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pumpkinpaix · 4 years ago

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*waves* Hi! New(ish) follower, I followed for your posts about translation which are beautiful (especially the one about the imagery of "Zewu-jun") and thought-provoking; I don't have a good segue so here are some Salty Asks I'd like to know your answers to concerning MDZS: 5, 9, 10, 12, 23

oh, that’s so sweet of you!! thank you I’m really happy you enjoyed them 💛

okay salt incoming let’s see--all opinions are my own, no one has to agree with me, etc! and in true cyan fashion, this ask meme response actually needs a readmore l m a o

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

fandom has not ruined any ships in mdzs for me, but it has made me way more critical of both wangxian and xicheng interpretations. not in the sense that like, I think they are bad! i love wangxian and xicheng, but I have very very specific feelings about them that I rarely see reflected in popular fandom interpretations. (because i am a picky bitch lol)

wangxian tends to get the “they did no wrong and their love is righteous” treatment which I find disingenuous and believe directly contradicts the point of mdzs. i think that wangxian is fundamentally a very selfish relationship, and that that is, in fact, a good thing. i love that about them. i care so much about the assertion that your desires do not have to be perfect and righteous to still matter and be worthwhile. i don’t understand the impulse to make wangxian into a pure ship that triumphs and “deserves” a happy ending because they were right all along. I always felt like the entire point of mdzs was that--you can be the most terrible person, you can do unspeakable harm, and still be loved and deserving of that love. i think wangxian is compelling and moving specifically for that reason, and I often have to back out of interpretations that don’t acknowledge it in the way that i want them to. a lot of interpretations tend to idealize wwx and lwj in ways that I disagree with, and I’ve seen a lot of vitriolic pushback over anything that’s seen as even vaguely critical of either of them, when the point isn’t that “wwx/lwj is a bad person because he is selfish” the point is that “wwx/lwj’s choices are selfishly motivated” -- that’s not meant to be a value judgment, at least for me.

(i understand that a lot of this has to do with CQL’s influence, in which wangxian IS narratively rewarded for their righteousness, but as I’ve discussed at length, I think that positioning undermines what makes mdzs so powerful to me in the first place. not that i don’t love CQL!! i do love CQL--they have made a beautiful thing within the constraints that they had. but I think the novel is much stronger thematically.)

as for xicheng: i think that their relationship could be extraordinarily interesting if done in specific ways--I do not think they are well-suited to each other at any point in the canon timeline, but that they could be something really good maybe 10 years post-canon. I used to really like the idea of xicheng romantically, but as time goes on, I’m leaning harder into friendship. I think they have a lot of uniquely shared life experiences, and that it would be really good for both of them to have a person that they knew understood those experiences intimately: the pressures of leading a sect before adulthood, the grief of losing your family in a massacre and being unable to save them, the betrayal of someone who was once so close to you--that’s a lot. and i think there are very few people in their generation who could truly understand that. (for this reason, I also think lxc and xxc would be a very interesting relationship to see many many years post-canon, if xxc were ever revived) but during canon? no, absolutely not. i don’t think lxc has the slightest interest in jc, and i don’t think jc is particularly moved by lxc either, beyond a distant “yeah i mean, he’s the first jade everyone loves him sure moving on” kind of way. they both have their own shit to deal with, and before lxc’s seclusion and also before the core reveal, i think jc is too angry and vicious for lxc and lxc is too soft and toothless for jc. for someone to really convince me on xicheng, jc has to move towards some kind of self-forgiveness and peace and lxc has to move towards self-assertion. then I think they can meet somewhere in the middle of all that.

and like, it’s not that i won’t read silly fluffy aus or like canonverse stuff with them in a ship, but i admit that because it’s grown so popular but not at all in the ways that i personally want, I’m frustrated with and have retreated from reading it. unless it’s done in the specific way i like, it has too much of a pair the spares vibe for me to get behind it anymore.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

jin guangshan, obvious reasons, next

ok well, i guess to elaborate even slightly: jin guangshan, to me, is the embodiment of the systems within mdzs that cause tragedy. he and chang ci’an are similar in that respect? like, the callousness with which they treat people they consider beneath them. what is nothing to them is ruinous for another, but why should they care? but jgs really had every advantage handed to him and chose to use that advantage to hurt others in really insidious ways and i can’t forgive that. jin zixun is also on this list, but like, still ahead of jgs bc he’s younger. -_- i suppose in that respect, i also very much dislike chang ci’an, but that’s a bit harder to quantify, given that we know almost nothing about him.

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

huh. uhhhh. i think i actually really like all of them? in the novel anyways. if we’re talking CQL, yin iron plot ugh.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I think for similar reasons to 10, not really! I don’t see a lot of hate for any specific plot arc. Oh, maybe the incense burners? I completely unironically love those. people rag a lot on mxtx’s smut, but it’s very important to me for a number of like, personal mental health reasons lol.

23. Unpopular character you love?

xue yang! i think xue yang’s character raises a very interesting point about equivalent justice that kinda gets swept away in all the uhhhh murder. and it’s a point that has really big thematic repercussions, I think? but the way it’s worded makes it very easy to dismiss.

very briefly: xue yang is right when he says that 50 lives cannot pay back his finger, because there is nothing that can pay back that finger. no vengeance or sentence visited upon chang ci’an will ever be equal to the injustice that he visited upon xue yang. i think there’s a bit of naivety in the way xxc says “why didn’t you cut off his finger then? or his whole arm, if that wasn’t enough?” and the answer I think is very obvious--xy cutting off cca’s finger would not in any way be the same kind of trauma that xy losing his finger was, esp if chang ci’an knew who xue yang was. there would be an understanding in that: i am losing my finger because this man blames me for the loss of his finger. but to xue yang, a 7 year old? the pain he experienced was completely senseless and cruel and terrifying.

does that mean xue yang was justified? no jesus christ, but i do think it ties very neatly into the general themes of what it means to get vengeance, what it means to get justice, and how cycles of trauma eventually end. so i love him for that.

on a lesser note, but a similar one: i rather like su she, I think. there is something about like, jgy’s “all i had to do was remember his name and he was willing to die for me” that gets to me. there’s a huge tragedy in that somewhere.

wow i have no idea if any of that was coherent im very sleepy

salt asks

#cyan gets too deep in the weeds #ask meme #mdzs #rip i hate that the 5 tags thing doesn't work anymore rip to me i guess #the untamed #nice people saying nice things #ajax-daughter-of-telamon #asks and replies

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bloodyspade0000 · 4 years ago

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30-day knb challenge: Day 1- Favorite Male character

↳ Haizaki Shougo

I am not justifying Haizaki's behaviour. I think he needs a tall glass of respect woman juice and therapy. This is just meant to explain why he is my favourite character and help you better understand him as a character. Do not send hate or take my words out of context. You will be reported, deleted and cancelled. Thank you and enjoy. :)

My favourite character is Haizaki Shougo *dodges tomatoes* a lot of people in the fandom hate this guy for many reasons. It's kind of funny how many people hate him and the amount of hate he gets just for existing. Like bruh; he's sixteen, leave him alone. 😂

His whole existence is just sad. He was literally created to be hated.

Like straight up, Tadatoshi Fujimaki even admitted that he hated Haizaki. Haizaki's sole purpose of existing is to make the Generation of Miracles look better even though they’re just as problematic as he. No one is fucking perfect and is about time people woke the fuck up and realized it. Your faves are problematic move the fuck on.

Yes, the Miracles are redeemable but so is Haizaki. Yet, unlike the Miracles, he does not get redeemable. No, he disappears and is never seen again. Like bitch, what the fuck!? if you’re gonna introduce a character to only have them disappear for a long time and either have them show up again or just never mention them again. Wasting the potential they had to be a very good character or not having them redeem themselves while the other characters who were just as fucking problematic get a fucking redemption arc because they’re fucking main characters!? What’s the point of that character even existing in the first place? What kind of bullshit is that? Just to have them exist to make the main characters look good? How the fuck does that make sense? Like where is my Haizaki redemption arc? Do I have to write it on my own? I will write it. I am writing one.

Haizaki is the only character I could relate to. Being second best, struggling to find somewhere to fit in and overshadowed and replaced by someone everyone thinks is better than you. It's fucking depressing, okay? You spend your whole life thinking you’re not good enough, and it hurts. I don't feel like going too deep into it because I don't owe you a detailed explanation of my trauma, okay?. So I'll save that for my fics where I self-project half of it onto Haizaki. It’s a coping mechanism, okay? Therapy is fucking expensive.

The anime ruined his whole character, got rid of his whole arc and shorted it down, and made him worse than he really is.

A post explaining how the anime did him dirty and goes more in-depth about his character

I am not trying to justify his actions, i.e. him manhandling Alex and beating Himura up. He does terrible shit. We all do lousy shit sometimes, but that doesn't make us bad people. Making mistakes is a part of being human, and we're supposed to hold people accountable for their actions and help them realize what they’re doing is wrong, allowing them to grow and change. Not condemn them and ostracize them, which leads to isolation and a lot of psychological trauma and self-hatred, and as someone who has dealt with—is still dealing with all three. It is not fun. It makes living painful. Highly unrecommended.

Haizaki does not have a positive role model in his life nor anybody he can turn to, everyone has already given up on him. Even Nijimura and Kuroko didn’t even try to help him, being more focused on the Miracles. (Yes, I know kuroko tried to stop him from throwing his basketball shoes away, but that doesn’t fucking count because after that Kuroko just gave up on Haiazki too). Haizaki has probably grown grew up knowing only violence and not a single ounce of kindness, turning him into the bitter and angry little boy he is.

Haizaki had so much potential. But instead of making him a great villain that potential was WASTED on fucking Kise.

Also, the Kaijo vs Seirin match in the winter cup was completely useless because Kise already got redeemed and he literally got no character development from it.

And Seirin was gonna fucking win anyways because duh thier the main characters. 🙄

Now some headcanons I think about a lot:

1. He gets abused. Some psychological behavioural consequences of child abuse are unhealthy sexual practices and juvenile delinquency, and Haizaki exhibits all three which are some external behaviours of most (NOT ALL) male abuse victims. Haizaki's a womanizer, aggressive, hostile and violent. Yet, he backs down when someone stronger than him comes around and puts him in his place i.e. Aomine and Nijimura.

a factsheet explaining the long term consequences of child abuse and neglect

How to help a friend dealing with family abuse or neglect

How to Handle Abuse

2. He's a victim. And when you're a victim, you either become angry and cynical with everything and everyone around you, swearing never to be a victim again and struggle with gaining back control of your life. Not wanting anyone to see you being vulnerable because being vulnerable makes you weak. Being weak makes you shatter. You always shatter like glass, cutting yourself every time you pick up broken pieces, watching as blood trickles through your fingers.

Your body is constantly on high alert. The default is flight or fight—survival to the fittest.

Or you bite your lip and keep your head down, bottling everything inside and looking for escapes or seeking validation. You want to be wanted and loved because you struggle with loving and accepting yourself. There's always a voice in the back of your head telling you, you're not good enough or that it's your fault. That everything is your fault. Self-hatred and self-doubt are your tormentors.

Or it's a combination between both—a constant struggle.

And I believe Haizaki portrays both from the way he acts and presents himself. Especially since his motto is literally "Survival of the fittest,” and he had once told Kuroko, " there are bad guys and then the really scary people," or something along those lines, which I believe he is talking from experience. You learn from your experiences. They either make you or break you.

3. He's touch-starved.

What Does It Mean to Be Touch Starved?

4. He's bisexual and has a lot of internalized homophobia. I can just feel his internalized homophobia rolling off of him. Bruh, I just know cuz I am bisexual, and I have struggled with internalized homophobia and still sadly struggle with it cuz I grew up surrounded by homophobic people.

I still live with them. 😭

Also, we live in a society that thinks straight is the default.

What internalized homophobia is.

5. His sexual awakening was probably Aomine or Kise. Could be both 😂?

6. He cries himself to sleep every night.

7. He's observant and a great judge of character. It's a fact. This guy literally predicted the downfall of the Miracles. Straight up warned Kuroko too. Too bad Kuroko didn't listen to him.

8. He's hilarious. When he first appeared in the manga, he literally called Himura a loser, lol. XD

9. He's a closeted softie and a total tsundere.

10. doesn't know how to react to kindness and will think you're threatening him or will feel really awkward and uncomfortable but will cover it up with his scowl, or he'll have a breakdown.

11. needs a lot of reassurance and head pats

12. swears a lot. Has no filter.

13. His bother is in the yakuza or some high position of power, and he feels inferior to him. It also explains why Haizaki gets away with things because he would have been kicked out of school if his bother wasn't either-or. I'm talking about his bother being in the yakuza, lol. XD

14. He and Momoi dated for a while but broke up on a mutual understanding that thier relationship just didn't work out. They're best friends and hang out sometimes.

15. Haizaki's good with kids and just genuinely likes them. He would be a great father and try his best to raise his kids right.

16. He gets sick really easily

17. He's clingy

18. He has no friends, mainly because he doesn't want people to get close to him because he's afraid of getting hurt again. Also, everyone in knb hates him.

19. He watches cartoons cuz he was never allowed to watch them when he was a kid. His childhood is trash, okay?

20. He hides in the closet because that's where he feels safe the most—rhetorically and literally.

21. Sleep-deprived and only runs on caffeine and spite.

List of fics that portray Haizaki better than the anime:

Heavy is the head by extrastellar

Idle Hands by DarkWoods

Another Chance by regretting my username_ (777imou_offline367)

What Matters is that We're Together by StrawFairy

06:00:00 of Haizaki Shougo (4) by ReiClien

This Is Happening by SharkGirl

What is Love by voices_in_my_head

A completely uncalled catharsis by oddball

One-shots

intertwined, under a spell by kornevable

ԼƠƔƐ & ӇΛƬƐ by Arthuria_PenDragon

delirium by extrastellar

me with you by doublejoint

Turn My Camera On by wordsliketeeth

At Summer's End by doublejoint

Taste by Hibari1_san

I Can't Get Enough of You by HisDarkSecret

I don't care if it hurts by llowsywriter

Ashes by doublejoint

broken things by lowsywriter

Series:

Finally found each other by suzakukills

This Is Happening Universe by SharkGirl

DNA by flowerway

My WIPS:

Isn’t it lovely?

Broken Crown

Love me, Love me, Love me

Grey skies

Rabbit hole

A playlist of songs that I believe fit Haizaki

Kuroko’s basketball’s manga

In conclusion, You can hate Haizaki as much as you want. But just keep it to yourself. Haizaki is my baby and I will protect him with my life.

#kuroko no basket #knb #haizaki shougo #long post #rant #favorite character #knb 30 day challenge #favourite male character #headcanons #one shots #fanfiction #rec list #manga #tw swearing #tw mentions of abuse

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tomboyneedshercoffee · 5 years ago

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Who’s in Charge Pt2 || Maze Runner X Reader

Summary: Y/N does her best to make Teresa feel welcome in a glade full of boys, but one particular greenie ruins her plans and makes her question her insanity.

Word Count: 2.4k

Author’s note: This is somewhat a continuation off of Who’s in charge and If i continue this mini series, I really want to explore the idea of being a girl in a leadership role. Not only that but the somewhat glamorization of how awesome it would be to be the only girl in a glade cause unless they all look like Minho, that would be TERRIFYING. I love attention but goddamn Y/N in any fanfic fandom is an attention WHORE!

Warning: LOTS OF CUSSING, incel type shit ew, blood and wounds

Part one || Part two

A lot has changed in the glade in the past couple of months and as the first in command, it didn’t make your job any easier. After the greenie that disrespected you, the glade got two more people, a boy named Thomas and to your surprise, another girl. Her name was Teresa and although the two of you weren’t close, it was nice to have someone you felt like you could automatically trust.

The greenie you didn’t like very much was named Theodore and while everyone else called him Teddy, you always just called him greenie because he still acted like an immature shank. You haven’t had any interactions with him since but word from the other guys was that he would not stop gawking at Teresa.

“ Has anyone seen Teddy? Fry said he hasn’t been back since lunch,” Newt asked as you continued to write down the medical inventory to help out Jeff.

“ Yeah I saw him go down to the huts about 10 minutes ago. He looked like he was in a hurry,” Jeff said as he pointed over towards the window with his pencil.

This wasn’t the first time Teddy had flaked on his duties but after your altercation with him, Newt was usually the one to reprimand him.

You rolled your eyes as you looked down at your clipboard,” I’ll go find him. I have to stop by Teresa’s room anyway since she’s gonna help me rebuild the fence with John and Gavin.”

Newt leaned against the doorway and picked up a small bandage to wrap his finger with,” How’s she liking the glade so far?”

“ I mean, as much as she can like it. I think she’s after Thomas yeah?” You said, raising your eyebrows at him, as you walked out the door with Newt following close behind,” I swear those lovebirds are hiding something. Something tells me that it isn’t all just love at first sight.”

“ Well you’re never wrong so I’ll keep an eye out,” Newt laughed softly as the two of you parted ways.

You continued to walk across the Glade at a normal pace, not so much enjoying the glade itself but the quietness of today. You knew Minho and Thomas were gonna be back any minute and those two were always responsible for the rambunctious crowd of boys every night so you savored the trip.

Given that Teresa was a bit nervous with all of the boys around, you gave up your hut so that way she would have some privacy. Although Teresa seemed to be really familiar with Thomas, you knew that sleeping outside surrounded by boys wasn’t the safest feeling. You did miss how your hut was tucked a bit away from everyone else and that the big tree near your window gave you cool shade during the harsh sun. But it was just for the time being, whenever that was.

You knocked on the door and heard Teresa’s voice on the other side,” One second! I’m changing!”

You gave a quick response and waited outside her door, tapping your fingers against your clipboard in an unknown beat. Once you stopped tapping, you heard something rustle in the leaves on the other side of the hut that was covered by a small part of the forest. You scrunched your eyebrows together as you walked over, thinking that maybe it was just another rabbit.

When you turned the corner, you saw Teddy watching through the corner of Teresa’s window. You looked through the window to find Teresa already stripping off her top which made Teddy hold his breath.

Without thinking, you stomped over and grabbed the back of Teddy’s shirt before dragging him away from the window. I knew I should’ve listened to Alby to make those stupid ugly curtains. Teddy let out a loud yelp as you dragged him farther away and closer to the center of the glade where some of the boys were building another shelter.

“ You stupid fucking pervert!” You shouted as you practically launched him onto the dirt,” you’re disgusting! After everything, this place has done for you and you think you can spy on women like some kind of ...stalker!”

You were well past mad, you had never felt anything like this before. Your whole body felt like it was building up with pure steam, almost ready to explode like hot dynamite. You were nothing short but disgusted, out of your whole time living in the glade, none of the boys had ever done something so terrible.

“ R-Relax! I wasn’t even doing anything wrong-”

You didn’t know what came over you, maybe it was because you hadn’t slept all day or because you hadn’t gotten mad in so long so you were practically itching to get into a fight. You felt your legs pump more blood than ever and in an instant, you pounced on him and started slamming your fists into his face without mercy.

You felt like a well-oiled machine, every time you smashed your fist against his body, you felt your other arm recoil and do the same thing over and over again. You couldn’t even pay attention to anything that was happening around you, all you could do was throw punches. With every punch, you still managed to yell through your gritted teeth,” Ungrateful! Little! Pig!”

Even with his limp, Newt was the fastest to make it over to where you were and tried to rip you away from Teddy, yelling at you to stop. Gally, who was nearby building the shelter, practically picked you up off of Teddy but you still struggled against him.

“ Y/N! You need to calm down-”

“ I am tired of people telling me that to calm down! I am calm!” You shouted as you breathed heavy against Gally, who was using all of his strength to hold you back,” he’s a disgusting pig!”

“ What the hell is going on?” you craned your neck to see Thomas and Minho jogging over to where everyone seemed to circle. You laughed out loud, knowing that once Minho found out what Teddy had done, he would be toast.

Gally let you go and dropped you to the floor not so gently,” There’s been a slight problem. Y/N and Teddy-”

“ Slight problem?” You exclaimed as Minho came to your side, helping you up all while looking at your bloody and bruised knuckles,” Teddy was watching Teresa through her window while she was changing. That isn’t a slight problem Gally! How would you like it if he peeked through your window!”

While some boys laughed at your comment, Minho and Thomas’s head snapped towards Teddy, who was still lying on the ground but sat up on his elbows. His nose was bleeding and by the looks of it, you were sure you gave him two black eyes.

“ She’s lying! She just started attacking me out of nowhere cause she’s fucking crazy!” Teddy spat out blood as you tried to lunge at him again but Thomas pulled you back.

“ What did you just say?” Minho said through gritted teeth as he started walking towards Teddy but Newt and Gally both stepped in between Minho,” say that again, I dare you.”

“ Everyone just stop!” Newt snapped as he turned to look up at Minho,” take Y/N somewhere to cool off while Thomas and I will take Teddy to Clint. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Minho nodded all while keeping his eyes locked on Teddy’s bloody face. Minho was stubborn and as much as he wanted to bash Teddy’s head in, he knew when it was right to follow the chain of command. You shook Thomas’s grip off of your shoulders as your eyes caught Teresa’s, her face flushed in embarrassment.

Before you could muster out a word, Teresa took off back towards your hut, pushing past a group of gladers who were crowding around. You took one sweeping glare towards all the loitering glader’s which made them all spread out back to their posts.

“ Let me patch you up back real quick. You look badass but your knuckles look gross,” Minho hesitated as he attempted to ease the tension in the air and his own blood pressure.

You looked between Minho and where you last saw Teresa, wondering where she could be. You couldn’t imagine how terrified she must have been, especially since she probably saw you beat the hell out of Teddy like there was no tomorrow.

“ Just give me a few minutes, I’m going to go find Teresa,” You said as you rubbed your fingers over your battered fists,” I think she just needs someone to talk to after all of that.”

You and Minho said your goodbyes and before you knew it, you found Teresa on the edge of the deadheads picking at the grass laid before her. You awkwardly sat down next to her and from the looks of it, she had just finished crying.

“ I want to say sorry for what you might have seen. The last thing I wanted to do was scare you or to make you think I’m such a violent person,” You apologized as you watched her expression carefully,” but I’m even more sorry that your privacy was invaded on. I promise you, I will do everything in my power to fix this.”

Instead of giving a sad look, Teresa smiled and let out a dry laugh,” No offense, but there isn’t anything you can do to fix this. It’s literally in their DNA to be so stupid.”

You were completely taken aback. Yes, nothing could ever take back what happened to Teresa but she couldn’t be talking about all of the guys in the glade, could she?

“ I don’t think that’s true and neither do you. Teddy is a sexist pervert for sure but plenty of the glader’s are nice guys. One bad seed doesn’t make the whole tree go rotten,” You said thoughtfully, not wanting to undermine Teresa’s experience.

Teresa turned to you and thought for a moment,” So when you first came up in the box, you weren’t terrified of being the only girl?”

“ Well, I was just terrified because I was alone for the longest time until Newt came up,” You admitted but then you really tried to give your honest opinion,” but yeah, I guess I felt different when more boys would get sent up. It’s not that I was scared at first but I just didn’t know what to expect with all those...hormones.”

You realized that you had never said that out loud before; revealing your feelings for being the only girl in the glade before Teresa and once you actually said it, you felt something wash over you. You weren’t sure if it was sadness or guilt or shame, but you didn’t feel good about your emotions right then and there.

Teresa noticed this too and didn’t say anything else, allowing you to speak more.

You cleared your throat, not even thinking of the right words to say because all you wanted to do was spill everything you had bottled up for years,” The more boys the box sent up, the more stares I would get, even if I was just bending over to pick something up. It felt gross knowing that they were eyeing me up and down like I was just some piece of meat but all of a sudden when it came to me being in a leadership position, they all acted as if I suddenly didn’t matter.”

“I completely understand how you feel. It’s like a cruel joke; they want you around to help engage their sexual fantasies but once you make an executive decision, you’re not fun to be around,” Teresa said, thinking about her past memories of being one of the few female researchers at WCKD,” are they still like that with you now?”

“ I hardly catch any eyes thanks to Minho being as protective as he is but I wonder if he’s just doing that out of the kindness of his heart or because he is trying to get in my pants,” you laughed honestly, knowing that in your heart he was genuinely a sweet guy,” but I don’t know. I can tell sometimes they don’t take me seriously. Remember that last meeting we had and when I gave my proposal, no one really cared but when Newt said it two minutes later, everyone thought he was a genius. I don’t think they mean to do it but it still hurts.”

That was something you were always insecure about; not being taken seriously. You were reminded of that every month when a new glader would show up and they assumed you weren’t the first in command. How was it that you all had no past memories yet in the glade, they already had some form of prejudice against you? You didn’t understand that in a world filled with hardly any societal norms that you were still treated unfairly.

“ But I love everyone here with the exception of a few. At the end of the day, we’re pretty much family. As much as Minho annoys me or how much Newt pesters me, they’re the greatest friends in the world,” You said as you thought back to all of the times they had your back,” but shuck I wish I had a day of peace without the boys tearing down the glade. I just want to get out of this goddamn place already.”

Teresa nodded sympathetically, but knowing that she was one of the reasons you were here trapped, she said nothing.

After a moment of silence, Teresa wanted to clear her head of WCKD’s old thoughts,” What are you going to do about Teddy?”

After this whole discussion, you had completely forgotten why you had come over in the first place.

“ Honestly, I don’t know yet. We’ll keep him in the slammer until we figure something out. Whatever it is though, I know it won’t be enough for how you were violated. I really am sorry that happened to you Teresa, is there anything I can do to make you feel better?” You asked as Teresa smiled and gave your hand a small squeeze.

“ I’m just glad I have someone to talk to.”

You nodded as you sat there, not being able to hold in your smile.

Me too.

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lucidpantone · 4 years ago

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I really hate the crew of wtfock for what they did to me. I was such a fan of the show since s1, I found happiness in every clips, every posts on insta, I found amazing people on tumblr, twitter, but everything went downhill in s4, I could not accept Kato as a main, I'm a proud black girl and this season broke my heart to the max. The inexcusable racism, the hidden hate towards POCs on social medias, the silencing voices... I even started to dislike some actors for being friends with Romi when she was the one who accepted to take away the role of a POC, to accept to play a racist girl and have discriminatory behaviour in 2020 of all that, and to even joke on her insta just because her friend said it was ok and she didn't even apologise when we called her out for it. Yeah they ruined my happiness and I can't even be happy when I see a wtfock post now. To even have Nora do a live and defend the season, saying that it's a prejudice based one ? Hurts me so much. And not even one excuses coming from the crew, nothing, it hurts deeply. I can't even enjoy anymore the beautiful fanfics that the fandom write. I read every zoenne and sobbe fics but now I don't even bother checking if there is new fic. I hate them for taking my happiness off me. They're starting to go downhill too with the lack of insta posts from their characters and only die hard fans of sobbe are here now let's be honest. Yasmina's season can't be saved if there is still Kato but a glimpse of sobbe will make the fandom shut up and they know it. It's sad and I'm so upset about it. Sorry for the rant but I so badly wanted to talk.

This is insanely long but these words are for my anon

Oh dear.....well am happy you told me and the looney tunes. I can’t say I blame you because s4 is so toxic and cruel on so many levels. You know some people will say its just a show “let it go” but I think what people don’t realize is what this show that you clearly loved tells you about the world at large. That even shows, brands, movements and celebrities can harbor questionable morality towards issues of race. S4 ended up being an exercise in showing [us/the audience] how morally corrupt the bosses of wtfock truly are and how at end of the day all those black boxes on instagram mean nothing when it comes to money. Because guess what? Platforming racist ideology does have a price and wtfock made it very clear that they got paid. Look am gonna tell you something that my anons have been saying in a coded way but havent said directly but lets just put it all on the table.

S4 when Romi took the role it was not pitched as a season exploring interracial relationships or white privilege. It was never meant to be that. So Romi had no way in knowing what it would turn into. After the premiere night production panicked because they saw everyones disappointment towards the main(it should have been Moyo & everyone knows it even they do now) and took a hard left. Noa was meant to be Romi’s co-star but it was never meant to have all these racial undertones or not as extreme. The reason the script changed is because wtfock wanted to keep this whole “small engine that could” rapport going that they literally made the last minute call to try to tackle race relations. I mean to you and I we are probably like are these people for real? They are just gonna try to tackle race and white privilege as a story arc without having done the sufficient research and or had the man power in the writing room concerning writers with lived experienced on the topic. Yea, they did that. So anyways they “just decided” on a whim to tackle race *facepalm*. Now that decision in itself is an embodiment of white privilege. A bunch of white dudes wanted woke points and thought “race” yea we can totally do that topic unprepared. Hence why episode 2/3 were so damn repetitive and also literally made no sense. Am sure they pitched this to Romi as some super intellectual and thoughtful narrative that would hold deeper meaning. So I am not defending her instagram actions but I want to give her situation a bit of context. Also am pretty sure she tried to tell us in a round about way. Her insta post was just a display in lacking any awareness towards the importance and pain of BLM because she obviously just lacks race education or common sense but she is a 22 year old brand model so am not really looking for her to set an example. To me wtfock became in some weird way so high on fandom validation that they were egotistical enough to think they could try to tackle this insanely complex topic on a whim and with a 1st time screenwriter at that. S4 was doomed to fail from the start because it was a literal embodiment of unconscious bias that then turned into conscious bias because at one point they knew it was terrible while filming but they were too deep in to pull the plug. You are so in your right to be upset at them because to me the most hurtful thing is that THEY KNOW IT WAS BAD and they won’t address it and now they are going to use their token queer couple to try and fix this. Leave the gays out of it. You can’t fix racism with queerness it doesn’t work that way buddy(am looking at you Rutgers) especially for those who are part of both parties. Do I think a large part of the fan base will “forgive” wtfock for what they did? Probably, but its weird since technically wtfock should be asking their fans who are poc for forgiveness above anyone else. I guess I am not as pissy about the whole situation because am either cynical or emotionally numb to this type of fuckery. I would say concerning the cast and the crew it really isnt their fault. I hear from good sources a lot of them tried to say something and they were shut down. Look if you cant let this go then try to find some semblance of resolve over this. You’re allowed to be mad but at the same time this is the world we live in and this will happen to you again and again (trust me I speak from experience). I do hope you can try to find some comfort in Zoenne and Sobbe and try not to see the cronies of wtfock in their love stories but if you can’t then pack all their shit up and throw it in the attic. Maybe one day you can reopen that box. Last words of advice, happiness is a moving target because in reality it’s a compilation of moments that continuously mutate to accommodate other moments. So don't let s4 taint what moments you had with wtfock and try to remember the things you loved and if you need to walk then walk away. I wish I could give you the biggest hug right now but trust me when I say what you feel is so valid and am so happy you spoke to me about it.

#lucidpantone anons #anon I want to give you a hug so badly

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recurring-polynya · 4 years ago

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What are your feelings on the 11 division (the characters that matter)

Sooooo... I like the Squad 11 folks as side characters and world building. I like people who like Squad 11, and I enjoy seeing fanfic takes on them. I like writing them myself, because I like to write stories about Renji and Ikkaku and Yumichika are excellent foils for him.

I think IkkaYumi is a cute ship and I enjoy fanworks for it. I headcanon them both as 100% gay, and I always get a chuckle out of old fanfics that attempt to cram them into hetero ships. I headcanon Kenpachi as aroace, but I wish nothing but joy and peace to the many Kenpachi-fuckers on this website.

All that being said, I don’t really vibe with them as characters. I am a pacifist. I value kindness and thoughtfulness and cleverness and adaptability. I would be kicked out of Squad 11 immediately. I wrote a Squad 11 fic recently as a request and I struggled with it a lot, because I couldn’t get all the way into the characters’ heads.

I have more Squad 11 thoughts, but they are not very nice. I am not out to ruin anyone’s day here on tumblr dot com, so I’m gonna put these under a cut, and please feel free to move past this if you aren’t in the mood to have your beloved meatheads subjected to Polynya Amateur Literary Criticism Hour: Squad 11 Edition.

Okay, you’re still here. First and foremost, all of this applies only to canon. There are many wonderful Squad 11 fanficcers out there putting in the effort and doing great work. Any of the things I mention below can be overcome by good enough writing and love for the characters.

- Yumichika is canonically transphobic and that bothers me a ton. It’s not just, like, a brief moment, either, Kubo just really leaned into it, right up through the last arc. I struggle from time to time with being a hardcore fan of a work that spits on people I care about. I have definitely considered quitting the fandom over it, but I do feel like an important role of transformative works is reclaiming the things you love. There are a lot of cool gay and trans folks in the Bleach fandom and I have never seen a single fan who enjoyed or defended the transphobia, so I make an uneasy peace with it. It seems to be fanon consensus to just... ignore it, which is what I do most of the time, but I don’t feel great about it.

- Relatedly, I think Yumichika’s whole love-of-beauty deal could have been done in a very cool and interesting way and Kubo just played it for (unfunny) laughs instead. There are many fanficcers who are doing a far better job at this and we are lucky to have them.

- I think that Ikkaku and Kenpachi are both transcendentally stupid and I love them this way. People try to convince me from time to time that there is more going on in those empty skulls than it seems, and I may smile and nod, but I honestly prefer them as numbskulls.

- Ikkaku and Yumichika each only get 2/3 of a character arc, which is frustrating. They have these dumb fighting philosophies that are clearly harmful to them and do not work well for them, but there’s no closure to it. Yumichika may have done some soul searching during the timeskip, since he’s using high level kidou in the TYBWA, but we didn’t get to see any of it. There are several places where Ikkaku is compared with Iba, who values well-roundedness, and eventually becomes a captain, a position he admits he doesn’t feel like he deserves. This is a bad juxtaposition, because Ikkaku doesn’t want to be a captain anyway. A much better comparison is Renji. Renji is Ikkaku’s student, and is shown as clearly deferring to him, even once he’s a lieutenant. Renji, perhaps better than anyone else, follows Zaraki’s philosophy of “if you lose, consider yourself lucky and live to fight another day.” However, Renji is willing to accept heals, fight with allies, and will do a kidou even though he’s terrible at it, all against the Squad 11 Way. By the time the TYBWA rolls around, Renji is a monster. I’m not sure Ikkaku could defeat any of the captains, and Renji rolls in and shrugs off an enemy who just trashed two captains and a lieutenant without breaking a sweat. If they ever do fight again, Ikkaku is not going to be the one telling Renji his name before he kills him and I think this is important.

- The difference between Zaraki and Ikkaku (and everyone else, really) is that Zaraki is so freakishly strong that he can follow his own stupid rules and still come out on top. He can’t do kidou anyway and he can’t unseal his sword and he can’t work with others because his reiatsu is too strong, so they don’t really make a difference. Everyone else who is following Zaraki’s rules is just hobbling themselves.

- A theme of Bleach is that the greatest power comes in the interface between different kinds of beings and by combining different techniques. This is Aizen’s whole deal, not to mention things like kidou combos and shunko. It would have been cool and more balanced and actually make sense to have characters who focus on one thing be stronger than those who split their efforts, but that is shown time and again to not be the case. Diversification is better, which just makes Squad 11 seem even stupider. They say in the Soul Society Arc that Squad 11 is the strongest, but have we ever seen evidence of this? It just... seems like a lie they made up? (which, I’m fine with, it’s part of the overall dysfunction of Soul Society and I support this world-building). Perhaps it’s just true at low levels, because pretty much all shinigami below lieutenant suck.

- I despise the fact that they killed off Unohana to make Kenpachi stronger. I like to joke that Unohana faked her own death to get the hell out of that arc, but there’s honestly no other way to interpret that than “a man’s potential is more important that a woman’s lived experience” and Kubo can fuck off with that shit.

- It didn’t even make any damn sense! How on earth is a Kenpachi-who-has-realized-his-own-strength better than Regular Kenpachi + Unohana Who Is No Longer Fucking Around? uidghqueghiqergoiewkrgljek

- Up until this point, I have enjoyed the humor in Kenpachi’s character in the sense that he never really tries, and when he does, it’s something insanely dumb like “use two hands” and he makes a huge deal out of it, but then to turn it around and be like “oh, but he’s so strong he’s more important than someone else’s life even though he doesn’t put anything into it,” is just really galling and I hate it.

- I reject the notion that Kenpachi is a “good dad.” He hangs out with a small child. That is not parenting. We never see him providing for Yachiru, advising her through a difficulty, imparting values to her, or even teaching her anything. Mostly, we see her supporting him, when she’s not running around unsupervised. She is, in fact, static, un-growing and unchanging. For all we know, she may de-materialize for large stretches of time. (Once again: I have read very good fanfics about Zaraki being a father, I just don’t think it’s supported by the text). I actually think that’s kind of cool, that he’s just out here vibing with a small child that is really a projection of his own soul, but I do not like it being credited to him as if he's up early baking allergy-free muffins for her or negotiating IEPs.

- The Gremmy - Kenpachi fight was interminable. I did rather like the ending, where Gremmy’s body wasn’t strong enough, but it took so long to get there and it was not worth it.

- I am only interested in Yachiru as a feral zanpakutou spirit. Small children are not particularly interesting to me as characters. I wish that there had been some sort of spiritual connection between her and Unohana, like if she had splintered off of Unohana’s own zanpakutou in order to go make a shinigami strong enough for Unohana to fight. That would have slapped.

- It would have been much cooler if Yachiru had killed Zaraki or absorbed him into herself somehow and gone on to be the new Kenpachi, with Unohana as her mentor.

#squad 11 #i don't like to be negative but also...like...you ASKED #this is what happens when i think too hard about stuff!!#please don't cancel me!#i know i shouldn't have written any of this my squad 11 takes are always getting me in trouble

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lanonima · 5 years ago

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This is a long post with my more in-depth reviews of all the danmei/baihe novels I’ve read. Although it’s still only a paragraph each. I could do really in-depth reviews of stuff if people cared or if I felt like it, but those would definitely have to be their own posts.

In future updates of my graph, I’ll put these down below a read-more and only show the review for the newest entry. Also after this, I’ll only be tagging the newest one because otherwise things will get nuts.

So anyway, my Thoughts:

Mo Dao Zu Shi

Author: MXTX

Quality: 9.5

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: I have a huge emotional connection to this novel. There are some weak parts, the tension isn’t quite even, she’s pretty terrible at erotic scenes and not great at fight scenes...but that being said, I love the characters and some of the plot points really ripped my heart out. This is a novel that’s really driven by the characters so if you’re a character-focused person like me, definitely look into it (as if we all don’t already know it lmao). I really, really love this story. Every single adaptation of it has also been great, but the novel is still my favorite. It was my introduction to xianxia novels too, so you can say it changed my life!

Would I read it again: I’ve already read it twice, and consumed every adaptation (sometimes also multiple times)

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Author: MXTX

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 5

Comments: I’m not much of one for comedy and, as I discovered, not really into system novels either. Clearly weaker than MXTX’s later work, many of the characters are somewhat bland, she hasn’t quite found her groove yet. It’s not my style but the fandom is hilarious and the fans constantly produce content that I actually do find entertaining so overall I still have some fond feelings for this one, even if not for the source material.

Would I read it again: I found a different translation and am willing to try again in the future, I’m also willing to watch the donghua. But I can’t guarantee I’ll like it any more than previously.

Tian Guan Ci Fu

Author: MXTX

Quality: 10

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: I love this book...but not as much as I love Mo Dao Zu Shi. I think the plot is somewhat typical, however the characters are great once again (though maybe slightly less deep than MDZS), and her use of thematic repetition and foreshadowing are killer. Actually, I liked this book more the second time around because it just hits differently. Definitely the best of MXTX’s couples, they are so soft and sweet. Very long, but worth it.

Would I read it again: I already have, was personally translating the manhua before I hurt my arms, and am eagerly awaiting the donghua this fall!

The Villain’s White Lotus Halo

Author: A Big Roll of Toilet Paper

Quality: 10

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: Fuck, I love this one so much.....even though it’s also a system novel. But that part is in it so rarely that it reads more like pure fantasy. I love the characters, I love the plot, I love the way the relationship is developing. Oh yeah, the translation isn’t even complete but I already purchased not only the original from JJWXC but also the print edition. I’ve even drawn fanart for it, which is so unlike me. Every time a chapter comes out, I’m ruined for the rest of the day, I can’t think about anything else. Good fight scenes, which is uncommon. My favorite danmei novel so far.

Would I read it again: I fully intend to once the translation is complete, and also plan to read it in Chinese later (I’ve already read certain parts in Chinese hahaha but not the whole thing)

2Ha (Husky and his White Cat Shizun)

Author: Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat

Quality: 8

Enjoyment: 10

Comments: 2Ha is not for the faint of heart, it’s very horny, and violent, and has a lot of questionable content. However I love it so much. The story and characters are great, Meatbun really has me by the heart. The writing is a little more on the casual side but it hardly matters because the story is so great. Good fight scenes. Chu Wanning is like, the ultimate Me(tm) character, I hate how much I adore him. If you read this, just go into it knowing that it’s a long emotional journey, the characters are very dynamic and there’s a lot of character development.

Would I read it again: Same as the above, I plan a reread when the translation is done and have read parts in Chinese and might read the whole thing again later. Cautiously eager about the up-coming live action and donghua.

Di Wang Gong Lue

Author: Yu Xiao Lanshan

Quality: 2

Enjoyment: 9

Comments: This is one of the most terribly written things I’ve ever read, but I’m a character girl and the characters and ways they interact fucking kill me. I’m constantly entertained....although I don’t think this is actually supposed to be a comedy. If I were going to treat myself and like, take a bubble bath and read something that made me laugh, this is exactly the sort of trashy romance I would want to read. Technically a political intrigue story but it’s so abrupt and full of holes, are any of us reading it for the actual plot? The donghua is on Youtube, I watched it first and recommend others to do the same. If you can handle that, you can handle the book because it’s exactly the same in quality, just gayer. I do love the main couple a lot, the set-up surrounding the relationship is great, and the side characters are also really fun.

Would I read it again: Probably not, but I’m still having fun with it. I watched the donghua and read a bit of the manhua as well, which has very cute art and is probably my favorite version of the story.

Liu Yao

Author: Priest

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 7.5

Comments: I really struggled getting into this one, it took me about 25 chapters to get invested. Initially I had rated it a 6 in enjoyment but after careful thought, I realized that even though it was so hard for me, it probably is my favorite Priest novel and I really do love the main couple so much. Her side characters also seem to be slightly stronger than usual in this one. Decent plot, not too much or too little. It seems really chill to me, doesn’t provoke much of an emotional reaction but I do think it’s very sweet, which is nice sometimes too.

Would I read it again: No, but I think (?) it’s supposed to get some kind of tv adaptation (drama or donghua, not sure), and if that happens, I’ll watch it.

Didn’t Know the General was Female

Author: Rong Qing

Quality: 4

Enjoyment: 6

Comments: Not the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but cute. It’s short, and a little lesbian fluff is never a bad thing. Writing is a bit weak and the plot is basic, but the characters are enjoyable and I liked it overall.

Would I read it again: No.

Wrong Way to a Demon Sect Leader

Author: Yi Zhi Dayan

Quality: 4

Enjoyment: 7

Comments: Again, not the greatest in writing or plot, it’s a bit shallow. But I found the idea of it to be entertaining, and actually liked it more than I would have assumed. It’s fairly short and cute, like a good summer beach read.

Would I read it again: Probably not, but possibly, if the stars align.

Female General and Eldest Princess

Author: Please Don’t Laugh

Quality: 7

Enjoyment: 6

Comments: A very good first effort, but the writing is a bit weak. It’s slow to start and I don’t think the political plotline is spectacularly strong. Some things were left unexplained, and her sense of battle tactics and fight-writing were very confusing, definitely room for improvement. I don’t think it’s as good as people say, but she writes with the air of someone who will continue to improve. And also, a lesbian author writing lesbian stories so that’s a plus. Overall I enjoyed the experience, this story is definitely worth a read.

Would I read it again: Maybe, but probably not.

Sha Po Lang

Author: Priest

Quality: 7

Enjoyment: 7

Comments: Originally I rated this one higher, but on later thought I realized that I actually enjoyed Liu Yao more. I personally have issues with the way Priest writes, and this book showed a lot of them. Characters were okay, I did like the main couple, but side characters were weak as usual. The plot is pretty good, though not great, and I think some of the pacing is off. Some descriptions were confusing, but that could be a translation issue. Overall, still a pretty good political drama, but I would say that of the three I read, this was the Priest novel with the least impact on me.

Would I read it again: No. But I will watch the live action if it ever gets made.

Guardian

Author: Priest

Quality: 6

Enjoyment: 5

Comments: I love Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, thought the plot was interesting, and there were some enjoyable moments. But it has all the problems I usually have with Priest in addition to some choices that offend me as a queer reader. I spent about 75% of the time reading while pissed off. And actually the fact that it had a happy ending kinda bummed me out because I love a good tragedy. Overall, I can only give it an average score. If you like Priest, you'll like this one too. I’m not a tv person but I binged the hell out of the live action, I really loved it, so I was sort of disappointed that the source material didn’t seem as strong as I had assumed.

Would I read it again: No, but I will happily watch the live action again some day.

#lano reads danmei #lano reads baihe #book reviews #Mo Dao Zu Shi #Scum Villain #Tian Guan Ci Fu #The Villain's White Lotus Halo #2Ha #Di Wang Gong Lue #Liu Yao #Didn't Know the General was Female #Wrong Way to a Demon Sect Leader #Female General and Eldest Princess #Sha Po Lang #Guardian

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goldenkamuyhunting · 4 years ago

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Did you start making chapter theories in ch. 179? I would have liked to see your take in the psychology of certain convicts, like Sekiya, Gansoku and Henmi

Actually...

I began a little earlier at around chap 162, but at the time I didn’t really make a rambling post for each chapter.

I’ve also a re-reading series, but I ended up interrupting it at chap 18 (even if I actually wrote it till chap 38) for various reasons.

If you feel like listening to me ramble about those three I don’t mind doing it, just keep in mind it’s not a real psychological analysis. Those take a professional and much more information about their lives than I have at hand and I’m not even sure if Noda wanted to make them THAT psychologically accurate.

So take this more as a character analysis than a real psychological take of them.

For a moment let me group together Henmi and Sekiya as, like most of the characters of Golden Kamuy, they’ve in common they lived a traumatic event that influenced the rest of their lives and became their Freudian excuse.

Mind you, the trope is called Freudian excuse but in Noda’s case often it’s more a Freudian explanation, a ‘why they ended up like this’ a showing that they weren’t just random bad men born evil but once they were just ordinary guys like you and me and then something happened and they reacted to it in the entirely wrong way, turning them in complete monsters. A For Want of a Nail effect, if you want, something happens, and this event has a ripple effect, resulting in massive change in the character changes radically.

So, with this in mind, let’s go dig into those two.

Henmi is the first convict we meet whose life was totally screwed over by a traumatic event.

The previous convicts are:

- Gotou who, according to Shiraishi, murdered his wife and child while drunk, even though I would be more prone, analyzing his interaction with Sugimoto during which he’s friendly and harmless when drunk and attempts to murder him when he’s sober, to assume he was actually not drunk when he did it and merely said he was hoping this would result in a less

- Prisoner n 1, of whom we know nothing about except that he viewed himself as a small fish

- Tsuyama, whom we know is a murderer but not why

- Shiraishi, who’s not a murderer

- Hijikata, who’s actually a political prisoner

- Ushiyama, who killed out of self defence

- Nihei, who just couldn’t let go whose who attacked him but had to take revenge on them.

And then comes in Henmi, who actually has a backstory that explains why he became a monster.

Henmi himself doesn’t consider it an excuse, just his starting point, albeit it’s possible that, had Shiraishi never asked, he would have never wondered why he took that turn.

Henmi saw a board killing his little brother, apparently eating it alive.

We’ve no info on why this incident took place, but this seems to point out Henmi didn’t deliberately cause this.

So really, this is what turned him from an ordinary kid to a monster, so it’s not something he had caused.

Henmi watched this from his hiding spot, meaning he either arrived on the scene, was scared and hid or that both siblings were there but only Henmi managed to reach a hiding place and from there he couldn’t move to help his brother.

Henmi describes his brother’s death vividly. It was horrific, his brother was helpless and it wasn’t even the boar’s fault as the animal couldn’t understand him. Henmi thinks his brother was in a lot of pain and fear, in despair and hopelessness.

But then he says something that clearly leaves into us an impression. He says that each time he thinks at his brother ‘he really, really want to kill somebody, anybody’, and he seems to have an erection as he says so.

Due to this it’s easy to think that Noda is trying to depict him as someone committing ‘lust murders’, murders done by someone who searches for erotic satisfaction by killing someone… by is it really so simple?

Not quite because it’s not murdering someone what turns Henmi on, it’s the idea that this someone will murder him.

Henmi is not identifying with the boar, he’s identifying with his brother.

I’ll go and assume the idea here is that part of the problem here is that when Henmi saw his brother being killed, his body reacted in an inappropriate manner.

When one is scared the body produces dopamine. Some individuals may get more of a kick from this dopamine response than others do as, and according to some studies dopamine can trigger penile erection (though they’re still debating over this but whatever, Golden Kamuy isn’t meant to be a medicine text).

Anyway, in between the trauma to seeing his brother being killed in such a horrific way and his body’s reaction somehow Henmi came up with the idea he wanted to die like him.

We see Henmi doesn’t get an erection when he kills the Yakuza,

just when he thinks to how Sugimoto could kill him. We see Henmi thinks Shiraishi is masturbating to the thought of getting killed, not to the thought of killing someone.

Possibly part of all this is also due to guilt, he just stood there, watching as light died in his brother’s eyes (it’s interesting how he carve the kanji for ‘eye’ in his victims, as if to mark them with his sin) and let his younger brother be killed and even got off by it and that also explains his wish to die. In a way in this he’s similar to Sekiya, who thought he should have been the one who died, and not his little girl.

And it’s interesting Henmi has to think at it, before explaining this is what turned him into what he is, because this hints he tried to forget what he saw, that he buried it inside himself, for him it wasn’t ‘oh, okay, so this is how my brother die so let’s start killing people��, Henmi didn’t try to understand his impulses, he just followed them.

But, long story short, Henmi’s wish to die a beautiful death, like his little brother, lead him to become completely twisted.

Maybe the boar attacked them because they attempted to attack him, that’s why Henmi began to attack people, attempting to murder them in hope they would instead murder him, attempting to recreate what happened with his brother. Maybe if this experience had never happened to him Henmi would have just been an ordinary well-mannered and very sociable guy who helps friends (when Shiraishi sees Sister Miyazawa and follows her Henmi stops the guard from chasing him).

This however wasn’t meant to be.

Henmi flips, develops an obsession on his own death, whom he wants to be terrible like the one of his brother and maybe the second tragedy of his own story is by misfortune he had to kill over a hundred people before he met someone who could give him ‘his beautiful death’, hundred kills he likely felt insensible about because, when you start thinking being killed is the most exciting experience ever, you probably don’t even connect you’re doing something bad, which is also why we can label Henmi as a monster, because he’s absolutely remorseless toward his victims.

Henmi is dangerous, a serial killer that can only be stopped by death… but it would be interesting if we could peek to an universe in which he was never exposed to the trauma of losing his brother and see if in it he could have become an ordinary guy instead.

Oh well, we’ll never know.

Sekiya now as he’s similar to Henmi, yet very different.

While it’s likely that Henmi’s traumatic event or turning point took place when he was young, Sekiya’s traumatic event takes place when he’s a man and, in the volume version, Noda pays special care to it.

We know Sekiya used to be a livestock veterinarian who went around to different ranches in Hokkaido and looked after their horses and things like that.

The traumatic event that ruined his life is well known to the fandom and easy to understand and sympathize with.

Sekiya himself tells it to Kadokura, in a way that mimics a confession.

It was a Sunday morning and he was walking home with his daughter, who was still a toddler, she being right at his side, plodding around.

The images shows us a Christian church and this, combined with how it was a Sunday morning, tell us that Sekiya was probably walking home from Sunday mass.

We see him smile as he watch his daughter, light in his eyes.

Sekiya probably used to be a normal person, likely nothing over the top but what you would easily label good, and probably he felt that since he also has done his religious duty and gone to mass, God should smile down on him and protect him and his family.

(It’s possible he’s indulging a little in the capital vice of pride here… and considering his future actions in the future too)

We never hear Sekiya talking about a wife so it’s possible she died and he had to overcome that loss. Assuming a wife existed and died, he clearly overcome losing her and, evidently, being with his daughter, just watching her walk next to him, gives him joy.

Then something exploded behind him and he lost consciousness. When he wakes up he can only see that his daughter head and feet had been blown apart…. Which should be a pretty horrific thing to watch, especially for a father, but it takes him a while to realize this was due to a lighting having struck her, his eyes losing their light as he realizes this.

Abruptly Sekiya had lost his daughter, in a way that he didn’t even understand at first, a horrible way. She was a beloved child, a reason of joy for him and it could be she was the last member of his family alive.

Now there’s a really common characteristic in humans from various cultures.

Many of them tend to think that the lightning is ‘the weapon of God/a God’.

Wikipedia even have a full page in which they list the various thunder gods from all around the world and the bible too implied God can toss thunders and lightnings.

So Sekiya, man of faith, who believed to be a good person likely blessed or at least protected by his God, is facing such a terrible tragedy just after he left the church in which he probably received the Eucharist, a tragedy that took place by a mean that’s considered by many ‘a weapon of God’, a tragedy that should cause him agonizing pain because losing a child so young should be terrible.

Now… sadly the best thing Sekiya could have done at this point was just to mourn his own child and learn to cope with the pain of her loss, possibly without losing his faith but using it as a crutch in his darkest hour.

Sekiya though, doesn’t find in himself the strength to chose the best option for himself.

Sekiya can’t accept his own disgrace and the way it happened, mourn and move on.

We see Sekiya back in the church, wondering why this happened to his daughter and not him.

Actually he asks himself (or God) why his daughter was chosen and not him.

どうして娘が選ばれたのか… どうして俺じゃなかったのか

‘Dōshite musume ga eraba reta no ka... Dōshite ore janakatta no ka’

His next step, he explains to Kadokura, is to ask himself the following thing:

“Is ‘luck’ the will of God… or does the fact that a man like me was left alive prove that there is no such thing as God?”

「運」とは神の意志なのか…神のような人間を生き残らせるということは神など存在しないのではないか？

‘“Un” to wa kami no ishina no ka… kami no yōna ningen o ikinokora seru to iu koto wa kami nado sonzai shinai node wanai ka?’

It’s this thought that likely pushed Sekiya to test people’s luck over and over, ending up on murdering quite a bunch of people.

Now…

I think part of Sekiya’s problem is that he was a man indulging in the capital vice of pride.

He sounds like he believed he believed he knew how things worked (God would punish the wicked and protect the ones who walk on the right path as hinted in chap 172) and viewed himself and especially his daughter as people who should be protected, blessed by God and just couldn’t accept to be proved wrong when his daughter died, demanded an explanation, deluded himself he could understand what no human had ever understood, God’s plans or that, if he can’t, this would mean God doesn’t exist.

Of course Sekiya’s view about who God would bless and who he would punish is extremely limited as it implies God should murder whoever would deviate by the right path and would protect from everything whoever would remain on it and it doesn’t take a genius to know IT DOESN’T WORK THIS WAY, bad things can happen to good people and terrible people instead might be blessed with good luck.

But part of the problem though is that Sekiya’s obsession with trying to understand why his own misfortune happened to him works as a copying mechanism that distract him from the agonizing pain of his loss.

What’s more it makes him feel as if he has the power to control things.

What Sekiya wanted to get in fact was exactly what he got, for God to protect someone righteous and punish him for not being righteous anymore.

He’s overjoyed when he’s proved right, Hijikata survives to an extremely risky bet and kills him.

Although he says he has great interest in observing how fortune play out in people he’s never delighted when they die. He’s just businesslike, this is done, let’s move to the next.

Instead he’s delighted when he’s proved right even if this means he’ll die… but well, life had probably lost part of his meaning to him, circling about a sick game that couldn’t give him any satisfaction.

Nowadays may countries would have given psychological help to both Sekiya and Henmi after they suffered their trauma, so that they might not have ended up turning into monsters like they instead did.

However, in Golden Kamuy’s time, this possibility didn’t exist and if you couldn’t find by yourself the strength to overcome in the right way your traumas and problems well… no one would be capable to help you.

Most of the cast of GK would benefit from psychological help, Henmi and Sekiya are merely among the people who reacted to trauma in the worst way.

Now… Gansoku… well, the guy is hard to pin.

As far as we know he didn’t have a ‘traumatic moment TM’ that turned him into who he is.

When he explains himself, Gansoku says he expresses himself through violence the same way one would express himself through art but acknowledges this made others hate him as they didn’t understand him, which lead him to get jailed.

Gansoku doesn’t view this as bad as prison was a place busting with violence in which he made friends who were happy if he punched the guards and where he would go on a rampage and could only be stopped by Ushiyama.

His explanation seems to pain the picture of a violent man who can’t control himself and beat people left and right.

However when we met Gansoku we discover he’s a guy who basically promoted the stenka fights by encouraging people to bet on them. He’s a man who doesn’t attack at random but in a fight, can play in a team, tries to understand Sugimoto and helps him with his problems, helps Tsukishima when he’s wounded and can’t walk, can travel with Svetlana and protect her and wouldn’t fight with Sofia because he believed she wouldn’t be up for it.

He just love fighting and make no difference if he’s the one beating others or he’s getting beaten up. As long as he’s fighting someone strong he’s happy.

In short he’s not an uncontrollable abuser but a guy who loves to fight and who goes all out when fighting, a guy who can control himself and even being nice.

I wonder if he ended up in jail for a reason similar to Ushiyama, because he overdo it in a fight or in an argument. He said he was hated so maybe it’s the other people who would start the fight but, due to his superior strength he would hurt them too bad when he would react and end up in jail.

It’s hard to say, he’s undoubtedly strange but, at the same time, as he seems someone who doesn’t attack at random, that’s why he remind me of Ushiyama. But well, we’ll see if he’ll get more development.

For now that’s all I can say.

Thank you for your ask!

#Golden Kamuy #Sekiya Waichirou #Henmi Kazuo #Gansoku Maiharu #Ask

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annakie · 5 years ago

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An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Five

Will we make it off the Citadel in this update??

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Flux is my favorite bar in all of the first game, I know there’s not many to choose from, but I like the music best, everybody’s clothed, everyone’s having a good time, there’s slots upstairs for entertainment, there’s dancing, and plenty of space to chill out in. Also the color scheme is great. It looks particularly great now with the graphics mod improvements.

Doran gets a nice glamour shot here.

I’m a tattle tale who always turns this guy in. I agree with Kaidan...

Also I really love Rita’s quest with her sister. She loves her sister, Jenna wants to be helpful, even Doran’s like “Hey I’d love to give her her job back.” Everyone here is pretty wholesome. And Jenna gets one of the best surprise appearances in ME3 if you do things right. ME1Recalibrated fixes the bugs with her quest, too!

Speaking of bugged quests, Hello Conrad! ME1Recalibrated fixes Conrad’s bug, and even if it doesn’t, ME2Re does. The only bad thing about that is it makes his apology for accusing you of something you maybe didn’t do make no sense.

Everyone else was sure Conrad would turn out to be evil, too, right? Instead making him into just a big lying dummy with an advanced degree was a great move. I was kinda hoping he’d show up in the Citadel DLC.

Harkin is JUST the FUCKING WORST. I’m always tempted to let Garrus cap him in ME2 because what a waste of air he is and doesn’t learn his lesson.

This is also maybe the most overt place where FemShep experiences sexism. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s some pretty shitty sexism sprinkled throughout the games (as discussed a bit last post) but ugh this guy, if I could shoot him this game, I might. At least on renegade playthroughs.

Speaking of Garrus...

Finally, an alien who wants to hang out with us.

As primarily a Kaidan-romancing gal, who tends to keep up with the Kaidan Alenko tag, especially back in the heyday of tumblr, for a while, loving Garrus was... difficult.

In October, when I was finishing up my latest ME3 playthrough and also cleaning up my blog, and also rewatching Doctor Who and thinking a lot about Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, I posted a long thing in a post about Kaidan and Garrus and badly behaving fanbases, which I don’t feel like typing again. Here’s the whole thing, but I’m going to pull a part of it into here.

I love Garrus, so much. And I was thinking with this whole parallel DW rewatch / Mass Effect replay think I’m doing right now how both Rose Tyler and Garrus Vakaraian are characters that were ruined for me for awhile due to their respective… overly enthusiastic fanbases who a small percentage of were dicks to people who loved other characters. The Kaidan tag (and from what I understand Thane got some of this too, but not nearly as bad) was a pretty hostile place for awhile (and yeah I used to regularly check the Garrus tag too and there was a small amount of tag-invasion there but uh, like 5% of what the Kaidan tag got) which made loving the character of Garrus a lot harder for awhile. But when actually watching seasons 1 & 2 / the end of 4 of Doctor Who, or actually playing the ME games, those characters are awesome.

Fanbases can be amazing or terrible, and time and time again I think you start to realize that no matter how great a fandom is, there are going to be a few people who can only enjoy themselves by feeding on drama, or on lifting up what they love by stomping on other people/characters/plotlines.

It’s not fair to characterize everyone who loves a popular thing as someone who does this. It’s also hard to avoid completely because there will always be jerks, or young/new people who don’t realize what bad form they’re showing. I did learn by trying to fight it for a year or two, that responding might help that one person not do it again, but it’s not going to stop overall.

Anyway, don’t be a dick about the things you don’t like.

It’s sad that even thirteen years past the release of ME1 and eight years past ME3 some people still need to have this fight online. It’s basically impossible to enjoy like, any non-curated Mass Effect space online because of pissing contests or people spouting the same boring opinions. Which they’re entitled to. I’m just real tired of “Kaidan is boring!” “Ashley is a racist!” etc with no further depth of thought being given.

The ability to mute / block people and get away from the worst of it is one of the reasons I’m still on tumblr. Especially always mute/block “confessions” blogs. Yeesh.

---------

I’m glad Garrus is here, and I’m glad he’s on the team. What’s funny though, is that people tend to forget that Garrus like, wasn’t really all THAT popular of a character before ME2. I know I was only in the fandom for a year before ME2 but I dug in pretty deep in that time.

It wasn’t until he gets his face blown off and starts talking about Old Times that a lot of people started to REALLY like him. He’s still great in ME1, but not like, elevated to god-tier that so many people did post ME2 release. But in ME1 he IS neat because he’s really malleable. Probably the companion who can have the biggest personality shift depending on your choices.

Also, I remember a time when the people who wanted to romance Garrus were like... outliers? I remember thinking “GARRUS? As a romance? That’s... weird. Who would do that!?”

OH HOW I WAS WRONG. But that was before reach and flexibility.

Hey I even have a Shep that romanced Garrus in ME2 and ME3. And I loved it!

Were I to replay a different Shep, she’d be my first choice.

So yeah, I love Garrus, I keep Kaidan in the squad all the time in ME1 and the other spot I try to rotate everyone else somewhat evenly, but you’ll see plenty of him. Then ME2 he’s by my side most of the way. And an awful lot in ME3, too. But I’m happy for him to get crushed on by Dr. Michele and glad to see him and Tali find happiness in ME3. SO that’s the path we’ll be going down if we get that far here.

I love the Destiny Ascension flyby moment on the Citadel, and it’s so easy to miss. Also really hard to get good screenshots of. Thanks Flycam. Don’t pay attention to the untextured wall in the first pic, just look at the pretty lights!

Let’s go get another squadmate! This time, a not-as-initially-friendly alien!

What an amazing entrance for Urdnot Wrex.

“Do you want me to arrest you?”

“I want you to try!”

Hell. Yeah.

Here’s where the somewhat in somewhat evenly comes in. I probably do favor Wrex and Ashely in the squad in ME1 a little because... well you know what’s coming for Ash and Wrex you get the least amount of time with by far of the other companions. Also, he’s just... great? A tank, with some biotics and a shotgun... okay well so am I as a vanguard, but Kaidan has just enough tech powers for us to muddle through where we need to when Wrex is in the squad and he’s so much fun to have around. His “Fuck you, I don’t care” attitude is great, and his growth story throughout the trilogy is one of the best arcs a character gets, imho. I just really love Urdnot Wrex.

This is a real nice flight control office you’ve got here, C-Sec. It would be a shame if someone planted a bug in it later, since literally anyone can just walk on up here uncontested.

This entire area really is so pretty though.

I always pump points into Paragon as much as possible from as early on as possible, and saving these poor guys’ lives is one of the big reasons. They don’t need to die.

Ash usually still stays in the party up to this point, though sometimes it’s Garrus. Fist is still a dick in ME2 but he doesn’t need to die here, sorry Wrex.

...raise your hand if you still occasionally forget to pick up Emily Wong’s evidence and have to reload. I remembered! ...once I was almost out of Chora’s Den and had to turn around this time.

Kaidan? Kaidan my love? My darling... perhaps YOU shouldn’t be the one standing in the middle of the corridor with no barrier or protection? (I suppose I could scooch over but then I’d look less badass for these screenshots. Naaah.)

It’d be a shame if someone properly lit the corridor so we could see what’s going on.

But hey... TALI! Tali Tali Tali! The first quarian we see, and only one for... awhile? Is there another quarian in this entire game? I’m trying to remember and seriously can’t think of one.

Anyway, I love Tali, but another character you really need to ignore their most rabid fanbase portions of. Yikes, Talimancers were really something back in the day. The biggest problem I have with Tali being in the squad is that normally she’s REALLY useful against Geth and... not so much against just about anything else. She gets sidelined on my team more than I wish she would. Especially since she doesn’t show up until very late in ME2 and late-midway through ME3.

Finally, the proof we need. And the game continues to introduce new concepts to us with the Conduit and we hear the word Reapers for the first time. We also get a loredump on the quarians and the geth.

Tali’s voice doesn’t have quite as heavy of an accent in ME1 as it does in 2 and 3. I guess we can assume she’s lost part of it while on her pilgrimage? Picking up the local dialects a bit? The next two times we see her she’s just spent a lot of time with her own people.

Tali’s suit and omnitool look SO GOOD with the updated textures.

I swap Ash out and Tali in at this point, and usually finish up a few more quests along the way.

Ah, Septimus. You lovesick fool.

Honestly, the very best thing with Septimus is to bring Garrus here if you’re gonna romance him, have Garrus laugh at him for coming undone for love and then... well, ME2 and especially ME3 happen. But still. Septimus... always needs a kick in the pants but will get around to doing the right thing.

Hey here’s a cool thing ME1Recalibated does -- Morlan carries a Squad Iconic Armors stock, so you can always find tier-appropriate default look armor for you and all the squad. Very cool of you, Morlan. You are currently my favorite store on the Citadel. Now stop sending me spam, I didn’t sign up for your mailing list.

Look, I have questions about what exactly Xeltan told the consort and how... all that... works... but... I don’t think I actually want to ask them. Just.. let’s all shut up about all of it, it’s over now.

BTW, according to one of the novels, Councilor Anderson finds Ambassador Cayln super annoying. I need to re-read that book.

OK fine... I’ll go talk to the Council.

Coming at ya with Actual Proof and a quarian tagging along to back up the claims, the Council is ready to listen. And while not surprising that it’s finally time to become a Spectre, the actual ceremony is really well done. With the swelling theme music blaring, and all three councilors stressing what a big deal this is and what will be expected of you, you really feel the weight of this moment. People take notice. Although apparently later, Kaidan or Ash get an entire televised event around becoming a Spectre, I guess there’s no time for that right now.

It definitely feels like the game so far has been building towards this moment, not only with POUNDING it into your brain about who Spectres are and why they’re so important and letting you know you’re being evaluated... but it feels like there’s been a shift in the game after this moment. It’s A Big Deal.

I didn’t finish all the sidequests on the Citadel yet, they can wait, I’ve been here long enough. Let’s go check out the new cool stuff we can buy.

ME1Recalibrated adds in this Spectre Armor. Eeehhhhh... no thanks. We’ll stick with Onyx.

I did cheat myself in a bunch of credits and picked up Spectre weapons though. This ain’t no tryhard playthrough.

Well OK, we can finish ONE more quest. Thanks, startlingly loud and triumphant music queue that’s never used again!

Man, this would be SUCH a good pic of the Normandy if... the airlock didn’t go straight through the ship.

We’ve got a ship of our own! And most of our squadmates to put on it!

Sucks for Anderson to be sidelined, though. We already love you, Anderson!

It’s cool to get a bit more of the Saren & Anderson backstory here for real. Still, I enjoyed the book more. Maybe I’ll do a re-read of all the ME books here soon.

Udina... just keep being you, I guess.

WE HAVE A SHIP!!!

Okay, whew... we made it off the Citadel. Now I gotta actually play some more to have more updates to post. Might be a few days. Have to actually go back to work tomorrow. :p

Let’s probably do like one sidequest then go get us an Asari!!

#mass effect #bioware #kaidan alenko #garrus vakarian #urdnot wrex #tali'zorah #annakie's mass effect stuff

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degenerate-perturbation · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 19/32 Fandom: Dragon Age Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

Her most pressing business was thirst. She thought half-madly to drink seawater, though she knew it would only make it worse. Then she remembered rain, and nearly tripped over her ragged hem in haste to get to the treeline. The bizarre forest defied comprehension, but was full of broad leaves and curling vase-like plants filled with rainwater. Tinged with nectar, it tasted oddly sweet.

Next came food; now that her throat did not burn with every swallow, she felt hunger again. She did not have to go far before she discovered some unknown fruit, huge and yellowish and tempting. She sliced it open with a spirit blade and ate the flesh within, pulpy and acidic, but good. Not sated but no longer starving, she sat beneath the swaying fronds, pondering what to do next, when a howling shriek pierced the air, coming from deep within the jungle. Time to leave, she thought, and hurriedly returned to the beach.

The sun beat down brightly, the wind catching her hair. She stared into the surf. There was something strange about this place, something she could not name or describe. It felt different from any place she’d been before, though it left a half-familiar taste in her mouth. Like the air before a storm. Like potential.

Now what? she thought.

A terrible certainty was growing in her. She walked along the beach shoeless in her sodden rags, the ocean roaring to her right, until she came only a few hours later to her own footprints in the sand, faded only slightly by ambitious waves. She’d been correct—this distant shore was an island.

She was stranded.

—

Unwilling to die, she resolved to survive.

The vague sense of strangeness had neither abated nor resolved, but she elected to ignore it. The trek around the circumference of the island had left her throat dry and aching again. She started back off toward the jungle to scavenge more rainwater, then had a better idea. With some effort, she cast a spell for rain. Fade energy poured into the ocean, raising up pure water as steam. Previously cloudless skies filled with bulbous grey anvils, which opened up and released a torrential downpour. By the time the unnatural storm ended, she was drenched, but no longer thirsty.

What next? Food, she supposed. There were those yellow fruits in the jungle, and who knew what else? She may as well look, though she still heard shrieks and howls sometimes, when the wind was still—Maker only knew what could make a sound like that. But she did not get far before the jungle became hopelessly dense, navigable only by effortful violence. And worse, it was full of all manner of insect life, eager for a new subject to bite and sting. She emerged a few hours later covered in welts, struggling to maintain a force barrier around herself long enough to escape with at least some of her skin intact.

She sat exhausted and glowering, healing her skin as quickly as the return of her mana allowed. Very well, not the jungle. She could hardly eat nothing but jungle fruit, anyway, and she didn’t fancy dealing with whatever was making those horrible sounds. Luckily, the beach teemed with life; she spotted a blue-shelled crab skittering towards the tide, and with a force spell, slew it. It was a little squashed and unappealing in that state, but edible enough. She speared it, roasted it over a magical fire, peeled it, and ate it; even without seasoning, it wasn’t half bad. There hadn’t been much meat on the creature, but there were plenty more of them about.

She felt extremely satisfied with her clever self-sufficiency, until a few hours later when she was violently ill. She vomited until there was nothing left but sickly green bile; and it wouldn’t stop, even when it was coming out of both ends. In the depths of her misery and regret she knew, in her long experience as a healer, that she was losing water faster than she could replace it, and that most people stricken like this were as good as dead.

But she was a spirit healer. The Fade could sustain her. So the episode remained only inconvenient and humiliating, not fatal.

She would live, she promised herself, worn out, but alive. So many times she had wanted to die, so many times she had contemplated doing the deed herself—until the Maiden’s crew had kindly tried to do it for her. So many times she ached not to exist, but she didn’t want that anymore. By Andraste’s flaming hair, she would live. She would. She would!

It didn’t occur to her to wait for rescue. Who would rescue her? So she built no signal, and no ship ever saw it, and that was just as well. No natural ship ever sailed the waters there.

—

After a few days of summoning rain every time she was thirsty, she knew she had to find another way. She was sick of getting sodden every time she needed water, and it was a waste of mana besides. That could be dangerous, if she needed it for cooking or healing or protection. But if there was a source of water deep inside the island, she wouldn’t be finding it any time soon. She needed to make a cistern, with only what she had on the beach.

The Circle taught only very limited magic, full of artificial limitations and inefficiencies. Yvanne hadn’t realized how limited her magic was until she’d left Kinloch and begun to learn from Morrigan, from the Dalish, from ancient tomes found in crumbling ruins. And though she’d never become any more than a novice in any of it, her broad but shallow study had left her well-suited to creative reinvention, the repurposing of old spells for new tricks, even some invented spells of her own. While rebuilding Vigil’s Keep, she had learned spells to shape stone and earth, and she could easily have made a cistern that way; but there was no earth here; only sand. It took humiliating hours to mold the sand into a shape that would hold its form—and even then, seawater she poured into it seeped away nearly at once no matter what she did. But—she suddenly remembered—sand could be made into glass, if it was heated. If it was heated very hot. But her elements had ever been water and air. The fires she made glowed dull red and orange, or yellow at best. Briefly she managed a fire that was nearly white, but only for a moment. After hours of casting, she had singed her skin, lost some hair, and drenched her rags with sweat, and come no closer. Finally, in agonized frustration, she shot lightning at the stupid thing, thinking to destroy it. The lightning struck, branched out, and instantly solidified everything it touched.

Oh, she thought. Lightning was hot. Hot enough to make glass.

She spent the rest of her sunlight glazing the cauldron’s interior with controlled bursts of lightning, testing its integrity with seawater until she was sure it would hold. Only after this painstaking work was done did it occur to her that she could have just used treeshaping to make a vessel instead. She’d learned the art from Velanna, years ago, and hardly used it since. She’d entirely forgotten she could do it.

Somehow that broke her heart all over again.

She built a few more glassy cisterns around the shore, enough so that any rainfall would be enough fresh water for at least a couple weeks.

Food was getting easier, too. She was learning what was good to eat on the island, how it needed to be cooked. What she had taken to be part of the strange coastal tree’s wood turned out to be fruits after all, filled with white flesh and something very like milk. The birds native to the island were tasty, but the seabirds rather leathery and bitter. She never risked the crabs again—the very thought of them turned her stomach now—but she discovered that other crustaceans found in the tides could be made safe to eat if boiled alive. Fish could be found in abundance, particularly at high tide, when they would become trapped in tide pools. Some of her culinary experiments ended much like her experience with the crabs, but every time magic saved her.

Shelter was next. She’d been sleeping on the sand, far enough inland to get some shelter from the wind, and for now that was good enough, while the climate was balmy. But it wouldn’t always be, and already the nights were getting colder. For this she resolved to try treeshaping; there was little else around to build a shelter with. At first the trees would not budge, so recalcitrant that she half-convinced herself that they weren’t really trees. But no, these were living things, and eventually they bent to her touch; her vague memories of treeshaping lessons with Velanna were coming back. A day’s effort netted her a clumsy construction of root and trunk, with a roof of leafy fronds, but it was better than sleeping on the ground.

Eventually she decided to risk another venture into the jungle. She picked a day when nothing else demanded her magical reserves and cast a force barrier around her skin with only a tiny slit to breathe out of. She made it a fair distance inland without being eaten alive, and there the jungle opened up. Marvelous colored birds eyed her curiously and feared her not at all; massive jeweled beetles lazed along the tree trunks; carnivorous plants snapped closed on passing flies. Here she found the source of the howling she’d been hearing—a troop of bizarre, furry creatures with huge, curious eyes that looked to her almost like little men. They tugged on her hair, poked at her with their long fingers, and whooped like anything. She felt foolish for having been afraid of them, and more than a little charmed. Now the jungle was hers, as well as the beach.

Her experiments with treeshaping continued; she learned to grow the tendrils tight enough to seal against the rain, sealing every last crack with treesap until she could stay through an all-day rain. She managed to expand the space so that she could comfortably stand or stretch out inside it, and even grew some furniture. Her work became fine enough to make vessels for water or food. She built more glassy cisterns to keep fresh water in, stockpiled fruit and root and fish and fowl, storing anything she could not use at once for experiments in cooking. The island contained a bounty; she would not starve here, however much she ate.

Whenever her cleverness failed, her magic didn’t. After a particularly sunny day, even her dark skin burned, and was painful and itchy to the touch. Magic saved her. Another day she fell from a tree, landed badly, and broke an ankle. She had to numb the area and set the bone before healing it, but magic spared her that, too. No error she made, as long as it was not immediately fatal, would stop her, and she was good at learning from her own mistakes. Day by day, the island yielded to her its secrets.

She had never in her life been so alone.

—

The business of keeping herself alive kept her hands and mind and spirit occupied. Much in how she found satisfaction in rebuilding the Vigil working on the Maiden, she found satisfaction in building up what she now thought of as her island.

So preoccupied was she that several weeks passed by the time she fully grasped her situation: that someday she would die on this island, without ever seeing another soul.

At first the enormity of her aloneness bore down on her like a storm cloud pregnant with thunder and driving rain.

And then the storm cloud passed, and she realized—would that be so bad?

Memories washed over her, of all the chances she could have taken for a life before she’d washed up here. The brothel in Highever, her cousin’s home, Anders’ offer, the Maiden, any of the cities she had stopped in. Every time she had rejected those chances and ended up here—but she found that she didn’t regret it.

She thought of the wretched state of the Maiden, how even trusted comrades had grown so afraid of her they’d tossed her overboard . She thought of her poor pathetic cousin’s bewildered expression as she stormed from his manor with his property in hand. She thought of Anders flaring with Fade and fury in the sewers after she so carefully handpicked the thing to say that she knew would hurt him most. She thought of Rolan, cringing in terror before her as she threatened to torture him to death. She thought of all the men she had led to their doom, all the people who died screaming due to her negligence. She thought of Loriel, and every single instance in which she had ever hurt her in their long lives together, until she’d finally hurt her so severely that Loriel had been obliged to send her away rather than stand her for another minute.

She hadn’t meant to do it. But neither had she meant to wreck the Maiden, nor to allow so many to die at Vigil’s Keep, nor to ruin so many of the lives she touched. But was it so surprising?

For, after all, a mage was fire made flesh. Those who remained in Circles, those who took well to captivity, were suited to the training that rendered them harmless and helpless. But Yvanne was not the tame fire of the lantern light or heart flame—she was lightning from the heavens, bringing only destruction.

Only now she felt no sorrow over it. For the first time in her life she did not regret that she had been born a mage. Without her magic she was a stranger to herself. The months she had spent suppressing it had rendered her a pale shadow of herself. Maybe there was no place in the world for Yvanne Amell, that did not require her to cut off pieces of herself.

Save this one.

So it was decided. She would stay here on this island, and while away the years in cool ocean breezes and sunny afternoons, eating fruit and fish and seabird, and not a soul would ever miss her.

That night she slept in her palm tree cocoon with a sense of peaceful satisfaction, knowing that the course of her life was now set, and she had no further decisions to make save what to do with her spare time and what to have for breakfast.

And then the whispering began.

—

They were only whispers at first. She could make out no words, not even impressions. At first she had thought them only the roar of the sea, the rustling of leaves, the whistling of wind. She supposed they must have been there from the very beginning, only too softly for even her Fade-touched senses to detect. Or perhaps she had willfully ignored them.

Spirits, it had to be spirits. The veil had to be thin here—and somehow she had failed to notice. Had her senses been so dulled by drink? Had she been so focused on mere survival?

Or had she called them here herself?

Whatever the case, now Fade spirits crowded to this island like children pressing their faces to the glass of a confectionary shop, eager and desperate for a single glance, a smell, a taste, a sound, of the material world.

And all of them, each single one, called out to her.

The whispers did not stay quiet for long. Within a few days they rose to low voices, scraps of imagery in the corner of her vision. And some of them were growing louder.

Worse, she had begun to dream again. That last year in Vigil’s Keep she’d gone to bed drunk more often than not. And the year after, she doubted she’d slept sober more than three days altogether. Even aboard the Maiden she’d had her daily allotment of sailor’s rum. All those years of sanding her senses for the bliss of dreamless sleep, but now she hadn’t had a drop to drink in weeks.

Darkspawn dreams were one thing; but these were the awful too-real dreams she endured on days when she took too much lyrium. She hadn’t had lyrium in ages, but still every night she wandered the Fade not of her own accord. Spirits tugged at her hands and ankles, begging for attention. Like the Harrowing, but worse.

Parts of the island became more than half-Fade. She could not step into them without losing her bearings; she could only make out the trees if she concentrated. If she looked at any spot too long, the place began to warp into its dreamself, and she would have to flee or else be lost.

They grew stronger by the day. Now she could pick out individual voices, rather than a single continual howl. And some voices were louder than others—

—no, not louder. Closer.

What was happening? She had been in places where the Fade was thin before, and it had never been like this. What was different about this place? What eldritch power twisted it like this?

Or else—what eldritch power twisted her?

—

She dreamt. She heard them speak, not in words but in feelings.

We saved you. You owe us.

Owe you what, owe you what, she begged to know, but on this the spirits were silent. We saved you. You owe us.

Alright, I owe you, fine, she pleaded. But what do you want?

To this only silence.

She could no longer be sure whether she woke or dreamt. Some days she would be drawing water from her cisterns, only to realize that the water was a mass of writhing eels, and this was a dream. Others she would walk along fantasy floating platforms in the clouds, only to realize that the floating platforms were ordinary rocks, and the clouds only seafoam, and that she was not asleep at all. Dreaming or not, the spirits beseeched her. Please, they said, or meant, or felt. Please. Please.

“What do you want from me?!” she shrieked one day, startling a flock of seabirds and setting the furry little jungle-men howling. No answer echoed but her own voice. Want, want, want.

But that night one spirit in particular came to her. She could not detect its form or its nature, only that it was human-shaped, bright eyes glowing in a charcoal body of roiling clouds.

Was it you who saved me? she asked it, but it only looked at her, unblinking.

It reached out; she held herself still. It touched a wispy finger to her forehead; light filled her vision, overwhelmed her; and when she could see again the spirit was gone.

“But what do you want me to do?” she begged the empty darkness.

This time an answer. Come home, it said. Come home.

But where was home? The only home she’d ever known had told her to go and never come back. And even if that hadn’t been what Loriel said, it had been what she meant.

She snorted. “I don’t fucking think so,” she told the teeming, empty air. “This sandy rock is home now, and I don’t intend to leave, and you can’t make me.”

No response that she could discern.

Come home, they said. We need you.

“Need me for what? Who are you?”

Need you. Come home.

If the voice had been familiar, if it had been anything like the one voice she wanted to hear — she might have considered it. Hell — she would have flown from the island. She would have done everything in her considerable power to return to her. Even after everything. In a heartbeat.

But that voice she would have known in an instant. It wasn’t her. So Yvanne didn’t care.

“Piss off,” she told them, retreating to her hard-won shelter. “I’m going to bed.”

But bed brought no relief. And what more, thinking of Loriel had been a mistake. She began to dream of her — and more than dream.

The golden line between them, gossamer-thin, now almost worn away, still wrapped about her throat and drew her forward. A thousand miles lay between them, but in the Fade, only a few steps.

No, she thought, no, no, no, I don’t want to see that, please, show me anything but that. (This was a lie, of course.)

Loriel’s hair was longer now, falling into her sunken eyes and draping over her shoulders. She wore high-necked long-sleeve woolen robes, so dark they made her pale skin downright chalky. She stood at a stone table, looking between a black crystal and a long page of handwritten notes. Sometimes she put the crystal down and made more notes, sometimes picked it up again. Sometimes she scratched her nose or took a sip of water. It was utterly mundane, and utterly hypnotic. Yvanne gazed for what must have been a thousand years.

She woke sick and aching and wishing she didn’t exist.

“Did I ask?” she complained to the pre-dawn light. “I didn’t want to fucking see that. Don’t do it again, or you’ll be sorry.”

We saved you. Tinges of anger, now, but Yvanne didn’t care. You owe us. Come home.

She thought about leaving the island. But where would she go? When she imagined the world beyond and all its naked hostility, she found she preferred the howling spirits. She thought of Loriel, shut up in a tower of her own design, and suddenly understood her better.

She dreamt of her again the next night. And the one after that.

Loriel didn’t seem to be leading a particularly exciting life. She read. She worked. One time Yvanne happened to see her in the bath. It felt like a violation, but one she had no control over.

The only person Loriel ever seemed to talk to — Yvanne could never her her voice like this — was a young human woman with a sunburst pendant and eager, earnest eyes. Who the hell was she? Why was she in Loriel’s office so much? She had no right to know, no right to even wonder, but the wondering consumed her for the rest of her waking hours.

Night after night, she watched Loriel sit by the fire and sip wine, her book held loosely in her lap. It felt like an affront. Here Yvanne was defying time and space to see her, and Loriel had no idea she was there.

“I don’t get why I keep ending up here,” she snapped at her. “As though you were the only part of my life. You weren’t, you know! I had people I cared about, who cared about me. Who respected me. I had work I enjoyed, work that mattered. And you took all of that away. What gave you the right?”

Oblivious, Loriel turned another page.

“You weren’t even the best part of my life. You didn’t make me happy. In fact, you made me miserable. You made me worse.”

And that was true, sure enough. Loriel had made her worse. Loriel had made her unhappy. Loriel had made her suffer. And nothing, for as long as she lived, would ever be as important as the fact that she had loved her.

After a few of these nights she was reduced to helpless tears.

“Is this your plan?” she pleaded. “To drive me mad with these visions until I do as you say?”

But even she couldn’t fool herself. It wasn’t the island spirits sending these visions; it was her own doing, her own spirit unrestrained by her waking self. She’d never been one much for control. For years she’d dulled her senses with drink, let every part of her that was sacred atrophy and rot away, and these past few weeks her Fade connection had returned. She was a spirit mage in full again; but untrained, unbalanced, and unhinged.

Come home, the spirits urged. Come home.

“But I have no home.”

You will.

When next she dreamt of Loriel she noticed that outside her window there was snow.

Snow? But it was summer. That couldn’t have been right. Then she looked closer and realized that Loriel’s hair was at least two full inches longer than before. But that had been just the other night, and this was months and months of growth.

She awoke with a start, and watched the sun rise—in the exact same location where it had set the night before.

She looked up at the stars. No constellation was familiar.

Sweet Maker—where was she?

How long had she been here?

How many years had passed beyond these waters?

Come home.

Then and there she resolved that her time on the island was over.

There was one place left in Thedas where she might find someone who might help her; where she might find out why spirits called to her so strongly, why and how they had saved her from drowning. What had made her this way, and why.

She would complete her journey to Rivain, in a ship of her own making—or else go mad and die gibbering.

#dragon age #femslash #amell #surana #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction #wilderness survival edition

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beatrice-otter · 5 years ago

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Fic: Realization and Renewal, Sense and Sensibility, Elinor/Colonel Brandon

The second fic I wrote for Yuletide was a treat for ChronicBookworm. It was a Sense and Sensibility AU which paired Elinor and Colonel Brandon, and one of their prompts was Elinor/Brandon/Edward OT3 which was a really interesting idea but I couldn't think how to include it without making the fic really really really long, and so I gave up and just did Elinor/Brandon. (Even though the idea of an OT3 was really interesting.) Title: Realization and Renewal Fandom: Sense and Sensibility Author: beatrice_otter Written for: chronicbookworm for yuletide 2019 Rating: General Audiences Pairing: Elinor Dashwood/Colonel Brandon Betaed by: Aurilly Length: 3535 words Warnings: none Summary: As Marianne recovers, Elinor and Colonel Brandon find themselves drawn to one another. AN: I tried to make it OT3, because you are right, Edward/Elinor/Brandon would be a delightful pairing, but it would have had to be MUCH too long a fic to be done in time to be a Yuletide treat. I hope someone else takes the idea and runs with it. At AO3. On Dreamwidth. On Pillowfort.

With their mother now at Cleveland and available to nurse Marianne back to health, Elinor's presence was not in so much demand. And though her sisterly feelings and desire to be useful were no less than they had heretofore been, still she was glad in the respite of turning the primary duty of care over to her mother.

Finding herself tired after the tumultuous few days, Mrs. Jennings' speculation was more wearying than usual, and so Elinor spent her free time largely out-of-doors, enjoying the spring sunshine. It was there that she came across Colonel Brandon four days later, sunning himself on a bench in the shrubbery.

"Miss Dashwood," he said, rising courteously as she came in to view. They exchanged pleasantries and he invited her to join him, which offer she accepted with content. Although reserved, Elinor was not a solitary person by nature, and the Colonel's company was always agreeable.

"Your sister looked very well," Brandon said. "Or at least, she looked as if she will soon be very well, which is almost as good."

"Yes, we are all very cheered by her progress," Elinor said, "and I know that our mother's presence is a great comfort to her."

"Your mother is a good woman with a warm and generous heart," Brandon said. "You are very lucky to have such a mother."

"Yes," Elinor said. "We were fortunate in both our parents. Our father was of a different temperament, but just as kind and loving. Not all are so fortunate." With a pang, she considered what Edward's life must have been, with such a mother and such siblings as he had had. Little though Elinor cared for Lucy Steele, she must at least admit that Lucy was kinder and warmer than Edward's own blood. Last she had seen of them, Lucy had been doing much to ingratiate herself into her future relations' good graces. Though Elinor still believed that when the Ferrars family learnt of Edward's engagement the charms of the Miss Steeles would drop considerably in their estimation, it was possible that Lucy's brazen flattery would do much to heal the breach; and in that, at least, if no other way, Lucy would be a more capable wife for Edward than Elinor would have been.

"I confess that although I have spent time in your mother's company, I had never given enough thought to her to realize how much she is like an older version of Eliza," Brandon went on. "In my mind, she is always the young girl I knew as a boy, or the broken woman I found on my return. But on the way from Barton Cottage to Cleveland, I found myself thinking that in your mother I could see what Eliza would have been like in such a situation, had her life been happier. Had she lived to become a mature woman of strength and grace."

"I hope the realization gave you some comfort," Elinor said in some confusion. Did that mean he found her mother attractive? Considered objectively, Mrs. Dashwood was still a handsome woman, and closer to Colonel Brandon's age than her daughters were, but Elinor had never considered that her mother might be an object of attraction to anyone but her father. He could not seriously consider anything, Elinor reassured herself, for he had no heir and her mother was surely past childbearing.

"I do not know that it was a comfort, precisely," Colonel Brandon said, "but it did give me a new perspective on … several things. If there is one thing I have learned in the past few weeks, it is how my thoughts and perspectives have been largely trapped in the past, like an insect in amber."

"How so?" Elinor asked.

"You have no doubt noted the similarities—and the differences—between Marianne's experiences and those of my poor dear Eliza. Marianne is not ruined and Marianne will not die, but …"

"The outlines of the situations are very much alike," Elinor said. "Like silhouettes made of sisters. In full light they may not look very much alike, but in relief the profiles are strikingly similar."

"Yes, exactly," Brandon said, nodding. "A perfect metaphor, thank you. When I met Marianne, and as her relationship with Willoughby progressed and reached its unhappy end, all I could see was how like Eliza she was. It was as if I was seventeen myself again, watching the whole tragedy unfold for the first time. But I am not that boy any longer, and Marianne is not Eliza, and it gives me no credit, nor Eliza any honor, to pretend otherwise. As for Marianne, she should be valued for who she is, not as a reflection of someone I once loved deeply."

"I think you always saw Marianne for who she is, even as you saw the similarities to Eliza," Elinor said.

"I am not sure but what you give me too much credit," Brandon said with a sigh. He shook his head. "Still, that is my own lesson in all of this, and you have had the greater burden, as Marianne's sister and confidant through all of this, and as her nurse. I should not be so selfish as to burden you with my own concerns."

"It can be a relief and a distraction, to consider another's cares, when one has many of one's own," Elinor said.

"True," Brandon replied, "yet surely the greater relief is in sharing one's own cares, so that the burden may also be shared? You love your sisters deeply, and your mother, but given the differences in temperament between you I cannot imagine you wish to bear all the secrets of your heart to them, even if Marianne were not so consumed with her own tragedy of late."

"In that you are quite correct," Elinor said. "Marianne would never tell a secret I wished her to keep in confidence, but I learned long ago that she is seldom able to govern her emotions enough to prevent her countenance and actions from betraying it anyway. And if my feelings—or my expression of them—do not match what she thinks I should feel, she will either declare me heartless or assume me to be lying because of propriety." She sighed. "I should not say such things, because I make her sound quite selfish and heartless, and she is neither. Please do not repeat my complaints."

"It is only that she is young and cannot quite understand that not everyone is the same as she is," Brandon said. "Many young people are like that, and most learn better as they grow. But have no fear, I will not share your secrets. I have kept worse ones."

"Thank you," Elinor said. She wondered what had come over her; it was true, she liked and trusted the Colonel as she did few others, but she was not in the habit of giving such confidences to anyone.

"Have you ever had a true confidant?" Brandon asked. "Someone you could trust with your deepest thoughts and feelings? A friend in your old neighborhood, perhaps?"

"No," Elinor said. "I had friends, of course, but … none that I was terribly close to." Elinor had never been lonely, but she was the one others took their secrets to, not the reverse. She had shared with Edward thoughts and feelings which she had shared with few others; yet there had still been a reserve of propriety between them.

"I am trying to think of men I know who might have sisters or wives or daughters with whom you might form a connection," Brandon said, "but unfortunately, my circle of acquaintances is small now, and you already know most of them. If there was a bosom companion for you in that set, you would already have found them."

"Thank you for your consideration," Elinor said, touched. "But I am not lonely."

"It is possible to feel alone in a crowded room, if no one in it truly knows you," Brandon said. "I would spare you that, if I could."

Elinor could not speak, for she had never known that others could understand that sentiment. No dramatics, just a quiet loneliness that no one else could see. She touched his arm, a tangible example of the connection she felt with him in that moment. "Thank you," she said again.

They sat quietly together for some time. No further words passed between them, but none were necessary, for they were in perfect harmony.

Elinor found herself strangely reluctant to leave Cleveland, after all her yearning these last months to be back home in Barton Cottage. She and Colonel Brandon had spoken many times throughout Marianne's recovery, and though on no occasion was their conversation as deep as it had been that day in the shrubbery, still there was a closeness between them now that Elinor had only but rarely experienced in her life. And however often he visited them at Barton Cottage or saw them at Barton Park, they could not see one another as often as while they resided in the same house. And a greater proportion of their time would, of necessity, be spent within earshot of other people.

Upon realizing the source of her reluctance, Elinor felt quite shocked; for so great a desire for a man's company could only be the symptom of an attachment, and she had not been conscious of forming one.

The long ride from Cleveland to Barton provided ample time for self-examination, for Marianne was too tired to speak and their mother was mostly occupied in caring for her.

Her first thought, that she had finally learned to stop caring for Edward, was not true; her thoughts of him were tinged with as great an affection as they had been when she arrived at Cleveland, and the pain of his being engaged to another woman (but especially one unworthy of him) had not lessened. She still loved him, yearned for him.

Yet Colonel Brandon had, without her knowing it, become as dear to her as ever Edward had been; and although he had never indicated an interest in her beyond that of friendship, she found herself considering with interest the idea that he might. She hesitated to call so new an attachment 'love,' yet knew not any better word for it.

For one wild moment she thought that she would gladly have married both, if she could, and resented that she had to choose. But, no, she did not have the right of choosing; Edward was promised to another, and Brandon might think of her as nothing more than a friend.

Had she been alone she would have buried her face in her hands at this thought, and perhaps laughed at herself—or cried—but any such reaction would surely have drawn the attention of her mother and sisters, and they would not be satisfied without an answer, and their reaction she did not wish even to imagine.

Such a wild desire was more Marianne's style than her own, and Elinor's normal equilibrium soon reasserted itself.

It occurred to her, once at home, that while she had grown out of the habit of confiding in Marianne, her newly-realized affection for the Colonel was one thing she could share, and although impressing on Marianne her change in feelings might be difficult, it would at least prevent her sister from further dwelling on Edward's love for her. Their mother could not be told while she held such a firm belief in Brandon's love for Marianne, but if Elinor could get Marianne on her side, things would be much easier.

It was a difficult conversation, though, for Marianne still believed that a woman could only ever truly have one great passionate love, and that any second relationship must only be for material considerations.

"You must not give up hope," said she. "Edward loves you, I know he does, and he will come and ask you to marry him soon. You are still young, and we are comfortable enough here at Barton Cottage. You do not need to settle for—"

"I am not settling!" cried Elinor in some exasperation. She had known that Marianne would take some time to adjust her opinions, for she always did, and had planned on being as calm and even-tempered as always, but the strain of the secrets she had been keeping for so long had taken its toll, and now that she finally had something of importance that she could share with her sister, what she wished more than anything was to have Marianne return even a fraction of the understanding and support Elinor had given her since Willoughby's loss.

But though Marianne might respect a passionate declaration of love such as she herself might make, that was not Elinor's manner, and besides, in her present mood she might be led to say things more hurtful than she meant. Elinor thought back to Brandon's words in the shrubbery at Cleveland. "I wish," Elinor said, with an iron grip on her composure, "that you would learn that I am not you, and that my thoughts and feelings are different than yours."

"Elinor, of course I understand that we are different!" Marianne said.

"Then why do you dismiss every word of mine that does not fit with what you think I should be feeling?" Elinor said. "When I first came to care for Mister Ferrars, you scoffed. Then you became so great a partisan of our affections that when I did not wish to think of it any longer, you would not listen, to my very great mortification on more than one instance. Now I have a new attachment, but you would rather build castles in the air for me and Mister Ferrars than listen. At no time have you ever respected or cared for my actual feelings. I am sorry to be so severe." There was something she had long wished to say, and it had come out far more critically than she had wished. But she could not take the words back, and found that she did not wish to.

"No," Marianne said. Her voice was even but she had gone pale with shock. "If that was how you truly feel, I am glad you said it. I am sorry to have been such a poor sister."

"Marianne, no," Elinor said. "I dearly love you, and I know you love me—"

"It's only that you don't think I respect or know you," Marianne said.

"I would not say that," Elinor said.

"No, for you are far too kind and gentle to say such things even when it is the truth," Marianne said. "But can you truly deny that you feel it?"

Elinor could not.

Marianne nodded at her silence. "So," she said. "You have formed an attachment to Colonel Brandon. When did you first know?"

"When I regretted leaving Cleveland, because it meant leaving him," Elinor said.

It was by no means as passionate a declaration as Marianne was hoping for, but it was enough for her to imagine a more ardent feeling than Elinor was willing to share with her.

Colonel Brandon did indeed visit them at Barton Cottage soon thereafter, and Marianne proved a great ally in dis-arranging their mother's plans. Elinor could wish that she would be more discreet, but then she would not have been Marianne.

"May I enquire as to what that was all about?" Brandon asked, after a debate on the afternoon's entertainment started a battle of wills between Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood that led to Marianne and Margaret and their mother playing a game of croquet while Brandon and Elinor sat together on the other side of the lawn.

"Our mother believes that your journey to retrieve her when Marianne was sick is indicative of a deep affection on your part, and wishes to encourage such a match," Elinor said.

"And Marianne does not?" Brandon said.

"Oh!" Elinor said, embarrassed that she had implied what she did not mean to. "I do not know what Marianne's current feelings on the subject may be, but … I have missed our conversations, and Marianne knows this."

"She is a very affectionate sister," Brandon said.

"She is." Did that mean he did love her, still? Elinor wondered.

"I have missed our conversations, too," Brandon said.

Elinor smiled at him.

Colonel Brandon came to visit Barton Park so often that summer that he might almost have been living there. On more than one occasion, Elinor had cause to be thankful for her sister's wild and captivating ways, for with the eyes of all fixed on the beautiful Miss Marianne, there were few to notice when her quiet elder sister and the somber colonel sat on the sidelines and talked quietly. Mrs. Jennings could not be prevented from noticing and speculating on how often they kept company with one another, but Mrs. Jennings was always speculating about somebody or other, and Elinor and Colonel Brandon were not unduly troubled by it.

As always, Barton Park was a hub of entertainments and delights, for both Sir John and his mother-in-law delighted in company and good humor, and Mrs. Jennings in particular was fond of matchmaking.

"Marianne seems to like this one," Brandon said as they watched a rowdy game of cricket on the lawn. Marianne was not flirting with the young man in question as she had with Willoughby, but neither was she avoiding him as rudely as she had the first few young men Mrs. Jennings had dangled in front of her.

"I do not know if there is any particular fondness for him," Eleanor said, "but he plays well and she is fond of cricket. Still, we have not yet heard his opinion of any poet or composer, and those are far more important to Marianne than his skill with a bat."

"Your sister will excuse many things of a man who can read with skill and passion," Brandon said. "Though in this case, I have heard nothing against the young man."

"I think it will take more, now, for her to form an attachment than just similar tastes," Eleanor said, "for she learnt from Willoughby that it is not proof of a similar character. That said, however, I think taste will always be an important factor."

"And what of you?" Brandon asked.

"What did I learn from the last year's excitement?" Eleanor pondered the question. "I have had no great revelation or comeuppance like the heroine of a novel," she said at last. "My beliefs have been confirmed, that a good and honorable character is more important than any other factor. It is not that nothing else matters, only that it is the foundation upon which all else rests."

"I concede the point," Brandon said with a laugh, "although my question was not meant to be quite so profound. I was merely asking if there was a young gentleman on the playing field who had caught your attention."

"No," Eleanor said, for she had been looking for an opportunity to hint of her affections, "not a gentleman on the playing field." She caught his eye and held it.

Brandon blinked, and then a smile crept over his face. "Ah," was all he said.

When they turned their attention back to the game, they were sitting closer to one another than they had been before.

It was rapidly apparent that there was a growing attachment between Colonel Brandon and the eldest Miss Dashwood, which was followed soon thereafter by a marriage. Mrs. Dashwood learned to support the match, for her greatest desire was to see her daughters happy, and it was evident to all that Elinor was very happy. Mrs. Jennings and Sir John took great pride in their role in arranging it, and said so often and with great enthusiasm to any who would listen. Marianne's heart healed from Willoughby's treatment of her, and she had a number of less imprudent flirtations with the young men of the area, before finally accepting a man who was rather less exciting than Willoughby had been, but far more trustworthy.

Lucy Steele did her best to win over the affections of the Ferrars family, but though they all (except Edward) appreciated her flattery, their scheme of marrying Edward to one rich heiress or another (after Miss Morton's marriage to another man) never wavered, and even the most delicate hinting of an affection between Lucy and Edward met with such immediate disapproval that Lucy never dared broach the subject. At last, tired of waiting for either Mrs. Ferrars' approval or her death, Lucy broke her engagement to Edward to marry a gentleman of the Ferrars' acquaintance who had less money than Edward, but whose fortune was under his own control.

Edward eventually married a woman of less fortune than his relations hoped for, but who had enough wealth and connections to be acceptable to them. She was a woman of good sense and character, and they were well suited to one another.

Mr. and Mrs. Brandon were so naturally well-suited to one another in temperament and taste that their marriage was often held up by all who knew them as a model of domestic harmony and felicity.

#fanfiction #fanfic #sense and sensibility #jane austen

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niennavalier · 5 years ago

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Okay, belated Star Wars thoughts under the cut; no particular order, just as I think of them. Possibly some unpopular opinions, I dont really know, I'm not all that active in the SW fandom. So maybe I'll get roasted alive but...eh, whatever, this site is somewhere between an void and hell anyway.

Also SPOILERS BELOW (OBVIOUSLY)

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Okay, so first things first: I enjoyed episode 9. A lot. It was really fun to watch, and just talking in terms of my experience in the theater, it was fantastic. It was so much fun to see the old crew back, all of those appearances were basically like happiness shots in the arm. It was really very cool. The Palpatine reveal and everything around it was pretty damn epic for the obvious reasons. And I absolutely loved seeing the trio bantering and arguing and passing each other - I always love stuff like that. I swear, just give me hours of good character interaction and I'll be happy. Kylo and Rey fighting together/him using the blue lightsaber was also some cool shit and basically like "yaasss heres the payoff for the entire trilogy let's fucking gooo"

Oh, and I need to mention that little droid that Rey fixes. That little guy was adorable and I want merch for him and I will not hear otherwise. (The droids are always great in all the movies fight me)

Also Zorii and Jannah. Badasses, loved watching them and the way they got to interact with the main cast. Just...wanna spill all the love for them in this sentence.

But there are a lot of other things I have to say about the movie - especially the more I think about it and the trilogy as a whole. Dont get me wrong; I still really loved watching the movie. There are just...certain things that feel like missteps or missed opportunities?

(Not counting how badly Oscar Isaac wanted Finn and Poe to be boyfriends, which I just discovered is a thing. And reminds me a lot of anytime anyone mentions Julian Bashir to Andy Robinson and his response is always "oh Garak wanted to have sex with him from the start". Which I literally love so much, this man is a treasure, and I'm glad that apparently the same thing is happening here. And it's not that I'm not gonna talk about it here cause I dont think Poe and Finn should've been boyfriends, but I'm pretty sure Oscar Isaac has much more to say about it than I do)

Gonna start where I always start when I have problems with writing: romance. Because IMO badly written/unnecessary romance can ruin any good story real quick. I'm talking about the kiss at the end. I'm not saying this to bash on the Rey and Kylo shippers. Generally, I dont care what you ship so long as you dont start harassing everyone else; I care even less when it comes to this fandom cause I just participate in it so little. So this isnt me bashing on the ship itself or the fans, but I just think that, in the context of the movie itself, the romance was really poorly handled. To the point that I saw the scene going that way and all I could think was "oh god please dont kiss, I'm begging you". And well...we all know where that went. But I just never got a romantic vibe from the two of them in terms of what was shown on screen. The chemistry always felt familial, at least to me, across episodes 8 and 9 in particular. I dont know if that's just the chemistry between the actors or what, but the tension between them never struck me as romantic - more like two people desperate for someone who understands the chaos around them, not lovers.

Again, granted, maybe that's just the way I read stuff, especially considering I really appreciate movies that don't feature romance arcs. I'm not sure how it read to other people, and I'm not gonna bash on the shippers who like it. I may feel like JJ Abrams didnt write a convincing romance - or just stuck the kiss in there at the end to fulfill some plan from episode 7 that didnt actually pan out - but I have no problem with the ship itself, or the people who ship it. (Because at the end of the day, this is all fiction, and I couldnt care less how anyone chooses to interact with it)

(And this isnt an entirely rated point but because I've seen it around:

In all honesty, I'm starting to think that the romance thing was just a symptom of a bigger problem with this trilogy: it doesnt feel cohesive. It's like JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson had two separate sets of notes and just refused to actually look between them. Two separate sets of ideas that they were too stubborn to compromise on.

And I have a feeling (at least, talking to my little brother, who definitely feels this way) that a lot of people are pinning this fragmented feel to the trilogy on Rian Johnson and The Last Jedi, but I honestly don't think that's fair. Because, and here's the unpopular opinion: I really don't think Last Jedi is that bad. At least, not bad enough to deserve all the flak it gets.

Won't get into that entirely here because that could be a whole separate post, but that's my opinion. Sure, it's not perfect, there are definitely a lot of parts that are pretty irrelevant and not really necessary, but that's true of everything. Frankly, its biggest problem was that it was written for the wrong audience. Which is a major problem, yes, but taken for what it is, it's perfectly decent. As I said before, I could write a whole thing on this movie and why it's not that bad (because I have my brother's points as to why it's terrible for me to argue against) but overall, my reading of 8 is that it's a movie meant to introduce wider ideas and concepts to the universe - particularly this very gray and murky area of morality and character - through stories that are closer to the characters and tied to harsher realities of war. Things aren't always black and white, people are complex, sometimes our heroes can be gravely wrong in ways that aren't glamorous.

Frankly, it feels somewhere between a super deep indie movie and Star Trek (particularly DS9, at least to me, because I love when that show gets to twisty moral stuff). So yeah, wrong audience, yet he decided to stick with his storytelling despite that. No matter I personally might fall into the audience that movie resonates with, it wasnt gonna resonate with most of the fandon.

Again, Last Jedi is far from perfect in other ways too, but it sets up some great ideas that I was really hoping to get some closure on. Honorable mention here is when Rose saves Finn when he's speeding out to sacrifice himself and because of the desire to save the people they love, which I always end up likening to the "we dont trade lives" sentiment. Mentioning this cause my brother always complains about it, but I was thinking this would be one of those virtues that separate the good guys from the bad guys and ultimately allow good to triumph. Yknow, sorta like how Voldemort's lack of understanding of love contributed to his downfall, to liken it to HP. I was under the assumption that would be the concept at some turning point in the climax, but...guess not.

Big one though, which was actually a pretty big disappointment IMO, was the whole neutrality argument, the existence of a grey area. The most interesting thing from Rey and Kylo's scenes in 8 was the notion that the Jedi and Sith could be left to die, and the two of them would essentially find a way separate from those two sides, walking a path down the middle. I know I'm not the first person to bring this up, especially because of how the Force just...works. That the scales need to be balanced. And so, given that, to have the Jedi always destroy the Sith - that's not balance. Give it a few more years and the same problem is gonna happen; if there are Jedi, there will be Sith and war is gonna break out. That's hardly resolution, so neutrality is the way to go. And, personal opinion - I loved that this ended up in 8. It's just a lot more nuanced than "good vs evil, good is victorious" and brought in new ideas to this universe that I really wanted to see explored.

But that just...never happened. Sure, Rey has that yellow lightsaber at the end, but it's really very little more than the barest hint of lip service to that entire concept. Because it's never built on throughout the movie. Kylo's insistence that they look for a different way turns into a demand that she basically become his Sith queen. Which isnt playing with the gray area - it's more firmly dividing light and dark. And as she's fighting Palpatine, he's all the Sith, while she's all the Jedi; doubt that needs further explanation. Sure yeah, she's dealing with the revelation of her bloodline throughout the movie, but that interaction with the dark side is very different than in 8; she's afraid of it (a character arc I love, dont get me wrong), not lured by it. The Sith are very clearly evil, and despite her family, she comes to embody the Jedi as a whole. The opposite of what was laid out in 8.

Which actually just makes her choice to take the yellow lightsaber make even less sense? Because...she has no reason at all to turn away from the Jedi and every reason to keep using the Light side. The only possible reason by that point is if she knows about the balance and makes that choice intentionally to prevent the rise of a Sith lord. But that choice is never shown, so I dont give that a pass. It just feels like the lamest nod to something from 8 - no buildup, no explanation, just there because it technically should be.

And that fucking sucks. What a waste. Puts so much space between these movies.

The romance might be another aspect of that - 8 didnt really give me a strong romantic vibe, and then 9 tried to benefit off of buildup of romantic tension that just wasnt there. And that romance isnt the only other one. Just the existence of Palpatine at all? Like, awesome plot yes, but not at all foreshadowed. The banter between the trio at the start? One of my favorite parts to watch, but it comes out of nowhere, and I guess we just have to live with the idea that all of the development happened off screen. Lame. The return of the fucking helmet? Fuck, i actually have more i can say about the way i interpreted the helmet, but this is getting long. So point being: it's like we just got zipped right back to episode 7 all of a sudden and didnt even get a symbolic moment of him losing the helmet in 9 (at least, not that I remember).

Really, on the whole, JJ Abrams basically did the beginning of 9 such that most of 8 could be made irrelevant. Because that's how I felt throughout the whole movie; like 8 didnt matter. And I know a lot of fans are honestly happy with that (so maybe if was actually the right choice on that front) but god does it make the whole trilogy clunky. Literally nothing flows.

And I think that's my main problem with the trilogy as a whole - or, rather, with the production behind it. It's like JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson were just so goddamned married to their ideas that they wouldnt budge from the story they wanted to tell. Like they put their individual creative visions above the quality of the story as a whole. Like they weren't willing to deal with any changes that they didn't put into play themselves. And the trilogy suffered for it.

Which is really so obnoxious to me. Because it is very possible to be flexible and improv and incorporate other ideas into what you already had; just look at D&D. That's the job of a DM. You can plan everything out perfectly, figure out the story you want to tell, decide how you want everyone to interact with your world, but the players will invariably fuck those plans over. And you just have to roll with the punches. But beyond that, those changes can be for the better, because those are ideas you never thought of, and incorporating those makes for an even richer story than anyone expected. All because the people involved are willing to see where the story naturally takes itself.

Just wish these directors could understand that.

(Also...what was Finn gonna tell Rey? I mean...? This is honestly the strangest thing about the movie because it literally felt like the writers just...forgot they ever had this plot point after halfway. Which just feels like sloppy writing, and I feel Poe when he seems to be really curious what Finn wants to tell Rey. Because...me too!)

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rose-of-pollux · 5 years ago

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Inktober for Writers, Day 18

Prompt: Misfit Fandom: Perfect Strangers Title: Don’t Look Back Summary: [Season 7ish] In which Jennifer and Mary Anne’s high school reunion proves to be an awkward situation for them, Larry, and Balki.

Notes: Takes place in early S7. I found it interesting that, based on what Mary Anne lets slip in S5’s “Three’s a Crowd,” it seems that Jennifer had quite a bit of dating trouble in high school; it’s also somewhat implied in S6’s “Speak, Memory,” when Jennifer’s mother assesses that Larry would never abandon Jennifer (implying that she didn’t have that confidence in any of Jennifer’s previous boyfriends). And so, this vignette happened…

Cross-posted to AO3 & FFN.

It was apparent that Balki seemed to be the one most excited about attending Jennifer and Mary Anne’s high school reunion in Iowa, even moreso than the girls. If anything, Jennifer had seem somewhat reluctant to go—something that Larry had picked up on, knowing the feeling all too well; Larry had tossed the invitation to his high school reunion a couple years ago directly into the trash, having no desire to see the likes of Bunky McDermott or Becky Jo Quinn ever again, and knowing that Balki would have begged him to go and take him with him if he’d found out about it. Of course, irony had a funny way of doing things, and Bunky McDermott had ended up finding Larry anyway in Chicago a year ago—and Larry found out the hard way that Bunky was still the mean-spirited leader of the in-crowd that he’d always been.

He’d moved past that, but he knew the memory of it would linger—and there were, clearly, some unpleasant memories lingering for Jennifer. She didn’t talk much about her high school days, but from the bits and pieces that Mary Anne had shared, it was clear that the both of them had been late bloomers, and Jennifer especially so—from apparently not being able to keep a boyfriend to even going dateless to the senior prom.

Whatever else she had been through, Larry was determined not to let it ruin the evening tonight; he would remain calm and as charming as he could and show that Jennifer had done well for herself and had married happily.

She was still visibly nervous as they approached the doors to the rented reception hall where the reunion was being held; she caught his eye, and he gave her a reassuring nod—he did, after all, know exactly where she was coming from, having been the awkward one during his teen years, as well. She did seem to take some reassurance from his, and when he offered his arm, she happily linked her arm through his and entered the hall.

Jennifer had worn her very best evening gown for the occasion to make a good impression on her former classmates, but Larry (in a pressed tuxedo) wasn’t even looking at the dress; his eyes were on her face, as he was still incredibly smitten with his newlywed bride.

Behind them, Mary Anne, also in an evening gown, entered with Balki, clad in his Myposian tuxedo. Mary Anne seemed a little nervous herself, though she seemed far more ready to put her feelings behind her and try to enjoy the evening.

Jennifer found herself wishing that she could do the same.

They dined and danced a little bit, but when it came time for mingling, there was very little that the other guests seemed to have to say to Jennifer and Mary Anne. They were definitely recognized—they received some cordial greetings, but, for the most part, they seemed extremely out of place, despite the familiar faces and settings all around them. As their discomfort increased, even Balki’s enthusiasm began to rapidly wane.

Larry drew an arm around Jennifer and was about to suggest that they duck out early when someone else called out to the group.

“Hey, Lyons! Spencer!”

A group of women were headed their way, most of them following the one in the lead; Larry was forcefully reminded of Bunky McDermott, but he didn’t say anything—he just tightened his hold around Jennifer, who had suddenly gone rigid at the sight of the other women. Mary Anne also seemed to be distressed by their arrival, as well, clutching Balki’s hand and squeezing it with such force that he looked at her in surprise.

The woman in the lead surveyed Mary Anne and Balki for a moment before turning to Larry and Jennifer.

“Lyons, it’s been a while,” she said.

Jennifer hesitated in her reply, and suddenly took Larry’s left hand in hers, holding them up to show off their wedding rings.

“It’s Appleton now,” she said.

“Really?” the lady replied with a smirk. “Well, as I recall, your problem wasn’t finding a man—it was keeping him.”

Jennifer blanched and Larry indignantly drew their hands back so that he could embrace her fully again.

“Those days are in the past,” Larry insisted.

The woman surveyed Larry with a smirk as her friends giggled derisively.

“I give it six months before you realize you could’ve done better.” She ignored Larry’s furious sputtering and turned back to Jennifer. “You’ve still got nothing to offer, have you? Shallow and neurotic as ever, and only a handful of dollars to your name? Nobody wants a misfit, Lyons.”

“You are way, way out of line, Moon,” Mary Anne snapped, her voice uncharacteristically cold.

“I suppose you got yourself hitched, Spencer?” Miss Moon queried.

“…Not yet, but I’m hopeful,” she admitted, squeezing Balki’s hand again.

“Well, you’ve got a better chance than Lyons, at any rate. You, at least, have personality. But not much else… Just another misfit.”

“How you can say such terrible things to Mary Anne and Cousin Jennifer?” Balki asked, stumbling over his English in his shock. “They are kind and caring, and they don’ toss around cruel words like you are doing! That makes them the most beautiful women in the room! They shouldn’t believe your babasticki!”

Miss Moon arched her eyebrows as Balki spoke; Mary Anne was looking at him in admiration, but Miss Moon didn’t seem dissuaded.

“Well, I see why you were attracted to Spencer—you’re just another misfit.” She looked at Larry again. “And what about you?”

“I think you ought to leave,” Larry responded, tranquil fury evident in his voice.

Balki looked over at his cousin in concern; he knew from experience that if Larry was quiet and angry, then it was a much more serious—and almost always righteous—anger than his usual default bluster.

Miss Moon seemed to sense that she was treading on thin ice and walked away with her entourage. Mary Anne sighed in relief to see her go, but Jennifer still didn’t move, her face red with embarrassment.

“Everyone… I’m sorry…” she said, after a moment, her voice breaking.

“Jen, you don’t have to be sorry about anything!” Larry exclaimed, gently touching the side of her face.

“That’s right—you were not the one saying terrible things about people!” Balki agreed.

“Balki, she’s upset that we were insulted,” Mary Anne said, gently. “That group of girls were the popular ones when Jennifer and I were in high school. They didn’t like us very much, and being shunned and insulted by them wasn’t very good for our social lives.”

“I didn’t want to come here at first,” Jennifer admitted. “But then I thought about it, and I wanted them to see that…” She trailed off.

“…See that you got the marriage and the life they thought you couldn’t have?” Larry finished.

She nodded, blinking back tears; Larry held her close as Balki and Mary Anne each put a hand on her shoulders.

“Now I understand why you wanted to go to Bunky McDermott’s party last year,” she added. “I should’ve realized this would’ve ended the same way for me…”

“Well, at least you don’t have a sunburn?” Larry offered. His heart lightened a little to see the traces of a smile cross her face for a moment. “And Jen, whatever she said about… Well, all that… babasticki,” he added, borrowing his cousin’s appropriate description of it. “You know it isn’t true, right?” He knew she knew it wasn’t true, but he also knew all too well how anxiety worked—how reassurance was sometimes everything.

“I know,” she said. “But even the thought of you losing interest in me because you found someone better…”

“I couldn’t find anyone better!”

“…Larry, that’s so sweet of you to say, but there are women better than me.”

“Well, you’re the best for each other,” Mary Anne pointed out.

“Mary Anne’s right!” Balki exclaimed. “All four of us are best for each other—the best of friends. That is how you know you will both have a long and happy marriage—so many years you have already spent as friends, getting closer and closer.”

Mary Anne gave him a hopeful look—this was as close to an allusion of an eventual marriage between Balki and herself that she’d heard him say, and she would hold onto it—for what he described about Larry and Jennifer surely applied to them, too.

Balki now drew one arm around Larry and Jennifer, and the other arm around Mary Anne.

“We may be four misfits… but we sure do fit together pretty well, huh?”

“We sure do, Buddy,” Larry replied. He looked around at his wife and their best friends. The smile had finally made its way to Jennifer’s face in full. “Well, how about we misfits duck out of here early and enjoy a night on the town—just the four of us?”

“It sounds wonderful,” Jennifer agreed.

And Balki and Mary Anne eagerly nodded.

They practically bolted out the door and into the night, not sure what was in store for them, but knowing that they would enjoy it together.

#perfect strangers #Jennifer Lyons #Mary Anne Spencer #Larry Appleton #Balki Bartokomous #inktober for writers

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natsspammityspamspamham · 5 years ago

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I HAVE FINISHED ALL THE ROUTES OF FE THREE HOUSES (for now) - SPOILERS

There’s DLC saying there will be new content and new characters and all of that starting April 30th 2020. I just thought that “new content”?! DID YOU MEAN NEW ROUTE?! I’m sorry for being dumb.

However, THIS LINK indicates that there will be a “Completely” new story.

This new update (the free one) will offer LUNATIC MODE for all ya crazy people.

https://fireemblem.nintendo.com/three-houses/downloadable-content/

Each takes about 20-25 hours depending on the time you want to spend grinding and/or exploring. If you read through every line and wait for the voice actors to finish every line, maybe it’ll take you 70 or something.

The storyline of this game was such a step up from Fates partially because the Fates storyline was shit, we all knew it, and I still enjoyed it despite having a seemingly bland cast and a terrible story. On the other hand, your weapons don’t run out of ammo. This game was vastly different with no weapon triangle, pair-ups, and all that other stuff from Awakening and Fates. Keep in mind, I’m a filthy casual that’s only played Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and Fates.

This game was so much fun. If you want to enjoy it for yourself, don’t read on because there are plenty of spoilers for the whole family!

This is the game in a nutshell: Which of you likeable people shall I kill? Yes, I find Edelgard likeable.

Church of Seiros (Normal/Casual - Black Eagles then decide not to side with Edelgard)

This route was my first. I made a mistake of not recruiting anyone else. It was a little sad without an overpowered house leader (I’m looking at you, Claude). I didn’t like Rhea. I accidentally chose this route. I wouldn’t mind doing it again, but again, I don’t like Rhea.

I played it on casual to get used to the mechanics. That and I’m a filthy casual.

I feel like this is probably my least favourite route because of the absence of a house leader and because I was so ignorant as to not recruit anyone from the other houses. I played as a male character. I chose Petra at the end. She’s so sweet and nice. She is everything that I stand for.

I would give it a solid 7/10.

Black Eagles (Normal/Classic - Choose to go against the church)

Ah, revolution. Go against the church, side with the people who murdered your father, but then realize it’s too late to go back and that Rhea. Weirdly, it made sense to me at the time considering how I felt a strong sense of betrayal towards Rhea anyway. I recruited everyone I wanted (Ingrid, Felix, Sylvain) except for Annette and Lysithea I think? I’m pretty sure I also got Marianne. I didn’t manage to get Ashe, but after a playthrough of Blue Lions, I now realize I missed out on nothing. I couldn’t use the guy. I just got Bernadetta, and despite being under levelled, she fulfilled his role and better.

Edelgard is the second strongest out of the house leaders I think. This route was fun because it was the one full of revolution. It was what would be considered as “turning evil for the sake of good”. I just remember really enjoying the gameplay and defeating Dimitri. I, however, didn’t appreciate Edelgard just stealing the last moment and killing Dimitri. You have a choice to kill Claude. In the end, Claude can live on pretty much all routes.

Again, I really enjoyed this route. I would definitely play and again, and I will. Married Edelgard with a female avatar.

Golden Deer (Normal/Classic - Fear the Deer - This is about as neutral as you can get for now)

This is arguably as neutral as you can get... for now. Claude is a great unit, a great guy, and Joe is so devoted to this role. I played in both Japanese and English (switched whenever I turned on the system). I did kind of prefer Toshi’s interpretation at times, but Joe had a ton of good moments where I preferred his voice as well. For one, I feel like Toshi has far more experience with confession scenes, so when I chose Claude in the end, Toshi delivered better there, but the localization did wonders for Joe as well. The script changes made sure that Claude became the character that everyone knows and loves.

Gameplay-wise, at this point, I just recruited all my guys and gals from the other houses and ignored A TON of the Golden Deer, and I feel no remorse. They’re alive and kicking... just not on the field. I got a ton of my Black Eagles (Dorothea, Caspar, Linhardt, Petra) and a ton of my Blue Lions (Felix, Ingrid, Sylvain, and probably a few others I’m not remembering).

Overall, I think this was my favourite route because Claude was awesome, so overpowered with his relic, and he’s just an awesome guy that should’ve been bi but the confession end card was drawn with only the female avatar which makes Edelgard the only confirmed bi out of the three.

Blue Lions (Normal/Classic - STRONG OOF)

After being scolded on Tumblr for not understanding Dimitri, I went and did the Blue Lions route!

I called this guy insane and got backlash. Let me put it this way, the Black Eagles route cuts him out to be a real big villain. He’s so fixated on revenge that he’s blinded. He causes the deaths of a lot of his former classmates with little to no remorse.

But on this route? Ah, well, he’s still like that for the first half post-time skip.

This route is rich in backstory. It paints Edelgard is such a bad light which I enjoy so much. Do I like her? Yes. But do I think this is necessary? Absolutely. That last scene was “poetic cinema”. The way the dagger worked and all those broken dreams. All the NPC deaths and things like that. Nice.

I’m still not a huge fan of Dimitri. Gameplay-wise, he was the worst and hardest to use out of the three. I’m also saying that because that person almost ruined this whole route for me.

_____________________

A quick ramble about voice actors for this game:

YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE HOW HAPPY I WAS TO FIND OUT WE GOT TO HEAR THE JAPANESE VOICES!

As a seiyuu fan, I was ecstatic. However, I did kind of miss that Hosoya didn’t appear in this one. He was Morgan in Awakening and Shigure in Fates. I listened to both casts, and besides a few voices (Japanese Bernadetta killed my ears), I loved both sides no matter how different they were. While some delivery was a little weak (nothing major), I found that it was generally very well-done.

Both Ai Kakuma and Tara Platt stood out to me as Edelgard. For one, Tara Platt is immensely talented. I didn’t hear Ai Kakuma around as much (I only heard her make an appearance in Kimetsu no Yaiba).

Both Kaito Ishikawa and Chris Hackney were great as Dimitri, but I think Chris gave him a bit more of a “snobbish king” kind of feel which was probably better for my perception of his character.

Joe Zieja was iconic as Claude but so was Toshiyuki Toyonaga. Toshi was far suaver and flirtatious and pulling off more of that “otome game” kind of vibe while Joe has contributed so much to the fandom outside of the actual game. It’s much harder to choose between the two for this one.

Both sides really bring it their all, and while I do have my preferences, I would be fine either way.

Of course, these lines weren’t really translated perfectly in the dub. From what I hear, there are a ton of nuances and the way that they spoke that didn’t go both ways. In the end, the gist was the same.

I might ramble further in a separate post because I wanna.

#fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #fe3h

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glowyelfboyfriend · 7 years ago

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How did they ruin elven lore? I’m sorry, but I don’t know much about the games as other people

I didn’t call this blog ‘Elf Salt’ for nothing

-cracks knuckles-

I have a number of issues with how bioware handled elves in Dragon Age and they all interject to create this terrible mess of a mishandled race allegory that should never have happened. The frustrating thing for me is that most of the fandom is content to kinda just skip past these discussions but as someone who is first nations it actually hits real close to home for me.

Anyways...

Elves in dragon age are very clearly ‘inspired by’ if not completely based on racial experiences and history of Jewish, Roma and Indigenous peoples. (I can only speak to first nations knowledge so its what I will discuss the most). Historically in Thedas the Elves lived across most of the land and were more or less the dominant race (I’ll get back to that later...). After a massive war they were nearly completed wiped out and enslaved by the Tevinter nation that defeated them. Elven culture was absolutely wiped from Thedas, language and history was completely lost, their cities and holy lands were either destroyed completely or overtaken by the people who know enslaved them.

Their experience as slaves has them widely stripped of any of their culture, their language, they are not permitted to learn how to read and are considered more akin to animals than to other humanoid races (sound familiar to American history?). In other parts of Thedas slavery had ended but elves were only permitted to live on designated chunks of land such as The Dales (does that sound familiar? Hm?) until the human authority decided they shouldn’t be allowed to have it anymore since they didn’t follow their christian-inspired religion, thus swooping in to wipe them out again and remove land promised to them.

In modern Thedas, Elves are still kept as slaves in Tevinter and are kept under such tight authority and law in other kingdoms that they are not much better off. In Denerim it is illegal for elves to own weapons. Elves are stuck living in alienages (which resemble both ghettos AND reservations) where there is no work, they are routinely abused/harassed/raped/murdered by humans (and have literally no legal standing to defend themselves as its illegal for an elf to assault a human whereas there are no laws protecting them) and the alienage is routinely locked up so the city guards can completely wipe out the elves living there.

There are Dalish elves who attempt to recobble together their culture and history, traveling nomadically with the constant danger of humans deciding to try and attack them (this includes templars, city guards and country folk btw). They contend with constant fearmongering that they are doing evil and malicious things for their traditional religion as well as stereotypes of them being thieves (sound familiar???)

So here is the thing, up to this point, this is just world flavor and world building. There are critics who find the inclusion of these stereotypes and the ways in which they are represented to be an issue in and of itself. I don’t disgree but its not my actual issue. I think fantasy settings can be an eye-opening and cathartic practice, it can give people who don’t experience those racial themes or hardships a chance to roleplay and maybe understand it a little bit more. As someone who is first nations I find getting to play a Dalish elf in Origins and taking people to task for their balant racism and save the world to be incredibly satisfying.

The issue is.... once you created a fantasy world where this sort of racism exists you need to be EXTREMELY careful with how you use it. And while I think the writers of this series are talented and did the best they could with the limitations of ‘video game’ I think there were some GRAVE errors, particularily in Inquisition and Trespasser that completely ruined any goodwill they had.

In Inquisition it felt as if they wanted to try and retcon the race issues they had established, or else had completely forgotten that those race issues were based on real-life issues. The two elf companions you get are, frankly, extremely anti-elf. You have Sera who has tons of internalized racism, which in itself is a really interesting concept to explore, except there is no character arc or closure for this. If you romance her as a Dalish elf you never have a chance to bring her around to stop hating on her race and culture, instead she insists you give up your racial identiy and heritage. Solas... oh gods where do I even begin? To keep it short, Solas’ entire point in the plot seems to be to completely undermine and ridicule elves and all the world building the game devs made. He refers to Dalish as ‘children’ and even mocks city elves, both of which are just coping with racial injustices/slavery/genocide over a couple hundred year history.

If you play Inquisition as any race other than an Elf you will be presented a picture of elves as nothing more than stupid, misguided, shameful people that take what they have for granted and want ‘more’. Which... let me tell you... as a person who is first nations... that is insanely close to what racist pricks think of us today. Painting indigenous religion as ‘savage’ or ‘primiative’ and infantilizing those who follow it, shutting down people who are trying to find some justice for generations of abuse and trauma all while lifting up characters who are willing to throw their fellows under the bus....... its a narrative that is present in modern day real life race issues. This is all presented as Fact with no solution, no exploration, just ‘how things are’. And I think that’s extremely misguided of the writers, and I wonder when they forgot that these themes were based on real life.

Finally, we get to the cherry on top - Trespasser. Before this game we had humans being widely dismissive of elven religion, but in a way where it was clear that they were just ignorant of a religion outside of their own. In this game they decided to take the history of the elves, their culture and religion and completely tear it apart.

It’s revealed that the Gods elves worship are actually not gods but were just Really Powerful Mages. It turns out the facial tattoos (which is totally a reference to indigenous tattoo practices my dudes) that were devotional to these gods were in fact just slave markings because elves enslaved their own race, and Tevinter had never actually taken them down in war - the elves just destroyed themselves.

I shouldn’t have to describe why taking the most oppressed race in the world of Thedas and undoing their culture/religion and history is a shitty move. I shouldn’t have to, especially with the context of the CLEAR real-world parallels. But everyone seems to miss out on how disgusting this really is.

From my own experience, I have heard this shit about my own heritage and people. I have heard white people say that the injustices first nations people faced ‘wasn’t so bad’ because they were ‘already’ killing and enslaving each other. I have read books written by white ‘researchers’ from only a hundred years ago trying to imply the wrong meanings on sacred tattoos and culture. I have heard these arguments to defend colonialism and genocide.

If you don’t have these real-life experiences, or you decided to play as something other than a dalish elf who might give a shit about their entire history/culture/family/beliefs/identity you will not notice this. It’ll just be an interesting ‘twist’ and I hate it. I hate that dismantling the ONE THING this systematically oppressed, enslaved and genocided culture had to cling onto has been used for a cheap ‘twist’.

Will they do something interesting with it in the next game? I don’t know, maybe. But kicking down and making elves be the sacrifice for something so identity-destroying is just... its bad. It was a bad choice. You know they wouldn’t do that with Andrastianism, they wouldn’t come out and be like ‘Oh the Maker was actually just some guy who enslaved humans for his own benefit’, and you know why.

The issue is taking ‘inspiration’ for your fantasy world racial pain and then tossing it aside for shallow twists. Yes, its a fantasy video game, but as someone who IS affected by these REAL-WORLD ISSUES I felt completely betrayed and gutted by my fave escape telling me that my in-game equivalent was a fucking dumbass for believing in the culture of their heritage.

#salt #dragon age #I would REALLY appreciate if people reblog this #I'm really exhausted by people arguing this with me #or ignoring it cause its too difficult to deal with #I still love these games #I can enjoy a series and be critical #most of my frustration is about how the fandom DOESNT see this #and then refuses to look when anyone tries to show them #sorry if talking about oppressed races makes you uncomfortable???#the best thing to do if you are uncomfortable is explore WHY and try to make a positive change #put your white guilt down for two seconds and listen #Anonymous

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