#because i have a very clear understanding in my head of how s1 goes down for him
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thoughts on the fall
i had a really awesome debate with someone in the replies of one of my posts (here, with @mayapapaya33✨) and they raised a hugely valid argument on god's own morality as concerns the fall. it was awesome, and i wanted to ruminate on it more, because i think it could potentially really recontextualise how i saw the fall before now. in summary, I think points they raised were essentially the following:
if the reason why Angel Who Crowley Was - AWCW - fell (possible unreliable narration notwithstanding) was minor, does that say more about the person that committed the infraction or more about the rules that deems it to be worth the fall?
was what he did morally wrong? and if so, does this call into the assessment of "corruption of initial intent" vs "the initial intent was flawed from the start"
ie. the argument of god being wrong, and leading on to everything she did and created being flawed as a result, ie. heaven being fundamentally wrong
given the above, is crowley responsible for his fall? was he aware of the consequences, and would this have changed anything? did the demons deserve what they got? why didn't AWCW and the rest get mercy if She truly is omniscient, and potentially knew in some cases that their intention was not malicious?
so my first building block in the following is the definition of omniscient; from Merriam-Webster:
so to be all-knowing, it would be fair to extrapolate this as omniscience meaning you can see and know everything - past, present, and future. which has serious implications for god's culpability in the fallen angels' suffering when they were cast down. she, who presumably loves her creations, condemned them to be torn away from her love and grace, and did so in response to what - if we take crowley's narrative at face value - is a minor infraction (and questionable even at that). that is cruel, and wrong, by any standard of being a cognizant human being with any conceptual understanding of morality.
it would be very easy to see this as god in fact not being omniscient (and whilst iirc god is not explicitly described as such in GO, but we can surmise it by the fact that all of the events of the book appear to be told in her voice - 'all-knowing'), and that she didn't know what would happen and the suffering it would lead to, this plainly has to be false. she had to know what would happen. i'll revisit this later*.
now in terms of whether morality exists in heaven; i do not necessarily think, at the point of s1, we can be reliably sure that it does. Lucifer and the guys are painted by crowley as being Up To Something, but it's not necessarily indicated that they knew at the time that what they were doing was wrong. if it was even arguably wrong to begin with - the full circumstances of Lucifer's part in the GO!fall is not described, nor their inner thoughts on whether they knew it would be Bad.
but we do know from the pre-fall scene in s2 that there is the potential concept of punishment. aziraphale would, presumably, not deter AWCW from questioning god if he felt that god would be welcoming to it, and love him and cherish him all the same for asking questions. i talk about it more here, but aziraphale must - by this account - know something that crowley and by extension the other angels do not. that god would in fact not welcome it, or indeed it would be disrespectful to do so... so here's where i contradict myself: why is this even a thought process in aziraphale's head, if the concept of morality does not exist? if the concept of punishment, "i don't want to see you get into any trouble!", does not exist? this dialogue of aziraphale's shifts the picture entirely.
he may not understand what that punishment would look like, but aziraphale seems to know something. and the thing is - despite the warning being pretty clear, AWCW does not take it for what it is... a suggestion to proceed with caution. so if AWCW then presumably goes ahead and asks questions to god, what does that say about AWCW? naive and innocently minded - yes, potentially. but we don't know what questions he asked and how far he toed the line to the point of crossing it. it may have been benign questions, it might have a suggestion that he could do a better job ("if i was the one running it all..."), and in either case if meant with good intention it is clear to us that morally it did not warrant his fall.
but the fact that he did it anyway, and then proceeds to downplay his error in s1 post-fall is where i think his characterisation as an unreliable narrator begins. he was not wrong to ask the question and to ask the question he did, but he was wrong in asking it despite the clear warning, and to not accept his own actions being reflective of his culpability in his fall. god presumably did not just wake up one day and decide to cull half the angel population; whether she was right or wrong to consider asking questions as an infraction is immaterial - AWCW did it anyway.
*but this is where i come back to the concept of god being omniscient. because the thing is - to my mind, action borne of omniscience is a direct contradiction of free will. free will exists in heaven; there are many narrative/plot indicators that say support this. so imagine this - AWCW comes to god, asking questions and toeing the line in suggesting he could do a better job. he starts to question the purpose of his creations made in her name. he laments that it's for nothing, it'll be destroyed, 'what is the point?', and starts to intimate that he doesn't want to continue his purpose if this is how she's going to treat it.
now god, being omniscient, knows that AWCW is upset, and hurt, and indignant. but she knows it's borne out of love and pride in his work, and the work he is doing for her. but if she were to show him mercy, and forestall his emerging reckoning to break away from her if this is How It's Going To Be, is she contradicting his free will? well yes, arguably she is. if she told him the consequences of him breaking away, a consequence that by all accounts may not have been conceived as a notion until it actually was, would that derail his decision?
well that is arguable, because that's not necessarily contradicting free will; that's giving him a choice. but let's go back to the aziraphale-angel dialogue in s1:
a: "what i think is that there obviously has to be two sides; that's the whole point, so people can make choices, that's what being human means... choices. but, that's for them. our job as angels should be to keep all this working, so they can make choices-"
this is where the true paradox lies, i think. morality is an emerging concept, punishment seems to potentially exist, and free will definitely does. but what about choice? this is where we need s3 narrative to fully explain this; was crowley given a choice to inform on his free will? was it his free will to fall, and would he have done if he was fully aware that there was a choice involved? would he have doubled down, or would he have retracted all his thoughts on questioning god - a fundamental characteristic he embodies?
choice basically is free will, but with the added ingredient of knowing the consequences, the cause and effect, of exercising that free will. but would crowley have chosen any different, betrayed his nature, if he were to choose to stay in heaven knowing the alternative is falling? would that actually hinder his free will? that, i think, is still very much up for debate.
#in this house we get existential on saturday mornings#might add to this over time#good omens#i am built predominantly for shitposting and the occasional philosophical debate on morality#the fall/the great war spec#pre-fall aziraphale spec#AWCW spec
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So I was asked via my last post to write more about Rina (thank you, izzyneedsabreak, I don't know how to do all the technical stuff to connect to your page, but you gave me the confidence to write more).
I also wanted to say, before I start, that this post is specifically about Rina. Any other character mentioned (basically just Nini and EJ) has their own arc and own relationship dynamics, but this post is focused on how they impact Ricky and Gina. This is already a long enough post as is, and I can't be bogged down with extra info, or I'll be here all week.
So here goes nothing. Buckle up, Wildcats.
The best thing to start with, I guess, would be the overview of each season's primary Ricky/Gina relationship status:
season 1 - the beginning, the understanding, the intimate bond, which is then severed by outside forces
season 2 - the disconnect, Gina's pining, Ricky retreating back into safety and a time when life was easier with Nini
season 3 - the reconnection, Ricky's pining, Gina focusing on her first boyfriend in EJ, reforging the intimate bond
An important thing to note about Rina, and this will come as no surprise to Rina fans, is that they are, from the very beginning, established as the outsiders, and the ones who incite a majority of the main plot in s1. This is why people keep coming back to the Troyella parallel, because this is basically the whole plot of the first High School Musical - outsiders to the East High theatre come in and shake things up, while also developing romantic feelings for each other. While I know Tim Federle didn't initially think about Ricky and Gina romantically, when seen through this lens, it felt almost inevitable.
Also, Joshua and Sofia's chemistry is off the charts, and I love that the writers recognised this and used it to their advantage. The fact that it surprised even the people writing the show that Rina could be a thing, just makes this relationship that much more special - because it wasn't planned, but developed naturally, without intention, and feels that way, too. It feels real and earnest, and is quite unique in this respect, especially for a Disney show. I also like that they kind of nod to this phenomenon in the 3x08 final scene - "You weren't the plan, you were never the plan. Plans change."
The most important thing about Ricky and Gina and their dynamic is the synchronicity between them, and that all roads lead to the other. I know parallels are slightly overused when discussing these two, but honestly, it's the best way to describe how they can both simultaneously be in sync and in disarray. They both went through the same things, but at different points in the story (eg. the pining when the other is in another relationship). This all comes to a head in 3x08, where they are finally in the right place to admit their feelings about each other, to each other.
Another important aspect to Rina is the difference between second choice and second chance. In season 1, after they form their bond, I have little doubt that Ricky and Gina would have ended up together anyway, if not for Gina moving away. She removed herself as an option, and Ricky retreated back to Nini in an attempt to find comfort in something familiar.
In the s2 flashback, I think people sometimes forget that Ricky JUST got back together with Nini, while also believing he would never see Gina again. She wasn't an option at the time. And again, in s2, Gina removes herself from the situation, and makes it clear to Ricky that she doesn't want to talk to him (and he gives her the space she's asking for). And then, in s3, when they are reconnecting as friends, Gina is, again, no longer an option because she is dating EJ. Ricky does his absolute utmost to respect that, and even actively tries to help her in her relationship with EJ.
In comparison, second chances means that the option is available again. In the song 'Second Chance', Ricky's line in the bridge is "begin again". We now know that he meant 'begin again' with Gina, not Nini. And then, when they finally talk again, Gina asks if they can "start over". While not consciously knowing all this would entail, it represents her second chance with Ricky. As we know, Gina 'never does things right the first time'. This is their second chance to get it right.
I also want to talk about the other two members of the love square: Nini and EJ, in regards to how the writers use Rini and PW to show rather than tell that Ricky and Gina are better suited to each other than their respective first partner.
With Nini, for Ricky she represents things as they were. She was comfortable and safe, because he had known her his whole life. In s1 and s2, Ricky is going through a lot of change in his home life, and he is clinging to Nini in s2 in an attempt to find stability. He wants everything to stay the same. However, Nini is trying to figure out who she wants to be, and Ricky actually starts to smother her attempts to do this, in his desperate bid for things to stay as they are. They come to a natural, mutual decision to go their separate ways, as they don't like who they are becoming when together.
Ricky's arc is about accepting change. There are far too many moments that prove that Gina represents change to Ricky, so I'll go with a classic: their first on-screen interaction in the skatepark. Ricky is in a place he is familiar and comfortable with, and ready to quit the show - and then he talks to Gina. She tries to persuade him to stick with the show - yes, she had ulterior motives, but she admits in the Homecoming car scene she really meant it when she said he makes a good Troy - and he listens. This decision changes Ricky's trajectory from skate rat trying to win his girlfriend back, to fully-fledged theatre kid, and finding he actually likes it. So, when his embodiment of positive change is suddenly ripped away from him in 1x07 with Gina moving away, it is only natural that he would place negative connotations on change afterwards, and this is why he retreats back to Nini.
With EJ, for Gina he represents the safe, comfortable option. He showed up when she was in trouble, and made her feel welcome when she was suffering. The problem was, he didn't stick around. His answer to Gina was constantly that he'd get to her later, which is not what she wanted or needed to hear (in contrast, I noticed that Ricky says to Gina, "its about the journey, not the destination"). Having spent her whole life being pushed from pillar to post, without a say in how long she could stay in one place, Gina needed to have that stability she craved in EJ, but due to EJ's own uncertainty about his future, he just could not provide that for her. Ricky, meanwhile, could, and proved it in s3 (eg. saying he'd do the wildcat cheer for her, night or day).
Gina's arc is about finding balance. For Gina, Ricky represents the stability she's been looking for her whole life, while also being the dangerous option of putting her emotions on the line. He was the first person to truly accept her for who she is. He repeatedly proves to her he wanted her in his life (eg. constantly texting her after she moved away), despite her pushing him away. Ricky, for Gina, is the embodiment of perseverance, something she has been seeking her whole life. And that scares her. (see: 'Second Chance' - "I'm safer when I'm on the run").
Another major Rina subject is that of growth, especially in regards to Ricky. As I previously said, Ricky's relationship with Nini wasn't exactly the healthiest, even before they broke up the first time around. His love for Nini was fairly immature and selfish, in that he wanted her all to himself and for her to stay around forever. This is understandable - it's his childhood best friend, his first love, they're both still just kids, figuring out who they want to be. But, it didn't allow for growth.
With Gina, especially in s3, Ricky has proven how much she has changed him for the better. Season 1 Ricky actively tried to break up EJ and Nini, and inserted himself into Nini's space (theatre) trying to win her back for himself. Now, we contrast that with his behaviour with Gina. He listens when she asks for space (all the way back in s2, as well, when Nini was basically all he thought about), and puts Gina's wants and needs above his own, actively supporting her in her new relationship, despite how much it hurts him to do so. The only time he willingly let his emotions come to the surface in s3 (before the finale), was when they were singing 'WDYKAL?', and he was pretending to pretend. He's so selfless when it comes to Gina, he would do just about anything for her, especially in his pining era. The Kristoff/Anna parallel is incredibly strong here.
Gina, while being younger, doesn't have as much visible growth as Ricky does because she was already pretty mature for her age. She knows what she wants, and isn't afraid to say when something is bothering her. She's the one who comes to Ricky to confess her feelings in the flashback, she's the one who initiates the kiss with EJ, she's the one who initiates the breakup with EJ, and she's the one who confesses that Ricky is the one she wants in 3x08. Gina's growth is more internal, simply based on the fact it is about finding inner balance. I think, her growth comes from the acceptance that she doesn't have to keep pushing to make things work - she accepts how she feels about a situation much more readily now, and is willing to walk away if need be. And with Ricky, in that final scene, she didn't need to.
In conclusion, the writing for Rina is honestly some of the best I have seen in a long time. Their romance grew naturally, while also building upon their established character traits and struggles, embodying maturity and growth and true love, portrayed by two fantastic actors with astonishing chemistry to boot.
I can't wait to see what's in store for them in season 4.
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wot reread: the shadow rising (chap 36- chap 39)
spoilers through the end of the shadow rising.
1. So, I’m guessing that a lot of these ‘jagged’ and unnatural mountains in the Waste are actually going to be the remains of skyscrapers and such, like we already saw in S1. I did not pick up on that in my earlier reads, but it feels kinda obvious this time around.
2. Aviendha just straight-up talking about how pretty Elayne is to Rand, in front of Mat and all the Aiel traveling with them, all while staring daggers at Rand. Amazing. She goes into so much detail.
3. Honestly, Rand should just do a dramatic reading of Elayne’s two letters, so that everyone else understands why he’s so confused over them. (he never would because he’s a Good Person who Respects Elayne’s Privacy... but he should)
4. Mat thinks Aviendha is “more than just pretty”. There’s so much set-up here for #PutMatInThePolycule. (in fairness, Mat thinks lots of women are pretty. which you know. true)
5. “He could [go] if Rand was not still pulling at him, holding him.”
What am I supposed to do with all this, RJ?
6. Ah, Mat’s Feelings about Rand continue to be Very Complicated, I see. Rand is basically just “protect him” whenever he’s around Mat, but Mat’s feelings are always laced with that uncertainty about the future and what will happen to Rand.
7. Like here, Rand is trying to (somewhat obliquely) warn Mat about the peddlers (while playing to his crowd), but Mat is so worried about whether or not Rand has fallen over the edge into madness that he doesn’t pick up on what Rand is trying to tell him.
8. From the perspective of a reread, it’s actually really clear what Rand is saying and doing here and it all makes perfect logical sense. But wow, it IS confusing if you don’t already know what’s going on, so I don’t blame our PoV character, Mat, for being confused. RJ would often jump out of Rand’s PoV and into someone else’s when Rand is doing something particularly clever or sneaky, so that the audience would end up surprised by his plan and maybe even think (along with the characters) that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
9. I really do appreciate Aviendha being the Worst Spy Ever. She doesn’t want to be here, she’s not gonna be a pretty ornament that listens in on Rand’s conversations, she’s just gonna be loudly miserable at every moment of the day. It’s a joy, tbh.
10. Ah, Mat starts mentally upgrading a crossbow in his mind while looking at one that the peddlers are trying to sell. Memories, icu.
11. And we get the big reveal about his memories here! This is such a cool worldbuilding thing. I’ve always been fascinating by the way Mat’s memories work.
12. We get the return of RJ’s “likely attractive to women” writing tic. Introduced to the gleeman Jasin Nateal who is super interested in Rhiudean and gets Mat to tell him all about it.
13. Literally the first thing Rand does after the Trolloc attack is come to check on Mat and see if he’s okay. Like, he’s still got his power-summoned weapon in hand and he’s coming over to make sure Mat’s okay before he does anything else. 🥺🥺🥺
14. Egeanin is introduced (she may have been introduced as a Random Named Seanchan character in Bk 2 but I don’t remember). It... occurs to me that if they wanted to fix a certain flaw in the end-run of the books, one way they could do it would be by merging/giving Egeanin’s character arc with another Seanchan character from further down the line. I can’t really go into details without massive late books spoilers but... it would be one way to improve a certain aspect of the books. It would also introduce an important late-book character a lot earlier.
Anyway, this chapter reveals that some of the Forerunners ended up in Tanchico (aka where Elayne and Nynaeve are headed) after the initial invasion wave was turned back in book 2.
15. Wow, Carridin is still searching for Rand (to kill him) all the way over on the west side of the continent and is based in Tanchico. Good luck with that, bro! You’d think his Forsaken boss would let him know that he’s looking in the wrong... ah, but it was Ishamael, wasn’t it? Who is dead. Carridin failed his mission hard.
16. Liandrin is a horrible person, but Carridin is also a horrible person. But, wow, he caves to her so quickly once he realizes she’s Black Ajah.
17. Oh hi, Glydin!
18. I think this is the first time we learn that both Deathwatch Guards and Seekers are considered ‘Imperial property’.
19. And we find out that Egeanin has been holding a sul’dam captive all this time, willing to keep her a secret even from the Seeker who just visited, because she serves as proof that all sul’dam are capable of being damane as well. This secret rocks Egeanin down to her core, and it’s implied that it would also rock the Seanchan empire to its foundations. *checks watch*
20. This character arc of Egeanin is SO GOOD, how we can see the process of her starting to break through her cultural brainwashing and realize that what she was taught was WRONG and actually kinda EVIL, but we also see how slow and painful it is for her to confront these ideas, because she grew up believing some very specific things! She’s defying her culture programing, piece by piece and it’s so well done. And I love that it actually starts here, before she meets any of Our Protagonists.
Anyway, she’s probably the best Seanchan character we ever get, so I’m glad to see her here and look forward to the next time I see her.
21. Jorin does the kissing ritual with Elayne that is only done between close family members or lovers. Elayne and the Windfinders was a good combo.
22. Elayne is shocked -- shocked! -- that Doman is now doing smuggling. Bless her.
23. Nynaeve and Elayne really do make a very good team. As Doman says, the stick and the honey.
24. It seems like a lot of Elayne’s pain and confusion here comes from wanting a certain kind of stable family structure that she didn’t get. She had vague memories of Thom, then he disappeared one day and it doesn’t sound like anyone explained to her why. There was Gareth Bryne, but even though she was pretty sure her mother was sleeping with him, it was never anything official. And now there’s another man that she’s never heard of before that is apparently her mother’s lover, and it’s emotionally confusing for Elayne to deal with. This is actually less second-hand embarrassment-y than I remember, which is nice. Her motivations and feelings are pretty clear here.
25. Nynaeve getting a warning from Birgitte in TAR! Birgitte really is playing a dangerous game by trying to help them out so much. She sees people in trouble and simply MUST help, no matter what the rules say.
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Onwards to the episode in which we get to see Flint and Silver each having a very bad day (as well as two literal dicks that nobody had asked to see).
Black Sails VII (s1 ep07)
- We open on Pastor Lambrick's sweaty face as he intensely rehearses the Easter sermon and he’s obviously eaten up by what he did with Miranda. His sermon, unsurprisingly, focuses on sin, keeping sin hidden, and the hell that awaits the sinner. Which leads us nicely onto Flint, who’s distracted (by his own sin? by thoughts of Miranda? both?) during a meeting with Eleanor. Eleanor is pissed that Miranda let Richard Guthrie send a message to the Andromache and then waltz into town to close up his business; Flint tries to take the heat off Miranda, once again protecting her (at this point, he may not know the contents of the letter).
- During this meeting, Flint is startled when Silver first speaks up to say that the mob in the street was bad - clearly Silver is a sort of intruder in this meeting. But Eleanor, after Silver reminds her by unsubtly clearing his throat, tells Flint that he’s not to harm Silver because he was instrumental in setting up the Consortium. Silver looks so pleased with himself in these scenes, and Flint quite defeated when he tells Silver to follow him back to their camp. I love it.
- To parallel Flint/Miranda’s Sulky Sex scene from ep4, we have Anne/Rackham’s frustrating/disconnected sex scene. It shows us a few things about them mainly that Anne wants to keep a lot of control over what happens, hence Rackham being tied up (though of course this might also be his kink), her wearing a shirt that covers up most of her body, and the reverse cowgirl position that means that she’s both in control of what happens and completely avoids eye contact. The position reminds us of the Flint/Miranda scene, where Miranda was also on top, but their scene involved more eye contact (yes glaring counts, he’s still intensely focused on Miranda), gentle touching (on Miranda’s side) and her being naked and open to him. Another parallel is that both Flint and Rackham aren’t in the right frame of mind for sex, Flint being angry and Rackham lost in a sea of worries (and probably also somewhat angry/disappointed at Anne for forcing him into the plot to kill their crewmates). The difference between Flint and Rackham is that while Flint doesn’t seem to have any trouble performing, Rackham is miles away and doesn’t even notice that he’s lost his erection - again. Anne is frustrated by this, and apparently knows him well enough that she offers to put something up his arse, but he’s clearly not in the mood, and she leaves in a huff, abandoning him all tied up as a sort of revenge for his performance problems. Whatever the problem is between them isn’t put into words (because Anne can’t yet, for starters), unlike the one between Flint and Miranda. The intimacy between Rackham and Anne, so often described as close partners, seems much more distant to me than the one shown between Flint and Miranda. I’m not sure whether it’s because of anyone’s sexual orientation, or just the fact that they’re fucking but they’ve never discussed the big important things, such as Anne’s identity/feelings/etc.
- In this episode, Dufresne gains a lot of power: with a freshly (and badly) shaved head and a new tattoo, he’s been promoted to Quartermaster on the Walrus in Billy’s place. And very quickly he has a problem to deal with: Randall revealing that Silver stole the page. Gates had actually already told this to Dufresne, as is revealed at the end of the episode, which might explain why Dufresne is relatively calm during the whole conversation, while DeGroot wants Silver and Flint hanged and Howell is surprisingly ruthless: he brings up the idea that it may be better to kill off Randall in order to get to the treasure, if they can’t make sure he’ll keep quiet about Silver being the thief. Dufresne is actually quite kind towards Silver in the scene where he puts Silver’s memory to the test - a test that could result in his death if he fails it and that Silver constantly grumbles against (I love his grumbling!). Basically, at this point Dufresne remains quite a sympathetic character, which will change a lot as the show goes on, especially after Jannes Eiselen had to leave the show (such a sad story, RIP Jannes).
- In the meantime, the Flint and Gates relationship is crumbling. It's sad to see, especially since they're shown sharing chuckles as they talk about Dufresne's appointment in the beginning of the episode. But then Gates brings up the subject of Miranda and demands explanations about the letter Billy found. We're not shown exactly what Flint answers, but it's clear that he's actually trying his best to give him an explanation without incriminating Miranda too badly. The sad thing is that Flint is actually telling the truth: he actually wasn't involved in any betrayal of his crew and and can only guess at Miranda's motivations. But the fact that he's lied time and again in previous situations, including on the Maria Aleyne where he claimed Lord Alfred drew a weapon on him (and Gates secretly verified that this was a lie), and used men as pawns to advance his and Miranda's plans, is now catching up to him. Flint seems truly hurt when Gates accuses him of using the men for his own purposes, and turns spiteful, telling Gates that he should have been "a better father" to Billy and helped him "understand the world he was living in" (suggesting that such a forthright character as Billy can't really survive in a world of pirates who are all ready to stab each other in the back). After that slap in the face, Gates says he's exhausted from Flint and threatens to take it to the crew. Somehow, this pushes Flint to bare all: he tells Gates about his plan to keep a part of the treasure and use it to build up Nassau, depicting himself as a sort of saviour, doing it for the men's good: they'd rather be rich men in a safe place than dead thieves hanging from a noose. Gates sees this as delusions of grandeur, and tells him that while he'll see the Urca plot through, after that they're done. I actually think he sees Flint’s point, since he doesn’t just throw him to the crew, but won’t admit that out loud. The whole of this scene hurts bad, because you can tell that Flint is desperate and sad to be losing his closest ally and friend, and that Gates is hurting from the loss of Billy and exhausted from the toxic relationship he has with Flint, where he's played enabler to his manipulations for years.
- While Flint and Gates’ alliance is breaking, Silver has to forge one with Randall or die. Randall finds out in the beginning of the episode that he’s been voted out of the crew. This is apparently due to DeGroot’s fears that Randall could be a fire hazard, which the crew took disproportionately to heart. Randall is furious with Silver, who smugly tells him that in these situations, a setback often comes with a new or unexpected opportunity. He’s right, but at this point he doesn’t know that he is the opportunity Randall’s going to latch on. Randall reveals that Silver is a thief, and Silver denies it, saying that Randall is both a halfwit and was in a haze of opium when he heard what he thought he heard; he even tries to convince Randall that he was mistaken (this, my friends, is gaslighting). However, by revealing that Silver was the thief, Randall sets a chain of events into motion which could either end with his death (if Howell has his way, since Randall is an inconvenient witness) or Silver’s (if DeGroot tips the balance, not trusting Silver to remember the coordinates and not wanting to sacrifice Randall for nothing). Silver figures out that these are the outcomes, and tries to talk sense into Randall by making a deal with him: he’ll care for Randall and make sure he can stay on the ship. But it’s only when Silver finally admits that he is the thief and that Randall was right, that Randall accepts the deal. Later, Silver realises that Randall might have orchestrated the whole thing: he’s now got Silver to serve him, doesn’t have to take any risks on the ship, and gets to remain with the crew. Silver wonders if Randall is a genius rather than a halfwit (a word thrown about a lot to describe him). And it seems quite obvious, considering what happened, that Randall still has strong survival skills (an amputee with impaired cognitive skills doesn’t stand a chance of survival outside a crew and he must be aware of it), that he still has a good memory and an ability to pick out useful information and that he’s aware enough of what’s going on to be upset by the crew’s rejection and Silver’s attempt to gaslight him. I think it’s important to recognise that Randall is more than a comic relief or a grotesque character: he’s a disabled man who's lost parts of his cognitive ability and is struggling to survive.
- This episode focuses on Vane facing his past. He seeks out the island where he grew up and its master, Albinus. I’d forgotten or never really registered that Albinus was a pirate and that the men who work for him were mostly his crew - and likely slaves (or children, hence Vane?) that he managed to capture/press into service. He’s retired from pirating and set up a system where his men cut down trees for timber all day, without wages. It’s not clear exactly how he holds so much power over these men, although it seems that everyone is terrified of him. He’s extremely strong physically, seems shrewd, speaks rather well, and his tattoos suggest that maybe he’s involved in some kind of ritual (truly religious or just for show?) which would make him all the more scary to superstitious people. Vane is clearly still frightened: he barely makes eye contact and practically stutters when he first tries to make the deal with Albinus, which is that he’ll take some of Albinus’ men as crew and send Albinus part of their earnings as tribute. It says a lot about Albinus that Vane, after years of having run away, is still so scares that he’s willing to pay him a tribute. But he changes his mind as he stares at a boy bearing the same brand as he does: he tries to persuade the men that Nassau is a pace of pleasures rather than hard labour, and confronts Albinus. The fight is brutal and ends with Vane buried naked, just after Albinus tells him that he’s proud of him. But of course Vane wouldn’t be Vane if he didn’t rise from the dead at the last minute and kill Albinus, goaded on by his inner Eleanor voice.
- In the meantime, Mr Scott returns to Eleanor, apologising for what he did, telling her he betrayed her out of love. However he also reminds her of his slave status: technically, he belongs to her. The argument upsets her, and he quite cleverly uses this moment to ask her to free the slaves who were on the Andromache. And it works: by the end of the episode, she’s made arrangements for the men to work on ships and has bought the women’s freedom and found them jobs in her tavern. But Mr Scott has still decided to leave Eleanor to join Hornigold’s crew, to refrain from meddling with Eleanor’s affairs, since he disagrees with her so strongly re: the Urca. Hornigold approached him earlier in the episode, and the introduction to that scene is quite interesting: Hornigold says to Mr Scott “I’ll need to know your secret” and Mr Scott looks startled and frightened. It seems that he’s startled because he’d been giving food to the slaves, but in light of S3, it could be a much greater secret that’s being referred to. Mr Scott is relieved when he realises that Hornigold is simply talking about tolerating Eleanor, who he clearly can’t stand.
- Flint’s bad day continues, of course, with the big confrontation he has with Miranda. He’s furious about the letter (of which he now knows the contents thanks to Gates), telling her that it could have got him killed, or destroyed the plans they’d made and asking her whether she was trying to embarrass him. This sounds so weirdly petty, and yet it also sounds exactly like the kind of argument that would come up in a bickering couple. Miranda answers that she was trying to help him out of that life, because she wants to move on. This is where Miranda utters the famous “there is no life here, there is no joy here, there is no love here”. I noticed that, covered by Flint yelling at her, and distorted because her voice has gone very shrill, Miranda says another line, which sounds like “you used to love, then”. If that really is what she says, it’s extra-extra-extra heartbreaking to hear (if someone wants to check it for me, it’s around 35:40). It’s obvious that Flint and Miranda’s views on life are very different, and I can’t help but think back to the fact that, as a carpenter’s son from the country, Flint has had to struggle all his life to become who he is. So when he says that you can’t get a life without having a war, and Miranda tells him he’s wrong, she’s speaking entirely from the point of view of her privilege. She’s never needed to fight as hard as he has to be happy, because she got extremely lucky in marrying Thomas. And when she says that Thomas would agree with her, I’m certain she’s right. But life has never been like that for Flint, and there’s no way he’ll ever entirely agree with their point of view. Rewatching this scene is tough, btw, because they both have great points, they’re both hurting so much, and there’s so much to take in between the body language, the facial expressions, the tones of voice and the actual words that it’s a whole whirlwind. And it feels very, very real.
- It’s absolutely hilarious to see Rackham get robbed by the whores taking advantage of his lack of knowledge (and research). He should absolutely have done a better job and has no clue how to run a brothel. He’s lucky Max takes things in hand after having heard from Idelle that the girls were taking advantage.
- Then we have the beautiful Drunk Flint scene. Eleanor notices him feeling very sorry for himself after Gates has pretty much broken up with him and he’s still reeling from fighting with by Miranda. I think Flint feels very misunderstood here. He thought that he was doing something good, to save Nassau and avenge Thomas, and doesn’t understand why they can’t see it, why they only see the terrible methods he uses to reach his goals. So he’s full of doubt, clearly wondering if he’s the villain of the story, and puts the question to Eleanor: is their plan worth it? Eleanor is the only person who still believes in him, which leads us to the only scene that I would ever call straight-baiting. Flint hovers near Eleanor, breathing heavily, and a variety of emotions play over her face during this moment of tension, as she seems to think this is leading to a kiss. It does, he gives her a chaste little forehead kiss and leaves. All the elements are in place to make your average viewer start shipping these two. I actually find it hilarious that the ship barely exists in the fandom (though I wasn’t there in the beginning of the fandom and I guess the viewership changed a lot between S1 and S4).
- The scene with Flint and Gates glaring at each other from their respective ships and Parson’s Farewell playing in the background... epic! We know this is the beginning of a big struggle between them, especially since we find out that Gates has pretty much decided that he’ll hand Flint over to the crew once they get the money. But nnnnggh that scene! The ships leaving on their hunt! Awesome and heartbreaking!
#black sails#flint#gates#flint & gates#miranda#flintmiranda#eleanor#flint & eleanor#mr scott#eleanor & mr scott#silver#randall#dufresne#degroot#howell#vane#rackham#max#pastor lambrick#ableism cw#long post cw#black sails rewatch
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[Analysis] S2 Gavin’s theme song
The music used in MLQC is incredibly evocative and carefully constructed, so I spent some time analysing S2 Gavin’s theme song because I find that it sums up the relationship he has with MC very nicely!
Music is highly subjective, so don’t worry if you have a different view from me :>
🍒 Warning: Contains tons of S2 Gavin spoilers! I’ve tried to make things really clear in this post so you wouldn’t have to read through the entire swamp of S2 Gavin translations to understand what’s going on, but I’ll still include links to the references made! 🍒
INTRODUCTION [ 0:00 - 0:12 ] - Reuniting as adults
I received a jump scare the first time I played the theme song LOL
It starts off abruptly in two ways - (1) the sound effect resembling a puff of air, and (2) the fact that it mirrors the 0:38 mark of S1 Gavin’s theme.
The sound effect resembling a puff of air essentially captures how S2 Gavin and MC reunite as adults -
Before I take a step forward, there’s a sudden tightening on my wrist.
My hands are firmly clasped behind me. Before I can get a proper look at the person’s face, my whole body is pressed against the glass behind me.
??: What are you doing here?
A familiar voice enters my ears, reminiscent of wind from the past awakening my memories.
The fact that S2 Gavin’s theme starts around the halfway point of S1 Gavin’s theme is pretty significant.
On a superficial level, this could reflect how there’s both a sense of familiarity yet foreignness to their dynamics. But this isn’t limited to S2 Gavin x MC, because the dynamics between the other love interests and MC do see a slight change as well.
But what’s perhaps more unique to their situation is that back in S1, Gavin and MC didn't get to know each other properly until they became adults. In contrast, when S2 Gavin and MC reunite as adults, they already have a shared past in Loveland High.
While we don’t know how their lives in Loveland High played out in detail, it’s inferred that they had meals together frequently:
Boss: Then, do you remember that lady who often came here with you back then? She still visits, and also likes to have her beef noodles with extra chilli.
Also, Mr Keller knows that the two of them are somewhat close and are still in contact, since he gets MC’s help in passing Gavin some old photographs, and invited the both of them to visit Loveland High for an activity. In contrast, back in S1, MC didn’t even know that Mr Keller knew who Gavin was until Campus Date.
Just as we’re thrown into the halfway point of what resembles the S1 soundtrack, we’re thrown into an iffy, halfway point of their relationship. In Chapter 1 of the main storyline, we can tell that they know each other well enough, but they aren’t as close as we’d expect ex-schoolmates to be.
Their meeting comes across slightly antagonistic on Gavin’s part, and he even straight out lies to her that officers are approaching, in order to force an answer out of her. Similarly, in Stray Date, Gavin uses his Evol to send her hovering over the ocean, once again trying to force an answer out of her.
Thankfully, this antagonism fizzles out very quickly as we learn that this is just Gavin’s tactic to squeeze the truth out of MC for her own good. And that he still cares about her deeply (evident in Dangerous Night Date).
Aside from the abrupt start, there are three other things to note:
The S2 soundtrack is much slower, and the notes are drawn out as compared to the S1 soundtrack. I’m inclined to viewing this as a representation of Gavin’s self-assuredness and pure confidence as the Commander of the STF and leader of the Special Operations Team
The piano chords. It’s probably just me, but I feel that they resemble the chime of a school bell. This point becomes significant in the analysis of the bridge, which we’ll get to later
There’s a somewhat grating, scratchy sound which I see as a representation of the tension between S2 Gavin and MC. There are only three places in the song where this scratchy sound isn’t present - the first verse, the bridge, and the outro
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FIRST VERSE [ 0:12 - 0:38 ] - Gavin the student
This part likely represents the time Gavin was still in Loveland High, because the grating, scratchy sounds mentioned earlier (which I associate with the tension between Commander Gavin and MC), aren’t present.
At 0:24, individual piano notes come in. Even though they sound careful, they aren’t played in synchrony with the firm and resolute guitar notes. Sometimes, the piano notes are played alongside the guitar notes. Sometimes, they don’t.
I’d say that this represents missed opportunities. Despite S2 Gavin and MC meeting earlier in S2, MC ended up re-living one of her main regrets - not getting to read Gavin’s letter:
MC: They said Minor left a bloodstained letter on my desk and thought it was a threatening letter, so no one dared to go near it. But by the time I returned to the classroom, the letter was gone. I searched for such a long time… but couldn’t find it… I thought I accidentally threw it into the dustbin, so I looked through it for a long time. But… I couldn’t find that letter anywhere.
My voice grows even softer at the end, and I don’t dare to lift my head to look at him.
Even if this world were to be reset, unexpected events still present such regrets.
Like a merciless joke, an antithesis to my unwillingness to be powerless.
Even if she had read the letter and gone to the meeting spot, it turns out S2 Gavin didn’t even stay long enough to meet her at the arranged time:
Gavin: That’s not important anymore. Back then, I had already left before the arranged time. So it’s all right.
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SECOND VERSE [ 0:38 - 1:04 ] - Gavin the Commander
The grating, scratchy sounds come in, injecting a metallic feeling which is in line with how S2 Gavin is often described as a “sharp blade” numerous times. As mentioned earlier, these sounds could also be a depiction of the layers of friction between MC and S2 Gavin.
MC is on her guard around S2 Gavin at the start, such as in R&S [Reunited Yesterday] where she thinks of leaving Lynn’s Kitchen the moment she sees that Gavin’s there too, and how she was genuinely fearful and trembling when he used his Evol to send her hovering her over the ocean in Stray Date.
If you listen carefully, you can hear that the individual piano notes are somewhat copying the upward climb of the guitar we’re used to hearing in the S1 bgm.
This could represent MC holding on to her memories of S1 Gavin as she navigates the new dynamics she has with S2 Gavin, which gives her the courage not to get intimidated by his cold exterior, and to trust him completely.
Gavin: I haven’t even rescued you out yet.
MC: With you around, there won’t be a problem.
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FIRST CHORUS [ 1:04 - 1:28 ]
From 1:19 to the end of the chorus, the piano keys go off on their own, and they come across much more confident and complement the guitar notes much more than in the first verse.
I see all the choruses as instances where S2 Gavin and MC are given opportunities to work together, and we witness how well they gel as a pair. The best examples so far would be Stray Date and The Guardian Project.
I’m no longer that person who only knows how to let you stand in front of me. This time, I’ll stand beside you, and will not back down.
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THIRD VERSE [ 1:28 - 1:56 ]
Nothing to say here, similar analysis to the second verse!
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SECOND CHORUS [ 1:56 - 2:22 ]
Same analysis as the previous chorus.
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BRIDGE [ 2:22 - 2:47 ] - Reminiscence
This part is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s obviously in stark contrast to the rest of the song as the piano takes the stage here. Even though you can still hear the electronic guitar in the background, it’s incredibly muted and mirroring the melody of the piano.
The instrument complementing the piano (it sounds like a harpsichord?) sounds like a middleground between the sharpness of the electronic guitar and the gentleness of the piano.
And here’s where the piano chords I mentioned at the start are significant. This is the only part in the entire song where the piano chords aren’t played. Rather, the chords are broken up and played as individual notes.
This part gives me the mental image of S2 Gavin and MC on the rooftop of Loveland High, reminiscing on their school days when things were simpler. It’s a moment where they peel away their roles as STF’s Commander and Black Swan’s Nox, and are simply Gavin and MC, old friends from school.
It basically represents the rare, precious moments of reprieve S2 Gavin and MC get in the ever-looming danger of S2.
Yet, even outside this safe bubble, the chords continue to be played consistently. They may be subdued in certain parts of the song, and louder in others, but the chords are always there. Their shared past in Loveland High isn’t something S2 Gavin can just ignore. On the contrary, it’s something that likely supported him through his time in the Police Academy:
Gavin is standing underneath a tree, holding a photograph in his hand.
Gavin doesn’t notice Tang Chao. All of his focus is channelled onto that photograph. In this moment, he seems to have unloaded all his defences, becoming a Gavin different from his usual self. Those perpetually stern eyes have grown dim, bringing with them a twinge of fatigue.
Tang Chao holds his breath, subconsciously squinting his eyes to identify the photograph. On it seems to be… a female? Could she be Instructor Gavin’s…
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THIRD CHORUS [ 2:47 - 3:13 ] - The power couple
The chorus returns with incredible force, and it’s slightly different from the first two choruses. In the first chorus, the piano is subdued. In the second chorus, you can hear the piano, but it melds into the melody.
In this chorus, the piano is clearly audible, but it doesn’t disappear into the melody like in the second chorus. It goes off on its own, yet blends with the music at the same time.
I’m given the image of a power couple who complement and fight alongside each other. We see this very clearly in The Guardian Project), where S2 Gavin sees MC as an equal to the point where he readily agrees to go along with her plan without having to hear it first.
MC: I have a plan. It could lure the suspect out without requiring more manpower. Would you like to try?
Gavin turns his head to look at me steadily.
Gavin: What do you need me to do?
MC: You’re agreeing just like that?
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OUTRO [ 3:13 - end ] - The future
As mentioned at the beginning, the introduction mirrors the middle portion of S1 Gavin’s theme. Here, the outro mirrors the first few notes of S1 Gavin’s theme...
We see S1 Gavin in S2 Gavin. His clumsy way of showing concern, his protectiveness over MC, his jealous tendencies, his handsome face, etc.
Gavin: But protecting you - this won’t change.
His expression is very cold, and a certain emotion seems to be restrained in his voice.
What he says is reminiscent to words being tossed out in a fit of anger. At the same time, it’s also reminiscent of a vow he has always been fulfilling.
Gavin: Regardless of position, I’ll never let you get caught up in danger.
The tune draws to a close with a crescendo which ends abruptly yet on a hopeful, anticipatory note. Their story is far from over, and I can’t wait to see what this undefeatable tag team will accomplish together.
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Final thoughts:
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this even though S2 is still very far away LOL And special thanks to @ginkgomoon who has been waiting patiently for this analysis T^T♡ If you enjoy reading Gavin-related analysis, do check out her blog!!
I wish I were a better writer so I can fully convey why the S2 Gavin x MC dynamic is so incredible, and quell the worry most Gavin stans have about S2.
Relying on my translations is a completely different experience compared to hearing the emotions in the voiced lines and seeing the sprites, so I can understand why it might be difficult to feel as much for them as I do T-T
The thing I love most about the S2 dynamic is that the relationship between them is much more natural. Instead of S1 Gavin falling head over heels for MC the moment he saw her in the rain and started following her around, S2 Gavin and MC already established a friendship in Loveland High in S2. And they tease each other so much more HNNGHGH SLOW BURNS HURT SO GOOD
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okay so like. i feel like i should come to terms with my ‘4 seasons of the daily punctilio as the office’ because while i came up with GREAT episode descriptions, and also spent like two months of my life dissecting sitcom structure (which was, admittedly, a lot of fun), it would take the Longest to write and the Longest to post, which is terrible, not ideal at all, so
the highlights, which might make it into my current vague incarnation of ‘modern AU where vfd is a book club in some way’ --
-eleanora poe is the managing editor of the punctilio, and she won possession of the paper in a card game from the previous owner (who was vfd-adjacent) -moxie is city desk editor, lemony is copyeditor, and then jacques does fashion and ramona does finances -they work the night shift, 4pm-12am -geraldine is hired in the third episode as the theater critic to great distress of the entire staff
it’s honestly easier to just, post how i wrote out the episode descriptions to show the vague plot i had mapped out, especially because i’m very proud of them regardless --
i hadn’t figured out a and b plots for all of them, so i left the ones i had written down --
s1, e1 – the punctilio – eleanora wants to take the punctilio in a new direction.
-a plot – the staff gets used to working with a documentary crew as eleanora tries to push the punctilio in a more honest direction.
s1, e2 – the article – the staff works overtime in an attempt to get their articles done.
-a plot – demeaned by the staff’s antics, eleanora has them work overtime to finish articles.
s1, e3 – the new kid – geraldine julienne is hired as the new theater critic.
-a plot – geraldine wants to prove herself, so she decides to do all her work herself.
s1, e4 – the book club – geraldine finds out the other staff members have a book club and tries to get in.
-a plot – geraldine wants to fit in, so she tries to join the book club.
s1, e5 – the ribbon – lemony and moxie try to find a replacement typewriter ribbon.
-a plot – lemony wants to fix his friendship with moxie, so he asks her to help him get new ribbons.
s1, e6 – the finances – ramona uncovers a filing error.
s1, e7 – the straight man – the staff tries to make jacques laugh.
-a plot – concerned at jacques’s steady impassiveness, the staff tries to make him laugh.
-b plot – lemony and the rewrite crew deal with geraldine’s articles?
s1, e8 – the actress – lemony’s girlfriend visits the punctilio offices and creates a stir.
s2, e1 – the theater night – the staff spends an evening at the theater.
-a plot – because the staff doesn’t understand his relationship with beatrice, lemony invites them to the theater.
-b plot – to prove her position, geraldine tries to get esme’s attention at the theater.
s2, e2 – the banker – the staff encounters eleanora’s brother, who comes to audit the office.
-a plot – the staff, hostile to anyone disrupting the paper, does not take well to arthur poe.
-b plot – ramona fields calls from her mother about replanning the garden.
s2, e3 – the sunglasses – eleanora deals with a theft.
s2, e4 – the pigeon – geraldine inadvertently scares the pigeons.
-a plot – attempting to assert her position and knowledge, geraldine accidentally scares lemony’s pigeons off the fire escape.
s2, e5 – the 3rd annual esme squalor fan club dinner party and salad bar – geraldine tries to bring the staff together.
-a plot – geraldine wants to show she’s sophisticated, and involves the staff in the planning of the dinner.
-b plot – lemony wants revenge on geraldine for the pigeons, and sabotages the dinner.
s2, e6 – the inheritance – ramona returns to winnipeg after her mother has an accident.
-a plot – lemony gets updates from winnipeg as ramona helps her mother.
s2, e7 – the kansas city shuffle – eleanora considers some staffing changes.
-a plot – lemony and eleanora engage in mind games as eleanora shuffles the staff around in ramona’s absence and lemony tries to keep his job.
s2, e8 – the intern – the punctilio picks up a new intern.
-a plot – because he misses ramona, and other personal reasons, lemony shuns the new intern. (bertrand. the intern is bertrand.)
s2, e9 – the replacement – eleanora cements her staffing changes.
s2, e10 – the reunion – ramona returns to the punctilio.
-a plot – not wanting to desert her post and colleagues, ramona returns to the punctilio and has to deal with the changes eleanora made.
s2, e11 – the rival – moxie, geraldine, and eleanora meet someone from jacques, lemony, and ramona’s childhood.
-a plot – desperate not to be upstaged or embarrassed by the appearance of olaf, lemony, jacques, and ramona decide to upstage him?
-b plot – eleanora and moxie, feeling left out, try to figure out what olaf’s deal is.
s2, e12 – the salmon – the staff get together to review a new restaurant.
a plot – in pairs, the staff goes to review cafe salmonella.
b plot – eleanora, allergic to salmon and disappointed she can’t go, fields phone calls.
s2, e13 – the framing, part one – on the tail of a big story that might finally get her on the wall of Best Articles, geraldine accidentally frames lemony for a series of crimes.
-b plot – geraldine wants to be on the wall so badly that she digs too hard into an article. (I had an idea it was about like, since she’s fashion editor, eye tattoos???? hmm hmm hmm!)
s3, e1 – the framing, part two – the staff scramble to clear lemony’s name. (fuck the cold open is like, lemony saying once again, “do I have any regrets? several. …. I left the tea kettle in our apartment on.”) (god the sheer beautiful absurdity of lemony on the run…..followed by a camera crew I’m dying)
-a plot – moxie takes the lead on trying to clear lemony of false accusations.
s3, e2 – the assignment – lemony encounters the punctilio’s previous intern.
-a plot – when lemony runs into bertrand again, he wants to make amends.
-b plot – jacques and geraldine get put on assignment together.
s3, e3 – the costume party – beatrice holds a costume party.
-a plot – lemony is nervous about the party and bertrand, and hides the whole time.
s3, e4 – the trivia night – the staff attend trivia night at a local cafe.
-a plot – jacques is nervous about talking to jerome, and asks lemony to accompany him to trivia night – the whole staff follows.
-b plot – geraldine wants to impress people, and studies up for the trivia night.
s3, e5 – the blues (I guess that’s why they call it) – jacques takes a day off.
-a plot – to cope with being denied by jerome, jacques takes a day off.
-b plot – lemony struggles with his feelings and takes it out on the staff. moxie retaliates.
s3, e6 – the moonlighting – geraldine has a hard time keeping lemony’s second job a secret.
-a plot – torn between wanting to keep a secret and wanting to tell people bc reporter, geraldine goes to great lengths to try and keep lemony’s playwright job a secret.
s3, e7 – the summer camp gang – moxie and lemony hang out with their summer camp friends. (the sbts crew)
s3, e8 – the book club, part 2 – things escalate in the book club.
-a plot – at the monthly ‘book club’ meeting, things get out of hand when the punctilio is brought up.
s3, e9 – the telegram – eleanora gets a telegram from an old friend.
-a plot – eleanora receives a telegram from the previous owner of the punctilio and her old boss.
-b plot – jacques and ramona wait for a different telegram.
s3, e10 – the game – a flashback to eight years previously, when eleanora got the punctilio.
-a plot – eleanora, much like her employees in the present, wants to prove herself, and engages in a battle of wits to get a newspaper of her own.
s3, e11 – the librarian – moxie gets involved in a dispute between the snickets and a librarian. (dewey.)
s3, e12 – the hustle – after being picked up at the city jail, lemony tells ramona what happened at the pool hall.
-a plot – having called ramona because she’d be the least embarrassing, lemony talks about how pride was his downfall at the pool hall.
-b plot – moxie and jacques get involved in a game of Hell Chess.
s3, e13 – the siblings snicket – jacques and lemony’s sister returns to town.
-a plot – worried about lemony and jacques, their sister, kit, visits the punctilio to check on them.
-b plot – moxie and geraldine become determined to find out about the person who runs the presses.
s4, e1 – the feint – the staff investigates the local mystery of the feint family.
s4, e2 – the cat – ellington and the staff butt heads.
s4, e3 – the anniversary – geraldine’s three year hiring anniversary is derailed.
s4, e4 – the train – the staff finds themselves trapped on a train.
s4, e5 – the candlestick maker – the investigation takes a turn.
s4, e6 – and all of them out to sea – the investigation into the feints comes to an unexpected end.
s4, e7 – the lunch – lemony tries to meet someone for lunch.
s4, e8 – the soda – geraldine gets an offer.
-a plot – geraldine is torn between her love and devotion to the punctilio and her still-there desire to prove herself, especially to esme, when esme offers her a job.
s4, e9 – the reckoning – moxie makes a decision.
-a plot – moxie is startled to find herself upset about geraldine’s offer.
s4, e10 – the fire – eleanora’s telegram from last season comes back to haunt the punctilio.
s4, e11 – the end – lemony, jacques, and ramona reach an understanding.
s4, e12 – the caveat – eleanora fights for her employees.
s4, e13 – the volunteers – geraldine and lemony talk.
-a plot – scared that the punctilio and her friends are breaking up, geraldine seeks out lemony for advice.
s4, e14 – the punctilio, part 2 – once again, the punctilio takes a new direction.
-b plot – the cameraman is finally revealed.
#lulu talks about the sad lemon man#i love episode titles that are like 'the [x]' so that's why they're all like that. i think they're delightful and no title style is better
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hi me again 🥺 sorry for making you tear up even if it was in a good way (hopefully?) 💕 i don’t mind the wait at all, i completely understand and it’s 100% worth it (honestly i get so excited whenever you post a new fic)!! soooo... i was doing some research for a project on epilepsy and i got thinking about epileptic martin?? like particular in s1 maybe he didn’t tell the other archives crew as he didn’t know them that well/hadn’t worked closely with them before (ok sorry tbc as i am rambling)
hello friend!!! I am so sorry that this took me a literally unreasonable amount of time to write! I really enjoyed the research I did for this, and I love this hc forever. And I hope this is what you were looking for <3
CW seizures, nausea, misgendering
Focus.
Just focus.
For god’s sake.
It’s been nearly an hour of Martin sitting at his desk, trying desperately to rein in any sliver of concentration he can muster to look at the laptop screen before him. He feels awful doing it, but every time Jon has passed by his desk that day, he’s found himself pretending to click around or to type—though he’s got the brightness set so far down there’s no way he’d be able to see it anyway. After a few attempts at turning it back up, he’s had to immediately look away, as the pounding behind his eyes resumes again. So for now, he’s stuck with reading statements—something he is loathe to do even on a good day.
And this certainly wasn’t.
He knows better than this, knows that he’s very nearly approaching disaster—what with the not sleeping out of hypervigilance, not eating out of anxiety, and not having his seizure meds for the past two days, as he’d managed to run out of his flat without them. And there’s no doubt in his mind that he cannot send anyone back to his flat. Not with Prentiss still on the loose.
Selfish selfish selfish
No, stop it.
You haven’t even done anything.
Wishing more than anything that his mind did not constantly run him ragged with thoughts like this, Martin looks up from his papers, intending to find a rubber band to snap against his wrist as a distraction, but instead—
Instead he finds himself frozen, colors fading in and out across his vision, heartbeat steadily climbing as his fingers go numb.
No no no no
Not now not now please not now
Realistically, he knows it’s only been a few seconds, but the seconds feel like years against the rapid thrum thrum thrum in his ears, made even worse when he sees Tim approaching from the periphery.
Damn it damn it
Please please please
“Hey Marto!”
Like clockwork, the focal aware seizure ends, and at last—at last he is able to move enough to look up at where Tim stands, leaning against his desk, smile fading rapidly as he watches Martin blinking in the suddenly-too-bright light.
“You alright?” he asks, tilting his head to the side to get a better look at his face, doubtless taking note of how quickly he is breathing now to match his settling heart rate.
“Y-yeah, sorry, um. Was just thinking,” is all he can reply, fighting to put an easy smile back on his face.
It seems to have been the wrong move, as Tim only shifts to sit atop his desk, expression quickly becoming overrun with concern.
“Okay, well…you look like you’re having a panic attack, mate,” he says lowly, reaching across him to grab his water bottle and set it nearer to him. “What do you need?”
Even with his misguided interpretation, Martin can’t help the flood of affection he feels toward him in this moment—because that’s just Tim, isn’t it? Never assumes, just asks what will help and then does it.
If only I weren’t such a mess, and would let him.
“Oh, n-no it’s not—it’s not that, Tim, I’m—I’m alright. Must’ve…drifted off, or something. Had a nightmare.”
There is no way Tim buys that, no way in hell—but thankfully, he lets it go.
“O…kay then. Well. If that’s the case, I was just thinking of grabbing some lunch, do you want anything? Don’t reckon you’ve eaten properly in a bit, yeah?”
God, Tim.
I don’t deserve this.
Yes, you do. You deserve a friend and you need to eat.
You need to eat.
“Uhh—th-thanks, erm. Where—where are you going?” he asks, wishing to god his voice didn’t sound so shaky.
He takes a few intentionally deep breaths after that—thinking that perhaps it is a panic attack, after all. Without realizing that several seconds have gone by since his question, he feels Tim’s bracing hand on his shoulder, knowing that he’s not going to ask again—but offering him a clear sign that he’s there all the same.
“Just the corner shop,” he murmurs, starting to rub his thumb over the shoulder seam of Martin’s t-shirt. “Nothing fancy. But I can get you a sandwich, if you like. Well, no—I am getting you a sandwich regardless, but I thought I might be considerate for once and ask if there was anything in particular that you want.”
“Yeah—erm, yeah, just. Anything that’s warm would be nice,” he says at last, sinking a bit as Tim removes his hand from his shoulder. “Thanks, Tim. That’s—that’s really kind.”
“Don’t mention it. Seriously,” he says, clapping his hand back against Martin’s shoulder with force before standing. “Be back in a bit. Drink that water.”
“I will,” Martin nods, earning himself some finger guns of approval before Tim starts walking towards the lift. “Thanks, mate.”
And he’s so close now, so close to shouting after him, to asking him to pick up his meds from the chemist, if he calls them in—
Just ask just ask just ask
—and then Tim is around the corner, and out of sight.
Damn it all.
He tells himself it’s probably for the best anyway—that he’s not really even sure he can get them. But it doesn’t stop him burying his face in his hands, tugging at his hair in frustration and shame. Really though, he ought to call first before mentioning anything—perhaps they have a delivery service, or they’ll refuse him, or something.
And what then?
The idea of finding himself suddenly on the floor of the archives, alone and in the dark with the worms having crawled all over him while he seized—
Have to call.
Reaching bitterly for his phone, he takes a deep breath as it rings, preparing his best “customer service” voice.
“Boots, how can we help you today?”
“Hi! Erm, I was wondering if—if I could get a refill for my prescription? For—for carbamazepine,” he says, cheery voice belying the dread with which he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Sure thing! Just need your name and date of birth and I’ll look you up.”
“Right. Erm—well, it’s Martin, but I think you’ve still got me under, erm. Mary Blackwood,” he says, forcing himself not to grit his teeth at the foul taste his deadname leaves in his mouth. “Date of birth October 15th, 1987.”
“Alright, let’s see here—“
Please please please
“—it looks like you’ve already got your refill, Miss Blackwood. Our system says you picked up your medication on the 19th.”
“It’s—it’s Mister, actually. Erm,” he stammers, stomach churning over the entire thing. “L-listen, I—I’ve had to leave my home quite suddenly, and—and I am unable to return there for the time being. So I don’t—I don’t have access to my meds. And I, erm. Really need them.”
Pathetic pathetic pathetic
“I’m really sorry, Mister Blackwood. You’re going to have your doctor call in another prescription for you before we can get you that refill. Unfortunately, it’s out of our hands.”
Of course.
“Oh, right. That’s erm—that’s okay. Thank you so much,” he says as brightly as possible, unwilling to blame anyone for something out of their control.
“You’re quite welcome. Take care.”
With a long, shaky sigh, Martin throws his phone back onto his desk, returning his head to its rightful place, buried in his hands. There’s no way he can call his doctor today—or tomorrow even, with it already being a Friday afternoon. No chance of him getting his refill, then. And no chance of sending Tim back to his apartment either.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
It was just a focal, nothing too bad.
Nothing unmanageable.
I can make it.
Steeling himself with somewhat tremulous determination, he takes another long breath—blinking back against the steady pounding in his head, and getting back to work.
—
“Aw come on, Sasha! Take a break with me!”
“Not on your life. I’m still furious with you, you know,” she replies, tossing her hair like a lion’s mane over her back. “Can’t believe you’d go all the way to the good café for Martin, and not offer me anything. Not even crumbs, Stoker!”
“Listen—” Tim grins back, hands raised in self-defense. “He looked like he could use some soup! I don’t know what else to say.”
“And you didn’t get me any? What about me doesn’t scream ‘I could use some soup, thank you?’”
“It’s different!! It’s—Martin? You alright?”
As he was walking past their bickering, eyes firmly fixed on the floor on the lookout for worms, Martin had suddenly stopped short—looking anxiously up and over their heads, framed by the doorway of Jon’s office.
“Martin?” Tim repeats, already halfway to standing in worry, following Martin’s gaze behind him and finding nothing.
Faster than he can turn back around, Martin’s muscles all tense at once—and he tips backwards onto the floor with a heavy thud.
“Shit! Martin!”
Tim darts forward at once, in some feeble attempt to catch him, but of course, far too late to do so. In his shock, he can do little but stand over him for a few seconds, taken aback upon seeing his eyes still open where he lies still on the floor.
“What happened?” Jon demands, stepping quickly out of his office towards them, where Sasha now crouches near his head.
“I-I don’t know, he just—”
And then Martin begins to convulse.
“Oh my god, he’s—he’s having a seizure,” Sasha gasps as she claps a hand over her mouth, from where it had been pressed against his forehead.
“Fuck. Fuck, what do—what do we do? Do we call 999?” Tim shouts, unwilling to sit by and watch as this all goes on around him, already grabbing Sasha’s phone from her nearby desk.
“I—I think so, let me—”
“Wait.”
Two sets of eyes land upon Jon as he interjects, crouching near Martin’s flailing left arm, waiting for him to set it back down before quickly grabbing at a bracelet circling his wrist.
“I-it’s a medical bracelet. Says epilepsy,” he says lowly, quickly sitting back on his heels as Martin’s arm begins to jerk again.
“Fuck. I—I had no idea,” Tim breathes, running an anxious hand through his hair. “How could we not know?”
“We should—” Sasha breaks off quickly to swallow a lump in her throat, before continuing. “We should be timing it, did anyone see the time?”
“I-I don’t—it’s probably been less than a minute, right?”
“I think so. I’m—here, I’m googling it to make sure—”
While she does so, Martin’s head begins to slam into the ground—and Jon immediately pulls off his cardigan, folding it quickly and placing it beneath him to cushion the blow.
“It’s alright, big guy,” Tim says, settling down to kneel next to Jon, who now has a hand gently pressed to his shoulder—not holding him down, just resting there in a comfort Martin probably cannot receive.
Tim rests his own hand against Martin’s thigh all the same.
“Okay, I think we’re good so far,” Sasha says at last, setting her phone down with a timer running on the screen. “Just time it, and—and keep watch. If it goes past five minutes, we call 999.”
“That’s—that’s it?” Tim says in dismay, snapping his eyes back to his friend, still convulsing on the floor. “There’s nothing else we can do?”
“No. We just have to watch out for him,” she replies, voice low as she adjusts Jon’s cardigan beneath his head. “Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”
Not the answer that Tim was looking for.
And so they wait—silent save for the rhythmic smacking of his limbs against the carpeted floor, and the occasional whispered platitude, though all know he cannot hear them. The seconds tick by in agony while they sit helpless, all eyeing the timer on Sasha’s phone creeping up steadily past three minutes.
“I don’t like this,” Tim says, knowing how useless it is to say so—Sasha raising her eyes to meet his for the first time in a while.
“Me neither.”
“Nearly three and a half minutes,” Jon mutters, worrying at his bottom lip while still resting a gentle hand on Martin’s shoulder.
“We’ve got you, Martin,” Tim mutters. “We’ve got you.”
Ten more seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Forty.
And at last—at last he goes still, right past the four-minute mark.
“Alhamdulillah,” Jon sighs as he lets his chin briefly rest against his chest, a sentiment echoed by everyone around him.
“Okay, turn him on his side, here—Tim—”
“Got it,” Tim says as he moves to crouch next to her, helping roll him towards Jon, head pillowed on the arm Jon stretched out across the floor as a cushion.
As soon as they get him in the recovery position, they watch as saliva runs out of his mouth, surely fit to choke him had they not turned him—and he begins to snore forcefully, catching Tim very much by surprise.
“Wh-what—” he asks in bewilderment, struggling to hold back a bit of shocked laughter.
“The website said that’s normal,” Sasha assures at once, reaching behind her to grab a box of tissues from her desk behind her. “He’s going to be sleepy for a bit.”
“Okay. That’s—okay,” he says, watching as Jon takes the tissues from Sasha and wipes at Martin’s face so very gently, before tossing them aside and taking his hand.
Taking his hand.
…interesting.
Stowing THAT away for later.
As Jon starts to move his thumb across the back of Martin’s palm, the snoring stops—and his eyes begin to flutter rapidly, attempting to force their way fully open.
“Hey Martin, can you hear me?” Sasha says rather loudly, bending over him and tapping his shoulder lightly.
All she receives in response is a moan, deep and low, as he squeezes and unsqueezes his eyelids, coughing a bit against the pooling saliva. Jon reaches for the tissues again at once, cleaning his face as best as possible.
“You’re okay mate,” Tim says, patting his hip before leaving his hand there for support. “You’ve had a seizure.”
It takes a few moments, but at last, Martin opens his eyes, looking vaguely around without meeting Jon’s eyes.
“Wh’ happ’n?” he slurs—all three of them exchanging a meaningful glance, a bit alarmed.
“You had a seizure, Martin,” Sasha repeats, stroking at his hair while Tim starts rubbing his hand up and down his arm, hoping it will somehow help to ground him.
Remaining still for a few moments, still blinking, Martin tries to take it all in— looking down towards where Jon still rubs at his hand, though still seemingly unaware of his presence.
“What happened?” he asks again, voice less slurred, but still weak.
“A seizure, Martin,” Jon says, trying desperately to catch his eyes. “You’re alright.”
At once, Martin wrenches his hand away from Jon’s grasp in favor of clapping it over his mouth, muffling a small and desperate gasp behind it.
“Shit. You gonna be sick?” Tim asks, already looking around him for something to grab as Jon once again prepares his tissues.
He does not respond right away, instead pausing for a few deep breaths—at last shaking his head no. In both relief and the absence of something to do with his hands, Jon fusses at the cardigan again—positioning it just so.
“Wh—oh, seizure,” Martin breathes, and Tim cannot help but feel relieved at his gaining a bit of orientation back.
“Yeah.”
Eyebrows knitting together, Martin moves the hand clapped over his mouth to rest on his eyes, sniffling a bit before speaking.
“M’so sorry,” he gasps—and it’s enough to break Tim’s heart.
All of their hearts apparently, as they immediately place their hands on him in a gesture of comfort.
“Hey, no, none of that,” Sasha soothes, brushing back his fringe again.
“M’sorry.”
“Martin, it’s alright,” reassures Jon, with such rare gentleness that even Martin lowers his hand to look—wincing quickly as he does so, and placing it back over his eyes at once.
“Do the lights hurt?” Sasha asks worriedly, placing her hand to cover his own, hoping to block more of it out.
“Yeah—ah,” he grits out with a pained little gasp, and Jon gets to his feet.
“I’ll get them,” he says, and walks quickly to the switch, sending them into a darkness illuminated only by the light from the hall.
With a quiet sigh of relief, Martin lowers his hand again, eyes still closed, and rubs absently at his nose. Stumbling a bit as his eyes adjust to the dark, Jon makes his way back to kneeling beside him, taking up his free hand again.
“Your head okay?” asks Tim, prompting Sasha to card through his hair to look for any swelling. “I’m sorry I didn’t—I couldn’t catch you.”
“…what?” comes the vague response, delayed by a few seconds as Martin tries in vain to sort through what was said.
“Still confused,” Sasha mouths at him silently—and he nods, instead going back to rubbing up and down Martin’s arm, as Sasha moves to massage his neck.
“M’sorry.”
“Hush, darling. It’s alright,” she says, and Tim knows without a doubt she will sit there all day, repeating these same things to him as long as he needs.
And loves her for it.
“…wh—Jon?”
Eyes more focused than ever, Martin looks down to where Jon still rubs a thumb over his palm, stunned very his very presence in this space.
“Yes, I’m here,” he murmurs, offering a small squeeze of affirmation, inadvertently painting a soft grin briefly across Martin’s face—before it drops quickly again in horror, as the reality of the situation sinks in again.
“Oh god. I—oh god.”
“It’s okay, Martin.”
“No no no.”
“It’s alright,” Jon comforts, more soothing than Tim had ever imagined would be possible for him. “Just be still. You’re alright.”
Five minutes turn into ten, turn into fifteen as Martin’s confusion slowly fades away—his recovery naturally filled with a deluge of apologies, patient soothing from his friends, and tending to the waves of nausea that come over him every few minutes. Ever so gradually, he becomes better able to hold a conversation; better able to hold their gaze, asking what happened before he went down, explaining that his…well, everything is sore, but that it’s nothing unmanageable.
There is very little that Martin would call “unmanageable,” of course, but it’s the most they will get out of him.
“I think I can sit up now,” he says after a bit, bracing his arms underneath himself to prepare, and Tim reaches out to support him at once.
“Sure?”
“Yeah.”
A bit slow, a bit clumsy, they get him up—not without some worried questioning when he hunches forward, face buried in his hands as the headache worsens with the change of posture. But luckily, it dulls as quickly as it comes, and Martin soon finds himself able to look up, even to offer a bit of a sheepish smile.
“Want some water?” Tim asks as soon as he looks steady.
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m on it,” he says, refusing to accept any of Martin’s guilt-laden excuses, and dashes off to the kitchen at once, leaving Jon and Sasha still vaguely holding onto him in the fear that he might fall again.
“I’m alright, guys, really,” he assures, though he makes no effort to shrug their hands off—so there they stay.
“Do you know what caused this, Martin?” Sasha asks, folding his collar from where it sticks up at the nape of his neck.
With a heavy sigh and an exhausted pinch to the bridge of his nose, Martin replies, face reddening with shame.
“Yeah. You’re—you’re going to laugh.”
“Why would we laugh?” Jon asks so earnestly, so softly that it wins him a long and surprised look from Martin.
“I…dunno really, just. It’s just that it’s—it’s all my own fault. Stupid.”
“What do you mean?”
“I—I don’t—” he cuts off for a moment to hiss painfully as he rubs at his temple again, and Sasha’s hold tightens ever so slightly as a precaution. “I don’t have my…seizure meds with me. I left them at my flat when—when I ran. From Prentiss.”
Of course.
Of course he did.
“I would have gotten them for you Martin!” Tim shouts as he returns with the water. “Any of us would, mate. You should have said.”
“I didn’t want to send you back to my flat. She might…she might still…be there.”
He fades a bit as he speaks—rubbing once more at his temples, and Sasha resumes her ministrations of massaging his neck.
“Alright, just—it’s alright, Martin,” Jon soothes, a bit alarmed at the way he’s hunched back over—seemingly nauseous again, as he moves the bin a bit closer to himself just in case. “What can we do now?”
After a few long, deep breaths, his churning stomach finally settles long enough for him to answer, albeit a bit more vague-sounding than moments before.
“I tried…I tried to call the chemist, but…they won’t refill it unless I…unless I talk to my doctor. And it’s not like I can just go.”
“You have to get some from A&E then,” Tim insists, sitting back down next to him and pressing a hand atop his shoulder.
“No, I can’t.”
“We’ll go with you,” mutters Jon, before clearing his throat, returning to his best confident-boss tone. “We’ll keep watch for the worms. Go prepared.”
“You don’t—“
“We will,” Sasha says emphatically, leaving no room for argument—and even Martin knows when the battle is lost. “We’re happy to do it, Martin. Seriously.”
“Thank you,” he very nearly whispers, face flushing beet red as the undue attention of the afternoon catches up with him. “That’s really…too kind.”
“Well, you’ve got to get it somehow, mate,” Tim says with a chuckle, earning himself a warning glare from both Sasha and Jon. “What? I’m sure Martin wants this to happen again even less than we do. Which is saying a lot.”
“Yeah,” Martin says, surprising them all by chuckling briefly in return. “Reckon you’re right about that. I didn’t—this is pretty much my worst nightmare, so…just so you all know how sorry I am.”
“Yes, you’ve said,” Sasha laughs. “And it keeps continuing to not be your fault.”
“Right. Sure.”
He does not sound at all sure—but she lets it go all the same.
“We should go today, Martin,” Jon says as he stands, already grabbing a canister of CO2 in preparation. “Don’t want you to miss another dose.”
“And take that thing on the Tube?” Martin laughs, fully smiling for the first time since the whole affair began. “Think we might get some looks.”
“It’s the Tube, mate. Stranger things have happened,” Tim chuckles, rolling his eyes good-naturedly before jumping in to assist him in standing.
“Suppose you’re probably right about that.”
“Let’s go then,” says Jon, face steeled as if armed to the teeth and ready to tangle with anything coming his way. “Work that needs doing.”
#tma#the magnus archives#tma fic#tma fanfic#martin blackwood#hurt/comfort#cw nausea#cw seizures#cw misgendering#trans martin#jordanian jon#background timsasha#my writing
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2.43 S1 Chapter 1.4 - Young Yunichika
4. MISCONDUCT

Translation Notes
1. Bon refers to a young man from a well-to-do family
2. These are lyrics from the opening theme for the famous volleyball anime, Attack No.1
3. I know nothing about Attack No.1 so I have no idea what this is referring to. The original line is “ヒロイン訛ってるって”. If you know anything about this, let me know
4. The kanji for Meisei is 銘誠. 銘 from 座右の銘 (means favorite motto) and 誠 is pronounced makoto by itself
5. Meisei-chuu as in Meisei Middle School
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Haijima Kimichika was an idiot. No, his grades overall weren’t that bad. He was slightly above middling for his third semester finals. However, Kuroba was dumbfounded when he saw the breakdown of that “slightly above middling.”
In regards to math and social studies, he was well above the average, and in fact, he was at the top of the class in his grade. Math, ninety-five. Social studies, ninety-nine—that was the first time he ever saw ninety-nine on an exam paper. He was taken aback by the brilliance of the two 9’s next to each other.
But, things didn’t look good from there. Science, seventy-three. English, sixty. His marks around here were so normal that it made you wonder what his high marks in math and social studies were. Apparently, his strong areas were unusually inclined towards calculation and memorization.
Japanese,
Thirty points.
…They really were unusually inclined.
“Ooh, there’s a whole row of x’s here. What a nice view.”
It was a question about close reading a novel. The answers to “What are the emotional states of the characters”-type questions were continuously absurd, and the way the x’s were written was becoming increasingly desperate, as if to represent his Japanese teacher’s emotional state.
“For the question ‘Please answer in eighty words or less why you think the king forgives Melos,’ you answered, ‘Melos was naked the cow,’. I can see the signs of suffering from trying to write a little more, but not being able to write a sentence and getting frustrated. …Cow?”
“Shut up. You’re always joking about people’s exam answers.”
“Ow ow ow!”
Kuroba groaned as he fell prostrate on the exam papers spread out between his legs with a weight pressed tightly against his back. The other club members laughed at the two stretching as a pair.
“You shouldn’t laugh at other people, Yuni. You got forty-two in math and fifty-five in social studies.”
“Hey, don’t read it aloud. This is an invasion of privacy.”
“Japanese…oh? Eighty-seven. Not bad.”
“For real?”
His back lightened with Haijima’s upset-sounding voice. He lifted his body with a self-satisfied look that said “Fufufu. Japanese is the only thing this guy’s good at,” but Haijima, who snatched and returned Kuroba’s Japanese exam paper, once again pressed down on his back tightly with his entire upper body while staring at his answers with a slightly displeased look on his face. Kuroba grumbled “Ow ow ow” while facing the floor in an open-legged forward bending position.
“Why did you answer the cow question like this? I don’t get it at all.”
“First, let go of the cow…I think the first issue is that no cows appear in the story. I’m getting worried about whether or not you can get into high school.”
He briefly wondered if one could get into school through a volleyball recommendation, but even if one could, it didn’t matter because there was no chance of their weak club reaching the point where they could get noticed in a big tournament. If Haijima was in his previous middle school, recommendations might come, however—he hadn’t asked Haijima himself, but there was no doubt that he had been in a fairly strong volleyball club with a decent coach. He had no idea what a full-scale stretching regimen was until he started practicing with Haijima. Next, Kuroba laid on his back as Haijima took his legs and thoroughly stretched them.
I thought that since Haijima would have nothing left if you took volleyball away from him, it would be his greatest desire to go to a strong volleyball school, but…
Haijima Kimichika was a volleyball fanatic.
The ban on club activities, which had been suspended a week before finals, had been lifted, and they held a practice day at once. With people turning up once they knew it was active, the boys’ volleyball team, which used to be as good as non-existent, had more or less taken on the appearance of club activities recently. With just barely six people, they still haven’t been in a match yet.
It was when they stood up and stretched their backs after finishing their brief stretching session.
“Kuroba, how tall are you now?”
Haijima said while looking up at his hair whorl.
“Hmm? Didn’t I say I was one-seventy-three?”
“When did you measure that?”
“Um…in fall, I think…November?”
He tamped down his hair whorl, but his bed hair bobbed back up. He felt depressed when he wondered if he had been exposing this hair to people all day since morning.
There was a scale on the door frame of the gym equipment room that could be used to measure height, and was used to compare heights for fun during club activities and gym class. It was probably the work of students from decades ago. It was the culmination of very precise work, with each millimeter being carved out from one-fifty to one-eighty centimeters with a utility knife.
“One-seventy-five-point-zero.”
Putting an empty powdered drink box to the top of Kuroba’s head, Haijima read the scale out loud.
“Ooh, I grew two centimeters?”
“My turn.”
They exchanged places and now it was Haijima with his back to the scale.
“Don’t raise your heels. Um, one-seventy-two-point…seven.”
“Ah. I grew too.”
But, Haijima didn’t seem too happy about it. With a sullen face, he left the scale and grumbled “Two centimeters off.”
“Two-point-three centimeters off. Don’t round it down. You’re a setter, so you don’t have to be so worried about your height, right?”
“I have a favorite player. It’s Abe, who was selected for the national team. He’s a setter, but he’s one-ninety-one. Even for setters, the bigger you are, the better you block and the faster you set. And, Abe’s ambidextrous, and he has a good left dump.”
“Huh? That reminds me, do you also…”
Haijima served with his left hand. But which hand did he hit with outside of those times...he didn’t have a clear impression. He felt like he recalled him hitting with his left and with his right.
“Use both hands?”
“I do,” He said carelessly, but was that something so easy to do? “There’s still an eighteen-centimeter difference, huh… But Abe can’t hit jump serves, so once my height catches up, I’ll be better.”
When it came to the subject of volleyball, Haijima became more talkative than usual. The way he spoke was basically like cutting short the front part of the context and throwing away the back end, but he came to be able to speak fairly long lines in a polite manner. He must love it a lot, he thought in half amazement and half admiration.
“I’m not sure if you have way too much confidence in yourself or is just an idiot…but I never thought you’d compare yourself to a member of the national team.”
He forced a smile, and got glared at with resentful eyes. He got scared, wondering if he said something that made him angry. He still wasn’t very good at knowing what set Haijima off.
“Kuroba, at the practice game, you see blocks and differentiate between hitting the ball cross and straight, right?”
“Cross-court and straight…oh, straight is where you hit the ball right down the middle, and cross is where you twist a little and hit it outside.”
“It’s the other way around, dumbass.”
He had answered with hand gestures while tilting his head to the side in confusion, but was completely denied with an insult.
“A cross is a spike that passes through the court at an angle. A straight is a spike that goes straight and parallel to the sidelines. When you’re hitting on the front row, you tend to step towards the center in front of the net a lot, so if you hit it straight on, it becomes a cross, and if you hit it with the intention to twist it outside, it will be straight.”
“So complicated…”
“It’s not that complicated, but…oh well. I’ll teach you step by step.”
He thought “Teach me?” every time, but why was he naturally acting like he was above him?
“Even if you don’t understand it with your head, you have good eyes, so you can deal with blocks. Being able to naturally rotate your trunk midair, the length of your time in the air, the suppleness of your shoulders…those are qualities you’ve probably always had. You will get good. It’ll be in no time if you do it properly. You’ll be taller, too.”
“…? Do you have a fever?”
He stared at Haijima’s face suspiciously and got a suspicious look in return.
“What. Did I say something weird?”
“No, it’s just that you’re always so self-important, so I thought you were someone who wouldn’t praise or acknowledge people in that way.”
“If there’s something to acknowledge, then of course I’m gonna acknowledge it. But, there’s no way to acknowledge what’s not there.”
Haijima stated, pouting and seeming truly upset.
Haijima never flattered. He wasn’t humble. He couldn’t hold himself back. Indeed, he might be sincere and straightforward in a sense. …But, he thought it was probably a tough way to live. Most people didn’t want to be told the truth right to their faces.
“You will get good.”
Afterwards, slowly but steadily, a ticklish feeling welled up in the depths of his body. It was uncool to take someone at their word, so he purposely looked indifferent and said,
“I have a talent for volleyball, huh. It won’t make me all that popular though.”
He feigned ignorance and talked big. Unlike Haijima, he felt like he had been drifting through life frivolously, with a bunch of façades lined up in front of him, obscuring reality.
***
The days have become longer, and the chill had subsided considerably. It was now often possible to sneak peeks at patches of blue in the sky which had been covered by depressing snow-laden clouds in midwinter. The sun had completely set when he nearly ran over Haijima in front of that karaoke box in February, but by mid-March, there was still some faint light left in the sky at that same time of day. A rusty copper sunset fringed the ridgelines of Mount Nokude in the distance.
Since their houses were in the same direction, he ended up going home with Haijima on days they had club activities. Their enamel bags, slung over their shoulders, rattled, and they tread on the rugged road in their snow boots. Although the snow on the road melted during the day and was close to becoming sherbet, it had begun to freeze again in the shape of punched-through car ruts and footprints. During the snowfall season from December to March, elementary and middle school students were prohibited from cycling to school, so it took forty minutes to get there on foot. There was no doubt that they would starve before they reached home, so the two stuffed their cheeks with sweet bread as they walked. Incidentally, he stuffed himself with two pieces of bread before club and of course he was going to eat dinner when he got home. At any rate, he was hungry. And at any rate, he was sleepy.
Until one or two months ago, he would have wanted to skip over middle school and become a high school student as soon as possible, but come to think of it, he had stopped thinking about that recently. He had no time to think about superfluous things because after he finished club activities, went home, ate, and took a bath, he immediately went to bed. He fell asleep feeling like he was sinking into the floor with his futon, and then when he woke up, it was next morning.
Finals were over, and now it was time to neglect everything and go into spring break. And whether he left it alone or made a fuss, once the break ended, he would become a third-year. The word examinee still didn’t really strike home for him.
“Haijima, what are you gonna do for high school? Are you taking it here?”
He finally broached the subject that actually wanted to ask him about during club, but hesitated over.
“Well, I was thinking of taking it here, but…”
He got stuck on how Haijima trailed off at the end of his sentence, which was unusual for him.
“But? Is there a condition or something?”
He once again asked Haijima’s profile, which was bulged out with the bread he stuffed in his mouth. He wasn’t wearing his glasses right now. Haijima always followed the procedure of putting in contact lenses and taping his hands before club started. If he taped first, he wouldn’t be able to handle his contacts. When club activities were finished, he followed that procedure in reverse, but there were days when he went home as he was, perhaps because he couldn’t be bothered. From the point of view of Kuroba, whose vision had never fell below 20/20 and whose fingernails and bones seemed healthy and strong, he had a difficult constitution.
“More importantly, new first-years will come in April.”
“Hmm? Oh yeah. Skilled guys would get picked up by the other clubs, so it’s better not to get your hopes up, but maybe we can get one or two people.” More importantly? He had a feeling he was changing the subject, but the timing to repeat the question escaped him.
“If we get more members, I wanna go to a tournament. I don’t know the tournament schedule here, but there should be a prefectural tournament before the summer inter-school.”
“Tournament, huh. But even if we can be in it, I don’t think we can win at our level…”
“It’s no fun if you don’t play a game. I wanna be in a match. I’m gonna train you all to be presentable enough by summer. I’ll take care of the rest.” Once again, he said that he was gonna train us without hesitation. Is he treating us like performing monkeys or something?
Ah, there it was. The sparkle in his eyes like that of a dinosaur-loving elementary schooler. Though he was just being arrogant and saying something self-centered, when he had that look in his eyes, he couldn’t help but feel that it was as though it was being secretly switched with something of pure purpose. Kuroba realized that he couldn’t oppose those eyes at all.
“Ooookay, got it. We need an advisor to be in a tournament or it’s no good, right? Let’s ask tomorrow.”
When he said that with a sigh, a crude voice called out to them from the side of the road.
“Hey, isn’t that the head house’s bon walking there?” (1)
It came from in front of the signboard of the aforementioned “Karaoke Box Monshiro”. Was this the only place to hang out? Well, it probably was. There were three men. Two 125cc motorbikes and one moped. Each of them was sitting astride their seats and hanging their butts on their tandem grips, smoking cigarettes as they tucked their chins inside their collars of their jackets, looking cold. They had the appearances of what countryside delinquents should be.
“Oh, Yori-chan!”
Kuroba called out to him with a smile, but Yorimichi only took a glance at his appearance and looked away.
The other two were Yorimichi’s senpais, both from the neighborhood. When someone other than his relatives called him the “head house’s bon”, it was probably filled with ridicule, but since he was used to it, he didn’t react to it every single time, and Kuroba greeted them in a friendly manner as well.
“’Sup. It’s been a while. I didn’t know you guys are back.”
“It’s spring break in uni too. Bon, how much you got today?”
“Oh…I only have some coins. I’ve been doing club activities lately so there’s a lot of times when I’d be leaving my bag alone.”
“’Club activities’?”
The two repeated it with a rising inflection that contained laughter.
“Oh, is that what Yorimichi was talking about?”
Smirking, they eyed Kuroba from the top of his head to his feet. He uncomfortably let his gaze escape to Haijima, who was waiting next to him. When he looked at Haijima, he could see his own appearance like he was looking into a mirror, or rather, he was just copying Haijima, but—he was wearing a knee-length padded coat over his jersey with his rectangular enamel sports bag slung over his shoulder, and he really did look like he was coming back from a sports club. In regards to the padded coat, Kuroba saw Haijima’s and also bought one recently.
“You do receives or something, how did that go again? We didn’t do it in gym in high school, so I completely forgot.”
The two had mean smiles on their faces, pointing their chins. Either the smoke of their cigarettes or the whiteness of their breath from the cold made their stubbled mouths misty.
“Um, it’s like this, I guess…?”
Kuroba had no choice but to drop his hips on the spot and did the posture for an underhand pass, and the two cackled and applauded.
“Wow, looking pretty good, aren’t you? I know, it’s that thing, Attack No.1, right?”
“That old manga? It’s that ‘I won’t cry, I’m just a girl’ thing, right?” (2)
“The heroine spoke in dialect. Gyahahaha!” (3)
“Haha…”
When Kuroba forced a smile while feeling his face turning hot, his bag was suddenly pulled on. The strap was biting into the pit of his stomach. “Gueh,” he groaned as he turned around.
“Haijima?”
“You’re just getting looked down on. We’re not playing around. Don’t keep them company.”
Like he was pulling on the leash of a not particularly disciplined dog, Haijima primly started walking while gripping the strap. “Okay, okay, don’t pull me. It’s dan…” Right when he twisted his body around and rushed to follow him,
“You’re hanging out with us, right, Yuni?”
Yorimichi called out to his back.
Haijima turned around, not even trying to hide his annoyance. Kuroba also followed his gaze while feeling lost. Turning away and smoking his cigarette, Yorimichi snorted sarcastically.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting’ influenced by Fighting Spirit Chika-chan, are ya? You’re the one who’s gonna be embarrassed later.”
“Hey…oh, hey Yori-chan, are you mad at me? Sorry for not hanging out with you lately. We’ll do stuff together during spring break.”
“Kuroba, we’re practicing during spring break too.”
Haijima’s dissatisfied sounding voice pierced the back of his ear. “We can’t practice everyday, right?” When he turned around with a half-smile, his face seemed to say, As a matter of fact, of course we are. “If we’re going to the summer tournament, we’ll still never make it in time even with that.” “Are you serious…” He was of course ready to have fun and relax during spring break, so when he was told to be prepared to completely spend that time on club activities… I underestimated this guy’s volleyball obsession.
“Yuuuuni. You understand, right? It’s no good for you. It’d be less embarrassing if you stop playing around. I ain’t patient either, so I can’t wait too long for you.”
“Hey, even Yori-chan’s being mean? You’re not serious, right?”
He looked at Yorimichi again with a twitching smile. “Oh, you’re pretty popular, Bon. If you pick one, you have to cut off the other. This is a real mess.” The two university students irresponsibly jeered and aggravated the situation.
“You, you get it, right? I have the same blood in my veins as you, so we get fired up and cooled off easily. I’ll probably get bored halfway, right?”
He ended up prioritizing putting Yorimichi in a good mood with a joking tone. A cold sweat ran down the nape of his neck as he felt Haijima’s burning gaze scorching it.
He knew that he was playing it safe. He was still afraid now that Yorimichi would throw him away. He wanted to secure the warm place he could always return to if things got tough. Don’t put me together with you, he grumbled in his mind. Haijima, who didn’t have an ounce of doubt about himself doing volleyball, probably wouldn’t understand, but for us until just now, guys who went hardcore for club activities were just something to be watched from a distance and gawked at.
Yorimichi bared his teeth and grinned.
“Haha, that’s right. You’re the same as me.”
Relieved, Kuroba also slackened his cheeks.
And, the heat wave of Haijima’s gaze that was burning the back of his neck also abruptly disappeared. The strap was released to send him flying.
“Then quit now.”
Haijima said it bluntly in a cold voice, a complete reversal from the heat of earlier.
“Hey, no need to go that far…”
“I don’t want to the tournament to get messed up.”
“Messed up…”
He immediately guessed that he was talking about scandals that would result in a suspension. Kuroba himself didn’t smoke or drink, but he overlooked Yorimichi doing it. It wasn’t illegal to ride double on a bike, but having only one helmet was probably not allowed. It wasn’t a good look to sneak into karaoke bars either. He didn’t really care about it until now, but it was somewhat understandable that school sports were sensitive to those kinds of issues.
Haijima’s concern was reasonable, and perhaps this was where he should be sorry. But on the contrary, antagonism reared its head. So, from the beginning, he wasn’t worried about whether or not Kuroba would continue to do volleyball or not, but about that?
“You showed your true colors, eh!”
Yorimichi’s loud voice suddenly rang out. Haijima glared suspiciously at him and Kuroba was also confused. Peeling his lips back in a vicious grin that made him draw back a little, Yorimichi continued to speak in a theatrical way.
“The infamous ‘Genius Setter’ of Meisei Middle School only thinks about satisfying his own desires, right?”
“Yori-chan? What are you talking about?”
“You were the one who wanted to know, Yuni. You asked why he came back here. That’s why I investigated.”
Haijima’s sharp gaze immediately moved to Kuroba. He did voice his doubts, but he thought the conversation ended there, so to think that Yorimichi would investigate it…
“Oops, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re blaming Yuni. It’s that ‘you reap what you sow’ kind of thing, right?”
Yorimichi came down from his bike and stepped on his cigarette to put it out. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his down jacket and approached him with bowlegs and swinging shoulders, looking particularly vulgar. “Move, Yuni,” he said, pushing Kuroba aside and standing before Haijima.
“I could have easily gotten the name of your school from your grandpa through mine. Well, I used Itoko though, since I’ve been given up on by Gramps. So when I quickly searched the net…oh look, there’s slander of the ‘Genius Setter’ who reigned over Meisei Middle until last year. The net sure is terrifyin’. Everything’s on there. Well, I guess it means you’re not liked very much.”
The more Yorimichi talked, the stiffer Haijima’s expression became. The color disappeared from Haijima’s face that seemed to embody the world’s arrogance and fearlessness, and his gaze dropped downwards. The shadow of Yorimichi, who was a size bigger in height and width, hung over the head of Haijima, who was looking down and biting his lower lip. “Oi oi, look at the poor guy, Yorimichi. Don’t bully middle schoolers. You’ll make him cry.” The two university students saying insincere things were completely taking the role of spectators.
“Yuni.”
“Huh? Y-yeah.”
Kuroba reflexively responded, unable to catch up with the conversation very well. Yorimichi’s face changed from that of someone tormenting a dying animal, and when he turned around, he was no longer smiling. It was an extremely serious expression.
“I don’t have anything against Chika, but I don’t really care. I think it’s petty to talk about other people behind their backs online. It’s all for you. Don’t get too absorbed in it. After all there was apparently someone who attempted suicide because of this guy——”
An instant later, Haijima barked something that couldn’t be expressed in words and grabbed Yorimichi. “Oh?” Although Yorimichi staggered a little, their physiques and amount of fight experiences were different. He grabbed Haijima’s face and thrust it aside, just like he was grabbing a ball—a dodgeball instead of a volleyball—with one hand and throwing it violently. Haijima was lightly blown off two or three meters away, the side of his face crashing into the muddy snow-covered road.
Because it was the first time he heard Haijima’s enraged voice, Kuroba was temporarily distracted by that. He hurriedly broke into Yorimichi’s path.
“Yo-Yori-chan, stop! Violence is no good!”
“He was the one who charged at me. Ah, it’d be no good for a sports boy to be violent, right? Didn’t you say that yourself? I’m being kind by ending it with just knocking him down.”
Yorimichi threw mocking jeers at Haijima over Kuroba’s shoulder. Kuroba turned around and ran up to Haijima, who was crouching and holding his hand to his face. “Oi, you’re alive…” he knelt down and was about to touch his shoulder, but what Yorimichi said flashed across his mind and he stopped his hand.
…Attempted suicide…?
“Let’s go back. My ass is frozen.”
Urging the two university students, Yorimichi returned to his bike.
“Yuni, get over here.”
Summoned, Kuroba looked up at the chin of Yorimichi, who was sitting astride his bike, but hesitated and returned his gaze to Haijima. His earlobe, which was poking out from the gaps between his hair, were terrifyingly white. No way, is he actually dead? He thought, but he saw a fist clenching the snow underneath his face pressed against the ground. Mud soaked into his white taping and stained it brown.
He couldn’t leave him here and go home.
“Even if you say go home, you won’t let me ride double anyways. I’ll send him home, okay?”
“Well, whatever.”
Yorimichi backed down easily with just a shrug of his shoulders. The sneering had already disappeared and he returned to his normal self.
“Don’t forget. Wash your hands of him as soon as possible. From his reaction, it doesn’t seem like those are groundless rumors. Be careful on your way home. I’m talking about the snowy roads and your teammate next to you.”
Perhaps Yorimichi also felt that he went a bit too far. He awkwardly turned his face away, made his engine roar its usual crude and vulgar sounds, and departed on the Komashi-gou.
***
“Mei from zayuu no mei and makoto, Meisei. (4) It’s called Meisei Private Academy Middle School. It’s a middle and high school in one, and their sports clubs are pretty strong. Apparently the distribution map of famous private schools is common knowledge among Kanto kids. You can’t really experience it here, can you? There aren’t enough schools to choose from. Hey, everyone’s gonna hang out in the city after the end-of term ceremony, so do you wanna come with us? I wonder if Haijima would come if we invited him. You guys have been getting along well lately.”
“Um, oh, yeah. If that’s all I can ask then I’m good for now. Thanks.”
He hung up first because it seemed like the conversation would never end if he left it alone.
Itoko said “Everyone”, so the group probably included girls. To tell the truth, he was really jealous of this merry spring break-like event. Normally he wouldn’t be able to refuse. But, it was only today that he couldn’t get into the mood at all. He was willing to bet that Haijima would never come either.
He put the phone handset next to the desk and turned towards the computer again. Since he had an agreement to not own a cell phone until high school, the only place he could access the Internet at home was the laptop in his dad’s study. When he tried to convert Meisei-chuu (5), he realized he didn’t know the kanji for it, and since Yorimichi said he learned it by way of Itoko, he called to ask her directly. Based on the current feeling, Yorimichi had really only gotten the school name, and it seemed he didn’t tell Itoko more than that. He felt relieved about that.
A school with a strong athletic department. If this school was that famous, then it might not be strange for there to be a rumor or two to float around the Internet. After all, there was even a message board titled “[Monshiro Town] Old Man Kuroba [Yokai]”—Yorimichi thought it was hilarious and told him about it, but Kuroba never searched for it because he was scared of learning the contents.
“Tokyo meisei academy middle school boys volleyball club attempted suicide”
He entered the search words, and just when he was about to click the search button, his finger stopped. He couldn’t easily press the key. Of course he was unbearably curious. But, he was afraid to find out the contents for that more than Grandpa’s message board.
“Yuni? Where are you?”
His mother’s voice came from somewhere on the other side of the sliding screen door. He twisted himself around on the tatami chair and raised his voice.
“In here! The study!”
“Why are you there? Aren’t you going to take a bath?”
“Okay!”
After thinking about it a little bit, he ended up pressing the backspace key to delete everything he typed in. Once he did so, he completely gave up, closed the computer and stood up.
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more than once you've said "the tts fandom can't write x character, or can't write y character," but have you considered that maybe they can write them fine, you've just built up your desired interpretations of these characters? you give off this condescending attitude, like ONLY YOU can write tts characters accurately, ONLY YOU understand them, & any interpretations that don't in some way align with what you think are WRONG. this has become more apparent as you've worked through bitter snow
let’s discuss king frederic, and how he is often characterized in fanworks vs how he is characterized in the show.
now... i think we can all agree that frederic is at best a mediocre father and a not especially good king, that in his worst moments he steps over the line into emotional abuse vis a vis his treatment of rapunzel, and that the avoidant head-in-the-sand approach he takes to the black rock problem in s1 causes widespread pain, unnecessary panic, and does not improve the situation whatsoever.
he is widely disliked in the fandom for very good reason
however! it is difficult, though hardly impossible, to find fic where frederic acts or speaks... like frederic, for one very simple reason: the fandom, by and large, as a group, writes frederic as an angry, abusive man who blows up when he is confronted with the many, many things he does wrong. often this takes the form of a character, or characters, getting up in front of him and rattling off his list of crimes, real or perceived, followed by him basically throwing a tantrum.
canon frederic, to put it bluntly, does not do that.
exhibit a: caine’s confrontation of frederic in before ever after.
caine sets up exactly the scenario that in the average tts fanfic would end with frederic yelling / blustering / furiously denying the accusations, plus she does it while rounding up all his guests and putting them in cage to haul them off and, presumably, kill them somewhere. like. the stakes are life or death and this is an extremely stressful situation for everyone involved.
and this is how that conversation goes down:
FRED: Release my guests immediately!
CAINE: What’s the matter, Fred? Am I ruining your perfect day?
RAPUNZEL: ...The Duchess?
CAINE: Oh, honey. I am no Duchess.
RAPUNZEL: I don’t understand.
CAINE: Of course you wouldn’t, Rapunzel, but try to follow along. This is all your fault.
RAPUNZEL: What?!
CAINE: You see, after your untimely... disappearance, your father locked up every criminal in the kingdom... including a simple petty thief. My father. I saw him thrown into a cage and hauled off like some animal, never to be seen again. So... I thought I’d come back, and return the favor.
[the wagon rolls in]
CAINE: Load ‘em up, boys! Your turn, Your Majesty.
[Frederic moves to shield Rapunzel; Caine snickers.]
CAINE: Oh, come on, you didn’t think we’d leave our prized pig in the pen, did you?
RAPUNZEL: [as Caine’s gang drags Frederic toward the wagon] Dad—
FREDERIC: Rapunzel, stay back.
RAPUNZEL: But—
FREDERIC: No. There’s nothing you can do. As your father and your king, I command you to stay put.
there are two key points that i want to make here, because they diverge significantly from the way frederic is characterized in analogous scenarios in fanfics, like, 90% of the time.
1) fred doesn’t get angry. he doesn’t bluster or yell. he orders caine to release his guests, and when she refuses, he gets quiet. he does not interrupt caine’s rant, he does not even try to deny her accusations, and he doesn’t stomp around escalating the situation even while caine is prancing around waving a sword in his daughter’s face or literally poking him in the chest.
he stays calm.
2) fred’s primary, overriding concern is for rapunzel’s safety, and the safety of his guests. not his own. he does not struggle when caine’s men lead him away. he protests on behalf of his guests, but not himself, and he attempts to physically shield rapunzel from harm before he is dragged away. he doesn’t waste his breath trying to argue with caine, but he does tell rapunzel firmly not to put herself in danger trying to rescue him.
now... there are plenty of ways to interpret why frederic behaves this way, and my personal take is certainly not the only possible one. but the behavior itself, the staying calm in the face of a crisis, while someone is in his face threatening him, his family, and his guests and making pretty charged accusation, is a) objectively playing out on the screen and b) directly at odds with the way frederic most often acts in fanfics.
exhibit b: mood-swapped frederic blows up just like fanon frederic constantly does
and this is the only time we ever see frederic lose his temper like this in the entire series. again, this is not a matter of interpretation: this is just plainly what happens on the screen. when he is in his right mind, frederic is not a “scream accusations, whip out a sword, and impulsively declare war or attack someone because he’s mad” sort of person, and to say that he is really like that, deep down, is just as silly as trying to argue that cass really is a peppy, soft-hearted, affectionate pushover, or that eugene really is too riddled-with self-doubt and anxiety to make any decisions, or that rapunzel really is a grouchy, moody, misanthropic person. the mood potion makes everyone act like fundamentally different versions of themselves; their behavior is, literally, out of character for their normal, not high-off-their-asses-on-a-magical-potion selves.
exhibit c: the angry mob in secrets of the sundrop
like with caine, this confrontation kicks off with a premise that should be pretty familiar to anyone who reads any fic featuring frederic at all, ie everybody is pissed at frederic and there is literally an enraged mob screaming for justice in the throne room. and that goes like this:
[everybody shouting in angry panic]
FREDERIC: People... [raising his voice to be heard] Citizens, please! Listen to me!
[Max rears and whinnies to get everyone’s attention, and the shouting dwindles away.]
FREDERIC: I will not lie to you any longer. Corona is in grave danger. The queen has been taken; over half our royal guard lie wounded; and these black rocks draw ever closer.
[the shouting begins to pick up again]
EUGENE: Uh, sir, hi, yeah—if there’s a ‘but’ in this speech, you probably want to cut to it right now.
FREDERIC: But I look at you, and I don’t just see subjects. I see friends, family; strong, brave individuals who have stood by each other, side-by-side, and have never, ever backed down from a fight! Today, we face a danger like none before. As your king, your friend, and as your brother, I ask you to fight one more time. For Corona!
again, key points:
1) frederic does not deny, bluster, shout down, or otherwise attempt to refute the basic point that he bungled the black rock situation. he did bungle it, and he knows that [this scene is preceded by him spelling out the full extent of his failures to rapunzel and openly admitting guilt]. through his behavior, he demonstrates that he accepts culpability for the situation and implicitly accepts the legitimacy of the crowd’s anger.
2) he raises his voice only so he can be heard above the shouting, and as soon as folks quiet down, he drops to a reasonable volume again. his mood is grim, but he isn’t angry. he projects calm.
3) eugene is nervous about frederic losing control of the crowd and accidentally causing a riot or something; frederic is not.
4) instead of denying the crowd’s anger, frederic tries to reframe the problem for them: yes, things are bad, but they are strong and brave and we can all work together to put things right. he doesn’t shout them down; he seeks to inspire them.
and 5) when frederic says “we face a danger,” he means that. the very next thing he does after giving this speech is go straight to the frontlines to fight in the same battle he’s asking everyone else to join in. he's not asking them to do anything he isn’t willing to do himself.
which... i would argue even more than the caine confrontation in BEA, is diametrically opposed to the way the typical fanon frederic would respond to an angry mob situation, because the typical fanon frederic is a very angry, aggressive man, and that... simply isn’t who frederic is. he’s calm, he’s knows how to work a crowd, he knows how to use his authority to achieve his goals without browbeating or threatening.
even when he does get angry—such as his instinctive reaction to arianna’s kidnapping, when he jumps first to “we will invade old corona”—he doesn’t yell or stomp around or throw tantrum. he gets stiff and rather cold and makes an impulsive judgment call... but then he takes some time to brood by himself, calms down, talks things out with rapunzel, admits his failures, and doesn’t follow through with the impulsive order he made in the heat of the moment.
like... flat out, he is not an angry man.
and it’s frustrating, when i go to read fanfic and frederic is overwhelmingly characterized as this hapless angry shouty abusive person, because it is breathtakingly far removed from how he acts in canon, and i like frederic as a character. i find him very interesting, and it’s not fun to read fics where everything that makes him interesting is taken away and replaced with this sort of one-note Shouty Angry King/Bad Dad Whom Everyone Hates. and that applies, unfortunately, to a very large number of the types of fics i like to read (namely, long canon exploratory or canon divergent fics, etc)
anyway,
i am perfectly happy to read interpretations of the tts characters that do not mesh well, or are even wholly incompatible with, my own.
but i do expect, as a minimum, characters to behave more or less the way they behave in canon unless there is a clear reason for them to be different. i expect varian to be nerdy and chaotic and a bit of a disaster, for example. i expect adira to be aloof, blunt, and perhaps a touch arrogant. i expect cassandra to be ambitious and frustrated and prone to self-sabotage and envy. i expect lance to be laid back and eugene to be a bit vain. i expect the captain to be gruff and very tight-laced. and i expect frederic to act like a politician who is in control of his feelings but sort of cowardly at heart, because that’s how frederic acts in the show.
i hold myself to these standards too. a ton of my editing process is “hm does this character really talk like this? is this how they would react to this situation?” and then going through and rewatching scenes or whole episodes and trying to find roughly analogous emotional beats or situations to sort of gauge whether i’m hitting the mark or not; it’s very difficult and i work hard on it and do not always succeed... and this does make me a bit picky about characterization in fics i’m reading, yeah, because it’s... always at the forefront of my mind. and then yes i post about it here, because this is the hyperfixation landfill where i dump my tts-adjacent thoughts.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
of course, you’re welcome to unfollow me if you do not enjoy reading what i post. it’s important to curate an online experience that you enjoy! if my general demeanor irritates you, you don’t need to inflict yourself with it.
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TUA Unpopular opinions?
Don’t get me wrong, i love the show but there are a few things that i dont like/ dont make sense to me so i wanted to have a little rant about it but im gonna do it under a read more so you all dont have to listen to me ramble so,
Em’s TUA unpopular (?) opinions (about s1 maybe but mostly s2):
I personally felt like they dumbed down Diego and in s2, i dont understand how he went from being in love and absolutely devastated about patchs death and then just completely forget about her and suddenly become in love with lila in what? 70 days? to me it felt like a cop out way of introducing Lila to the hargreeves.
After 3 years sober klaus didn’t improve his powers at all??? like yeah we saw in the opening scene him using the ghosts to his advantage then that was it, there was no evident improvement to his powers except more control with ben. Surely hed be seeing more ghosts, having control over more ghosts or just anything,, but we didnt get that at all. I personally felt like he had more to do in s1 with his powers and we saw some great progression, we saw as he got sober when he was getting tortured he started seeing more ghosts then used them to his advantage and he literally died and came back to life.
At this point its becoming very inconsistent with him seeing the ghosts that hazel and cha cha have killed but not five??? or lila??? especially since he was sober (at least for a few days) in s1 and in s2 he just didn’t see any ghosts other than ben?
The writers keep writing Five out when its convenient to them and its just becoming,,, anoying?? theyve made him too powerful but instead of actually letting him use his powers with his siblings they just send him away to do something else when if he was there it would be completely avoidable. and when hes actually in these fight scenes they dumb him down, hes the most efficient assassin ever, hes the best assassin ever yet whenever hes in one of these fight scenes they make him do some very untatical skills that he just wouldn’t do
Number5theboy did a very good post about this
Allison has such a huge potential as a character and its frustrating how much her character is basically nothing like her comic character. some people may be happy about the fact shes nothing like her character but it just?? doesnt sit right with me. She was a bad bitch in the comics yet the only similarities from comic to tv was her relationship with luther (which in the comic she rumours him to being in love with her, not even them just being in love), her daughter and that she got her throat slit by vanya.
and to be honest she is a bit of a bitch in the comics and i really wanted to see more of that, like i appreciate her story development in the show but i wanted to see her and five and the whole story line of her and him and the involvement in JFK, i wanted to see that development in their relationship, her getting her voice back because of Five and the commission, her having some involvement with his assasination
now i know that they would not be able to make her pretend to be jackie, physically it would not happen but there could of been all sorts they could of done but instead they just wrote it all out and it peeved me off
it would of completely changed some of the sibling dynamics and it would be super interesting for diego have to deal with the fact his own sibling killed JFK
Five not eating carmicheal, there was other ways they couldve gotten lila to find the files and they ripped a great scene from the show to give it to a character that wasnt even in the comics
the fact that Five didn’t shoot vanya in the head and say “I never liked you” because he would be trying to break her powers basically, then vanya loosing all her memories when they travelled, five could do the whole be soft and then him saying “you really dont remember anything, do you?” and then her regaining her memory, i think it would be great personally
also five just being a dick, because he is in the comics, and i know its not the comics but if he’d of had the scene before him and allison go to the commission he opens up to allison about his commission time
im a gazelle and the jungle is my home is an iconic line and was yet again missed out
a topic i am affraid to talk about, lila: (this may be kinda long)
i do not like lila as a character, i dont like how she treats diego and exploits him and acts like everything is fine (she drugged and kidnapped him??!!??) and what the fuck are her powers
her entire character doesnt make sense, they just needed someone powerful to fight vanya and five
when did she even have the time to figure out her powers, Five clearly does not recognise her and neither do the other siblings so theres no chance she was able to practice during the commission because Five obviously wasnt around. And then she can just use them perfectly??? doesnt make sense to me
and i know some people love lila but she just grates me the wrong way
and now the writers have came across another problem of making her too powerful for her own good
and there was no clear build up to her powers, i wish they wouldve just introduced a new power because it would be so much less confusing
where does she fit in the timeline as well because five went on that mission with the handler but then just wasnt around for the next 25ish years when she was raising her???
the writers have bitten off more than they can chew with her i think and i will be very impressed if they somehow manage to pull it off
she just felt very random and forced into the show in my opinion
The fact that no one mentions fives actual open wounds that he probably still has, last i checked an actual shrapnel wound doesnt heal in what? 14 days? but they just ignored it i guess
in s1 Five not getting reggies monocle, just having diego throw it into the ocean im?? like why?? for what???
luther being in love with allison feels very slightly one sided when in the comic she!! rumoured!!! him!!!!
she basically didnt use her powers for anything useful and when she was about to lila used her power of imitation??? to rumour allison instead
kinda what i talked about earlier but five being the main plot driver until its inconvenient to the writers and then they make him dumb it frustrates me to no end
i just dont understand why they couldnt have lila with a brand new power, not just mimicking because it doesnt make sense and then she has the ability to use it perfectly when she wouldnt actually have any experience in using it??? if the writers are literally going to add christopher the cube they could of given her a better power
all the siblings basically just dismiss five, all the time, the only sibling through the show who have actually done something for five is Klaus in s1 when he literally smashed a snowglobe into his head for five and didnt even know why they were there. Even when luther goes with five he straight away sides with older five and like?? i understand it was a funny thing to add in but even then like its just odd
young five and old five not really having the same energy, its really minor but the five in s1 does not match the energy of old five in s2 when hes just about to go to 2019
these are all just my opinion and just something i wanted to get off my chest, if you dont agree with these its completely valid.
#something i wanted to get off my chest#its a lot#i love the show but these things have just grated me the wrong way#and yeah some of them are unpopular i think whoops
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so heathers eps 2-3
it's a few days late but I just woke up from a dream about my TomTord Roommate and I don't want to be actually productive. I had to go back and copy-paste this from Word because Tumblr’s new text post editor has a woefully small character limit. Gotta love how Wordpress of all fucking places is going out of their way to make their new pet project hostile to writers.
Anyway.
Good things:
the pacing feels like an actual show now
it took them three whole episodes but they finally managed to make JD/Veronica interesting and actually dark. Think the ending of Gone Girl if both characters viewed it as a happy ending.
I love Heather Duke's peacock motif. It's very fitting with her personality and is incorporated tastefully.
Changing “Teenage Suicide (Don’t Do It)” by Big Fun into a musical produced in-universe is a fun idea... I think? It gives me a lot of similar vibes to Riverdale having to justify performing Heathers the Musical in-universe , though that only lasted an episode, whereas this looks like it’s going to be an overarching plot. I honestly think they should just pull a Riverdale and have a full-on musical episode -- at least that would give musical fans something to enjoy. I guess this isn’t a good thing so much as a thing that didn’t annoy me. It’s not conceptually poisoned like a lot of other things here.
Anything else? No...? Well then, moving on.
Several new problems have emerged:
Veronica's bug motif is absolutely heinous and I don't have any clue what it's supposed to represent, especially when they keep changing what exact bug she's wearing.
Also you don’t have to vomit blue all over every Veronica scene. It’s very weird because they don’t usually throw red or green or yellow lighting all over everyone’s else scenes. Sure, it’ll feature prominently, such as the shot of Heather M sitting on her bed surrounded by yellow stuffed animals, but that’s at least a characterization detail. I’m talking solely about lightning choices here.
Removing the death of Heather Chandler has destroyed any sense of direction the show could have had. I asked TTR what the characters wanted and what goals they were working towards and she just said, "I have no idea." They had Heather Chandler blackmailing JDonica and Heather M. getting gaslit and victim-blamed by everyone around her, but both of these things were done by the end of the episode.
This is a problem a lot of teen dramas have, but I think it’s worth noting that the pop music choices rang from “okay” to “.... but why though.” Like in the scene where Heather C. reveals she’s still alive, it plays “Halo” by Beyoncé, get it, because they thought she was dead! Except it doesn’t fit the tone of the scene nor Heather C’s intentionality, and there’s nothing funny about the contrast, either. What?
Heathers looked at the controversy around 13 Reasons Why's suicide scene and said "bet." Except it's not even done well because the entire point of 13RW s1 was getting to know Hannah and understand why she kermited. We always know she's killed herself, sure, but the series utilizes the tapes and frequent flashbacks to characterize Hannah, especially by the time we actually see the suicide. This episode just dumps trauma on Heather M. and has her kill herself at the end. Of episode 2.
After the funeral scene, the rest of ep3 is just pointless generic teen drama, only half of which was made interesting by that Gone Girl twist at the end (where JD kills Ram because Veronica is going out with him and Veronica finds this thrilling and romantic).
The other plot, about Heathers D and C fighting for power, culminates in Heather C forcing D to break-up with Kurt and then bouncing D off the stage during play auditions. Problem one: this is all drama I could get in any teen show. Problem two: you could have easily set up Duke/Kurt in episode one by having a scene where Kurt asks why Duke just she let Chandler humiliate him in front of everyone, allowing us to see that Duke's subservience to Chandler has actual personal costs to her (since the eating disorder angle is out). Problem three: having Duke constantly just back down whenever Chandler challenges her is boring and lame. Why not have a sing-off between the two Heathers? Why not have Heather D. gain the self-confidence her movie self did after C's "death" and then not be fully willing to play nice anymore, especially after Chandler forced Duke to publicly break up with and denounce Kurt for no real reason?
But we can't have the sing-off, because it's getting pretty clear that this show has the same problem RWBY does, where the writers/directors care more about the characters they made than the actual main characters. Characters like the teachers, Betty Finn, and whoever tf this new black girl is get to be major players because their personalities were not as previously well-defined as JD's, Veronica's, or any of the Heathers'. This is also pretty apparent in how Kurt and Ram have both been rewritten to not be douchebros at all (racism aside, because remember, the show doesn't think racism is that bad), despite the episode's title, “Date Rape and AIDS Jokes,” referencing their movie characterization. The show is so obviously uninterested in its supposed main characters that JD and Veronica have only had two real romantic moments together in over two hours of content. Heather M. has gotten the most development... only because the show realized it hadn't given any reason for anyone to care about her before she killed herself off.
JD’s dialogue is fucking horrendous. Imagine if every single word out of Jughead’s mouth was the “I’m a weirdo” speech but five times as long. And you know what, in defense of Jughead, at least Lean Jesus has things going on in his life outside of plowing Betty and wallowing in his own melodrama. He has hobbies, goals, and complicated relationships with other characters. The only things JD has are Veronica and bitching at his dad/his dad’s new girlfriend about how love is a wound and all this other nihilistic shit he got off r/im14andthisisdeep. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t counter Veronica talking about how she wanted to be normal with “Normal is just a setting on the washing machine.” Another missed characterization moment: JD bringing a sword from his katana collection (that’s only seen once in episode three) to school and threatening Kurt and Ram with that instead of the gun. I think that would have been fun.
The show also hates black women. And Native Americans. In such a way that it actively contradicts itself (the pilot established that Heather C. actually isn't just a keyboard warrior and goes to irl protests, so why would Heather C. not say a word about Westerburg's school statue being a Confederate soldier holding an Indigenous person's decapitated head?)
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Angel Chapter 1
Word Count: 1846 words
Summary: Angel is about a girl with a secret that she doesn't even know about. Bobby Singer found her when she was only a couple months old. She has an awkward reunion with two of her childhood best friends, and then she is stuck on a hell of a ride till the end of the road.
Pairing: Unknown
Characters: Addison Singer, Two childhood besties, and some police officers
Warnings: Language and descriptions of gore
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Need to catch up:
Background
Prologue
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*24 years later*
(S1 EP1 of Supernatural)
I was driving decently fast down the road traveling from Sioux Falls, South Dakota all the way to Jericho, California. I was on my way to check out a bridge where a car was found, its owner was missing for quite a few days now. However, the reports aren’t clear. I plan to be the one to figure out if there is a mystery ahead.
After jamming out and driving for about 24 hours I was finally at my location. I arrived at the bridge where a man had disappeared leaving behind a bloody body and a locked car, as the reports would say.
Here we go again, I thought as I started walking to the site. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I love doing what I’m doing because hunting is my life, but sometimes it’s tiring to walk in heels all day and investigate. I just want to gank some bitch and head to my next location, which is home. I am going to take a break from cases for a bit and go back to visit Bobby since he’s worried about my growing obsession which is….. hunting. Plus I miss my dad and would love to help out around the junkyard. I don’t see hunting as a bad thing, and I may only get 3-4 hours of sleep, maybe less, but I am saving people and that's what's important to me.
I got to the road approaching the taped-off bridge and parked next to some police cars. I turned off the ignition, checked if I looked decent, and got out. I fixed my leather jacket and headed over to the man standing next to the caution tape.
“Excuse me ma’am, but this bridge is closed for an investigation. No pedestrians are allowed on site,” he said, suddenly standing up much straighter than he was initially.
“I’m Agent Dawson. I was sent by the FBI,” I said as I pulled out my badge and quickly put it back just as quick, so that he wouldn't notice that it was a fake, then I continued, “I have orders to be here.” I might’ve said that a bit sarcastically, but he didn’t seem concerned. I sighed in relief as he moved to the side to let me through to the scene of the murder.
There were very few cops at the scene and they were mostly talking to each other, heads down writing quickly on clipboards and laptops. They didn’t even look up as I made my way over to the car. I was able to catch some of the conversations: a lead, the victim was dating the police chief's daughter. I got to the car and looked inside, but there appeared to be nothing, absolutely nothing. I don’t understand. There is no blood like the report said, no sign of struggle because there was no body... nothing. I made sure nobody was looking and pulled out my EMF reader. The numbers didn’t rise once… Something weird is definitely going on here. It doesn’t smell like sulfur, but I’m sure something supernatural happened here. Deciding to get some information, I went up to the two officers talking about the police chief’s daughter that I heard about earlier.
“Excuse me?” I asked trying my best not to sound young because sometimes I get nervous and they assume that I am a kid needing help. That can set me back a lot and get me kicked off the scene if I’m not careful.
“Yes, can we help you?” One officer said while looking to the other….with a confused look
“Yes, you can actually. What do you know about the victim that was killed?” I heard one of you say something about him dating someone.”
“Yes, he is dating my daughter, Amy. She has been worried sick about him. She has been out all day putting missing posters up around the town.”
“Thank you for the information. Do you know if there is any relation to the victims other than them being all male?”
“Not that we know of.” I nodded my head and quickly jotted the information down. I need to go downtown and find Amy. We need to chat so that I can get more information about her boyfriend.
“Thank you, officers,” I said hurriedly when I heard that two more men were on the scene, I think they were Federal Marshals. They might figure out that I’m not supposed to be here, and then my cover will be blown. On my way out I tried to keep my head down, but I walked right into someone a lot taller than me. “Shit,” I whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” He paused before saying, “Wait a minute, Addi! Is that you?” I looked up as the man said my name, and I was met with a familiar set of eyes. The exact pair of eyes that belonged to…
Sam Winchester, just as giant-like as I remember. He has been my best friend since childhood, and we just recently went our separate ways since I ended college. Last I heard he was still in college since he was 2 years younger than me.
“Sammy!?!” I yelled a bit too loud causing the cops to look in our direction, “Sorry…” I let out a nervous laugh as I turned back to face Sam trying to act casual, “Heya Sammy! Long time no see.”
“I could say the same about you, you look great, how are you?”
“I’m great now that you’re here, it's been a long day so far. How are you? How’s Jess? Why are you here? I thought you wanted to be a lawyer…” I said in a goofy tone to mess with him before taking a breath, and quietly laughing to myself. It felt good to talk to him again.
“I am doing good, and Jess is as well. I see you took on the family business. Did biochemistry just not cut it? Also, I still want to be a lawyer, and I’m younger than you, dummy.” he teased.
“I mean, I liked it at the start but I realized my heart was in love with the family business more than any job I could get, and I hated being in an office all day instead of going out, and saving people which is what I love doing, ya dummy. Anything new?’
“I have an interview on Monday, but then this one,” Sam gestured to his right. My eyes stayed on Sam as he continued to speak. “dragged me out saying that dad was on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home, so I decided to tag along and help him figure out where he went.” He paused and then mumbled something under his breath, I didn’t realize he had just swore and it took me a second to figure out why. I recognized who Sam had just mentioned not and how this said person usually causes…...pain for me.
At first, I ignored the person next to Sam. I love Sammy and I assumed it was just another hunter, but when he brought up John, I knew exactly who it was. That’s when I turned to the person on the right of Sam and caught the gaze of his beautiful, forest green eyes. Those set of eyes belonged to the one and only Dean Winchester, Sam’s older brother. It felt as though time froze when I stared into his eyes. I used to always get lost in them, and clearly, I still do. Then my gaze moved down to his nose and cheeks, and I started counting all the freckles on his face. I used to do this when we were younger. Oh, how I could-someone coughed and made me lose my train of thought
“H-Hi Addi…..um...it's been a really long time. Haha.” He cleared his throat again and rubbed the back of his neck like he was nervous.
Then Sammy continued trying to move the conversation forward from the tension between the two of us of what happened in the past. “Sooooo I see you are working the same case we are. Want to partner up for old time's sake? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He murmured something to himself again, probably quietly going through the rest of the sentence, but I cut him off before he continued his spiraling.
“I would love to, Sam. I might as well since we’re all here. By the way, I already took some interviews and looked at the car and crime scene, so you guys could go into town and find Amy; the police chief's daughter and former girlfriend of the man who went missing. She is putting up missing posters around town. Anyway, I got to go and take a breather…..you know...since it was a long drive. So, I will text you my motel’s address and my room number, so that we can exchange information.” a couple officers walked up to us when I was about to leave and we all stayed in awkward silence.
“Who are these two, Agent Dawson?” He looked at me and forced a smile.
“They are… Federal Marshals,” they showed their badges as I continued, “I would love to chat, but I have to go. Thank you for your time officers… marshals.” I said nodding my head to the brothers and turned away.
I briskly walked away before anyone could stop me. I don’t think I could handle much more of that. My heart was hammering loud and fast, I could hear it in my ears. When I was talking to Dean and Sammy, I was chatting faster than I could think, unaware of half the words coming out of my mouth. Why! Why him...why did he have to be here. I should have seen it coming…as kids the boys were always inseparable.
I unlocked my car and hopped in quickly. I started the ignition and sped away in silence. I pulled onto the side of the road a few miles away from the scene, so that no one would see me and parker. I opened the glove-box of my car, knowing exactly what I was reaching for before I even realized I wanted it. I pulled out a small box and opened it, looking at the contents inside before my eyes landed on a small black box. Inside was a silver locket that I’ve had since I was in Highschool. It was old and rusty and needed to be polished. The exact locket I got as a teenager. The exact locket I got from the man I thought I loved. The exact locket from the man that left me that night 9 years ago. The exact locket that the man that goes by the name Dean Winchester gave to me. Hearing that name ring through my mind made me go into hyperdrive. I threw the locket back into the black box before throwing it back into the compartment, not caring about the box that was still in my lap and drove off.
A/N: Gosh that took forever it feels like I have been pushing back writing this chapter, but I still added some snippets here and there, as the weeks progressed. Again I promise that this story will have a normal posting schedule, but I still haven’t figured it out. I am only going to put the author’s notes at the end of the chapters, not whole chapters dedicated to them like previous books. Anyway, I hope you guys are enjoying this book as much as I enjoy creating and writing out these ideas. Again this has been in my head since I was on season 4 and now I am on the show has ended and I completed it. So this is like a farewell thing I guess. I think I started to come up with this stuff in March or April of 2020 crazy right. These chapters are going to be somewhat increasingly longer as ideas start to come back to me and pasted together. Anyway, that is all. See you in the next chapter my lovely bumblebees. Buh-bye!
#Angel#original writing#original character#bobby singer#supernatural#spn story#ongoing#fanfic#fandom#dean winchester#sam winchester#police officer#monster#creature#art#fanfiction#original story#ocs
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Since you're a writer, I'm hoping you can shed some light on this. IMO the writers were chasing viewers in S2 and trying not to get canceled. Personally, I hate when writers toy with their audience, it means they don't have a clear picture of their characters and narrative. How do you feel about writers making it up as they go?
Ah, this post got really long, anon! Since you asked me as a writer, I’m answering as one (I hope you don’t mind! I also hope this doesnt come out as too Creative Writing 101 for people either. This is just lessons I’ve learned and use in my own practice, so I’m applying them here.)
(Also I have drawn horrible diagrams on my very pink notebook paper - I am so sorry, haha)
So first thing’s first - no. I don’t think the writers were chasing viewers (at least not beyond the way any writer is wanting an audience), and I don’t think they were making it up as they go really, but I can understand why you would think that way!
It won’t be a surprise to anyone that I love this show a lot, but coming from it as both a writer and editor - this show does have narrative problems, and the biggest ones, particularly in s2, are in execution, escalation and pacing.
I think heading into the season they had certain character arcs they wanted to follow which married well with the story they wanted to tell. In particular, I actually think the writers have a very strong handle on the girls (I will say that I’ve had a few asks telling me Beth’s characterisation is all over the place, which I’m curious about, just because I personally find her very consistent, and when I’ve asked for clarification, I’ve never gotten any reply, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I mean, look at their s2 arcs on paper, right?
Ruby tries to negotiate Stan’s lowered opinion of her after the reveal of what she’s done, then has to negotiate him telling her to turn Beth and Annie in. She manages the situation painfully but pulls them through and they’re close again as Ruby navigates the increasingly lower depths of their crime life. When Stan acts to save Beth for Ruby and is arrested, it only escalates – the case on him driving Ruby to extremes to try and save him, including robbing a Quick Cash and using counterfeit money to bribe a lawyer. On top of that, she’s being targeted by an FBI agent who’s after her best friend who she gives up and then saves and then who tries to sacrifice herself for them. Ruby finishes the season the most morally compromised she’s ever been.
Annie gets back together with her ex only to find out that he’s gotten his not-quite-separated-wife pregnant. She splits up with him, but is heartbroken and it’s only amplified by the fact that they’ve been given a job by their Crime Boss to murder a man who tried to rape her but who’s grandmother she has a relationship with. Her sister can’t kill him, and Annie doesn’t get the chance as MP beats her to it. Upon disposing of the body though she endures a whole lot of pain as a result of both her ex’s new family and knowing she’s robbed a woman of her own. Annie goes on a guilt tour – tells her son, helps Marion, helps Nancy only to eventually find an absolver of her guilt in Noah, who builds her up and tells her she’s more than what life has given her. She lets herself have it for a while, before realising he’s FBI and there to trap her, and Annie tries to use him only to realise she can’t, and she finishes the season in a lot more hurt than she started it.
Beth struggles with guilt after getting Dean shot, gets the job to kill Boomer from Rio, can’t do it, gets support and encouragement from him (in various states of animosity), but in the end doesn’t have to find out if she can do it because MP does it instead. She’s rewarded by Rio in a way she probably never has been by anyone, her husband further subjugates her, so she has sex with Rio, starts to entertain a future with him, but he undermines her, so she seizes control from him. They work together. Dean forces her to break up with him due to jealousy, she struggles, goes back, but Rio’s stung, so unhelpful, and they play a little cat and mouse before he bails then kidnaps her and she shoots him.
With the exception of that very last sentence, I think all of those are narratively really strong pathways to have explored. Like I said above though, the issue is in execution, escalation and pacing.
But to talk about those things, I think I probably need to talk about story.
SO!
Stories have a shape.
Kurt Vonnegut talks extensively about this, and while he’ll talk about a few different types of story shapes, they really all boil down to this bad boy here:

Look at this guy.
What a beautiful thing.
He’s a story.
It doesn’t matter if you’re reading Dr Seuss or Charles Dickens, when you read a story – when you strip away its words and its characters and its settings – this is what it looks like.
Or, well.
Not quite.
Really, it’s this guy:

But we’ll talk about him in a sec.
Right now, let’s talk about that first little inch:
The Beginning
The fact that stories have a beginning is not a surprise to anyone. Stories need them. In some ways, they’re the most important part of your story. After all, the job of the beginning is to set up the world your protagonist is about to leave behind. That is essential in grounding a reader / viewer – orienting them to the world that they’re in, and getting them invested in the story you’re about to tell, if not the protagonist.
Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game of Thrones are all excellent example of this (and frequently used in teaching) because in each of these cases it’s literal. Frodo leaves Bag End, Harry leave Privet Drive, Luke leaves Tatooine, the Starks leave Winterfell. There is a literal departure from the world before the crux of the story, and that departure is what signifies the start of the ‘hero journey’ aka the main part of your narrative.
Of course, it’s not always literal – in fact, it’s usually not. Usually that world is symbolic – it’s the single, uncertain world before the Bingley’s buy the house next door in Pride and Prejudice or the dry domestic sphere of Breaking Bad before Walt decides to make meth. It’s a marked shift, whether that’s internal or external.
In Good Girls, it’s internal.
The beginning is actually pretty perfect. The world it sets up that we’re about to (try to) depart is one of struggle and invisibility.
Beth’s in a loveless marriage promptly discovering that her husband is not only cheating but about to leave them destitute, Ruby’s getting ignored by the healthcare system and can’t afford to pay for her daughter’s wellbeing, and Annie is in a dead end job about to lose custody of her child.
Writing-wise – as a beginning, I honestly think 1.01 is close to perfect.
It sets up who these characters are, their personal conflicts, and the story world they share together, and the worlds they have on their own i.e. Ruby at the hospital and the diner, Annie at Fine and Frugal, Beth with Dean and Boland Motors.
Then:
BOOM
Inciting Incident.
The inciting incident is also often called The Point of No Return.

When I’m teaching, I personally like to call it the “You’re a wizard!” moment.
It’s when something happens that means everything set up in the beginning will be changed forever. It’s Romeo meeting Juliet, it’s Katniss volunteering for Prim, it’s Frodo deciding to take the ring to Mordor, it’s Jaimie pushing a child out a window, it’s Beth – deciding to take her little sister’s joke seriously and rob a grocery store.
(Again, I like to use Harry Potter because it’s literal – there is no return for Harry after hearing Hagrid tell him he’s a wizard. Everything is changed forever).
Inciting incidents are probably the most singularly important narrative moment, because they’re what everything else tumbles out of. Pretty much everything that happens in the story should be a direct or indirect result of the inciting incident. The inciting incident is ultimately the key of the story and what should unlock the overall arc.
When it comes to a series – whether that be a TV series, movie series or book series, each individual instalment (see: season of a show) should have its own inciting incident which – preferably – builds off the one established in the first instalment.
The Hunger Games does this really well. Katniss and Peeta being brought back into the games in Catching Fire is both an imitation inciting incident which allows the author to explore the story world further in an exciting way, and also an inciting incident that’s directly borne out of the first book / film – aka Katniss pissed enough people off during the first games that they’re going to try and kill her for real this time, which in turn gives us the opportunity to explore Katniss’ trauma, the ramifications of her actions in the first book on the broader story world, and to generate a new, compelling chapter based off of both.
Good Girls has a terrific inciting incident in s1 – which is Beth realising she’s about to lose everything.
That is our narrative point of no return.
And it works on a lot of levels – it establishes Beth as the driving engine of the story, fuelled by the chorus motivations of Annie and Ruby, rounding off both their collective and individual stakes, it sets us up for a strong narrative spine and solid characterisations.
Good Girls actually also has a terrific inciting incident in s2, which operates strongly on its own while also building firmly off the character arcs of s1.
The s2 inciting incident is Rio showing up on that park bench with Marcus, a gun and an order.
The story pivots here – giving Rio a lot of narrative thrust (get your minds out of the gutter kids), and making him a sort of secondary story engine. The core engine is still Beth, but her life is different now. She’s been traumatised and she’s exhausted, but Rio revealing his son to the girls (and tying their motivations up together in a neat little package) while forcing her to act, re-establishes her as the person who’s decisions are going to be the driving force of the narrative.
Ruby and Annie are, of course, story engines in their own right too, but they fall into line behind Beth usually, and their narrative push is actually usually away from the story throughline, but we’ll talk about that in a sec.
Rising Tension / The Middle
Okay, this is where things get a little tricky.
Do you remember this guy?

When we talk about stories, rising tension / the middle is the big guy. It’s the bulk of your narrative. It’s Where Things Happen. It’s where all the ugly stuff set up in your beginning and exploded by your inciting incident just - - grows a life of it’s own.
Or - -
Well.
Maybe not.
Forget about this guy.
Rising tension is this:

Rising tension is a series of ‘mini climaxes’ on the way to the main climax that raises the stakes, lets you know characters better, and pushes your characters onwards to the main climax.
Each of these little climaxes should be followed by a ‘narrative rest’. (that’s the dip after each spike)
Which - - I don’t know, might sound weird? I know when I started writing I was like ?? but it’s true! The closer you get to a big narrative climax, the more important rests are! Rests are – I personally think – one of the most important components of storytelling, because they re-ground an audience, remind them of what’s at stake, before thrusting everyone back into danger.
Again, Harry Potter is a gift in this sense because this is all really clearly paced out. Think about the first instalment – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s / Sorcerer’s Stone.
Harry and Ron save Hermione and Ron from the troll!!!
Then they become friends and enjoy school and quidditch.
Harry loses control of his broom during a quidditch game!!!!
He’s okay and then it’s Christmas and Harry gets the invisibility cloak and feels connected to his parents for perhaps the first time in his life.
Harry, Hermione and Ron go through the trapdoor to get the philosopher’s stone!!!
And - - okay, you get the point.
Each mini climax ups the stakes, but we feel those stakes upped because of the time we spend with characters during the ‘narrative rest’. For instance, while Harry and Ron saving Hermione from the troll might have sparked an interest in her, it’s the narrative rest scenes between that and her setting Snape on fire during the quidditch game that makes us invest in her as a character.
This is where things get a bit hairy with Good Girls. Good Girls does a tremendous job of giving us both great climaxes and wonderful moments of narrative rest. The issue, for me at least, is that it’s not always the best at balancing them. When I talk about escalation and pacing, this is a big part of what I mean.
Remember how I said this was the shape of a story?

Well, I think Good Girls s2 looked more like this:

We had a lot of solid movement in the first half of the season that sort of flattened out into a lower stakes, more meandering middle (which gave us 2.08 through 2.12). Which - -
Look.
The story changed gear, and it didn’t work.
Think of it this way:
2.01 – mostly character-based fallout from s1 + inciting incident of Rio handing them the gun
2.02 – almost entirely rising tension culminating with the girls bribing Boomer and Beth lying to Rio
2.03 – which thrusts us straight back into rising tension with the girls trying to kill Boomer and ‘succeeding’ via Mary Pat
2.04 – which gives us a very satisfying narrative rest as we explore Rio and Beth’s relationship outside of an overall narrative thrust – he gives her a key, she shies away from him, only to fall entirely back into him culminating in sex which itself brings about a new climax (no pun intended!) in the scene with Beth, Rio and Dean at the dealership. It’s also a strong character episode in closing certain plot threads – ending Annie and Greg’s relationship + ending Ruby lying to Stan about what they’re doing – while establishing major new threads – i.e. really colliding Turner and Mary Pat.
2.05 – and after the rest, we’re back to almost entirely satisfying rising tension! Building off of the threat of finding Boomer’s body and the new tensions that Rio and Beth’s intimacy brings.
2.06 – a mix episode! Very much building to the strong climax of Beth seizing power, but also an episode that plays around with character, has a lot of strong ‘rest’ moments i.e. the girls sorting pills and talking which gives us a lot of information as to state of minds, etc.
2.07 – again, very strong mixed episode which is focused on one single, extreme climax – Jane being missing, but building a very character-centric episode around it. Also introduces Noah though? Which is a mistake. He should have been introduced - I think, in 2.05, but that feels like a whole other post.
2.08 – narratively speaking the same as 2.07 in the sense of a single climax (the girls failing to get the money back / the Beth-Ruby confrontation), but has the added bonus of flashbacks.
2.09 – we have a slight narrative thrust with the robbery of the Quick Cash but it proves very quickly to be low stakes. This is an alllll emotional stakes episode, which means narrative tension is slowing.
2.10 – again, a character-focused, narrative rest episode devoted to Beth struggling with getting square. A few small climaxes – Annie and Ruby in Canada and Turner at the dealership being the big ones, but both quickly prove toothless. The heft / strength of the episode again is in character moments, not narrative thrust. Again - slowing it down.
2.11 – oh, what do we have here? Another character-focused, narrative rest episode? I love this episode – it’s one of my favourites of the show, but it’s intensely character focused. Very much centred in waving away the smoke around both Noah and Rio for Annie and Beth respectively. No dramatic climaxes. Slowing the story down even further.
2.12 – another narrative rest episode. A lot of slow exposition of Mary Pat and Jeff, which is good to know, but I’d argue placed badly in the season. This season’s already been slowing down despite the narrative timeline tightening, but this episode only further pushes on the brakes for Dean’s new job, Beth and Dean’s divorce, Beth and Rio’s break up. Two very small climaxes - the lawyer telling Ruby he knows about the money and the Boomer reveal but - in the context of the season - actually pretty low stakes. Again. Slowing down the narrative.
2.13 – A BIG CLIMAX EPISODE WHAT IS GOING ON???
What I’m saying in this is that the pacing in the back half of the season was, to me at least, fundamentally off. They hadn’t steered a strong enough narrative spine to take us through the season, and got heavily invested in character moments and not-entirely-thought-out-fallout in the back half of the season – it didn’t understand it’s own narrative thrust well enough to get us through. It also established a certain pacing with us in the first half of the season and shifted gears halfway through.
You can’t have your first three or six episodes be high-stakes-high-action, and then make the back end of your season same-stakes-low-action and top it all off with an explosive, poorly built-up finale in the way that they did.
There wasn’t enough thrust to push us through to the scene in Rio’s loft – neither narratively or in a character sense, and as a result, those last few episodes fall apart. Even beyond that though, the season escalated quickly then - - didn’t really know what to do with those escalations? It plateaued, which is indicative of bad pacing across the season.
I actually do think it’d be a relatively easy fix? I’d bring the Noah arc forwards and actually fiddle with the Beth and Rio break ups - get one even closer the tinale and make it more painful. Make it a climax in itself.
But anyway, haha:
The Resolution
All stories have a resolution too of course.
The resolution can be 30 seconds or 30 minutes – it’s a time to tie up loose ends and to reassure your audience that the journey they’ve been on is worthwhile.
(After all – you’ll notice the story diagram is not symmetrical – we never finish where we began).
I’m not going to talk too much about resolutions because at the end of the day – resolutions should fall fairly naturally out of your beginning, your inciting incident, your rising tension. It should tumble out like the double wedding at the end of Pride and Prejudice, but I will say that the s2 resolution was...err, not good. In no small part because it didn’t fall out of what we’d been told all season. They’d established a certain throughline and then taken it back, and that was nagl to be honest.
On the plus side though - it wasn’t a finale, so I have my fingers crossed they can fix it!
But yes, back to your ask, anon.
No, I don’t think that the writers were pandering. I think they went in with a sketched outline and that they probably got lost in the back end of the season and weren’t quite sure how to drum up the final act, which meant that final act didn’t work.
Ah, this post got so long! I hope it wasn’t boring or too self-indulgent or silly, and that you got something out of it! I am, of course, always happy to answer writing questions, and I hope you liked reading my story ramblings ;-)
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For S3 spoilers: Why does Rayla think Callum is "brave and amazing," and that she can't do this without him?
Given that Rayla says these things in the beginning of S3, we know she’s drawing upon her experiences with Callum from S1 and S2. And simply put, I think she has more than enough reason to think all those things about Callum, twice over.
Brave:
He’s saved her life on more than one occasion, even in cases he was very much out of his element (1x03, 1x05, 1x08).
Callum put his neck on the line to defend her to Runaan, an armed and seasoned assassin, on the roof.
Rayla’s seen Callum confront things he really rather wouldn’t - like the death of his stepfather - and come out on the other side.
He also attempted to take Ezran’s place and die by her hand, and defend Ezran from her despite again, being massively at a disadvantage.
Amazing
He’s the first human in god knows how long - as far as she knows, ever - to connect with a primal source.
He’s good at coming up with plans and thinking on his feet.
He has a massive heart and a very forgiving nature when it comes down to it. Even after the Dragon Queen ordered a successful assassination of his father, Callum is still heading towards Xadia to return her son to her.
She can’t do this without him
On a literal level, there’s the fact that, in her own words, “Human princes returning the Egg to the Dragon Queen, that’s the gesture that matters. That could end the war and change the world!”
He’s the reason Zym is able to be hatched and his wind spell is why - as they don’t know about Zym and Ezran’s connection yet - that they’re able to safely get across the Moonstone path.
Then there’s the emotional level. Simply put: I don’t think Rayla’s ever had someone stick with her in this way this long before. We know Runaan cared for and loved her, but he was a parental figure, not a peer, and that can make a world of difference.
And then in its own paragraph because it’s one of the Main Reasons I love this ship:
Callum, meanwhile, sticks around. Rayla shouts at him or shuts him out? He just waits her out or confronts her, but he doesn’t leave. Claudia and Soren try to convince him to go home? While Callum trusts them (until he doesn’t) he doesn’t think about actually going home with them for even a second. Rayla is left floundering after the Harrow reveal, is terrified that Callum will hate her, and then not only does he come find her to talk things out the way he implied he would (“I can’t talk about this right now”) but he forgives her and understands her. Rayla runs off to free the dragon and legitimately thinks she’ll die, and has made it clear to him he is by no means obligated to come with her? Callum goes after her anyway. He wakes up from his illness and stays with her, just like she was begging for him to. Ezran decides he needs to go home, and Callum, as the new heir to the throne and Ezran’s big brother / one of two remaining family members, would be completely entitled to choosing to go home with him.
But Callum doesn’t. Callum stays. He sticks around and seeks Rayla out and protects her and values her, he trusts her every time it matters. He saves her life and accepts her fears and thinks she’s fearless, brave, that she does heroic things all the same.
Then, on both the literal and the emotional level, is the scene before Zym’s hatching in 1x09. Rayla is devastated, as they all are, by the news that there is no way to save the Egg, but she is the one who blames herself.
R: I dropped it. This is all my fault.C: No, I should have trusted you. Things only went wrong because we kept fighting.R: I let you both down. I let the world down.
And what does Callum do? He tries to take that blame and put it on himself. I should have trusted you. It’s an incredible display of compassion and how much Callum cares for her. After all, he was angry when the Egg was dropped. But he disregards that now, because Rayla is blaming herself, and in his eyes that blame is entirely misplaced: it should be on him, instead. Just because it doesn’t work and Rayla doesn’t believe him doesn’t mean his intention isn’t there, and isn’t breathtaking.
So that’s the emotional level, and then there’s a greater combo of the two: Callum saves Zym by breaking the primal stone, and Rayla knows how much it / being able to do magic means to him, because he told her (“And then you called me a mage, and that felt… right”) and yet he does it anyway.
It’s primarily to save Zym and the hope for world peace, yes, but I don’t think I’m remiss in saying it’s also for her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s put her comfort and well being above his own (ie. pushing the boat away) and it won’t be the last I’m sure, but also because of how the moment is framed. Callum looks away from Rayla and Ezran crying, holding one another as Ezran too tries to erase the blame she’s put on her shoulders, and then we get this once Callum has figured out a solution:
Rayla looks up.
Callum can’t take away Rayla blaming herself, but he can fix the situation she’s blaming herself for, and he does it.
So do I think Rayla could conceivably bring Zym home on her own? Maybe. She’d certainly struggle. There’s been a few times she’s needed magic to bail her out. She’s also an incredibly capable person and fighter.
But there’s little doubt in my mind they wouldn’t have made it nearly this far without one another, and it’s fun to see an explicit canonical acknowledgement of that fact.
#rayllum#s3 spoilers#sort??#3x01#s1#s2#multi#analysis series#mini meta#analysis#1x09#thanks for asking#anonymous#requests
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15 + 24?
hi!! thank you so much <3
15. introduce us to your version of william
oh BABY!!!!
okay. so. the thing about william is i have always hated him. as someone who has been in a manipulative situation similar to noorhelm, just hated the man. so, i decided to create a new man. a good man. complex, but good.
enter JAMES ABRAHAM COHEN!!!!! he’s introduced to the song teenagers by mcr and is wearing a trenchcoat over his school uniform, not only because he’s edgy, but because he’s cold because he immigrated to the uk from the middle east. he is, at the beginning, a manwhore, yes. but he’s a party boy, a guitar boy, who rori sees and thinks Yes. My Future Husband. meanwhile he’s just having a drinking contest with his Boys and then talking about his favourite comic book character. he’s not a bad boy TM. he’s a Dumb Teenage Boy.
he's a genuinely nice guy. he apologises to rori as many times as he can, and only stops because she asks him to, and they become friends. he falls madly in love with liz as soon as she starts roasting him. he’s just an Understanding guy who’s made mistakes and is always trying to get better and be there for his friends. he literally let jake live in his flat for a good while.
and, my favourite thing about james is that he forced his friends to audition for a production of grease with him to see the girl he Loves So Much and ends up getting the lead role???? TWICE???? this man is danny zuko and roger davis.
also, in my personal opinion, i think james is kind of a superior arthur skamfrance. both have a disability (arthur is hard of hearing, james has autism/adhd), both have abusive family, both are in a love triangle with two beautiful girls (one of whom is a wlw chris b). and also a surprise member of the boy squad starting in season 3.
also, in a way, my william is a william/jonas/eskild combination??? which is very fun. i just love taking all these different skam dynamic, cutting them up and throwing them in a pot and seeing what looks nice.
also, ONE LAST THING, i think my william has the most reasonable reason to go to london. as it is an hour away from brighton by train and he can come back before the day’s over. because he’s a teenage boy. and we will be seeing a lot more of james in season 5. get ready for it.
24. tell us about a ship that is endgame.
i’m going to be real with you all on tumblr dot com on this night. i honestly don’t know what romantic ships are going to be endgame, because i plan the seasons i’m writing as i’m writing them, so i only have the vague framework of what i want for the endgame of skambr as a whole. so i’m just going to talk about the 3 main romantic ships that are canon as of the end of season 4. and i’m gonna Go Off.
esther/sandy:
OKAY. taking sandy’s story as a whole. she’s kissed her best girl friend. she started dating a guy she doesn’t like. she’s desperate for something new to come along. and esther has just moved back from germany. she just wants to meet someone to talk to because she’s so lonely. and boom. they run into each other one night by chance and it’s “oh my god she’s so pretty” at first sight. and then they start talking and become friends so quickly (and esther introduces sandy to the keysmash). also, nooreva should’ve been canon. i have rectified that.
but god. the way they have their conversation in s1 e4 and almost kiss but get interrupted by sophie??? god. and when they actually kiss in s1 e6 and suddenly everything’s Good until they get caught. and sandy Runs because what else can she do? she’s terrified. and esther stays. and when they see each other again, esther doesn’t say anything because she knows sandy can’t talk about it. until sandy gets outed and attacked by the football team, and esther instantly goes to protect her and puts her own feelings aside to make sure sandy’s okay. and sandy just Needed a safe place to land like esther for so long. and when they finally kiss at the christmas fair as “girls like girls” plays????? god.
and their relationship in all of the later seasons GOD. i love them. their fight and reconciliation in season 2. them just being together casually, with sandy healing from her past and learning to truly love herself, and esther opening up and having someone there to comfort her when she needs it. and the fact that they’re still friends throughout it all, because it;s not just friends to lovers. it’s friends to friends AND lovers. also when esther sang “boy problems” by crj at sandy..... ICONIC
liz/james:
GOD. okay these two are really one of my favourite dynamics i’ve ever written. because they start as “oh you’re the annoying guy my best friend’s got a crush on”. and go to “oh you’re the ASSHOLE who broke my friend’s heart”. to “oh she may have forgiven you, but i Have Not”. and james is just like “I Am Being So Nice And She Still Hates Me”. but then we see liz seeing james’s art piece at the end of s2 e1. and she connects with it so deeply. and then they have their first real conversation in the next episode and they have a lot in common. they get each other. and he sings “perfect for you” from n2n to her. and she gets so overwhelmed by the fact that her mind might be changing that she just Runs Away.
and then we get the sleepover scene and GOD. one of my favourite scenes to write. james being a good cook??? james smoking out the window and liz making fun of his guitar. and then liz beginning to play james’s brother’s piano and james making it a duet as they sing “falling slowly” from once together. and then they share a bed and instead of saying something creepy, james just says “i think we might be becoming friends”. and she texts him immediately after the prank on the holiday episode. and their first kiss. GOD. with him always calling her elizabeth and the pride and prejudice parallels and “bad idea” from waitress...... and then them spending the next day together. also, in the first kiss clip liz says that she “hates one direction”, and in the next morning clip, one direction plays as she walks with james. it’s a metaphor baby!!!!!1
and their whole political dynamic GOD. it’s actually based a lot on how my politics have changed from when i was 14, beginning to write the series, and now. with going from the centrist-liberal ideas of “all violence is bad :) racism isn’t that bad guys :)” to liz using her privilege as a rich white girl to fully bail james out of jail for assaulting the man who’s been racially harrassing him for months. and the scene where liz has her meltdown at school and james takes her home, puts her to bed, and sings her to sleep. AND THE SCENE WHERE HE COMES OUT TO HER AS TRANS GOD. also them just being nice in the background of season 3 and 4. delightful.
bree/rori:
THIS RELATIONSHIP IS LITERALLY ONE OF MY FAVOURITES TOO GOD. their DYNAMIC in the scene where bree is introduced and rori is all starry eyed over her and bree will already do Anything for her. it’s about the “i want to be her friend so bad” kind of crushes. and bree and rori getting closer and closer as the season goes on, and they get the “i bet i can make you horny” scene because i just think it’s really fun.
and GOD. the evilde plot in skam og makes me. so Mad. but here...... it’s about the internalised homophobia. it’s about the wanting one good movie kiss. it’s about the them making out to one direction in the middle of a school event. AND THEM DOING THE PRANK TOGETHER ON THE EASTER HOLIDAY EPISODE. QUEEN SHIT! and the scene where bree is drunk and talking to liz about how it feels to be in love...... that was about rori!!!! and when they played sandy and rizzo in grease together. the homoeroticism, the best friendship.
and in season 3 when nick and rori get together and bree is just standing there, jake talking to her and she looks into the camera...... god. and SEASON FOUR RORIANNA. WHICH IS THEIR SHIP NAME IN MY HEAD. GOD. them just being best friends and bree being silently in love with her because she’s happy that rori is happy with nick (who is also her friend). the scene where they “practise kissing” because rori is scared to kiss a girl onstage (we love internalised homophobia), and how bree also ignores it because she’s scared of conflict. and they’re always so there for each other. rori being there to support bree so hard when bree’s at her lowest point. bree being there for rori and ready to fight for her. bree going from waking up next to josh, to waking up alone, to waking up next to rori. them going from slow dancing to daylight by taylor swift to laughing and dancing on a crowded stage in la vie boheme.
quite genuinely? they have it all. evilde. sana/chris b. eva/chris b. noora/chris b. noora/vilde. it’s about girls supporting girls and also them kind of being cut from the same cloth as sandy/esther. one of them having internalised homophobia and running away from the kiss, and the other silently loving them until they get a yes or a no.
anyways every relationship i write is about having clear consent and respect for your partner at all times. and also about friends to lovers. and also the tenderness of musical theatre couples. oh shit now i want to talk about jake/al. well. this is my tumblr blog and you all have to deal with me.
jake/al: jake and al are currently Not Together as of skam brighton season 4 but god. i love writing their relationship so much. it’s about them meeting when al is in a manic episode and jake is deep in his depression and grief. about the nothing and the everything. it’s about the jason and peter secret gay lovers, the tony and maria falling in love on the balcony and having their first kiss at a pretend wedding, the romeo and juliet whirlwind romance that ends in tragedy. it’s about the bright orpheus al with his music and his bright life and sad, bitter jake, hating everything about himself and holding his own, but then falling in love and finding a way to build himself a new life, while al is falling down into a deep depressive episode. and then jake picks al up and gives him the tools he needs to help him step back from the ledge. and then al, who’s spent the entire season chasing after jake and the joy he gives him, turns around and walks away to better himself. and jake is okay with it, because he also needs time on his own to get better, and they agree to stay close friends, and they do!!! it’s about the gay experience of falling madly in love and then going back to be friends.
#skam brighton#isaac speaks#skam brighton spoilers#thank you so much for this <3 enjoy my infodumping that i wrote while watching bway jackbox
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My Top 10 Favorite (and Top 5 least favorite) Izuocha moments
mysterylover123
OK, to explain that title and why I didn’t have a “least favorite” for any other ship: While I have moments for other ships that I don’t like, none of those ships are canon. I have no interest in making people feel bad about shipping things. I do feel it’s ok to critique writing choices you don’t agree with in the actual show, and there are a few big Izuocha moments I don’t like, so I needed to cover them. I do like this ship, for the record - but the canon handling was odd to me, so I thought I’d do a favorite and least for this list instead of just a favorites.
#10. Battle Trial Arc Teamwork
From: Episodes 7-8
What Happens: Deku and Uraraka are teamed up to fight Iida and Bakugo. Uraraka is very reassurring to Deku about their teamwork and at the climax of the arc, they work together to defeat their opponents in awesome fashion. Uraraka also goes up to Deku post arc with concern
Why I Like It: I do like me some battle couples. I love seeing Deku talk to Uraraka about his feelings (albeit for Bakugo) and Uraraka calling them a team and working hard because Deku inspires her to try harder. Deku showcases his scheming brilliant brain here too.
#9. Voting for Deku
From; Episode 9 “Just Do your best Iida”
What Happens: The voting happens. Bakugo pitches a fit that two people voted for Deku, and Uraraka whistles while thinking “I’ll just keep my vote to myself”
Why I Like It: Uraraka voted for Deku, like Shoto did for Momo, and keeps it a secret. I’m hoping we get a similar scene to the Todomomo one where Ochako reveals this, though I’m not sure how that would play out.
#8. Someone you like
From: Season 3 Episode 15
What Happens: Uraraka, embarrassed about her classmates grilling her on her love life, floats to the ceiling - and sees Deku out the window practicing ultimate moves. She seems very smitten.
Why I Like It; This is a more pure Izuocha moment as she responds to him romantically, reaction to how cool he is and how much she admires him. I’m not wild about Mina telling Uraraka she likes Deku, but I do like he actually acting like she does.
#7. Cavalry Battle Teamup
From: The Sports Festival Arc 2.04-2.05
What Happens: Ochako teams up with Deku in the Cavalry battle, hoping to as she later puts it “rely on him to get by”. She gets jealous of how much attention he pays Mei. Deku thinks about her support of him and all she’s done for him as he fights hard to win.
Why I Like It; This is actually more of a Deku on Ochako moment, since she later complicates her own role in this with her admission about Iida. But Deku says that he wanted her for his team, and thinks how cool she is, and is inspired by her support of him to fight Todoroki. It shows how much he values her support.
#6. Joint Training Arc Teamwork
From: Chapters 209-216
What Happens: Deku and Uraraka watch each others’ backs in combat. Uraraka saves him from his powers gone mad, hugging him to calm him down. Afterwards she blushes about it, and he possibly blushes too though it’s not clear.
Why I Like It: Again, love some teamwork pairings. I wanted a little more from this arc (Uraraka talking Deku down instead of Shinso) but we still got her hugging him and blushing about it while thinking about her new “who saves the heroes” motivation. Deku is also grateful to her for saving him. Uraraka works well with him, worries about him, but now she doesn’t let it distract her.
#5. First Meeting and Rescue
From: Chapters 2-4
What Happens: Uraraka saves Deku from tripping over his feet. Deku is attracted to her; she gets trapped in the fight and Deku saves her. This gets him into UA. She also offers him her points to Present Mic.
Why I Like It; It’s such a sweet first impression. He thinks she’s cute (she finds him plain, which annoys me - someone call Deku pretty before the series if over.) He saves her, she saves him, she offers him her points, he thinks about how she helped him before and tries to go talk to her. I like how he compares it to saving Kacchan from the sludge monster too - saving Uraraka is put in the same category as saving his lifelong acquaintance, despite having just met her.
#4. Deku means you can do it
From: Episode 6 Rage you Damn Nerd
What Happens: Uraraka greets Izuku as “Deku” based on Bakugo’s name. Izuku corrects her but she suggests Deku could mean “you can do it.” Izuku immediately changes his attitude on the name. Later that ep he takes her name as his “you can do it” motto, which she finds touching.
Why I Like It; The Deku name is one of my favorite Izuocha bits. I love how she gives his nickname a new meaning and he likes it, takes it for himself, and finds strength from this support. (Of course, this is one of many moments on this list that some how also connects with Bakugo. There’s a lot of subtle parallelism between Ochako and Kacchan, probably since these three were the first three characters designed for the series).
#3. Giving her a plan
From: Season 2 Episode 8 Battle on challengers
What Happens: Deku notices how upset Uraraka is before her match and offers her a scheme to use against Bakugo. She declines and heads out to her match; post fight, he comes in to comfort her and is touched again by her support.
Why I Like It; Deku noticed she was upset! He offered to help her, wanting to support her like she’s supported him! He roots for her and admires her techniques, corrects Bakugo about her hard work, and tries to be there for her when she loses. She’s so sad about her loss, and I wish she’d cried on his shoulder instead of shutting him out - one day, she will, I hope.
#2. The real Uraraka
From; Shiketsu High Lurking 3.16
What Happens: Deku, while fighting Camieraka, recognizes that she isn’t Ochako. He runs down all of Uraraka’s features and why Camieraka can’t really be her.
Why I Like It; Deku shows here that he actually knows Uraraka pretty well, understands her, knows what she would never do and guesses that Camie was impersonating her. I like when people show they know their dates - once again, he knows her by now to the same degree that he knows his lifelong acquaintance Bakugo (in S1’s BTA he also knows Bakugo’s techniques in the same manner). I like that kind of familiariity.
Extras
Movie
Filler
#1. Deku, that has to be my codename
From: Season 2 Episode 13 Time to pick some names
What Happens: Midoriya picks Deku as his hero name, explaining that Uraraka made him see it in a different way, and smiling about it. We see Kacchan and Ochako both reacting.
Why I Like It; This simple scene is my favorite Izuocha moment, because I love how much the Deku name means to Midoriya. It’s kind of a motif among friendships in the show, this “picking your hero name” thing, and while Bakugo did come up with the name, Ochako gave it its new meaning. I like seeing them happy.
Top 5 Least Favorite
#5. Putting those feelings away
From: Provisional License Exam Arc
What Happens: Ochako decides to put her feelings for Deku away instead of acting on them in a little monologue.
Why I Didn’t Like It; While I’m glad we get to focus more on Ochako being a badass, as a shipper I found her decision frustrating. It just makes no sense that she can’t just tell Deku she likes him, date him and be happy. All that buildup doesn’t seem to be leading towards anything but delaying the inevitable. I find it really annoying when series up off the inevitable get together till the end just because it’s expected.
#4. Running away at the mall
From: Season 2 Episode 25 “Encounter”
What Happens: Ochako, left alone with Deku, runs away yelling about bug spray. He gets attacked by Tomura while she freaks out about her feelings.
Why I Didn’t Like It; Well for one, we miss a chance for them to hang out one-on-one. Two, Uraraka indirectly calls Deku a “pest”, hurting his feelings. Three, we juxtapose her feelings with Tomura nearly killing Deku. Forth, she finds the idea of liking him so scary and off-putting, and this becomes her story for the next two arcs, which I find annoying since it just repeats the same thing over and over again.
#3. Because you like him?
From: Final Exam Arc
What Happens: During their fight with 13, Uraraka is thinking “what would Deku do?” Aoyama asks Uraraka if she likes Deku. This freaks her out and nearly gets her killed.
Why I Didn’t Like it: I don’t get why Aoyama did this. Why? What was he thinking, why ask this during their test, why does this lead to Uraraka beating 13, why was this the way we made Izuocha canon? I don’t get why Uraraka’s crush on Deku has to be something other people tell her she has, can’t she just figure it out for herself? Aoyama what is your deal? I legitimately don’t get what Horikoshi was going for her.
#2. Hey jealousy
From: Various
What Happens: Uraraka freaks out when Deku gets near Mei, Melissa, and Camie, burning with Jealousy. Most recently she punched herself in the face for doing so.
Why I Didn’t Like It; I didn’t mind the first time with Mei, because it was Deku complimenting Mei, or Melissa in the film. But the other times, Deku is getting felt up and creeped out by invasive girls who scare or harm him, and Uraraka reacts by getting jealous of him, instead of trying to defend him. Try flipping their genders and see how disturbing it comes across. Like a “Nice Guy” getting mad that his crush is daring to get felt up by other men. Even if she says it makes her uncomfortable.
#1. Himiko Toga’s monologue
From: Training Camp Arc
What Happens: Toga recognizes that Uraraka likes Deku and creepily tells her that she has “her smell”, that they’re both obsessed with copying and replacing their boys. She later says “a great deal of faith is placed in you”.
Why I Didn’t Like It; Toga is Uraraka’s evil foil. If liking Deku this way is Uraraka’s flaw, that places a really negative spin on Izuocha. It makes it seem like liking Deku is only going to lead Uraraka down a wrong path and make her fall. Why? Why does her main romance have to be something that apparently scares and hurts her? It’s Deku for crying out loud! He’s a sweetheart, he likes her, they get along. This implies that Uraraka’s feelings for Deku are similar to Toga’s for Stain - she wants to kill and replace the person she admires. Also, the “trust in you” line sounds like blatant Traitor-Uraraka baiting, like that line in her bio about there being no “hidden side to her”. I love Toga, I love Ochako, I want them to be great foils, but I don’t want that to be in a way that makes Ochako’s romance look creepy.
So that’s my thoughts - read my meta for the whole story. I ship it but I want the story to start handling it differently.
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