambert.

"My apologies if I offended you,” he raised his hands defensively and something changed in his posture. He became less tense and less alert. The predatory gleam from his eyes was gone too, but he didn’t seem in any way contrite or embarrassed. “I'm not looking for trouble. It just seemed to me extremely… exotic that a sorceress, a woman of scholar, of such status, was interested in a witcher. Perhaps I envied my colleague a little. You understand, we don't have a very good reputation.“

You certainly don’t, she thought.

"It depends on the school,” she finally decided to attack, she was getting tired of this game of cat and mouse. “But you don't wear the medallion. What school are you from? It is quite strange, I thought the medallion was sacred to a witcher.”

The man made a gesture as if to reach for his neck, but he immediately reflected and nipped the reflex in the bud. He winced slightly.

"That's what my assignment to you was supposed to be about," he said. “Some time ago I lost my medallion. It's hard to find a good craftsman to make a thing like this. I was hoping that the sorceress help me. I've heard a lot of good things about you, people praise your amulets and potions. In addition, you work with the witcher, which makes you, in my eyes, more qualified than the rest of the wizards in the city.“

"I have never had a similar order, I will have to ask Lambert to show me his medallion,” for the first time she mentioned her witcher's name and noticed how her interlocutor slightly twitched an eyebrow. She had to admit he surprised her with this order. She also noted how carefully he ignored the question about his school. “Also, there is no elemental circle in the area to charge it, although there is a lot of intersection in the city due to the wide network of canals and the water flowing in them ... I'll have to cast the silver, and have to order the mold from a craftsman… Either way, it'll be expensive.“

“As I mentioned, I have an eye on a big contract,” he reminded. “So I should be able to afford it. Please do a valuation, I will be able to confront it with my savings. And here we come back to the heart of my visit. When can I expect your witcher to return? I'm very keen on this cooperation. I can offer a profit split of up to 30% by 70% for the benefit of your witcher, of course, but I hope that I will get a discount on the medallion. If you have time now, we could initially set some amounts.“

The way he said "your witcher" made her think. She had deliberately emphasized this belonging beforehand in order to make him understand some things, but he made this point with scorn, lined with mockery. She couldn't help but get the feeling that what he really meant to say here was: “Where is your pet sorceress? Will you lend it to me?”, and it immediately infuriated her.

“Slow down, witcher,” she barely suppressed a hiss. “Lambert is my partner and I won't be bidding without him. We don't even know if he will be interested in this at all, so for the moment please consider the medallion issue and your manticore contract as two completely separate matters.How you will resolve the issue of splitting payments will be between the two of you. Then I will possibly consult with him if this transaction will be related to the medallion in any way.”

The witcher raised his eyebrows, his face expressive for the first time. He was surprised. And he was probably pleasantly surprised, because his gaze softened. Previously, it had lost its ferocity, now there was a gleam of sympathy in it.

“I guess I've been making a blunder again,” he said, but he didn't seem a bit too concerned about it. He looked like he was starting to have fun. “Since you are a scholarly woman, I assumed that you are the head of this business.”

“Don't you know the meaning of the word ‘partner’?” Keira was getting harder and harder to hide her anger, her service mask slowly started to fall off, she was on the verge of showing him why teasing a sorceress is a bad idea.

“Oh, I know. It even happened to me that I was called a partner,” she found his stupid smile less attractive and more irritating with each passing moment. “But witchers have a hard time in business, and we are rarely treated as equal partners. We're usually just boys for the dirty work. People value our skills but not us. For them, we are no different from rabid dogs that are unleashed in pursuit of prey, and the command is always the same: kill. Do you know what they do with a rabid dog after it does its job?”

"I can imagine," she said coldly. “And I conclude, from what I have just heard, that you don’t know the correct meaning of the word ‘partner’. You know the highly distorted meaning of this term. Generally sorry to hear all this, but I'm not a rabid dog breeder and you won't find any here. However, when it comes to my partner --”

She broke off when the witcher unexpectedly put a finger to his lips, ordering her to be silent in this non-verbal manner. She hadn't expected this, she opened her mouth to protest this blunt silencing, but realized that her interlocutor suddenly became very tense and focused. He tilted his head a little, like an animal that heard a strange noise, listened for a moment, then sighed heavily, closed his eyes and froze as if waiting for something.

Keira was amazed how his attitude completely changed in a split second. A moment earlier he had been nonchalant and self-confident, now he was sitting in front of her hunched over, evidently disturbed and anxious. Was it the same person at all?

The bell at the door rang and Keira looked away from the man in front of her to look toward the entrance. She saw Lambert in a bloody armor on the doorstep, but he moved freely, he didn't seem injured. For some time now, the sight of blood on his clothes had stopped alarming her, because it usually wasn't his.

“Are you all right?“ she asked anyway, immediately abandoning visitor and getting up from the table, heading towards Lambert.

"Yeah," he replied a bit impatiently, he looked annoyed with her concern, but Keira knew better. There was no anger in his gaze, he was glad to see her. “It's just --”

He paused as his eyes finally fell on the witcher's sitting at the table. The stranger sat with his back to the door and didn’t bother to look back and see who had just arrived. Keira understood that his earlier behavior was due to the fact that he heard Lambert approaching. Lambert must also have been aware of the client's presence before he even entered the house, but it seems that only now he noticed that it was a witcher.

"We have a visitor?” He looked at Keira, there was a question in that look: Is this a client or a threat? It seems that he sensed the tense atmosphere and the sorceress's nervousness.

"Yes, this is--" She paused mid-word, as she was about to introduce them, but she just realized that the stranger witcher hadn’t deigned to give his name. So she turned to him, this time openly irritated. “What is your name, Mr. Witcher, without school and medallion?”

The man at the table slowly straightened and stood up. He waited for an unbearably long moment to react before he turned to face them. And he looked straight at Lambert.

Everything that happened next took fractions of a second. Lambert inhaled sharply and immediately reached into his belt pouch. He took a silver orion out of there and threw it at the strange witcher, but he seemed to be waiting for it. He put his hand out in a defensive gesture, the star digging into his right hand. If he hadn't, it would have hit him in the chest, but not in any vital place.

Keira absolutely didn’t understand what was going on, but since Lambert attacked she had a defense spell on her lips, ready to stun the second monster slayer. She noticed that as Lambert made his throw, he hissed in pain, which meant he must have been injured. Keira had a firm resolve not to let him fight an opponent who was left-handed and in full strength. Unlike him.

“Easy, sorceress, he was just checking,” the red-haired witcher said, very slowly showing his hand to her with an orion in it. “This toy is silver.” After that, with a firm wave of his arm, he threw the star aside, which dug into the wooden floor at their feet, leaving a bloody streak behind it.

Keira was still holding the active spell in her clenched fist, but after this declaration she lost her vigilance. Her eyes followed the orion, then looked up at Lambert.

Her witcher after this violent reaction stared at the other man. Keira hadn’t seen such an expression on his face before. Lambert was absolutely shocked and furious.

"He's checking to see if I'm a doppler,” the stranger kept both of his hands in plain view, as if he were making a gesture to assure them he was not a threat. “I'm not,” he added softly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have held silver in my hand. I'm bleeding so I'm not a ghost either. I can also tell the story of your commemorative swords to prove that I’m not a fraud. I know what the inscription is on the steel blade, and the sorceress knows I didn't get to see it outside the scabbard when I got here. Anyway, ask me any question yourself to test me.”

So Lambert asked: “Aiden, what actual the fuck?!”

“Aiden?” Keira looked at the stranger no less surprised than her witcher.

She knew the name, Lambert once, being heavily drunk, told her about him. She knows who Aiden is. Or who he was, because from the information she had it was clear that she was dead. Meanwhile, he was standing right in front of them, safe and sound, with puppy eyes. Now she understood why Lambert had attacked him, generally seeing someone who should be dead never bodes well. She tried to understand how this was possible, but suddenly realized something else.

First of all: Aiden knew from the beginning what he was here for. He was aware that the witcher Keira was working with was Lambert. He wanted to buy fucking swords because he knew them well - they had belonged to him before. And he was well aware that if he came at this time, he would find only the sorceress here. He came to take a look at her, test her, tease her, and mock her.

Second: Lambert has been mourning Aiden for a really long time. It could have been avoided. However, he allowed him to suffer and murder in the name of wrongs that probably didn’t take place.

In an instant she went mad and did something that neither of the two witchers apparently expected. She didn't really know when she let out the spell that hit Aiden hard and threw him against the wall. Before he could pick himself up, she caught up with him, casting another spell. The witcher began to choke.

“Did you have fun?” she hissed furiously and raised her clenched fist with the spell upwards, as if she was pulling an invisible cord, thus forcing Aiden to look at her. His pupils were constricted to thin vertical lines, he tried desperately to gasp for air, certainly unable to answer questions. "You miscalculated my dear, you shouldn't mess with someone who might wipe the floor with you!"

"Keira!” Lambert grabbed the sorceress's wrist like a vise, Keira released the spell, and Aiden finally caught his breath. "That's enough!”

“Sorry, I got carried away,” she said weakly, trying to get her balance back. Her heart pounded like a hammer. "But he's been provoking me ever since he got here and he finally got it."

“All this violence is absolutely unnecessary,” Aiden croaked, still kneeling on the floor rubbing his neck. “Can we talk? I'll explain everything.”

"Dead people don't talk, Aiden," Lambert said in a voice that an iceberg wasn't ashamed of. He stared down at him with a mixture of anger and disbelief.

“I've always been special.” Aiden smiled brightly at him. “Come on, give me a chance.”

This smile was completely different from the one he presented Keira for the last half hour. Most of all it was sincere and gentle. He looked at Lambert with trust as if he knew he would agree, regardless of the proposal.

Lambert let out an irritated huff, leaned over, grabbed Aiden by the neck like an unruly kitten and, grimacing in pain, pulled him to his feet.

Something wrong with the right shoulder, Keira noted in her mind. It was the second time he had to use it that he showed signs of discomfort.

“I mourned you, you asshole,” Lambert growled angrily, still holding his collar. “I killed a lot of people to avenge you. You better have a fucking good explanation of this farce.”

“I’m sincerely touched by your devotion.” The smile didn’t leave Aiden's face. "And if it comforts you, you haven't killed anyone who didn't deserve it."

Lambert's eyebrow twitched dangerously. Keira thought that just a moment longer and her witcher would kill someone who definitely deserved it, and then he would regret it very much.

"Okay, that's enough." She interrupted their exchange of glances. “Let's go to the back room, sit down, talk quietly and dress your wounds. Lambert, let go of him and take it off, I want to see your arm.”

They both looked at her in surprise, but neither moved. They irritated her immediately.

“What, did I stutter?“ She huffed and gestured in the direction. “In the back, like, right fucking now. I don't need a client to come and find this scene.”

“You're letting her to boss you around?“ Aiden glanced at Lambert, one eyebrow raised in an act of ironic disbelief.

“Don't piss me off, or I'll let her finish what she started,” the other witcher hissed in response and obediently moved to the back, dragging Aiden with him.

Keira went to the front door and locked it. It was going to be a long and stormy evening, she decided that there would be enough clients for today.

_________________________________

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gunnerpalace · 5 years ago

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Hi! Same anon as the previous one. Tbh, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Y'see I do ask rhetorically,too but i could really accept and understand how and why ppl can be oblivious to IchiRuki, and somehow felt that the 'canon' should suffice, even the most excruciating of all is the fact a number found the ending even acceptable (ships aside, too). Again, I could respect that. But it's my greatest bane when ppl ask 'why' and not be clear they are asking rhetorically because I literally will

provide you an actual answer. And I get it, it’s the reason why ppl find shipping wars toxic and silly. But then again, as human, conflicts are always part of us (partly because as social psych explains so, we are gravitated to the negative for that allows us to change and survive), and the reason why “logical fallacies” are coined in the first place. Human will always debate, and argue about something; the only thing we could change is how we approach the opposing views.

Again, I dont condone any way, shape or form of abuse and harm. In some certain extent, I could perhaps understand it’s much harder for some IH to approach the actual argument being there’s either too much noise, and trapped in their own island between sea of salt. Thus becoming too acquianted w/ few IH who shared the same thought until it became their views as the only truth (see, that’s why its important to have debates! it is what keep us grounded and fair! Just like you said)

Who am I to speak though? I never ever challenged anyone anyways. And as you said, you just have to understand things in every way you could possibly think of–endless ‘whys’. Which is where I agree in your reply the most–this silly fandom wars is just the black mirror to every truth that lies beneath human psyche–the dark and the grimy. Heck, being a psych major is like staring at dark hole–at times, good, but most just plain confusing, revolting even or just heartbreaking.

Sorry it’s been long, but for the final of this ask: let me tell how glad I was with IchiRuki fandom I found in tumblr. It was the saltiest I’ve ever been (im not generally a fandom person anyways) but it’s the himalayan salt–expensive and actually nutritive it really deepened my desire to become wiser in general. And you for your wonderful essays, critiques and whatnot. I definitively would love to talk with you more not only about IchiRuki but the wonders and nightmare that us humans! Kudos!

I have sitting in my drafts a post spelling out my thoughts on “canon” (and thus, the people who cling to it) in that as a concept it privileges:

officiality over quality when it comes to validity (thus violating Sturgeon’s law)

corporations (intellectual property rights holders) over fans, and thus capitalists over proletarians

hierarchical dominance over mutualist networking within fandom

curative fandom over transformative fandom

genre over literary content

plot over characters

events over emotions

It is notable that (1) generally degrades art as a whole, (2) generally advances the capitalist agenda, and (3–7) generally advances the dominance of men over women (as the genders tend to be instructed by society to view these as A. dichotomies rather than spectrums, and B. to ascribe gender to them and make them polarities). These form the sides of a mutually reinforcing power structure (in the typical “Iron Triangle” fashion) designed to preserve and maintain the status quo.

Who really benefits from say, the policing of what is or is not “canon” in Star Wars? Disney, first and foremost. And then whomever (almost certainly male) decides to dedicate their time to memorizing the minutiae of whatever that corporation has decided is “legitimate.”

One can imagine a universe in which fan fic is recognized by companies for what it is: free advertising. (Much like fan art already is.) Instead, it is specifically targeted by demonetization efforts in a way that fan art isn’t. Why? Because it demonstrates that corporate control and “official” sanction has no bearing on quality, and it is thus viewed as undermining the official products.

In the same way, by demonstrating that most “canonical” works are frankly shit, it undermines the investiture of fans in focusing on details that are ultimately errata (the events, the plot, the genre), which is the core function of curative fandom and the reason for its hierarchical structure. The people who “know the most” are at the top, but what they “know” is basically useless garbage. And those people so-engaged are, of course, usually male.

To “destroy” the basis of their credibility, and indeed the very purpose of their community, is naturally viewed by them as an attack.

(This is not to say that efforts to tear down internal consistency within established cultural properties are good unto themselves, or even desirable. For example, efforts to redefine properties such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Ghostbusters, for the sake of a identity-politics agenda have largely A. failed as art, B. failed as entertainment, C. failed to attract the supposedly intended audience, and D. failed to advance the agenda in question. Trying to repurpose extant media in the name of culture wars is essentially always doomed to failure unless it is done deftly and gradually.)

(At the same time, this also shows what I was talking about last time, with regard to people seeing whatever they want to see. You will see people complain that Star Trek and Doctor Who didn’t “used to be so political,” which is obviously nonsense. These shows were always political. What changed was how their politics were presented. For example, Star Trek has, since TNG, always shown a nominally socialist or outright communist future, but was beloved by plenty of conservatives because they could [somehow] ignore that aspect of it.)

Of course, almost no one is seriously suggesting that one side of the spectrums outlined above be destroyed, rather merely that a new balance be struck upon the spectrum. But, as we have seen time and again in society, any threat to the status quo, whether that be 20% of Hugo Awards going to non-white male authors or the top income tax rate in America being increased by a measly 5.3% (from 28.7% to 34%… when the all-time high was 94% and for over 50 years it was above 50%) is a threat. This is why, for example, Republicans are out there branding AOC as a “socialist” when her policies are really no different at all from a 1960 Democrat who believed in FDR’s New Deal. (Which they, of course, have also demonized as “socialism.”)

(As an aside, all this ignores the fact that most of the “literary canon” of Western civilization, or at least English literature… is Biblical or historical fan fic.)

And this is when I finally get to my point.

Those people out there who denigrate and mock shippers and shipping, the people who hurl “it reads like fan fiction” as an insult, and so on, are the people who benefit from and enjoy the extant power structure. You will see the same thing with self-identified “gamers” complaining about “fake girl gamers.” Admitting that the hobby has a lot of women in it, and a lot of “casuals,” and is indeed increasingly dominated by “non-traditional demographics” is an affront to the constructed identity of being a “gamer.” They are “losing control.” And they don’t like it.

This exact same sort of population is what the “fanbase” of Bleach has been largely reduced down to through a slow boiling off of any actual quality. Of course they’re dismissive of people who are looking for anything of substance: their identity, their “personal relationship” with the franchise, is founded on a superficial appreciation of it: things happening, flashy attacks, eye-catching character designs, fights, etc.

(What this really boils down to, at heart, is that society at large has generally told men that emotions are bad, romance and relationships of all kinds are gross, and that thinking and reflecting on things is stupid. So of course they not only don’t care about such things, but actively sneer at them as “girly” or “feminine,” which is again defined by society at large as strictly inferior. And this gender divide and misogyny is of course promulgated and reinforced by the powers that be, the capitalists, to facilitate class divisions just like say racism generally is.)

(The latest trick of these corporate overlords has been the weaponization of “woke” culture to continue to play the people off one another all the time. “If you don’t like this [poorly written, dimensionless Mary Sue] Strong Female Character, then you are a racist misogynist!” They are always only ever playing both sides for profit, not advancing an actual ideological position. It is worth noting that there was a push by IH some years ago to define IR as “anti-feminist” for critiquing Orihime for essentially the exact same reasons [admittedly, not for profit, but still as critical cover].)

Which makes it very curious, therefore, that the most ardent IH supporters tend to be women. (Though there are more than a few men, they seem to tend to support it because it is “canon” and to attack it is to attack “canon” and thus trigger all of the above, rather than out of any real investment.) I think there are a number of reasons for this (which I have detailed before) and at any rate it is not particularly surprising; 53% of white women voted for Trump, after all.

What we are really seeing in fandom, are again the exact same dynamics that we see at larger and larger scales, for the exact same reasons. The stakes are smaller, but the perception of the power struggle is exactly the same.

Of course, the people who are involved in these things rarely think to interrogate themselves as to the true dimensions and root causes of their motivations. People rarely do that in general.

Putting all that aside, I’m glad that you have found a place you enjoy and feel comfortable, and thank you for the kind words, although I am not of the opinion that there is anything poignant about the non-fiction I write. It is, as I keep trying to emphasize, all there to be seen. One just has to open their eyes. So, it’s hard for me to accept appreciation of it.

Anyway, don’t feel shy about coming off of anon rather than continuing to send asks. We don’t really bite.

#Asks

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writingwakanda · 5 years ago

Text

Character profile: Shuri

Princess Shuri Udaku of Wakanda is the country’s resident teen genius with an eye for science and a heart of gold. Canonically the smartest person in the MCU, Shuri uses her intellect to improve her country and help her people whilst still being able to hold her ground in a fight, even against former Black Panther Killmonger. Additionally, in the comics, Shuri has a mire of superpowers brought on with intense training in the Djalia which include super-speed, animal transmogrification, density manipulation and the ability to reanimate corpses for short periods of time.

Shuri’s personality and motivations pair well with her vast and complex skills and abilities, creating an overly rounded character that many viewers wound up getting attached to and protective over.

Shuri’s most well-known characteristic is her intellect, a skill that is focused on greatly throughout the Marvel movies she appears in. In addition to having vast knowledge and experience in Design and technology, engineering and robotics, we can also use evidence to conclude that she has some background in medical science and psychology.

In Black Panther, it is heavily implied that Shuri performed the life-saving surgery on Everett Ross. Furthermore, at the end of the same film we see Bucky recovering from the HYDRA control, and Shuri’s lines make it seem likes she’s the one helping him recover and reintegrate into society.

In Infinity war, she was entrusted with the important role of removing the Mind Stone from Vision’s head without killing him, something previously thought impossible by Bruce and the other Avengers. She went ahead with this despite not having a lot of time and knowing that the fate of her country and the lives of herself and her people were at risk.

That protection and advancement of Wakanda is one of Shuri’s greatest motivations which drive her character. While her disinterest in following Wakanda’s traditions is reflected upon by multiple characters with various reactions, its is clear from her actions in Black Panther that she holds these customs and beliefs as significant to her. She actively fights for Wakanda when she learns of Killmonger’s plan to revolutionise which would have brought systemic change to Wakanda as well as the outside world. At the end of the day, Shuri may not be personally invested in cultural traditions, she likely understands and respects their significance to the people of Wakanda. She also uses her resources and scientific excellence to advance Wakanda far beyond any other civilisation in the world.

With that being said, Shuri shows an affinity for cultures outside Wakanda, with an emphasis on American cultural icons. She quotes vines, makes footwear-related puns and expresses excitement in visiting places in America. When T’Challa creates the first Wakandan International Outreach Centre, he appoints Shuri the head of the science and information exchange, to which she reacts with excitement. This would allow her to mix her cultural interest with her intellectual knowledge.

In addition to her intellect, we see Shuri fight multiple times throughout the MCU, first in Black Panther and again in Infinity War and Endgame. She maintains the use of the same weapon throughout all of this, a pair of gauntlets of her own invention which fire sonic/kinetic blasts of energy. These are entirely distance weapons, something that is uncommon within what we’ve seen of Wakanda, and from this we can draw that Shuri prefers to fight at a distance rather than close range combat. This plays to her strengths as she is smaller and younger than most other fighters, and does not have the assistance of the Heart-shaped herb to level the playing field for her.

This cannot be said for the comics version of Shuri, who has a number of superpowers including having taken the Heart-Shaped Herb and training with a spirit in the Djalia, Wakanda’s plain of collective knowledge and memory. She gained a number of powers from this, including the ability to transform her body into a flexible stone-like material with enhanced durability that cannot be dented by gunfire or powerful energy weapons. Comic Shuri is also capable of animorphism which allows her to transform herself and whoever she is in direct contact with into a flock of black birds, or a singular large dark bird, super speed and the ability to temporarily reanimate Wakandan corpses. However, reanimating corpses takes a lot of energy from her, meaning she can do it for only a short period of time.

Her passion for science, and success within Wakanda’s scientific field, leads her to be content within her role in the royal family. Shuri shows no grievance about her position as princess and seems to have accepted completely that unless something tragic were to happen to her brother, she will always be less powerful than him both physically and in the oligarchy of Wakanda.

After Infinity War, Angela Bassett asserted in an interview with Screen Rant that both Ramonda and her daughter Shuri survived the Infinity War snap. This led a large amount of people in the Black panther Fan community to believe that, in her Brother’s absence, Shuri became the Black Panther and queen of Wakanda. However this turned out to be a misdirect and Endgame promotional posters and trailers confirmed she was, in fact, dusted. Her absence put a question mark over who lead Wakanda in those five years, a topic that is debated to this day.

However, Black Panther fans haven’t given up hope that we will one day see Shuri take up the mantle of the Black Panther in a future Marvel movie like she did in the comics.

Many of Shuri’s outfits and choices of physical appearance have significance to different real-world African cultures, from the braids in her hair to the choices of necklaces and other jewelry.

The outfit Shuri is wearing during her first scene in Black Panther features an Adinkra symbol, a set of cultural symbols from the Asante/Ghana region of Africa.

This Adinkra symbol, Wawa Aba, can mean many things depending on what you read and how you interpret. In a Vanity Fair interview, Costume designer Ruth Carter explained the symbol means 'purpose’, a reference to Shuri’s purpose within Wakanda as the scientific innovator. Other websites cite this symbol as representing hardiness, toughness and perseverance, all of which can be related to elements of Shuri’s personality.

Shuri’s personality itself is intricate and can be summed up in many ways. She’s a Disney princess, but escapes the connotations of a typical princess by not relying on anyone to fight her battles for her and by being unrelenting in standing up for what she believes in, which is a show of strength in itself.

Shuri takes pride in her work and chases innovation no matter what on whatever she invents, believing there’s no end to a device’s ability to be improved. She is 100% committed to any task and puts her mind to everything she does. Shuri also has pride in herself and her achievements, in her family and in Wakanda as a country.

Along with characters like Klaue, she’s mostly the lighthearted comic relief of the film. While she has her sombre and serious moments, her main goal is to be optimistic, funny and uplifting using comedic timing, teasing, sarcasm and punchy one-liners to lift heavy scenes. Shuri has an almost child-like demeanour and never really takes a stake in formality which balances out other characters.

Shuri is, in many ways, the perfect younger sister character that people could easily get attached too and form a bond with. She’s intelligent and optimistic with a balanced set of skills and a sparkling personality.

Have we missed anything? Do you have something to add? We’re always happy to hear new information and make additions! Reblog or comment and let us know, or if you have a favourite gif or fics, feel free to leave them too! Thanks for reading!

#black panther #MCU #Shuri #BPFandomAppreciation2k20 #Character Design #black panther movie #black panther comics #black panther characters #princess shuri #character analysis #Marvel #Marvel comics

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tacitcantos · 5 years ago

Video

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After the cinematic atrocities that have been the new Star Wars movies it’s no surprise that The Mandalorian has been hailed as the first successful new Star Wars property in the Disney era. And it’s not hard to see why: its production values are stellar, its story simple but archetypal, and it fully embraces the grunge of the original trilogy. And while it is without a doubt better than the new movies… that doesn’t make it good.

A lot of you are no doubt going to disagree with me. And that’s understandable, because The Mandalorian isn’t bad exactly. It’s more that it’s not good, or as good as it could or should be. It’s a plodding and unimaginative series that meanders around flashing fanservice at the audience because it knows most of the audience will be pleased by any invocation of Star Wars iconography no matter how lacking in substance, a passable pastiche of Star Wars and various westerns, but not a particularly smart or good example of the genre, with little depth under the surface.

And it is a pastiche of westerns. From the twang of its music to the barren landscapes that fill it, The Mandalorian is firmly entrenched in the traditions and tropes of the western. Like all westerns its stakes are personal and its character iconic, lone gunslingers and dusty outlaws and unscrupulous criminals, and the plots of its various episodes vary from reminiscent to outright copying: the relationship between Mando and the young bounty hunter in episode 5 is extremely reminiscent of the one in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, and episode 4 is a beat for beat remake of the Magnificent Seven.

It’s in comparison to the westerns it so clearly wants to ape that the problems with The Mandalorian become most visible. It draws on the atmosphere and tropes of the genre, but isn’t willing to put in the effort to make either successful on anything but the most superficial level.

The western and its tropes are relatively rigid because it’s been so extensively and exhaustively explored that to be successful any modern day western like The Mandalorian either needs to nail its beats and themes, deconstruct it, or bring something new to the conversation. And The Mandalorian does none of those things.

All the places The Mandalorian has problems or is unsuccessful are due to not not understanding its genre and its genre conventions. There’s four core, interconnected ones that permeate The Mandalorian:

The series has no clear thematic message. It’s not really trying to say anything; not about the warrior culture of the Mandalorians, not about bounty hunting, and not about the postwar status of the Star Wars galaxy. Worse, it has nothing to say about the themes of the western, the genre it’s firmly entrenched in.

Mando is a shallow and static character. There aren’t any real layers or complexities to explore. What you see on the surface is very much what you get, with no hidden depths or surprises. Static characters can be a powerful tool in the right hands: Clint Eastwood’s laconic gunslinger in A Fistful of Dollars and The Good The Bad and The Ugly is proof of that, but Mando is too jokey and fallible to have the gravitas of that kind of silent killer.

Its plot is impersonal and predictable. The plot of most of the episodes are a series of events with little to no character growth or thematic exploration. They’re simple and tend towards sloppiness, with predictable turns and twists which makes watching them cognitively unengaging.

There’s a far more interesting story to be told in this time period that The Mandalorian almost completely ignores. Post Imperial fall but before New Republic ascendancy is a setting that’s perfectly in keeping with the western and could lead to all kinds of interesting story possibilities. Story possibilities that The Mandalorian completely ignores, and ones that makes its own absence of message and character all the more glaring and conspicuous.

As I said before, each of these problems are sort of circular and feed into and make the others worse, but let’s try and tackle them one at a time anyway. Starting with...

1. The Series Has No Clear Thematic Message

Theme and message are key to any successful story. They’re the soul of a work, the underlying pattern that gives the events of a story meaning. A work needs a viewpoint, needs an idea it finds interesting to explore through its characters and plot, or the work has no deeper resonance and feels shallow and forgettable.

For example, Unforgiven is a movie with such a pointed message and theme that it single handedly revolutionized the entire western genre. It’s a movie that wants to show the difference in the appeal of bounty hunting vs the ugly reality, to deconstruct the glamour and tropes of the western, and how killing takes a toll on those that do it. It was such a thorough and brutal deconstruction of the genre that everyone western or neo western after Unforgiven is in conversation with it whether it wants to be or not.

The Mandalorian… it’s not that it needed to deconstruct the western genre in the way Unforgiven did exactly, but it did need to have something to say, some theme or viewpoint to express. And it really doesn’t.

Take Mando’s dislike of droids for example, and his perfunctory arc to overcome that dislike. What’s the narrative purpose? Obviously it’s initially meant to show that he was traumatized as a child by the death of his parents, but what does it say thematically? What does his learning to trust the IG droid say? If, for example, the show had an anti-warrior culture viewpoint, it could use the concept of a droid having choice instead of just doing what it’s programed to make Mando question his own Mandalorian training: did he truly have another option after his parents’ death? Was he indoctrinated? Taken advantage of? I’m not saying that the show specifically needed to have a pro or anti-warrior culture viewpoint, but it did need to have a viewpoint on something.

Not only because not having a message makes the show forgettable, but also because it has serious negative ramifications on the plot and pacing. It’s why The Mandalorian feels so listless much of the time. Because it has nowhere to go, it doesn’t care about getting there fast. There’s no burning message that the show’s creators want to impart to the audience, no topic it’s fascinated by, and so it tends to meander around pointlessly, its plots and characters empty vessels. None of them can mean anything, because The Mandalorian has no meaning. It’s just kind of… there, transposing fanservice for depth.

2. Mando is a Shallow Character

The problems with Mando as a character start in the first episode. The first episode of a series should introduce the main character, give the audience an idea of who he is and what he wants. A first episode doesn’t need to completely expose all of a main character’s layers, but it does need to define him clearly and make him a character the audience can identify with. Who is Mando? What does he want? To collect bounties, obviously, but why? Is it a drive for justice? Does he take pleasure in the hunt? Does it disgust him to have to deal with criminals?

The first episode of The Mandalorian completely punts on answering any of those basic questions. It’s 45 minutes long, but somehow doesn’t tell us anything about Mando besides the immediately obvious premise that he’s a bounty hunter and a Mandalorian.

A better structure would’ve, just as an example, followed Mando through a whole hunt. Maybe when he tries to leave the original planet with the blueface alien his ship is blown up or they’re stopped by a crime syndicate who wants the blueface alien for their own reason, and the rest of the episode is him trying to get off the planet with his bounty. You could punch up the character of blueface alien, start a dialogue between him and Mando that actually gives us an insight into his character. Maybe he lets the blueface alien go at the end because of the bond they’ve formed, maybe despite the bond he still hands him in because at his core he’s a bounty hunter through and through. Either option tells us something about him.

The only real emotional layer the episode reveals about Mando is in a scene where he visits his Mandalorian clan and it’s shown though flashback that his family was murdered when he was a child, and we can infer that he was taken in by the Mandalorians afterward, but again, we get no indication of how he feels about it.

What’s strange is that there’s a more interesting version of this scene in episode 3, where it’s revealed that only one Mandalorian can go above ground at a time. This is a potentially interesting idea: why was Mando chosen instead of the other Mandalorians? Does he feel a burden to represent his people? Is this his driving motivation? Does he feel like he’s not equal to the task? But there’s no followup to this scene to give us a hint to what Mando is thinking about it wasting a perfectly good opportunity to ground him as a character with a concrete motivation.

This whole scene could actually have created a potentially interesting conflict for Mando where he’s torn between saving baby Yoda from the imperials and not tarnishing Mandalorian reputation by betraying a client. Sadly absolutely nothing is done with this idea, as the rest of the Mandalorians seem entirely happy to cover for him when he tries to escape with baby Yoda.

And choosing to save baby Yoda is pretty much the last character growth Mando goes through for the season, besides some perfunctory getting over his dislike of droids in the finale. He’s a largely static character, unchanging and flat. As the series goes on he’s fleshed out a little, but only a little: who he is as a person is still shockingly vague and vacuous by the end of the season.

It’s one of the reasons the series a whole is really emotionally flat, without any ups or downs, triumphs or failures, joy or despair. For example, in the last episode when Mando sees the piled armor of the dead Mandalorians, did anyone feel that as a punch to the gut? Of course not, because we don’t really know who Mando is, don’t have any way into his head, don’t identify with him in the way that we do with the best fictional characters.

Static Characters and How to Write Them

Part of the reason Mando is a shallow character is because he’s a static character that doesn’t undergo any real change. Now, static characters aren’t inherently shallow ones: there are countless examples of iconic static characters in fiction, and especially westerns, but the rules for making a static main character effective are different than those for dynamic ones, and is in many ways harder: not changing or growing through the story can make them feel stale and lifeless, and makes for a passive and unengaging viewing experience on the part of the audience.

There are a few ways to make a static character compelling, but all require careful deployment of the character in coordination with the rest of the story. Here are a few, but notice how none of them really apply well to The Mandalorian:

One approach is to reveal different layers to the character throughout the story. Instead of changing they remain the same, but our understanding of them changes. This doesn’t really work with Mando though, because as we talked about, he’s not a complicated or complex character. What you see is very much what you get and there are no hidden layers beneath the surface one.

Another approach is to have the character growth heavy lifting taken on by another main character. It’s why the lone badass archetype is almost always accompanied by a more relatable secondary character. It’s an approach that’s effective because it lets the badass keep his mystique, while also letting the story reap the narrative benefits of having a character grow. The Mandalorian actually kind of does this by giving Mando baby Yoda at the end of the first episode, but the problem is that baby Yoda is just as static a character as Mando, even if he’s a much cuter one.

Yet another approach is to use the static character as a focal point for other more dynamic characters. They can become a mirror and contrast for those secondary characters and their growth. This requires a deep bench of characters though, and the only really recurring characters of note in The Mandalorian are ex rebel dropshock lady and discount Lando, neither of whose actor can portray anything resembling a human being, and both characters who are even shallower than Mando.

A final approach is for the static character to simply have overwhelming charisma or gravitas. Clint Eastwood’s unnamed gunslinger in the Dollars Trilogy is a perfect example of this kind of character; a figure of dread, more force of nature than person. Mando fails at that though, because he’s far too fallible and his badassness swings wildly from one episode to the other: sometimes he’s able to wipe the floor with dozens of battle droids, and other times he meets an ignoble defeat at the hands of Jawa’s, after which he throws a flamethrower temper tantrum at them.

Helmet Woes

Part of the shallowness and lack of gravitas of Mando’s character stems from the decision for him to never take his helmet off. Facial expressions are an undeniably massive part of human interaction and communication, and the primary way that most actors express their characters thoughts and emotions, which in turn is key to getting viewers to identify with and care about that character.

There are ways to make a faceless character work, but it requires skill on both the writing and acting side, skill The Mandalorian clearly doesn’t have. The dialogue often feels try hard, as though the writers feel the need to bludgeon the viewer to make up for Mando’s lack of facial expression, and often veers wildly from sullen to uncomfortably jokey and pedestrian.

There are a fair few movies and tv shows that have been able to make a faceless character work. V For Vendetta, for example, used strategic head tilting and theatrical body language to characterize V. An even more effective example is Boardwalk Empire’s Richard Harrow, who’s actor is able to use the half mask of the character’s face as a tool to make him by turns compelling, sympathetic, and chilling.

Both cases though require an actor who understands how to communicate solely through voice and physicality. And as likable and talented as he is, Pedro Pascal, who plays Mando, is not that actor. His vocal inflection is limited, his body language nearly nonexistent, and you can always tell he’s not entirely comfortable in the armor, that it’s not the second skin it really should be for a Mandalorian.

Just look at Mando’s default stance. Because of the bulkiness of the armors gauntlets, Pedro Pascal often walks or stands with his forearms rotated outward, giving him a strangely ballerina esque stance not at all evocative of a hardened and ruthless bounty hunter.

Even with an actor better suited to the physicality of the role though, the idea of a faceless main character will always be fundamentally mismatched in tone with the show as a whole. Face is personhood, and a faceless character should be an enigma: a lone bounty hunter who’s story is told through action and not words. The movies The Mandalorian should be emulating are of the kind Clint Eastwood’s Dollar trilogy exemplifies: archetypal stories imparted through visuals and largely bereft of dialogue.

You can see a more modern example of this approach to storytelling in 2015’s Fury Road which has minimal dialogue for the first third but still manages to tell its story effectively and compellingly. Or for an even more extreme example of this laconic approach, see Genndy Tartakovsky’s excellent series Primal, whose tale of a man and his dinosaur has no dialogue whatsoever.

But The Mandalorian isn’t willing to commit to that mode of storytelling. And that’s depressingly predictable: it’s a Disney property after all, and that means it needs to appeal to a broad audience, that it’s a cog in the endless intellectual property money machine. In that machine that kind of audience narrowing approach isn’t something they’re interested in.

So instead The Mandalorian as a whole tends to be pedestrian and safe, a show the whole family can watch together. Which would be fine, but that show is fundamentally at odds with the faceless main character The Mandalorian insists on. It’s another example of the show wanting to invoke the atmosphere of the western without willing to put in the effort to make it work.

3. Its Plot is Impersonal and Predictable.

Another place the show isn’t willing to put in the effort, or maybe simply isn’t talented enough to, is with its plot: both in the broader arc of the season and each episode. Just as with Mando’s shallowness as a character, right from its first episode the problems with the plot of The Mandalorian are glaring. The structure of the episode is innately flawed, disconnected and episodic without a clear through line.

An action sequence unrelated to the main plot at the beginning of a story to prove the main character is a badass is a perfectly serviceable trope, but The Mandolorian burns through ten of its 36 minutes on a hunt that has nothing to do with the main plot of the episode and the only information it imparts to us about Mando as a character is that he's a bounty hunter and a badass. The episode needed to be leaner, bereft of anything that didn’t move the plot forward or give us a reason to care about Mando.

The series is full of little slips and missed opportunities like that. The structure of the last two episodes, where Mando gathers a team to face the forces he’s been running from all season is far more boring than it needed to be. For a show about criminals and low-lifes and bounty hunters in the best tradition of the western, having Mando’s allies be completely trustworthy is a real lost opportunity.

A better structure would’ve had each member of the team have differing motivations and goals so that there’s an underlying tension to the episode. Will Cara go rogue at the chance to take out a high level former Imperial officer? How well reprogrammed is the IG droid? How trustworthy is Discount Lando? These are questions that are hinted at, but the show never makes credible enough to create any real tension. Cara doesn’t care about the Imperial aspect of the forces pretty much at all. And any hint the IG droid is even mildly untrustworthy is defanged by the montage that makes it clear he’s now his own person. Discount Lando decides not to double cross them as soon as it’s revealed he was going to, pricking any tension from that balloon before it has a chance to be inflated.

The episode that’s most illustrative of how weak the plots in The Mandalorian are though is episode 5, in which to pay for repairs to his ship Mando teams up with a younger bounty hunter to go after a high profile criminal.

This is a promising start. Pairing the older and more experience Mando with a cocky young gunslinger is a great way of exploring Mando’s character through contrast, since after all he must have once been something like the younger bounty hunter. How has he grown? How has bounty hunting changed him? How does bounty hunting change everyone who does it? What does it take to be a bounty hunter?

Your guess is as good as mine, because the episode goes on to explore exactly none of those questions. Mando and kid capture the bounty, the kid double crosses Mando, Mando kills him, and then him and baby Yoda jet off to the next planet. That may sound like an overly glib description of the plot, but that’s all there actually is in the episode. The plot of the episode is entirely impersonal. Things happen, but it means nothing from a character or thematic perspective.

Narrative Economy

Every beat in a story shouldn’t just push the plot forward, but also build character and theme. While not westerns, some of the best examples to illustrate this concept come from James Cameron’s early filmography before it started to become self indulgent and… blue. Aliens and Terminator 2 are both masterpieces of sparse and effective storytelling.

Take the yellow power loader from Aliens. Not only does it serve the plot purpose of allowing Rippley to battle the xenomorph queen at the end of the movie, but earlier in the movie it also serves as a character beat:

“I feel like kind of a fifth wheel around here, is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know. Is there anything you can do?”

“Well I can drive that loader.”

This beat tells us something about Rippley; she doesn’t like feeling useless, and it’s also the first step in her arc of proving herself to the marines.

The Mandalorian is nowhere near as tight in its storytelling or plotting. The incident with the sand people halfway through episode 5 is bizarrely representative of so much about The Mandalorian.

This incident serves no plot purpose, the sand people don’t ever come back, and it tells us nothing about Mando. It’s a pointless aside that’s only there to provide fan service.

A better version of episode 5 would’ve seen some kind of bond be formed between Mando and the kid so that the kid’s betrayal and Mando having to kill him would’ve had some weight and meant something. Considering how extensively and blatantly the show cribs from westerns it’s bizarre they didn’t go this direction. The pairing of the old veteran gunslinger and the young brash one is a really common one in the genre, and best exemplified by the previously mentioned relationship in Unforgiven.

As we talked about, in Unforgiven the pairing of Clint Eastwood’s retired gunslinger and a fresh young bounty hunter is used to show the difference in the appeal of bounty hunting vs the ugly reality.

And the movie weaves that theme through its plot. For example, when Clint Eastwood and the young bounty hunter eventually catch up to the criminals they’re hunting the ensuing gunfight is anything but heroic. Morgan Freeman’s character shoots one of their targets through the gut, and both sides are left listening to him call out and beg for water as he slowly dies.

The experience so perturbs Morgan Freeman’s character that he abandons the chase. The shoot out thus both moves the plot forward, and reinforces its theme that killing is hard and unglamorous and takes a toll on those that do it.

4. The Post War Story the Mandalorian Could’ve Told

What’s frustrating about The Mandalorian is that there’s a far more interesting story to be told than the one we got onscreen, a way to recontextualize Star Wars iconography in a way that’s visceral and immediate and thought provoking and more in common with the westerns it wants to evoke. Werner Herzog’s speech in episode 7 really makes it clear what a missed opportunity the series is as a whole, and hints at what could’ve been:

“The empire improves every system it touches judged by any metric. Safety, prosperity, trade opportunity, peace. Compare imperial rule to what is happening now. Look outside. Is the world more peaceful since the revolution? I see nothing but death and chaos.”

Placing The Mandalorian in the post Return of the Jedi timeline opens a lot of fascinating story possibilities and perfectly sets the stage for it’s western setting of a lawless frontier where there’s no strong central authority. While the fall of the empire in Return of the Jedi is without a doubt a good thing for the universe on the whole, all revolutions are messy and any time a regime falls, good or bad, it creates a power vacuum.

A power vacuum that should be filled with crime syndicates armed with abandoned imperial equipment, planetary governments who are newly independent now they’re out from under imperial yoke and are looking to flex their muscle against their neighbors, new republic expeditionary forces looking to woo those same planetary governments into the new republic itself, and most importantly Imperial remnants. It’s simply a universal truth that large groups of heavily armed soldiers don’t simply pack up their things and go home when they’re newly disenfranchised.

And not just one Imperial remnant or two, but dozens, each with their own motivations. Much in the same way real world terrorists and revolutionary groups often hate each other as much as their designated enemy, all these imperial splinter groups should be infighting and scrabbling amongst themselves for resources and power.

Imagine how much story juice there is to be squeezed in exploring those splinter groups: one could’ve been led by a petty warlord who’s little more than a heavily armed bully interested in money and power, another a strict believer in the Imperial doctrine of stability before human rights and actively fighting against the New Republic, another still a decent person who now out from the militaristic drive of the empire is just trying to keep the planets under their protection safe from crime syndicates and upheaval.

And a bounty hunter is the perfect character to explore this story. With crime syndicates at such a high tide there’s plenty of bounty hunting to be had, and a fledgling new republic would no doubt be putting out hundreds of bounties on imperial war criminals and fleeing high level officers. And a Mandalorian specifically works perfectly: someone who’s largely impartial and uninterested in the greater politics of the galaxy, of the struggle between New Republic and Imperial remnants.

There Except Not

The Mandalorian vaguely gestures at some of these ideas, but it’s always in an undercooked way: the messiness of revolution exists only within a single line from Cara about leaving the New Republic and in Werner Herzog’s speech in episode 7. The concept of newly empowered crime syndicates is sort of there in episode 4 with the raiders preying on the local village with an AT-ST. But the raiders are a tiny outfit that apparently messes with a single isolated village and there’s no indication that the galaxy or even this part of space is suffering from them as a whole (or even that they’re a consequence of the post war status quo. For all we know it’s always been like this).

Infighting between Imperial splinter groups exists for all of the thirty seconds it takes Werner Herzog to die at the end of episode 7 so that the series can get a new big bad. It’s never explained and exits as swiftly as it’s introduced.

And all of this, all of the above, all the missed opportunity in The Mandalorian, hurt its story as a whole. Even just the concept of different Imperial splinter groups with differing motives could’ve been fodder for an episode or two of Mando using his cunning to pit them against each or double cross both, perfect for plot twists and reversals. Or for another example, take Cara’s reason for leaving the New Republic:

“And then when the imps were gone the politics started. We were peacekeepers. Protecting delegates, suppressing riots. Not what I signed up for.”

“How’d you end up here?”

“Let’s just call it an early retirement.”

This is a really interesting idea: the conflict and challenge in transitioning from fighting a pure evil like the empire to the much harder and less straightforward job of governance is a great arc Cara’s character could’ve explored and grown through throughout the series. But this snippet of dialogue is all there is of it in The Mandalorian, and she has essentially no other character growth or development.

There’s a really fascinating post war story to be told in The Mandalorian, in the power vacuum in an empire’s fall and the complexity of transitioning from rebellion to governance, a story that fit it’s western atmosphere and ambitions so much better than what’s there right now: but the show is completely uninterested in telling any of it.

Weaving those elements into its plot and characters and messages would have helped fill some of the emptiness at the core of the show. And that’s really one of the best ways to describe The Mandalorian. Yes, it’s pedestrian and badly paced, but more than anything it’s empty, a space western without anything to say.

#the mandalorian #star wars #mando #disney cannot star wars to save it's life

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prince-noctisluciscaelum · 5 years ago

Text

Whumptober 25: Humiliation

With Your Head Held High

Ardyn decides he wants to defy the Astrals one last time and see how far he can push them before they intervene to put Noctis back in a position to fulfill the prophecy.

Instead of Ardyn arranging Noctis and Luna’s wedding as a part of the peace treaty, he demands Noctis as a prisoner of war.

This is the first part of what will be a multi-chaptered thing. It got a little away from me, so I split it.

It was pure chance that Noctis learned the chancellor of Niflheim was in the Citadel, while he was still in the Citadel. Ignis had been keeping his ear to the ground for any rumors that might circulate in the wake of the ceasefire, and the Glaives who had been pulled back from the frontlines were more chatty than the Crownsguard usually were. And despite Noctis’s usual lack of interest in most things politics, something as big as a potential end to the war had piqued his curiosity. Especially considering the effect it could have on the Wall and his dad’s, and later his own, health.

So Noctis kept his own ears open, and when he heard a whisper that the chancellor had barged his way into Regis’s council meeting and was still there, he didn’t wait long enough to contact Ignis before making his way as quickly as he could without drawing extra attention to himself to the hallway outside the throne room.

The guards stationed on either side of the double doors frowned at him as he sidled up to the doors but didn’t otherwise protest or try to stop him. He was sure they would if he tried to actually enter the throne room, but that wasn’t what he wanted.

Noctis pressed his ear up against the crack between the doors and tried to listen.

An unfamiliar voice was speaking, with enough of a pompous ring of command that Noctis knew it could only be the Imperial chancellor.

“ - wish nothing more than to bring a swift end to this senseless war.” Was the chancellor seriously offering a peace treaty?

“Is that so?” His dad’s voice was as dry as Noctis had ever heard it without taking the last step over into impoliteness, and he knew his own disbelief was mirrored in Regis’s mind. It seemed… a poor tactical decision for Niflheim, considering how badly Lucis was doing in the war. There had to be an ulterior motive, and whatever it was would certainly not be good for Lucis.

“It is indeed. And we require but a singular compliance.” And here it was. The moment of hesitation before speaking said compliance, though really no longer than a breath, seemed an eternity, and it was long enough for Noctis to think up half a dozen awful things. “Save your grand Insomnia here, Lucis must forfeit all territories to Niflheim rule.”

Noctis bit down hard on his lip to keep from gasping. The murmurs of his dad’s Council were audible through the door as they didn’t bother to restrain their reactions as Noctis had done. Unsurprisingly. That was definitely not good for Lucis, and really, as far as an offer of peace went, it was a pretty bad one. It wasn’t a peace treaty at all, but rather a sugar-coated demand for surrender.

The Council’s muttering cut off, and Noctis knew Regis had called for silence, just in time for the chancellor to mockingly wax eloquent about the glory of the Crown City. Noctis gritted his teeth at the man’s nerve and thanked the Six that he wasn’t inside the throne room so he couldn’t be tempted to throw a punch at the chancellor and cause an international incident.

Before Noctis’s anger could solidify back into worry for what this ultimatum meant for Lucis, the chancellor spoke again.

“Ah, how foolish of me to forget. There is just one more trivial thing. It concerns your son.”

Noctis froze, his breath stuttering in his lungs. Nothing Niflheim could want with him would ever be “trivial” as far as he was concerned. He didn’t even want to speculate what this could be.

“Crown Prince Noctis will be handed over to the Empire as a prisoner of war.”

He barely heard the Council’s cries of outrage over his own heartbeat hammering in his ears. This could not be happening.

His dad’s voice rose above the cacophony, and Noctis latched onto it to try and ground himself.

“Under no circumstances will you be taking my son. He is the sole heir to this kingdom. I am willing to negotiate peace with Niflheim, but Noctis will not be a part of it.” Intense gratitude swelled up in Noctis, though it was not enough to completely wipe away the shock of the demand. He didn’t realize until after his dad had denied it so vehemently that some part of him had been worried he would agree to it, as ridiculous as that thought was. He knew Regis would just about fight Bahamut himself if he thought it would protect Noctis.

“Do not dismiss my offer so quickly, Your Majesty. You do not know if another will ever be extended. Your own position in this war is a tenuous one, and there are more things at stake here than your son. Or would you put him above the needs of your entire kingdom? Think on it before you make a rash decision.”

Noctis was going to be sick. He didn’t need to be able to see the expression on the chancellor’s face to hear the note of gloating in his voice. The chancellor knew Niflheim had them cornered, and somehow he had realized that Noctis was his dad’s weakness. Then again, most of the kingdom knew that. It wouldn’t take more than a quick glance at how Regis had handled Noctis over the years to realize that Regis would do just about anything for his son. Despite the Council’s repeated warnings, Noctis had never guessed how dangerous that would end up being, never imagined it would lead to Niflheim demanding him as part of a treaty.

But if the chancellor knew that asking for Noctis would work against the terms of surrender, since Noctis refused to consider them terms of peace, why would he do it? Why offer terms that were so one-sided they were guaranteed to be denied? What could he hope to gain?

Footsteps from the throne room pulled Noctis away from his musings, and he scrambled back from the door when he realized the chancellor was leaving, his mind still reeling in shock. Despite his unsteadiness, he managed to round the nearest corner in the hallway before the chancellor exited the throne room, not paying attention to where he was going, just wanting to get away before the man caught sight of him. A private conversation with the chancellor of Niflheim was not high on his list of desires, especially after what he’d just overheard.

He stopped as soon as he was out of sight, closing his eyes as he worked to regain control of himself. He couldn’t afford to be this panicky, otherwise someone, namely Ignis, was bound to ask him what was wrong, and he really didn’t want to have to explain. Not yet. Not ever, if he could help it. Regis had shut the chancellor down in no uncertain terms, and hopefully that would be the end of it, despite the chancellor’s parting barb. Maybe, in a few years, he could forget that this had ever happened.

Noctis was too preoccupied with calming his breathing to notice the soft approaching tap of shoes against the marble flooring until it was too late. He whirled around as his magic prickled in warning just in time to see the chancellor sashay around the corner.

Or at least, Noctis could only assume that was the chancellor. He was certainly no one Noctis recognized, and he would remember if he had ever met someone who dressed like that. Too many layers of outdated clothes in clashing prints under an over-dramatic coat, with a ratty hat perched on top of wild magenta hair. Even Prompto’s eccentric wardrobe couldn’t hold a candle to this. Noctis curled his lip in disgust.

The chancellor paused as he caught sight of Noctis, one corner of his lips twitching up in a smirk. He altered his trajectory and sauntered over to Noctis.

“If it isn’t the crown prince in question!” he said, his voice far too cheery for Noctis’s taste, considering the circumstances. Noctis scowled. He had to force himself not to retreat as the chancellor invaded his personal space.

“Oh my, from your expression I’d guess you overheard at least part of my proposition. Tell me, Noct, just how much did you overhear?” His grin was sharp as Noctis growled at the use of the nickname.

“You don’t get to call me that,” he said. And oh, how Ignis would be appalled at his lack of manners, but the chancellor had done nothing to earn his respect, and even less to earn the right to use his nickname.

“Now, now, Your Highness. You and I are going to have the chance to get to know each other much better.” The expression in the chancellor’s amber eyes was unsettling as he raked his gaze over Noctis. He barely fought back a shiver.

“I overheard enough to know His Majesty told you exactly where you could put your proposition,” Noctis snarled.

The chancellor stepped closer suddenly, and Noctis jerked away from him, continuing to retreat as the man crowded him until his back hit the wall.

“Dear old Dad refused to hand you over, it’s true. But this is the one thing I will not compromise on.” He gripped Noctis’s chin, thumb brushing against his cheek for a moment, so briefly Noctis wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it, and forced him to make eye contact. His eyes burned with a crazed fervor, and his voice dropped lower, losing most of its playful edge. “Whether you surrender as part of these negotiations or are captured when we raze Insomnia, the Empire will have you. All of our Magitek Troops have been programmed to take you alive.”

Noctis’s breath caught in his throat. That was unheard of, and he was almost tempted to think that the man was lying, or bluffing, or just trying to get under Noctis’s skin, but he knew he wasn’t.

The chancellor laughed suddenly, the manic look fading from his eyes, and released Noctis’s chin. He took a step back out of his space, spreading his arms wide.

“So I suggest you give my offer some thought, Your Highness. You have two days to make a decision before any offer of peace is rescinded and the ceasefire comes to an end.” He gave Noctis a shallow, mocking bow before turning and leaving.

Noctis waited until he was out of sight before letting his legs collapse under him. He slid down the wall, trembling as he hid his face in his hands, and worked his jaw to rid himself of the feeling of the chancellor’s grip on his chin. He had already been unsettled enough, learning that Niflheim wanted him as part of the negotiations, but now it was worse. Much worse.

That’s what you get for eavesdropping, he thought. If he had left well enough alone, he wouldn’t have been in the hallway to give the chancellor the opportunity to accost him. But maybe it was better that he knew exactly how much Niflheim, or maybe it was just the chancellor himself, wanted him.

Noctis frowned. The chancellor had said that Noctis was the part he was unwilling to compromise on. Which would imply that the rest of the offer was compromisable. And suddenly the one-sidedness of the offer made a little bit more sense. He felt sick even contemplating it, especially not knowing what exactly Niflheim wanted him for, but it wasn’t like he was doing a good job as crown prince anyways. He was a worthless prince and would be a worthless king, so if this was the one way he could help his people…

Noctis raised his head, glad to see that the hallway was still blessedly empty, and pushed himself up. He needed to talk to his dad.

~*~

“Absolutely not.”

Noctis had gone straight to his dad’s office and holed up there while he waited for him to finish his meeting with the Council. He had been tense the entire time, startling whenever he heard footsteps in the hallway, half expecting the chancellor to barge in and just drag him off. But no one had opened the door until Regis, the distinctive tapping of his cane enough to keep Noctis from actually pulling a sword from the Armiger the moment the doorknob turned.

Any surprise his dad might have felt at finding Noctis in his office had been eclipsed by concern, and maybe a touch of anger, when Noctis had brought up the chancellor’s offer and his own reasons for seeking Regis out.

“Dad, I -”

“No, Noctis. I am not giving you to Niflheim, and especially not to that chancellor.” Regis spat the title, gripping the arms of his chair tightly. Noctis could see the tension in his hands, the clench of his jaw, and knew exactly how stubborn he was going to be about this.

It felt wrong, to be arguing for his own captivity. He wanted so badly to simply hide behind Regis’s refusal, to let his dad protect him, pretend he had never heard the chancellor’s threats and let the war continue as it had for centuries already. But they were losing, everyone knew it, and the Empire would never stop until Lucis was under their heel like the rest of the world already was.

He was not fit to rule, but maybe he was fit to sacrifice himself for his people. Maybe with this he could prove that he wasn’t worthless, or lazy, or self-absorbed, or whatever it was the tabloids were calling him these days. If it was his life held against the lives of the Kingsglaive and all the other Lucian citizens affected by the war…

“You’re sacrificing your life for this kingdom,” he muttered, gesturing bitterly at his dad’s hand, at the Ring of the Lucii where it sat heavy and dark on Regis’s finger. Regis curled his hand into a fist.

“This is not the same thing, Noctis,” he said gently. He smiled, the anger in his eyes softening to sorrow. “You do not need to prove anything to me, or to anyone. I know the burden of the crown is not easy. I know you have struggled to meet your own expectations, perhaps even to live up to whatever standard you think I have set, and I must apologize for any part I may have played in that, but you are doing well. You can ignore the tabloids, they will grasp at any strand they can find or fabricate to sow doubt among the people. But the people will realize, in time. You do not have to throw your life away needlessly.”

“That’s not what this is about!” Noctis protested, even though his dad’s words were an echo of his earlier thoughts. Regis knew him, and his doubts, so well.

“Then what is it? Why are you so determined to sacrifice yourself?”

Noctis looked away, unable to meet his dad’s concerned eyes. “The chancellor met me in the hallway,” he said, “on his way out of the throne room. He threatened me.” He glanced up to catch Regis’s reaction.

“He did what?” Regis growled. His eyes flashed, and Noctis flinched, even knowing the surge of anger was in no way directed at him.

“He told me the Empire would get their hands on me regardless, even if we refuse the terms. He said all the MTs have been programmed to take me alive, and that my surrender was non-negotiable for the treaty.” Noctis could barely hear his own voice. “He said we have two days to decide.”

And that was the driving factor behind Noctis’s decision. He could run, of course, leave Insomnia, try to escape the Empire’s clutches before they attacked the Crown City, and maybe he would even succeed, but what kind of prince, what kind of king would that make him? It was likely Niflheim would capture him eventually. They controlled most of Eos and there were enough people who would be desperate enough to turn him in for whatever bounty they set on his head. He would be a fugitive, unable to trust anyone, and what kind of life would that be? It might be better to head it off entirely, get it over with, and maybe save as many of his people as he could in the process.

Regis stood, walking around the edge of his desk to stand in front of Noctis. Noctis tried not to notice the faint tremble in his dad’s hand as it clutched his cane. Ending the war sooner also meant that his dad could bring down the Wall, could stop letting the Crystal drain his magic and his very life. Noctis considered his own freedom, or even his own life, a small price to pay for that.

“What else are you not telling me, son?” Regis asked quietly. Noctis looked down at his feet. This would be the hardest part.

“It seemed...” Noctis trailed off. He groaned, running his fingers through his hair as he tried to find the words to say without sounding conceited. “Oh, this is so stupid, but it seemed like I wasn’t just something to sweeten the pot. Like I was the reason for all this. I know it doesn’t make sense, it’s stupid, Niflheim has wanted our lands for centuries, but the way he looked at me… And why else would he demand too much from us and then make a point to say that I was the non-negotiable part?” He was babbling and he knew it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of the chancellor’s fingers on his chin, his eyes raking over his face, and he was so scared.

If he had said this to anyone other than his dad or Ignis or Prompto, he knew it would be brushed off as him thinking too highly of himself. Even Gladio would probably tell him to stop reading that much into it. It wasn’t that out of the ordinary to demand a royal heir as a prisoner of war. Luna had been held under Imperial control since Niflheim had taken Tenebrae twelve years prior, and Ravus was now a member of their military. It was probably nothing, but there had been something so personal in the chancellor’s voice.

But Regis knew him, knew his insecurities, had guessed at part of the reason Noctis was even contemplating going along with Niflheim’s demands, knew Noctis wouldn’t even be suggesting something like this if he didn’t truly believe it. He wouldn’t brush it off as a plea for attention, but still Noctis felt ashamed for even bringing it up.

He opened his mouth to tell his dad to forget it, but Regis grasped his hand, cutting him off.

“Noctis, you are the Chosen King.” There was a flash of some pained emotion in his eyes as he said it, too quick for Noctis to catch or identify. “We have tried to keep this quiet, but if the Empire has learned, then they must know just how much of a threat you really are to them. Taking you, removing you from the equation, puts them that much closer to victory. Even if you were not the Chosen, taking Lucis’s only heir would be enough of a blow. This kingdom will end with me. Even if I appoint a political successor, they cannot wield the Ring, cannot access the Crystal’s magic. Without the Wall, Lucis will fall.”

Regis brought his hand up, gently cupping the side of Noctis’s face. Noctis closed his eyes and tilted his head into the touch.

“I should have stayed away. I should not have been there, should not have given him the chance to threaten us further.”

“Noctis,” Regis murmured. “If Niflheim, if Chancellor Izunia, wants you this badly, they would have found a way to threaten this regardless.”

Noctis pulled away from his dad’s hand.

“I just don’t understand. Wanting me as a bargaining chip, as some sort of insurance as part of peace negotiations, that I understand. But to go so far as to have every single MT programmed to take me alive, to threaten to come after me even if Insomnia falls, why? What could he possibly hope to gain?”

Regis’s brow creased. “That I cannot answer. There is too much we do not know about this situation, and none of the uncertainties bode well for you, or for our kingdom.”

Noctis took a breath, steeling himself against what he was about to suggest. Once he voiced this, there was no going back, and he was tempted to just keep his mouth shut, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he had the chance to do something now and didn’t take it and his kingdom suffered because of it.

“It might… give us an opportunity,” he said, the words ashes in his mouth.

“Noctis…”

“No, listen to me. He said I’m the part he refuses to compromise on. So that means the rest we can negotiate. We can counter with them taking me,” Noctis swallowed, trying hard not to think about what that meant, “and they can keep whatever lands they’ve already fully conquered, but we retain control of Insomnia, Leide, Cleigne, and Duscae, maybe even push for the return of Galahd and the rest of the Cavaugh region, and they withdraw their troops from those territories.” He doubted Niflheim would agree to all of that, but it gave them a place to start and negotiate down from.

It was also likely his dad had already thought of this, or something similar. Unlike Regis, Noctis had never had much of a head for politics or negotiations or strategy, that was what he had Ignis for, so if he had realized the significance of the chancellor’s words, surely his dad had as well. But he knew his dad would never suggest it himself. Noctis knew that in some ways, many ways, Regis put Noctis ahead of Lucis, as the chancellor had taunted, and it did nothing but add to Noctis’s feelings of guilt.

Regis sighed. “It… has merit,” he admitted, and it sounded like it pained him to do so. “However, it will just lead to Niflheim playing a long game with us, even if they honor the terms of the treaty. Once I die, Lucis will be left without a king, and they will be free to conquer our kingdom without much opposition.”

Noctis grimaced. He hated being reminded of his dad’s mortality, but it was necessary to consider in these circumstances.

“So appoint Ignis as your successor. We all know he was going to be the real power behind my throne anyways. He’d make a good king, even without the use of the Ring, and that will at least allow Lucis political stability.”

Regis regarded him carefully. “Just how much thought have you put into this?”

“Enough,” Noctis said. “I had little else to do while waiting for you, and I knew you wouldn’t consider it unless you thought I’d given it the proper amount of consideration.” And that was true, though really it had just been his way of occupying himself so he didn’t dwell on the predatory look in the chancellor’s eyes.

His dad bowed his head. “I would never force this on you, indeed everything in me falters at the thought of even considering this, and perhaps that makes me a bad king. But if this is how you truly wish for us to proceed, I will honor that. This is far more your sacrifice, and therefore your decision, than mine.”

Noctis snorted. “Of course it’s not what I want, but it’s what’s right for our people, and so far I’ve done nothing for them with my life.”

“Noctis,” Regis chided, a note of exasperated fondness in his voice. “You have simply not yet been given the opportunity.”

“Then I’ll take this as my first opportunity,” Noctis said. He pushed down the panic that was clawing in his chest. As much as he had fought for it, he had half hoped his dad would put his foot down on his plan, take the burden of the choice off of him, as he had in the throne room. Noctis suspected the chancellor’s dig had done its job.

Regis rested his hand against Noctis’s cheek again and leaned down to press his forehead against Noctis’s. “You do not have to go through with this. We will carry on as we always have if the ceasefire ends. You will have another chance to do something for your people. The first opportunity is not always the right one.”

This time it was Regis who pulled away, just enough to catch Noctis’s eyes and hold them. “You are destined for great things. You have been Chosen by the Crystal to rid the world of Darkness, and the Astrals will not let you fall until you have fulfilled their prophecy.”

“So, what, you think Bahamut himself will intervene when Niflheim tries to execute me the moment they get me back to Gralea?” Noctis scoffed. “Since when have they cared enough about us, or even their ‘Chosen,’ to interfere? They certainly didn’t stop the Marilith from nearly killing me.”

Regis frowned. “Noctis…” he sighed. He slid the hand on Noctis’s cheek higher so his fingers carded through Noctis’s hair, and despite his frustration, the touch was soothing. It was rare that his dad allowed his affection to spill over into physical contact, so Noctis treasured the moments when he did. And even though he knew it was exactly why Regis was doing it now, Noctis still allowed it to placate him.

He didn’t know how many more times he would have this. If he turned himself over to Niflheim, he would likely never see his dad again. Even if he wasn’t executed immediately, he would certainly never be permitted any sort of freedom, and it wasn’t as though Regis could or should just drop by for a State visit.

Noctis felt his resolve start to crumble as his dad continued to run his fingers gently through his hair. And maybe that was part of his intent with the gesture as well, but then why allow Noctis to make the decision at all if he wanted to dissuade him so badly? It wasn’t as though Regis didn’t outrank Noctis, their familial hierarchy notwithstanding, and he’d never had a problem telling Noctis “no” before.

“Forgive me, my son,” Regis murmured. “Would that protecting you was my only charge. You are the most important thing to my heart.”

Noctis could no longer meet his dad’s overly bright gaze, afraid that the sight of his sorrow would be the final thing to shatter what was left of his determination. He turned his head away, hating that the motion disrupted his dad’s gentle stroking of his hair. Regis’s hand fell away.

They stood in silence for a long moment, Noctis keeping his face downturned, until Regis sighed. There was a rustle of cloth, and then his hand rested on the back of Noctis’s neck, fingers curling in the short strands of hair, and he coaxed Noctis closer until Noctis’s face was pressed into his dad’s shoulder.

Noctis wrapped his arms around his dad, clinging to him tighter than he had since he’d been eight, and finally let his tears fall. He could be strong later, when he wasn’t in his dad’s embrace, and if he didn’t cry now, he would later, when he probably shouldn’t.

Regis stroked his hair tenderly for a moment longer before moving his arm to reciprocate the hug, his other hand still clutching at his cane. Noctis sobbed at the brush of Regis’s lips against the top of his head, and it was suddenly too much.

“I can’t do this,” he gasped into the thick fabric of Regis’s cape before he could stop himself. “I can’t, Dad, not on my own. Please.”

Regis’s breath hitched, and his arm tightened around Noctis.

“I will not order you to do this. I cannot.” His voice broke on the last word. “I’m so sorry.”

“Then order me not to,” Noctis begged, half hoping his dad wouldn’t hear it, muffled by his shoulder as it was, but of course he did.

“Noctis, I -” Regis stopped, his arm tightening around him again, and Noctis felt a tear drip onto his hair. “My love, I want nothing more -”

Noctis shook his head furiously, hating himself for selfishly putting his dad in this situation. He should have kept his mouth shut.

“Stop,” he choked. “Stop, I know.” He broke away from the embrace and kept his head down to avoid looking at Regis, wiping at his eyes to get rid of the tears.

He couldn’t imagine this would be an easy decision to make. As difficult as it was for him, it was only his own life he was bartering. For Regis, it would be the life of his only son, and the horror of having to choose between his kingdom and the last of his family. The choice between being a good king or a good father, and wasn’t that what Regis struggled with daily?

Noctis knew that Regis wouldn’t hesitate to offer his own life up in Noctis’s place, but if their roles were reversed, would Noctis be able to hand his dad over to Niflheim? He didn’t think he could, even if he knew it would be the best option for the kingdom.

Suddenly Regis’s earlier reluctance to either agree or forbid made a lot more sense. With Noctis himself willing, he had given his dad an avenue to save the kingdom, and Regis could not, as a good king, decline, as much as his heart might ache to. And as much as Noctis had been hoping Regis would command him one way or the other, take the choice out of his hands, he realized Regis was also hoping Noctis would decide so he didn’t have to.

Noctis couldn’t make it harder on him. The guilt of this would weigh on Regis heavy enough as it was; Noctis didn’t need to add to it. He would never forgive himself if he did, no matter how long or short the rest of his life was.

Noctis took a deep, steadying breath and finally looked up to meet his dad’s gaze, ignoring the pain in his eyes and the tear tracks down his cheeks. He straightened his shoulders, pushing down the terror that threatened to rise back up in him.

“I’ll do it.”

#whumptober2019 #no.25 #noctis lucis caelum #regis lucis caelum #ardyn izunia #final fantasy xv #ffxv #my fanfiction #my writing

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ciestessde · 4 years ago

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Chapter 6

Why?

Why oh why oh WHY a demon-eater, of all things?! I mean, at least you’re an anima, but I’d’ almost have preferred you be a florus -- or even a symbi! Why, at least then I wouldn’t have had to put up with such -- such…!

[Beginning]

UGH! I SWEAR! There is no concept more frustratingly irritating than government!

… Okay, well, perhaps that’s not entirely true, but… UGH! Things are so much easier when I can be in charge! But since I’ll only disappear if my physical body dies, I can’t exactly become a Dead One.

Ooooh…! I’d say you owe me, if not for the fact that you will never have the opportunity to pay me back.

Oh -- WOE IS ME!

I know I said this was a rather decent governmental system -- and I MEANT that! -- but… Ugh. NOTHING makes dealing with authority figures easier in ANY world, I swear!

And them being the Symbi just makes it MORE frustrating!

Alright…! Alright… You can get through this… Just… Remind yourself of the good things!

The Symbi are good leaders -- the system works. It’s just that they’re slow- -No! No, they’re, um… Thorough. Yes… Yes. Thorough.

Which is good! Them being… Thorough. And, um… (c’mon, you can come up with something else) … Impartial! Yeah.

… Yeah!

Yeah, the Symbi are unbiased in their rule over the Anima. The Anima are compassionate in their rule over the Florus. And the Florus are, um… motivated -- in their rule over the Symbi!

Right. Yeah.

… Ugh. This isn’t helping.

Am I in a mood? Perhaps I’m simply in a mood. … No. I can’t even convince myself of that.

Ugh! Time to admit it to myself: I miscalculated.

Yes. It’s true, Future Heir. Even after an entire lifetime of studying how to navigate the Crossroad, mistakes are all but inevitable. You see, then, why even my ice-cold heart had pity on you?

… Heh. I can hear some of my past loves mocking me for that statement. “Ice-cold?” they’d say, “When the source of this breakdown you’re having is--?!”

…

Heh… Get used to having a broken heart, Future Heir. It’s the only kind you’ll ever have. You’ll think you’ve gotten over it, and then it will start bleeding again the moment you see, for example, a brainwashed “peacekeeper” forced to murder an innocent child.

Haugh… Why? Why did you have to be a demon-eater?

… Why did my aim have to miss? I wanted to live my final life in a peaceful world! I thought I’d aimed for the center of a peaceful portion of this world’s timeline -- not the END of its peace!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You may have figured this out by now, but the “lower-leaders” were just peacekeeper-soldiers trained by the Dead Ones. They didn’t really hold their own authority. Well, they did, but… only as far as their -- our -- job entailed.

We were trained to keep the environment peaceful and, well, balanced. Because if an area became too over- or under-saturated in an energy type -- people could die.

Granted, balancers were the greatest threat to that balance. If a balancer became too prizmally “hungry” for the energy type they needed, they would end up setting a Balancer’s Flame; anyone who came into contact with the balancer, and then anyone they came in contact with, and so-on, would become a breeding ground for the balancer’s energy type.

The Dead Ones did everything to avoid that disaster. Not the least of which was inundating the balancers with mental blockages and conditioning against setting Flames.

So you see, balancers naturally held quite a lot of power, but, if anything, they were the lowest class of citizen.

… Hey, honest question: Can you call people “citizens” if there are no countries? ‘Cause there weren’t countries on my homeworld -- the Dead Ones ruled over all Illunira. … Eh. Whatever, I guess. There used to be countries before I was born, but that was generations ago. Before the “War of Instability.”

See, the reason balancers were so feared wasn’t just because of how powerful they were. But because they used to be the ruling class. Originally, every world leader was a balancer. But they started fighting over contradicting ideals and their desire for each others’ resources. (So, y’know. Typical reasons.)

The Symbi were the ones who came up with the new system -- as the name I picked for them might suggest, they were quite adept at “living in harmony.” According to them, we needed unbiased rulers. And who better to be unbiased than the Dead Ones? After all, before this new system went into place, they weren’t even interested in interacting with the Illunirans -- before, they just wanted to live what remained of their time here in peace, floating above the clouds and… doing whatever it was they did up there in the atmosphere.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

… I suppose the saddest bit might be that this world’s government really does work quite well, otherwise -- having those who have no stake in Illunira’s affairs be in charge is quite ingenious. The “Dead Ones” themselves are just… Fascinating. This same-world afterlife is one of those “alien aspects” I’ve grown quite fond of, but this is the first I’ve seen the two states-of-being interact so often.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious that the very act of bringing them in would create the very same biases that dooms every government to failure.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But… That distance from the livings’ affairs has its drawbacks as well, of course. There’s always some catch in imperfect worlds like these.

Heh. I say “like these” as though I’ve ever managed to reach a perfect world! Here’s another piece of advice, Future Heir:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Although… I suppose I can’t say for sure that the balancers didn’t deserve to be treated the way the system treated them. I don’t really know what Illunira was like back then.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Don’t bother trying to reach a “perfect world.”

-It’s not that they don’t exist! They do! But since you originated from an IMperfect one --

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

… But I know what it turned into.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Trying to reach a “perfect” world will be impossible.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#Crossroad Of Infinity #crossroadofinfinity #fantasy #sci-fi #dracula

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tanadrin · 6 years ago

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@bpd-anon:

I think I agree on some points and disagree on others but mostly I would love an expansion of this part: "I don’t think he actually understands fantasy as a set of generic conventions as well as he thinks he does." Can you explain the parts that he is misunderstanding and what true understanding looks like?

For some context, I have never seen GOT. I read the first book and it's tied for my favorite book ever but then college and its stress hit and I mostly stopped reading (same reason Blindsight is another favorite book ever but I haven't read Echopraxia). I mostly read science fiction books and I haven't even read the all-important LOTR (mainly because I hear there isn't any moral greyness, sounds boring).

Martin has said things like this:

“I admire Tolkien greatly. His books had enormous influence on me. And the trope that he sort of established—the idea of the Dark Lord and his Evil Minions—in the hands of lesser writers over the years and decades has not served the genre well. It has been beaten to death. The battle of good and evil is a great subject for any book and certainly for a fantasy book, but I think ultimately the battle between good and evil is weighed within the individual human heart and not necessarily between an army of people dressed in white and an army of people dressed in black. When I look at the world, I see that most real living breathing human beings are grey.”

“Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?”

“By the time I got to Mines of Moria I decided this was the greatest book I’d ever read… And then Gandalf dies! I can’t explain the impact that had on me at 13. You can’t kill Gandalf… Tolkien just broke that rule, and I’ll love him forever for it. The minute you kill Gandalf, the suspense of everything that follows is 1,000 times greater. Because now anybody could die. Of course, it’s had a profound effect on my own willingness to kill characters at the drop of a hat.”

Taken together, Martin is one of the people I’m thinking most of when I say things like “nobody reads Tolkien, only their caricatures of Tolkien.” About the only thing I can say for him is that he’s right on Tolkien being about an external battle of Good versus Evil a lot of the time; though for my part, Martin’s world doesn’t come off so much as Gray versus Gray as Evil versus Evil, and a lot of what he seems to take for “moral ambiguity” to me is perfectly unambiguous: they’re all (or mostly) villains, doing villainy things to each other. Sometimes for quite human reasons; but the best villains have comprehensible motivations beyond pure evil. Doesn’t make them not villains.

First of all, he’s simply nakedly incorrect that Tolkien never considered the difficulties of rule, or never looked at the practical aspects of his worldbuilding. They don’t come in much for emphasis, but they’re absolutely there (most notably in the scenes set in Minas Tirith, in the run-up to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields), and indeed the moral nature of the Orcs, and therefore the correct stance to take toward them, was of deep concern to him, and subject to a lot of later revision as he struggled with the idea of what we would now refer to as an Always Chaotic Evil fantasy race.

Tolkien certainly critically interrogates the morality and moral authority of rulership. In the Silmarillion, he has plenty of figures who cut heroic profiles but make bad (or at least ambiguous) kings, with much resulting conflict; and indeed, that ambivalence is something he’s in part borrowing from his medieval sources! To say that the medievals had a totally black-and-white view of kingship is to betray a lack of familiarity with actual medieval writers, who even (especially?) in the Early Middle Ages are adept at portraying leaders with powerful qualities that turn against them in the wrong situation. Beorhtnoth, the heroes of Njal’s Saga, and Beowulf would have all been extremely familiar to Tolkien, and are good examples I think. Tolkien absolutely understood that people come in shades of gray, and there are various admixtures of light and dark in almost all his characters. Even Frodo for Chrissakes puts on the Ring at the end--and Gollum redeems him. Like, come on! That’s one of the most memorable parts of the main trilogy! But from Galadriel right down to the Sackville-Bagginses, Tolkien is intensely conscious of the moral complexity of everybody in his stories, he just doesn’t need them to say “fuck” in order to express that.

What Martin seems to have confused for Tolkien is, like, the semi-mythic style of Arthurian romance (which... is still not always super black and white?), which is only a small part of the generic conventions Tolkien is drawing on. Tolkien is much more steeped in the conventions of the realist novel, with its penchant for psychological complexity, even as he’s borrowing the setpieces of older literature. I think that’s important because it’s what marks Tolkien out as a fundamentally modern writer, despite his sources; yet people skate over this and like to pretend he was some kind of reverse Connecticut Yankee who stumbled out of the 13th century with medieval sensibilities intact. Which is... weird.

The quote about Gandalf is especially telling. Gandalf’s death happens for extremely clear structural reasons: it provides a climax to Book II (if you’ve never read LOTR: each volume is divided into two “books”; the three-volume split was a post-writing publication decision, LOTR was originally written as a single continuous unit, and the “books” are like mega-chapters), much like, but stronger than, the Flight to the Ford at the end of Book I; it sets up the sojurn in Lorien (recovering from the trauma of the loss of their nominal leader); it helps the narrative transition from the low-stakes, bucolic setting of everything west of the Misty Mountains to the high-stakes dangers of the rest of the story; and it serves the conclusion of the story because without Gandalf’s sacrifice (plus many other events), the Ring never would have made it to Mount Doom. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but Gandalf comes back, in a way that feels sensible within the world Tolkien has built, and which sets up further development of both the main plot and the the themes Tolkien is concerned with.

If Martin had written Lord of the Rings, Gandalf would have died to a random Orc arrow, would never have come back, and the Ring wouldn’t have made it to Mount Doom at all. And you’d be left feeling like Gandalf dies for basically no reason--and you’d be right. The suspense in Lord of the Rings doesn’t come from wondering who will die (the only major named characters who die permanently are Boromir and Gollum; both similarly serve important thematic and plot functions when they do, but by Martin’s standard, Tolkien isn’t even trying), or wondering how things will turn out--does anyone ever doubt that the good guys will win?--it comes from seeing how they get there, from wanting to experience the emotional and narrative beats of the story, wanting to see the narrative logic being brought to its conclusion. It’s why it’s a good story even if you know the ending! And all of Tolkien’s work is like that: a well-constructed narrative that is perennially satisfying is far better than a one-off surprise that can never be repeated. That’s a mistake a lot of modern media is making right now, which the rise of undue emphasis on spoilers isn’t doing anything to reduce.

More generally: there’s nothing wrong with high fantasy externalizing the conflict between good and evil. That is in fact one of its functions, as a kind of moral metaphor or moral proving ground in the same way that, say, science fiction often serves as moral and philosophical proving ground for ideas around technology or exploration or the alien. It’s not obligatory, but to cite that as an insufficiency of any work in the genre is to fail to understand the genre. Tolkien specifically provides some arch moral figures (Morgoth, Sauron, Manwe, Aragorn), but he also provides some much more mixed ones: Denethor, Saruman, Grima Wormtongue, Boromir, Gollum, etc. (also Thorin, Feanor and his sons, and in fact just like a huge chunk of the cast of the Silmarillion in general), and gives his characters plenty of opportunity to reflect that, even in a conflict with a literal evil spirit, there is room for ambiguity (cf. Sam’s meditation on the Haradrim in Ithilien). And the sum total of the effect in Tolkien’s work is that it actually feels like something is at stake. I don’t feel like that in Martin’s world. I feel like if the Night King were just to destroy all of Westeros that would make as much sense and be about as satisfying as any other outcome, because there’s nothing that feels especially worth preserving there.

In discarding everything about both the moral and narrative structure of high fantasy, Martin’s world leaves nothing for one to hang one’s hat on, nothing to use as a fixed point of reference when it comes to orienting yourself in it; he is writing a critique against many things, perhaps, but not an argument for anything. The result leaves me quite cold.

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potteresque-ire · 5 years ago

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Daenerys Stormborn, First of Her Name

Here’s my first review post on Game of Thrones! Thank you so much for asking about Daenerys, @bixgirl1, @kikibluemay and @oceaxe-ifdawn. She was fascinating and tragic, and I couldn’t really stop talking about her... as in, I ended up writing a 4k+ word essay on her character.

Due to the length, I’ve crossed-posted to AO3 for those who prefer to read it there: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119595 . As usual, never feel obliged to do anything! Fandom is a happy, carefree place for me :) .

Before I start, I’d like to say this—I’ve never expected GoT to be progressive. Its medieval aesthetics aside, the gratuitous violence and nudity really seal the deal. Therefore, this review is written decidedly without a social justice lens; I shall not argue if the showrunners were feminists, racists, imperialists etc. Also, I haven’t read the books and have read few metas and reviews; so these are my unfiltered thoughts and of course, my personal opinion. I got interested in Game of Thrones because the snippets I knew of it reminded me of ancient Chinese history, which I loved for its twists, its very blurred lines between truths and myths, its cynical record of human nature, clever strategies and bloodshed. Along this vein, I was, and still am, the most interested in how each contender of the Iron Throne got there, and as the theme of the story emerged (“the lies we spin, our fates they weave” is my way of describing it), the things they told for motivation—the lies and truths that, should they win, would become history.

Of all the contenders and their stories, Daenerys’ rise was the most…mythical and uplifting. She was easy to root for, partly because we’re conditioned to root for heroes like her. The last descendant of a dynasty. Orphan. Exiled, abused, went through her personal journey from little better than a slave to become queen. She even birthed dragons and rode them to war. I really enjoyed the part of her story as the Khaleesi. She grew into a queen in every way, and an ideal one, by the time led her small group of followers across the desert. I loved her—she was strong, resilient, intelligent, righteous. And she understood and respected a culture that was supposedly far below her (as her brother Viserys frequently reminded everyone).

But then came Astapor, then Yunkai, then Meereen. She became a true ruler, without a Khal by her side…

I started feeling a little uncomfortable. I was puzzled by that. Her cause was emancipation, one I believe was absolutely correct. Her stance was uncompromising. She walked the walk. Every single one of these traits was beyond admirable, and precious among rulers. Nailing 163 slave masters for 163 children might seem brutal, but the world of GoT *was* brutal.

And yet, something felt...off.

Then I realized: after all the screen time in Meereen, I remained very much ignorant of the place, other than it practiced slavery. Slavery—and the barbaric practices surrounding it, such as the fighting pits—was presented as the only thing that defined her new constituents in her eyes. This could be by design, to show Daenerys’ “style” as a ruler. This can also be a reflection of the showrunners’ perspectives, their disquiet about tackling slavery for a larger audience. But if I must judge the show by its own merits and ignore the hands behind it, the repeated shots of Daenerys sitting high in the Great Pyramid, she and her advisors donned in their foreign attire, telling the locals who looked nothing like them, over and over again, that they were wrong…

She looked like a coloniser. My radars were beeping for that reason. I grew up in a colony, a well cared for one (ie, it would’ve fared far worse if it hadn’t been colonised). Colonialism is therefore an integral part of my life, and my views of it are coloured and educated by the experience. Controversial point: far from a general rule, but I recognise that colonizers can do great good. I’m a beneficiary of that myself. However, I’ve also learned that there’s an art to bringing these great goods to the colonised. One lesson: defining these people, especially when they’re foreign to the ruler, with anything that the ruler is seeking to eradicate — a habit, a tradition, a set of beliefs… —is not a recipe for success. It’s a matter of human pride—the pride of, in this case, the people who’d just suffered defeat. The former ruling class needs to feel some respect, which translates to a sense of security, for any transition of power to be smooth. One may say, the slave masters deserved neither pride nor respect nor security; this is very true, but there was a very practical consideration, one that Daenerys acknowledged: the ultimate goal of conquest is to rule. An un-governable colony won’t change for the better, because it won’t remain a colony for long. In Meereen, as in many real-world colonies, colonisers were few and their constituents were many. Revolts would favour the latter, in particular, the former ruling class who often had both financial and geographical advantages. The Sons of Harpy’s revolt did address that, albeit weakly.

No, I don’t mean Daenerys should yield on the issue of slavery. Lives were at stake and the emancipation had to be immediate. But then, merely insisting this was the right thing to do and punishing offenders with increasing severity, while reinforcing the segregation between the ruling class and the ruled (Daenerys pretty much sequestered herself in the Great Pyramid), was not a direction to take to render the emancipation permanent. Daenerys had to be out there. She had to make serious effort to find common grounds in the 3-way between herself, the former slaves and former slave owners, especially after she’d removed one of the pillars of Meereen’s sociopolitical structure. It didn't matter that the latter were despicable; she had to find a connection. And being a nation that had stood thousands of years, with its wealth and fine architecture, Meereen had got to have something benign and beautiful that Queen Daenerys could embrace, that she could use as a bridge to endear her to her constituents and at the same time, de-emphasize the role of slavery in defining what Meereen was. Wear their clothes. Visit the temples. Whether she actually believed in their gods didn’t matter. Join their festivities—if she did it enough it would matter much less if she skipped the fighting pits. Go to their Flea’s Bottom equivalent (as Margaery Tyrell did in King’s Landing; she would’ve made a good colonial governor). Talk to their craftsman and ask about their traditional crafts. Never for once did Daenerys consider these strategies. She could’ve used Tyrion as her ambassador—his stature and broken language skills, if utilized correctly, could loosen people’s defense, and the parties he’d attend would give him access to the good wines he craved and the setting for him to establish alliances with small talks. If governing foreign lands is indeed an art form, Daenerys didn’t pursue it in Meereen, even though from her time with the Dothrakis, it seemed unlikely that she was ignorant of its necessity (She did eat a horse heart for her Khal and her unborn child).

Again, assuming that the writers were merely following GRRM’s guideposts on her character arc, I had to contend with these possibilities that inform me about Daenerys the Ruler: 1) somewhere in her journey in Essos, she’d lost her ability to empathize with the cultures under her rule. This seemed unlikely. Or, 2) she no longer felt the need to do it, her power no longer derived from a Khal. Either way, with Westeros also being foreign to Daenerys, I started to wonder the kind of ruler she would end up being …

… and it looked rather similar to the Daenerys in her final scenes, asserting that her moral compass should make the entire Westeros bent their knees. I started to wonder if the show intended this to be a good or bad thing, or something more nuanced, as it should be. My hopes weren’t high—after all, our own western world still retains much of its colonial sensibilities, which would’ve (rightly) praised Daenerys’ role as a Liberator, but would also (sub)consciously downplay her … colonising tendencies.

Does it mean I see Daenerys as a bad person, or going mad? Not at all. Conflating character and ability to rule is, IMO, one of the major weaknesses of her ending (more on that later); it was also, perhaps ironically, Daenerys’ own fatal mistake. My question is merely one about her fitness to rule, which is itself a fluid thing. War-time rulers require different skills compared to peace-time rulers, conquerors to defenders. The serious contenders of the Iron Throne each had their own strengths, some better suited for rulership and some better for rulership at different times. Stannis was a strong general but was too easily swayed as a ruler. Daenerys was a conqueror. Jon Snow was a diplomat.

One thing, however, is true and consistent in the world of GoT: to gain power, being morally righteous is not enough. Ned Stark’s detached head brought this point across all too well. Rulers win the hearts of their people. Not the brains, not the logic that decides what is right or wrong. Humans are inherently passionate about power, whether it’s theirs to own or not.

And this is, perhaps, Daenerys Stormborn’s greatest tragedy. She assumed her strict moral compass, along with her birthright and strong will, would be sufficient to take her to the Iron Throne. Her dragons further misguided her in that regard—punishments by Dracarys lent an extra mythical weight and poetry to her judgments, as if she had a higher power, like God, on her side. When she asked Jon Snow if she was to rule with love or fear, she asked as if the two were a dichotomy, seemingly blind to the fact that she had always treaded the line between the two. Love got her the Unsullied, the talents who came far and wide to advise her; fear got her the Dothrakis, the fragile peace in Essos.

If you’ve read till here (thank you), you may assume I’d defend Daenerys’ decision to burn King’s Landing, or suggest it was foreshadowed. I’d say this: I find it to be within the realms of possibility, but only given my personal opinion about her rule in Meereen. I don’t see it as a botched coin-flip by the Gods, because nothing in her prior judgment suggested madness. Yes, she’d ignored advice before, but no more than, say, Robert Baratheon or Joffrey (Cersei simply killed those who gave her advice she didn’t like). Daenerys’ decision to march to King’s Landing immediately after the Battle of Winterfell—the last major decision she made before the sacking—might not be wise to some but was logically sound. I’d also venture to say this, perhaps in defence of the show’s writers: I’m also not quite sure if the show intended her decision to be a proof of madness.

Because I’m not sure if the madness told in this show was real at all.

Because curiously, while the coin flip had been mentioned several times, the show never offered us any concrete, visual evidence that Daenerys had suffered a loss of reason, which defines madness for us who live on Earth in the 21st century. The destruction of King’s Landing was portrayed at the ground level; we didn’t exactly see Daenerys cackling, or enjoying the carnage. Making a terrible decision does not a mad person make. She was seen to be sure of herself in her final scene with Jon Snow—but why shouldn’t she be, when she’d just emerged victorious and achieved her life’s goal, her revenge? If cockiness had been the mark of madness, half of the characters in the show would’ve been mad.

Even more curious to me is this: people like Ramsey or Joffrey or Cersei, who’d done seriously mad things in our perspective, were never once described as “mad”. The adjective “Mad” had always been reserved for the Mad King.

How was the Mad King mad then? This is important, because Daenerys supposedly inherited his madness. But the audience hadn’t been given much information. We know The Mad King killed his dissidents, but that seemed to fall within standard monarch behaviour. We know he and his advisors—including, notably, Varys—were at increasing odds with each other, but put a bunch of power-hungry men with immense power imbalance in the same room and that would happen more likely than not. He killed Ned Stark’s father and brother in a confrontation—so he was vengeful, distrustful, and brutal, yes, just like Joffrey or Cersei, but still, nothing that spoke particularly of madness. He was said to want King’s Landing destroyed, but the act was never realized; we only learned of his intentions via Jaimie. He set up the network of wildfires, which were terrible weapons but also … traditional in the Targaryen dynasty, if wildfires had indeed been invented as replacements of Dracarys. So how mad was actually the Mad King then, compared to his ancestors? Or was he called Mad only because he lost his game of thrones, and history was written by victors? When Varys claimed to be worried about Daenerys’ state—when he hinted at her madness and being a bad coin flip—was he merely repeating the same lies that had been told about her father, with the purpose of setting up a chain reaction that would propel Jon Snow to the Iron Throne, as the same lies had helped justify and cement Robert Baratheon’s reign? Varys might have been trying to feed Daenerys something. A “crazy potion”, maybe?

Yes, I know. I’m probably reading too much into this. It’s my wishful thinking, perhaps, to not see Daenerys as mad (or the writers writing her as mad) because that would’ve taken away her agency. Because Daenerys’ character arc doesn’t deserve an ending equivalent to death by a falling flowerpot. Because, if her sacking of King’s Landing was meant to be the Shock of Season 8, she must retain her agency. It’s shocking because a good person did it. A good person is good only when she has the agency to make terrible mistakes.

So how am I reading Daenerys’ decision to sack King’s Landing? If I were to ignore all inputs outside the show—I don’t know if the showrunners had commented on anything—this is how I would “bridge the gap”, so to speak; how I’d imagine the thoughts running through Daenery’s mind as the bells rang, behind the few seconds the camera focused on Emilia Clark’s face in the show. I believe the series of tragedies Daenerys had suffered (losing Jorah, Missandei, a dragon son) had only made her more determined to wipe out, as Greyworm told Jon, everyone who’d served Cersei. But while this sounded like a simple task, carrying it out was much more complicated. Cersei’s armies were dispersed all over the city; they could easily remove their armour and feign innocence. Moreover, every resident in King’s Landing could be seen as an accomplice to Cersei’s reign; even the people in Flea’s Bottom, like Gendry, used to make weapons for the Lannisters. Were they to be wiped out as well? If not, where to draw the line? This order nonetheless confirmed Daenerys’ world view that the morally corrupt should perish without mercy, and Cersei was, indeed, corruption defined. Daenerys had seen Cersei’s treachery herself, and the sheer scale of it must be as foreign to her as Westeros itself. Her closest friends and followers, Greyworm and Missandei, didn’t even know how to tell a joke—the smallest, most benign form of treachery. Daenerys knew what treachery was, of course, she’d suffered greatly from it, but treachery in the game of thrones was a different beast and she wasn’t yet equipped to handle it, to make correct assessments of the kind of behaviours it’d instigate—unlike Cersei and Tyrion, who as Lannisters had been breathing it in since birth, or Varys, who’d been both an observer of multiple reigns and a ruthless Kingmaker himself. King’s Landing, the city itself, had also signified little but treachery to Daenerys—her father had been murdered there by someone who’d sworn to protect him; men had been sent from there to murder her since she’d been born.

While Tyrion had told said that Cersei’s armies were serving only out of fear, Daenerys, who’d only had the most faithful / honest armies, the Unsullies and Dothrakis, probably couldn’t truly appreciate what that meant. She had every cause to be terrified then when the bells rang, especially when they rang so early, without her or her army and allies even close to the Red Keep. Ironically, perhaps, her own moral righteousness became her blind spot; she might have assumed Cersei’s forces had something far more sinister waiting for her—because how could they abandon their duties, their queen so easily?

And if they did abandon their duties and their queen so easily, what would stop them from committing the same treachery when Daenerys becomes queen herself? How could she vet the innocent and the treacherous and if she couldn’t—and she couldn’t, not with one dragon, a small army and no geographical advantage—what could she do? What could she do, when she was Daenerys Stormborn, who would never compromise to treachery?

I can see her feeling cornered. I can see her feeling she was left with one option: take the innocents out with the treachery. Do it like removing a tumour. Cut out a ring of good flesh around the bad.

The ring of good flesh was King’s Landing.

Plausible? Maybe? That tragically, both the rise and fall of Daenerys Targaryen could be attributed to her moral code? That she didn’t lose this game of thrones because she was evil, but because war and politics have always been amoral and she was a misfit? People in Westeros change allegiance all the time; morals are fluid and carry a price tag. Appropriately then, the man who understood and lived by these rules, whose loyalty could always be bought—Bronn—was also the biggest winner of this game of thrones.

I’d say this though: a plot point as significant, and as close to the finale as the sacking of King’s Landing, shouldn’t require the audience twisting their minds into pretzels to make it feel plausible, and my brain feels a bit pretzly at a moment. No matter what the writers intended, there remained too many holes for the watchers to fill with their imagination. I’ve read some who said the final season was too rushed; I’m not sure that was the issue. The issue, I think, is that even if given enough screen time, the writers didn’t quite know how to drive the characters without the books’ guidance—an issue that had become apparent by Season 6. The last three seasons felt…derivative, like fanfics of the first four. This isn’t a slight (well, not a big one)—Benioff and Weiss had managed what GRRM hasn’t been able to—but I felt a sense that their visions of the world had evolved to conflict with GRRM’s over the course of the show. Meanwhile, they still needed to hit the goal posts GRRM provided, while they wanted to focus on / believe in something else. The result was the later seasons that felt …schizophrenic at times. GoT had highly implausible moments since Season 1, but the first four seasons sold them because the showrunners believed in them. S8 Ep5&6, meanwhile, offered enough for me to logically agree that the sacking of King’s Landing and Daenerys’ downfall can be canon, but not enough for me to believe emotionally because…I didn’t feel the showrunners believed in them. The events felt written to serve a purpose other than storytelling—maybe to match GRRM’s notes, or satisfy the perceived need to shock; in all cases, I felt the hearts of the writers were somewhere else, somewhere perhaps more spectacular than dissecting the motivations of a fallen queen. The shift towards visual storytelling in the later seasons, perhaps to mitigate the difficulty of writing dialogues for an ensemble of deeply complex and intertwined characters, furthered exposed the incoherence of the show’s focus. While I love the visuals, GoT had its origins as a political show and politics is 99% talk. Similarly, the increased reliance on the actors to convey their characters via facial expressions and body language might work for someone like Brienne, who was taciturn and largely consistent personality wise, but insufficient for characters who used talking as a weapon (Tyrion) or underwent major transformations (Daenerys).

Anyway, back to Dany. If there was one thing I truly, truly dislike about the close of her story arc, it was the very end, when Jon Snow drove that dagger into her. Painfully cliche aside (I’ll leave Cersei’s baby to another day), it also unfairly cemented Daenery’s highly un-rightful place as the villain of the story, given that Jon Snow, the uncontested Good Human of the show, committed the murder. The show pitted two sympathetic characters against each other just to let one … leech the sympathy out of the other, when neither of their characters deserved the treatment (yes, I found this decision to be as unfair to Jon Snow as it was to Daenerys). As much as I had reservations about Daenery’s ability to govern, I never doubted the heart that Jon stabbed, the desire in it to do good for the people. Yes, I said it isn’t enough, and yes, I believe that too inflexible a moral code forcibly imposed upon others can do great damage, but this is very different from saying that Daenerys Stormborn was a villain. Conflating character and ability is human, but I expected this show to know enough nuance to avoid this mistake. Having the heart, the desire to rule well, is a start. A great and important start. A start seen in few others in the whole series. The early seasons of GoT were particularly strong in depicting characters in the grey but Daenerys, sadly, was robbed of that; she swung violently from white to black.

And what was so disappointing is that it needn’t be that way. Daenerys could have caused the destruction to King’s Landing and still be sympathetic. Queen Cersei was still in the Red Keep, and the Wildfires buried by the Mad King remained all over the city. Innocents die in wars, there’s never an exception to that, even if the wars are waged with the best intentions. I’m no show writer, but this is what I could come up with to spare Daenery’s fate as a villain after a few walking trips around my city, while keeping most major plot points intact. Show writers can do (much) better.

Just for the fun of it, below is the alternative ending for Daenerys I came up with, and I will end my very, very long thesis here :) . Thank you so, so much for reading! ❤️❤️❤️

===

1) Start of the episode. Qyburn teaching his little birds a nursery rhyme about a Mad King and his Wildfires, and an Evil Queen who will set them all burning. He tells them to sing far and wide. (This is just an excuse to get another song from Ramin Djawadi)

2) Long shots of combustibles being laid in the same tunnels Lancel Lannister crawled through back in Season 6 Ep 10, before the explosion of the Sept of Baelor. That 10-minute sequence was so classic that the audience would likely remember the place. Piles of wood connect the stores of barrels that we know contain the Wildfires. Black tar flows down the sewers of the Red Keep, down the alleys in Flea Bottom, slicking everything, staining the innocents there with (Queen Cersei’s) muck. This sequence can be done entirely through visuals.

3) The Bell rings. Daenerys attacks the Red Keep with Dracarys. The tar and wood catch fire and carry the flames to the Wildfires around the city. As Wildfire is Dracarys’ substitute, the two augments each other and the city soon turns into an Inferno. Daenerys watches, horrified and unable to do a thing. The nursery rhyme becomes a prophecy: as much as a Lannister laid the grounds, the Targaryens are solely responsible for the King’s Landing destruction. Woods and tar are, after all, harmless without fire. And Daenerys Stormborn, who swore to protect and liberate the weak, ends up killing more innocents than Cersei ever had.

4) Tyrion advises Daenerys that for now, she has no choice but to rule by fear. A reign cannot start with apologies, and what good will it do? So Daenerys gives the same speech to her armies on the steps of the ruined Red Keep, but noticeably distraught.

5) Daenerys must also restrain Drogon. She can’t afford him accidentally setting more fires in the city, while her armies scour every tunnel to make sure all Wildfires have been consumed. So the Breaker of Chains is forced to chain down her son, the symbol of her power.

6) Drogon, being intelligent but still a beast, maims Daenerys badly in his struggle to be free. Jon finds Daenerys, but she’s beyond saving. She tells Jon to keep what he saw secret, and if he can’t—she knows he can’t—to please lie for her, for once, that Drogon did it to avenge for the innocents she killed; that Drogon, and their family name he represents, knows justice above the fire and blood. When honest Jon reacts…honestly, she asks him to ask Tyrion for advice. She struggles to stand, says she wants to try the Iron Throne before she goes. She refuses Jon’s help; she walks, head high, blood trailing like a cape behind her, as she crosses the ruins. She won’t make it. Only her finger will get to touch the Iron Throne, as in her prophecy in the House of the Undying. Jon kneels behind her as she falls on her own knees. She will always be his queen. Drogon carries her away.

7) The waiting period can be a mourning period for all who have perished. Tyrion will still recommend Bran to be their King, as his proposal will be accepted as he remains the Hand. Jon would’ve asked Tyrion about the lying, and the issue can be brought up when “A Song of Ice and Fire” is presented in the small council. King Bran can then offer his wisdom as the Three-Eyed Raven, the Living History. What does he think, when he sees both the truth in history and the lies and prophecies told about it, that propel it? Does he approve of them? Disapprove? This will also wrap up the theme of the show, about the stories that make history, the history that makes us. Ser Davos can ask about the legend of Azor Ahai that cost Stannis Baratheon everything. Is it true? Does it matter? Also, how many swords actually make up the Iron Throne? Thousands, as the legends and Daenarys had believed? No more than two hundred, as Little Finger said in Season One? How many more swords have been buried for these thousands or hundreds?

#got #got spoilers #daenerys targaryen #dany targaryen #pie reviews GoT #pie metas

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