#but to view a scene that wasnt an action scene as punishment??

[irandomblogfulb]

In one hand, that statement undermines just how difficult it is to direct an engaging good "just talking" scene and the skill it takes to pull that off.

But the other hand, it's indicative of how RWBY morphed into a vanity project over its decade-long run.

I understand that as an artist your social media is your portfolio and the more eyes you have the more job opportunities come by.

But Roosterteeth (and this includes Crwby) have fostered a clout-chasing type of environment.

Miles, Kerry and Gray would have meeting with their stressed, overworked, underpaid co-workers just to brag about their trips to Japan.

The fndm has placed MKEK and any talent in Crwby with an on-screen social media presence on a pedestal and, in a way deified them. And all of them have indulged in the toxic parasociality and Internet fame and even weaponized it to obfuscate criticism.

That statement kind of legitimised that and showed how that mindset of farming engagement from the fandom and clout chasing permeated through the entirety of production.

[onlyangellucifer]

I LOVE YOU, ITS RUINING MY LIFE

PLOT:

It’s the biggest trial of the year and the whole world is watching. Stakes are higher and tension is higher. Little do they know, the prosecutor and defence attorney are in love.

OR

Harry is a popular defense attorney in London & Y/N is a popular prosecutor. Both are known for rarely losing & now they’ve found themselves in a pickle.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:✧*⋆.*:･ﾟ✧.: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆ ☾

WARNINGS:

Mentions of murder, blood, and the likes (nothing too graphic), smut (in the future), angst, fluff, etc. will add more if any others pop up!

AUTHORS NOTE:

Hello!! Ive been MIA, sorry. However, ive come bearing gifts! Below the cut is a sneak peak at this new short series (no more than 6 parts atm). Im working on the other series’ too, sorry for the delay. Hope you can forgive me. Anyways i hope u enjoy defense attorney!Harry 🫶🏼 the preview also isnt proof read, so excuse any typos. Meaning things WILL be changed / could be changed & moved around! Not sure of word count, but cant be more than 1500. Its short.

London hasnt seen a case this high profile since the case of Harold Shipman, who killed up to 250 victims. Many feared this may be another case of Jack The Ripper, as they double checked their doors at night, hoping the serial killer wasn’t going to show up at their door. The relief that washed over the town when the police had finally caught the man whom they think is responsible for the latest killings of 20 men and women. The scenes were too graphic to show on tv.

Y/N ended up with the case. The crime scene photos were unnerving to her and interviewing the victims families made it even worse. Bile creeping up throat as she read the horrific things that happened to each victim. She wanted to know this case by the back of her hand, because of course she was up against one of the top defense attorneys in the country. He rather lost and found plot holes in every single case, having a 97% success rate with getting his clients off the hook and their record clear. She thought noone would pick up the mans case, there was so much evidence that pointed towards the man.

Harry was attractive, tall, dark hair and those piercing greenish hazel eyes. Y/N was nervous and she hated being that way. Harry often came by the law firm, having connections with anyone and everyone. His career was unmatched, he was handsome, wealthy, the whole package. Yet he was single and that blew Y/N’s mind.

Harry was just as shocked as Y/N to learn they’d facing each other in court. He was certain his client did it, but, he had to defend him anyways. He was called by the court to do it pro bono, as noone else wanted to take the case. If he lost, his numbers would certainly be impacted. If he won, people may look at him differently in a moral sense. Surely though there was a plot hole and the prosecution would slip up. He couldnt believe it was Y/N who got the case. Soft, shy, gorgeous Y/N. He already developed this small crush on her and now he had to take her on in court? Surely this wasnt a good thing. It had to be God punishing him for helping criminals and making a good living while doing so. Harry always viewed her as the more submissive type and his dirty thoughts were hard to keep at bay. Maybe that was the reason God was punishing him.

While Harry laid awake, staring at the ceiling, Y/N was doing the same. Y/N had never seen Harry in action, but, she’s heard how he’s always been strict and concise in the court room. His dominant side coming out, and that scared Y/N. Especially because she imagined him being dominant somewhere else, mainly at night when she lay in bed alone with her thoughts and hands.

[kijosakka]

ooouuuuu izzy i have so many thoughts about izzy within dramaturgy. so many

so im gna keep it a little nebulous here bc again im not entiiirely sure what im keeping/changing within WT, but this is smth fun i want to cover

to rehash another post: noahs behavior, his detachment, comes off to izzy as a kind of strategy. actors recognize actors or something and she does goes on to become one. she can tell hes compartmentalizing. this could also serve as a kind of reason for her to be so eager to swap teams, but again she sees how he flaunts his worst and gets voted off basically unanimously.

^ her intrigue in his lacking and finding out it wasnt in fact a strategy to further himself in the game, could also serve for why she picks him to team-up with in tddddi.

okok, so beginning this at the end to the tddddi special, i established in the post covering it that izzy basically drags noah into the water with her, thus making him apart of the action cast (that is, as an additional competitor and not actually replacing anyone). izzy sees this as an opportunity to learn more about noah, since he has to compete, right?

but come the time theyre on their way to the film lot, noah is nowhere to be seen. and izzy learns though being eliminated that somehow hes apart of the peanut gallery and not the cast.

< i imagine that her hearing about the [*]lawsuit courtney filed would make her think that maaaybe it has something to do with why he wasnt on the show.

and its izzy. shes been intrigued by him from the start and come finale she has every intention of seeking him out after the show if only to satiate her curiosity. only noah is nowhere. nowhere. and nobody knows anything either!

[*learning at the award ceremony/red carpet event that noah was working as chris' PA confirms this to her, for behind-the-scenes-adjacent reasons that im going to get into in this next section]

so noah has his whole disappearing from the public thing post-action, but he isnt the only one who goes on to do something notable after the show: izzy, for one, has an acting career.

and its shown explicitly that izzy is someone with a small-scale example of 'discipline/punishment' in her on-set freakout. she, unaware of the cameras still rolling, blows up in a manner that is made severely public and therefore completely dashes her livelihood and reputation.

this, in tandem with the fact that her even being an actress puts her just behind noah (and s2 geoff and bridgette but ill cover them later) in terms of former contestants getting close to Behind The Cameras, meaning that izzy has had a taste of both contestant-ship and employment (which are wildly different), alters her view on noah drastically.

and after having lost her career, it makes something abundantly clear about why and how noah behaved on camera --- being, this is the kind of thing he's trying to avoid.

and even coming back to the offhand ideas of sierra embodying the casts 'punishments' (as seen in the rb chain really kickstarting this au), theres izzy.

she meets sierra and the obsessive way she rewatches the show and picks it apart, and it confirms to her again why noah separates himself so heavily. and its not like its her speculating; noah is the one cast member that sierra knows nothing about.

^ hes just... so little. he has no audition tapes for her to reverse engineer his name or school from, no bonus clips, nothing useful in his interview, no cast anecdotes. compared to the sheer amount she has on everyone else -- she has a relative guess at his age and height just comparatively to the rest of the cast, but nothing concrete beyond his first name.

not even mentioning how he's completely disappeared socially. nobody in the cast has any contact info, no one knows his whereabouts -- hell, is this guy even alive? does he exist? was he a collective figment of the casts imaginations or something?

^ coming back to izzy; she picks up rumors about the rest of the cast and helps sierra run her mill. but theres something so distinct about the ones pertaining to noah -- unlike the others, based around paparazzi photos and interviews and gossip sites and behaviors from On The Show, his are just... there. they're so inherently baseless they might as well be worthless.

as far as izzy can tell, reality TV as a machine has chewed everyone up and spit them out to try and break themselves catering to the whims of the Public, and the only one whos going unseen is noah.

im sure this means something important and focal to their dynamic as teammates in WT, but i havent worked out everything for that season so i cant say definitively what it would impact.

you could spin it so izzy and noahs dynamic (and to some extent with both being Pieces in the Business giving them vague history/shared experience) is much more focal to the overarching story and his character growth as a whole and keep her in the game longer, or just have her influence his motivations to a much greater degree.

idk!! not entirely sure on that front, but izzy having that small-scale example of what 'being unaware' can do is pretty interesting in the context of this au!!

[mikka-minns]

WAIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN LAST SCENE OF HER?! WELL THEN IM FONE WATCHING THE STORYMODE! >:(

(jk but now im disapointed)

Honestly, to me, that scene is realy about all three

Kuai has been trough some shit for the last couple of years. Betrayed and scared by his own brother, hunter by his old clan, Almost killed at his own wedding which was supposed to be his new start and lin kuei endangered all the people around him. His actions arent the most rational, but his heart is in the right place. He defenetly wouldnt have though od killing Cyrax on his own but when she asks him to he cant stop to think "let me see how fair that is". He wants to forgive Cyrax, he knows she was decived just like him but he cant just calm down in a second. Ffs he was Just attacked yet again. This time woth even more people getting hurt because of him. He needs Someone he knows he can trust in this moment and that is, of course, his partner.

Harumi on the other hand, Just as much of a victim in this moment, had more clear view. She wasnt attacked by her own blood. She wasnt betrayed. But she could've also said "yeah fuck it kill that bitch whatever" BUT SHE DIDNT! She acted like any sane and honorable person would! Cyrax showed her mercy AND showed signs of regret. Harumi knows her husband and she knows that all he needs is a reminder that mercy IS a choice, that he CAN break the cycle of violence. She is the third, more objective and rational party in Cyrax and Kuai's conflict. She saw lin kuei's bs with no rose colored glasses and wasnr afraid to think about it all.

Amd last but not least, Cyrax. Gurl just got a served a massive plot twist. She finds out "oh i was actualy betrayed by THESE guys" and yeah. Thats defenetly not pleasent. At all. When she asks Kuai to kill her, at least to me, it doesnt feel Like she is Just asking for a punishment but also release. She has no one now. Lin kuei lied to her and they wont just let her go. Kuai's new clan probably will want her dead, so will shaolin(not dead, but yk they wont exactly hug her and ask how her day is). She has nowhere to go(her family is connected to lin kuei so.... Yeah she is realy lost). But Harumi, Who revealed the truth to her, spares her. Cyrax probably cant comprehand it all in the moment, Just like Kuai couldnt either, but she is alive because of Harumi. And im so FUCKING GLAD that ther is no Cyrax and Harumi drama in the game(so far?) like some of us were afraid. Im glad its just girls supporting girls and victims supporting victims.

Me during the whole red wedding sequence, focusing on Harumi:

Me (and the rest of the harumi stans) after the red wedding sequence when she is still alive AFTER ALL THESE DAMN YEARS:

Can't you believe Lais? SHE LIVES!!!! THEY FINALLY LET HER BREATHE!!!!!!!!!

Most accurate reaction fr cause

GIIRLL! THIS SCENE IS EVERYTHING TO ME!!!

I just love everything about this scene, my favourite part gotta be her going all dramatic like "Oh no, my hubby is going to war and there's nothing I can d-- SIKE!!"

And the way she goes battle mode, practically waltzing through the battlefield with such deadly and yet graceful moves! Girl really is a crane! :O

Also, she shut up once and for all those who doubted she could fight! Even though this scene

Has been around for A YEAR and the whole point of Kuai look for her is because of her skill and experience but ANYWAYS!

Her fighting was awesome, I love Cyrax protecting her and I LOVE Harumi not hesitating in kick Sektor’s ass when she threatened her! Sektor was lucky Cyrax intervened cause Harumi was NOT taking threats lightly!

And after we have Harumi beating up the soldiers holding her and standing up for Kuai! Look how her guard is up the whole time!

Kuai Liang you LUCKY BASTARD!

It's so good that she was the one who outed Bi-Han! She really said "Girl, this guy is full of shit!"

And the fact that her last act in the story was a merciful one!

Ever since this scene was leaked, I saw everyone making it all about Kuai, how "Oh, she's HIS moral complass" "HIS self control" ada ada ada!

But this scene is so much more about her and Cyrax! It's her way of repaying Cyrax for her mercy, protection and HONOUR, which is all Cyrax wants, to be an honourable warrior! And Harumi was the first to view her as such, she's the first to believe her and give her a shot at redemption!

Harumi is on Cyrax corner from the beginning and I think that speaks VOLUMES about her character!

I said all this just to emphasize the fact that not only they gave us a "for once, she lives" but also showcased what we have believed for A YEAR, that Harumi Shirai

IS AN AMAZING CHARACTER WHO DESERVES TO BE RECOGNIZED!🌺🩷

[sunlightandsuffering]

Suffering hardships doesnt excuse the trauma Eren inflicted on Mikasa in the table scene. He made her question her entire identity and people tend to excuse it by saying Eren loves her and never meant it. But it still wasnt fair to her. And sex isnt compensation for his behaviour so he doesnt get anywhere near Mikasa until he cries like a bitch, grovels on the ground and begs for her forgiveness. Also cabin Eren faced the exact same harships but chose not to indiscriminately kill people.

K so what I gain from this response is that u dislike Eren? To which I ask why are you here? Like bruh I was talking about them fucking 😂 it’s not really that deep. ( or maybe he I mean it is 😏😏) I get Eren should obviously repent for his stuff, but tbh I think Mikasa killing him etc, was more than enough, that’s some Ancient Greek god punishment shit, to be killed by the one u love most, PAIN, not to mention his own psychological suffering, and it’s not like he did it for the memes either, but it’s pretty clear from ur ask u don’t really like him. ‘Cries like a bitch, grovels on the ground and begs for forgiveness’ like what?? Who says that about a character u genuinely like and want to ship with another character. Clearly u hold Mikasa much higher as a character and that’s fine, but idk why u would ship her with him.

Especially if u won’t view his actions through a lens of understanding, which is not to forgive him but give the kid a little slack honestly, his head was fucked and do u know how it probably hurt him just to say that shit? I feel for him so much, Eren is human and he makes mistakes and he did what he thought was best, what he was sure of. Cabin Eren is a totally different situation. Regardless, this is an Eren AND Mikasa blog, not a Mikasa Stan blog it is BOTH. So ur not gonna catch me having either of them cry or whine or snivel for fun. I’m not gonna bother discussing this in any more detail, not worth it. But as a little cherry on top I think if Mikasa had the choice between Eren grovelling +crying like a bitch and sex, think she’d probably choose the second option 😉 and I on my mostly horny EM blog think hot kinky sex with Eren is probably a solid start to our boy making it up to her lmfao.

[hikarikaishi-blog]

Why Caleb did what he did in ep127 – my theory.

This is my theory it can be super wrong, maybe I am right at some points, I just want to put it out there, maybe some of  you will like it. Here we go:

Caleb is my fav character the whole campaign so far and what he did in that episode shocked me, it was so not like him. We did see him when cornered he would go rampage but was he cornered here? So I was shocked.

I was shocked he didnt discuss the problem that might come from this with the M9, they didnt talk about it might be a trap they just went for it. They didnt think twice and that was alarming for me and the second they interacted with the guards it all went south and Caleb ignored Astrids tip of being stealthy to avoid Trent. And in the end he did appear and I was like „that is what you get when you just go full rage and dont think a second about it and Caleb you were the thinker in this campaign why did you do all of that?! Next episode I want an explanation for this or I am out!“

Caleb knew what he was doing all the time, he knew if he would do all of this Trent would show up.

There is no way he did forget that because Astrid told him super clear that Trent isnt there so they should be STEALTHY.  But he didnt. He ignored the warnings and put Astrid in danger with that as well, a soon as Trent sees the maps he knows who helped and Astrid will be punished. He said he cares for her and puts her in this danger! It was all a lie? Astrid deserves so much better than this! Boo Caleb for treating a girl that was obviusly in pain so she cried because of you like that! I was at least a bit happy that Matt clearly said Trent did appear because of the rucus, not because of Astrid. She didnt sent Trent. She didnt do it.

Caleb ignoring Astrid and her advice and destroying the bit of Trust that was building up between them – shatterd. „Caleb thats so stupid why are you that stupid.“

I was all that. I was so disappointed.

I woke up next morning and was still disappointed and a bit angry that Caleb went this route with all the murder. He knew Trent will maybe show up and catch them while stealing his stuff and he did it anyway. It was like Caleb wanted Trent to show up. To show him how much he hates him and to show him what he is capable off. Because Trent knows that now because he sees the display of raw power he might want to get Caleb back under his thumb and make him work for him again. There is no way out of this situation for them, than to bargain with Trent and he imo will let them got when they will do him a favor later. Caleb must have known that and still did this.

He is just playing into Trents hand where everyone wanted him to escape from. Because Trent is so bad.

And I was: Wait a minute.

Let that sink in for a secong.

He is playing …

playing Trents game. Do you get where I am going with this?

What if all of this, the killing and blood everywhere, is an act made up by Caleb? What if he is playing Trents mind game back at him?

He is giving Trent a view on him like Trents want to think of Caleb: Powerful, full of hate against the Volstruker and Trents experiments, full on revenge and wants to kill him, Trent, but also is no match for him with getting so easily caught in the middle of his home. He has power but he isnt clever enough. What if Caleb wanted to get caught by Trent? Pretend he is not clever so Trent thinks he isnt clever and can be a puppet for him again?

While  pretendign being a puppet again, Caleb can get closer to him/the Assembly to learn more about him and his connections in the Assembly. To learn how to root out all the corruption in the assembly wich is his main goal this whole campaign! He wanted to learn about all that from Ves, we know that, but that didnt work out so he has to do it another way and now he doing it on his own.

He knows, he can not fight the Assembly heads up. He knows he has to get inside first and root out evil from within. He has to earn some trust to get the info he wants to have. He cannot trust anyone so he goes on his own and wants to plays Trents game and maybe be better this time and beat Trent. What better way to beat someone than in his own game right?

And do you remember who talked about beating someone at their own game? Do you? It was Astrid during the dance scene. She said „...either we walk into their trap or beat them in their own game.“

In that scene i thougt she was talking about the TT because she touched his spots with the red eyes a second before and it bothered me that she said „we“. Was she planning on going with them to Eiselcross? That wont happen anyway (she would need trents permission/it would be to obvious and Trent would not let them go so they can come up with a plan to kill him) this is stupid. So now I get she was talking about „we either beat Trent and whomever we are fighting here or we walk into their trap.“

So what I proclaim is: Astrid and Caleb in general know they are dancing the „can-i-trust-you-tango“ but they know they have one common enemy: Trent.

So they were discussing during the dance without saying it, if they want to work together in bringing him down. Caleb wasnt sure if he wants/can work on the „Trent-problem“. He has more importand stuff to do right now and he doesnt want to face all that stuff from the past that will come up during this working against Trent.

He cares for Astrid as he said. He isnt against helping her but maybe not right now.

What made him change his mind was Astrid crying in a spot where nobody would have seen her crying all on her own. He knows her, he know how much is to interpret in her crying. I think she is rarely crying. She has doen the same training as Caleb did, she is used to be cruel and to murder and be a bad human. But she wont cry because of that. She said so herself in their first meeting. Her crying is super special and Caleb gets that. And because he cares so much for her, maybe you can relate when you know a person you care for is crying in the mud. You want to help so they dont cry anymore. That is why he decides he wants to help her,/wants to start working on the problem now and not later. He knows she is using him, but he is using her as well. He doesnt care. He wants to help, to help her, help his country. He made this decision over night and Astrid gave him the time to think about it, but she needed a signal from Caleb. Ans anwer to her question if he wants to do this now or not. She said „I will see what I can do for you“ aka says „i want to work on this now, how about you?“

He sent a red firey bloody signal back. A signal as bright as the fire Warning beacons of Gondor

in „The return of the kings“ when Gondor sent signal to Rohan asking for help. The fun part is nobody gets it beside Matt and that is exactly the kidn of pranks the people on the table like to play. Remember Sam/Scanlan? I do. it was stuff he planned for weeks and nobody was expecting it and it was a big suprise for everyone.)

He could have been stealthy and just get the stuff he wanted during the heist. It would have send the signal to Astrid „thanks for the help, I cant work on this now. Maybe later. See you“.

But Caleb did not do that. He send a signal like: „I am full in, I want to play this game, starting it right now and either we win this game or loose and run into his trap. Lets do it.“

Its amazing how they comunicate without saying a single word about it.

The three different papers you ask? For me its the answer to his „for the love that we three shared I need to ask a favor“. She answeres with the box „Here is what i can do for you and yeah we three are in this together“ the paper are symbols for the three of them. The three people from Blumenthal. Its brialliant.

Why she is thankful in the message: Because he comes back and contacts her. He is her only hope.

Why she is sorry the day after: Because she thinks she is guilty to drag him into this. She knows this will be hard for him and will cause a lot of pain. That is why she says she is sorry.

(Is she for real? We dont know. They are still dancing the „can-i-trust-you-tango“)

They are playing Trents game of saying the truth and show whats obvious. Matt and Liam are playing this game so good they fool the other players and me and other fans. Its brilliant.

To let everyone think its a Trap set up by Astrid? - Its fine because people will focus on her (and its legit because she is shady and in this game as well) while Caleb is the one whom they should be worried about.

Let everyone think he does all the stuff he did here because of the Drama, Trauma and the pain etc – Yes it is exactly that to a percentage and that is the truth he is showing here, but underneath that is the other truth that he just wants to get closer to Trent. Caleb knows how he has to behave to get what he wants. He does it all the time because he learnid it from Trent! (remember the scene he wanted to work Essek as he needed him to work in that moment on the ship, because Caleb wanted the peace talk to happen? Because Caleb didnt want Essek to run away but to stay and get done what he Caleb wants?) He does not like those methods but he has to use them to get what he wants.

This is a brilliant plan from Caleb and Astrid and you know, they worked together before. They know each other so well when it comes to work (and probably more). They were a team for a long time and its like: watching a movie where old action heroes that worked together for a time suddenly have to work again. They just work together like they always did. Its like one comes visit the other one after 10 years of both of them living their lives, and they just look at each other and the person stands up goes to a shelf, gets his old gun out that was hidden there all the time and only asks: how is the weather? And the other says „its clear blue sky“ and they dotn talk anymore and just to their thing like in old times and know exactly what to do. Caleb and Astrid are Assassins in this but you know the dynamic is there.

Another way to put it:

With the dinner invitation trent put up a chess board. And invited Caleb to play. Caleb doesnt answer. Astrid asks him at the door in private: „you said you want to play this game last time you visited me. Do you still want to play? „He says „yes“ and she answers „race you to the top“ wich was clever. It seemed like she wanted to play the game herself, and that is again one half of the  truth here: she wants to play this game, but not on her own because she knows she cannot win this alone. She needs help and playful/tricky invites Caleb to play this together against Trent. Like she would say: „I want to play the game and I would want to know who is more clever/better here, you or me“. This is the dynamic I think they had as teens: always challenge each other who is more clever and gets the solution to a riddle first etc. but always playful never hating and i think that is how they connected in the beginning and fell in love at some point. We will see that maybe in the comic in summer.

During the dance she said: „You have to decide soon if you want to play this chessgame because Trent is a bit distracted anyway right now. Also time is of the essence. You have eyes on your back?“ this mental chessgame wont be a game that will finish soon, or in 2-5 episodes. It might go on for half a year because its a chess game where you have to think a lot and think a lot up in front. With the „i will help you with the necklaces“ she holds out the first pawn to Caleb, and with his rampage he takes it and sets it on the board and the game is on.

And its all covered up in half truth and some scheming but never blunt lies because that would be to easy to find out and could be the end of the game.

So Astrid and Caleb are workign together against Trent while behaving like nothing happend. She does her stuff, he does his.

They will meet sometimes because they both have the working connetction to Trent and who knows how this will end? Trent I think is aware that the game is on and I think he will play (move his figures in the next episode. With the maybe task they have to do for him so he lets them go.)

He set the board on the table in the first place.

Tldr:

Caleb wanted to face Trent. He was aware of what he did, he knew their actions did lead to Trent appearing. He wanted to seem to be the scholar that breaks into his old teachers house to get stuff so he can get closer to Trent again, to gather information from inside the assembly so he can take the system down from inside. Astrid might have gibt him the idea, and maybe there is some planing going on between Astrid and Caleb that we can’t see.

[realitista]

It may be a cult, but we should know what they want.

Conservatism (big C) has always had one goal and little c general conservatism is a myth. Conservatism has the singular goal of maintaining an aristocracy that inherits political power and pushing others down to create an under class. In support of that is a morality based on a person’s inherent status as good or bad - not actions. Of course the thing that determines if someone is good or bad is whether they inhabit the aristocracy.

Another way, Conservatives - those who wish to maintain a class system - assign moral value to people and not actions. Those not in the aristocracy are immoral and deserve punishment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4CI2vk3ugk

https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html

Part of this is posted a lot: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288 I like the concept of Conservatism vs. anything else.

*****

A Bush speech writer takes the assertion for granted: It's all about the upper class vs. democracy. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/why-do-democracies-fail/530949/ “Democracy fails when the Elites are overly shorn of power.”

Read here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conservatism/ and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism#History and see that all of the major thought leaders in Conservatism have always opposed one specific change (democracy at the expense of aristocratic power). At some point non-Conservative intellectuals and/or lying Conservatives tried to apply the arguments of conservatism to generalized “change.”

The philosophic definition of something shouldn't be created by only adherents, but also critics, - and the Stanford page (despite taking pains to justify small c conservatism) includes criticisms - so we can conclude generalized conservatism (small c) is a myth at best and a Trojan Horse at worst.

*****

Incase you don’t want to read the David Frum piece here is a highlight that democracy only exists at the leisure of the elite represented by Conservatism.

>The most crucial variable predicting the success of a democratic transition is the self-confidence of the incumbent elites. If they feel able to compete under democratic conditions, they will accept democracy. If they do not, they will not.

And the single thing that most accurately predicts elite self-confidence, as Ziblatt marshals powerful statistical and electoral evidence to argue, is the ability to build an effective, competitive conservative political party before the transition to democracy occurs.

Conservatism, manifest as a political party is simply the effort of the Elites to maintain their privileged status. One prior attempt at rebuttal blocked me when we got to: why is it that specifically Conservative parties align with the interests of the Elite?

*****

There is a key difference between conservatives and others that is often overlooked. For liberals, actions are good, bad, moral, etc and people are judged based on their actions. For Conservatives, people are good, bad, moral, etc and the status of the person is what dictates how an action is viewed.

In the world view of the actual Conservative leadership - those with true wealth or political power - , the aristocracy is moral by definition and the working class is immoral by definition and deserving of punishment for that immorality. This is where the laws don't apply trope comes from or all you’ll often see “rules for thee and not for me.” The aristocracy doesn't need laws since they are inherently moral. Consider the divinely ordained king: he can do no wrong because he is king, because he is king at God’s behest. The anti-poor aristocratic elite still feel that way.

This is also why people can be wealthy and looked down on: if Bill Gates tries to help the poor or improve worker rights too much he is working against the aristocracy.

*****

If we extend analysis to the voter base: conservative voters view other conservative voters as moral and good by the state of being labeled conservative because they adhere to status morality and social classes. It's the ultimate virtue signaling. They signal to each other that they are inherently moral. It’s why voter base conservatives think “so what” whenever any of these assholes do nasty anti democratic things. It’s why Christians seem to ignore Christ.

While a liberal would see a fair or moral or immoral action and judge the person undertaking the action, a conservative sees a fair or good person and applies the fair status to the action. To the conservative, a conservative who did something illegal or something that would be bad on the part of someone else - must have been doing good. Simply because they can’t do bad.

To them Donald Trump is inherently a good person as a member of the aristocracy. The conservative isn’t lying or being a hypocrite or even being "unfair" because - and this is key - for conservatives past actions have no bearing on current actions and current actions have no bearing on future actions so long as the aristocracy is being protected. Lindsey Graham is "good" so he says to delay SCOTUS confirmations that is good. When he says to move forward: that is good.

To reiterate: All that matters to conservatives is the intrinsic moral state of the actor (and the intrinsic moral state that matters is being part of the aristocracy). Obama was intrinsically immoral and therefore any action on his part was “bad.” Going further - Trump, or the media rebranding we call Mitt Romney, or Moscow Mitch are all intrinsically moral and therefore they can’t do “bad” things. The one bad thing they can do is betray the class system.

*****

The consequences of the central goal of conservatism and the corresponding actor state morality are the simple political goals to do nothing when problems arise and to dismantle labor & consumer protections. The non-aristocratic are immoral, inherently deserve punishment, and certainly don’t deserve help. They *want* the working class to get fucked by global warming. They *want* people to die from COVID19. Etc.

Montage of McConnell laughing at suffering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTqMGDocbVM&ab_channel=HuffPost

OH LOOK, months after I first wrote this it turns out to be validated by conservatives themselves: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/16/trump-appointee-demanded-herd-immunity-strategy-446408

Why do the conservative voters seem to vote against their own interest? Why does /selfawarewolves and /leopardsatemyface happen? They simply think they are higher on the social ladder than they really are and want to punish those below them for the immorality.

Absolutely everything Conservatives say and do makes sense when applying the above. This is powerful because you can now predict with good specificity what a conservative political actor will do.

*****

We still need to address more familiar definitions of conservatism (small c) which are a weird mash-up including personal responsibility and incremental change. Neither of those makes sense applied to policy issues. The only opposed change that really matters is the destruction of the aristocracy in favor of democracy. For some reason the arguments were white washed into a general “opposition to change.”

* This year a few women can vote, next year a few more, until in 100 years all women can vote?

* This year a few kids can stop working in mines, next year a few more...

* We should test the waters of COVID relief by sending a 1200 dollar check to 500 families. If that goes well we’ll do 1500 families next month.

* But it’s all in when they want to separate migrant families to punish them. It’s all in when they want to invade the Middle East for literal generations.

The incremental change argument is asinine. It’s propaganda to avoid concessions to labor.

The personal responsibility argument falls apart with the whole "keep government out of my medicare thing." Personal responsibility just means “I deserve free things, but people more poor than me don't."

Look: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwpBLzxe4U

*****

And for good measure I found video and sources interesting on an overlapping topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymeTZkiKD0

*****

Some links incase anyone doubts that the contemporary American voter base was purposefully machined and manipulated into its mangle of abortion, guns, war, and “fiscal responsibility.” What does fiscal responsibility even mean? Who describes themselves as fiscally irresponsible?

Here is Atwater talking behind the scenes. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/news/2013/03/27/58058/the-religious-right-wasnt-created-to-battle-abortion/

a little academic abstract to lend weight to conservatives at the time not caring about abortion. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-policy-history/article/abs/gops-abortion-strategy-why-prochoice-republicans-became-prolife-in-the-1970s/C7EC0E0C0F5FF1F4488AA47C787DEC01

They were casting about for something to rile a voter base up and abortion didn't do it. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/02/05/race-not-abortion-was-founding-issue-religious-right/A5rnmClvuAU7EaThaNLAnK/story.html

The role religion played entwined with institutionalized racism. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/03/27/pastors-not-politicians-turned-dixie-republican/?sh=31e33816695f

https://www.salon.com/2019/07/01/the-long-southern-strategy-how-southern-white-women-drove-the-gop-to-donald-trum/

Likely the best:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

I'll leave it at that. Anyone who can read these and come away doubting the architecting of the contemporary American Conservative voter base is a lost cause (like the Confederacy).

Via Gray Idolon on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/kxtuwh/its_no_longer_a_political_party_its_a_cult_former/gjci4ua/?context=5

[lukeyhughes]

so the other day i reblogged a post and vagued about my issues with gk’s framing of iraqi tragedies in the tags, which was then replied to and that reply was circulated. while the reply was awesome/insightful/interesting i feel like my original point sorta got lost in the shuffle. i wasnt going to make a post about this for a bit but i feel like its been consuming my thoughts all day so i’ll elaborate what i meant under the cut! 

gen kill is david simon show, so like all david simon shows the thesis is “people exist in inside of a broken system.” in this case, the broken system is the marine corps chain of command and the people are the marines who have to carry out senseless orders. this is shown in many ways, including pointless dangerous missions (see: the bridge, danger close, etc.), how capable enlisted men are vs. most officers, how the “only good officer” nate is punished for rational choices, and how the marines have their spirits crushed because they are forced to senselessly kill iraqi civilians.

when i was in first year of undergrad i took an african studies class that in one seminar problematicized coverage of the Rwandan Genocide: how many times have you heard/read a Romeo Dallaire interview/account? how many times have you read/heard an interview from a genocide survivor? how many times have you seen pictures of bodies/skulls of genocide victims? the answer for the average person is a lot, hardly ever, a lot. with the iraq invasion, the questions would be: how many times have you heard the accounts of coalition soldiers about the iraq war across media types? how many times have you heard accounts of it from the iraqi civilian perspective? how many times have you seen statistics regarding the amount of iraqi civilian casualties? a lot, hardly ever, a lot.

that is all to say that in western media/society we are very comfortable listening to white narratives and just seeing brown bodies, which translates into only hearing white narratives of the tragedies of the deaths of others in foreign countries. in generation kill, iraqi civilian casualties/fatalities/tragedies are framed so that we feel sympathy for the marines that caused them as opposed to those suffering. that is not to say that we as the audience do not feel sympathy (i certainly do!) but it is because of our own internal empathy, not the narrative framing of the show.

let’s take a look at three of the biggest cases of iraqi civilian tragedy and how they’re framed in the show:

first, when rudy goes up to the roadblock and sees the dead little girl in episode 4. we get quite a few shots of the father’s shell-shocked face, but just as many are shots of rudy’s horror/sadness; we watch him walk away from behind from rudy’s perspective and we see that rudy is unable to look away from them. rudy didn’t actually have anything to do with it (aside from abetting i suppose), but even when he gets back to camp the show makes sure to illustrate how affected by it he is, ignoring brad and ray who call out to him. this one is actually surprisingly gk’s best example of eliciting sympathy for iraqi casualties; however, the focus of the scene is still on rudy and the father’s reaction is still mostly used to contribute to rudy’s guilt/horror.

the next scene is the little shepherd boys who were shot by trombley while out with their camels. we see the mom crying over her son, but its basically background noise and is if anything used to further the marines’ (particularly brad and doc bryan to a lesser extent) guilt at causing the situation. we know this because her actions don’t exist independently: they are used for the marines to react to. we also get considerably more shots of marines looking on in horror than her crying about her son. brad’s guilt/sadness about the subject is dwelled on for about twenty minutes over the next two episodes, longer than any of the actual victims’ screen-time dedicated to their feelings combined.

the worst scene is the man in the white car, which sets off the main drama for the next episode. we get why walt did it- the show goes out of its way to make sure that we do- but at the end of the day a man is still dead, likely for no reason. in the aftermath we get about a hundred heartbreaking shots of walt’s shocked face, with a few of brad thrown in as well. on the other hand, we get no shots of the people in the car being horrified at seeing someone they know lobotomized. we just see them run away, no sadness no horror no nothing: from the show’s narrative perspective, this man’s death has no impact on anybody except for walt and the other marines. to make matters worse the man’s face is only shown when the marines notice how horrifyingly disfigured his body is; to me this is robbing the real man of his dignity even in death. 

let’s take a step back and look at gen kill’s general portrayal of iraqis. we don’t really get to see the marines interact with civilians until they reach baghdad when they go into rundown neighbourhoods. here, the iraqi men are portrayed as greedy and dumb, cutting in front of children and not understanding that there are other types of government. that’s not to say that that didn’t happen in real life- i’m sure it did- but it’s essentially the ONLY view of iraq civilians we get: ignorant, greedy, backwards, etc. deadass the only sympathetic iraqi characters in episode 7 are children, where we get a couple of UNICEF-esque shots of doc bryan holding crying kids to drive home that guilt factor. i bring this up because it means that the iraqi characters are not written so that you feel bad for them or empathize with their terrible situation. instead, the narrative wants you to empathize with the marines (in this case, particularly nate) who feel guilty for causing this chaos that they can’t do anything to fix it. 

the only other time iraqi civilians even have lines is when a refugee women tells brad about how he is destroying her home, but even then the point of that isn’t really her pain but how brad feels guilty/ashamed about what the usmc (an institution that is part of identity more than anyone else) is doing that; also she’s attacking brad who really had nothing to do with the baghdad situation and already feels guilty about other things, so its just creating more material for brad’s identity/guilt crisis and our sympathies for it.

all of this to say is that in basically every single case civilian tragedies don’t exist in the narrative on their own: they are used for the marine main characters to react to: the village. the truck crew. the men at the roadside. even the syrian student.

also @sunnygreys replied to some tags i made alluding to this issue. you should read what they wrote bc it’s a really interesting counterweight to what i’m saying and offers a different perspective. but anyway basically they mention certain lines where people are like “no ones forcing us to be here.” particularly notable was when godfather says that no one is forced to be here because they’re all volunteers in episode 3. my view of this has always been that saying that is ignorance on his part and another symptom of the broken command system. godfather chose to be career military,  he chose to accept the mission, he chose to change the ROE, etc: there was no gun to his head. for the enlisted men, the ones on the bottom who actually carried out the mission that injured the boys, they are pretty much being forced to be there by their circumstances. out of all the marines we interact with in the series, im pretty sure brad is the only enlisted man who comes from wealth and by extension had other options, while most others either implicitly or explicitly grew up in impoverished/unstable households: poverty is the new draft. thats sorta between the lines, but i imagine david simon knows that because of his previous work on poverty. what isnt between the lines is that the command system DOES force men in lower ranks to “be there” and carry out order: they can get NJPed for disobeying, they sign contracts that they’ll be dishonourably discharged and lose their benefits if they break, etc. there’s no gun to their head physically but metaphorically its pretty close. to me at least, those lines are not narratively placed to make us sympathize less with the marine main characters but instead to make us sympathize with them even more, because it shows how disconnected command really is. david simon is a huge dick irl but he’s a really clever writer.

again, i reiterate that we as the audience likely feel sympathy for the iraqi population because for most people its naturally sad when people die/get injured/etc. i think a lot of points i made and ones made by @sunnygreys can be mutually true, but the main difference being that i really don’t believe that gk’s intention was to make us step back and reflect on our sympathy with the “oppressors:” i really do think that’s who the show intends for us to sympathize with most based on their choices in camera shots, who says what, etc. that doesn’t mean we can’t step back and reflect, as i hope many of us have, i just think that was an unintended consequence. (if i’m misconstruing what you said please lmk and ill edit!)

that being said, can’t think of a way that generation kill could have done better in this regard based on the book/characters it had. the marines ARE the main characters and by conventional standards its their narrative/feelings/growth that matters. but just because there may have been no other way doesn’t make it unproblematic. its another example of western media using violence against nameless, distant foreigners for their own horror. 

there are people wandering this earth who are dealing with the loss of the man in the white car, the little girl at the roadblock, an entire village. those little boys, if they’re still alive, probably have to deal with the severe injuries they got when they were shot by marines. those slums of baghdad may still be in unstable today and have likely lost community members due to sanitation/hunger/violence. imagine knowing that there is a show out there where you or your loved ones are being used as a plot device to make viewers feel sympathy for the ones who put you in those positions. i sympathize deeply with the marines of GK, but i can imagine how hard it would be to be in the iraqi population’s place watching yourself and your experiences interpreted in a way dissociated from your own suffering so that the primary victimhood can be placed on the ones who did it to you. 

in conclusion, i love gen kill a lot. i love the story and the characters, and i think its an effective story in terms of achieving what it seeks to achieve. i think it’s okay to love something and be critical of it. also if western media companies weren’t cowards and weren’t scared of losing american military financial contributions they would make a miniseries about the iraqi people who were terrorized by american invaders, including the ones we love in gk!

[roxannepolice]

Long asks anon again, here to offer my opinion on the current wank. Rey as a character is rather blatantly breaking sw story rules and nothing is going to get SFF fans hackles up like rule breakage. This is root of both the MarySue accusations and current wank. Rey has a tragic backstory thats doubling as the only failure she can call her own. But its a) damn near entirely offscreen and b) serves as convenient justification for why shes competent at near everything that comes up.

Reys instantly good at the force because of a convenient force download that to the best of my knowledge only occured in the noncanon KOTOR II and quite frankly cant blame most of the general audience for not getting because without prior knowledge or the novelizations why would they? She has darkness in her but as so far used and touched it consequence free and its almost entirely symbolically externalized on the Kylo (and in SW symbolism is Real in a way it isnt in other narratives) Shes strong in the force because Light rises to meet Dark but to quote the current crop of movies ‘thats not how the force works) or at least thats never how it worked before. Shes the first SW protagonist to go behind enemy lines and come out with both hands in the second movie. For ppl wondering how come Luke and Ani never get labeled MarySues, this is why, they got thier asses handed to them, Rey hasnt. There /is/ something /off/ in Reys story, and ppl pick up on it. if you can make a post (w/ over 1k notes!) about how great it is that a character meant to prop up 7hrs worth of movies has little to no character development to go through, somethings off. If multiple ppl can make posts about how its neat Rey can tap into the darkside (still characterized as evil in ST) consequence free (with some quite frankly stupid justifications, 'shes disciplined’ really? jedi lacked a lot of things thats not one of them) somethings off and again, if the only failure your main heroine has is /entirely retroactive something’s off/. If the story were getting with the is the story most ppl think we are, a 'female empowerment’ (i dont feel particularly empowered by being told I have an equal chance at being a deus ex machina but ok) than well, her story is over and theres no need for IX (hell it could have been over in TFA, most ppl assumed she had accepted her place as the future jedi in that one) and no need for reylo The ST was always gonna deconstruct all that came before it purely by virtue of being a sequel. The tragedy of anakin skywalker is now a farce, the happy ot ending now a tragedy, and the mythopoetic structure shot to shit in the name of serialization and perpetual warfare. this stand true for all the sequel characters including rey and ben. the only question is are we going to get anything out of it? I compare it to home renovation. You can knock out a wall and the walls gone, but new opportunities arise. With Benlo, I’m reasonably confident that there will be at least some attempt to take advantage of the new space. With rey and the resistance kids? not so much. it just feels like they knocked down a blue wall to rebuild it as pink one and at the point it just feels like a waste of time because ive seen this before. Ive seen pure cinnamon roll desert orphan reform jedi order If this was all youre going to do that the fuck was the point? which circles around to my problem with team good guy this go around and That Scene. JJ twisted the story into a pretzel to justify the winners of the last round being the underdogs again and then rian twisted so much further the storys head may as well be up its own ass. And then at the very end he shoots it all to shit and rushes to reassure us its all gonna be okay. He removes the entire point of the underdog trope /the tension that comes from the fact that they might lose/. I mean there wasnt a whole lot of that to begin with already but really? So theres no tension that Reys gonna win so her journey feels frictionless, and theres no question where shes gonna end up so full offense why give a shit? Thats where the whole 'can rey lose a fight?’ thing comes from. Ppl want conflict in her arc to justify its existence and give us a reason why this her story to begin with. if the only character going through growth for all three movies is ben, if the only characters whos fate is up in the air is ben, and if all the tension in the reylo relationship comes from ben, then why is this /reys story/? why not just make it about the character actually driving all the drama and thus, the story?   As a final thought, im going to add that having Kylo be aware and insecure that hes never gonna be as Iconic as Vader was a great story choice, regardless of where ends up. Current Rebels, on the other hand, seems to have not gotten the memo that they are never gonna be as iconic as Original Rebels, and the story itself seems to being trying to sell them to me as being better. Rey is Luke but better, Poe/Finn are Han wo the smuggler grit, and id be lying if i said it didnt piss me off.

&

Long asks anon to kick down ur door again, AND ANOTHER THING. SW is a lotta things. Subtle aint one of them, and St hasnt changed in that regard. If you have to debate it chances are either a) ur arguing counter to the text in which case mor power to you but not really helpful for predictions or intended meaning or b) /it aint there. A bunch of ppl didnt like anidala, but nobody doubted we were supposed to think they were in love by the end of AOTC, bunch of ppl didnt like poes arc, but no one doubts he fucked up by not listening to holdo was the intended take away. Which brings to rey and flaws or lack there of. Were told rey has flaws but she has yet to suffer any real consequences from them with the exception of The Damn Parentage Wank, which again, pulls the double duty of making her hyper competent at everything. Because rey has no consequences for her flaws, from a story function pov there aren’t any. If rey did have a flaw to overcome, we would all agree what it was

Now won’t you all just look at this beautiful, spot on rant which has been lagging in my askbox since the last time Rey’s flaws or lack thereof were the discourse’s focus (November, I believe?) and suddenly became a thing again, courtesy of Tweetgate. I think you really summed up the crux of this debate wonderfully, anon.

I particularly agree with the part about Rey not getting narratively punished for whatever flaws we’d like her to have (great point about returning from behind the enemy lines with both arms still in place), when SW don’t stay away from allowing characters to get “punished” even for otherwise applaudable features - vide Padmé, whose idealism is what Palps manipulates into gaining more power (this is why Padmé will never come off as a Mary Sue or too perfect, btw). But I’ll say even more - Rey doesn’t even get called out on her flaws, except for by Ben, who’s mostly dismissed as a baddie like Palpatine saying Luke was foolish to rely on his friends. Let’s just consider one thing - both Anakin and Luke get called out on their flaws by Yoda (Anakin repeatedly and by lots of other people for that matter) whereas with Rey, the same grumpy-yet-jolly senex pops up from the afterlife to further inform us what a great jedi material she is.

TBH, I have a very cynical theory as to why Rey is being pushed as the main character while it’s difficult to deny that it’s Kylo Ben who does all the plot heavy lifting. I’m pretty sure Ben’s arc was the first one DLF thought out (and the big question is, was it the only one they thought out) and only later on decided to make Rey the main character, which also involved much less spontaneous writing. Mind you, it’s not as if benepemption didn’t have a manufactured subtaste to it, but with Rey’s heroine’s journey stiff structure occasionally substitutes any in-world explanations of her actions (this is why I have to hope renperor has some narrative purpose rather than happening because lovers need to be separated and anti-hero needs to achieve what he wanted in 2nd act). I feel as if whatever potential her character had (and hopefully still has, pending IX) got smothered by layer upon layer of making her likable by everyone, which largely relied on negative characterization: she’s not helpless, she’s not too naive, not cynical, not too emotional, not too emotionless, not morally corruptible, not anything you’ve ever complained about regarding any SW character, not falling for the bad boy, not not not - and in the end it’s kinda difficult to say what Rey is like and while the goal of making her widely likable was achieved, it also made it almost impossible to view her as loveably flawed/annoying like the classic characters. And on top of all this is the matter of making her a nobody just like you!, as DLF appears to say with uncle Sam’s gesture (which also kinda assumes the existence of a Star Wars fan as some uniform entity? because if you identify with her, good for you, I just don’t understand why the franchise assumes I’ll identify with her by the grace of being a SW fan alone), because, as you excellently put it, the message here is that everyone can be chosen by God - which again, it’s not as if the saga ever contradicted this, so why the hell make a case of it? I can’t agree that it’s made into Rey’s flaw, though, imo her low birth only serves to further frame her as an oppressed virtue. And I definitely agree regarding too much of her growth being left off-screen, or before the story ever begins. The problem here isn’t even that it is left off-screen (it’s not as if we had huge insight into any of the pt or ot characters) but rather that her characterizations is left off-screen while being depicted as at least untypical (unique to put it bluntly) for her situation (same goes for Finn). A hopeful, kind person growing up on her on her own in slavery under a nicer name is a rarity and DLF makes a case for it being a rarity - and this sparks up curiosity in her past, as if market pandering to Re/sky wasn’t enough. So from this pov her un-reveal being frustrating isn’t just a case of not wanting to love her or her self only a potentially deeper psychological question getting answered with well, light.

I should add, Ben’s arc feels like the most spontaneous one (though Finn’s may yet be a masterpiece) and he’s the one to admit his fear of not living up to Vader’s legacy, because I think he’s the character serving as the creators’ vessel, more or less like Luke was Lucas’ avatar in ot. In his fear regarding Vader’s legacy one can feel Disney’s fear due to having bought popculture’s holy grail and not being entirely sure what to do with it. On this background, Rey (a literal scavenger of OT’s pieces) and rebels 2.0 repeatedly blessed by Leia come off as what DLF would want to be. And the result is that the character which was supposed to be Vader 2.0 proves the most original and surprising one, whereas “breaths of fresh air” come off as room aromatizers with “fresh” written on them.

And as far as the plot being bended into a pretzel and then disappearing up it’s own ass, well, a part of me is still hoping that taking virtually the same villains as before is a mythological-psychoanalitical metaphor of a nigredo repeating itself until the unconscious gets accepted by the conscious…. but, tbh, as the leaks flow this hope is withering.

[vidalinav]

I mean to me it was read exactly like it was. A punishment. So, all of it was supposed to be a punishment. The pack. The pain. The silent treatment.

I don’t know why this was the scene that was Nesta’s climb that mountain mantra. Becuase it wasn’t in Illyria as she didn’t get to Ramiel. And it wasnt the stairs. So...

I know it was sort of suppose to be a way for Nesta to break down, to really be pushed to rock bottom. But damn!!!!! I can’t get over it. How is Nesta okay with these people? Is this going to happen again in more books? I can’t get over how much Nesta’s perspective of hating herself is given life because of their actions and their words said and unsaid proving over and over that she’s as rotten as she feels. And then when he noted that she didn’t want to exist... what happened next? Basically nothing. It was never mentioned again. Who is this writer? I have stopped blaming characters at this point. It’s the author. I don’t see how she thought this was a good healing arc.

Remember in TOG/HoF where Aelin held the fire and she ended up using too much of her power that she got massively ill or almost burned herself up and that ended up being the situation in which led to Rowan viewing Aelin differently because he saw the scars (at last I think I haven’t read that book in a long time) and could then understand how he was wrongly viewing her and had to change his own perspective and his actions. THAT was not this scene.

I want to talk about that hiking scene in acosf where climbing up mountains for days in silence is about to cure it all. I just don’t know where to start.. I don’t understand that whole chapter, like the hike, her confessions, his reactions, nothing.

Why did he make her carry the pack the whole time? Did he not see the food wasn’t eaten? So he really don’t habitually check back at Nesta just to make sure? Why was he THAT mad? Why did he basically give her the silent treatment for a week? Like were yuh really pouting that hard and having that much of a temper tantrum that you decided to punish her by not taking? Not gonna offer any emotional comfort? Not gonna offer any physical comfort and then be childish and sleep far away from her with his back turned?

And then when we reach the top just everything Cassian did. What he replied after nes was there with a bleeding heart? No confessions of your own Cass? No reassurances to Nesta? Like “no you aren’t a terrible person” “I’m at fault as well” “you do deserve me because you are courageous, intelligent, fearless, etc”just something.

It felt like it wasn’t a very big deal to him and the big thing he got out of it was Nesta’s one comment about Cass being brave, good, blah blah. Like I knew this was supposed to be a big scene and it just didn’t feel it. I felt awk, uncomfy, and confused by everything about this