#except for like five very specific moots on here | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

heauxplesslydevoted · 3 years ago

Note

Hi there! We're changing things up a little this week :)

Not Yet Wed Questions

Note: Great Scott! This week, we are going back in time to MC’s intern year. Think of Ethan’s relationship with them at this point and answer the following questions accordingly. It is entirely up to you when in year 1 this takes place (pre/post Miami, pre/post CH 15, etc). Feel free to answer with dialogue or pictures or both :) Have fun!

No worries. All of this is off the record and HR will never know!

The setting for this answers is:

For Both

When I first saw them, I thought__________

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Three people at work your coworker hates?

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

(Bonus round! Feel free to skip.)

Never have I Ever:

come into work hungover

had a fistfight

been kicked out of a bar

gotten a tattoo

broken someone’s heart

been in love

For MC (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

What do you find the most impressive about him?

Last thing he texted you?

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

For Ethan (MC is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Last thing she texted you?

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

Alright, post Book 1 but pre-Ethan fleeing to South America Ethan x Naomi coming right up! I feel like that time would have maximum tension because they’re trying to find their footing again after fucking the souls out of each other’s bodies and sending them into orbit, and lowkey falling in love sleeping together, while maintaining professionalism.

~v~

For Both:

When I first saw them, I thought__________

Naomi: I thought “thank God someone else is here!” I was in over my head with that patient, and I didn’t even notice that The Ethan Ramsey was the one assisting me until much later.

Ethan: I thought she had guts. You don’t see too many first day interns that are ready to jump into the fray like she did.

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Naomi: He says Christ and any iteration of the word damn. Dammit, goddamn, goddammit, you get the gist.

Ethan: She says fuck.

Naomi: You’ve never heard me say that.

Ethan: She says fuck a lot, especially when she’s...*Ethan trails off and catches himself before he finishes that sentence. It’s a moot point all the same because now all he can think about is the young intern in front of him, hands pulling his hair, nails raking down his back, moaning the obscenity into his ear, into his pillows. He awkwardly clears his throat* Just trust me, I’ve heard her say it. Multiple times.

*and now he’s mad at himself*

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Naomi: Blue. They’re kinda hard to miss.

Ethan: Her eyes are brown.

Three people at work your coworker hates?

Naomi: He hates everyone, except for me and Naveen.

Ethan: Except for you? You think pretty highly of yourself, Rookie.

Naomi: Am I wrong? *Ethan doesn’t deny it, instead staying silent and Naomi smirks* Exactly

Ethan: I don’t think she dislikes anyone. I’ve never met a person like her, she makes friends with everyone.

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

Naomi: He fiddles with his glasses a lot.

Ethan: She’s constantly biting her lip, especially when she’s really focused.

*she’s actually surprised that he picked up on that* Naomi: You notice that?

Ethan: I notice everything...about everything. It’s the nature of the job.

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

*they both share an awkward glance before looking away and declining to answer*

Never Have I Ever...

Come into work hungover

Ethan: When I was younger, yes. But now that I’m older, I know my limits.

Naomi: No, because I don’t get hangovers due to my magical hangover cure.

Ethan: That god-awful drink is...surprisingly effective.

*the interviewer asks Ethan to elaborate on the time Naomi gave him whatever her hangover cure is, and he adamantly refuses*

Had a fistfight

Naomi: Yes, but in my defense I was drunk.

Ethan: *snorts* How is that a defense?

Naomi: I’m the daughter of an attorney, I usually try to resolve my issues with my words. But drunk Naomi is a little feistier.

Ethan: You mean you have a level of feistiness that I’ve yet to see?

Naomi: Oh yeah. Anyway, I was in college, I was drunk at a bar, someone spilled a drink on me, and it escalated. I think I broke her nose.

Ethan: An arrest record wasn’t on your file when we hired you.

Naomi: Like I said, I’m the daughter of an attorney, and the granddaughter of a DC judge. That has its perks.

Ethan: Yes, I’ve gotten into a fist fight before. I punched Nash in the face. And before that, i fought my old med school roommate.

Naomi: Ooh, what did he do?

Ethan: That’s not a story I’d ever divulge while sober.

Been kicked out of a bar

Naomi: Yes. Circle back to the previous question.

Ethan: No, because I’m an adult.

Gotten a tattoo

Ethan: Absolutely not

Naomi: I have a tattoo of the Cancer symbol on my left hip. It’s my zodiac sign.

*this stuns Ethan into silence because he’s seen her naked on more than one occasion and been...very well acquainted with the body parts below her waist, and for the life of him cannot remember a tattoo*

Broken someone’s heart

Naomi: No. At least, I don’t think so. I’ve had my heart broken, if that counts.

Ethan: Same as Naomi. I don’t think I have.

*they make a pointed effort to not make eye contact with each other, and Naomi bites down on her lip, letting the silence hang in the air. The alternative would be informing Ethan that he has indeed broken someone’s heart, and that just won’t do.*

Been in love

Naomi: I don’t know. Maybe? I thought I was in love with my med school boyfriend, but now that time has passed, I know that wasn’t love. At least, not the good kind. And there was a near miss after him, but nothing came out of it. The emotions were a lot stronger the second time around though, and i think it’s the closest I’ve come to it this far. I’m a hopeless romantic, so I hope I find it someday.

Ethan: No. Call me a cynic, but I just don’t see love as something that’s feasible and attainable. Putting that much trust and dependency in another person is not realistic.

For Naomi (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

Naomi: I don’t know what’s left for a man like Ethan Ramsey. He’s already done so much in the field of medicine, unless he reinvents the entire wheel and turns it upside down, which I can see him doing. I can see him writing more, publishing more research, and of course winning more awards. If he wasn’t so anti-administration, he could be running this place. Or maybe he’ll start his own non-profit.

Naomi: As far as his personal life, I don’t know. You heard loud and clear that he doesn’t really believe in love. I hope one day he changes his mind or finds a companion, because underneath his extremely prickly exterior, he’s one of the best men I know and he has a heart of gold. He deserves the chance to let someone take care of it for him.

What do you find the most impressive about him?

Naomi: From afar, Ethan seems very larger than life, but I think the most impressive thing about him is his dedication to not just medicine, but his patients. I’ve never seen him not go above and beyond for someone he was treating.

Last thing he texted you?

Naomi: “Please consult Diana in HR regarding your official diagnostic team fellowship application. I know this year has been unorthodox to say the least, but there are still some steps that must be taken before the start of your second year. Thank you.”

Naomi: I’ve never received a text message that long.

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

*her cheeks heat up furiously and she pulls her bottom between her teeth before answering, her eyes bright and watery*

Naomi: Am I a total glutton for pain for saying I’d jump at the chance?

For Ethan (Naomi is not there)

Where do you see her in five years (both professionally and in her personal life?)

Ethan: Dr. Valentine has so much potential and she’s going to be one of the greats. She’s going to be running the diagnostics team if she chooses to stay at Edenbrook, and I can’t see Naveen not trying to keep her here. She’s going to win awards, have awards named after her, publish research, lead trials, whatever. I hate to sound banal and cliche, but the sky really is the limit for her. I chose her for a reason, and I plan her helping her reach all of that potential.

Ethan: As for her personal life, I don’t know. Hopefully she finds someone that’s good enough for her.

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Ethan: A-attractive? *the word comes out in a squeak, but he coughs to cover it up* Why on earth would you assume that I’m attracted to her?

*he goes on a ridiculously long tangent about how inappropriate it is to be attracted to your coworkers, especially your subordinates, and how he would never jeopardize Naomi’s career on something as trivial as attraction, and anyone with an ounce of common sense can tell that he doth protest too much*

Ethan: But if I absolutely had to pick something besides her good looks, it’d be her spirit. She’s warm and empathetic and optimistic, and I’ve never seen someone care as much as she does.

Last thing she texted you?

Ethan: “👍” I sent her a message about her upcoming fellowship and she sent back a thumbs up. Just that. I was a little annoyed.

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

Ethan: As um...flattering as that might be, I would say no. I am an attending, she’s an intern, my soon to be fellow. That is crossing too many ethical lines, lines I refuse to breach.

Ethan: And I would say no because Naomi is...just a good person. And maybe I’m being biased, but I don’t know if anyone will ever be truly worthy of her. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt that she deserves so much better than me or what I could give her.

#ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #newlyweds game with your host bree

32 notes · View notes

sanderssidesfanfiction · 4 years ago

Text

If There’s a Place I Could Be - Chapter Seventy Two

If There’s a Place I Could Be Tag

November 11th, 2001

Emile sat at the table, staring at the letter he was holding with great consternation. Faith had written him, and he had written her back, talking about Remy and how they were getting along, and generally, how everything seemed nice and domestic lately. And Faith had replied, throwing Emile a curveball.

Would you marry him, Emile? It’s obvious to everyone you’ve written to that you love him. We’ve all talked about it at one point or another. We all think you should, if you love him as much as you say you do.

Emile didn’t know how to respond. Would he marry Remy? The mere thought felt like he was going to spiral into a panic attack. But at the same time...he couldn’t deny the warmth he felt in his chest about the idea.

He put the letter away, resolving to respond to it when he had a better answer than “I don’t know.” He knew Faith wouldn’t let the matter drop if he waffled on the decision.

September 20th, 2002

Emile couldn’t help but laugh as he saw a familiar face he knew all too well approaching him on campus. “Theo!” Emile exclaimed, running over and giving his friend a huge hug. “What’s up? I didn’t think you were coming to visit for a little while yet! I thought you’d still be sick of Fairview!”

Theo laughed and hugged Emile back. “I actually swung by to chat with you and Remy. I’m having housing issues and I was hoping you two might have some advice on finding a roomie and splitting rent, y’know? Falling in love is not required, but it is a plus.”

Emile laughed. “Well, you’re in luck, because I just finished my last class and I was heading to the parking lot. Remy’s not off his shift at the local coffee shop yet, but we can hang around the shop until he’s off and we can snag him, and you can come back to ours!” Theo nodded and they walked to the parking lot together. “So, what sort of housing problems are you having? Prices? Roommates? Lack of roommates?”

“All of the above?” Theo weakly joked. “My current roommates are barely pulling their weight, I can’t find new ones, and none of the half-decent places are in my price range, so if I move out, I have to settle for a run-down one room which probably has massive problems.”

“Yikes,” Emile said with a grimace. “That’s seriously not good.”

“Tell me about it,” Theo said. “You two made it look so easy, I don’t know how you did it. I’m ready to throttle my roommates at any given moment for stealing my food, invading my privacy in my room, or for inviting people over who inevitably trash the place.”

“I mean, the fact that Remy and I tolerated each other and had pretty clear boundaries from the start helped,” Emile said. “I have no doubt you tried to set boundaries, but I’m willing to bet those roommates of yours didn’t respect them, did they?”

“Not after the first few weeks, no,” Theo sighed. “And they brushed me off every time I tried to talk to them about it.”

“Ouch. You definitely need better roommates, Theo,” Emile said.

Theo nodded. “I don’t know anyone else in that area, though, unfortunately. I’m thinking about moving back here, however temporarily, because I know a few people here who might be willing to split rent with me.”

“That might be a good idea,” Emile agreed. “Provided you can stand being around the college you went to, that is.”

“Somehow I think I’ll live,” Theo laughed. “Like, some people might give me grief, but they’re my friends so I wouldn’t mind too much. The biggest problem, for me, is going to be finding a job in my field. Forensic science is all well and good until you’re forced to move back to a city with a low crime rating so all the spots where you might be able to work forensics have been filled for years.”

“Ooh, ouch,” Emile said with a wince.

“Yep,” Theo said with a strained laugh. “It’s...not great, for sure. I really need to find somewhere that I can work, and somewhere that I can afford my own place at the same time, y’know? But the housing market is ridiculously expensive, and I heard it’s only gonna get worse.”

Emile grimaced. “Yikes, yeah, I’ve heard inflation is getting pretty bad. I haven’t had to worry about it as much, but if you’re looking for a place...”

“It totally sucks, dude,” Theo said with absolute certainty, leaning back into the passenger seat of Emile’s car. “Oh, but since I’m here, and Remy’s not...how’s the project going, man?”

Emile offered Theo a big grin. “I’ve got the property,” he said, eyes lighting up. “Turns out it was almost gonna be demolished, because no one’s been picking it up. But it’s in good condition. All I really need is the inside and everything will be ready!”

“The inside is gonna take a while, though, you know that, right?” Theo asked. “Getting everything up to code, renovating what’s been getting run down, electricity, plumbing...”

“I know,” Emile said. “But I have the worst of it over with. The property’s bought. And I know Remy’s specifications for what he wants on the inside, and he’s none the wiser to the plan, and...man, this will be ready by mid to late December if everything goes right!”

“It could be your birthday present to him,” Theo lightly teased.

Emile gasped. “Oh my God, it could! Can you believe that, Theo?! I could make this Remy’s birthday gift! His very own shop!”

Theo laughed. “You’re such a mess, Emile. On one hand, you’re a highly skilled, well-rounded adult, but on the other, your emotions come into play and it’s like you’re a five year old on Christmas morning. And your emotions are always in play when it comes to Remy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to see you being loving and excited and human, but your reasoning skills when you’re emotional?” Theo made a whistling noise with his teeth, “Out the window.”

“Hey! I’ve made good decisions when I’m emotional before!” Emile laughed.

“Yeah, because you put your emotions to the side. That’s not making rational decisions when emotional, that’s looking at things from a rational angle rather than an emotional one. And you do kinda bottle up those emotions when making the decisions, don’t think no one’s noticed.”

“I—well—yeah...” Emile reluctantly admitted. “Remy’s been helping me with that, though.”

“Yeah, he’s told me as much in his emails,” Theo said. “And I’m proud of both of you. You for allowing your emotions a place and a time, and Remy for being willing to help with that sort of thing instead of leaving you to your own devices.”

“We both have grown a lot,” Emile agreed as they pulled into the coffee shop parking lot.

Theo and Emile got out of the car and walked into the shop, Emile asking, “You want anything to drink? My treat.”

“I could take a small coffee,” Theo said.

Emile nodded and got in line, telling Theo, “Grab a table for both of us?”

Theo nodded and Emile couldn’t help the little smile on his lips. He was just having coffee with a friend. It shouldn’t seem all that important, but it felt strangely adult, and he didn’t know why that made him giddy, but it did. Just being able to sit down and complain about roommates and jobs and...just getting adjusted to the new normal that life was winding up being.

Emile placed their orders and found Theo sitting in a corner, and he gave Theo his coffee while Emile kept his tea. Theo waited until Emile was taking a sip of his tea before he asked, “So, are you gonna pop the question?”

Choking on his tea, Emile stared at Theo, who was shaking with silent laughter. “Theo!” he gasped. “Come on! That’s mean!”

“Well, I’m just wondering!” Theo asked innocently.

Emile sighed. “Well, it’s not exactly like we could get married anywhere yet,” he said. “It feels like a moot point.”

“It’s a symbolic thing, man. Even if you can only get a ‘civil union’ or whatever, the promise of staying together until the end of the line is there,” Theo said.

“But we already have that promise with each other,” Emile said, frowning.

“Precisely why I’m asking about this,” Theo said. “You’ve already got it, so when are you making it official?”

“Theo, believe me when I say whenever gay marriage is an option I will absolutely be marrying Remy. And it will be the best day of my life. But until it’s legalized, or at least it’s in the process of being legalized, I don’t see the point of getting a ring,” Emile said with a shrug. “Oh, and before I forget, when that day comes? You’d better be my best man.”

It was Theo’s turn to choke on his coffee. “Dude, you kidding me?! Of course I’d be your best man! I’m honored! But is there like, no one else you’d rather have?”

“Theo, the only person closer than you and our friend group in terms of friendship with me is Remy. And I’d be marrying him. I can’t exactly have him be my best man.”

Theo beamed. “Man, you’d better be inviting all your friends to this hypothetical wedding. That includes your high school ones. I can’t wait to embarrass you in front of them.”

“They knew me when I was thirteen, can’t get much more embarrassing than that,” Emile said simply.

“Ooh, I’d love to pick up some stories from them,” Theo said, grinning and rubbing his hands.

Emile laughed just as Remy walked over. “What’s the deal with this party without me?”

“Remy!” Theo exclaimed, standing up and hugging Remy.

Remy returned the hug with a grin. “Good to see you, man. What’s up?”

“Housing issues, actually,” Theo said. “I need your and Emile’s advice about finding new roomies.”

“And in the process, try and get us to get engaged, apparently,” Emile said drily.

“What, we’re not married already?” Remy asked with a laugh.

Emile snorted and Theo said, “Nah, man. You haven’t tied the knot. I would know, I’m Emile’s best man, and he hasn’t stuck me in a tux yet.”

Remy grinned. “Well, that’s great and all, except for me, because now I have to find a different best man for the big day.”

“Yeah, I’m not making two best man speeches,” Theo laughed. “Would you seriously ask me, though?”

Remy shrugged. “I dunno, man. Like, thinking about it, I never really planned out a wedding for anyone I had crushed on or dated. And Toby was gonna be my best man, because I asked him once and he promised...but since we lost contact...” Remy shrugged. “You’d be an excellent second choice. But I’ll figure something else out.”

“All right,” Theo laughed.

“You officially off the clock, Rem?” Emile asked.

“Yup,” Remy said. “And ready to go home.”

“Oh, man, I wish I could say that,” Theo bemoaned.

“Yeah, let’s talk about your housing, man, what’s up?” Remy asked.

As Theo explained what was going on and they walked out of the shop, Emile’s gears were whirring. He would definitely need to find Toby soon. Especially considering that sooner or later he knew he would be finding a ring for Remy. He didn’t know when that might be, but Theo was right. The promise of staying together until the end of the line deserved something important.

It was funny, though. The thought of marrying Remy just felt...inherently right. As Remy and Emile fought over who should drive the car back to their apartment, Emile considered marrying anyone else, of any gender, of anyone he had previously dated, and it never rung as true as what he felt when imagining marrying Remy.

Remy won the argument for driving the car and Emile slid into the passenger seat, glancing at Theo in the back. “You know what, Theo? You’re right.”

Theo grinned. “I know I am, dude. But I’m glad that you can see that too.”

“He’s right about what?” Remy asked.

“One day, I’m gonna marry you,” Emile said simply.

“Oh,” Remy said. “I mean, yeah? Marriage is terrifying, but there’s no one I’d rather marry.”

“I’m glad we’re in agreement,” Emile said.

“Do you know when you’re gonna propose?” Remy asked.

“Not yet,” Emile said. “Need to find a ring first, figure out the right moment. But I’m definitely proposing to you.”

“Not if I do it first, buddy,” Remy said with a wicked grin.

“Oh, it is on,” Emile said.

Theo laughed. “Are you two really turning proposals into a competition?” he asked.

“Best proposal wins the excuse to kiss the other person for a solid minute,” Emile said solemnly.

“Oh, you are so on!” Remy exclaimed with a laugh.

Theo just cackled at their antics.

#if there's a place i could be #sanders sides fanfiction #remile #emile picani #ts sleep

5 notes · View notes

thrill-cfthechase · 5 years ago

Text

tl;dr: elliot is sad about her mom, elliot’s birth and how she got her name

august 17th, 2018

sunset mobile home park, santa rosa, ca

elliot has never had a clean room in her life. there might have been a week when she was six where there had seemed to be order, but besides that it was in a state of unending chaos. there were clothes and sports equipment and trophies and candy wrappers. there were papers that seemed to exist for no reason but that elliot still couldn’t manage to get rid of. and there was a box of her mother’s things that had gone untouched for nineteen years. she had some of her mother’s belongings, like the moth-eaten sweaters she found in the closet and a journal that had been under the couch for god knows how long. but this box seemed to have hidden itself behind raincoats and a bruce lee poster, and now sat in front of her covered in a thick layer of dust. she had been content to leave it that way forever, but tomorrow she would leave her father’s home in a jeep cherokee older than she was and drive into the unknown. or, more specifically, to virginia and to gallagher. she just couldn’t leave a piece of her mother behind.

she opened the box, fanning away the cloud of dust that formed. on the top there were homemade vhs tapes with masking tape labels on the side: tucker’s first birthday, forrest’s first words, tucker’s first soccer game, halloween 1997. elliot set them to the side, she would have them converted into dvds later. but it was the kind of home movie she’d already seen. all the kids in the neighborhood running through a hose and laughing, her mother’s smiling face as she carried a candle-lit cake for her brother’s birthday, her brothers doing silly things while her parents watched through a lens and made commentary about how much they loved them. the last home movie they had was labeled november 1st, 1998. her mother was sitting on the couch with tucker and forrest on either side of her. each boy had a balloon tucked underneath their shirts so they could look just like mom and the three of them held their large bellies and laughed. elliot must have watched that one a hundred times as some sort of punishment for the fact that three days later she would be alive and her mother wouldn’t be.

underneath the tapes was a baby book. at least, it looked like it was supposed to be one. her name was on the cover, but it was empty except for the sonogram on the first page and a few labels that showed only blank pages. there were photo albums chronicling her brother’s childhoods, dozens if not hundreds of pictures of toothless smiles and skinned knees. there had never been many pictures of elliot when she was little. some days her father couldn’t bear to look at her, let alone take a picture. but every once in a while her brothers would get a hold of a disposable camera and capture gems like elliot with a face covered in chocolate cake on her first birthday or a beaming five-year-old elliot accepting a yellow belt in karate. it wasn’t uncommon for the youngest sibling’s childhood to be less documented than their older siblings. sometimes it hurt, and sometimes elliot was glad she could forget. beneath those she found more sweaters and she instantly stuffed them into her suitcases, not caring if they fit or if they were clean or if she even liked them.

at the very bottom of the box lay an envelope, tucked underneath a fold of cardboard. elliot pulled it out, her fingers coated in decades old dirt. there was no writing on the envelope - no name, no date, no address. maybe it wasn’t hers to open, but it wasn’t anyone else’s, either. she peeled it open as carefully as she could and reached inside, pulling out a letter. she instantly recognized the handwriting as her mother’s, and before she had time to think it through, she unfolded the piece of paper and began to read.

Dearest Baby,

I didn’t always know that I was going to need you, but as soon as I knew you were coming I understood that this family wouldn’t be complete without you. I have been waiting for you for a long time now and I think you will be here soon. We weren’t expecting you so quickly but you seem to want to come into this world and I am just so happy that I’ll get to meet you. Getting to know you in the past seven months isn’t quite the same, but it has been wonderful nonetheless. We have a bond, you and me, and it is more than just an umbilical cord. Sometimes I think I should learn morse code because I'm sure your kicks are trying to tell me something. I really did look into it, which you might think is silly, but the library didn’t have any books about it so it was a moot point. Maybe your kicks are symbolic. You want me to know you are strong and that even though this pregnancy has been hard, you’re going to keep fighting. If you are reading this, you are grown and you will know that there are things I have not been able to give you. I’m sorry for that. But I hope by now you can see that I love you and your brothers with all my heart and there is nothing I wouldn't do for you. I wish there was more I could say to you, but I'm very tired and sometimes I feel like words fail me. I just hope that I’ve shown you how much I love you every single day, and this will just be a funny little reminder.

All My Love,

Mama

p.s. I’m sorry I addressed this to ‘baby’ and not to you. I know what your name will be, but I’m afraid to jinx it. You know how superstitious I can get.

elliot has always taken pride in the fact that she rarely cries. crying was for babies, her brothers taught her that at a very early age. no one needed to know what she was feeling. sometimes even elliot didn’t know. but now she was crying, hard, tears gushing down her face, nose running, breath caught in her throat. she let the letter out of her grasp and it floated gently to the floor. the paper seemed too light and airy to contain words that affected her so strongly. her tears were silent - she didn’t want to wake her father on the other side of the wall, sitting on the couch in front of the tv with a mostly-empty twelve pack littered around his feet. there was a weight on her chest and a knot in her stomach, guilt and grief and loneliness. she had been loved once, truly loved, by a parent. she had never been sure if her father was incapable of loving her or he simply didn’t want to. her brothers loved her more than she thought she deserved, but it was never quite the same. she had heard people say there was nothing like a mother’s love, and elliot had ruined her chance to have that with her very first breath. she picked the letter back up and blew away some of the dirt. she tucked it into a pocket of a suitcase where it would be safe. elliot wasn’t sure what she would do with it, if she would ever even open it again, but she knew she needed to have it.

november 4th, 1998

santa rosa memorial hospital

it didn’t feel like the first two. she’s been on bedrest, and this one has come earlier than the others - almost too early and she’s worried - but there is something else. something feels different. the doctor reassures her and she trusts them, but the worry doesn’t fully go away. it hurts, it always hurts, and maybe this time is no different. she takes the anaesthetic. this is her third baby, she has nothing to prove. her husband holds her hand and she cries and she keeps reminding herself that it will all be worth it. and suddenly a baby is there, gross and beautiful in an incomprehensible way. the baby cries but she laughs because she did it. it’s the hardest thing she’ll ever do.

they hand him the baby and he looks at it like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. “it’s a girl,” he hears, voices muffled by the adrenaline pumping through his veins. he looks up at his wife beaming. “it’s a girl,” he repeats, and he thinks he sees a flicker of a smile on her face before the color is drained from her cheeks and doctors rush to her sides. suddenly there are shouts and beeping and everything is happening so fast that he can’t comprehend what’s going on in front of him. he just stays in the corner, eyes glassy as the world seems to move in slow motion and the baby in his arms begins to cry. a nurse takes the baby and three more take his wife to the operating room. forty minutes later she is dead and he is empty and there is a baby somewhere that will need him. but he needs talia, and as he walks like a zombie from the maternity ward to the postnatal ward he feels like he can’t do this without her. he knows it. when he arrives, the baby is wearing a pink hat and a breathing tube. but she will be just fine, they say. it’s procedure for most preemies.

he has to fill out a birth record. in two weeks it will be processed and he’ll go to city hall to pick up a birth certificate and a social security card because this baby is here- an impossibly tiny person, asleep two feet away in the hospital nursery. a nurse hands him a pen and it quivers in his hand. he looks at the forms through bloodshot eyes, cheeks stinging as a painful reminder of his tears. they have already written down her height and weight: 16 inches, 5 pounds 10 ounces. a little small, but she’ll be just fine, they say. he has to fill in the rest: baby’s name, date of birth, parent’s names, and address. most of it is simple: november 4th, 1998, henry chase, talia lilly chase, 2963 santa rosa avenue, santa rosa, ca. it’s the first, and most important question that has him stumped. what could he possibly name his baby girl? all the names they had considered were for a son. he thinks of his home, where tucker and forrest are waiting with their neighbor mrs. mahoney - what was he going to tell tucker and forrest? - and of the book talia had left on the kitchen table. it was going to be a baby book, already equipped with a page for her son’s first smile, first crawl, first words. and he thinks of the cover, where stickers spelled out the name talia had chosen. elliot. it’s not a bad name, he thinks. and suddenly the answer seems so clear and he writes it down quickly: elliot talia chase. he looks at his baby girl and he’s crying again, but this time the tears fall not only out of sadness, but also out of joy.

#i 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔡 people to be 𝔞𝔣𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔡 of 𝔥𝔲𝔯𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤 me ❛ self paras ❜#tw pregnancy #tw death #tw implied alcoholism

10 notes · View notes

wunderlass · 5 years ago

Text

Max Evans, Princess of Power

“You’re the one who never wanted us to ask questions or call attention to ourselves, and we followed it blindly.”

“No one made you follow my rule, Michael. I’m not your dad.”

“You’ve sure as hell been acting like it all our lives.”

During a recent rewatch of the show, I started thinking about the power dynamics of the pod squad, and specifically the way Max is positioned as their de facto leader–largely through statements made by Michael. This led me to question whether Max actually does serve the purpose of leader (or at least, a paternal/big brother figure to the other two), or whether the power dynamics are far more complicated than that.

To that end, I’ve done a close rewatch of all the scenes involving the pod squad interacting with each other or talking about each other to try and answer this question.

(That title is a complete pisstake, by the way).

tldr: Michael doesn’t listen to Max and never has. Max definitely isn’t in charge of the pod squad.

The first time we meet Michael, he’s contrasted with Max: the irresponsible brother against the “self-righteous” one. The criminal vs the cop; the rule breaker vs the rule maker and enforcer. It’s implied that Max is the leader of the pod squad, keeping the errant Michael in line: a big brother reprimanding a misbehaving younger sibling, despite the fact they’re the same age as far as they know.

However, the dialogue in the pilot suggests their agreement to keep their secret was one they reached between them, rather than a rule that Max imposed on the other two. Isobel says:

“I keep this secret because you, me, and Michael swore that we would.”

During the pilot, Michael is the one trying to enforce this rule, tailing Max to stop him talking to Liz. The one who puts their survival above all else. Isobel tells Max that Michael won’t forgive him for telling Liz their secret—and Max states that he isn’t asking permission. This doesn’t suggest that Max has been running a little fiefdom of the three of them.

Within the same episode, Michael tries to steer Isobel to get inside Liz’s mind to send her away. And by “steer”, I mean he explicitly gives Isobel an order:

“Start preparing yourself. Because if Liz Ortecho turns on any of us you will get inside of her head and erase it, make her leave Roswell...leave Max.”

So far, we haven’t been told Max was the one making the rules, and Michael sure as hell isn’t following any. The episodes that follow compound this, showing that Max has no authority over Michael, who never listens to him and consistently pushes back against him. Michael and Isobel break into the Crashdown to threaten Liz, going behind Max’s back. They sneak around in episode three trying to get into Liz’s mind. By the time Max decides this is the best approach in episode four, they’ve already tried it for him (again), and his opinion is a moot point.

It’s in episode five where Michael first claims that Max is their leader: “You made the rules our entire lives—never be extraordinary! Just once we made a gametime decision for your own good!”

That’s pretty consistent within the pod squad—making decisions for each other. Max tries it, Michael tries it, Isobel does it but is usually going along with one of her brothers. The narrative at least tries to frame this is as a bad idea, something which leads to bigger problems for them. But Michael is the one who’s in on both secrets, initiating the lie to Isobel about who killed Rosa. We don’t at this stage know who came up with the idea to send Liz away back in 2008, but I’d put odds on it being Michael, just like it was this time around. Isobel was capable of doing that alone without needing to discuss it with Michael, if she thought it was the best approach, and without telling him so he couldn’t spill the beans to Max. Instead, Michael’s involvement suggests to me that it was his idea that time and this time.

It’s Michael’s claim here in episode five—"our entire lives”—that doesn’t ring quite true. As we find out over the course of the season, the pod squad were separated before they were verbal. It’s possible that they came up with some kind of mental pact to blend in, but given that Max doesn’t remember that period of time, why would Michael? This means any rules could only have been put in place when Michael returned to Roswell as a preteen. And during the tent discussion in episode six, it seems clear that Michael realises he has to cover up his powers for his own protection. This isn’t something he’d need telling by Max. He’s already successfully kept his alien identity under wraps while separated from the other two for years.

One of the things I found most interesting about that first scene in episode six is how, when Max has killed the drifter, both boys turn to Isobel to ask her what they should do. Isobel is too broken at this point to answer, so Michael takes charge, covering up the body to bury it. But this instinct of theirs, to look to Isobel, implies that maybe the first leader of their group was actually her. And when she wasn’t capable of fulfilling that role any more, they each tried to fill the void.

Throughout this episode, there isn’t really any sense of either boy being in charge. They share their problems, to an extent. Michael at this stage is the least sheltered of the pod squad due to his upbringing, and he’s used to not relying on anybody else. He can take charge where he needs to be, because he’s used to surviving on his own. When Max notices the issues with Isobel he suggests going to their parents, and Michael is the one who shoots that down. No rule, certainly not one imposed by Max, is mentioned.

Later this is reversed, with Michael imploring Max to involve his parents at the caves. Neither boy is wrong in the logic they use to discredit the suggestion, and neither boy is taking the lead, instead working together to produce the cover up. Max suggests they must cover the murders up; Michael lies to Isobel. Isobel pushes the cover up further. There is shared responsibility for what happened, rather than one person being to blame for what went wrong, and Isobel says to Michael that they agreed to never talk about that night. Everything they do is mutual, except for the lie Michael tells Isobel. But when the topic comes up in episode eleven, Michael blames Max for the cover up.

Based on what’s shown, it’s probable that Max moved into more of a paternal position after Rosa’s death, because he had to. Isobel wasn’t capable; Michael’s plans fell apart and it seems likely he started acting out in ways that could have led to his discovery, so Max stepped in to try and keep him under control. By this point, their relationship was already fractured, and Michael’s resentment of him began to grow, until his interpretation of their dynamic in the past is coloured by how it is in the present.

Max’s role as leader has been massively exaggerated by Michael's resentment of him. Nobody needed to impose a rule on any of them, because they all knew what was at stake. They’ve grown up in a society which is saturated with ideas of aliens (human and inhuman) as the enemy and examples of what humanity does to people it fears. If Max is the leader in the present (and it certainly doesn’t seem like Michael follows his lead) then he didn’t choose this role but was the last one standing capable of taking it.

One last thing I want to mention is how Max’s mere size could influence people’s perception of him, both other characters and viewers. NDP is a big dude with a deep voice, so Max’s anger when we see flashes of it is palpable. Max could be characterised as an “alpha” (not a real thing) based on physical characteristics alone. But when you look at Max’s behaviour, he really isn’t. He doesn’t want to be in charge of anything or anyone. He didn’t become a cop to gain power, he did it to assuage his guilt. Within their relationship, Liz is the more dynamic character and it seems very plausible that Max would be happy to hand over all the power to her.

Max may grow into a leadership position in the future, depending on the nature of his powers, but he’s certainly never held the reins of the pod squad. Even if they all believe that’s the case, it’s been an illusion. More flashbacks may provide more context and flesh out their historic dynamic further, but it seems clear to me that Michael is used to being beholden to nobody except himself, and it’s been that way their entire lives.

#roswell new mexico #meta #pod squad #max evans #michael guerin #isobel evans

37 notes · View notes

tendertenebrosity · 5 years ago

Text

So, @castielamigos was asking me about the Mage story with Rill. I actually attempted to write his story for NaNoWriMo several years ago, but petered out after a handful of chapters.

I re-read the document just now and it’s... okay? I can tell my writing’s changed. The very first chapter - mostly introductory stuff - is under the cut if it would be of interest to anybody.

Chapter One

Rill looked up at the walls of the Camrissian Academy of Magic with a light, sick feeling in his chest.

His wife, Talia, finished instructing the driver to return to pick her up. She approached behind him and took his arm.

“Well,” she said briskly. “Here we are. Do you have all of your things?”

“Yes,” Rill said. It wasn’t as if he had so many ‘things’ that he could have lost track of any in the carriage ride from the Ambirana town house to the Academy. A single bag over his shoulder contained his plainest sets of clothing, a few personal grooming items, and two books. He had no idea what he was going to need, or for that matter what he was going to be allowed to keep - he had a vague recollection that mages weren’t allowed much in the way of possessions. It seemed best to be frugal.

“Well,” Talia said again, and squeezed his arm gently. She joined him in looking up at the Academy. “It’s a beautiful old building.”

“Yes,” he said. “I suppose.”

He gathered his thoughts. He would rather say most of his goodbyes out here, just in case they didn’t get any time alone later. “Talia… I want to thank you for… the last few weeks,” he said awkwardly. “It’s been… you’ve been…”

“Rill, I’m sorry it took something like this to…” she frowned and shook her head. “Get us to sort ourselves out.” She unhooked her arm from his and wrapped an arm around his waist for an embrace. “I think we could have… we would have been okay in the end. We had a rocky start but we could have made it work. If it wasn’t for…”

“Magic,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. But it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” He tried to smile.

Privately he thought it was easy to tell themselves it would have worked out if only it had been allowed to, now that external factors had made the question moot. In some ways it’s ideal, he thought sadly. I wanted a way out of the marriage that didn’t have repercussions for our families, didn’t I? Nobody can be held to blame for it, and now Talia can get a proper husband like she should have.

There was no way he would voice that self-pitying spiel to Talia, though. He had enough self respect for that at least.

“Anyway,” he said. “I – I do love you, Talia.”

She sighed, and pulled him close for a few seconds. “My poor Rill.”

He held her for a while, but pulled back when he felt a lump rise in his throat. “Come on,” he said, pulling away. He resettled his bag on his shoulder and held his arm out properly for her to take, smiling. “I’m sure they’d rather we got there as soon as possible.”

“It’s been two months,” Talia said offhandedly. “I think another five minutes wouldn’t result in you bursting into flames. But if you’re ready.”

Rill wasn’t sure he was comfortable joking about bursting into flames. He took a deep breath, and they opened the door and entered the Magic Academy together.

Inside it was quiet and high-ceilinged, with a deep blue carpet on the stone floor.

A woman in a high-collared uniform coat of the same blue straightened up from her position against a wall. There was another, a man, on the other side of the hallway. “Hello. Can I help you?”

“I am Lady Talia Ambirana,” Talia announced. “We wish to speak to someone about magic.”

The mage-watchers – for that was what the blue uniform signified – exchanged a glance with each other. “Of course, lady,” the woman said. “What, specifically, regarding magic did you wish to speak about?”

“My husband has recently discovered that he possesses magic,” Talia said haughtily, as if daring her to think badly of them for it. She had behaved much the same way with her family.

Both of the magewatcher’s eyes shifted to Rill immediately. He tried to emulate Talia’s poise.

“I see, my lady,” the first magewatcher said. “If your husband would step through here, then, I’ll be back to speak with you shortly.” She stepped forward, obviously expecting to take Rill somewhere.

So soon? Resignedly, Rill moved to disentangle himself from Talia, but she pulled him closer with a meaningful glance. “I meant we wanted to talk to someone with authority,” she said. “I’m not intending to drop him off like a parcel.”

The magewatcher’s mouth thinned into a line. “Very well, my lady,” she said after a few moments of thought. “Hannivel? I’ll see if the mage commander has a moment.”

“Please do,” Talia said, although it hadn’t been addressed to her.

They waited for her to return. Rill might have said something to Talia – something like, “Tali, I have to live here, I don’t know if you should be making me enemies”. But Magewatcher Hannivel stood there in a relaxed but alert posture, watching them both but mostly Rill. So he decided not to say anything.

“Mage commander Laurent has some time to talk to you,” the first magewatcher said when she returned, without even an address. “If you’d follow me.”

She led them through a few doorways and down another blue-carpeted hallway; Hannivel had fallen in behind them. The magewatchers didn’t act quite like soldiers; maybe a bit more like the city watch.

Mage commander Laurent turned out to be a tall man in his late thirties with rumpled brown hair and a deep crease between his eyebrows. He stood up as they entered.

“Lady… Ambirana, was it?” he said. “And…?” he cocked his head at Rill.

“Emerill Ambirana se Rezdin,” Rill said, giving a very shallow bow. “At your service, sir.”

Laurent gave him a measuring look. “Are you? Good. Show me your hands.”

A little startled, Rill put out his right hand as if Laurent was going to shake it. Instead, the mage commander took hold of his wrist and tilted his hand to the light, examining it.

Rill realised he knew what he was looking for. “Oh,” he said. “If you’re looking for what I think you are, it was there, but it went away after a day or so. Is it… normal?”

Laurent raised an eyebrow at him. “Would you mind describing it for me?”

“My fingers were blue,” Rill admitted. “Not all over – just in patches. It was as if I’d spilled ink on them, but brighter, and it wouldn’t come off. This was after… uh… after I did something to the fire.”

“’Did something’?”

“It flared up,” Rill said. “There was another time when I made these… lights, but that didn’t last any more than a minute or so.”

Laurent nodded and let his wrist go. “You’re quite right,” he said, sitting down and gesturing for them to do the same. “Master Ambirana does indeed have magic. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to either of you that that means he belongs in the Academy now.”

“Yes,” Talia said. “That’s why we’re here.” She told Laurent all of the basic details of the story.

Laurent listened with the crease between his eyes growing deeper. “You mean to say,” he said when Talia had finished. “You have known about this for two months, and it took you until now to come to an Academy.”

Well, more than two months, Rill thought to himself guiltily. I didn’t tell Tali until it had been happening for weeks.

“We were travelling,” Talia snapped. “We had to get here.”

“Unless you were in the Lianese Empire, I seriously doubt you were two months away from an Academy,” Laurent said grimly. “Do either of you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“My husband would never knowingly work unauthorised magic,” Talia said, scowling.

“That is not the point,” Laurent said. “Did he or did he not just admit to -” He cut himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. “Our instructions have always been very clear,” he said in a quieter voice. “Newly discovered mages need to go to their nearest Academy, as soon as possible.”

“We have always lived in this city,” Talia snapped. “We –”

“You put yourselves and everybody around you in danger,” Laurent interrupted. “I don’t care why. I’m just glad that you’ve come here without anybody having to pay a steep price for your foolishness. It could very well have happened.”

Talia drew herself up, but didn’t argue. “Well, he is here now,” she said coldly.

Laurent cocked his head and looked at Rill. “Do you have anything to add to this?” he asked.

“It… didn’t seem that pressing,” Rill said tentatively. “I’m sorry. It only happened a handful of times.”

“That is no predictor,” Laurent said. “It’s not unusual for the first or second manifestation of magic to be one of the very… destructive ones. You are not in control of the magic, and you have no chance of gaining control over it except here.”

Rill nodded. “Yes. I know that.”

Laurent sat back and looked at Rill for a moment. “You are Emrissian, aren’t you?” he said, looking over to include Talia in the question.

How is that relevant? Rill glanced at Talia. “Yes, we are,” he said.

“Why?” Talia asked, her eyes narrowing. It had been a long time since anybody had caused any problems about that in Camris.

Laurent shrugged. “Just an observation. I will say this, though – and I will tell you exactly once before you start to infringe on my patience.” His voice wasn’t harsh, just matter of fact. “Neither your birth nor religion will get you any concessions here. Our rules are our rules, and as soon as I sign this paper, Master Ambirana will be a mage under our jurisdiction like any other. This is most important for him, but I suggest you bear it in mind as well, Lady Ambirana.” He flashed a polite smile, and then pulled a piece of paper across the desk and began writing on it. “Was there anything pressing you needed to see me for? Most of this could have been covered by Watcher Lillan.”

“There are legalities to deal with,” Talia said, coolly. “I cannot be expected to discuss…”

“If you drop off the necessary documents in the next day or so, I will fill them out,” Laurent said. “For the moment, I think it best that you make your farewells and let Watcher Lillan take Rill into the academy. There is a two month period of novitiate in which mages are not allowed visitors; after that you may come see him on the second and fourth Sunday of every month. Any further questions you have, I suggest you address them to Magewatcher Hannivel, or whoever else is on duty in the hall.” He signed the piece of paper with a workmanlike scrawl, not at all the way Rill would have signed something official, and started on another. “Watcher Lillan!” he called. “Please show Lady Ambirana out.”

They stood. For a second or two Talia planted her feet, eyes flashing, but Rill tugged on her arm gently. Please don’t make this more difficult than it is.

She glanced at him, and tossed her head. “Thank you for your time, good sir,” she said haughtily.

Outside the office, Watcher Lillan nodded at him. “You can have a minute. And give the lady back that bag; you can’t take anything in with you.”

“Oh,” Rill said, his stomach dropping. “But I need �� could I leave it with someone and get it back later?” She was shaking her head. “Not even �� but clothes?”

“We have everything you’ll need here already,” she said. She gave him a surprisingly sympathetic look.

“What about a book?” he said, trying to keep a pleading edge out of his voice. “You won’t have… No. No, nothing, right. I understand.”

You could recite most of those poems by heart anyway, he told himself. You don’t need it. But truthfully, he had wanted it more for the inscription in the front, and the memories. His sister had given him that book.

He put the bag down, and turned around to run into a full-body hug from Talia.

“Be careful, darling,” she whispered. She smelled of roses and that heavy perfume they’d picked up a crate of in Phynnis.

“I will,” he said. “A-and I’ll see you in two months?” Please.

“Of course. Of course.” She sniffled, and tightened her arms before letting go. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

#Mage Rill #my stuff

12 notes · View notes

bardiccircle · 3 years ago

Text

Resh Chapter One Self-Exegesis

Over the past two weeks, we have gone through the first chapter of Resh, so here is a reposting of the updated chapter with the full analysis, for anyone who would like to revisit or catch up, beneath the “Keep reading” link.

Chapter One

1. You are not your body. The body is solely manifest. It is easy to consider the separation of the flesh, but less so for what is part of the flesh.

2. Memory is stored in the brain, therefore it and its offshoots are merely physical. Experience, which becomes the perspective and belief which influences behaviour, is a trapping of the manifest form. As is personality, which is wired into the brain in ways best understood via examples of those who have had their personality affected by brain damage.

3. Tempting as it is to identify with the flesh, it is moreso for thought. The connection between the flesh and thought is, for our purposes, moot.

4. You are not your thought. Thought is ephemeral, observable, dismissible, malleable. Thought feels less than manifest, or otherwise separated, due to its distinction from the external; it is a product of manifest.

5. Of all that can be said when the elements of manifest are, ostensibly, stripped away, the simplest agreement is that awareness remains.

6. Awareness is localized biomechanically, at the very least. Cognition and self-awareness is a biomechanically sourced aspect of awareness and often, due to the bias of human perspective, generally conflated with awareness. Awareness, in terms of our discussion, is best understood as synonymous with the semi-metaphysical consideration of the cosmic wavelength in a manifest form.

7. The manifest in which awareness finds itself is cast a role by circumstance. The realization of this role is contextual. Beyond fate, the behaviour of this role is open to interpretation like that of any actor.

8. From this basis, for any given aspect of life, springs the dynamic of the truth and the lie. This dynamic may be viewed in a general sense of over-arching themes or specific to the situation. All is perspective, derived from experience, determining how clearly one approaches an aspect of life.

9. From lies spring need, as misapprehension and acts thereof cause harm. Psychological need is the change necessary to stop hurting oneself, while moral need is external.. Knowledge of the lie and resulting needs is only the first step, as it is a practice to overcome ingrained behaviour.

10. Desire is distinct from truth; it is an aspect of manifest.

11. True will is distinct from, but in line with, truth. It is the manifest of higher direction.

12. The manifest is impermanent. This is a natural and joyous thing. It is a dialogue between manifest imperfection and perfect potential.

13. While localized in manifest awareness plays its part in the grand story. This world is distinct, but not lesser.

Verse One

You are not your body. The body is solely manifest. It is easy to consider the separation of the flesh, but less so for what is part of the flesh.

The first striking element of this verse is the use of the word ‘you’. This seems to demand some sort of definition of ‘you’ or the self, but as we see in later verses the function of ‘you’ here is to be a stand in for the consideration of self as layers are stripped away to see what remains. The importance does not lie in defining ‘you’, but the continued consideration of what ‘you’ is and what previously assumed elements may be stripped away.

Saying “You are not your body” may seem nonsensical to the average person. It is the most tangible part of the self; I can see my hands working in tandem with my desire to type this out, and any effect on the body feels deeply personal. Yet it is merely a tool. Humans tend to identify with the tools directly under our control, especially when said control becomes so instinctive to solely feel as part of the will. In this way, we do not say “His car nearly hit my car” but “He nearly hit me”. Likewise as we do not become one with the car when we are in the driver’s seat, we are not our bodies.

Any part of this flesh may be removed, as long as life is sustained, without becoming less of ourselves. This becomes more complicated in considering the brain in this way; as it is discussed specifically in the next verse the topic of the brain as part of the body will be left for that later discussion.It may be helpful to regard the brain as a special case, for the sake of concentrating discussion. This is not to say the brain is apart from the body, but simply to make clear the structure of this discussion to avoid confusion as it will be discussed tomorrow.

The word ‘solely’ implies a separation between the body and anything which is not manifest, so what is manifest? Manifest is the physical, the actualized plane. Typically this is attached to the idea of the traditional five senses. I can see the pen next to my laptop. I picked up said pen and felt its weight and the texture of its plastic. It rattled when I set it down. There is not much to report in terms of taste and smell, beyond the slight reflection on where a philosophy degree has gotten me.While we could delve into ideas on empiricism, that would be wasting energy on a tangent. Our focus is on interrogating what is outside that initial ‘you’ as parts are stripped away.

Specifying the separation of the body does not imply that it is any less important, as alluded to in further verses. To continue the car metaphor, while it is not part of us we still look after it as it plays an important part in our lives (not to imply everyone owns a car; regardless most will understand the comparison). While keeping it fueled and maintained is the baseline for it working, cleaning your car and making it nice to be in will improve quality of life. Now consider your body in the same way, except you spend every* moment of your life in it! Your body being solely manifest means that who you are is not tied to the physical form you occupy. It can, however, be an excellent medium for self expression.

“It is easy to consider the separation of the flesh” as it can be boiled down into a simple thought experiment. If you lost a limb, you would still be you. Certainly, you would be affected by it as it would be a significant change requiring adjustment, but you would still be you. If your car broke down on the side of the road, it would represent a drastic shift in your day-to-day, but eventually walking would be the new normal. If the hands I use for typing were to disappear, the means by which I put out my ideas may change but eventually I would adjust to speech-to-text or dictation and from the audience stand-point there would be no change. This part is an invitation to do the work, to sit down and consider your relationship to your body, with the encouragement that it is not an insurmountable task.

“[B]ut less so for what is part of the flesh.” And here we return to why the brain may be considered a special case: it is so central to our manifest form that even its consideration as such requires separate deliberation of its connection to the manifest and what may lie beyond.

*Debatable in a way unimportant to the discussion

Verse Two

Memory is stored in the brain, therefore it and its offshoots are merely physical. Experience, which becomes the perspective and belief which influences behaviour, is a trapping of the manifest form. As is personality, which is wired into the brain in ways best understood via examples of those who have had their personality affected by brain damage.

Here we begin our conversation of the brain and what elements can be considered to be “of the flesh” (Resh.1.1). The elements mentioned are memory, experience, perspective, belief, and personality; these can be simplified into memory, stored in the hippocampus, and personality, located in the frontal lobe. This simplification is avoided in the text as it may cause confusion to not specify the “offshoots” of memory.

Memory represents not only the raw data of our lives, but the events which impressed certain ideas upon us. The main semantic difference between memory and experience is internalization; there is a distinction, however slight, between remembering that 2+2=4 versus having experience adding numbers together. To clarify, experience is not just familiarity with a given action, such as addition, but the happenings which affect our approach to the world. The experience of being taken hunting and finding it distressing can be the formative moment someone stops eating meat.

Experience “becomes the perspective and belief which influences behaviour” through the previously stated internalization. If someone has the experience of growing up in a household which instills fundamentalist religious beliefs, this will not only affect their beliefs but their perspective on the world. Likewise, the experience of growing up in poverty will not only affect one’s perspective of socioeconomic issues, but their beliefs as well. Note, previously and going forward, that the examples put forth are simplifications to demonstrate the underlying mechanics.

Belief and perspective are intimately connected; perspective is how one sees the world while belief is the manifestation of said perspective into convictions. Belief is subject to more doubt and consideration while perspective tends to be more passive. The active shift in either will, inevitably, change the other if one does not revert to one’s previous perspective or belief. Belief and perspective influence behaviour as this internal approach to the world becomes externalized. To continue the above example, someone with a fundamentalist belief or perspective is more likely to behave in a likewise manner. If your experience of the LGBTQ+ community was through strawmen arguments and a homophobic environment, you will likely behave homophobically.

It is not mentioned in the text, as it does not contribute to the paring away of what is not ‘you’, but it is worth mentioning that perspective and belief can also be affected by behaviour. This is due to cognitive dissonance and its solution, when thought conforms to action.

Personality’s place in the brain is “best understood via examples of those who have had their personality affected by brain damage” due to the neurological complexity of said placement. The most well-known example of this would be the case of Phineas Gage, a milquetoast railway foreman who, after having an iron rod go clear through his skull, experienced an extreme change in his personality. That said, all we can really account for is a change in behaviour; naturally this demands an investigation into personality and what makes it distinct from behaviour.

While there are multiple definitions of personality, the simplest one attuned to our purposes is “the complex of characteristics that distinguishes an individual or a nation or group; especially: the totality of an individual's behavioral and emotional characteristics” (“Personality.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/personality. Accessed 10 Aug. 2021.). We have gone over the manifest aspects which lead to behaviour and, assuming behavioural characteristics to simply be the trend of behaviour, we are therefore left with emotional characteristics to discuss.

Emotional characteristics, if contrasted by behavioural characteristics, would be the trend of emotional states. If we look at the main psychological theories for emotion, we can see that they are typically explained in terms of the body, the brain, or cognition. Two of those three can be placed in the same category of the flesh, easily cordoned off into manifest as explained in this, and our previous, discussion, and, as explored in further verses, “[y]ou are not your thought[s]” (Resh.1.4). This is not to say emotions are not valid, in the same way as the body they are precious in their place, but they are not you. You are not anger. You are not sadness. You are not even joy. These are ephemeral aspects of our manifest existence. Ergo, you are not your emotional characteristics.

If we are not our emotional characteristics nor behavioural characteristics, it follows that we are not our personalities. It might feel upsetting to be told that, as we are conditioned to equate value and attachment. Personality is the expression of your manifest, it’s what other people see and is an aspect of how unique you are in manifest. The shock of considering this separation may feel constricting, but once you’re comfortable with the idea it can be freeing as it changes nothing but the weight of manifest.

Verse Three

Tempting as it is to identify with the flesh, it is moreso for thought. The connection between the flesh and thought is, for our purposes, moot.

The primary aspect we should investigate in this verse is the temptation of identification. We have already covered the identification with the physical in depth in the examination of Resh.1.1, so we will leave it at a brief overview: the body is our tool for acting in and interacting with manifest, and being the primary outlet for our will it is evolutionarily convenient to be tied to it as, prior to cognition, seeing the flesh as self is the basis for instinctive preservation of the flesh.

The temptation to identify with thought is, happily, more straightforward. Being ostensibly separate from manifest, thought feels more intimately tied to the self as an expression of the self to the self. There is no posturing, no affect from outside observation, so there is a sense of purity with thought. Of any quality beyond the flesh, it is the most easily observable, but as we will discuss tomorrow, that doesn’t make it you.

The “purposes” referenced would be the removal of all layers of manifest existence from our conception of self to see what is left. “The connection between the flesh and thought is” moot not only because it can be discussed endlessly, but because the result of said discussion either way would be irrelevant. Whether thought is purely neurological or something else, tomorrows discussion explores why, either way, “[y]ou are not your thought” (Resh.1.4).

Verse Four

You are not your thought. Thought is ephemeral, observable, dismissible, malleable. Thought feels less than manifest, or otherwise separated, due to its distinction from the external; it is a product of manifest.

You can observe yourself having a thought. Sometimes you’ll have a thought and be horrified by it as you assume it is reflective of who you are, but the more reasonable explanation is that the thought is not you but a manifestation. Whether it is sourced from the manifest or something higher, it is still not you. As we discussed specifically yesterday, and is implied by today’s verse, it is the most easily observable quality beyond flesh. Thinking about how to discuss this, I’m drawing both from my experience with philosophy and my memory of previous thoughts exploring the topic; I can observe my perceptions on thought more directly through thought as opposed to said perceptions latent state within my hippocampus.

In regards to the source of thought we enter the realm of speculation; all of this is meant to kick start consideration rather than deliver any misguided sense of truth, so let’s speculate. Sourced from manifest, we can subdivide into intentional and unintentional thought. Intentional thought would be drawing from raw data for consideration, whether it is working on a doctoral thesis or something as mundane as deciding what you will have for lunch; it is the purposeful manifestation of said raw data for observation and manipulation. Unintentional, or intrusive, thought is harder to pin down. It could be sourced from something as simple as the neurological need for stimulation, such as a daydream, or more complex such as l'appel du vide, such as the impulse to toss your phone over a bridge either making the fear of doing so accidentally controllable or as some sort of warning regarding the risk. Seen as sourced from something beyond manifest, that would typically be called inspiration or even divine inspiration.

In any case, thought can be seen as “a product of manifest” as it is a form of manifestation, albeit more ephemeral than the flesh.

Verse Five

Of all that can be said when the elements of manifest are, ostensibly, stripped away, the simplest agreement is that awareness remains.

We are aware of our bodies in the same way we are aware of our thoughts, but typically this awareness is filtered through thought as that is, as previously stated, the most easily observable thing beyond the flesh. As the stripping away of “elements of manifest” were covered in previous discussions and “awareness” will be discussed in the next verse, that leaves us with one word jutting out: ostensibly.

There is always room for further examination and conclusions. To say anything is the definite truth is the path to stagnation and dogmatism, themes which are covered in further chapters. “Ostensibly” is a reminder to keep looking, that all of this is food for thought. The path to the greatest understanding is an open mind and “[c]onsidering that you may be wrong” (Resh.3.9).

Verse Six

Awareness is localized biomechanically, at the very least. Cognition and self-awareness is a biomechanically sourced aspect of awareness and often, due to the bias of human perspective, generally conflated with awareness. Awareness, in terms of our discussion, is best understood as synonymous with the semi-metaphysical consideration of the cosmic wavelength in a manifest form.

“Biomechanically” points to the idea that the flesh, our consideration of life, if an organic equivalent to the machines we build. The most important part of this comparison is that our limits are determined by our physical form. We can’t know if said awareness only exists in living forms, but in any case the experience of any other organism would differ based on the physical form. “You are not your body” (Resh.1.1), ergo that which is left when all else is “stripped away” (Resh.1.5) is dependent in its manifestation on the physical form through which it is manifested.

It is implied, by “[a]wareness is localized” (Resh.1.6), that awareness both exists without manifest and is not divided up by manifestation. I think of it like a box of Lego: the parts you bring out to play with are still part of the larger unit, metaphysically speaking, but at the moment they happen to be acting as a rocket ship or whatever else is built. When playtime is over, the rocket ship is disassembled and returned to the larger unit of Lego. Here, the distinction between the physical and metaphysical must be noted. The physical blocks would be the atoms making up our universe, never created nor destroyed, being rearranged into a separate form. The metaphysical idea of the box of Lego would be awareness, existing throughout the physical universe with no change outside of manifest; removing Lego bricks from the box makes them no less part of the box. If it helps to think linguistically, consider the difference between playing with Lego and putting up the Lego. During playtime, there’s a divide between the pieces you’re working with and the box of parts you can pull from; when told to put up your Lego, the blocks and box become a unit as returning the box to its place is just as much a part of the action as returning the pieces to the box.

In the line between manifest and deity, “[c]ognition and self-awareness” could be seen as somewhat beyond manifest. As has been previously laid out, such things are “a product of manifest”. They are heavily dependent on the physical form we occupy, as they typically deal with ourselves in manifest and likewise relation to the external. “[T]he bias of human perspective” comes from the fact that, as our conscious experience is centred in our manifest form, we tend to view things from the manifest form usually convenient for day to day purposes. It is easiest, when viewing things from a solely manifest perspective, to “conflate [these] with awareness generally”.

To say awareness is “the semi-metaphysical consideration of the cosmic wavelength in a manifest form” seems to be an obscurum per obscurius, so let’s work through it. At the centre of this is the phrase “cosmic wavelength”, which we have discussed previously; there’s a whole chapter dedicated to it here if you want to read ahead. Simply, it is awareness viewed from a top-down perspective rather than bottom-up. This is in the verse as “consideration ... in a manifest form”, as opposed to considering awareness beyond the manifest form; they are the same. “Semi-metaphysical” is a modifier for the consideration, “semi” as awareness is a consideration semantically connected to the manifest, as that is implicitly the angle from which we are viewing it.

Finally, the idea of “awareness” should be clarified. From the manifest perspective, it is quite straightforward. You are aware of your body. You are aware of your thought. The one addendum is the metaphysical aspect uniting this facet of you with the rest of creation.

Verse Seven

The manifest in which awareness finds itself is cast a role by circumstance. The realization of this role is contextual. Beyond fate, the behaviour of this role is open to interpretation like that of any actor.

From the previous verses and their self-exegesis we can tell what “[t]he manifest in which awareness finds itself” is, so what role is it cast by circumstances?

We are born into certain circumstances, shaping the memories and experiences which will inform our interaction with the world. In terms of story, which will be interrogated in later entries, we play a character in manifest. We have aptitudes, hopes, dreams, fears, faults and more, all accruing onto us from birth. This is not predestination, it is likelihood. That is why it is beyond fate: where we are born, as to whom, affects who we are and how our lives may unfold

As much as our circumstances may shape the character we play, the way it is realized in behaviour is relative to the context. The way you act with friends differs from how you are with family; your personality at the pub versus the office will likely differ equally so. This may not be conscious, and most likely is not, and may be slight, but as humans we naturally adapt to our environment, including social ones.

This may feel as if we are simply blowing where the wind takes us, and for some that may be the case. Plenty of people fall into a certain role, end up playing a certain character, and forget that’s all it is: a role, a character, a game. This doesn’t just apply to office drones unquestioningly committing their lives to a 5x5 cubicle, but their CEOs so unflinchingly locked into the idea of growth that they will watch the Earth burn if it means the numbers continue to rise. That is the true death: stagnation.

Yet we, at our core, are awareness. The role may be out of our hands, but the interpretation of said role is within our grasp. The power is in the interpretation and reinterpretation, without an implication that it must result in change. The difference is between said office drone remaining in the job because they’re there and it is what they think is expected of them by society, versus someone working the same job knowing they have, every day, chosen to remain there.

Verse Eight

From this basis, for any given aspect of life, springs the dynamic of the truth and the lie. This dynamic may be viewed in a general sense of over-arching themes or specific to the situation. All is perspective, derived from experience, determining how clearly one approaches an aspect of life.

“This basis” would be the background aspects of the characters we play, as previously discussed, which influences our actions going forward. In storytelling theory this is called the ghost and is typically a specific event due to the directed nature of the characters in our stories. We are more complex as the medium in which we are expressed, manifest, is infinitely more complex than the mediums in which we express ourselves. In any given situation we draw from numerous past experiences to understand our current one.

The truth and lie are also storytelling terms and, in stories, simplified from how we can see it in our own lives. The lie would be the perspective in life which causes harm, while the truth is its opposite. If you are not taking care of yourself because you think you do not deserve it, the lie would be needing to earn said care. Its opposite, the truth, would therefore be that, by virtue of your humanity, you deserve to be happy.

The distinction between viewing said dynamic in specific or general would be the scope of perspective.There might an overarching perspective causing you pain, or it may be specific to certain problems. Often it is both as the long-term patterns of our lives influence it moment to moment. “All is perspective, derived from experience,” as discussed in earlier verses. It is first and foremost a matter of disentangling what perspectives keep us from “clearly [approaching] an aspect of life”.

Verse Nine

From lies spring need, as misapprehension and acts thereof cause harm. Psychological need is the change necessary to stop hurting oneself, while moral need is external.. Knowledge of the lie and resulting needs is only the first step, as it is a practice to overcome ingrained behaviour.

Needs are, as well, an aspect of storytelling theory. Most conflicts, in positive arcs, are driven both by a character’s lie and the needs it causes. When we base our actions off a false understanding, it can cause us to hurt ourselves and others even as we think we are doing the right thing. This is where needs come in, as they are a more actualized form of the lie.

In the example from yesterday, we determined that in the case of not taking care of yourself because you do not think you deserve it, the lie would be the conception that you must earn said care. Let us put it in terms of need to demonstrate the mechanics of it and what changes must occur to stop causing harm. The psychological need would be rekindling a sense of self-love, while the moral need would be viewing such care as a right rather than a privilege. In this way we both improve our own situation while mitigating how that worldview may negatively impact others.

This may seem like a simple solution, but the lie is sourced in numerous experiences and reinforced by behavioural pattern. This is why it is “a practice”, as acting in line with the lie feels like a natural behaviour, while acting in line with the truth, and therefore the needs, requires conscious effort.

Verse Ten

Desire is distinct from truth; it is an aspect of manifest.

This is our final term from storytelling theory, at least as far as character elements are concerned. Desire, or want, is the surface level direction that gives stories their shape. The desire of the main character of Tootsie is to be a working actor, while his needs centre around seeing women as human. Need and want tend to oppose each other in stories as it is a reliable source of tension and conflict. It is a bit more complicated in life, as desire may be an outgrowth of need or wholly unrelated. It is important to keep in mind it is “distinct from truth” so we may prioritize our needs when the choice arises.

All of this is “of manifest”, so why specify? Like any aspect of manifest, desire is worthwhile in its own right but ultimately temporary. This is a reminder not to place too much weight on desire, just as we should not do so with manifest.

Verse Eleven

True will is distinct from, but in line with, truth. It is the manifest of higher direction.

The first word to clarify is “will”, as it is not a call to do whatever you want. True will can be seen as a higher purpose, or in a secular sense the path which best highlights your aptitude to bring fulfillment. We will discuss it in more depth later, but for now know it is not a fixed variable. Think of True Will as the current in the river of life: you are being led in a general direction with various streams to choose, and the only wrong answer is to fight the current.

True Will doesn’t defy Truth, but they are not intrinsically related. We will get into the details at a later date, but, suffice to say, if you were to view Truth as an ideal of manifest, you can see True Will as the manifestation of the ideal.

Verse Twelve

The manifest is impermanent. This is a natural and joyous thing. It is a dialogue between manifest imperfection and perfect potential.

Death is a difficult subject to broach, as the loss of the manifest is permanent and a balance must be struck between the acceptance of the rhythms of life and the glorification of its loss. We are all familiar with why death is terrifying, why it has the stature of the worst possible outcome in any given situation, ergo this verse seeks to challenge that view to expand our consideration. However, the obvious must be stressed: death is not something to strive for, nor is the preventable loss of life ever acceptable. This verse is regarding mortality, death in the form of the inevitable.

How can we tell it is about mortality rather than death, and what is the distinction? Death is an event in specific, while mortality is conceptual. “The manifest [being] impermanent” is the core concept being explored, not the way that impermanence plays out. Mourn the loss of life and defend both your existence and that of others, but it is pointless to curse the fact of mortality.

Some may argue that we only accept death as natural because we have no choice, comparing it to Stockholm Syndrome. I am using the word ‘death’ in the previous sentence as that is how it is phrased in the video I am referencing, and it is worthwhile to dig into the negative correlations with the word ‘death’. Death is an emotionally charged word, and rightfully so given all the pain it causes. Yet, curing death would not cure mortality. The human body is fragile, so unless the body can be surpassed there would still be death by accident. But even in that scenario, there are multiple cosmological theories pointing to the universe being finite. Maybe we finally escape death by living beyond manifest, but the fact cannot be changed that “[t]he manifest is impermanent”.

We can see this naturalness in the inevitable, immutable nature of this impermanence, but from a human perspective it is hard to see the joy. This joy comes from the “dialogue between manifest imperfection and perfect potential”, so let us dig into that phrase. The word “dialogue” suggests that it is an equal exchange, taking away the value judgement we typically place on the ideas of perfection and imperfection; to fully understand this dialogue we must understand the component parts. We have previously covered what manifest is, and in the future will interrogate why its imperfection should be celebrated. “[P]erfect potential” would be that which manifest springs from, the creative ideal which plays out in manifest; keep in mind that without manifestation, that which is all would be indistinguishable from that which is naught. Said “dialogue” would be that “perfect potential” localizing in manifest, playing out its role, then the role ending when the manifest likewise reaches its conclusion. Consider the salmon, which makes its way down a treacherous stream to the ocean, only to return in spawning season to mate and die. The joy in this impermanence is the potential it fosters, the inevitability of change, as the earth is passed from one generation to the next, as things break apart and force us to rebuild them stronger.

Verse Thirteen

While localized in manifest awareness plays its part in the grand story. This world is distinct, but not lesser.

The localization of manifest is covered in Resh.1.6, so let us start with the concept of “the grand story”. “From a universal perspective, the long term paths and workings of the stars are as compelling as individuals find human-centred stories” (Yodheh.4.1), or, simply put, the universe’s thirst for change is comparable to that which drives stories. “[T]he grand story” is, therefore, the myriad ways the universe unfolds. This does not mean our human stories are insignificant, but that the distinction between the life of a human and the life of a star is, metaphysically speaking, only a matter of scale.

“This world is distinct” from that of all that lies beyond the manifest, which will be explored in future chapters. It is “not lesser” for the reasons explored in yesterday’s verse: the imperfection of manifest allows pure creation to be dynamic, it gives distinctions which allow for stories and change to play out.

#philosophy #magick #occult #metaphysics #epistemology #individual #individualism #individuality #the self #the ego #thelema #bundle theory #the bardic circle #death #mortality

0 notes

nostalgic-blood · 7 years ago

Text

THAT MOVIE THO.

spoilers under the cut of course

Yeah yeah yeah pacing issues, too much cool stuff crammed into a movie with too little time to spare for many characters including AJ and Flutts who unfortunately made no friends and thus, had they not been in the movie nothing would really have affected the plot. They were there for MORAL support okay. Also my favourite gag wouldn’t have worked without Fluttershy. I wish I could watch it again to refresh my memory, but basically they were stowaways on an airship full of pirates, and the pirates find them and threaten them, like eating them or scarring them or SCARRING THEM EMOTIONALLY, and each threat is tailored to a specific pony, and the emotional one focused on Fluttershy. That was great. I loved that gag.

Also the plot was like, simple. EXTREMELY SIMPLE. bad guys show up. Run away from bad guys. search for macguffin that can defeat the bad guys. Bad guys capture good guys anyway. FRIENDSHIP IS POWER THAT CAN DEFEAT--well no, not in the giant rainbow beam smashes into bad guy kind of defeat. The bad guy actually died, and there was a lot of fighting in the climax. Huh.

Well anyway the world building was very good which I normally would never even comment on because when it comes to MLP I usually don’t give two shits about the lore. For instance in season seven they’re introducing a whole bunch of mythical legends that while might be interesting on their own, are presented in a such a way that the episode tends to be a complete bore. What do I learn about Rarity or AJ in an episode where all they do is tell campfire stories? There is no focus on a conflict or any moral lesson (except the small ones in the stories themselves) and little interaction between the main characters. I was so bored by that episode. The Daring Do episode fared even worse and somehow they shoehorned it as Pinkie’s legend (??!!?) despite Pinkie having not read any Daring Do books and having little reason to be on this adventure. (This doesn’t even begin to describe how much Daring Do being real is one of the weakest aspects of the show itself, but I digress)

The only episode that was an interesting way to depict a legend was the Fluttershy episode because figuring out who this historical healer was, was important to curing and preventing the spread of a horrible deadly illness, so that one had great and suspenseful setup with a lot of development for Fluttershy. And frankly I think in terms of legends themselves Fluttershy’s was the least interesting, but because it was framed by a really good episode about Flutters it was the best one.

Oh right I was supposed to talk about the movie.

But yeah, one thing I REALLY like and thought was a possibility in the MLP universe were sky pirates or at least sky sailors or whatever, and HERE THEY ARE, EXISTING! And BEING PIRATES! AIRSHIPS ARE A THING! They even had one in the newest MLP episode. I knew they existed for a long while (one appeared in a small moment during Rarity’s song in Sweet and Elite back in season two) but they were never really utilized until this movie. I don’t know how i feel about tons of all anthro-looking creatures though. I always assumed the world of MLP was all these quadrupedal creatures and if they did stand on two legs it was because they were hybrids with human-like pieces such as minotaurs. Or dragons, but let’s not talk about them.

But here it’s this anthro-cat, and some anthro-fishmen, and then anthro birds, and the big bad is okay because he looks like a primate of some sort, so it makes sense, but the rest of em... ehhhh. I guess since they went OUTSIDE Equestria it makes sense there are a much larger variety of creatures/races, and maybe Equestria is the just the one with the most four-legged equines, but...

Also I think we almost had enough screentime with these new characters to like them. Almost. I was starting to like them, but it wasn’t to the point that if these characters suddenly decided to help the mane six that it’d be 100% believable. Since there wasn’t much time devoted to each of them, the fact that catman decided to side with them just because Rarity in those few precious seconds fixed the hem of his shirt was a little less realistic or believable as it could have been. I get what they were trying to do, but if more time was devoted to it, it would have had much more impact. The pirates especially I thought maybe they would blame the Mane Six for leading to the destruction of their ship, but they were actually really reasonable for pirates that when we first saw them were about to eat them. They realized straight away that the real reason their ship exploded was because their boss sucked.

I could totally believe the Princess Seapony!Hippogriff thing siding with them though. She was just lonely and wanted friends. There were no ethical issues to get in the way at all like murderous pirates or conmen. The fact that the queen did not join them made sense though, since Twilight royally fucked up.

Speaking of Twilight I see a lot of people complaining she was not very Twilight in this movie, doing things that opposed the message of friendship. It made sense to me that she fell back to her more logical, rational way of life though. As they were journeying to find the Queen of the Hippogriffs, normal singing happy friendship methods to solve problems wasn’t really working. They befriended this cat man but he actually just wanted to sell them and was using them. Then they changed the ways of the pirates, but in doing so led the enemy straight towards them. I can see how Twilight thought this wasn’t like Equestria, the land of the colourful happy pastel ponies and their usual modus operandi wasn’t gonna work here. She was desperate! But due to the amount of time they had they could not spend a lot of time emphasizing this, so it may have come off to some people that Twilight was acting a lot more malicious than she is.

Another thing is this movie is clearly not for some random person to walk into a theatre, sit down, and just start watching like they’d understand the movie if it were just a standalone thing. There isn’t much time used up at all to introduce our characters and to make a blind audience care about them. It only really works if you’re already attached to the characters and know who they are, so it really wasn’t a good movie to attract casual moviegoers or anything like that.

I think another comment complaint is how helpless the ponies are especially when they are outside Equestria. This I thought was odd because we have Twilight who still had her magic which could basically solve anything and do anything if the plot demands in the show. Or Rainbow Dash who is supposedly faster than mach 3 or whatever, but neither of these two used their overpowered abilities effectively throughout the movie, almost like the movie forgot that Twilight could teleport or Rainbow Dash could escape.

But anyway all of that is moot. Why is all the above moot? Because we had a movie with a clear beginning, middle, and end. There were decent songs and a pretty good score. It’d otherwise just be a normal run of the mill 6-7/10.

BUT THAT IS MOOT BECAUSE PINKIE PIE WAS AMAZING IN THIS MOVIE. AND I WATCH MLP FOR PINKIE PIE. SHE IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON I AM INVESTED IN THIS FANDOM AT ALL. AND SHE HAD THE MOST FOCUS OF THE MANE SIX AFTER TWILIGHT.

The biggest issue I always had with adventure episodes which were usually the season premieres and finales of the show was that it was always heavily Twilight focused with the other five on the wayside. I did not want to watch a movie where Twilight solves the problem herself and her friends are hostages, or out of commission, nor not themselves, or otherwise not doing anything that affected the plot. They were just along for the ride. Yes unfortunately this ended up being the case for two of the Mane Six, but that’s just another side-effect of them not making this movie longer or utilizing what time they had effectively. (We could have had less new supporting characters or something, idk)

But luckily for my biased-self it was Pinkie they chose to focus on. When they don’t focus on Pinkie and she isn’t important she’s usually just the mindless comedic relief, which was always a depiction I hated of Pinkie. Equestria Girls Pinkie is exactly this, and that’s why she’s my least favourite in the EG Universe. This is fine if Pinkie’s comedy was actually good, but usually they aim for lolrandom humour when that happens. Pinkie’s comedic moments in the movie were much more often hit than miss. I didn’t really dislike any scene with Pinkie at all! At no point did she seem overly obnoxious. Maybe the time when she was trying to play I Spy, but the rest of the Mane Six were audibly exasperated with her so they were self-aware how obnoxious she can be at times, lol.

Also yes, she did ruin some moments too like a few others. And by ruin I mean, the Mane Six are trying to do something and have a perfectly good plan to do so, but one of the characters do the thing they’d always do and it’d ruin the plan. For Pinkie that was just yelling out loud in the marketplace trying to find help, this led them to being conned by the cat man and almost being captured. Then Rainbow ruined everything when she went overboard trying to turn the pirates by showing off her Sonic Rainboom, which is a very loud and flashy technique catching the bad guys’ attention and ruining their plans. Finally Twilight ruined everything when she straight up tried to steal the pearl. So at least it wasn’t ONLY Pinkie... and all of them to me seemed perfectly in-character or made sense for that specific context anyway.

A good example of an adventure episode where Pinkie isn’t very important but has great comedic moments is the season five premiere. She’s the first to notice the odd smiles and has great expressions and reaction faces to the weird town they’re in, and when the Mane Six are being brainwashed she has some great dry humour as well. Still funny when not even trying to be funny! A good example of an episode where Pinkie is not effective whatsoever at being comedic relief is the season three premiere. Pinkie’s just being really loud and screechy. Even if I did like the flugelhorn bit where she yells “FLUGELHORN” into a flugelhorn while trying to play the flugelhorn.

I think the reason why this movie gave such focus to Pinkie over the other five instead of someone else is that Pinkie is the most popular character among the target audience. All the little girls adore her. She’s definitely not the most popular among the brony community, but I’m glad the little girls have great taste! Also Twilight messes up and SHE gets captured, not all her friends at once! It is her friends who she alienated and ostracized that came to the rescue instead. I like this because even though Twilight is the Princess of Friendship now, it doesn’t mean she’s some flawless individual who is the end-all and be-all to friendship. She is the princess because she has many great friends, and they all complete her. It doesn’t make sense for a princess of friendship to not be doing things with her friends. That’s like Luna with no moon, or Cadance without a husband.

Also while Tempest whatever has a much better backstory than Starlight, I still find it a little annoying that MLP has a habit of infodumping a villain’s (that is meant to be redeemed) backstory blatantly in our face, and now we have to feel sorry for them and completely understand their motivations. I thought her villain song started out strong but fell apart when it just jumped into her backstory like that. Again, if the movie had more runtime we could have explored her backstory and motivations in either much more subtle ways, or with more depth, or not all at once. Still despite her edginess she was one of the more fleshed out new characters, so I’ll give her that.

The movie actually reminds of two fanfics I’ve read that have sky pirates and a world outside Equestria. In one, the villain is trying to find and kidnap the protagonist for their dastardly deeds, just like in the movie trying to kidnap Twilight for power, and the cast runs across faraway lands to escape. The other just has a bunch of sky pirates. I love those sky pirates. I made a sky pirate AU for ponies once that if I weren’t so invested in my RWBY AU powered by 1000% salt I might actually attempt to write. SKY PIRATES!!1!11!!!

It’s like the movie was pandered directly to me. Good Pinkie content and sky pirates. Yay! So, with all that bias included I’d give the movie a solid 8.5/10. But that’s just me personally. If Pinkie ISN’T your favourite character or you enjoy more complicated plots with more unpredictability you might rate it a more objective 6 or 7 out of 10.

8.5 tho. Just for Pinkie. PINKIEEEEE!!

#here i am ranting again ~#i thoroughly enjoyed the movie tho #gr8 movie would r8 again #text!post #rant!post #mlp!shit #spoilers

2 notes · View notes

fromshore-archive-blog · 7 years ago

Note

Meta about Maya and her views on Tony, post IM3? (I'm egotistical, love me)

send me meta topics meme ! / always accepting , but especially right now ! WARNING : it might take me a week to do because it gets so fucking long , but i love these more than life itself .

this became a seven part essay with mcu and comic references ; i would apologize except , to quote littleostentatiouspersonally , “BRIEF IS FOR PEOPLE WITHOUT FEELINGS”

PART I : BERN , BABY , BERN .

okay , so i can’t really talk about maya’s feelings about tony post - im3 without talking about maya’s feelings about tony pre and during im3 . specifically , we need to talk about bern .

i just want to put out , plain and open and simple , that TONY DIDN’T BREAK MAYA’S HEART BECAUSE THEY HAD A ONE NIGHT STAND . i’m sorry , but maya’s a big girl and tony was a big playboy and i refuse to insult her self - worth and competence like that .

TONY BREAKS MAYA’S HEART BECAUSE HE , FOR HALF A SECOND , GAVE HER THE TIME OF DAY . . . and then they had a one night stand . i talked about this in my meta about killian linked HERE ( and this is going to be a running theme here , me referencing al , because her relationship to these two men is so inherently intertwined ) ——— in 2000 , all maya really wanted and needed was to be taken seriously . to get the respect she felt she deserved .

one night stands , maya could do . if he’d taken her up to the room , fucked her , left in the morning before she woke up , that would have been fine . but he didn’t . they talked about research and things that mattered . she showed him her plant . he called her brilliant . and she wasn’t naive enough to fully believe she was special , per se —— remember , she anticipates the caveat behind that compliment —— but that sure as hell doesn’t mean that she was intellectually or emotionally prepared to be disregarded in the way he disregards her . i’m not sure anyone could be , especially given that she was in her early twenties at the time ; canon would mark her as 21 , but by MY timeline she’s 23 and on the verge of finishing her doctorate . yes , that’s right , maya hasn’t completed her doctorate in that moment —— remember , al , who has openly been following her and her career , refers to her as “ms hansen” after all . and that , that moment when he leads her on enough to get her hopes up only to let her own ——– that’s what breaks her heart and wounds her pride and sends her straight to aldrich killian .

this distinction matters because maya hansen lives life very HERSELF AGAINST THE WORLD . and in bern , when tony did that with her , he made himself a part of the world that she was up against . i’m a massive fall out boy fan , and their song , “ this ain’t a scene , it’s an arms race ” ——– maya buys into that concept extremely deeply. disregarding the like , literal weapons / arms race she eventually becomes involved in , when she starts out , it’s all about the intellectual one . the weapons are connection and money and status and esteem and respect . and people who want to be anywhere in the industry have to win the war , or at least be a very well - known soldier . tony , whether he realized it or not , fired the first shot in their battle , wielding these weapons in models bigger and more advanced than she possessed by miles . the morning after , maya knew she needed to win the war .

he had sealed the deal , too , by leaving that formula scrawled on the nametag behind . because #1 when the hell did he come up with that ? in his dreams ? in his hungover state when he rolled over for his pants ? or did the numbers fall into his head to the rhythm of their fucking ? again with the fucking mixed signals ! this wasn’t some game or riddle to her ; all she wanted was for him to give it to her straight ——- whatever “IT” might have been . and , apparently , he didn’t respect her enough to do that , and that pissed her off . he’s the one who made it personal by not keeping it strictly professional .

i think it’s quite clear that her hang - up with him is intellectual even in canon , just by nature of the way she approaches him at the mansion during im3 . compare her tone when pepper refers to her as tony’s “ex girlfriend” to when pepper refers to her as a “botanist” ; spoiler alert : she sounds a hell of a lot more offended about the oversimplification of the latter than the hyperbole of the former .

this is the point where i could very easily launch into rambling about the total validity of maya and tony as a romantic / sexual ship under certain circumstance , but i’m going to keep the grittier details of that for another post ( if there’s interest in me writing it , ofc !!! ) there will undoubtedly be some mention of it , but yeah , if you want the full Discourse about that , that will be another meta . but my point here has been to SMASH any illusion that maya was upset because she managed to fall for him in one night and he didn’t stick around . it goes deeper than that .

PART II : SHE COULD’VE CURED CANCER INSTEAD OF BECOMING THE NEW ONE .

i now want to talk about a dynamic between them , as seen from maya’s perspective , that has permeated their interactions from the beginning .

maya has worked very hard to get as far in life as she has in this life . and , yeah , she’s proud of what she’s accomplished . but notice that distinction there ——– she’s proud of what she’s accomplished , not necessarily the aforementioned hard work . maya isn’t one of those people who cares about the journey , only the destination . she contrasts perfectly what @analyticallyminded has written about her portrayal of jemma simmons , who feels like she must work hard and earn what she has in order to be deserving ; MAYA WOULD BE PERFECTLY HAPPY TO BE HANDED THINGS IN LIFE BECAUSE SHE KNOWS SHE WOULD CONTINUE TO WORK JUST AS HARD REGARDLESS , AND THEREFORE , SHE WOULD GO EVEN FARTHER .

this is one of the reasons tony irks her . he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth such as others can only dream of . he had money and connections and influence handed right to him before he knew how to uncurl his fists ; her palms , on the other hand , were wide open and empty . and , yeah , sitting here as outsiders looking in , you and i ( and tony ) could give a list of a million reasons why that is a vast , vast oversimplification , why he had unique obstacles to overcome that she’s never had to deal with or even ever considered .

but maya has always , always , seen ambition as exceedingly simple .

there’s that exchange from iron man extremis when tony and maya are talking to sal kennedy —————

sal : you [ maya ] have intellect and power , but it’s not enough . it’s like there’s a damn across your life . her problem is that she’s a woman . there’s a glass ceiling . it could take her another five , ten years to get to where you [ tony ] are now . / and what would you do when you got to tony’s position ?

maya : four years of engineering and i could cure cancer .

sal : there you go . and what do you think of at night , tony ?

tony : . . . making a better iron man suit .

where tony , as she sees it , fucks around with different phases of his life , MAYA HAS ONLY EVER CHASED ONE THING , sought to ride it to its climactic end , to see it all the way through to her success . as far as she’s concerned , roles reversed , she literally would have cured cancer by now . ( or , mun addition , would have set the world on the path towards mutually assured destruction . but even then , at least , no one would be around to call her on her fault . ) but think about it : tony had his moral crisis and pulled out of the arms race , making his time and energy and resources and money dedicated there moot . tony dedicated significant time and energy resources and money to the avengers , a project from which he was originally excluded and contemporarily cannot claim sole credit for . as collateral for both of those things , tony has now poured more time and energy and resources and money into humanitarian efforts and clean - up projects to undo the damage . not to mention all of the time and energy and resources and money that he’s squandered tinkering on suits and other projects to cope with his mental health issues .

do you see the pattern there —— lots of time and energy and resources and money UTTERLY WASTED . were maya hansen in his position , all of that would have gone into her primary research . nothing would have been spent on a mid - career crisis or feeding projects that do anything besides propel her forward

MAYA HANSEN AND TONY STARK ARE SO FUNDAMENTALLY SIMILAR . but that only seeks to make the areas where they are so fundamentally different all the more glaring . privilege and what they’ve done with it ? one of those biggest and most fundamental differences .

to her , tony stark had what every little budding scientist playing with their chemistry set dreams about , and he completely and utterly failed to live up to that potential . ever since bern , she’s been resenting him for that . and after im3 , she still hasn’t stopped .

PART III : FUCKING FINALLY , I’M SOLIDLY TALKING ABOUT POST - IM3 LIKE ORIGINALLY ASKED !

post - im3 , maya is aware that she has lost all footing to ever call him out on his misuse of his privilege , his total misstep in how he has navigated the war . #1 because he has ammunition too solid to fire back at her . with his much more awake conscience , he’d call her on the fact that she went ALL THE WAY IN THE WRONG DIRECTION . and she knows they’ll never agree on the justification of why that as . . . not necessarily okay , but an acceptable and logical course of reason . why that doesn’t make her any worse a person than him . why , in some ways , it might make her a better one . . .

and #2 because what little shot she has at a second chance at it all , she has because of HIM . i sound like a broken record saying some of this shit , but maya shouldn’t be allowed to walk around after what she did . on the scale she did it , too . without the pull of someone like tony stark , she’d still be rotting away in a jail cell . she can’t get too mouthy with him , especially since , at least at present , she refuses to humble herself by thanking him . if anything , she feels as though she’s finally getting the sort of easy break that he’s been catching his whole life ; she somehow doubts he ever went around thanking the people or things that made those possible for him .

PART IV : WHO STILL HAS A SOUL !

the other big thing that still fills maya with rage when she thinks about tony is that little speech he gives her at the end of iron man 3 . let’s just pull out the transcript , shall we ?

tony : you used to have a moral psychology . you used to have ideals . you wanted to help people . now look at you . i get to wake up every morning with someone who still has their soul .

okay , listen , this is the last real conversation she has before she dies and then gets hospitalized and then gets tried and then goes to jail . so these are words that echo in her mind during her time in prison . and , while undoubtedly not the way he hoped they would settle , all they do is really fill her with alternating anger and annoyance .

how fucking dare he make that judgement call about her knowing as little about her journey as he does ? there’s that quote DO NOT JUDGE MY STORY BY THE CHAPTER YOU WALKED IN ON ; literally , should have just @’ed tony stark on that one . he doesn’t know her . hell , that’s evident from his assertion that she wanted to help people ——– she wanted to , but again , that was secondary to her being GREAT . she still has her ideals ; they’re just not pretty or good ones .

maya hansen is an awful person . BUT THE THING ABOUT BEING AN AWFUL PERSON ? YOU STILL HAVE TO BE A PERSON TO BE ONE . maya has dragged her soul through the mud and dirt , stomped on it a few times , but she still has it . it’s capable of being cleaned up , if she wants to . she still has it , she still owns it . and he’s on NO MORAL HIGH GROUND to be lecturing her on it .

( there’s also the point that he could have been an active character in those chapters if he wanted to be . that he has only ever thumbed through her pages with little more than he gave her clit ? oh boy . )

additionally , his saying “i get to wake up every morning with someone who still has a soul” as opposed to something like “i get to wake up every morning and still have a soul” is SO FUCKED UP . if a parallel should be drawn between her and another person in this scenario , it should be HIMSELF , not pepper .

[ there’s an entire section about semiotic squares that i started to put right in here , but that i am going to save for another post because it’s basically this whole Thing . semiotic squares are one of the concentrations that i’ve chosen for my independent research with my lit degree , and so i could literally write you a masters thesis length analysis . that deserves its own post . the tl;dr of it all , though ——- there’s a fundamental reason that in the years between bern and malibu , maya’s being merges with a character like aldrich killian , while tony’s merges with one like pepper potts . the first pair picked a target and barrelled straight for it , disregarding the ruin it brought to them and everyone around them , but looked in mirrors and still liked what they saw . the other two changed directions and burned bridges in favor of greener pastures , but all that driving cost them lots of gas money and a hellish whiplash . the four of them square one another out perfectly . . . but i digress / stay tuned for a full post about all this nonsense ]

but also , him choosing to juxtapose herself and pepper , thus comparing sexual partner to romantic / sexual partner , suggests that he still views her in a sexual light . which is fine , or whatever , again bc validity of their chemistry EXCEPT THAT IN THIS VERY , VERY HEIGHTENED MOMENT , the climax of this movie and the moment her entire career has been building up to ——- the confrontation with tony stark she’s been dying to have ——– HE , BY NATURE OF THE COMPARISON HE CHOOSES TO DRAW , SIMPLIFIES HER TO A PAST FLING . after everything they’ve been through and all going through , that’s still the underlying lens through which he views her ? calling her a piece of shit scumbag would have been more respectful .

( mun note again : i fucking hate the pacing of that scene anyway ; it escalates wayyyy too quickly and gets rushed in the end by kilian’s entrance , and i’d love to know if any other versions of it existed previously in the development of the movie . but it’s what we’ve got to work with . and again , these attitudes are maya’s biased viewpoint . )

she stews in that the entire time she’s in prison . and it’s because . . .

PART V : BITE YOUR TONGUE ; IT’S SERPENTINE .

that’s never , ever how maya has viewed tony stark . she’s always admired his work and respected his person . even while decrying his work and criticizing his person ( as seen above ) , she still fundamentally held him in the same high esteem that she would anyone else with the kind of proven brilliance and know - how he did . more than that , she had a name tag from bern 2000 that proved it that , whether she wanted to or not , she needed him . she needed that advice that ( she thought ) he had to give .

and bottom line because of that respect MAYA HANSEN PRE - IM3 WOULD HAVE BEEN HARD PRESSED TO WALK UP TO TONY AND PREACH AT HIM . though she of course over the years developed her very strong opinions on the way he was living his life , and simultaneously and independently chose to live hers in such a way that she became one of his “demons” , she , from a purely moral standpoint , stayed in her fucking lane . as discussed above , when it counted , he didn’t .

consequently , there’s a lot on her end of the relationship that is going unsaid . and now , maya post - im3 is caught in the worst , most complicated predicament of her entire relationship with tony stark .

now that tony officially has tried to mark himself as morally superior , SHE NOW HAS LICENSE AND WILL TO RETALIATE AND LAY BARE ALL OF HER ISSUES WITH HIM . and , god , sometimes she wants to . there’s shit he’s done all throughout the entire twenty - first century that she’d love to bring back to the surface . there’s one GIANT finger pointing at her , but waaaay more than four little ones pointing back at him . and maya has a temper and a vicious way with words . at times , she’d kill to unleash everything she’s got .

but , as i mentioned earlier , SHE CAN’T SAY SHIT TO THE PERSON WHO BAILED HER OUT OF THE SLAMMER . she finally has the will , but she doesn’t have the way .

she looks at him and she wants to scream . she wants to lay out in front of him exactly how she feels . THANKS FOR BAILING ME OUT AND ALL , BUT YOU REALIZE YOU DESERVE TO BE THERE WITH ME , RIGHT ????

PART VI : THE EYES ARE THE WINDOWS TO THE SOUL .

so the gut reaction of tony fans ( and some tony portrayals , though i’m trying to keep this answer generalized to the tony stark character rather than a specific one ) is going to be that there’s nothing she could say that he hasn’t said to himself .

here’s the thing though : MAYA DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HIS GUILTY CONSCIENCE ; his having one does nothing to change the feelings she has towards him one way or another .

in general , maya has very little regard for consciences . even her own . what good does it do if what she’s done keeps her up at night ? she’s done it regardless . / flipside of that : him being wracked by guilt for what he’s done / caused doesn’t do shit . she doesn’t have any sympathy for someone hiding behind they’re self hate ; it’s a cop - out and an excuse and it makes her blood boil .

a part of this , too , is that maya is very ableist . i think this goes without saying given that extremis was largely tested on disabled people , who she clearly didn’t respect . i’ve written headcanons before on her biological uncle that i’ve made up who she sort of disregarded because of the traits that he portrayed because of his ptsd . she would NOT INITIALLY BE UNDERSTANDING OF THE ROLE TONY’S ANXIETY / DEPRESSION / PTSD HAS PLAYED IN HIS CHARACTER ARC AND LIFE ; i emphasize initially because a big part of the reason that she doesn’t understand is that she doesn’t care to . if , in rp land , she began to care about tony or another mentally ill character , some of this could change . ( it already has progressed some because i have an extensive backstory of her and my own erik selvig muse . but that’s also a meta for another time . )

PART VII : POT AND KETTLE .

at the end of the day , TONY AND MAYA ARE JUST SITTING ON TOP OF A STOVE ARGUING OVER WHO IS A DARKER SHADE . they’re both fucking black , but both of them are grey on the inside . tony’s whistle went off first but maya’s then went off louder but now THEY CAN’T EVEN TALK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED BECAUSE THEY’RE BOTH JUST FUCKING KITCHEN APPLIANCES .

SO IN SUMMARY , i know that i wrote a lot about maya / tony in general and a lot less about maya / tony post - im3 than you might have been expecting . it’s because maya , largely , still feels the same way towards tony that she has always felt ; the big difference is that now she is going to be forced to face those feelings up close . ( or closer than before , as both of my main tony partners have , thus far , still kept her at arms’ length . or football fields’ length. understandably . )

everything ahead is unknown territory that i look forward to exploring in the world of rp . that is , after all , why we’re all here :)

#littleostentatious #FINALLY RELEASES THIS BEHEMOTH ONTO THE DASH #please !!! feel free to pick my brain about any of the things i mention in this #i tried to be......... semi thorough #I LOVED THIS SM THO

6 notes · View notes

oliverarditi · 5 years ago

Text

A few wooden buildings

Places have memories. This is not to propose the pathetic fallacy that they have feelings, consciousness, thoughts or intentions, but that in the same manner that a certain synaptic pattern preserves a trace of experience in the brain, features of landscape and cityscape preserve traces of biography. Of course subjective experience can only be imaginatively resurrected from biographical details, or from buildings and artifacts, but it is entirely possible that this is also what occurs when we retrieve memories from our brain tissue. The act of recollection on the basis not of long-term potentiation of the synapses, but of topographic and documentary residues, is central to the literary genre of psychogeography, but also to historical fiction in general. When David Mitchell stumbled across a small neighbourhood of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch architecture in Nagasaki, the memory of a particular series of historical events, he felt moved to begin such a process of imaginative recollection.

He had found Dejima, once an island at the edge of the Bay of Nagasaki, but now absorbed into the city by a process of land reclamation, which housed a Dutch trading enclave from 1641, when they replaced the Portuguese, until 1854, when the Convention of Kanagawa rendered it obsolete. During this period Japan was legally secluded, with trade and contact with the outside world strictly controlled; for Europeans it took place exclusively through the offices of the Dutch East India Company at Dejima. Around twenty Dutchmen lived on this small patch of ground, around one-hundred and twenty metres by seventy-five, visited by no more than two ships a year. If that isn’t a fascinating scenario, a readymade setting for dramatic fiction, I don’t know what is.

Mitchell is known for innovative and experimental approaches to narrative, but The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a straight genre novel, a historical thriller with a linear plot. It is a technically exemplary work of historical fiction, characterised by plausible world-building (its accuracy is entirely moot, as I know little about the time and place in which it is set), and convincing spoken language, ‘Bygonese’ as Mitchell calls it, which nods to the turns of pre-industrial English phraseology without falling into tweeness. Most importantly, as with all good speculative fiction (and I make no apology for including historical fiction in that category), every aspect of difference between the world inhabited by the characters and that in which the reader can be assumed to reside, is shown, not told. The plotting is taut, effective, gripping, and has a sense of urgency that is abetted by the use of the present tense throughout. Repeated cliffhangers turn on a change of point-of-view character, leaving the reader desperate to tear into the next section and find out what happened.

One such shift is also into the first person. The shocking immediacy this brings to the narrative is deployed in a shift from the perspectives of other characters who are of more or less high status, to one who is a slave. It’s a very effective strategy, forcing the reader to confront the subjective experience of slavery from their own subject position; Mitchell takes the opportunity to explore exactly what that loss of liberty might feel like, and how it might be endured. This switch, and sudden immersion, is one of the most powerful moments in the book. Up until this point even the most socially engaged reader will have taken Dejima’s hierarchies more or less for granted as they follow a narrative focussed on the desires, successes, and setbacks of certain characters who for all the contingent restrictions on their freedom of action, are not chattels. Sadly, this brilliantly written passage is no more than an interlude, and its first-person narrator a minor character. When we return after a single chapter to the narrative’s established points-of-view, there is a jar – or at least there was for me. For a brief moment, this character was the most important in the book, the subjectivity to which all the others had led, the most marginal and unrecorded of experiences resurrected by the magic of fiction from a historical record in which it figures mainly as a trade commodity. But, it turns out, Mitchell invoked it to serve no more than a decorative function.

Perhaps he was too in love with his own brushwork not to include this portrait, even when it had become clear it had no real place in the book. Perhaps this is really the best representation the life of a slave could have, to be treated within the fictional domain as instrumentally as within the primary world of the historical record, but that is not a representation that reflects very well on Mitchell. Towards the end of the book there is another comparable example of a writer too in love with their own materials to resist including what does not really belong, when a long descriptive passage acquires rhyme and regular meter, although it remains justified on the page as prose. Again, it is extremely well-written, but again it draws attention to itself as a clever formal device, in the midst of a book whose beautifully constructed, lucid prose, is characterised by both consistency and transparency. In a novel as accomplished as this one, such unwonted departures advertise themselves as faults.

Also striking a dissonant note against the predominantly cosmopolitan, multi-cultural perspective of the book, is the rather bizarre fantasy that provides the plot with its propulsive mystery. Accusations of Orientalism could be levelled at a writer who decides to include fantasy, not of the magic and dragons type, but of the conspiracy-theorist, Da Vinci Code variety, in a novel that otherwise belongs to the historical fiction genre, and to make it a fantasy of Japanese depravity, contrasted in the book to prosaic forms of European dishonesty and corruption. The precise details of said depravity do not need to be rehearsed here, and I don’t propose to make a detailed analysis of the novel’s representation of cultural and ethnic identities, but it’s worth noting that this was a questionable choice on Mitchell’s part. To me, it felt like a cheap shot.

Although some characters are not on stage for long enough to appear as anything more than villains, for the most part every individual is portrayed sympathetically. Real honesty in a context of widespread corruption is shown as a plausible possibility, albeit one with significant costs; but other than the end-of-level boss around whom the central plot revolves, every character that we spend a reasonable amount of time with, has motivations for their behaviour that are plausible, that are reasonable responses to their context, and that evince a nuanced understanding of the moral and ethical ecology of Mitchell’s very particular revenant society. He has an empathy or compassion for his characters (you choose) which is probably a prerequisite for writing anything that feels like a description of a real person.

The memory of Dejima that Mitchell invokes is not populated by characters whose names appear in the historical record, with a few exceptions, while the few specific historical events that he deploys have been transformed in time and detail to fit the exigencies of his narrative. This does not invalidate in any way the novel’s status as an act of remembrance. A novel adhering literally to the available record, or a non-fictional account attempting to reconstruct the lives once lived on Dejima, could not, at this distance, make any claim to more effectively preserve those long-vanished subjectivities. What is most important, what is genuinely vital to the health of our global culture, is to remember that real people lived in such times and places, and experienced lives that were utterly particular to them. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is several things: it is a ‘literary’ historical fiction, a commodity which will enable middle-class readers to accumulate and reinvest yet more cultural capital; it is an entertaining and exciting thriller, which will enable readers of all stripes to lose themselves for a while in a milieu they will probably thank their preferred deity that they do not have to inhabit; and it is a vivid reading-out from the historical record of a memory, embodied in a few wooden buildings in Nagasaki.

0 notes

ponyregrets · 8 years ago

Note

Hey, so literally all of your Bellarke fanfics are my favourite thing to read and every time I read one I always think "imagine this in the others POV". My honest to god favourite fics are the ones in Bellamy's POV because I just love the way you write his thoughts and feelings. Anyway, my point is, I'd love Bellamy's point of view on 'And a Guy Like Me' or specifically the scene where they finally get together but him pining away for her would be great too!! Thanks!! Once again, you're awesome!

I got two requests for this, which is cool, bc I def forgot about it. Original fic is here, and alt-POV is here on AO3!

Bellamy never expected his life to involve any kind of extended contact with Princess Clarke. Maybe, if he'd actually become a knight, like the man who was supposed to be his father wanted him to, he might have met her once or twice, in passing, at formal events. He'd seen her and never thought much of her, aside from a general knowledge that he should be loyal to her, but she was just--some person.

It's strange, to think about it now. There's no way of knowing which people will matter to you, but--he can't imagine his life without her, now. And he knows he should get used to it, sooner or later, but--he'd rather do it later.

He'll take everything he can get, until he can't get it anymore.

"Where's the new guard?" he asks her, mild. Whenever she slides in next to him at his usual spot in the library, he can't help remembering the first time she did it, five years ago, this bright girl with her hair in neat plaits, asking him what he was reading. She was wearing a plain dress, something like his sister might wear, and no crown, and he'd assumed she was a serving girl who couldn't read herself. He'd been talking to her for half an hour before her guard found her, told her that her mother needed her, and he'd realized with a jolt that he had been joking around with the princess.

Even five years later, it's still a little disconcerting.

"Preparing the carriage. I don't want to introduce you yet. But--I think he's good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She nudges him with her elbow. "You'll definitely like him. He's quiet and sarcastic and glares at everything."

"That does sound better than most of them. Why don't you want me to meet him?"

"We're leaving for a ball in Azgeda in an hour," she says. "That's what the carriage is for. I'll be gone the rest of the day and tomorrow. If he hates you, I don't have time to get a new guard before then."

He has to smile. "I'm surprised you don't want to get rid of him just to get out of the party," he teases.

"I thought about that, but so did my mother. She said if the new guard was unsatisfactory, she'd just send Sir Emerson to escort me."

Bellamy winces. "So, she's really serious about this one." Threatening Clarke with a trip with his mother's husband is above and beyond, even for the queen.

Clarke worries her lip, drums her fingers on the table, apparently trying to figure out what to say. "My birthday is coming up, and we've been arguing about marriage again. I think she's trying to remind me I could do worse than Monty."

"Prince Roan would be a lot worse," he agrees. "So, I'll see you when you get back?"

"Yeah." Her jaw works, and then she reaches under the table, gives his hand a quick squeeze. "Remember to eat and leave the library sometimes when I'm gone."

"They said they'd put a cot in the corner if I wanted."

"I'm going to veto that."

"Yeah, I didn't even try. Have fun in Azgeda."

"You should be grateful you don't have to go."

He should be, but he's not. He'd love it, if he was just expected to be everywhere Clarke was. If they were a political unit.

But it's a stupid thing to say, so he just shrugs one shoulder and turns his attention back to his book. "I am," he says. "Bring me back something nice."

He hears the carriage returning from Azgeda and the trumpets that mean the princess has returned to the castle, and within an hour, she's in the library. There's a dark-skinned man behind her, and he assumes it's her guard, but he thought her new guardsman was Miller, and he thought he knew Guardsman Miller. They've met a few times, in passing. Bellamy was optimistic about him. With this guy, he's at a loss.

"Who's this?" he asks.

Clarke sits down next to him, close so she can see what he's reading. He angles the book obligingly. "New guard," she says.

"Already? It's been like a week since you got the last one." He's mostly trying to see if she actually lost Miller in Azgeda, but even if this is some unfamiliar Miller, Clarke won't want him to know she sneaked away to gossip with Bellamy about him. She always manages, but they never tell the guards that. It just makes them pay more attention.

"Couldn't keep up with me," she says. "Miller, this is Bellamy Blake, my tutor. Bellamy, be nice. Monty likes him."

Bellamy can't help a scowl, for all he knows it's stupid and irrational. Clarke and Monty do not, on any level, want to get married, so he's not--it's not as if he's jealous, not really. Monty has what Bellamy wants, a promise of marriage to Clarke, but it's not like Monty's happy about it either. No one wants this. But sometimes it still just--stings.

"Oh good," he says. "He can keep on guarding you when you're married." But it's not like this Miller is at fault for any of that, nor is Clarke, or Monty, or anyone. Clarke's supposed to get married on her eighteenth birthday, and he's increasingly grumpy about it with no one to blame. He can still be nice. So he tries a smile. "Nice to meet you, Miller."

It turns out, it really is. This Miller is the other Miller's son, and like Clarke said, he's quiet and glares a lot and Bellamy really enjoys hanging out with him. He doesn't care at all that Bellamy is with Clarke all the time, and when Monty explains what happened with Bellamy's family, in low, private tones, Miller just nods and accepts it, and it changes absolutely nothing.

And, not that Bellamy's an expert on romance, but he's pretty sure Miller gets what he's going through. Because every time Clarke tells Miller she wants to see Monty, he perks up, and every time Monty's around, Miller actually smiles.

"It probably won't be so bad, when they get married," he offers, half to test his hypothesis and half to see if he can say it and sound even slightly convincing. It's probably true; Monty wouldn't care if Clarke stole out of their bed in the night and--

But it would still be their bed. And Bellamy cares about that so much more than he wants to. He'd like to think he wouldn't, if Clarke didn't mind, but he honestly doesn't know. And she does mind, so it's a moot point anyway.

Miller snorts. "Yeah? Try it again. Sound more excited."

"Shut up. It won't. Monty's great. And it's not like--I've met some other princes of the realm. She could do a lot worse."

"Way more convincing," says Miller. He's watching Monty, not Clarke, so he's a terrible guard and definitely just as unenthused about this whole thing as Bellamy is. Which makes even less sense, because--this should be good, right? Clarke and Monty can get married, and Monty could have Miller and Clarke could have Bellamy and everyone would be happy.

It's just--it's a lie. And it feels like such a stupid lie. The lie that no one wants. It doesn't benefit any of them.

"Dick. Don't pretend you're happy about it either," he adds, deliberate, testing it out.

Miller's face gives nothing away. "None of my business."

He has to smile. "Yeah. It's none of mine either."

Clarke looks over and gestures for him. "Bellamy! Get over here."

"Duty calls," he tells Miller, and Miller smirks.

"Just warn me when you're going to steal her. So I don't get executed for failing to protect her."

He's thought about it, but--well, they can't. They have a kingdom to take care of.

"Shut up," he says again, and goes to lean over Clarke's shoulder. She leans back into him, warm and soft and smelling of some light, floral perfume, like she always does.

He could press his lips against her neck, and no one would care. No one here would be surprised, except for Clarke and himself. They'd both be stunned he actually did something.

"What's up?" he asks instead.

"Tell Monty he's wrong about this translation."

"Wow," says Monty. "What an unbiased take on this situation."

He and Miller are perfect for each other, seriously.

"It's not my fault you're wrong. I'm just presenting the facts."

"Uh huh."

Bellamy smiles, nuzzles Clarke's hair, just a little. For a long time, he didn't let himself do things like this, thought it would be easier if they weren't close, if he didn't know the feel of her skin on his. And they've never done anything even as intimate as kissing; he's never done anything with her that he didn't do for his sister, when she was younger, just warmth and affection, but--he knows what it means when he does it to her, and so does she.

She was the one who started it, a year ago, when they were drunk with Raven and Wells in her rooms, when those two were still in the unable-to-stop-touching stage of courtship, and Clarke had finally just wrapped herself around him and said, "I feel left out," and he was helpless to resist holding on tight.

He hadn't been sure before then that she felt the same way he did, but--she made it very obvious. It was a relief and torture, all at once.

"What's the line you're having trouble with?" he asks.

"I'm not having trouble," says Clarke. "I know exactly what it says." She points to a line. "Here."

"On holiest night, when the moon is at its highest point," he says, instantly, and Clarke laughs.

"See? You're wrong. I didn't even tell him my translation first."

Monty huffs. "It's Holy Night right? Not holiest. A specific day."

"They'd both be specific days, but I don't know if it's supposed to be our holy night," Bellamy says. "Or it might not be. What's the date on this spell? You'd want to figure out what the holiest night was at that time and do it then."

"Told you," says Clarke.

"You know he doesn't actually know everything, right?" Monty grumbles, but he's smiling. "Bellamy can be wrong."

"Do you think he is?" Clarke asks, sweet, and Monty makes a face.

"I'm going to go read with Miller," he declares, and Bellamy slides into the seat next to Clarke. She hesitates for a second, and then takes his hand, and he squeezes back.

"What's the spell for?" he asks.

"Nothing. Just one of Monty's pet projects." She smiles. "I haven't found anything to prevent marriage yet."

"Keep me posted."

Her thumb strokes over his, soft. "I'm pretty sure you'll be the first to know."

It's not really true, of course. Bellamy is not involved in any discussions of Clarke's upcoming nuptials, because he has no place in court. If he had an official title, which he's still does not, it would probably be scholar. Mostly he's allowed to live in the castle and read, and for the first few years after the scandal with Octavia broke, he couldn't imagine anything better. Teaching the princess, advising her when she needed, and time to himself the rest of the time. It was so perfect.

He hadn't been ambitious. He still doesn't feel ambitious, for all he's hoping to be--a prince consort, he thinks. That would be his title. That's not why he wants her. It's a fringe benefit.

And regardless of his current station, Clarke talks to him about everything, which means he finds things out as soon as she's done learning them, and they discuss what to do, and he's absolutely and without question one of the most powerful people in the kingdom, largely by accident.

So he finds out very promptly, when she's not getting married.

He's in the library, helping reshelve books because the librarian is getting on in years and can't do it so well herself. Bellamy thinks she's hoping he'll take over the position, when she's ready to retire, and he wouldn't mind, assuming he didn't have anything else to do.

And since Clarke is currently in a meeting with her mother and Monty and a bunch of nobles, he thinks he'll know soon, if he does have something else. This is when he's going to find out if there's a chance, or if they have to figure out how to live with her marrying Monty. It does feel survivable. Especially with Miller. He'd feel bad, if Monty was alone, but he's not going to be, no matter what. He's definitely got Miller.

The only warning he has that Clarke's coming is the start of the librarian saying, "Your hi--" and when he turns to see who came in, he finds himself with his arms full of Clarke, her face buried against his neck.

"Hi," he says, soft, tugging her closer. It feels like she might be crying, and she's holding him so tight. "I honestly can't tell if this is good or bad news. Did you--"

"Our new agreement is that I have to marry an untitled Arcadian," she says, and he shivers at the press of her lips against his shoulder. "To make sure we aren't dissolving this alliance for a more advantageous one. So, if you're not spoken for--"

He lets out a sharp, bright laugh. "I'm spoken for," he teases. "You know I'm spoken for."

"I do." She pulls back to look at him, and she's a little teary, but smiling, beaming, lighting up the whole world. "Will you marry me?"

He catches her jaw with his hand and tilts her face up, lets himself savor the second where her eyes flutter shut in anticipation, and then he finally--finally--kisses her. Her lips are soft and already slightly parted, and he tastes it when her mouth turns up in a smile, just for a second, before she presses closer, kisses him back, fingers tangling in his hair. She's not the first person he's kissed, and he knows he's not the first person he's kissed either, but it's never been like this before, because he's never been in love with anyone but her.

He's not sure how long it goes, that first kiss, but every time he thinks about pulling back, she'll make a noise, or her fingers will twist in his hair, and he doesn't know how. They won't get married until her birthday, which is another month, and he's not concerned it's going to be that long before he gets to do this again, but--they've been waiting for so long. They deserve something nice.

Miller's the one who finally says, "If the princess dies from lack of oxygen, I'm the one they're going to punish."

Clarke tugs his lip gently with her teeth and then pulls back, her smile still blinding. His own expression must be ridiculous, but he doesn't care.

He gets to marry the girl he loves. He gets to just--love her. He doesn't have to worry about it anymore.

"You know you can breathe and kiss someone at the same time, right?" Clarke asks Miller, leaning against Bellamy's chest. "But thanks for looking out for me."

"That's my job, right?" asks Miller, and then his eyes flick to Bellamy with a smile. "For the next month, anyway."

"I never said I was marrying her," Bellamy points out, and Clarke elbows him. He kisses her hair. "But I am, yeah. I've got her."

"I think I need a guard," Monty tells them, a week before the wedding.

"Why?" asks Clarke.

"I'm a prince. I'm important. And you're probably going to get a new entourage, right?"

"Probably," she agrees, glancing at Bellamy. "You're going to be the prince consort, I don't think anyone can disrespect you for your heritage."

"If they do, I can have them killed, right?"

"Yeah, that's the sign of a good ruler."

Bellamy turns his attention to Monty. "So, you want Clarke's guard?"

"Desperately," Monty says. "I didn't get to marry the princess, so I should get something, right?"

"You didn't want to marry me," Clarke teases.

"No, definitely not. But still."

"Yeah," says Bellamy. "I think we can work something out."

And, he has to say, it's a much better arrangement than he thought he'd get.

Honestly, it's perfect.

#asupernaturalfangirl101

33 notes · View notes

breathofaknight-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Question: How does the Hyrule Military Operate?

Answer: It’s complicated.

No, really, it is. We’ll break it down from the top.

///Part I: Who leads?

The commander in chief is always the sovereign, whether that be a king, queen, or princess, theoretically. It can sometimes be a steward if the princess is unprepared to be a king/queen/unfit to take on that responsibilitiy. This sovereign commands absolute authority over all subsections of the military and can, if need be, very rapidly exert total control over any military force; to object would mean treason, and civil war.

From there things instantly become murky, as there are three layers of nobles who would command military power:

-Professional Military Commanders, likely holding the actual rank of General, possibly with some specific ‘high-general’ title, like ‘Master of Infantry’ or ‘Master of Horse’ etc.

-Provincial Governors/Lords, who would command their own local troops and have the ability to requisition military assistance from the crown by right.

-Household Nobles that maintain private armies recruited and trained to Hylian Army specification but are paid and commanded solely by specific noble houses.

The first kind of noble is easy to control and predictable, and in theory is most loyal as they are tied to the crowns forces and technically may be of the royal house, or related in some fashion to it.

The second kind requires good leadership but is understandable and can be worked with; obligations made both ways ensures that orders will be followed albiet with grumbling.

The third kind is entirely unreliable and must be either eliminated or controlled to prevent possible civil war.

From these groups you get your generals.

From Generals, you go to Captains, leaders of either pre-arranged companies or ad-hoc units, possibly of many regiments strong. Captains will command between one and five hundred men on average.

From Captains, you go to knights, who may be granted a single company of warriors to lead, or will simply lead a lance of men (one cavalryman, one infantryman, one archer) outside of their battles.

From Knights, you go to Sergeants, who are really just senior infantrymen, and categorize a vast number of soldiers, of whom a few may be picked to lead the others.

From Sergeants, there are Soldiers, whose orders can override conscripts and guards. Etc.

///Part 2: How do they lead?

Out of combat generals lead through a series of obligations to lesser officers and commanders tied to social physical and national consequences. Or in other words, men obey because they must. However ‘how’ they accomplish basic command and control is unique. In general, essential reports are handled either by Sheikah or mage units. These reports contain war changing information or intelligence, and are used to inform and also command subjects.Less pressing matters are handled by the Royal Army messenger service, a mounted organization of armed mailmen that deliver missives to and from headquarters around the country. They work closely with border and interior guard units, using their facilities and erecting way stations of their own to help move information around quickly.In combat generals will give basic orders, but more complex commands must be carried out through a series of banner movements and instrumental calls, such as horns for a cavalry charge. For this reason each regiment has a battlefield musician, or multiple musicians, and a regimental standard, usually with its unique appearance. Sometimes, although uncommon, specific units of soldiers will alter their uniforms to stand out as well. All of this makes it easy for officers to see and hear commands and army status reports in combat without distracting from the fight. It also means fighting a Hylian army sometimes looks and sounds like going to war against a symphony, and the usefulness of some things, like drums for infantry marches, have been copied by other races over time.If a very specific order must be given that does not have a musical or banner call it must be done by HQ staff on the battlefield running to officers engaged in combat to inform them of the order; very impractical, dangerous, and often impossible.Another matter is battlefield organization and formation. Hylian officers obsess over formations and exacting specific details about battle lines. The following three are classics of Hylian doctrine:

‘Power’

The Power formation, named like the others, after a triforce piece, is meant for an assaulting force. It is best used in a field battle, but can and has been modified for siege as well. Troops adopting this formation instantly know the battle will be a hard fought slog.Power breaks the Hylian line into three arrow shaped columns, with the head of each arrow being two-to-three companies of knights, and the body being of standard infantry. The knights will smash into an enemy formation on foot, allowing the rest of the column to move into the disrupted formaiton of the enemy and push through, or break off and surround if the knights report the enemy has dug their heels in. Meanwhile, ranged combatants move on the flanks to fire into the engaged enemy lines while Cavalry either repeatedly charges the enemy’s center and flanks, or moves for a pincer assault around the sides, possibly to kill enemy commanders or ranged elements. Sometimes commanders create smaller sub-units of infantry to support the assault around the flanks and create a ‘battle cauldron’ or a frontline that extends around the enemy’s flanks. Recruits and conscripts either join the column, serve as flank security, or assist the cavalry with outflanking the enemy and forming the cauldron.

‘Wisdom’

The Wisdom formation is promarily defensive, although it leverages the Hyrule knights as excellent frontlines against missile attacks. Wisdom saps the enemy of energy and goades them into long charges by deploying siege artillery in a field battle formation, along with as many ranged warriors as Hyrule allows. The formation is also unusually mobile, willing to cede ground to lure enemies into killzones. To speed up army movement, wisdom divides its battle line into three ‘battalions’ which seperate and reform easily thanks to individual commanders being responsible for each, which are able to micromanage their troops. Here the Knights are kept as a frontline unit for only as long as the enemy wishes to try to out-shoot the hylian army, as the standard Hylian shield can absorb almost any form of punishment with no issue, thus rendering such efforts largely moot unless their archers dared try the more difficult and less effective ‘high-shots’ aimed above and beyond the knight line.In any case when the battle is about to join, the knights melt back into the body of the army, and the infantry counter-charges the enemy just as their charge is about to connect. Because the enemy charged longer, they will be more exhausted, wounded from the incoming fire and artillery, and have less kinetic energy than a properly timed Hylian counter-charge. Cavalry units are tasked with destroying other cavalry, skirmisher units, and watching the flanks.It is a brilliant strategy that frustrates hostile commanders, for it seems that it has no weakness unless one can outshoot the Hylian army by a considerable margin.

‘Courage’

The most standard formation from which all others are derivered, Courage is a three line system wherein the main infantry take the first line, the recruit reserve adopt the second, and the elite dismounted knights take the third line. The second line supports and relieves the first during long combats and provides flank security. The third line sits in reserve until the battle is won or it is needed to turn the tide, in which case it normally pincer-attacks on the flanks. Archers form up with the third line and on the flanks. Cavalry supports flank efforts. Although it is simple it is flexible, adaptable, and equally good on the attack and defense; a perfect choice for the commander who is uncertain of the opposition or is wary about the advance.

Sadly, it takes a tactical genius to reorganize battle doctrines in the middle of a fight. Usually the army adopts a style, or a variation of a style, and commits to it for the entire battle.Battles tend to last one to nine hours, depending on enemy strength, willpower, and determination.

Extremely large battles can take days, with breaks in between engagements to rest, with skirmishing units harrasing each other during these times. A siege can last four months to three years, depending on the defenses and preparations from the attacking force. Settlements without walls can be taken in 8-12 hours.

///Hyrules army at Peace

During peacetime most of the army is disbanded, except for a corps of professional trained soldiers. These men are kept well fed paid and trained, and are deployed as garrison units to forts throughout the land.Lighter units are organized into border patrols, which are subsidized by provincial lords and tarriffs, allowing for these mounted untis to continue to exist. Naturally, knights go back to their important social duties of organizing estates, government offices, or desk-based military positions. Those knights not occupied with these duties will find themselves in Knight-houses, or chapters, which are social gatherings of like minded knights within a lords fief, who generally keep to themselves, go drinking, participate in tournaments, train, and live a good life in a communal lodging, kind of like a fighters guild. They may also take contracts for extra pay, so long as it does not conflict with their vows. Sometimes knights simply retire, maintaining their skills privately and settling to form a family.They are tested in yearly games to ensure their skills do not decay to the point where they are no longer knights.

All conscripted units that survive are given a payout and dismissal from the army with the option of continuing service in the regular army proper.All disbanded infantry units, if any disbanding does occur, receive small veterans payments on a yearly basis for service, the same applies to those units that retire of their own will once a set number of years has elapsed. The pay is not enough to live off of; it is meant to supplement a new income stream. These old timers are on lists to call up in times of dire conflict for their experience and expertise.Militias and Guards adopted into the service are given a slight payout and returned to their former lives without much consideration given to them.

The army’s duties during peacetime are the elimination of monster populations, messaging services, road patrols, escorts, guard duty, maintaining military industries and facilities, maintaining and making new weaponry, and defending the realm against external threat. It is highly unusual for the army to leave the province during peacetime for any means other than escorting an important official, or for diplomatic reasons. During times of unrest, the army will enforce order, through violence if necessary.

Joining the army during peacetime is usually an easy way to avoid a had life on the streets, but is a dead end job with little hope for commoners to be promoted beyond a professional infantrymans pay-grade, so service is sometimes viewed as a waste of potential for young men, or as an escape. Many country boys dream of joining the army to see the world and have a better life than their equally meager prospects in the countryside.

#of Hylian Purity #Hyrule's word #trigger warning: wall of text #zelda roleplay #zelda rp #botw rp #legend of zelda roleplay #legend of zelda rp

2 notes · View notes