#genuinely most of her plot line would’ve not had to happen if anyone had decided to listen to her

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

What I would’ve done w/ Lotor’s character

It’s not exactly a secret to anyone who’s been following me for a while that I’m not the biggest fan of canon Lotor. I had high hopes for the character from his 80s counterpart and intro in season 3 but I was really let down by the direction the writers went with him in canon.

When he was introduced, I was so hoping for him to be this cocky manipulative asshole that’s only out for himself. I love that character archetype so goddamn much.

But in canon he was just kinda boring to me. His personality was bland and his motivations never really made sense. He’s introduced using empty promises of peace and comradery to manipulate people, then its revealed that he actually does want peace and comradery and wants to lead a peaceful empire, then that turns into draining Alteans and wanting to kill all Galra...

I also didn’t like how the writers decide to tack on this whole child abuse plot to explain why he was the way he was. As if that’s the only way to make a villain sympathetic. Yeah other versions of Voltron have touched on Lotor’s childhood before and it was never pleasant, but VLD really leaned into that shit, to the point where it felt like the writers were just shoving angst down our throats thinking that equals good writing.

It takes more than a tragic backstory to make a character compelling. It takes an interesting personally and motivations that make sense. And you can make a character tragic/sympathetic in more subtle ways.

For me personally, I wanted Lotor to be a sorta fusion of Loki and Littlefinger in space.

Loki is a sly trickster who grew up feeling like an outcast, unaware of his true heritage. He grew up believing he could be king but when his shity father handed it to his perfect brother he felt he had been robbed and decided to take the throne by force.

Littlefinger is a small man from a small house with no power, and after getting the shit beat out of him trying to win the hand of the girl he loved, he decided he would use his intelligence and skills in manipulation to screw over all these noble lords and weasel his way into the throne. And when he did he would finally get vengeance on all those who had looked down on him.

I feel like this fits Lotor well. Lotor is a prince, so he isn’t small in that regard, but he is not respected in the way a prince should be.

He is a lot smaller than the average Galra. And even though Lotor is still quite strong, developing a fighting style that suits his small form and uses his opponents size against them, in a society so heavily based on physical strength that’s still a big blow to your rep.

He employs half breeds, which we know are looked down on in the empire. And there are definitely rumors about Lotor himself being a half breed. I think after 10,000 years Zarkon would’ve done a pretty good job at hiding Lotor’s heritage from the public but just looking at him compared to the average Galra there’s going to be some suspicion there. On that note Lotor is probably considered butt ugly by the Galra.

And Lotor works in the shadows and achieves his goals through lies and trickery, which Lotor himself says are things the empire looks down on.

So yeah, the people in the empire hate Lotor. Even Sendak who’s all ‘Gung ho empire’ has no respect for Lotor. And because of this it would probably be up in the air whether or not Lotor would even be allowed to take the throne if his father were to pass, even though it’s his birthright.

And in the face of all this rampant disrespect, Lotor decides that he is going to overthrow his father and take the throne. And when he does he will take vengeance on everyone who had ever undermined him and expand the empire beyond anything his father could’ve dreamed of.

And don’t try telling me, “oh that’s so out of character! Lotor would never take pleasure in the pain of others!” Because he does.

Remember Throk? Remember how Lotor sent him away to the worst station in the empire and joked about letting him, “rot with the ice worms?” Remember how Lotor later invaded his station then watched with a grin as he was tortured by Haggar?

Lotor 100% takes pleasure in hurting those who would hurt him, because it makes him feel powerful.

Now let’s talk about Lotor’s planet. The one given to him and destroyed by Zarkon. I always felt weird about this plot. Obviously it’s a very sad thing to have happen, but I always liked the idea of Lotor’s promises of peace to be empty, a means of manipulating people. So this whole situation being genuine feels weird to me.

In my version, Lotor didn’t get banished for being too kind. He got banished because Zarkon caught him in a plot to betray him.

When Lotor was put in charge of the planet, he seduced and married the princess Ventar. He filled her head with promises that her people would be free and they would rule the universe together and convinced her to secretly round up her armies and send word to her ally planets to do the same, so they could start planning a way to overthrow Zarkon.

It’s left ambiguous whether or not he was being genuine and whether he really loved Ventar and intended to keep his promises to her or if she was just a tool to get the throne. But either way, it ends the same. Zarkon finds out, destroys the planet, kills Ventar, and exiles Lotor.

Still sad/humiliating thing for Lotor, and definitely a story that could gain sympathy from Allura.

Speaking of Allura and Ventar, let’s talk about Lotor’s relationship with the women in his life.

(Trigger Warning: Brief mention of of a rape scene in GoLion)

In the 80s Lotor was incredibly misogynistic. He walked around with a harem of half naked women, tried repeatedly to kidnap and marry Allura against her will, and in GoLion it’s heavily implied that he raped Romelle because she looked like Allura.

It’s a common joke in the fandom that he went from this to drinking respect women juice in VLD but I don’t know if I’d go that far.

He’s definitely better in VLD than he was in the 80s, but even in VLD he manipulates, uses, and hurts most of the women in his life.

Allura is the obvious example, but you also have his generals. Acxa talks to the paladins, Allura in particular, about how persuasive Lotor could be. Implying that she and the other general were manipulated the same way Allura was.

Well not EXACTLY the same way Allura was, romantically I mean. Though there are people who believe that Acxa was also in love with Lotor and he used that to his advantage, which I can see.

But I feel like it was more about giving them a place in an empire that didn’t care about or accept them.

I hate The Last Jedi but I really feel like the line, “you’re nothing, but not to me,” fits really well. They were outsiders with no place to go until Lotor swooped in and gave them a purpose.

Do I think that there was a part of Lotor that genuinely wanted to help them because he saw a kindred spirit in them? Yeah. But I also think that at the end of the day, they were more tools than real friends. And he had no qualms about killing them if they betrayed him.

The situation with Narti proves that. As well as the fact that Ezor and Zethrid seemed very scared of the prospect of Lotor being alive and coming for them.

And then you have Allura. Lotor’s lust for Allura has always been a very important part of his character. In the 80s the reason behind his obsession with her was that he had a lot of baggage about his mother and had a thing for women that looked like her. Also the fact that he just didn’t like not getting something he wanted.

There was never any love. He didn’t want to be with her, he wanted to own her.

In VLD, his want for Allura seems to stem more from the fact that she’s Altean than an Oedipus complex. As well as the fact that she’s powerful and skilled in Altean alchemy, which makes her rather useful.

I don’t personally believe that Lotor ever really Loved Allura. I think he liked the idea of her and what she could do for him, but the end of the day she was more a means to an end than anything else.

Allura’s been trough a lot. Zarkon betrayed her family and destroyed her entire planet only about a year ago from her point of view, and she appears to have a pretty bad case of survivors guilt and PTSD. And to make matters worse, while Lotor was on the ship she was fighting with Shiro, someone she clearly cared about. The idea of loosing him after already losing so much must’ve been really painful.

She was hurting, conflicted, and lonely. Which made her all the more vulnerable to Lotor’s manipulation.

He took advantage of her loneliness and insecurities, making her believe she had found someone who understood her and could help her avenge her family and planet. She trusted him, let herself be vulnerable around him, which made it hurt even more when it was revealed to all be a ruse.

And then you have his relationship with his mother Honerva/Haggar.

I talked a lot about this in my whole rewrite/rant about Honerva, but I’m not a fan of how they made their relationship 100% negative. I feel like it robs the show of a lot of interesting character interaction.

It’s sad. The whole relationship is really tragic. Shit like this is literally my worst nightmare. The thought of looking my mom in the face and have her not recognize me as her daughter keeps me up at night.

But the thing is, in canon the relationship kinda falls flat because Lotor and Haggar/Honerva have no connection. Haggar was awful to Lotor and Lotor hates Haggar. What reason do I have to be invested in their relationship?

So If you haven’t read my Honerva rant, here’s how I would’ve done the Honerva Lotor relationship.

10,000 years ago, when Alfor came to Dibazzal to convince Zarkon to close the rift, Honerva went into labor. Alfor and many Galran doctors tried there best to save her and the baby, but the quintessence had damaged her body so much that she couldn’t be saved and died in childbirth.

Zarkon went ballistic and Alfor had the doctors take baby Lotor somewhere safe, fearing Zarkon would take his grief and anger out on the child.

After Honerva was resurrected as Haggar and throughout Lotor’s childhood, they had a strange sort of relationship. Lotor was an inquisitive child and was always curious about Haggar and her work, making a habit of following her around like a little shadow and watching as she worked. And there was also the fact that, while his father was never friendly, he was calmer when she was around.

Haggar had no idea what to make of this weird child following her around all the time. All these big strong Galra were terrified of her but this tiny child showed no fear as he tugged on her robes and excitedly asked questions about her work. And she never minded. She didn’t know why or how to explain it, but she cared for the child. As much as a soulless undead witch could care for something anyway.

But as time went on there relationship became more and more strained. Lotor was a smart kid he was gonna find out about his mother and deduce what happened to her.

He resented Haggar. Resented her for not remembering him. Resented her for the fact that he had to go through life without a mother while she was right there. And he resented her for being loyal to Zarkon, who had been making his life hell for thousands of years.

Every time she showed him something resembling kindness he’s conflicted. He knows he should feel happy that she cares, but at the same time, why does she care? It’s not like she sees him as her son.

He turned to denial, insisting that Haggar couldn’t possibly be his mother, even though he new the truth deep down, and a part of him always secretly longed for her to remember who she was, who he was, and embrace him as her son. He hates that part of himself.

And when he does meet Honerva for the first time, it’s... tense... to say the least. Having his mother reach out to him and acknowledge him as her son is something he thought would bring him joy, but in that moment all the pain he went through rises back to the surface and he lashes out. He draws his sword and is about to cut her down but he hesitates. He’s trembling with tears in his eyes. He can’t forgive her, but he also can’t bring himself to kill her.

Then you have his relationship with his father.

It’s no secret that Zarkon is an awful man and a shity father, always has been.

The explanation as to why is kinda shaky. All we get is Zarkon saying Lotor is his greatest shame because he’s Altean but I don’t know about that. Zarkon may hate Alteans but he loved Honerva and I don’t think he would be ashamed of his relationship with her.

He definitely did his best Lotor’s heritage from the public. But I don’t think that’s the reason he hates him.

In my version of the story, Zarkon hates Lotor because Honerva died giving birth to him and Zarkon blames him for her death. He lost his beloved wife and was forced to watch the son that killed her waltz around wearing her face.

It didn’t help that Lotor was a snarky rebellious kid that liked to show off. He did things his own way, didn’t care much for rules, and had a real knack for finding loopholes. All things that made his strict father very angry. He was an embarrassment. Small and rebellious. That’s why Zarkon began training Sendak.

I personally believe the reason Zarkon was so trusting of Sendak and had so much faith in him was because Zarkon had been grooming him to be his “true heir.” Sendak is the epitome of what a Galra should be. Strong, loyal, and brave. He would be the son Zarkon wished he had. The favorite child.

Lotor obviously hates Zarkon, and rightfully so. Zarkon hates him for something he had no control over and constantly disrespects him.

Lotor may not follow the rules, but he passes every trial. He excels at everything he does but Zarkon refuses to see that all because he blames him for Honerva’s death.

Lotor sees Zarkon as an old fool. He knows that he could do a far better job at running the empire.

Lotor dedicated thousands of years of his life to overthrowing Zarkon. His hatred for his father was his motivation, what got him out of bed every morning, so when the deed is done and Zarkon was finally defeated, in the moments after he felt empty.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on that feeling for long. He still had to deal with his father’s men and take the throne that was rightfully his.

Then you have his plan.

Lotor’s plan in VLD is really weird and over complicated. There was no real reason for the whole draining Alteans thing. Just a lazy way of making him 100% evil.

The plot could’ve been a lot simpler. He gains the paladins trust, gets them to help him build his ships and overthrow Zarkon, and then once he has the throne he pulls an Uno reverse card and is like, “yeah, nothing personal but this was all a trick and imma lock you and your lions up now.”

Obviously more complicated than that but that’s the basic idea.

One of my main problems with VLD is that they had a bad habit of over complicating the plot. People don’t care about VLD because of the plot, they care about the characters and their relationships, the actual plot doesn’t have to be anything spectacular.

It’s strange to say but I feel like the writes tried too hard with Lotor. He had the potential to be an amazing villain but the writers were too focused on tricking the audience and making him angsty that they forgot to make him compelling.

[lovelyirony]

morgan doesn’t have to be a hero. she just has to know the family that was. 

(or me ignoring everything about infinity war and endgame) 

Thinking about how Tony doesn’t tell Morgan everything about Iron Man. There are books, of course. A couple of children’s authors and illustrators thought it would be nice if the kids could see heroes on something else other than a news source that also talks about casualties and how much they actually lost. 

It’s nice for Tony, too. 

No one saw the wormhole. No one illustrates him falling out of the sky, body plummeting and seeing what the future would be. 

It’s Morgan’s favorite book, seeing the team defeat the “mean aliens.” Her eyes follow each hero. She likes Hulk the best. She likes tracing along the pages, asking “whozat” every two minutes or so. 

She finds the old armor in the garage when she’s in her “investigation” phase, and correlates it to the book. 

She doesn’t think that Iron Man is that cool. She wants the armor to be pink and green, so dad loses out on “cool points.” 

She finds the armor that he’s building for Pepper, because he’s still paranoid and worried and he wants her to be safe. 

He survived one house of his falling, and he’s not sure he’ll survive another one. 

Morgan asks about the picture at the kitchen, the one where Tony and Peter are posing for Peter’s official internship. 

“That’s...that’s your family,” Tony says, because he can just picture how excited Peter would be at having a little Morgan around, crawling everywhere. “His name is Peter.” 

He never refers to Peter in the past tense. He doesn’t know if it’s for Morgan’s benefit or his own. 

He tells her all about Spider-Man. “Spidey” becomes easier to pronounce, so they go with that. 

Sometimes mom finishes those stories while dad goes to get juice pops. 

(And look at the photo for a bit too long.) 

Morgan asks him where Spidey is, once. More than once. But the first time it was...it was painful. 

“Where is he?” Morgan asks. 

“He’s...” 

Tony doesn’t know what to say. He’s not gone. No, fuck that. Peter isn’t gone. But he’s not here, and Tony doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know where anyone is. 

“He lives far away, so he would have to take a long time to get here,” Pepper says, smiling. “But now, we are going to travel for the kitchen for lunch! The menu today is carrots and celery with hummus, and some fresh fruit and a sandwich. What do we think?” 

“Is the fruit seasonal?” Tony asks, voice thready. “Points off if it’s out.” 

“You’re a nerd,” Pepper says. “Yes, it’s in season. Would you mind turning the washer on? I forgot to.” 

Tony nods, and Pepper grabs his hand, squeezing. 

He was so lucky to have her in his life. 

- 

And then the Avengers are reforming. Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, aka the weirdest superhero name he’s ever heard, has a theory. 

About time travel. 

He said he didn’t Back to the Future think about it, but he totally Back to the Future thought about it. 

The problem is that it works. 

That’s not the real problem. No, it’s not a real problem at all. He thinks about everyone returning and it’s happy and good again, and- 

He’ll have to leave. 

He hasn’t forgotten Strange’s statement. 

Only one situation where this doesn’t fail. Where we don’t fail. 

And it has to be him. 

You don’t come back from something like that. 

Usually, anyway. 

Tony’s determined that he’s coming back. That everyone is coming back. 

The whole plot of Back to the Future goes as such: Marty’s life sucks, his parents’ lives are boring, and they’re not supposed to change the future. 

They do anyways. 

And it works. That’s the thing. Out of every single “time travel is dangerous” trope, Back to the Future still shows that sometimes some changes don’t affect the future badly, it just changes it. 

Tony knows that that can be done. It has to be done, because there’s no way in hell he’s going to leave Morgan. He already pinky-promised her that they’d make a picnic for her fifth birthday, and pinky-promises are the most binding contract he’s ever been a part of so far. 

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if it can’t be done. 

- 

He has to go with Steve to get a stone. He doesn’t necessarily like that because neither of them are subtle and they’re going to see his dad. 

Which is just gonna be a ball of a time. And Tony looks like Howard, just a few slight changes, but it’s undeniable. 

As long as no one connects the dots, he’ll be fine. 

They’re both like bulls in china shops. Neither has ever been out of the spotlight, and neither have been trained very well in the art of subterfuge. 

“What, SHIELD just decide to set you loose?” Tony hisses as they’re making an escape. 

“Oh and you didn’t have any time to learn?” Steve snaps back. “Let’s go.” 

- 

Natasha almost doesn’t return. Almost. Tony’s terrified to think of what would have been happened had she still been there. 

“Dumbass,” Clint mutters. “Thinking you could jump and we wouldn’t have done shit about it. You’re stupid.” 

Natasha just has a graceful smile on. 

“You’re not allowed to be the stupid Avenger all the time, Clint.” 

“Okay I accidentally blew up a microwave one time and suddenly-” 

Tony laughs. 

Genuinely laughs. 

It’s been a while since they’ve functioned like a team. Been a longer time since they’ve been one. 

- 

They get the stones. 

Hulk gets everyone back. Bruce gets everyone back. 

He’s confusing. 

But there he is, Peter. 

Tony hugs him, and he tears up, and god he’s so glad that Peter’s back. That everyone is back. 

It feels nice. 

But they still have a fight to finish and a glove to play hot potato with. 

- 

Thanos is still formidable. He’s still skilled, still has an entire army. 

Well...they’re not outmatched for long. 

Dr. Strange opens portals, leading a whole new mass of people to help. And Tony sees Danvers, which he has yet to talk to Rhodey about. God, Rhodey had been right about her being alive. 

But that’s not important. 

- 

He’s fighting one-on-one. 

Thanos is confident that he’s going to win. 

See, that’s the thing about Tony: he may not have been trained in subterfuge, but he knows all about flouting expectations. He knows that everyone had expected so many things of him that when he did anything out of the ordinary, no one paid attention. 

This is just like that. 

Thanos snaps, only it’s not enough this time. 

It’s not going to be like last time, with Peter panicking and people screaming and tragedy lining the news for years. 

No this time? It won’t work. 

Because this is the time where the hero wins against all odds and there’s a happy ending. He’s going to make it so, no matter how much of a toll this takes. He’s getting back to Morgan and Pepper no matter what it fucking takes. 

- 

Thanos is gone. His army dissolved. 

And he is satisfied. He’s tired, but happy. And he’s fairly sure that the glove has taken its toll on his body, but he hopes to god that he’ll be okay. 

Pepper is running her hands through his hair, telling him it’ll be okay, and asking anyone for help with transportation. 

There’s one person important that didn’t get blipped, and luckily, she’s a personal friend: Helen Cho. 

Sure, it’s time-intensive. 

Yes, Morgan is mad that daddy can’t read her a bedtime story. 

But...she gets to meet Peter, torture him with forty questions a minute, and Tony gets the use of his arm back. 

So it equals itself out. 

- 

The world, for now, doesn’t need a lot of superheroes. Everyone’s still settling down, no one wants anything but normal. 

This means a lot of superheroes have no idea what to do. 

But Morgan does. 

When dad gets back and is up for playing again (which took forever), Morgan asks to see the team. 

If dad is Iron Man, then it only makes sense that he knows all the other ones. And she has a lot of questions. 

The Avengers are a...a team. God, that’s about the only thing they can call themselves now. They used to be a family but everything’s changed and stilted and awkward. 

Morgan knows none of this. 

So ergo, she decides the most amazing thing ever for her fifth birthday party is to have a picnic with the whole team. Writes them invitations and everything, makes her mom trace out the words she wants to write so that it looks “extra fancy.” 

Tony’s never been one to deny Morgan something she really wants. 

“You sure you wanna handle this? You and Steve aren’t exactly on the best of terms, and I don’t think the team has actually talked.” 

“Well, no time like a five year old’s birthday party to get to catching up.” 

- 

It’s...something. 

Morgan is blissfully unaware and everyone makes so that she stays unaware. 

This involves some...awkward conversations. 

But mostly just making peace with the fact that life happened. 

And Natasha finally has another niece, even if she’s not named after her. 

“You still should’ve,” she jokes. 

“We were thinking about it, honest,” Pepper remarks dryly. “But hey, thanks for coming. Morgan’s very excited to learn how to ‘be a spy’ in her words.” 

Natasha grins. 

“I’ll have her taking out government officials in no time.” 

“Or just teaching her how to disarm dangerous people, thank you very much,” Tony says hurriedly. 

“Didn’t peg you to be the helicopter parent, Stark,” Clint says. 

“Oh trust me, he barely left the house when she was born,” Pepper says with a laugh. “And he would check everything. I had to convince him that Morgan did actually need to sleep in her crib.” 

“She would’ve been fine by us!” Tony defends weakly. “And besides, you said you did want an office space!” 

“Working in the sunroom is fine enough,” Pepper says. “And you forget that you offered to build me one, which is an offer you still haven’t done.” 

“I saved the world, you know.” 

“Oh, did you?” 

Tony grins, popping a grape into his mouth as he sees the scene unfold. 

Morgan’s having great fun showing everyone her little hideout, and where she goes on walks. 

She’s made friends with Peter and introducing him to her stuffed animals. 

Yeah. 

Life is good. 

[hubblebubblehub]

yona 197 thoughts

Firstly, behold. I am alive. This chapter honestly made my brain malfunction for a good minute or so, I legit had something akin to a stroke. I honestly believe this chapter encapsulates what has gone wrong with Yona’s storytelling. I understand this is a ‘memoir’, but even backstories whose existence is to deliver exposition require decent consistent characterisation, and a balanced mixture of ‘show don’t tell’ mixed with foreshadowing to result in something... bearable. This chapter was legitimately almost unbearable to read because I think Kusa herself has lost the plot.

To organise my thoughts Imma just put some lil subheadings.

Yon-hi

You know what? Ever since chapter 190 I realised that Yon-hi didn’t have much of a character other than that of an exposition clown. So this lame wrap up on her character was bearable to read, because it’s not as if she had the potential to be anything more than a ye old exposition dump. It’s still frustrating to read her ‘acknowledge’ her own faults, which also make no sense since we haven’t seen a proper build up in a change of thoughts. Yes, she acknowledged her husband was a brute to a certain extent, but apart from this chapter I don’t see her recognising the IMPORTANCE of her position and how her passiveness is stopping her from wielding more influence to prevent tragedy that so clearly hurts her. Sure, she notices that as a country bumpkin amongst nobles she stands out, but even 10 years after the genocide of the priests she never once confronted her husband about it. Or anyone really. Why the change of heart now? The excuse that her husband and Kashi (whom she wasn’t really friends with in the first place?? Honestly I think she was just attached to her out of guilt for what happened) are dead doesn’t explain why she would suddenly have the urge to take some sort of action since the past decade proves she thrives in complacency.

Additionally her relo with her son... I don’t even understand it anymore. She claims she loves Soo-Won but then she writes a letter to her brother-in-law basically asking him to ‘watch out for him’ like MA’AM HE IS YOUR SON. What happened to the role she devoted herself to, as a MOTHER?? I honestly give up trying to understand it.

Il

Oh boi. I thought Yon-hi and Yu-hon had an awful characterisation but Il really takes the cake. I thought I could accept Il’s cowardice since it his duality has been hinted at throughout the whole manga, but honestly it makes close to no sense here. I’m surprised no-one decided to assassinate him the first few years into his reign. I would’ve done it tbh.

This chapter just brings more questions into his passive nature. Why the HELL did he just sit and wait around for something to happen after hearing about the future? Yes, as a religious devotee, he probably accepted the future as fact, but why didn’t he do ANYTHING about it? It seems like he banned weapons out of guilt of his murder, not to actually stop Soo-Won (since he ‘accepted’ that destiny of dying by his nephew’s hands). 

If he knew that Yona would not only face hardship from her position as a reincarnation, but her own freaking family, why didn’t he take counter measures? I don’t understand why he wouldn’t try to empower her so that when he would eventually leave her, she would be able to take care of herself. His attitude to Soo-Won also makes no sense too. If he already accepted he would die by his hand, why didn’t he ban/prevent him from visiting the castle? And if he already accepted his fate, why didn’t he just let the marriage go through anyway? He could clearly see that Soo-Won didn’t detest Yona and would care for her, Yona would be happy with him (provided the murder wouldn’t happen lmfao).

Oh and also, if he knew all these shitty events were going to happen? What was his excuse for not taking care of the country, leaving more than hundreds to starve, live in poverty and die? ‘I’m a placeholder and my brother must not become King. Also I leave everything to the gods’ divine will because I’m a really great religious follower uwu’. Not ‘I’ll properly communicate with my brother, nephew and court to make this country a better place while I’m here to prevent the mistakes of the past.’ He acknowledges he’s not a great King. Why doesn’t he acknowledge and humble himself asking for advice from his advisors. Like whAT

Il & Kashi

Poor Kashi lmfao. Kusa in this chapter really trying to convince us they had a loving relationship and Il was simply just trying to avenge his wife. Sure, let’s say Il did love Kashi. He did a really awful way of expressing it, to the point Kashi genuinely believed he only married her to make the designer baby that is Yona. And I don’t see proof of otherwise tbh. I guess you could argue that Il  & Kashi had some chemistry during the garden scene with Ik-Soo... but also Kashi was a ‘kid’ apparently so call the FBI lmfao. There are honestly no scenes or buildup that convince me that Il loved Kashi without the involvement of the divine. Kashi, maybe. I think she admired him but I see none of that from Il. Even when he flat out murders his brother, his defense isn’t ‘YO THAT WAS MY WIFE YOU JUST MURDEREDDD’ It was ‘THAT WAS THE MOTHER OF THE RED DRAGON’. I think these are self explanatory.

Also to that anti-Soo-Won translator who was saying how this line by Il basically disproves everyone who thought he didn’t love Kashi- it really doesn’t. If anything it just shows how terrible the writing has been for this arc because it’s nowhere near believable enough to accept as truth. Show me scenes where Il is actually.... showing affection and being in a loving and equal relationship with his wife smh

Romance

Il’s reliance on ‘love’ also makes no sense as well, and also highlights how problematic romance is in this series. Considering how ‘girl power’ this series is with Kouren, Lili & her bodyguards, Yona and even Kashi to a certain extent, it makes no sense that Il would choose to leave everything to a man who simply ‘loves Yona and will never betray her’. Like,,, did the events that transpired TEACH HIM NOTHING?? 

Sure only men can become Kings but it seems Queens have a significant position as well. And since Yona is the red dragon... wouldn’t like,, everyone know and respect and hold her on a higher level regardless lmfao like WHAT IS IL THINKING?? He knows that Yona ended up as a superficial spoilt princess as she grew older, but what did he do to rectify that?? n o t h i n g, except attempt to throw another man (Hak) to help solve the (future) problem.

A great grey point this manga has made since the beginning of the series is ‘Prioritising one individual will cause an entire Kingdom to fall to ruin’. So this is why I don’t understand Il’s actions. Yu-hon committed genocide for his wife, whom he loved (also a really poorly built up romance but this chapter ain’t about them), and APPARENTLY murdered Kashi too (dang it... such a weak and predictable outcome, I’m disappointed in you Kusa). Il killing Yu-hon caused Soo-Won & all the Yuhon stans to seek vengeance (although he also did kinda murder him for the sake of Kouka, but nonetheless her adored his father). SO WHY ON EARTH DOES IL THINK LOVE FROM ANOTHER PERSON IS GONNA SAVE HIS DAUGHTER. MAYBE FOR SOMEBODY ELSE BUT CERTAINLY NOT THE ROYAL DAMN FAMILY.

Also just because Hak clearly was devoted to and had affection for Yona, did not mean that Yona would feel the same way, which is arguably is ANOTHER IMPORTANT FACTOR IN A RELATIONSHIP. It seems like Il doesn’t give a damn about his freaking daughter honestly. But maybe who knows, Il has 500 IQ and decided to be passive so Yona would develop feelings for Hak. It was all part of his master plan, while he left most of his kingdom to suffer, no biggie.

Writing

This was such a painful arc to read. I swear Kusa tried to engage her fanbase by constantly making plot twists every chapter. Yu-hon is a good guy. SIKE he’s not. SIKE Il is kind of worse. SIKE Yu-hon bad and should never be one the throne. Il is an okay guy. SIKE he’s borderline religiously fanatic. SIKE Yuhon the crazy one. SIKE Il weird af because he marries Kashi to have baby dragon Yona. SIKE he actually loved Kashi he just DiDn’t MAkE HiS FeElings KnoWn.

Honestly that doesn’t even cover how inconsistent other characters like Yon-hi are either. Bleugh

Predictions for 198?

Maybe Yona will take it upon herself to rectify the wrongs done and pull herself together. Perhaps also do something more substantial than have a deus ex machina bunch of books deliver to information right into her hands. Also maybe show what Soo-Won thinks of this memoir? Surely he’s read it... if he hasn’t then like bye. This series is honestly breaking my heart with every monthly update I swear.

///might rant more later

[unholy-renee]

Hey guys here’s a draft I forgot I had started a while ago. So here’s my uhm first opinions on Outlast 2! Btw spoilers for anyone who hasn’t played also I’m annoying so I somewhat suggest not reading this all unless you want really wanna sorry :(

:

So I’m stuck at this one point in Whistleblower so I decided to check out the very beginning of Outlast 2 (story mode), so far:

I both love and hate that we get to hear Blake’s voice! I would’ve preferred if they stuck with the silent main character that we’ve had so far, but I also already feel connected to Blake having heard his voice. Sadly, he doesn’t say much, why add lines at all if there’s only screaming, swearing and “I need to find Lynn” or other Lynn related lines. He can say stuff other than “what the fuck?” And “holy shit”, you realize that right? Maybe he could’ve been trying to hype himself up more or you could’ve put more in about his life and family like him saying stuff about missing them and hoping to see them again (like Waylon). I hope as I progress stuff gets better with the script.

Him grabbing Lynn to save her from falling out of the chopper 🥺 go Blake go!

Those guys walking backwards while mumbling and not taking their eyes off me? Not scary but unsettling and made me stop playing the game! It made the atmosphere go from almost a worried “omg we gotta find this guys wife” to a scared “screw that lady I gotta get outta here” vibe

The controls??? Uhm no don’t give me two games worth of the same control then switch some buttons up on me. I was crouching Trying to look around and I didn’t even realize I was crouching I thought he genuinely like hurt his leg or something 🙄. Although I am happy we have some new mechanics! Smashing square (PlayStation) to get the door of the chopper off is very reminiscent of moving the thumbstick back-and-forth to get out of the chair of the Dr. Trager puts you in, in the first game.

The fact that it’s like recording without me having to press a button to make it is cool, happy it’s automatic but it doesn’t tell you where to point the camera, so sometimes I’m moving the camera around the whole area trying to figure out if I need to record anything, missed a couple recording because of it. :(

I’m not playing anymore till I finish Whistleblower though.

:

Now that I’ve played more of the game I have almost the same opinion! Rip :(

1. His lines didn’t get better! I still haven’t finished though so again we still have hope and I’m purposely not watching anyone play the game past where I’m at so I don’t get spoilers. The complaint about the overuse of Lynn related lines has now double because they have Jessica now! Let’s only ever talk about these two women who are dead and currently kidnapped. It’s not like there are most likely a million other people you’d be thinking about to in this situation. Parents, Siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunts/uncles? Lol no. I’m probably being nit picky but whatever. I’d have liked hearing more about other aspects of his life than just his wife and one past trauma. Now I understand that both of these women are main plot points in the game and it makes sense that he’d focus on them but like there are a lot of other things people also think about in these situations. Like lots of people think about their family and how their going to deal with their death or whatever is happening to them. Or long lost friends they haven’t seen in years and thinking about them maybe never finding out about their death.

Sorry okay I’m done with that now please ignore my annoying ass.

2. Mechanics! Alright so then chasing you under the houses and shit? 😳. I like it :) it’s adventurous since the characters in the first two games couldn’t do anything even close to that, but I’m happy they decided to include it, it really feels like a mature step for the Outlast series and it wasn’t too out of left field that it didn’t fit. Warm welcome to these new antagonist moves!

3. Recording makes me even more mad now then before. JUST UGH tell me what to record! Am I the only one who is too stupid for this or something? “Record mutilated corpses” boom that easy! “Record Marta talking” aha bam! Again me being annoying!

4. Uhm I love Marta! She is the Chris of 2 in my opinion and some of my fellow Outlast playing friends. So far she just chases you saying religious stuff though which is kinda annoying because I’ve heard that she doesn’t like commuting the murders and is only doing it because she is close with Knoth? If that’s true I would like to hear about her doubting herself and doubting what Knoth is having her do, then maybe “snapping back” into going along with it because she trusts him. Not sure if that mad sense.

5. Nick and Laird needed more time. I loved them as antagonists and they were some of my favorite to “go up against”, I wish they had more game time and backstory but that’s okay.

6. Related to 4 and 5, there are too many characters in my opinion. No one really equal game time or backstory to me, although the length of the game is growing on me and the more I play the more the game proves itself to me as a somewhat acceptable “Outlast 2”!

As I slowly continue to finish the game I’ll probably keep making posts on it. Idk though

[melforbes]

seaglass blue annotations

hello! i just posted the last chapter and thought i’d put together some ~fun context~ for that fic. it got way way more attention than i ever expected and for something i feel i didn’t put that much effort into i think i did in the end put a lot of effort into it so i might as well talk about it and answer some potential questions.

my favorite book of all time is the sunlit night by rebecca dinerstein (yes, that one) and something i find really compelling about that book is how sparing the prose is, forcing the reader to fill in certain gaps, and i think having to fill in those gaps makes the book a really acquired taste with which either you love it or hate it and there’s not really an in-between

i also really adore how in that book the natural world backdrop comes to life, something i find really challenging to write. recently i even read into thin air, the book about the 1996 mount everest disaster, and even though the writing was superb, i still had to google what the hillary step was because i couldn’t picture it on my own. i don’t know how people write nature because to me it feels damn near impossible, but this sparing approach really worked, so i thought i might try it out. i tend to be longwinded (gestures vaguely at this post) and wanted to have certain parts of this be a lot smaller and more contained without negating impact. whether or not i made it work is anyone’s guess. definitely not my normal style, so to speak

based on the comments i’ve received i think this might be everyone’s favorite part. in my mind age of consent by new order was playing in the background. in pretty much every fic i have a scene like this one and all of them are based on the poem first base gold by rh*annon mcg*vin from her book branches (censored because she has a tumblr and i don’t want her seeing this haha)

i absolutely can’t do the poem justice by describing what it’s about, but the simplest, most basic interpretation of the poem is that there is no better place to kiss than right here, right now, because of the past. i really like that imagery and tend to use it a lot. she as a writer has been a big inspiration for me and if you’ve read my fic true minds i should add that the nonfiction inspiration for that was directly as a result of one of her youtube videos. i particularly love how the last paragraph (stanza? im not a poet) is one big run-on sentence that’s jovial and tongue-in-cheek and colloquial and straightforward. it feels triumphant in a quiet way to me and i love how it’s done. obviously my attempts at something similar are nowhere near as insightful, but still, the most basic image of this is that there is no better place to kiss, and that’s how i felt about the two of them finding pudding in the supermarket

this part is autobiographical; while writing this last year, i went through six months of intravenous drug treatment, a month and a half of which involved long days of doctor visits on every weekday. when you’re on stuff like that for a long time you end up with a central line for better access (potential plot hole in all of this: scully never had one) but for a month and a half i got poked almost every day and strangely enough it got harder over time. the first couple you never feel, but a week or two later you start flinching, and if the needle goes in the same vein each time, it hurts the more it gets prodded. i reached a point toward the end of the in-office visits in which i would bleed a lot every time i got poked, and i can’t watch anything like that happen to me so i was looking away each time, and when i felt that the nurse was done, i would look back over, and sometimes i would be looking down at a pool of blood that i hadn’t expected to see. it’s weird, you don’t actually feel yourself bleeding, i would’ve expected a hot bloody feeling but instead it felt like nothing. and when i say a pool i mean that it would drip down beneath my elbow, stain the sheet they’d put underneath, and i wouldn’t get all of it off until i showered. i didn’t necessarily find it scary, but it was surreal and kind of pulled me out of normalizing the experience i was having. for a very long time needing iv drugs was my greatest fear and i was surrounded by that then and fine, and then, there was blood all over my arm, and like, haha, this is actually not fine. you’d think something else would’ve been scarier, but it wasn’t. and now looking back at this paragraph i wish i’d edited it differently but hey that’s life

i’d never really understood the purpose of religion as a self-driven part of life until i took anatomy in college. i was raised catholic and though culturally i understand having a religion and being raised with one, i’ve never really reached for religion when i wanted answers, and i haven’t personally understood why that’s someone’s first option. and i know there’s been plenty of commentary on the hypocrisy of dana scully as a catholic who believes in science, yada yada yada, i think everyone has read all of that by now. but what struck me while learning anatomy is that there is a kind of neuron we don’t know the function of. there are four kinds of neurons, and one of them is still a mystery to us. and then, there’s all of these different parts of human bodies that exist in a certain perfect way, but why do they exist like that? to support life, yes, but why is it that we can make comparisons? why were irises not the same color? and we name valves of the heart after religious figures. we are so hell-bent on meaning that something literal will never be enough. and all of that made me think that dana scully has god to fill in what science won’t answer, at least not yet. and there’s definitely a bigger conversation about science as denial of indigenous cultures that i am nowhere near qualified to start. after taking those classes, i think i would be more shocked if she wasn’t religious. you can ignore pretty much all of the paragraph above but it was important to me that at some point in this fic she willingly conceded that she didn’t know what would happen and that she didn’t have answers. with illness, there is no logic, there’s no thinking your way out of it, and i think that would plague her for a long time. to me, she only would accept her death when she could say she had no idea what would happen, she has no answers, there’s nothing filling in her gaps anymore, and she’s comfortable with that. and i put all of that in a paragraph about my thoughts on god because it made sense to me. there are times that just feel like you’re in a movie and there’s no one else you can say caused them. it’s not enough to build belief on but it’s enough to bring a certain kind of wonder. also one time my parents insisted on watching stripes because it was so funny and when watching it none of us found it funny at all and my parents grimaced and were like what were we on that made that good back in the day so that’s in here now haha

and now, the biggest question: does she die at the end? when i came up with the idea for this fic, i knew the beginning and ending but not the middle, and i posted this as a smaller project (ie: chapters below 3,000 words) while illness made my bigger projects harder to work on and essentially flew by the seat of my pants the whole time. i wrote the last line a long long time ago and have always seen the ending as written as the concrete ending. when i started writing this, i never intended for there to be a definitive answer to whether or not she dies. i like premature endings (the ending of girls burn brighter comes to mind) and i think that this works better without saying whether or not she lives. and i also have a hard time with giving a definitive answer because this fic very much is about death and having her die would, of course, be traumatic, but showing her living instead i think ruins any takeaways people could have. i’ve never had cancer but as a chronically ill person i think i can speak to how you never actually win with illness; the best you can do is tie, and sometimes, no matter how much effort you put in, you “lose” anyway, you lose spectacularly, and all of your effort was for nothing. i wholeheartedly believe that humans can’t emotionally or logically process natural disasters or illness, hence why much of the talk about illness in this is from mulder’s perspective as he experiences her terminal illness secondhand; that way, he doesn’t need to (but still likely will) find logic or reason or meaning for death from a terminal illness, so his discoveries and his coping mechanisms aren’t as urgently needed. had i written a chapter that describes how she lives, i think that the discussion of death in this would be voided altogether. and i also don’t believe the ending would be much different whether she lives or dies; there’s still the need for death acceptance and talking about dying, whether or not she lives, and none of the story in this fic would have happened had the characters known she would live. the whole point is not knowing.

for a little while i toyed with writing an unofficial sequel of sorts in which i spelled out what i think happens after the ending, but after realizing that that would end up being longer than the original fic and would also have some massive plot holes, i decided against it. i do have my own version and i don’t want to share that version because i never really intended for my version to be some kind of genuine sequel in which every question gets answered and everything is wrapped up and happy ever after and whatnot. it was just where my brain wandered in the same way it wanders when i watch an open-ended movie. all of that to say, if you think she lives, then she lives. if you think she dies, then she dies. it’s your decision. i’d much rather you choose than me. i never marked this as “major character” death on ao3 because, well, she doesn’t die in this fic. whether or not she dies after the fic ends, that’s for you to decide. 

thank you for taking the time to read my writing. i never expected this to blow up (it blew up for me at least, for a while it was my most popular fic ever, with i think thousands more hits than anything else i’d written) and the response has been mind-boggling and wonderful. i don’t respond to comments often because it makes me feel like a pompous jerk (”thank you for enjoying this! i, too, enjoy this thing i have written! oh ho ho!” is how it sounds to me in my head, whereas when other writers respond to comments to me it just looks like thanks man have a good day, feel free to call me a weenie) but i’ve appreciated all of them very much. THANK YOU! i hope your new year is a Whole Lot Less Shit than 2020. i don’t plan on writing more msr because i don’t really have any ideas for them. thank you for making my last time special <3

[musical-chick-13]

About that “Chibnall killed Doctor who post”

I’m kinda on the inbetween of that arguement, I remained a fan of Doctor who throughout this Chibnall era, but I definitely think Chibnall isn’t as good of a Doctor who writer as RTD or Moffat.

I think literally any episode he did (keeping the original concept) could’ve been done better with RTD or Moffat.

E.G. I really liked the Concept of the Timeless child and I the episode itself was pretty good, but I think if RTD had worked on series 11 and 12, the timeless child thing would’ve been something similar to bad Wolf, with a lot more hinting and build up throughout the series.

But again, I still watch it, and I’m still a fan since there were some good episodes in Chibnall’s era. But I am excited for RTD’s return.

Hey, fellow Doctor Who fan! Thanks for the ask! (And for being respectful and descriptive while sending it. I love, like...actual fandom dialogue and idea exchange, and I am always down to talk about Doctor Who.)

I'm sorry this response got so long (turns out I love to ramble about TV I follow), so I'm putting the rest under a "read more."

I totally get why people are excited for RTD coming back. Personally, I just like the characters and acting more in the other eras (sans Martha, who is my favorite companion forever and ever, but I still didn't really like the way Ten treated her?). They spoke to me in a way that many in RTD-era number one just...didn't? I'm not completely sure why, so I guess I'll have to work on figuring that out, haha. But I primarily care about characters/character arcs when I watch something because I've been a Theatre Kid™ (and later a Theatre Adult™) my entire life, and the reason why is because I like getting into the heads of fictional people and figuring out where they emotionally end up. Foreshadowing and plot concepts are often secondary to me. But for people who value those things, absolutely I get the love for RTD because he was (and likely will continue to be) good at it.

I think, ultimately, a big part of the problem in terms of how the Chibnall era was received stemmed, not just from genuine criticisms of or objections to the show, but also the fact that many fans would take every opportunity to talk about how every single thing was completely awful with no redeeming qualities and deserved no chances. People who stopped watching the show would still talk about it, even though they hadn't actually seen what was happening, and despite me seeing a lot of discussion about how people were willing to accept some of RTDs (and even, occasionally, Steven Moffat's, though that was far less common) because they got value out of enough other things in the show. But I...haven't seen the same grace extended to the Chibnall era. There were some episodes that fell flat for me, but I think Ryan's arc of learning what he wants and accepting the beauty of a life on Earth, and Graham's reflection on grief, and Yaz's ill-advised devotion and mental health struggle backstory, and everything about Thirteen, and everything about Sacha Dhawan's portrayal of The Master ultimately mean more to me than the episodes I find less-than-stellar. But many times when I've tried to go into Doctor Who-related tags or look for video essays on YouTube or skim the official Facebook page for news, I just see an avalanche of content about how the whole thing is worthless and we should throw it all out. Add in the fact that there were some infamous plotlines and fandom drama in the "Super" and "Lock" parts of SuperWhoLock (which as a totality has recently made the shift in cultural perception to "Cringe™"), which bled over into assuming Doctor Who would follow suit, and there's a lot of negativity that unfairly skews the perception of what people's relationship to and opinion of the show are. Many times, the people who hate something are the loudest about it. And a lot of times, that dissuades people who genuinely love the thing from talking about how much they love it. (Or, at the very least, prevents those talks from getting traction, because people who hate things, in my experience, are...very adamant about running people who disagree with them off of public platforms.)

I can get why the Chibnall era wouldn't hit as well for some people. And if it's not someone's thing, that is completely fine. (God knows there are lots of things that aren't for me.) I think, though, that if someone decides something isn't their thing, it's better for everyone for them to say, "Hey, it's not my thing" and watch something else that is. I don't think continuing to talk about how much they hate it is very helpful to anyone involved. Obviously people can vent and make posts about their feelings on the show, but there's a line and I've seen a lot of people (in unprecedented numbers) cross it. And, ultimately, I think that is the thing that's the most responsible for the public negative reactions to Chibnall.

[josie-effortposts]

The Woman Who Fell to Earth

I stopped watching Doctor Who in 2013 after the 50th anniversary special. Up to then I was deeply obsessed by its reams of stories, hidden subspaces and detailed production histories. It wasn’t just entertainment, it was a case study in a massive shared universe, and a direct function of the times and places it had been written. 

It’s never been very controversial to anyone I know to dislike Moffat’s run of the show, and as it drew to a close everything that followed seemed pretty well-telegraphed: Chris Chibnall would become the head of the show, it wouldn’t be very good, reactionaries would blame bad writing on a female Doctor while plenty of others would just lost interest, the ratings would drop and the whole show would become less culturally relevant. It was a Cassandra truth.

But that said, I still wanted to try it. I watched a bit of the Twelfth Doctor and had mixed feelings, and when I watched the first episode of the Thirteenth I found myself taking notes on it. So, without a lot of structure, here are my thoughts.

1. New Who treats first episodes as very important, the first moments that we see new Doctors and their statements to the world. Call it a modern tradition - where “Robot” and “Time and the Rani” play the change for comedy before jumping into the week’s adventures, “The Christmas Invasion” and “The Eleventh Hour” are primarily statements of continuity. By Twelve’s first outing the villains themselves become metaphors for change, and now Thirteen delivers a brief speech about deciding to become different while paying respect to the past.

2. Speaking of that speech, I feel like there must have been an earlier draft that connected the plot to these metaphors a lot better. The villain of the story keeps pieces of his past triumphs with him at all times, but these trophies are body parts taken from the dead, and they disgust the Doctor. At least Twelve’s flesh robots were stumbling towards eternity.

The villain as a whole is just what you’d expect from a low-grade Doctor Who monster, I guess. He’s supposed to be on a hunt, which sounds really cool, but this consists entirely of him walking places and murdering random bystanders by touch. He’s not keeping the masquerade up or succeeding in his goals by doing this, and the rest of the story implies that he’s at least shrewd about getting what he wants. The Doctor’s complaints against him center on him being a cheat who can’t do the hunt fair and square and on his desecrating corpses, but she never seems very angry at him over murdering people. 

The idea of the Doctor stopping a proper hunt actually sounds interesting to me, especially as someone who sat through all of DWAD’s The Most Dangerous Game. There’s a lot of suspense in dealing with an intelligent, directed killer with a small number of targets, be it in Predator or Day of the Jackal, and a villain that stalks, hides or sets up ambushes could be easier on the budget. Or you could keep the villain the same but add a second member of his species to the setting and have them in competition, conflict on conflict. (That sounds like it’d make a good module for TIMELORD, actually...)

3. The Doctor feels simplified. I don’t mean the new personality of this incarnation, although I think the slight amnesia-until-climax is a bit forced. There’s just stuff that comes off wrong. For instance, things are outlawed in “every civilized galaxy” and the villains traveled from “five thousand galaxies away”. Despite ostensibly going anywhere and anywhen, the show’s always respected some species of distance, in that going far enough away or leaving the universe itself is a pretty big deal (especially since so much of it sticks to Earth). This line could’ve been any distance and nothing else would’ve changed, but it kills the idea of space - how can galaxies be civilized? It feels like the setting is shrinking - the word just sounds big and spacey, and this is the part where the Doctor says that something’s out of place, so big, spacey words go there.

This probably sounds nitpicky, but it feels lazy. Where Davies and Moffat both repeatedly made the Doctor or companions into the Most Important People in History, Chibnall seems to take it as read that the Doctor can just do stuff as the plot demands it. The climax involves her making a jump over a dangerous drop to the gasps of all assembled, but her first appearance is after an even longer fall where she breaks through the ceiling of a train car and isn’t even scratched. She "reformats” a phone into some kind of tracking gadget with six seconds of thumb typing and builds a new sonic screwdriver out of random scrap, which then solves basically every issue in the story. And, naturally, she can pinpoint things from a billion light-years away.

My favorite Moffat story is probably “The Eleventh Hour” because it presents the Doctor with a genuine challenge at his most vulnerable. If he had his regular tools handy then it would’ve been a much more straightforward Doctor Who story, but there’s no time to stop and build a new sonic screwdriver, because people are going to die by the time he’s finished. I wish more modern stories had that.

4. I can’t tell how I should feel about the side characters here. Not the companions, although it feels like Chibnall looked at RTD’s companions and thought “why not bring the entire family along?” There’s just this odd tension in characterization between comedy and drama for them, and without a very detailed soundtrack it’s hard to tell what emotions the script’s trying to go for.

One of the hunter’s victims has spent years trying to find his missing sister after another hunter abducting her. Instead of any resolution coming to that story he just gets murdered without ever knowing what happened to her and then the Doctor commandeers his workshop. (It’s even made clear that these human trophies are all still alive, just “in stasis”, so there’s no reason to think they couldn’t save her and presumably several others.) Meanwhile one of the main characters suffers a short fall and dies, taking up most of the final act with a funeral despite us hardly knowing her.

Other victims are worse. A man throws pieces of his salad at the monster for no discernible reason - he doesn’t even seem drunk, and then he dies as the hunter crushes that salad underfoot. A security officer gives a heartfelt goodbye to his family and tells them what a lucky granddad he is, then walks offscreen to be murdered. Neither of these scenes had to happen, and both together don’t even fill a minute of the runtime, so what was the motivation? The first is at least charmingly odd, but both of them feel like bizarre, extremely cheap set-pieces.

The soon-to-be-trophy himself listens to positive affirmations in a crane, then shouts them as he’s being chased. “I’m important! I matter!” The implication would seem to be that this is goofy behavior, and yet the things he shouts are in some ways the themes of the show. Is this self-critical deconstruction, unabashed humanism poorly delivered, a running gag?

5. The other half of a new Doctor, classic or modern, is this shedding of old things. Not always in terms of showrunners, but sometimes in attitudes or fans. The change from Six to Seven was motivated by a desire to change the tone of the show, for instance. Nowadays this is reflected a lot by the fandom - every Doctor has newcomers who jump back out because they don’t want their hero to be replaced, but the jump to Eleven confronted a lot of younger fans with this for the first time. Then Twelve culled some fans who couldn’t stand the Doctor being old and unkissable, and now Thirteen’s wiped out her own contingent of grognards who think the Doctor being a woman is a radical idea invented in the last three years.

That said, I’m not a fan yet. Some Doctors I don’t like as much for aspects of their characters, particularly Five, but Thirteen just doesn’t feel Doctorly. (To be clear, neither did Twelve.) I grew to enjoy Matt Smith’s performance where I thought I wouldn’t, and I’ve found a lot to like in every Doctor, but for some reason both of them still feel like actors playing the role to me, where Unbound Doctors and Mark Kalita have captured whatever the core is.

6. I feel like I’m getting old. So much of the beauty of Doctor Who just feels transparent now. After Moffat the maximalist decades of worldbuilding can never convincingly pretend to add up to a coherent universe and they can’t escape into the freedom of canon-indeterminacy any more than they already have. Even Big Finish, which I used to adore, feels strangled by a mandate to realize and box-set every possible combination of whatever actors they can summon from the show, no matter how many tedious hours they have to fill with cardboard characters and back-of-the-napkin monsters.

There’s no excitement in the adventure for me, because I know the route and the destination. And I don’t know if that’s Doctor Who being formulaic or disenchantment from seeing the patterns too much, or some personal lack of spark and imagination. I feel like there must be some drive I don’t have, one that would re-energize my own perspective in the face of concrete understanding, that would see it as a good thing that I understand another layer of what I enjoyed so much without sacrificing that enjoyment. But if it’s there, I just don’t see it.

But hey. While there’s life, there’s...

[miaouerie]

[coda] a pyrrhic victory/an elpidian daydream

this coda marks my first multichapter fic wrapped up and completed!!! so here’s some more related ramblings as a way for me to commemorate this milestone n___n

with the nonlinear narrative I thought I’d include a linked timeline for the chapters in case anyone (like me lol) wants to read the story in chronological order. then there’s some further explanation of what I’ve dubbed ~the jeron’s death conspiracy~ and notes from characterization I wasn’t able to include directly in the story, but were still important regardless...

furthermore, I want to thank @ninelanterns, @atthelamppost, and @sadieandor for following along with this story, as well as anyone else who came along for the adventure. this is definitely a darkfic as far as rebelcaptain goes but I hope that both endings were satisfying in their own ways !!

1. an actual chronological table of contents

Before Cassian is reaped:

day 15

Cassian’s time in the Games:

days 2, 9, 5, 18

What came after that:

days 6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 22, 26◆

Jeron dies:

days 20, 8, 25

Jyn is reaped and Cassian mentors her:

days 1, 3, 4, 12, 10, 16, 17◆, 19◆, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30

After Jyn wins her Games:

bonus chapter, day 31

◆ = chapters that are about trauma concurrent to most of the story, and loosely placed chronologically

2. the Jeron conspiracy

I decided to do a summary for this because I changed my plan slightly after posting day 8: “don’t say goodbye”/abandoned due to some inspiration from @ninelanterns; originally I was going to have snow have cassian brainwashed into genuinely believing that irga and his father were killed by someone with a grudge against them and the capitol (aka someone closely related to a tribute who died under their mentorship) in order to use him as a mouthpiece against those plotting against the capitol; the angst would’ve been from him finding out the truth and hating that his dad’s suicide was used for the capitol’s means. but then I got the idea to have snow brainwash cassian into believing that the “accident” his father and irga died in was actually his fault, because he told jeron the truth of what snow was doing to him in the capitol:

Snow sells Cassian “under the table” until he turns 19, which is when he has Cassian adopt a new persona that can be better capitalized on. Jeron realizes that Cassian’s faking it, suspects that Cassian has been hiding his victimhood this entire time, and when he confirms it realizes there’s no other way to get Cassian out of it; Snow certainly won’t let him sub in to mentor. Suicide is his solution to both Cassian’s problem and his guilt over not being able to protect his son.

Snow has Irga killed in the same way that Jeron kills himself to let Cassian and Lila know that Snow knows it was a suicide. Suicide is the ultimate refutation of Snow’s power—as well as the complete antithesis to any victor’s innate clinging to survival—so Snow has it covered up: Cassian, as one of two people to know the truth about Jeron’s suicide and Irga’s death, is tortured and brainwashed into believing that Jeron and Irga were killed in a power plant explosion as retribution for him disobeying Snow. Doing so serves two purposes: installing the cover-up and guarantees Cassian’s submission.

Before his death Jeron wrote a suicide note, knowing that he couldn’t kill himself and leave Cassian without an explanation. He knows that Snow will have their house stripped and searched, so he hides the note in what was designated to be Cassian’s house. He couldn’t have known it would be the one thing that would break through the brainwashing; if Cassian hadn’t found it, he would have continued to believe that it was all his fault.

Draven does his own investigation into Jeron and Irga’s deaths after witnessing the whiplash that was Cassian’s first three years as an unwilling victor whore, his outrageous personality flip after turning ninteen, and how his demeanor changed after undergoing “therapy” to cope with Jeron’s death. He finds out that Jeron’s death was a suicide, Irga’s death was retribution, and that Snow has an entire program to monetize and exploit victors after their Games.

3. getting from day 1 to 31?!

when I originally thought of this AU it was more about the angst that growing up in the limelight of the capitol as the son of a victor would be like, with constant camera crews as cassian was growing up, betting pools on when he was going to be reaped, etc. and more of an emphasis on the issues that cassian (as part of the pseudo-celebrity class that victors occupy in the capitol) would have trying to promote this fake relationship with jyn during the games to save her. there was also going to be a straight downer ending, with the closing scene being cassian telling jyn that they have to fake a relationship now in front of the cameras and jyn having a “what have you done?” moment

I deliberately did not go in depth with what jeron’s life as a victor was like, partly because plotting both jyn and cassian’s hunger games was already a Lot (I found out pretty quickly that you have to start with planning the arena first, in order to plan tribute deaths and sponsor gifts...) but jeron was an underdog winner, as are most of the victors from non-career districts. lila was pregnant around the time that jeron was reaped and esperanza, their first child, was born some time before jeron’s victory tour. snow had their daughter killed because of something jeron did/didn’t do on the tour; even though jeron and lila are shaken from the loss they agree to be open to having another child, provided that jeron doesn’t do anything to put the child at risk ever again.... but cassian would’ve gotten reaped regardless because there is no way snow wouldn’t have exploited the family drama!!! but cassian’s reaping creates a rift that is referenced in day 15: accidents. and even though jeron is successful in saving cassian that isn’t the end of it; while lila isn’t privy to what cassian is going through she can feel a marked difference each year he comes back in the way that mothers do, as well as the tension between father and son (cassian’s fear of jeron finding out as he’s dragged deeper and deeper vs. jeron’s suspicion that something wrong is happening that has to do with cassian), which all culminates in the year that cassian turns nineteen with jeron’s death. when her husband arrived in district 5 before cassian did he didn’t tell lila about their son being a horndog in the capitol, but lila seeing cassian after he finally gets back five weeks later confirms her worst fears. then she’s the one that discovers jeron’s body and is present when the peacekeepers come to take cassian back to the capitol. her son is gone for a month....... then when he comes back he’s spouting lies about jeron’s death even though both of them saw the body??? yeah, that’s why she nopes on out of victors’ village. after jeron’s death her and cassian don’t see each other for four years until cassian brings jyn home from the games

jyn’s backstory came together quickly but I had considered having bodhi be one of the tributes who died under cassian’s mentorship. bodhi and jyn would’ve been close friends so jyn would have already had that vendetta against cassian; it would’ve made hitting that original ending easier but having jyn be against cassian from the very start would’ve made it less plausible that they could earn each other’s trust before the start of jyn’s games............. while I wanted this story to be dark and depressing I still wanted it to have a reciprocated rebelcaptain end game, so :’)

it wasn’t until day 28 (the cassian/finnick noncon) that I got an idea for a not-so-horrible ending, and I blame the completely depressingly hopeless whump in that chapter for making me think “hmm maybe this shouldn’t end terribly” :’D btw, if anyone noticed I forgot annie cresta is in canon the 70th hunger games victor. for someone who’s neurotic about looking up details I have no idea how this fact escaped me because I didn’t notice until at least halfway through whumptober, so we’ll just say in this AU she’s the 71st victor. this weaves in nicely with my headcanon that after snow saw how easily cassian was manipulated when someone he loved was on the line, he had annie reaped to exert more control over finnick (which happens to be my favorite kind of odesta fic tbh). anyway after writing 3k of depressing andair (andor/odair ship name? ok i’m shutting up) cassian/finnick I had a lovely mental image of cassian and jyn cuddling on the train back home to district 5, relieved and alive, and thought that would be a more uplifting note to end on. then I remembered that I was writing this for whumptober, and decided to write the terrible ending too :’)

4. some chapter commentary because why not

[ETA later!]

5. is there no escape?

yes!!! yes they do escape:

in a pyrrhic victory, post-day 31, draven succeeds in absconding with cassian and meeting up with jyn, saw, lyra, and the rest of their resistance cell (an underground, pan-panem organization fittingly called.... the alliance). draven has to cut out cassian’s implant before they rendezvous with the group, which he ropes a medical professional into doing (he may or may not kill them afterwards); it’s the only mark cassian bears on his body until he starts getting freckles from being in the sun again. similar to mockingjay in how peeta’s hijacking was treated with therapy in district 13, cassian undergoes actual, legitimate therapy after he and draven settle in with the alliance HQ. draven hovers anxiously for the first several sessions because “therapy” in the capitol has a stigma, even before he read the term “extensive in-patient therapy” in cassian’s intendance records, and it does take a good while before they make any remarkable progress. but unlike katniss and peeta cassian is alright in jyn’s presence, and in fact prefers it. they’re almost always seen together, and while jyn has a good amount of guilt for leaving him behind the first time her motivation for staying with him is out of a genuine desire to help him get better so they can be with each other the same way they were in an elpidian daydream again.

in happily ever after!an elpidian daydream, cassian and jyn are able to escape together in between arriving home in district 5 and what was supposed to be jyn’s victory tour. jyn was never aware of what snow did with desirable victors because it’s really only the top 1% of panem and the victors who know about it; she and cassian escape after he tells her that he wants to leave with her, but he doesn’t tell her the real reason why he wants to escape until much later and jyn never sees the recording of cassian and finnick (but he does tell her it exists when he’s explaining the details of how snow exerts his control over the victors). their relationship progresses steadily, but the secret doesn’t come out until jyn points out that cassian is extremely passive in bed and only mirrors her desires. there’s varying attitudes towards sex in the districts vs. the libertine views in the capitol but cassian’s shame stems from his powerlessness in what he had to do Before. he receives therapy for it but jyn is patient and firm with reminding him that he had absolutely zero choice in the matter, and that she could never hate or be disgusted with him for it. there’s a lot to work through there as a result of cassian having to lie to himself about it for the first couple of years of it happening and then willingly choosing to engage with it when he was trying to save jyn, but their relationship comes out all the more stronger for it. as for what happens to draven?.... because this is the happily ever after ending I like to think he’s able to stay in the capitol and work as an agent codenamed fulcrum 🤪🤙 and that after his extraction when things get too dangerous for him in the capitol he and cassian are able to reunite again as part of the alliance/rebellion !!

[ambvrs]

                𝐉𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐄   𝐀𝐘𝐃𝐈𝐍     /     𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝   𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐬.

𝒃𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈   𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆𝒔     —     @opalsmedia​     !

𝒊.   𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆   𝒘𝒆   𝒎𝒆𝒕   𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈   𝒕𝒉𝒆   𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔     ;     open  to  anyone  .

(  ♫  )     —     josephine’s  life  between  scotland  and  strathmore  is  vague  at  best,  other  than  she  moved  into  her  own  place  after  graduation  and  spent  a  year  working  in  london  before  her  first  year  at  strathmore  began  (  a  time  frame  that  puts  her  in  line  with  the  opals  first  year  /  immediately  pre  -  strathmore  prodigies  ).  a  bond  formed  from  a  chance  encounter  by  the  river’s  edge  one  summer  or  fall  evening,  two  strangers  simply  sharing  company  and  conversation  before  strathmore  or  the  society  or  life  had  the  chance  to  intervene.  one  meeting  turned  into  several,  someone  she  might  consider  one  of  her  first  friends  in  the  city  and  they  became  more  of  a  rock  in  her  life  than  she  would  ever  admit  to  them,  letting  her  forget  the  darkness  of  the  world  for  even  a  short  while.  perhaps  time,  and  strathmore  and  society  duties,  have  created  distance  between  them  that  they’re  not  sure  how  to  close.  not  in  a  bad  way,  of  course,  but  in  the  way  that  life  always  seems  to.

aesthetics  :  the  warm  glow  of  the  street  lamps  as  blue  skies  blossom  into  shades  of  flame,  shoulders  brushing  against  one  another  as  steps  fall  in  tandem,  quiet  laughter  that  melts  into  clamoring  of  the  crowd,  the  same  sense  of  ease  that  accompanies  picking  up  long  -  forgotten  novel,  secrets  shared  the  same  as  clandestine  smiles,  cobblestone  paths  that  lead  to  nowhere  in  particular,  the  twinkle  of  an  excited  gaze,  the  comforting  press  of  fingertips  into  the  crook  of  an  elbow,  a  collection  of  polaroids  tucked  away  like  perfect  memories.

𝒊𝒊.   𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒔   𝒘𝒆   𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕   𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅   𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉   𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓     ;     open  to  anyone  .

(  ❤  +  ❤  +  ❤  )     —     two  people  that,  under  any  other  (  or  relatively  normal  )  circumstances,  would  certainly  not  have  considered  themselves  friends.  but  recent  circumstances  have  brought  them  closer  and  they’ve  found  a  sort  of  solace  in  one  another.  separately,  they’ve  seemed  to  function  just  fine  on  their  own,  or  they’ve  simply  done  everything  they  can  to  keep  it  all  to  themselves.  perhaps  it’s  a  slow  -  burn  friendship,  they  didn’t  like  each  other  all  too  much  starting  out  or  simply  butt  heads  over  the  most  trivial  of  things,  but  they  slowly  grow  to  lean  on  each  other  for  small  things,  figuring  there  are  worse  people  to  rely  on.  or  perhaps  it’s  been  a  friendship  that’s  been  blossoming  slowly,  both  caring  a  great  deal  about  the  other  (  even  if  they  never  really  talk  about  it  )  &  who  they  trust  to  talk  about  secrets,  feelings,  the  society,  you  name  it  without  worrying  about  repercussions  or  what  they  may  think  of  them.  two  people  that  come  to  rely  on  each  other,  one  way  or  another,  and  will  do  anything  to  help  them  succeed.  platonic  twin  flames  who  know  each  other  almost  as  well  as,  if  not  better,  than  they  know  themselves.

aesthetics  :  pinky  promises  shared  in  an  empty  room,  waiting  with  baited  breath  as  quiet  confessions  are  offered,  hesitant  smiles,  hours  of  long  conversation  that  slip  into  comfortable  silence,  trusting  someone  to  keep  a  secret  you  would’ve  taken  to  the  grave,  arms  embraced  in  a  hug  that  borders  on  almost  too  tight,  a  knock  on  your  bedroom  door  at  two  am,  long  night  drives  with  no  destination  in  mind,  shared  blankets  under  a  starry  sky.

𝒊𝒊𝒊.   𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕   𝒕𝒐𝒐   𝒔𝒐𝒇𝒕   𝒇𝒐𝒓   𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒆𝒍   𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔     ;     open  to  anyone  .

(  ✧  /  reversed  )     —     josephine  is  truly  soft  -  hearted,  down  to  her  very  core,  and  is  often  far  too  kind  and  compassionate  for  her  own  good.  she  chooses  to  see  the  best  in  people,  even  if  it’s  not  always  there.  that  being  said,  they  aren’t  being  friendly  just  for  the  sake  of  being  friendly  and  whatever  sort  of  ‘  friendship  ‘  they  have  is  formed  for  the  sake  this  person’s  own  gain,  be  it  academically,  as  a  bit  of  romantic  payback,  or  even  because  they  feel  she  can  benefit  their  growth  in  the  society.  there’s  a  lot  of  room  for  creative  liberties  here  (  and  plenty  of  angst,  if  we  wanted  ),  but  i  think  it  would  do  her  some  good  to  face  the  truth  behind  typical  rose  -  colored  glasses,  even  if  she’s  completely  oblivious  to  it  for  now,  for  a  while  ?  forever  ?  perhaps  she  knows  but  will  simply  pretend  she  does  not  see  because  she’d  rather  live  in  the  illusion  than  face  the  truth.

aesthetics  :  smiles  that  do  not  quite  reach  the  eyes,  lies  veiled  beneath  honeyed  tones,  the  steady  rapping  of  raindrops  on  window  panes,  gifted  roses  already  on  the  verge  of  wilting,  bribes  offered  in  the  way  of  i  -  owe  -  you’s,  rain  check  texts  one  hour  after  a  read  message,  the  slip  of  smoke  through  outstretched  fingers,  large  sunglasses  shielding  disinterested  gaze,  company  offered  out  of  convenience  rather  than  genuine  desire,  the  dying  embers  of  a  flickering  flame.

𝒊𝒗.   𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕   𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆   𝒃𝒖𝒕   𝒕𝒉𝒆   𝒘𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒈   𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆     ;     taken  .

(  ♫  +  ❤  )     —    two  people  that  dance  a  fine  line  together,  and  perhaps  they’ve  been  dancing  it  since  the  beginning  of  her  first  year  up  to  joining  the  society  (  or  maybe  they  still  are  ).  push  and  pull,  always  like  two  moths  to  a  flame,  this  connection  is  the  prime  example  of  what  could  be  if  life  wasn’t  in  the  way.  the  two  have  obvious  chemistry,  but  there’s  something  that’s  keeping  them  from  being  together  -  could  be  the  society,  their  parents  or  friends,  or  some  other  outside  influence.  physical  or  emotional  boundaries  aside,  they  are  the  epitome  of  the  right  place  at  the  wrong  time  and  perhaps  they’d  be  together  if  they  could  but  instead  they  fight  against  it,  flirting  the  line  of  you  could  be  mine  and  it’s  just  not  the  time.  perhaps  they’ve  already  put  it  behind  them,  but  they  both  just  have  that  knowledge  that  in  another  life.

aesthetics  :   fleeting  glances  shared  across  a  crowded  room,  grazing  fingertips  in  a  fleeting  touch,  the  lingering  tendrils  of  darkness  in  the  break  of  dawn,  the  way  the  moon  controls  the  tides,  harmless  invitations  for  coffee  that  grows  cold  in  conversation  lapses,  knowing  coffee  orders  like  the  back  of  your  hand,  shared  smiles  hidden  in  the  crooks  of  necks,  faded  photographs  of  a  simpler  time,  handwritten  notes  tucked  neatly  between  book  pages.

𝒗.   𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆   𝒘𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒔   𝒘𝒆   𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆   𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈   𝒅𝒐𝒘𝒏     ;     open  to  anyone  /  one  -  two  people  .

josephine  tends  to  her  friendships  like  a  neat  little  garden,  cares  so  wholly  for  each  of  them  in  their  own  special  way.  but  in  light  of  recent  events  (  and  moving  forward  amidst  a  still  missing  society  member  ),  it  only  makes  sense  for  a  couple  of  her  close  relationships  to  start  fraying  at  the  seams.  whether  they  consider  them  friends  is  neither  here  nor  there,  she’s  taken  to  applying  that  term  to  pretty  much  everyone  in  the  society,  truly.  their  friendship  is  well  on  its  way  to  dissolving,  or  at  least  a  very  close  breaking  point,  whether  it  be  because  of  the  stress  of  everything  going  on  (  or  went  on  or  will  go  on  ),  or  they  feel  that  she’s  somehow  betrayed  their  trust  in  some  way  (  could  be  trivial,  could  be  completely  valid  ),  or  perhaps  they’ve  come  to  learn  that  she’s  played  a  part  in  previous  disruptive  rule  breaking.

aesthetics  :  fraying  ends  of  a  friendship  bracelet,  the  bitter  taste  of  black  coffee,  dark  bags  under  tired  eyes  (  no,  they’re  not  prada  ),  the  ache  of  a  disappointed  gaze,  the  torn  pages  of  an  old  notebook,  waves  cresting  the  shore  to  simply  retreat  again,  empty  roads  at  4am,  a  table  for  two  but  party  of  one,  the  crinkling  static  of  a  tv  left  on  too  long,  four  missed  calls  and  a  ‘  we  need  to  talk  ‘  text,  curtains  drawn  in  once  familiar  windows.

𝒗𝒊.   𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆'𝒔   𝒕𝒐   𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕   𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒅   𝒕𝒐   𝒃𝒆     ;     taken.

the  two  had  dated  previously,  prior  to  either  of  them  joining  the  society.  whether  it  happened  during  her  teen  years,  the  lull  between  life  and  strathmore,  or  right  up  to  their  time  in  the  society  -  it’s  very  much  open  -  ended.  josephine  has  always  loved  too  deeply,  and  it  could  have  been  their  downfall  or  what  had  kept  them  together  as  long  as  they  were.  i  imagine  they  didn’t  end  on  the  best  of  terms,  but  she  still  cares  deeply  for  them  and  their  well  -  being,  regardless  of  where  they  stand  now,  and  perhaps  there’s  lingering  feelings  that  they  both  simply  deny.

aesthetics  :  tba.

𝒗𝒊𝒊.   𝒘𝒆   𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆   𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓   𝒐𝒇𝒇   𝒂𝒔   𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔    ;     open  to  anyone.

someone  that  josephine  has  history  with;  either  they’ve  kissed  or  hooked  up  a  few  times,  or  just  went  on  a  couple  casual  dates  but  there  was  nothing  ever  really  there.  no  hard  feelings  at  all,  they  mutually  decided  there  was  nothing  between  them  and  they  were  better  off  as  actual  just  friends.  they’re  probably  pretty  close  because  of  the  fact  and  it’s  just  something  that  they  joke  about  now.

aesthetics  :  tba.

𝒗𝒊𝒊𝒊.   𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆   𝒈𝒐𝒏𝒆   𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉   𝒕𝒉𝒆   𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈   𝒔𝒖𝒏    ;     open  to  anyone.

they  were  sleeping  together  out  of  convenience  at  some  point,  perhaps  they’d  turn  to  each  other  on  a  lonely  night  or  they’re  hanging  out  and  they  don’t  mean  for  it  to  happen,  but  they  end  up  tangled  together  in  one  of  their  rooms,  gone  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning  before  the  other  ways.  or  perhaps  it  was  a  one  or  two  time  thing,  a  moment  of  weakness  or  split  decision  that  they  pretend  didn’t  happen.  truly  no  strings  attached,  neither  of  them  expecting  anything  from  the  other  because  it’s  not  supposed  to  mean  anything,  so  they’re  always  gone  by  morning,  before  anyone  can  see  them,  because  there’s  nothing  casual  about  deep  conversations  when  you’re  half  -  asleep,  bodies  pressed  together  and  hands  intertwined.

aesthetics  :  tba.

☆   𝒃𝒐𝒏𝒖𝒔   ☆     ;     aka  a  collection  of  six  -  word  stories  /  musings  that  would  also  be  fun  plots  but  i  simply  did  not  have  the  brain  cells  to  type  up  .

i.   𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍   𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉   𝒎𝒆   𝒊𝒏   𝒎𝒚   𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒔   ;   ii.   𝒚𝒐𝒖   𝒄𝒂𝒏'𝒕   𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆   𝒎𝒆   𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎   𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇   ;   iii.   𝒊   𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕   𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇   𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈   𝒕𝒉𝒆   𝒘𝒂𝒚   ;   iv.   𝒚𝒐𝒖   𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅   𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘   𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓,   𝒅𝒐   𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓   ;   v.   𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆   𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒔   𝒊𝒏   𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒔   𝒐𝒇   𝒅𝒐𝒖𝒃𝒕   ;   vi.   𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏   𝒊   𝒔𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈,   𝒊   𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕   𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒔   ;   vii.   𝒕𝒘𝒐   𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒔   𝒐𝒇   𝒕𝒉𝒆   𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆   𝒄𝒐𝒊𝒏   ;   viii.   𝒊𝒇   𝒘𝒆   𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕   𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍   𝒕𝒉𝒆   𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆   ;   ix.   𝒊   𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅   𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒕   𝒊𝒏   𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓   𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒚     .

this  +  this  +  this  +  this  +  this  .

[amphtaminedreams]

Film Tier Ranking 2019: A Bad Year for Bird Films

Hi to anyone reading,

I’ve finally put it together: my 2019 film tier ranking! I know tier rankings are a bit 6 months ago but seeing British crisps sorted into god, good, mid and shit tier all over Twitter, the format really resonated with me and I was like I MUST USE THIS AT SOME POINT! And I guess since there probably isn’t much of an audience for crisp tier rankings on Tumblr, it makes more sense for me to do it with films instead, especially as doing a 2019 year in film review was something I previously claimed I would do; here’s to 2020 and following through on my proposals.

I think 2019 in general was an okay year for film, with the end of the year definitely outselling the beginning. One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of films that I would’ve been able to see in 2019, I.E Little Women and Parasite, didn’t come out until 2020 in the UK so they won’t make it onto this year’s list. It’s not a snub by any means. I more fall in line with the Elsie Fisher Film Awards school of thought than the Oscars, which have yet again disregarded several incredible performances this year: Florence Pugh in Midsommar, Taron Egerton in Rocketman, Lupita Nyongo in Us, and of course, Greta Gerwig’s direction of Little Women. I’m sure there are many more but those are the first few that come to mind. Oh to be in 2017 when nominations made fractionally more sense.

This list also includes films that weren’t necessarily released this year, but that I just got around to watching; there were a couple of disappointments but also a lot of films I can’t believe it took me this long to finally watch and have definitely made their way into my favourites. My goal for this year is to get through even more of the films on my verrrry long Letterboxd watchlist, and more specifically, watch said films without going on my phone, which is a really bad habit of mine. I find it hard to sit still! Let me live! 

I also want to try and put aside my prejudices about visual quality and watch more pre-2000s movies this year; it’s really bad but I never managed to get more than half an hour into Psycho, of all films, solely because I couldn’t deal with the black and white. In 2020, I am going to stop being a whiney Gen Z/cusp millenial-er and give older films the chance they deserve.

So, without further ado, here is my film tier ranking of everything I watched in 2019! If you make it til the end and have any thoughts or disagreements, let me know. I love to hear other’s opinions and get new perspectives on things and am totally open to any criticism. Happy reading:-)

God Tier

Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019)

Knives Out. What a film.

I feel like I waited forever to see this at the cinema. They must have started showing trailers for it in, like, August, and I had to wait til mid-November to see it. How are you gonna just dangle a film with Toni Colette and Lakeith Stanfield in my face and then make me wait 3 months? Totally unethical.

But that being said, when it finally came around and I did see it, as much as I love Toni and Lakeith, there was one stand out and it wasn’t either of them: ANA DE ARMAS. I have to admit I’d never heard of her before but she acted the shit out of a role I feel I’d ordinarily find irritating and gimmicky. Daniel Craig, whose character seemed annoying as fuck in the trailer, was actually surprisingly funny.

Stylistically, it was a very cool film and I liked the subtle commentary on class that was running throughout. Also, I thought the ending was very clever. My issue with a lot of whodunnits is that they just pick someone who doesn’t make sense for shock factor *cough, Bobby Beale in Eastenders, cough* but the shocks here were more in the details. 

Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019)

There wasn’t one single moment of Hustlers I didn’t enjoy and it’s quite amazing that there wasn’t one single point in this film about strippers that I felt gratuitously sexualised women. THAT is why you fund female directors. It made the whole thing look like a calculated art form, which I think the unsexy amongst us can all agree that it is. Constance Wu was a fantastic lead, J-Lo was kind of robbed for a supporting actress nom, and Keke Palmer and Lili Reinhart were hilarious too. 

Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)

Midsommar was such an experience that it took me a good few days afterwards to decide whether I actually liked it. I saw it the day it came out because I loved Hereditary so much and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I kind of had an idea of the way it was going to go, we could all kind of guess evil cult was the route that was being taken from the trailer, but I just didn’t realise quite how weird it’d get. 

The gore was great, the visuals were stunning and the character arcs were surprising and for that reason, I think this is another game changer for horror from Ari Aster. I didn’t love it like I loved Hereditary but it continues to play on my mind and 7 months later I still can’t resist a good “Things you Missed in Hereditary” or “Hereditary Themes Explained” Youtube video essay. That’s how you know a film fucked with you and that’s the ultimate goal of going into a horror for me. Put that on my headstone after I inevitably get myself into some mortally dangerous conflict because I want to “get fucked with” a little bit.

Booksmart (Olivia Wilde, 2019)

So here’s the thing with Booksmart: I was getting progressively more and more drunk throughout it so I might be a little biased when I say I loved it. That being said, worth revere seems to be a commonly held opinion so I’ll stick to my guns. Plus, movies like this, which just focus on girls living their lives, are few and far between. Why have we had to wait THIS long for the female Superbad?

IDK. But Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein and Billie Lourd proved it’s definitely a genre worth investing in so hopefully we see more lighthearted female-led coming of age comedies. One Ladybird per year isn’t enough for me.

The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)

I included The Favourite in my 50 Films You’ve Got to Watch that I made earlier this year so I don’t have all that much to say about it that I haven’t said already. To summarise, it’s an instant classic: the cinematography, the cast, the lines, it’s all perfection. 

Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino, 2018)

I also included Suspiria in my 50 Films You’ve Got to Watch list so sorry if I’m repeating myself, but I adored everything about it. If I had to sum it up in one sentence I’d say divine feminine energy, but inverted. Plus ballet. That dancing scene in the mirrored room will probably never leave my mind (if you’ve watched it, trust me, you’ll know the one I'm talking about), and if there were awards given out for creepy montages in horror, this would win all of them. It still blows my mind that Tilda Swinton played 3 characters in this film; 2 of them are so distinctly different, if anyone put two and two together without prior knowledge of this fact then I’ll blow my own head up too. This is why I got so mad when there was all that discussion around her being the new female Doctor Who and there were people asking who she was. How can you not know who Tilda fucking Swinton is!? She’s a legend! 

Sorry, is the wannabe film snob in me showing?

Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2018)

Though I initially watched it because it’s branded as a horror, Annihilation ended up being a surprisingly introspective take on human nature and our self-destructive tendencies. Nothing really went the way I expected it to, even though I was constantly trying to guess that trajectory from beginning to end. 

Visually, Annihilation is magnificent. Like, it’s tense, and where exactly the plot is going is shrouded in mystery, but most importantly, it’s super fucking pretty. Sure, the only thing that was mildly horrifying was the *SPOILER* end result of that bear scene but I didn’t mind too much because there was always that edge-of-your-seat possibility something like that would happen again. 

Also I realised that Gina Roduriguez is really hot in this! I would just say in general but that video of her saying the n-word kind of took away shot at real world magnetism. WHY SUCH A SHITTY APOLOGY VIDEO!? WHY?!

Assassination Nation (Sam Levinson, 2018)

So I didn’t clock until I was looking up directors that Sam Levinson, Euphoria director, also directed this, and suddenly everything makes sense in the world. They both have that dreamlike, exaggerated feel that perfectly captures the emotional rollercoaster that is being a teenager, only in Assassination Nation obviously the threats are a bit more...tangible. As in its actually other people trying to kill our protagonists this time round, not just angst. 

Not gonna lie, it’s not a patch on Euphoria because that show is probably the best thing I watched all year, but I did thoroughly enjoy it, even if I did feel the social commentary, despite how in your face it was, got a bit lost in translation at times. I think it’s the kind of film that, once again, would’ve felt more genuine coming from a female director, however that’s not to take away from how witty, modern, and completely relevant it still is as we move into 2020.

Sorry To Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018)

Right. WHAT THE FUCK!?

Why don’t more people talk about this film? Like it has Tessa Thompson and the world’s best earrings! Lakeith Stanfield getting more than 10 cumulative minutes of screen time! Armie Hammer being that bitch we all knew he was irl (probably)! Scathing critiques of late stage capitalism! It’s insane, in the absolute best way.

SPOILERS AHEAD: I had a mini paragraph written about the last hour of the film and the descent into pure unadulterated chaos, and how it’s like, the internet’s best kept secret, because ordinarily you lot can’t keep your mouths shut about a film or TV’s shows most crucial reveals for more than 5 minutes and THEN...My FBI agent must be feeling real cheeky because THIS tweet pops up on my Twitter timeline. 

Fuck this shit, I’m out. Onto the next film. MI5 stop peeping my drafts. 

Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018)

I don’t want to repeat what I said about Eighth Grade in my 50 Films you Should Watch list but Elsie Fisher’s performance in this is why I wish the Oscars also had some kind of rising star award category à la the BAFTAs. Honestly, every 13/14 year old should watch this; it’s a reminder that although feeling like an outsider is by its nature quite isolating, it’s prolific enough that a 29 year old man, 10 years out of “high school”, gets it.

American Animals (Bart Layton, 2018)

My sister and I absolutely loved this film so you can image our disappointment when we turned round to our parents at the end and our enthusiasm wasn’t matched...as in, I’m pretty sure they were both asleep for a lot of it. WHICH I DON’T GET. Because to me, there wasn’t a dull moment. American Animals is what happens when a group of university age boys with the finesse of the American Vandal Turd Burglar try and apply that to an Evil Genius stye heist, part Netflix, talking head abundant documentary, part live-action film. Splicing a stylistic reenactment with interview footage of the men who really attempted to commit the crime elevated what I probably would have put in the Good Tier™ to the God Tier™; seeing the guy Evan Peters is playing alongside Evan Peters playing him, now only the remnants of the arrogance we see in the reenactment left behind, sharply reminds you of the fall from grace these boys deservedly went through. Plus Barry Keoghan from The Killing of a Sacred Deer is in it, proving that unsettlingly stiff is NOT in fact his natural state. 

Gerald’s Game (Mike Flanagan, 2017)

I wish there was a shorthand way to say I wrote about this in my 50 Films You Should Watch list so I’m gonna keep it short but here we are! This was great! If The Haunting of Hill House isn’t proof enough, Gerald’s Game (not to take away any credit from Stephen King) is a reminder that Mike Flanagan is the king of subtle, niggling sensation in your stomach that something is about to go very wrong horror. I hear he and Ari Aster have a timeshare situation going on with the crown.

The Ritual (David Bruckner, 2017)

Okay, so this is the film that made me realise we should all be very scared of forests. Nope, all the documentaries into the Aokigahara Forest weren’t enough, apparently. I subjected myself to this too, as if my unfit, cold-blooded, bug-fearing, scared of the dark ass doesn’t already have enough concerns about my survival odds in the great outdoors. 

Really though, setting aside, this film maintains the sense of dread throughout and keeps you guessing what’s going on until the very end. Much like The Descent, the group dynamic and characters are realistic enough that it adds to the believability of a scenario I, in principle, know would never happen to the extent that I might keep away from vast, wooded spaces for a while just in case.

Dumbo (Tim Burton, 2019)

If film Twitter came across this post and saw I’d placed Dumbo in a higher tier than If Beale Street Could Talk I can only imagine the outrage. And sure, the latter is probably a much higher quality film. But sometimes a movie, for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on, gets you right in the sweet spot, and Dumbo did that for me. Maybe it was that the CGI elephant reminded me of my cat (I know, leave me alone), maybe I was emotional that day, I don’t know, all I know is that I cried like 5 times and was smiling for the rest of it-to be fair, the exploitation of animals for our entertainment is something that is still very much going on and that was something that was playing on my mind a lot whilst I was watching it. IRL Dumbos should be free too. Dumbo rights.

The VVitch (Robert Eggers, 2016)

This film taught me that there’s nothing wrong with joining a coven of young witches and getting naked and levitating around a fire. And that’s an important life lesson. Plus it gave us the quote “wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”, which is not only so perfectly creepy and simultaneously empowering that I had to get it tattooed but also, created ASMR. I just made that last bit up obviously but Black Philip getting his own ASMR Youtube channel?

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2006)

For me, much like The Ritual, The Descent is a perfect horror film: it’s got the ghouls but the situation the characters find themselves in is also terrifying by its own merit. The reason The Descent made it onto my 50 Films list and the Ritual didn’t is because, let’s be honest, it’s 2020 and you can get mobile signal in most places. You could probably at least make a 999 call if you got lost in a forest. If you DID get stuck in an underground cave and it collapsed in on itself, you’d be pretty fucked; the idea of it makes me shudder and I will never set foot in an underground tunnel at any point in my life for any amount of money EVER after seeing this. Also, the women in this are great and the creatures in this are genuinely quite terrifying, especially the first time you see them. 

Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2003)

Ah, Chicago, the last film on the God Tier™, proving that this list is in no particular order. Because WHAT A FIM. WHY DON’T PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THIS MORE?! Like don’t get me wrong, I know it deservedly won Best Picture in 2003 but I’m talking about right now! I mean, fucking Titanic is still out here getting referenced left, right and centre and yet Chicago gets paid dust! Can you tell I’m mad and that I think Titanic is hugely overrated?! Is that maybe coming across?!

ALL the songs are bops, Catherine Zeta-Jones is hot (I saw someone on Letterboxd say that Catherine Zeta-Jones in this film was their bisexual awakening and honestly, if I hadn’t already known I was a raging bisexual, same, because I FELT things in that All That Jazz opening) and Cell Block Tango is the revenge fantasy anthem I never knew I needed. Smart, tongue in cheek, beautifully shot and makes men look like little bitches which is probably why my dad hated it but what did I expect.

Good Tier

Zombieland: Double Tap (Ruben Fleischer, 2019)

Onto the first film of the good tier, Zombieland: Double Tap definitely exceeded my expectations. I was super worried about the prospect of a sequel as I love the first one so much and assumed it would be crap. Obviously, it doesn’t match up to the original because the original WAS so original, but it was still a fun, easy, witty ride. And I was SO glad they didn’t *SPOILERS AHEAD* kill off Tallahassee at the end because I really thought that was coming and it seemed so predictable and unnecessary. Highlight was the introduction of the lookalikes at Graceland.

Judy (Rupert Goold, 2019)

So, this is the first of two consecutive rants I’m about to go on about Oscar nominations and people’s reactions online. Prepare yourself.

I’ll start with the underlying message: just because you think something else deserves the praise more, doesn’t mean the film/album/*insert whatever artistic medium you wish here* that IS getting the praise is shit. 

Like people are angry that Lupita Nyongo wasn’t nominated for best actress for her performance in Us which is COMPLETELY valid as she carried that film on her back. In the same vein, people are also angry that more women of colour haven’t been nominated for best actress. Also valid; I’ve yet to see The Farewell but I’ve heard great things about Akwafina’s performance and I love her so even though I haven’t seen it, I’m gonna take the general consensus that she should’ve been nominated too. The Oscars definitely has a problem with recognising the work of POC. BUT, because of this, people are angry that Renee Zellweger has been nominated for her performance in Judy, saying that it’s typical “Oscar bait”. I agree, it is typical Oscar bait. However, a lot of the people saying this will in the same breath say (or tweet rather) that they haven’t actually SEEN Judy. 

How can you possibly say that Renee Zellweger doesn’t deserve any of the praise she’s getting when you haven’t even seen the film? Don’t get me wrong, the film itself is good but not outstanding (hence its place in this tier), but you can see Renee genuinely put her heart and soul into this film; it was powerful, and it was sympathetic but it was also nuanced and subtle where they could’ve just capitalised on all the sensationalised stories of the actions of a woman clearly deeply suffering in her final years and had it be full of shouting and screaming. The Wizard of Oz has always kind of felt like home to me because of the childhood nostalgia factor and so I’ve always been interested in Judy and I think Renee captured her heart and her spirit in a way she would be deeply honoured by. Maybe the film itself doesn’t deserve the acclaim it’s getting but I think Zellweger definitely deserves the nom and I think most people who’ve actually seen it wouldn’t contest that. 

Joker (Todd Philipps, 2019)

Okay so second rant. I’m sorry. I have a lot of feelings. Most of them aimed at the annoying tendency of internet users, Film Twitter™ and Letterboxd users I’m looking at you in particular, to be wildly exaggerative. 

There just seems to be no nuance online. It’s not just yeah, I didn’t like the film personally and the message could be perceived in a certain way by certain individuals, it’s I HATE THIS FILM AND IT’S DANGEROUS AND THE DIRECTOR FUCKING SUCKS. I noticed this trend when La La Land came out (which if I had watched last year would certainly be in God tier for me). It’s like, if a film initially receives a lot of praise and buzz, there’s almost this wave of compensatory vehement criticism in response that’s usually disproportionate to how controversial the film actually is. People didn’t like that Joker was popular because they didn’t like Joker so suddenly it’s the worst film ever and the possibility of it getting any critical acclaim is wrong. I even saw people berating Todd Philipps for channelling Martin Scorsese as he’s the only person to ever be influenced and take direction from one of the most dominant figures in film of the 20th and 21st century. I mean, what’s wrong with that?! If it was any other director, it’d be called homage. But because everything has to be seen through this malicious lens, its copying. 

I think one of the few very valid criticisms about Joker was that it further perpetuates the idea that psychotic people are dangerous, and I can totally see where they’re coming from. At the same time, we have to accept that whilst the majority of people who are psychotic aren’t a danger to anyone apart from themselves, most “dangerous” people don’t just become dangerous because they thought, fuck it, why not? A lot of people in the prison system ARE suffering with some kind of mental illness. The character’s psychosis doesn’t make him dangerous, it’s his underlying resentment and sense of entitlement that grows throughout the film that makes him dangerous, and I think a lot of people seem to miss this point. They say that the way the film ends implies Philipps is justifying the actions of the films protagonist. However, we KNOW the Joker is an unreliable narrator, he’s one of pop culture’s most infamous villains and that being said, both in film and in the real world, few villains see themselves as the villain. Joker is about why HE thinks he’s justified in doing what he does, not why he IS justified in doing what he does because he’s not, and that’s pretty clear from the moment he shoots someone in the head on live TV. Honestly, I think there’s a bit of wilful misinterpretation going on because people don’t like that film

I liked Joker. It was gritty, it was interesting, and sufficiently dark. I didn’t think it was the best film of the year but I understand why it got the praise it did. Obviously, it’s okay that people disagree and DON’T like it. But can we please get a bit more well-acquainted with the middle ground?

It: Chapter Two (Andres Muschietti, 2019)

Okay, essays over. Back to regular scheduled programming of less impassioned reviews. Though I will say I deserved better than my Letterboxd comment of “so you can just fucking roast Pennwyise to death?” getting absolutely 0 traction. One day my grand total of 5 followers, one of which is my sister, will recognise my brilliance (lol).

It’s hard to say how much I really liked this as I think my perspective of how much I did enjoy it is warped by how much I disliked the first one. Child actors really aren’t my thing and the only cast members I warmed to in the first one were Finn Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer whereas the cast here were a lot more likeable, imo. Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain and James Ransone were all great, with the only let down being James Mcavoy; I love him, don’t get me wrong, but I just think he was really miscast in this role. 

Another thing I enjoyed a lot more about this instalment was that due to the more episodic/anthology-like/Creepshow-esque structure with each character conquering different monsters from their past individually, the narrative felt like it had a lot more direction, and it didn’t drag as much despite it having a significantly longer runtime. I haven’t read the Stephen King novels and I don’t know much of the pacing issues are down to them so this is me coming at it from a screenwriting angle but it felt as if the climax of the first film just kept going on and on. Every time I thought it had finished there’d be another confrontation between the kids and Pennywise whereas Chapter 2 seemed to have a more definitive third act and I appreciated that.

Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019)

So, here’s one where I WILL agree with the general online consensus: if Rami Malek got nominated for playing Freddie Mercury last year and Renee got nominated for playing Judy Garland, why the fuck didn’t Taron Egerton get one for playing Elton John? Why didn’t Rocketman itself get a nomination when Judy did? Though I personally preferred Judy because I’m more interested in her story, technically and narratively Rocketman is the better film in my opinion.  This was so cleverly edited and sequenced and told with such a brutal honesty on Elton John’s part (it was co-produced by his husband David Furnish and he was heavily involved in everything from the set to the script), that I can only come to the conclusion that the obligatory biopic nomination only comes when the focus of said biopic is no longer with us as a kind of honorary thing. Whilst something like Bohemian Rhapsody was much more of an easy watch (which just goes to show how glossed over Freddie Mercury’s life was in the film), the way the story was told, by the time we got to I’m Still Standing that happy ending felt so earned.

Aladdin (Guy Ritchie, 2019)

You can hate all you want, Prince Ali and Never Had a Friend Like Me are fucking bops and somehow they were even better in this incarnation of the film. I was initially hesitant about Will Smith being cast but rather than trying to impersonate Robin Williams he went his own route and it really worked. He was the highlight of the film. It was undeniably visually stunning too. Madonna’s ex did good.

Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)

Ah, I feel so conflicted when it comes to Us. Like, there were some really strong points and it’s definitely a good standalone horror movie. It’s just you can’t help but compare it to Get Out, and with that unsatisfactory exposition dump ending, I left feeling so disappointed. It seemed to me that Jordan Peele got in a bit over his head here with trying to tie such a vague social metaphor and the actual in-universe plot together, and so ended up leaving both a bit half-baked. He tried to OutPeele himself and for me, it didn’t work. 

The doppelgängers were so scary as this ambiguous, vaguely threatening presence that if you are gonna give us a full blown, sit down explanation of why they exist it needs to be really bloody good. And this explanation didn’t make much sense. For example, *SPOILERS AHEAD* I imagine that the tethered just not being able to walk up the escalator into the “real world” was supposed to be some kind of metaphor for social mobility but it’s not fleshed out enough to work. In our world, there are REASONS why the idea of social mobility is flawed. In the film, it’s just like gee, if they chose to just walk up the escalator and go on this murderous rampage now, why couldn't they have decided to do it years ago back before they all lost their fucking minds? Why were they just copying the originals for all those years? HOW did they know what they were doing? See, the metaphor as I understand it is supposed to be that we depend on the oppression of others like us in order to maintain our social status, but not only is this kind of too general a statement to try and use a feature length film to make, I don’t really understand how this dynamic works within the narrative of the film. Technically, there's nothing to stop the tethered and the originals co-existing apart from the tethered deciding not to walk up the fucking escalator. We’re not talking a bourgeoisie-proletariat relationship here. The explanation of it all just being a “government project gone wrong” was too vague seeing as the plot working seemed prior to this to hinge onto something vaguely supernatural and the eventual plan of the doppelgängers seemingly had no purpose or application to the real world like the climax of Get Out did. It just left me feeling kind of like...why? Why did this all happen? When the ending and the twist was that predictable (the old Pretty Little Liars finale style twin switcheroo was blatantly obvious from the mother’s “it’s like she’s a different person” line near the beginning, let’s be real), I was expecting some final revelation that flipped my expectation on its head or at least felt helped things click into place. Instead, it seemed a bit hamfisted and like I was supposed to feel things were deeper and more significant than they actually were.

All that being said, I appreciate that if anyone other than the writer of Get Out had come out with this movie, I probably wouldn’t have these issues. Us was funny, it was fresh, and the concept of doppelgängers is something I’m so glad to see brought back into our modern pop culture database. The people are right, Lupita was incredible in this and it is a travesty that she didn’t get nominated. My sister, who was so creeped out by her vocal performance that she had her fingers in her ears every time Red spoke, still won’t let me attempt an impression of it. And that Fuck the Police sequence? Iconic. 

On the Basis of Sex (Mimi Leder, 2019)

I apologise in advance for the shittiest “review” I’ll ever write, but honestly I can’t remember all too much about this film other than it being good. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I’m sorry. You’re a cool lady.

If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2019)

EURGH, THIS WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL FIM. The score, the shots, the rawness. I imagine it’s devastatingly real. Like, *SPOILERS AHEAD* you think there’s going to be a happy ending but there’s not. It should be disappointing but it’s an honest choice. And side note: fuck those annoying middle aged white ladies in the seats behind me and my friend who lost their shit and started giggling every time the N-word was used, JFC. I hate living in a Tory stronghold. 

Cam (Daniel Goldhaber, 2018)

So, as I said, I’m a fan of the whole doppelgänger thing. It freaks me out. The point in this film where the protagonist is approaching her bedroom door whilst she watches HERSELF livestreaming from inside that same bedroom had my heart in my mouth wondering what she was going to encounter on the other side. And you see, the ending of this was a lot more ambiguous than the ending of Us, so I should’ve had less questions. Whilst I’ve seen other people saying it WAS unsatisfactory and that they felt like we were owed more of an explanation, I liked the simplicity of the answer we got and the wiggle room it leaves for our own interpretation. The way I see it, given that we were told by the fan the protagonist meets with in the motel room that *SPOILERS AHEAD* it was a case of some kind of software copying these women’s likenesses to steal their viewers and thus their profits, is that Cam is a kind of a commentary on the capitalist exploitation of women’s bodies and the demand for (and desensitisation towards) sexually violent content; we don't necessarily need to know who is behind the virtual cloning, which is terrifyingly believable given how realistic some of the deepfakes I’ve seen are, because it doesn’t matter. We're basically told money is the motive and we know the kind of lengths some people will go, and someone DID go to in Cam, to in order to make a shitload of money and that’s as true in real life as it is scary. On the other hand, if you want to believe there’s a more supernatural presence behind the events of the film, there’s enough left to the imagination that you can go down that route too. Some films are better left un-exposition dumped and this is the proof. My one criticism, is that, like many films, it would be even better if directed by a woman; I’ve seen people say that its portrayal of online sex work isn’t entirely accurate and though I can’t say with certainty that women working in this industry weren’t consulted in the first place, I imagine a female director would not only be more likely to listen to their concerns but could translate the confusion and fear that comes with being expected to makes oneself sexually desirable to get ahead in the world but then shamed and used for doing so even more viscerally. A few tweaks and it’d be God Tier.

Colette (Wash Westmoreland, 2019)

The costumes, sets, and Keira were so, so stunning. Also it was just an inspiring, beautiful story. The navigation of womanhood, so called “deviant” sexuality and self-expression against the backdrop of early 20th century Paris with a load of Edwardian era tailoring thrown in, it’s everything I could possibly want and more; 10/10 moodboard content. 

The Boy (William Brent Bell, 2016)

I can’t believe this film was made in 2016, and it almost makes me move it down to mid tier based on the fact that a lot of the allowances I made for cheese factor I made on the assumption it came out earlier in the decade. BUT, that being said, I was creeped out for a good portion of this film. Most horrors I watch and I’m probably a bit too chilled (a head comes off or some witchy ass ghost screams into the camera and my only thought is some kind of judgement of the SFX), and yet I felt like watching this behind my hands. I don’t know what it is about dolls and puppets, Chucky was my childhood fear even though I never actually watched the film, but something about the uncanny valley of it all makes me just spend the whole time they’re on screen silently praying they don’t start moving or talking. So in a way, given the resolution of the film *SPOILERS AHEAD*, the premise of The Boy was actually a lot scarier to me than the reveal of what was really going on. Someone hiding in my walls? NBD. That demons are real and that they live inside creepy old dolls? Terrifying. Why does everybody I debate this with disagree!? You can't call the police on a demon! At least with a human being you can stick them with the pointy ending of something! Regardless, I enjoyed the journey and trying to work out how things would end and if there IS anybody secretly living inside my house right now, even if you are a supposedly dead murderous family member (last time I checked I didn’t have any of those so I should be all good), kindly vacate. Thanks.

Oprhan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009)

So the fact that this film is based on a real life case makes this all the more terrifying. It was a bit campy and tacky at times but the shot of *SPOILERS AHEAD* Esther taking off her makeup in the mirror and revealing her true age will always be iconic. Plus I love Vera Farmiga, even though I did struggle to see her as anyone other than Norma Bates. 

First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2018)

A hauntingly beautiful film with a lot of room for interpretation. There were so many gorgeous shots and so much subtext, this is proper 10/10 media studies essay material.

The Invitation (Karyn Kusama, 2015)

I would say the concept and implications of this film, which don’t fully hit you til the final shots, are a lot better than the film itself. It feels very realistic though and is definitely tense.

As Above, So Below (John Erick Dowdle, 2014)

I was so stoned when I watched this that a lot of the allegory and Dante’s inferno references went straight over my head, and it just seemed absolutely balls to the wall wild. I couldn’t buy that the characters would just KEEP GOING either when things began to get terrifying, like people in horror films really out here making the most nonsensical decisions and it drives me mad. But anyway, it was definitely entertaining and there’s a lot more to it in terms of plot and mythology than most similar quality horrors and I appreciate that 

Climax (Gaspar Noe, 2018)

Climax is an interesting one that I think I’ll have to watch again to judge how much I truly like it. As with Us, I know it’s a good film, but I think my expectations of what it was going to be left me slightly disappointed. See, when I read about the premise I assumed that the horror was going to come from seeing the perspective of the characters on said acid trip and that leaves so much room for any kind of terrifying visuals you want whether that be something based in realism or fucked up creatures of the imagination. Buuuuut, it wasn’t that at all; at no point does Climax take place from the first person perspective of any of the characters. Similar to Darren Aronofsky’s Mother, the horror comes from not being able to do anything but watch as everyone starts losing their minds and the situation gets increasingly more dire. It’s pure stress; the acting is so unnervingly good that you really do feel like you’re watching some unintentionally horrific incident take place. That’s not a bad thing-I like it when films make me feel something intense, whether that emotion be positive or negative. It was just a different viewing experience to the one I had precipitated. 

Mid Tier

Nativity (Debbie Isitt, 2009)

I find Mr.Poppy hilarious. Does that make me a child? Probably. I’m not really one for Christmas movies but this one’s alright.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (André Øvredal, 2019)

I get that it’s based off a book so it’s not exactly like the “monsters” were a secret in the first place, but for those of us who didn’t read the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books as a kid, my main beef with this film was that they basically revealed all of said monsters in the trailer. Like how It: Chapter 2 spoiled the scene with Beverly in the old lady’s apartment but with EVERY. SINGLE. CREATURE. The only one that wasn’t was the “jangly man” and the only takeaway I have from him is the “jangly in the streets, but is he jangly in the sheets?” Letterboxd comment I read afterwards. Like the creature designs are the selling point of this film and by showing us them all before we’ve even seen it, any anticipation that would’ve built up from their reveal was kind of gone. Plus, it definitely felt like the writers were trying to ride on the hype train of “It” when they wrote this-only they made it even more childish. I mean, I know it was classed as PG-13 in the US which is maybe part of the reason it was so tame but the Woman in Black was a 12 when it was released here and it could be the bias of my 13 year old brain but I remember that being terrifying to watch in the cinema.

Also, I found it weird how *SPOILERS AHEAD* a couple of the main characters died and there didn’t really seem to be any consequences? Idk, maybe that’s because I found them all a bit one dimensional but I’ve seen others make the same criticism so I don’t think so. 

Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a BAD film. It just wasn’t super good.

Charlie’s Angels (Elizabeth Banks, 2019)

I’ve never seen the 2000s Charlie’s Angels so I really don’t have anything to compare to, but I don’t think this was THAT bad. I was fairly entertained throughout and I enjoyed Naomi Scott and Kristen Stewart’s characters. My main issue was the unnecessary inclusion of Noah Centineo, and that weird ass montage at the beginning of stock video shots of girls just...doing miscellaneous things. Why, Elizabeth Banks, why!?

Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019)

In some ways, I see why Toy Story 4 was narratively necessary: co-dependency had been a running theme throughout and we needed to see Woody (I feel stupid saying this considering he’s a fucking toy but allow it) realise that he can exist independently of Andy, and that there’s more to life than pleasing somebody else. The way Toy Story 4 ended felt like a satisfying conclusion to his character arc, and as well as the animation being top tier, Forky was a hilarious addition to the cast. However, I don’t think it carried the emotional weight of the 3rd Toy Story, which I think people had accepted as the last instalment and had used to say goodbye to the franchise, and therefore the sceptic in me thinks that the obvious purpose of this addition was a cash grab. I don’t doubt that a lot of people worked incredibly hard on it-I’m just saying that the propelling force behind the film probably wasn’t “the people need to see Woody’s character growth” and that was quite apparent throughout.

Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, 2019)

There were some really beautiful scenes in Doctor Sleep; the astral projection sequences in particular were magnificent and I loved Rebecca Ferguson as the villain. Stylistically, though I didn’t find out he was the director until I was writing this up, you can definitely tell it’s Mike Flanagan, and like I’ve said, he does horror very tastefully. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t all that interested in the premise and I wasn’t hugely invested in grown up Danny Torrance either. The execution was great and the return to the Overlook was brilliant, of course, but the story just wasn’t for me and nothing much sticks out as being a particularly intriguing plot point.

Mary Queen of Scots (Josie Rourke, 2019)

What to say about Mary Queen of Scots other than...yeah, it was alright. I mean, I really should’ve liked it more than I did, because these specific events were part of the Edexcel A-Level history curriculum (Can I get some Rebellion and Disorder Under the Tudors students representation up in here!?) and I usually love seeing history translated onto screen, plus it centred around Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan. It was just very...meh. I feel like there’s so much more complex a story here than was told. Both women were undoubtedly a lot more complicated than this film made them out to be and I think to reduce Mary Queen of Scots to a Mary Sue-ish heroine was a disappointing choice. Plus, if we’re gonna talk historical accuracy (which all the racists came out of their caves to discuss at the time), Mary and Elizabeth never actually met; I’m sure there was a more creative way to explore their dynamic than by forcing an interaction that never actually happened.

Apostle (Gareth Evans, 2018)

There were elements of this film I really liked; the mythology behind the cult, I.E what the townsfolk actually worshipped when you stripped away all the secrecy was pretty interesting. However, I felt it depended too much on atmosphere and not enough on plot, and I didn’t warm to any of the characters.

Searching (Aneesh Chaganty, 2018)

It’s difficult because technically, Searching is obviously an ingenious film. My issue is the way it ended, which was imo, super anti-climatic, and honestly pretty predictable in that it seemed like the writers just went out of their way *SPOILERS AHEAD* to make the culprit the person viewers would’ve ruled out by default for shock value, and then work out WHY that person was the culprit from there. I was expecting something a lot darker to be behind the protagonist’s daughter’s disappearance-irl, these situations usually are-and so maybe it’s just me being a bit of a sadist but I was disappointed by how things resolved themselves.

Deliver Us from Evil (Scott Derrickson, 2014)

So, this isn’t boring. It’s interesting to have a horror navigated through the lens of something as procedural as a police investigation. But ultimately, the acting isn’t great, there’s very few scary moments, and it’s a little cheesy. As horrors go, it’s pretty shallow-it is what it says on the tin.

Dumplin’ (Anne Fletcher, 2018)

I watched this right at the beginning of the year and I can’t remember all too much about it, but I remember not hating it? See, looking at the cast, Odeya Rush and Dove Cameron are both in it which would suggest I’d come away hating MYSELF instead but yeah...I got nothing. 

Lights Out (David F.Sandberg, 2016)

The concept is very scary, the execution not so much, and the actual storyline is a little cheesy. I found myself just being like OH MY GOD, IT’S BELLA’S DAD FROM TWILIGHT! And then *SPOILERS AHEAD* getting mad that they did Charlie Swan dirty like that by killing him off in the first 10/15 minutes.

The Goldfinch (John Crowley, 2019)

So I LOVED the book of The Goldfinch. I read it after the Secret History and even though most people seem to prefer the latter, the former hit me right in the sweet spot. The length was almost one of my favourite things about it; I felt by the end that I came to know the character so well he felt like someone I knew in real life. When I heard Ansel Elgort was cast as Theo, I was really happy; I’m not necessarily a huge fan of him as an actor, I've only ever seen him in shitty teen-y dramas which I forced myself to like at the time E.G. The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent, but he looks kind of exactly how I pictured Theo looking. Almost like an Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood situation. And then honestly, the actual film came around, and I found myself much preferring the young Theo sections. I get that Theo is quite a muted character and I hate to properly slate anyone’s performance, but Ansel as him felt a bit flat. The casting in general was pretty whack; I love Nicole Kidman but she didn’t feel right as Mrs.Barbour and it seemed that they added a lot to her character to the detriment of Hobie’s character who was a much bigger part of Theo’s life in the book. Also, can we talk about Finn Wolfhard as Boris? I’m sorry, but that accent was godawful. Really bad. Boris’ accent was always supposed to be kind of ambiguous but this was just butchered Russian. Another gripe that my friend and I, who also read the book, had with the Vegas section of the film (which was otherwise probably the best part) was that they never properly explored the complexity of Boris and Theo’s relationship. Obviously I’m not saying that I want 2 minors to shoot a sex scene but it could have been referenced when they reunite as adults because the kiss on the head when they part in Vegas seemed misleadingly platonic. It was heavily implied in the book that there was some kind of love that went beyond friendship between the two and I didn’t get that in the film at all. 

Ultimately, when you try and adapt a book as long as the Goldfinch, you’re always going to have some pacing issues and people complaining that things were left out or that X or Y character didn’t have enough screen time. But in ways, I think the fault here was trying to stay TOO faithful in the limited time available. They definitely could have focussed less on certain relationships and more on others, and when it comes down to it, I think we lost a lot of the grittiness of the original book for the sake of pretty visuals. 

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

Don’t get me wrong, this would 100% be in shit tier if it wasn’t for the last hour or so of the film and all the Manson lore which is so disappointing because I love Tarantino films and I love that era. As for the first couple of hours, I loved the vibe and I love Margot Robbie, and I think it was very respectful towards the Tate family (if anything radiated through the screen more than anything else it was Sharon Tate’s sweetness), but I just wasn’t that invested in Leo or Brad’s characters-it all just felt a bit pointless. I really like Brad Pitt and even that couldn’t really save it for me. Maybe if you took away the remaining 2 hours and 20 minutes of Leo DiCaprio making vague allusions to his own career to a girl only slightly younger than the combined age of all girlfriends past I’d enjoy it more but then I don’t think there’d be much footage left. I guess we should just be grateful that Tarantino managed to refrain from unnecessarily sprinkling the N-word into every other line of his script this time, right?

Also.

SO. MANY. FEET.

But then again, this did result in Brad publicly mocking Tarantino’s foot fetish during his speech at the SAG awards so...I’ll allow it. Sometimes kink shaming is okay. Especially when it’s this guy:

Isn’t it Romantic (Todd Strauss-Schulson, 2019)

I guess as romantic comedies go it wasn’t AWFUL because it was self-aware but still just not my cup of tea and it didn’t really make me laugh. Plus, I feel like it did just follow the plot of a conventional rom-com in the end so...what was it all for, you know?

Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier, 2016)

I think my disappointment with this film was a case of too high expectations. It wasn’t as gory as I hoped, in fact, there was very little on screen gore at all. I was just expecting something very messed up and I didn’t get that. But then again we did get Maeby from Arrested Development singing a fuck Nazis song so I guess that was a nice surprise?

Shit Tier

Birdbox (Susanne Bier, 2018)

First the disappointment of the Goldfinch, and now Birdbox (although they were chronologically the other way round but for the sake of this review, let’s just ignore that). It really is a bad year for bird films. 

It’s weird because when this first came out I remember everyone hyping it up and making memes about it and stuff and then I actually watched it and dear god, it was boring. Honestly, who paid you lot to pretend you cared enough about it enough to make content? And where can I get in on this action?

I mean it didn’t start off terribly but then they killed off SARAH FUCKING PAULSON and somehow managed to make SANDRA FUCKING BULLOCK unlikeable. How does one do that? The mind baffles.

Pet Sematary (Kevin Kolsch & Dennis Widmyer, 2019)

The kid acting was bad, the leads were meh and there wasn’t one creepy moment. This should be SO MUCH MORE hard hitting than it actually was given the subject matter and it just fell completely flat. I will say, though, *SPOILERS AHEAD* that the ending was appropriately doom and gloom and even though I’ve seen lots of others say they hate it it was probably the only thing I actually liked.

The Lion King (Jon Favreau, 2019)

Seth Rogen and Billie Eichner were the only good things about this which is sad because I fucking love Donald Glover and I was so excited when he was cast as Simba. Like, it was pretty but empty and unnecessary and I’m not one of these people who think CGI remakes always have to be this way-I loved Dumbo and I liked the live-action Jungle Book too! I just think the people who made this cared too much about good CGI and realism and less about heart. There was no personality whatsoever and it’s such a waste when you think about the fact that they had Donald and Beyonce on board. 

Red Sparrow (Francis Lawrence, 2018)

Eurgh, I hated this. I think Jennifer Lawrence is stunning and I usually love her films but every shot of her in this felt so male-gaze oriented, even the ones which were sexually violent, which I found to be completely unnecessary in the first place. At times it felt almost torture-porn-y which was not what I expected at all seeing as the marketing made it seem like some kind of female empowerment movie.

It Comes at Night (Trey Edward Shults, 2017)

I literally can’t remember fucking anything from this film. Clearly there is a very, very fine line between atmospheric and boring.

Warm Bodies (Jonathan Levine, 2013)

Maybe it’s because I watched this about 6 years too late and the whole human-girl-falls-in-love-with-supernatural-creature hype train has long since left the station but I couldn’t even finish it. Cutesy necrophilia ain’t for me, sorry Nicholas Hoult. Still love ya. You’ll always be Tony Stonem to me xoxo

Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood, 2005)

I’m pretty sure this movie won a lot of awards so I’m sure this is a very unpopular opinion but the way this film ended was so...depressing. SO depressing. Did it have to be THAT depressing? The Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode outsold.

This is the range Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank wishes she had.

Would You Rather (David Guy Levy, 2013)

Started off well but became cheesy and predictable as it went on. The acting wasn’t great either plus there was another unnecessary attempted rape scene here too. 

Christmas with the Kranks (Joe Roth, 2004)

So I watched this movie in the run up to Christmas because my best friend and her mum were referencing it like it was this cult classic (which I guess for some reason it is?) and I’m sorry to her and her mum but what the hell is this shit?! It’s not even so bad it’s good. It’s just bad.

The plot, the characters, EVERYTHING, it’s ridiculous on every level. I wasn’t into it enough to suspend my disbelief that anyone’s neighbours would actually care THAT much that they weren’t celebrating Christmas. Go on your damn cruise, take me with you whilst you're at it, ease my seasonal depression! I wouldn’t mind so much if it was funny or if the protagonists were likeable but it wasn’t and they’re not. Nobody’s actions made any sense. It didn’t put me in the Christmas spirit at all it just made me angry that Jamie Lee Curtis’ agent made her do this shit. She’s a scream queen goddess and she deserves better.

ANYWAY.

I’m now realising that I should have started on shit tier and worked my way up to god tier because now this post has ended on the rather sour note of me getting worked up over Christmas with the Kranks, lol. As always, these are just my opinions and I love to hear other people’s; when it comes to something like this, it’s all a matter of preference and there really isn’t a right or wrong answer, so I’m open to discussion!

With the Oscars less than a week away now I rushed a little to get this out on time, so apologies in advance if anything doesn’t make any sense or there’s any typos, I will look back over it at some point over the next couple of days to check. 

But if you read to the end thank you! And stay tuned for my overview of Paris Haute Couture Week S/S 2020 if that’s something you’re interested in as that will most likely be next post!

Lauren x

[botaniia]

128

Good chapter, all in all! My thoughts will be much shorter on this one than on 127 because I really hadn’t a clue what to expect from this chapter as opposed to 127. I also read some discussion before writing this so that may influence this, I dunno

Jumping right into things with the airships and answering a question the fandom had since 127: why didn’t the Yaegerists destroy the airships? To push it even further, not only was the question answered, but this fact became a plot-relevant detail as well.

Random thought, but it’s interesting to see Hanji talk about the future prospects of recapturing the uninhabited rumbled lands once this is all over

It’s absolutely divine to see Hanji and Magath strategising and working together

Love love LOVE the panel of everyone getting equipped for battle. I’m dead at Reiner’s “Ah shit here we go again” expression. Very cool to see Annie holding a blade handle again after so long! Jean and Mikasa looking like models as usual, and I love Pieck floating in the background there

So at first I thought the steam was the colossals entering the water on Paradis’ shores. Apparently it’s all the way over at Marley and the rumbling already reached the north. That’s fast! And the fact that the steam can be seen all the way over on Paradis, does that mean that Marley really isn’t all too far away from Paradis?

Falco and Gabi on the lookout are the cutest ever. Glad we get to see my son this chapter! 

Annie: “Hey y’all ‘s okay if I’m armed right?” Everyone: “....”

Every chapter needs a random panel of Levi sleeping because Yams didn’t know what else to put there

Very interesting to see Annie talk using revenge as a frame of reference. It does show how long she’s been under. Pieck explaining the situation to her made me realise we need more interactions between these two

These panels make it obvious how much weight Reiner has lost. Jesus, look at his torso, his neck. He could rival Berthoto in his post-depression  height to weight ratio

I hadn’t even considered that the Yaegerists consisted of their comrades, not the way it’s presented by Jean anyway. It makes a lot of sense that they don’t want to fight and kill their old friends

Annie is to Jean this chapter what Jean was to Hanji the last chapter. Asking the really hard questions in response to a pacifist mindset.

Armin has gotten thick, wow

If I still shipped aruani I’d consider this a strong moment but now it just feels less impactful bhjvk

The dam finally broke for Connie! All these past chapters, he’s been off looking stoic and determined, but it looks like his emotions are finally showing outwardly as well. Poor fucking kid, he’s really seen too much

And he does raise a very important moral question there. With the realisation we see him make later in the chapter, it’s also a very fitting thing for him to wonder about. He’s just not ready to start killing, even if it’s the best option for their cause, and I can respect that he has issues with such a plan.

Annie’s expression... hurts me soul, man

I don’t think I follow yet how she came to the conclusion that JCAM wouldn’t have destroyed the walls if it were them. I don’t agree nor disagree, because I don’t think that it’s possible to estimate that. The JCAM of today definitely wouldn’t have done it, but the JCAM of today are adults who didn’t grow up as child soldiers under heavy propaganda and who were used as disposable weapons. It’s impossible to compare the two with each other. Is Annie saying this because she as the adult she is today would do it all again, as she stated a few chapters back? I’m sure discussion in the next few days will clear this line up.

It’s gonna take me a few days of thinking to understand what exactly that callback to Eren saying he’s just like Reiner means, and how it connects to Annie’s words. Does he think back of it because he likens himself to Eren, or because he likens Eren to himself? It feels like Eren’s saying that he would’ve broken the wall, which is exactly what he’s doing right now with the rumbling, but what do I know? I’m usually dead wrong about things like this. 

I can admire Reiner giving JCAM a choice to not fight the ones they hold dear. After all this time and despite everything, he still holds his old comrades dear enough to spare them from this battle

Hanji’s ready to kill, and I understand it. People are already dying in Marley and there’s no more time left to be humane about things. It’s just like the decision to torture Sannes, like the decision to kill RB given the chance. In an ideal world they’d be able to talk and take their time, but right now they unfortunately don’t have that luxury.

Poor fucking Pieck, Annie, and Reiner. Learning they may already be too late and the worst can have already happened. And Connie’s face. This is the most emotion we’ve seen out of him in a long time that wasn’t just flat out bitterness. He looks destroyed.

Magath shoving Onyankopon had me gigglin’, ngl

It was something else seeing Yelena so emotional and pained. Have we seen her like this before? In a situation where she’s not her usual confident, in control self but she’s genuinely in pain or scared? And then her crying... She’s growing on me more and more the more I see her, now I’m sorta hoping she survives this story

Magath’s confession... I’m gonna be honest, when I first read this it felt like it came out of nowhere and felt forced. Rereading it, I can see where it came from. It’s been on his mind for quite some time since it happened and the fact that they suddenly, just like that, ran out of time probably got him to decide that if there’s ever a time to say this, it’s now

It also proves the idea that right before someone is about to crack, they double down in their ideals. It’s a type of stubbornness all humans have and it often leads to conflict. Doubling down didn’t work, so he finally allowed himself to accept something he didn’t want to be true but somewhere knew was true anyway. That’s growth. I did think Magath would end up coming through in the end

Good on him, a Marleyan, to tell Eldians that the one truth Eldians had always been taught, that they are responsible for their ancestors’ sins, isn’t true at all and that they do not deserve the blame. It just doesn’t hold the same relieving value if an Eldian says it. That was sorely needed, and for Magath specifically to say that is a good thing!

And to tell it to Pieck, Annie, and Reiner as well? That’s a very important detail as well. Done are the days of only absolving the 104th when the warriors deserve it just as much

‘Forgive but don’t forget, teach our children what happened without pointing the finger’ is such an important key idea and I’m glad it’s been put into words. Maybe the school kids from the s4 preview are the outcome of that?

I’m gonna wait for the official translation to look at Armin’s refusal because I don’t believe I fully grasp what he means there

Floch implying that the death of Kiyomi’s nation is a good thing, that she no longer has to worry, shows just how wrong his entire school of thought is. He’s literally “can’t worry about your homeland if your homeland doesn’t exist anymore”. 

Kiyomi’s words as parallel to Erwin’s? Love it

“But what’s most important is for you to know your place” WOW, guy really is on a power trip where he wants to establish a rigid hierarchy, huh?

He does look absolutely terrifying in those panels. Congrats, Yams, you made me intimidated by Floch for reasons other than “he might shoot anyone at any time”

Armin’s strategy bkhjvgjh use the chaos and confusion to get the edge on him, I like it

Absolutely love the dynamic between Connie and Armin. Armin, you lying shit, you’re fake crying again

He knew from the start it hadn’t worked though

Samuel! DAZ!!!! Finally! They’re back! The memes are no longer just dreams!

Kiyomi charging Floch and proceeding to wipe the floor with him will be the subject of my dreams for years to come

When Armin and Connie first realised that the plan failed, I was sure they were surrounded by Yaegerists on all sides and they’d stand no chance. That’s also the moment I accepted that one of them was gonna get KO’d. I honestly expected Connie to bite the dust

When Mikasa first crashed through the window, I thought that she was Levi. Look at that face! It’s such an Ackerman face! It took me a few pages to determine whether that was Mikasa or Levi, even if I knew Levi definitely wouldn’t have been a possibility.

God, how good it feels to see Floch so desperate and distressed! That panel where he’s on his stomach and shoots his anchor out of the window is hilarious

Floch thinks Jean is dead, so he didn’t call for the Yaegerists to attack him. I wonder if that’ll play out somehow. But it does show that he believed that Armin spoke the truth when he said that Jean and Onyankopon were killed. So does he still think the warriors are not on their side (until he’s obv proven wrong, ofc)?

Magath in a SC jacket is 😩👌

Armin being shot had me bamboozled. If he still were my fav character I would’ve definitely had a heart attack, but even now that fucking HURT and caught me completely off-guard. Especially since it’s not just one shot, but three, all of which hit a major artery in one way or another. I was sure Armin was out for a good moment here

Oh wow. I didn’t realise it the first time reading, but the second time? God damn, the parallels between SC and warriors in that particular scene. Just like how Jean and Connie talked to Bertholdt and Reiner about how they’d grow old together and share a good drink once this was all over but their betrayal destroyed that possibility and nullified their camaraderie, Samuel is talking to Connie and Armin about how they’d retake the lands and raise as much cattle as they wanted once this was all over but their betrayal made that impossible. Connie got it. Connie understood in that moment and that’s currently emotionally fucking me over

Reiner and Annie shooting up behind Floch... 😩👌

THEIR TRANSFORMATION POSES, HOT DAMN They’re ready to wipe the floor with some Yaegerists

At first I thought we’d gotten nakey Reiner (ain’t his ass plates missing?) but his face gave me renewed hope. The unhardening thing was a one-time thing only, so it looks like his titan does get armour!

I wonder how convincing it would’ve sounded if in 2016 we heard that in 2020 we’d be overjoyed to see the armoured titan and the female titan wrecking some Survey Corps shit but look where we are now

Zombie Armin looked TERRIFYING, holy fuck

And then there’s those last two pages. Wow. I didn’t even know what I was reading when I first read them, I hadn’t a clue that I was reading the exact narrative I’d been begging to see for many many years. And when I realised it, fuck, that felt good

Connie is betraying comrades, dearly beloved people whom he shared good times with, whom he made promises to, but who unfortunately ended up being on the opposite side of the conflict as he is, because it’s what his goal requires of him. 

The way Samuel words it, it’s even a direct parallel to the way the 104th worded their grievances to Bertholdt and Reiner when they were running away with Eren and Ymir. And when Connie finally answers “You are our comrades, but...” it just clicks. They’re his comrades, they are valued, and yet they still have to die. Just like they did in Clash. Just like they did in RtS. He’s in the exact same situation as RB were years ago, and he’s 100% aware of how this is what’s happening

And it’s the fact that Connie doesn’t use this memory to back down to prove to himself that he’s ‘better’, letting Armin and possibly himself get killed in the process, but instead reevaluates his stance and recontextualises what he knew back then, that’s exactly what I’ve been wishing for for so long

I intend to make a separate post on this because I have so many thoughts on this subject. This tiny detail changes so much for me, clears up so many of the doubts I had, and gives me so much hope that I’m sure will be shattered over the next few weeks but let me DREAM

In fact, I made the post right here

[thecoolkidsbasement]

Nancy Drew - Midnight in Salem ‘Fix it Fic’

So because I wanted to take a little writing break from my Inventor’s Absolution fic (so I wouldn’t suffer from the burnout of writing exclusively in one universe for so long), I got somewhat invested in writing a ‘fix-it fic’ for Nancy Drew’s Midnight in Salem game because it was Terribad(TM), and then got un-invested by the time I finished the scene LMAO I don’t think I’ll ever seriously put more time into it (maybe I’ll post it on AO3 + FF.net since it’s a completed scene and to get more eyes on it), so I thought I’d just leave it here for the Clue Crew to enjoy if they so wished. Basically I wanted a rewrite of the game in ‘novel form’ to fix dialogue, plot holes, puzzles, and other various things that I felt needed improvement in the story and plot. This starts at the beginning of the game, shortly after the Book of Apologies thief escapes, and before the opening talk between Nancy Drew and Deirdre Shannon.

Enjoy! Fic under the cut, thanks for reading (and apologies if Nancy seems a bit OOC, I tried doing a mix of ‘new Nan’ with ‘old Nan’. Happy reading, happy writing!

Amongst the verdant firs of the Salzburg forest, our young detective, Nancy Drew, navigates her way back to Moosham Castle after a book thief apprehension gone awry. Through the crowning tops of the wavering trees where they split amongst the drear sky are the towering eaves of the historical estate—the only guide she has in returning to the castle’s footbridge. She surmised the hike back would be a strenuous one, and furthermore considered herself lucky to not have rolled her ankle, or worse, broken a leg, from the way she launched herself over the bridge’s edge as carelessly as she did.

Not a story for Ned, that’s for sure, she decided while rummaging through her shoulder bag to examine the few pieces of evidence her book thief had dropped in their escape; an expelled home-made smoke bomb; a key with an usual blade, the teeth spelling ‘AW’, left abandoned in the cage lock that the Book of Apologies was bound with; and a torn plane ticket to Boston, Massachusetts.

Which was boarding at 3:40 PM.

Tomorrow.

I’ve got to find them before they get back to the states, or else I could lose their trail! Nancy lamented as she pulled her phone from her pocket to check the time, while also seeing several missed calls from a River Heights number — proven earlier to be that of Deirdre Shannon’s. Tucking her phone away, she decided she’d respond later with a lingering thought of how odd it was that Deirdre was calling her. Repeatedly. But right now she had other things to worry about, like how she would apprehend her book thief!

The Vienna International Airport is about a 4-hour drive away. With this ticket I at least know what flight my thief will be on and what seat they’re in! I’ll have to get past airport security first... I wonder if there're any open seats left on this flight?… Nancy puzzled as she climbed up a steep hill, using the rocks protruding from the earthen ridge as makeshift foot holds for a quick return back up to the main road. Brushing dirt off her hands and clothes, she took notice of a tear clean through her pants leg—most likely snagged on a sharp rock or thorny bush while she was running.

Definitely not a story for Ned, the detective sighed to herself as her phone buzzed once more in her jacket pocket. It was Deirdre, again.

The two hadn’t seen each other since the old town hall fire in River Heights last year, and they certainly weren’t on friendly terms once the truth and Nancy’s innocence had come to light… not that they were friendly beforehand, but reveling in Nancy’s short stint in prison certainly didn’t do their tense acquaintanceship any favors.

"Okay, Deirdre, you now have my undivided attention.” Nancy remarked once she answered the call. “What is it?”

“You know, when someone calls you in a panic and tells you not to hang up, it’s probably pretty important that you not hang up!” She snapped from the other side of the line with a huff.

“I’m sorry, but I told you I was in the middle of something. I said I’d call you back later, didn’t I?” She reasoned as she began walking the road back to the castle, lined on either side by dense trees, and examined the tear in her pants again as she walked.

“This isn’t something that can wait! I—…” All the ire in her tone died to a tense silence, in a pause so long Nancy removed her phone from her ear to check if the call dropped. The phone service out amongst the forest wasn’t the best, but her phone confirmed they hadn’t disconnected.

She put her cell back to her ear. “Deirdre? Are you still there?”

“I need your help, Drew.” Deirdre admitted quietly, her voice reluctant and almost ego-bruised, as if she were thinking better of having called the detective in the first place. “My cousin’s gotten into some trouble, and I thought I could help her, but—… but it’s a lot more complicated than what she told me over the phone. It’s worse than I thought it’d be.”

“What kind of trouble?”

"Like I said, it’s complicated.”

Gauging the distance of the road ahead, the peaking towers and the outer curtain walls of Moosham Castle cut through the trees. Nancy hadn’t realized how far she strayed until now. “Well, it looks like I just came into a bit of free time… if you’d like to talk about it?”

“I thought you said you were in the middle of something?”

“I was. I was literally chasing down a suspect when you called and got a little lost on my way back to the castle.”

“…A castle? Where in the world are you, Nancy Drew?”

“Austria, at this place called Moosham Castle. I was trying to locate an artifact for my dad on behalf of a judge friend of his, and—it was the craziest thing!— When I had my back turned, someone dressed all in black appeared out of nowhere and stole the artifact, disappeared in a puff of weird blue smoke, and jumped out the window!”

"Are you saying this guy got away? And here I thought Miss Nancy Drew always got her perp,” Deirdre said with blatant smugness in her voice.

You didn’t see them—they must’ve scaled up the outer wall somehow to come through the window… and they were quick. If they hadn’t stopped when they did to open up the book, I never would’ve caught up to them, Nancy realized glumly. Whoever this person is is crazy athletic, and they knew what they were doing. They knew that the book was here, and they had the key to get it open. This was no random robbery.

“I didn’t think anyone used the word 'perp’ anymore, Deirdre,” Nancy replied with a soft teasing, which granted her a scoff from the other end of the line. Possibly an eye roll, too. “Anyway, back to your cousin. What kind of trouble is she in?”

"Right. Well—… to make a long story short, my cousin, Mei, lives in the infamous Salem, Massachusetts. About a week ago one of Salem’s most historical mansions was nearly burnt to the ground, and now the entire town believes she was the one who caused the fire! They don’t have any evidence she did it, which is unbelievable, but any idiot can see she wouldn’t do something like that—!”

“Deir—Deirdre—Deirdre!” Nancy finally had to yell just to make herself heard over her incensed rambling. “Why would the town believe your cousin Mei would do such a thing if there’s no evidence? What evidence did they find? Did she provide a strong alibi? One that someone, or multiple people, can confirm? Are there any other suspects?”

"God, I forgot about that annoying thing you do where you ask a million questions a second,” Deirdre huffed exasperatedly. "I don’t know what evidence the police have. When I tried reaching out to them, they just laughed at me when they found out I was Mei’s cousin—like they thought it was funny I was trying to prove her innocence! Like it was so obvious Mei would do this and I just couldn’t see it! I had to leave before I gave them the smart-ass piece of my mind… it would’ve only made the situation worse for her.”

“I’m so, so sorry to hear that happened to you, Deirdre… really, I am.” Nancy offered genuinely, just as the footbridge was coming into sight, and she quickened her pace to meet it. “It sounds like your cousin is being falsely accused, or at least he police don’t seem interested in looking into other suspects.”

"Mei hasn’t been accused.” She clarified before sighing defeatedly, grumbling with a tight jaw. "…Not yet, at least, on official record… but everyone in Salem thinks she did it and we both can see where this train is heading. The only people here who see the truth are me and Mei’s older sister, my other cousin, Teegan. Nancy, Mei didn’t do this, and like I said, the situation’s really complicated… more complicated than I can explain over the phone. It’d be easier in person.”

“Are—Are you asking me to come to Salem?” Nancy inquired dubiously. She expected their exchange to be more of a mentoring; for Deirdre to ask for her advice on how to pursue the matter and that would be the end of it, so for her to imply—no, outright admit she needed Nancy to come to Salem—it became clear just how ‘complicated’ this problem really was.

And how desperate Deirdre was to save her cousin.

"You’re really going to twist my arm, aren’t you?” Deirdre groaned. "Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking, Drew. I’m not going to beg.” There was an abrupt pause. "…I might say please, though, if that’ll convince you, but you can never breathe a word of that to anyone!”

As Nancy stopped on the footbridge to lean over the railing, the open window of the north-tower marked where the thief had jumped from the ledge to a sheer drop below; it was almost too high up to jump from without breaking your neck, and the exterior walls were built with smooth stone weather-worn from the years. How could the thief otherwise get up there, let alone get back down as quick as they did without injuring themselves? Perhaps a hook and rope? Climbing tools? Pure agility, athletics, and clever leverage? Perhaps through some other tools or means unknown to her? It seemed clean, professional, planned, and most importantly, puzzling.

“Do you know how far the Boston International airport is from Salem?” Nancy inquired while digging into her shoulder bag to produce the thief’s torn plane ticket, upon remembering it’s destination out. The detective wondered, was it merely coincidence that the Book of Apologies was stolen in the same week a fire vandalized a Salem landmark? Since Moosham Castle and the book itself both had a connection to the witch trials, it couldn’t be completely improbable that there was some deeper relation between the pieces, and her thief’s flight out to Boston only solidified her gut instinct.

“Boston Logan? Uh—it’s like an hour drive from Salem, I guess?” Deirdre said quizzically. “Does that mean you’re coming?”

“I’m definitely coming. In my book thief’s escape, they left behind a torn plane ticket. They were going to the Boston International Airport. The destruction of a Salem monument, the theft of an important artifact involving the witch trials, and the thief’s flight coming into Boston can’t be coincidence. I don’t know if my thief will be in Salem, but I’d bet they’re still linked to the town somehow.”

“That sounds pretty far-fetched, if you ask me.”

“I guess I’ll find out when I get to Salem. I’m going to see about taking an afternoon flight out of Austria tomorrow—think you can hang tight until I get there?”

“As if I have a choice,” Deirdre bit sardonically, before a softened sigh allowed her to continue in a kinder tone. “I’ll pick you up from the airport. Just text me your flight details, and try not to get in at, like, 2 in the morning or something. I’m not afraid to leave you at the mercy of a taxi driver.”

“I hear you. We’ll figure this out, Deirdre… I promise.” Nancy declared, and despite the silence from the other end, she knew Deirdre was still there—listening and careful.

“…Thanks,” She replied, before quickly hanging up as if it would hopefully diminish the tender gratitude in her reply.

[pantherlover]

Rosemary and Rue Re-Read: Part 1

I decided that I wanted to do kind of a deep-dive re-read of the October Daye books, to see if I could catch any clues I missed during my first read, and to see if I could come up with any theories about where the story is going to go.  PLEASE come and discuss things with me if you’re at all interested!  Or remind me of something I’ve forgotten!  I have a feeling I won’t make it as far as I’d like if I don’t have proper motivation lol.

Note: While I haven’t read a lot of the books in a while, particularly the first two, I have read all of them up to Night and Silence at some point and I will be referring to things that happen in later books as I go along.  These will not be spoiler free recaps.

Prologue/Chapter 1

Prologue

This phone call between Cliff and Toby in the opening scene is basically the only time that I like Cliff in the entire series - it’s genuinely sweet, and I really love Toby’s goodbye (although it does feel like she was tempting fate a little bit).  I think it does a good job of showing what Toby’s lost when she gets back and realizes that not only did he not wait for her, he’s basically turned her daughter against her too.

(That might be a little harsh, but I am seriously Not A Fan of Cliff.  I will totally own up to the fact that a lot of that dislike is Toby bias, but I judge his handling of the situation a little.  I know Toby disappearing and him being forced to raise Gilly by himself is a really difficult situation, and I don’t blame him at all for moving on (and not just because I like Tybalt better).  14 years is a long time to hold on to someone that’s probably never going to come back, and I think it’s completely reasonable that he decided that he didn’t want to raise Gilly by himself.

... That decision absolutely did not have to involve letting Gilly think that Toby abandoned them and didn’t love her.  Cliff can say that he made the choice to let Gilly think that for her sake all he wants, I flat out do not believe that Gilly thinking that her mother abandoned her, and letting some other woman replace her was better for Gilly.  I also don’t really think that he believed that Toby had abandoned them; he loved her, enough that they were raising a child together, and yet he didn’t know her well enough to know that she’d never run away from her responsibilities?  Bullshit.  I think it’s a lot more likely that thinking she’d left on her own was easier for him to let himself believe, because it’s a lot easier to move on from a woman who’d abandoned him to raise a child on his own than to move on from a woman who had possibly been killed while working a potentially dangerous job)

I really like the marsh water charms!  I was kind of sad that they fell by the wayside when Toby’s powers got stronger, but maybe they’ll be used more often since they were brought up again in Night and Silence.

I forgot how much Toby struggled with using magic in the beginning of the series.  It’s super infuriating to realize that that was a deliberate choice on Amandine’s part - not just trying to turn Toby human, but to not teach her how to use her own magic to protect herself.  It’s especially infuriating because we know that she taught August about her own heritage.

“I go out, I find out what’s going on, and I let the knights who earned their titles in battle take over.  I’m not stupid; I don’t engage.”  This line, and the line coming up where Toby says she “doesn’t have a death wish” get funnier the longer the series goes on.  I want to know exactly how much Seanan McGuire cackled when she wrote that line.

Toby demonstrates her STELLAR detective skills by narrating how Very Suspicious Simon’s current living arrangements are, and then... failing to consider that he might be setting up a trap.  How on earth did Toby ever become a private detective when she is the LEAST curious person ever. (I’m still waiting for her to go back to the Library to research bloodlines; that way, she might actually notice the next time a Firstborn randomly shows up in her orbit instead of being surprised by it)

It does seem very suspicious, rereading this book, how... human, Simon’s set up is?  Toby notes that he’s paying cash at his rental; that doesn’t really seem like something that someone from the Summerlands would’ve picked up on, as opposed to someone who’s used to operating in the mortal realm.  It definitely feels like Simon deliberately set this up so that Toby would notice, and no one else.

Now we meet Oleander de Merelands.  Given how much Evening hates mixing bloodlines, she employs a surprising amount of people with mixed blood.  (Also, Toby says that Oleander is half Tuatha, half Peri.  We’ve met Tuatha before, but I don’t think we’ve met any Peri yet.  Something to look forward to?)

And here’s where Toby gets turned into a fish, thus beginning her Trials and Tribulations.  I don’t remember a lot of the plot of The Winter Long, but I do remember that Simon insists that turning Toby into a fish was the merciful option.  I think it’s interesting that Simon’s ‘mercy’ results in the exact same situation that led him down this path in the first place - losing her fiance and child.  Especially because he deliberately puts Sylvester through this too, so his malicious actions and his merciful actions end with the same results.  (Simon, why are you so terrible at everything)

I also think it’s fascinating to compare how all three of them handle the situation - Sylvester completely falls apart until he gets his wife and daughter back (and even when they do come back, their relationship is fractured to the point where Rayseline tried to murder her own mother, and might never be repaired), which nearly costs him his other daughter.  Simon tries so hard to find his daughter - despite it being her own choice to be lost - which ends not only with both of them still out of his reach, but with Simon losing himself, first metaphorically and then literally.  Toby, on the other hand, accepts that her family is lost to her (or at least tries to accept that) and is able to move on and build a new family for herself.

So, I have a question: We know from The Brightest Fell that the reason that Luna and Rayseline were kidnapped was because Evening wanted Toby gone, so Simon used them to draw Toby out.  Was it ever explained what Toby did to make Evening want her gone at this point in time?  I don’t think it was Toby finding the knowe - I believe it’s been several years since the knowe was found, and while Evening’s clearly capable of long term plans, I think she’d be impatient to get rid of a threat she’d consider ‘beneath’ her.  Does anyone have any ideas, or remember from a later book?

Chapter 1

I think the woman with ‘oily black curls’ buying ice cream and diet coke is the first appearance of the Luidaeg.  If it is, then she’s the first in a long line of ‘seemingly inconsequential, unnamed characters who appear in the background and then turn out to be VITALLY IMPORTANT later in the story.’  I’m going to try to keep track of these moments; we’ll see how well I do.

Mitch!  I LOVE Mitch and Stacy; I really hope that they can have bigger roles in an upcoming book.  Maybe they can help Toby when she tries to rebuild Home?

I don’t normally reread the first two books, and this scene with Toby at her job is reminding me why.  She is crushingly lonely, and she feels like she deserves to be, because she feels like she failed everyone - failed Raysel and Luna by not finding them, failed Sylvester by not being there, failed Cliff and Gilly by abandoning them - while completely ignoring how they failed her too, by not looking for her.

I think this introduction scene with Tybalt is the one time in the entire series where I actually believe Toby when she says he doesn’t like her.  This is definitely the most outright assholish he ever is with her, and there’s no real underlying affection to combat his dickishness.  I really wanted to punch him in the face during this scene the first time I read the book.

I really like the description of how Toby literally grabs shadows to use in her illusions.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard magic described like that in any other series; it’s very creative.

That’s the first two chapters!  WOW I had no idea this was going to get this long.  Again, please please PLEASE come talk to me about these books!  I have been dying to find people to discuss these books with for ages.

[littlemisssquiggles]

So I recently sent a response to Shannon McCormick, Oz's voice actor: "I know you said the group is gonna trust Oz again and reconcile, but I'm not feeling very hopeful. They're still so bitter towards him and not trying to understand him... and are doing the same things they demonized him for, yet it's being treated like it's okay. I know you can't give spoilers and I don't expect you to, but it's something that's got me really down." He responded with: "Keep the faith."

Hey Miki-chan. Ah yes, good ole Shannon coming in clutch with that boast of optimism. I’m actually curious as to whether or not, we will even get to see Oz return for V7. The opening certainly didn’t give any indication of it; sadly to say. If I’m expecting Oz to return at all, it’s probably by the end of the season.

While I do want Oz to return and reconcile with the group, I’m skeptical about having it go back to the way things were before with Ozpin constantly taking control of Oscar’s body and more or less eclipsing his development. I miss Oz but I don’t miss that. This is why I liked how they showed him as a more of guiding voice for Oscar at the end of V6 with the airship crash.In my opinion, that’s what I initially assumed their dynamic was going to belike until the show revealed the soul swapping technique in V5.

I want Oscar to shine on his own, if possible, for V7. If Oz were to return to the story, I hope his role is relegated to being more of a literal voice of reasonand guidance taking up full residence inside of Oscar’s head; not really takingover as much as he used to but lending instructions to Oscar on how to moveespecially in combat while allowing the young boy to think on his feet and makeuse of that good ole muscle memory he is expected to inherit. If Oscar isbecome Ozpin’s successor and successful one to boot, Oz can’t keep holding his hand. He’s got to let Oscar grow into the role and I think he’s being goinggood so far. But he still does need Oz to be there to help. Hence why I’mhoping that, if Oz is to return, I really wish for Oscar to be the one to go inafter him to bring him back.

Since Oscar was the only seen to show Oz a bit of sympathy last season, I wish for this to continue as it can definitely push the growth of the bond between the Two Souls. If there is one person I’m expecting to vouch on Oz’s behalf at this point, it’s Oscar. Ruby was another character I was hoping would certainly join him in that court. However…things are a little complicated right now with our little red rose and the path she seems to be taking this season.  I’ll discuss this more under thread.

While we’re on the topic of Oz’ reconciliation with the hero group, I’m really sorry to hear that this development has had you disappointed and feeling down, Miki-chan. I get where your frustration is coming from but at the same time, I also agree with Shannon on keeping the faith.

Similar to how Oz’s skeletons coming out of the closet was a narrative slow-burn that’s been churning since as early as V5, I feel as if it’s going to be the same forhis path to redemption with the team and regaining their trust. The only thingI dislike about this plot point is how we still have everyone more or less sharingthe same opinion of Oz with little indication on whether or not anyone isreally starting to consider that the other side of the coin where Oz wasjustified in his actions.

When this plot point first dropped back in V6, what was fascinating about it was how divided it made the fandom. It opened the grounds for discussion and debating with everyone sharing their different outlooks on the scenario and that was quite neat.

I just wished that the Writers had mimicked that in the series; y’know? When I first saw the V6 volume poster, art with Oz and Oscar at the centre while Team RWBY were all divided around the two of them; I figured that that was what the season was going to be like more or less.

With the team being divided on their overall trust Oz and growing trust in Oscar with some folks, such as Ruby and possibly Blake standing in the court that defended both souls whereas Weiss and Yang weren’t as convinced.

It would’ve been great to see everyone sharing different outlooks and reactions to the news about Oz’s past with Salem and her immortality; Team RWBY’s as well as JNR’s.  

It would’ve been great to see that because it could have even leant itself to paving the road towards Ozpin’s eventual reconciliation in this new season or whenever the showrunners decided to have it happen down the line.

However, instead, thus far it’s mostly been everyone sharing the same opinion—Oz was wrong and is not to be trusted anymore.This is now made even worse by the notion that the heroes are currently committing the same action of ‘deceiving and/or withholding vital info from your allies’ as Oz once did with them.

However what’s almost comical is how the narrative—the PLOT—is trying to get us as the audience to think that the heroes are in the right when really…they’re not?

At least to me, they’re not. I’ve seen examples of other FNDM fam members taking a supportive stance for the actions of Ruby and the other heroes’ deceit with Ironwood and their Atlesian allies. This squiggle meister, on the other hand, has not been that easily convinced. Sorry.  

I think what bugs me the most regarding the execution of this subplot is how much the heroes are able to get away with when it comes to their actions. I understand that the Writers are more or less attempting to show a parallel between our gaggle of heroes and Ozpin by having them take greater risks for the sake of fulfilling their mission while additionally making questionable choices. 

That idea is fine and I like that they’re doing this with them especially since I think it could still lend to them eventually making up with Oz by understanding why he did the things he did since now they’ve been in his shoes. That part of it is good. Great even.

However, somehow, I dunno—for me, our heroes’ recent actions don’t have the same kind of impact on me as Ozpin’s did. I guess where I’m really getting at here is that when I learnt the truth about Oz last season, my main reason for staying in his court was because I understood his reasons for doing the things he did.

While I’ll call Oz out for his wrong in lying and keeping his secrets from people he believed were his most trusted allies, I was still sympathetic towards Oz because I genuinely felt that his actions were justified especially following the events of the Lost Fable.

The PLOT wants me to believe that Oz is this morally grey type of man and he is, to some degree. However the PLOT also wishes for me as the audience to believe that Oz has been nothing but this deceitful person throughout history and that the heroes are perfectly in the right for choosing to never trust in him again. But here’s the thing with that—I see Oz as being more…smart than fraudulent.

Yes Oz told lies and half-truths and kept important secrets that could shake the world of Remnant—but what some people seem to be forgetting is that there was good, valid reason behind the way Oz chose to do things. Oz was careful. Meticulous with the kind of people he chose to disclose the truth to as well as the information he chose to tell them and the right time to revealsaid information as well.

I’d like to think that this is how Oz was able to successfully keep things under wraps for so many lives as a means of more or less keeping the peace. Because of how careful he’d chose to move along with the kind of people he decided to place his trust in. Oz was cautious and as he explained in V6, his vigilance was backed up mostly by his experience over the centuries especially his first one with Salem

This is the issue I’m having with our heroes. Although they are committing the same actions as Oz, especially the part of choosing to hide the truth from Ironwood—their actions feel reckless and unwarranted in my opinion and I can’t get behind it as well as I did with Ozpin because I personally don’t feel the heroes are as justified in their actions as Oz was.

Even though the PLOT is trying to paint this picture that James shouldn’t be completely trusted and our heroes are in the right in not trusting him fully with the truth about Salem, for me, I honestly felt like our heroes jumped the gun on that one, just like how they jumped the gun back in Argus in choosing to illegally commandeer an airship to Atlas as opposed to trying any other means that could’ve rendered them the same results with less repercussions involving trouble with the military and the safety of the citizens of Argus.

According to the PLOT, Ruby was correct in making the call to not reveal the whole truth to Ironwood given how he and his forces have been treating the poor people of Mantle; not to mention our heroes upon their arrival in Atlas. This isevidenced by Ruby in V7CH3 in her response to Yang’s questioning.  

“Can we talk about that again?”“What about it?”

“We’re really not going to tellIronwood about what happened to Oz? What we learned about Jinn? About Salem?”

“…We are! We…will. But you saw howthings looked when we flew into Atlas.”

“The General’s heart seems to be inthe right place but…that doesn’t mean we should trust him yet.”

“Why don’t we play along for a whilebefore we make any major decisions?”  

I’d like to highlight Ruby’s indifference to her own actions again. Just something I pegged noteworthy since it reminded me of her attitude towards revealing her true feelings regarding the Aftermath of the Fall of Beacon—how she nonchalantly seemed to shrug away Oscar’s attempt at telling her that it’s alright for her to be open with him about how she’s truly feeling… right before Oscar switches his approach and firmly calls her out on his indifference which in turn finally forced her to come clean and be straight with him.

While I understand that the whole Mantle situation is a complicated matter, to me, that still doesn’t rule out it being a good reason for the heroes to lie to Ironwood.

I’d understand it more if it was a matter of Ruby being strategic in the information that she discloses to Ironwood but that’s not what the case is here. It’s not to saythat Ruby told James some of the truth and was very careful with what she chose to disclose and how she worded said information. It’s that she flat out liedand then repeated the same lie that Oz had fed them about the Relic ofKnowledge back in Mistral.

I know Ruby is trying to say she can’t trust Ironwood 100% because of how things are looking in Mantle and Atlas because of his actions. But on the other hand, I’m surprised it didn’t inspire her to be more upfront rather than the opposite take.

Based on what Pietro said in the first episode, Ironwood has been paranoid and on higher maintenance since the Fall of Beacon. That being said, why chose to withhold information from a man who is already fearful of being betrayed again by those closest to him since it was mentioned earlier in the season that it was one of his Atlas’ own—someone who worked closely with Atlas’ security and the military (Watts)  that contributed to the destruction of Beacon Academy and so much more in chaos in Vale?

“The Fall of Beacon took a toll on all of us. James was no different. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is he saw there, but it changed him. He’s—”

“…He’s scared.”

“Paranoid would be the more appropriate term. You have to understand, it wasn’t just the Grimm. Someone completely dismantled Atlas’ security code. Made it their plaything and made us look like traitors to some and buffoons to everyone else. Whoever managed to do that is either a genius or one of our own. I fear the answer may be both and so does the General.”

Again, with that thought in mind I ask again, why did Ruby think it was a wise choice to lie to Ironwood given what she learned specifically from Pietro regarding his frame of mind right now?

See why the hero’s actions are having the opposite effect for me?

While I get why it’s a possible motive, I still think what the heroes are doing with James is unwarranted. As a matter of fact, I feel like they’ve only made thingsworse for themselves by withholding info from Ironwood given his current frameof mind.

I’d like to think that Ironwood’s experience in Vale has made him more than just paranoid. He’s become more…I wouldn’t say soft but emotionally vulnerable than he was when we first met him.

This is why I don’t wish for Ruby’s mistrust of Ironwood to come back to appear as if she took advantage of Ironwood in his vulnerable state. Because I feel like that could easily feed into Ironwood’s paranoia—to learn that he couldn’t eventrust the people he placed fate in and showed kindness to. To show that heextended them his hand in reliance only for them to not do the same of him.

I know one of the common FNDM theories is that Ironwood isn’t being completely honest with our heroes, however I’m starting to think otherwise. Up until this point in the plot, Ironwood has been upfront with JNR_RWBY and Qrow about everything. Every question they’ve asked of him, he’s told them in full confidence. So far, I haven’t gotten the impression that James has been lying to the heroes at all.

Since he returned the Relic of Knowledge to Ruby and reassured her of his trust,I genuinely feel like he’s been nothing but upfront with the group abouteverything including all that’s been going down with him and his kingdom—bothsides of it.

If Ironwood was shown to be shady as well then I could’ve easily bought into theheroes doing the same thing with him because then their actions would’ve beenreasonable. If Ironwood was the same man he was shown to be back in V2 and was shown to be withholding important information from our heroes especially when they asked him vital questions in need of clarification, similar to how Oz had done with them, then I could’ve gotten behind our heroes taking that mindful approach.

However, this isn’t what I’ve seen from the show’s execution. Instead I’m seeingIronwood behaving pretty trustworthy while the heroes are the ones beingdeceitful and it all feels so very wrong on the heroes’ part. Especially when you have some of them behaving that they were right in keeping secrets from James. What especially bothered me a little was what Qrow told Ruby in the recent CH4.

“I’m trying to do what I think is best but…I really can’t tell if what’sbest is what’s right or if I’m no different from Oz”

Then is an excellent question for Ruby to ask of herself. It’s great because it highlights that she’s taken into consideration what her teammates have toldher—particularly Oscar. It shows that Oscar’s questioning of her actions mimicking Ozpin’s has weighed on her mind-set. So I’m pleased with this frame of thinking from Ruby. However, this moment is short-lived for me by what Qrow says next in response to Ruby’s statement.

“…Ruby, Oz only trusted himself with the whole truth. You’re trusting others, making sure they prove themselves first. I think that’s a pretty big difference.”

…Okay….One thing admittedly right about that statement, yes. Yes; Oz did only trust himself with the whole truth. That is indeed correct. But, there’s also some clear wrong in that statement as well.

Qrow…I get that you’re probably still very, very upset that Oz deceived you and hurt you on a personal level. However, what I am in completely disbelief of is—how could Qrow say that Ruby is no different than Oz because she trusts in others, making sure that they prove themselves worthy of her trust before giving the whole truth?

I’m sorry…WHAT! But…but…Qrow; how can YOU of all people say that with a straight face? How can you remotely imply that at all? Especially the line about Oz only trusting himself and putting his faith in those he believes trustworthy. I’m sorry but that line comes off like utter rubbish to my ears.

Qrow Branwen—you are a living, breathing exemplar of earning Ozpin’s trust. Oz trusted you! He trusted James. He trusted Glynda. He trusted LeonardoLionheart. The entire Inner Circle of Oz only exists because Oz decided to place his trust in a handful of people he deemed worthy of knowing the truth.

While he kept the main truth about Salem’s immortality to himself; that doesn’t erase the fact that he trusted his Inner Circle with everything else. The Maidens. The Relics. Even his own immortality curse and reincarnation cycle. Oz told it all to this particular small group of people because he believed he could trust in them. Oz believed in the integrity of ALL members of his Inner Circle because he trusted each and everyone of them….EVEN when they stab him in the back. Right V2 Ironwood? Right Lionheart?

He even believed in Team STRQ! I’m actually curious to know how muchdid this team know about the truth. We know he trusted Raven and Qrow byturning them into birds with his magic. So I’m curious to know if Summer andTai were also fully aware of ¾ of the truth that Oz trusted his main peoplewith. I’m assuming they did and they kept it as part of their secrets as well.

Speaking of—Qrow, are you forgetting that you also helped Oz keep and uphold some of those secrets?  He entrusted you with ¾ of the whole truth and you’ve been sitting on it as well as your own secrets that you were keeping from your family; particularly your young nieces.

In a nutshell, Qrow’s statement to Ruby further highlight’s the hero’s hypocrisywith Oz. For me, this line didn’t serve to debunk the fact that Ruby is turningto Oz. It only embellished it for me. It affirmed it.

Ruby is indeed turning into Oz and what’s sad is that Qrow, her own beloved uncle and mentor figure, is oblivious to this fact because he’s currently too blinded by both his sustained resentment towards Oz and his love for his niece.  

And it’s pretty much the same for everyone else. Weiss and Blake are pretty complacent with following Ruby’s lead and backing her up on her actions with Ironwood. Yang shows uncertainty but is otherwise complacent too. We still don’t know how Jaune, Nora and Ren feel in regards to this. I’d actually like to hear them weigh in their thoughts on Oz and Ruby’s actions towards James. But I’mconcerned we might not get that since, as evidenced by the PLOT, I think it’spretty clear who are the key drivers of this subplot for V7.

I feel like it’s going to be mostly our veteran Rosebuds—Ruby and Oscar—presenting the two differing sides of this subplot with deceiving Ironwood and I feel like Oz’s reconciliation is prevalent on the results of it.

My theory is that Oscar will be the key to jumpstarting the path to Oz’s reconciliation with the team.

Moreover, I feel like Oscar is going to need Ruby’s support in vouchingfor Oz with the rest of the team; especially with Qrow and possibly Yang and Jaune.

Since the running thing is that most of the hero team follow Ruby’s leadership, I think it can be safe to say that so long as Ruby still shows uncertainty with Oz, it’s going to be mirrored by the others. I think if Oscar gets Oz to come back fromhis isolation in his mind and then gains Ruby’s full trust by helping see thewrong in what she’s doing now by doing the exact thing Oz did while alsohelping her to understand where Oz was coming from.

The only person I think this isn’t go to win over is Qrow. At least, I think Qrow might end up needing more time to work out whatever is going on with him before he can “forgive Oz” since his anger towards him is all wrapped up in his issues with himself and his semblance which encompasses his entire life thus far basically. 

Before, Qrow looked to Oz for validation in the good that he was doing which was why the revelation hit him harder than anyone else. So until Qrow works out his inner skeletons, I think he’ll still be resistant to facing Oz again. Thisseason teased Qrow sharing good “comradery” with Clover. I’m curious to seewhere that will go and whether or not it will lead into Qrow dishing out somedetails on what his past was like with Oz back when he met him as a student ofBeacon.

As a matter of fact, I’m intrigued by any info regarding what Oz’s relationship was like with all the members of his Inner Circle since I believe it can lend to Oscar’s turn with the Merge. 

Like I have a Tin Solider headcanon that Ironwood has actually known Oz from since back when he used to be old self—meaning the man I’ll dub Zoroaster Ozpin, nicknamed ‘Zo’ for short BEFORE he became the man we know as Professor Ozpin.

We know who Oz is but…who was Oz before he became Oz? Who was Zo and did Ironwood know him personally?

Ironwood’s remark to Oscar about Oz’s disappearance not being normal definitely gave me that impression. I think it could be pretty cool if one of Oz’s closest known allies actually knew him before and after the Merge. It could help shed some much needed perspective for Oscar on what the Merge entails for him especially if he heard it from the mouth of someone who knew Oz closely for basically two lifetimes? I’d really love to see something like that done for the canon.  

But that’s only my hunch.

I’d honestly wish to discuss more on this subject since there is surprisingly more I can say about this. However this is getting a little too long for a simple response post. Just another day, am I right? XD So I’m going to end it right here.

I know you didn’t really ask me a question Miki-chan but I still wanted to provide my take on the subject matter you presented and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Feel free to answer or inbox me another message if you’d like as always ^u^)b Peace!

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[rhodanum]

One of the greatest challenges in writing anything multi-chapter for TDP is that it would involve me having to reconstruct the political systems of Katolis & the Pentarchy from scratch, so that everyone aside for Viren (and even he has his moment of impressive bungling) doesn't end up being an imbecile in terms of statecraft.

A quick recapitulation, starting with the dysfunctional mess that is the High Council of Katolis. And particularly That One Idiot who said, I quote: "Xadia sent assassins and they took the King's life. There hasn't been the slightest skirmish since then. Maybe that was it. They've had their revenge and everything will just... settle down now."

It's a good thing I didn't try to livetweet S2, because that would've caused a whole storm of "who the hell put this numbskull on the council? He isn't fit to look after a chicken-coop, much less a nation!" Seriously, that's the sort of opinion that a baker or a farmer or a cobbler or any other regular citizen is expected to give, the standard 'keep your head down and hope it all blows over by itself.' Not someone who is part of what is supposed to be a national ruling body.

The murder of a sovereign (no matter how morally justified on the side of the people doing the murdering) is, by definition, an act of war. You really don't want to be the first to strike? Fine, then. But at least mobilize the militias / the standing army and take precautions. But we don't see even the most basic self-defense measures being instituted.

Which links to the second glaring issue: not only is the council as a political body both unable and unwilling to act, it is paralyzed by Katolis seeming having no proper redundancy systems in case of murderized sovereign with an heir who is well under the age of adulthood. Standard procedure is instituting a regency (Viren wasn't wrong at all here, even if his goal involved Ezran never touching the throne) so the bloody kingdom doesn't end up in gridlock. It doesn't matter if the regency lasts a week, a month, a year or more. The goal of any ruling body is ensuring the continued political and economic functioning of the kingdom and the well-being of the people. Which cannot be done if decision-making is tied to the King's seal and said seal cannot be used by anyone other than the King's heir, who is missing and who has an entirely uncertain Estimated Time of Return. But instead of acting and picking up the regency for how long it takes for Ezran to be back, the high-rollers of Katolis sit & wait.

This is what drives me bonkers about Opeli, incidentally. She spends her time being an obstructionist force with no actual constructive and politically functional ideas behind said obstructionism. She doesn't pick up the regency or do anything to resolve the gridlock. Amaya, at the least, has the excuse that she's an essential component of the Breach's defense, through her command of the Standing Battalion. But even she takes a dunk in the 'Lawful Stupid / Stupid Good' fountain, when she justifies her refusal to accept the regency not through the importance of her military command right at the border with Xadia, but through 'Ezran is the rightful ruler.' Ma'am, 'rightful ruler' isn't going to matter a jot if you end up with anything from economic instability all the way to possibly getting invaded.

And then there's Harrow, whose inability to deal with his own burdened conscience and crushing sense of guilt when it came to the people he lost resulted in him effectively deciding to dump his people's well-being on the shoulders of a ten year old. It's not fair to Ezran and Callum (who effectively lost a third parent in a row) but, far more importantly, it's not fair to everyone else who has to pick up the pieces, because a ten year old cannot be expected to rule much of anything. (I'm looking forward to S3, but definitely not to the 'and he was a far wiser ruler, for he had the Innocence of Childhood' nonsense that will probably be going on with Ezran's plot-line. The only way his rule would make sense to me is if the council make him a figurehead and handle actual rule themselves. But I don't have much hope for that, because said council, as pointed out above, doesn't have a good track-record when it comes to actually decent statecraft).

The rest of the Pentarchy suffer from the same flaws as the rulership of Katolis. The same 'head in the sand / hope the storm passes if we ignore it' malarkey. The same waiting for others to act before committing to anything. Queen Aanya of Duren says noble, nice-sounding things in refusing to commit to preparations for war. I'd find them less of an irritating manner of writing if the show ever presents neutrality in a state of war as being absolutely no guarantee of safety. (I was talking with @ma_ya_mo_ri about this. I find neutrality a cheap cop-out in terms of writing military conflict because the both of us, as Eastern Europeans, know from our history that it did jack-shit when it came to keeping our countries from getting the shit conquered out of them). While we're at it, Aanya's platitudes, coupled with her essentially waving the Divine Right of Kings in Viren's face is, as far as I'm concerned, another notch in the 'this is why you don't let children anywhere near political power' post. (That scene is extremely telling and it says a lot about issues of class within the Pentarchy -- it means that you can study as much as you like, become as much of an accomplished specialist in your field as you like, sacrifice until your very body is crumbling and falling apart... but you'll still be shot down by a random kid with a crown on their head, whose only real achievement was winning the lottery of birth).  

Mind you, all of the above doesn't mean I think Viren didn't make mistakes either. His most egregious was the plan concerning the Princes, because he should have known that Soren and Claudia wouldn't have ultimately been able to go through with it. Two (relatively untested) teenagers, who have been life-long friends with the targets? It was always doomed to fail. I can sort of see why he did it, if I squint -- he needed two people that he could place his utmost trust in, on very short notice. It was still a stupid choice, likely one motivated by desperation and lack of any other immediate option.

What should he have done instead? Well, for one, Viren should have given very serious consideration to bringing Ezran back alive and using his position as his father's best friend / unofficial uncle to teach the kid and mold him into the sort of King he thought was necessary for Katolis and the rest of the Pentarchy. It's apparent why he didn't do it and went with the nuclear-option instead. If war is on the horizon, you don't have enough time to forge the young King you need, while also being in a state of constant war with the rest of the council for influence over said King.

If the kill-option was the only viable alternative in his mind, he should have ensured it was entrusted to someone who could go through with it. A stone-cold, trained killer-for-hire, instead of his kids. Regicide isn’t a course of action where you can afford either half-measures or mistakes. Even better, while we're at 'should have done's': have a small team of wetwork specialists trained in secret, taught to be utterly loyal and employ them for highly sensitive operations, where any sort of mistake or bungle can spell disaster. But he didn't have such a team trained (just as, for example, he didn't cultivate loyalty toward himself within the Crownguard, thus ensuring the rest of the Council couldn't use this fighting-force against him) because he never actually planned to take head-of-state powers within his own hands, before the disaster with Harrow.

The actions we see from S1EP4 onward aren't those of a man who always planned to overthrow his best friend and stage a coup, but rather someone who acted rashly, saved Harrow's soul against his will... and then was stuck in an impossible situation, with a kingdom without a ruler and paralyzed into complete inaction, along with the loss of humanity's greatest asset against Xadia (the Dragon Prince egg). No wonder he looks as if he's flying by the seat of his pants, juggling seventeen things all at once and actually failing at the basics of a proper coup (such as ensuring the support of the armed forces).

Viren's fault, that trips him up again and again, is (hilariously and ironically enough) the fact he isn't actually ruthless enough for the position he's currently in! He's an idealist at heart and genuinely believes that people can be persuaded to make the rational choices, with the right arguments. This is what leads to his fall-from-political-grace and arrest at the end of S2. He takes an enormous risk in using the King's seal and lying about his status as Regent in front of the other rulers of the Pentarchy, effectively putting all his eggs in the one basked titled 'surely they'll see sense and act', if the danger is presented to them in a clear and concise manner.' But that's not what happens and his enormous gamble backfires, in that his lie becomes known to the rest of the council and results in Opeli's efforts to have him arrested. His idealism in thinking reason could sway the rest of the Pentarchy bites him right in the arse.

[aivaehdaevis]

The More Things Change: Ch 5

The More Things Change

by Aivaeh

Disclaimer: Familiar characters, plot elements, and settings belong to L.J. Smith, Julie Plec, and the CW. The author of this work of fanfiction has made no money from it. Summary: I have no idea how it happened, but one morning I woke up in the world of The Vampire Diaries. Which, aside from the insanity of waking up inside a television show made real, might not be so bad—if I weren't stuck in the body of vampire magnet and doppelgänger herself, Elena Gilbert. Pairing(s): OFC x Damon, OFC x Stefan, OFC x Elijah, OFC x Klaus Rating: M Warning(s): Graphic descriptions of violence on par with the show itself. References to sex and drug use. Mind control and all the issues of consent that go along with it. Character death. Author's Note: I know there are a ton of these fics out there. Still I recently got into the show, and I can't get enough of these types of stories. The urge to write my own wouldn't leave me alone so here it is. Hopefully someone enjoys reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. Master List External Links: AO3 | FF.Net | Wattpad

Chapter Five

I woke up in Elena's bed, drenched in sweat. The slanted ceiling occupied my blank stare for several minutes while I laid on my back. I was well and truly stuck. How?

There was no figuring it out. If the show were real, maybe this was some sort of parallel reality. Yes, because parallel realities—as opposed to just losing my mind—made perfect sense.

I covered my—or Elena's—face with my—or Elena's—hands and concentrated on breathing and not, you know, screaming. It took a while. The alarm clock went off.

Dragging myself out of the bed, I went on autopilot. Bathroom. Shower. Brush teeth. Get dressed. Makeup.

By the time I was finished putting Elena's hair up into a ponytail, I had a good hour before I'd have to leave for—ugh—high school. That gave me some time to snoop before anyone might expect me for breakfast. Not that Jeremy would care, but Jenna would probably notice if I skipped another meal.

I went to Elena's desk and pulled her laptop over. While her diary would probably tell me more about her, it felt wrong to dive into a teenage girl's private thoughts. Her search history was fair game, though.

What I found was that Elena spent a lot of time reading fashion blogs, following models and designers on their facebooks—when she wasn't looking over the hundred other pages of people she apparently knew—and browsing the online sites of high-end fashion stores. She also had a large collection of links to blogs by and for writers. A quick perusal of her drive revealed a folder full of original stories and poems. I didn't have time to read more than a few of the latter. While poetry really wasn't my thing, what I saw was pretty good.

She also had a bunch of pirated music and shows. Tsk tsk.

Shutting down the laptop, I sat back and thought. Far as fashion went, my knowledge was limited to reality game shows—and that was about it. I was going to have to be careful not to bring it up around Caroline or Bonnie, because I'd probably sound like an idiot. At least I had an idea of her taste in music and movies. We shared a love of Pop, which was good, though Elena had a more extensive collection of Indie rock. We liked a lot of the same movies and shows, too. Except she had a noticeable lack of horror in her collection which—was hilarious or sad, depending on how you looked at it, I supposed.

I had enough time for breakfast before I had to leave.

Jeremy's room was quiet as I walked by. I glanced at the door, at the sign warning others to stay out, and wondered if I should knock and see if he was awake. Elena probably would've.

But I wasn't Elena. I didn't know Jeremy beyond what I'd seen on television, and the kid was not coping with the death of his parents all that well. If such a thing could be said of any kid who'd lost their parents. He also probably knew his sister pretty damn well. I didn't want to risk saying or doing something wrong around him. Jeremy was clever. He'd put together the existence of vampires for himself. No need to go stirring up his curiosity if I didn't have to.

I decided to leave it to Jenna, his actual guardian.

Unfortunately, all there was of Jenna was a note on the fridge saying she'd had to leave early to work on research. I helped myself to some cereal and started a pot of coffee for Jeremy. Provided he ever woke up.

As the time crept closer to eight, and he still hadn't made an appearance, I muttered a quiet, "Dammit." After rinsing the bowel out in the sink, I made my way back upstairs and to Jeremy's door.

I knocked. "Jeremy?"

Nothing.

Blowing out a breath, I knocked harder. "Hey, Jeremy? It's getting kind of late."

"Go away."

Alrighty then.

I wandered back to Elena's room for her bag before going downstairs. I was about to head for the garage when I heard a car rumble up the driveway. Had Bonnie thought she still needed to pick me up?

Switching tracks, I went out the front door and into a neon-bright Virginia morning. This time, I locked the deadbolt behind me. Who knew what Jeremy was going to do? Shaking my head, I started down the porch.

Only to stop at the last step.

Damon. Seated behind the wheel of a top-down convertible. Lips already twisted into that ever-present smirk. He lowered his head until his eyes peeked over the rim of his sunglasses. "Morning Elena."

Leather creaked in my grip. Over my shoulder, the front door tempted me.

"C'mon. I'll give you a ride to school."

"I can drive myself." I'd never make it before he was in front of me. And he could get in.

His grin suggested that was the most amusing thing he'd ever heard. "Let me get this straight," he began before pulling off his sunglasses, "I am offering to take you to your little podunk high school in a classic american sports car, and you'd rather go in a—" he squinted, "Ford SUV."

Since there was no way to get away and I didn't want to keep shouting across the lawn, I walked from the sidewalk to the driveway. I stopped a good few feet from the car. "That's right."

Damon rolled his head back until it was resting against the leather headrest. "Hm." Icy eyes flickered down. "And where did that come from, I wonder?" he asked, staring at Elena's bag.

"Your brother," I bit off. "And he said he found it in the woods."

"Found it?" A side of his mouth crooked into a grin. "Good ol' Saint Stefan." He slung an arm across the passenger seat. "C'mon, Elena. Let me take you to school."

"No, Damon." I sucked down a breath and made for the garage.

And there Damon was, right in my personal space. "Wow. You didn't even take a moment to think about it." He leaned even closer, eyes big and intense. "That really hurts my feelings, Elena."

I gasped. Dry grass crunched as I stepped back. "Don't do that!"

"If you did what I asked, I wouldn't have to," Damon said, as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

"You don't ask, Damon. You demand."

"Fine," he said in the surliest tone imaginable. "Elena," his lips stretched into a shape that technically met all the requirements for a smile, but was too grudging to truly qualify, "will you please," he pressed his hands together, "let me drive you to school?"

I squeezed the bag's strap. "No."

Damon's breath blasted through his nose. "You have to make everything so much more difficult than it needs to be, don't you?"

"I didn't ask you to come over."

"That's what makes it a surprise." His brows shot up. "Surprise!"

Lips mashed into a thin line, I glared.

"Fine. We'll do it the easier way." Ducking his head, Damon stare bored straight into mine, until I could make out the fine flecks of silver growing around his iris like frost crystals. His pupils contracted to points. "You want to ride with me to school."

Was he trying to compel me? "No, I don't."

He went still as night, pinning me beneath narrowed eyes. "You don't," he murmured.

The gentleness of his voice made the fine hair on my arms and neck stand on end. "No."

Damon's hand flew to his mouth, fingers rubbing across his lips as he stared. "Hm." His eyes were fever bright, like two chips of ice reflecting the winter sun. "Alright." His hand fell away. "We'll do it the hard way."

"What do you mean—"

"The blonde. Caroline, isn't it?" He smiled, and this time, it was closer to genuine. "She's cute."

My guts twisted.

"Mm. Yeah." Closing his eyes, Damon stretched his neck to the side. "I bet she'd like to take a ride with me." Eyes meeting mine again, he folded his arms and pursed his lips for a moment before wondering, "Or your other little friend. Bonnie." Damon's black shirt stretched as he shrugged his shoulders. "Personally, I could go either way."

Static filled my ears. Heart speeding up, my chest turned to ice that spread outwards all the way to the tips of my fingers. I didn't know what Damon had planned for Elena—for me—but I was pretty sure he'd do worse to Caroline or Bonnie. I knew what I needed to do, but it was hard. My knees trembled. I had to move, but every instinct in me screamed to stay. I was pulled in two directions, unable to move in either. I stood still and hated myself.

"Just tell me what you want from me, Damon," I asked—pleaded—quietly.

"I already have. This is not a difficult concept, Elena." His smile was all teeth. "I want you to get into the car so that I can take you to your boring little high school. And when you're finished, I want you to get back into my car, so I can take you home."

"Why?"

Damon shrugged again. "Because I want to."

It couldn't be that simple. Damon had to have some ulterior motive. I just couldn't figure out what it was. Unless toying with me was that fun to him. "You swear that's all."

"Mhm." He lifted his hand, two fingers up and the rest curled down. "Scouts honor." His grin returned with a vengeance. "You can do that if you eat one, right? It still counts?" At my horrified expression, he rolled his eyes. "Oh, ease up, Elena. Just a little vampire humor."

"Eating people. Hilarious."

"You'd be surprised. I'll tell you some stories sometime."

"Please don't."

"Spoilsport." He plucked his sunglasses from his collar and slid them on. "So, c'mon now. Wouldn't want to be late." His brows drifted up. "Unless you actually don't like your friends and won't mind if I eat one of them." His grin took on a sardonic twist. "And I'm not joking this time, bee tee dubs."

I sucked down a deep breath and managed to slide a foot towards the car. The second step was easier. The one after that even moreso, as if the momentum was building once I got going. So it went, until I had made it all the way to the passenger side of the convertible.

Damon appeared in front of me again, making me jump. He ignored my startled breath, opening the door for me. Peering over the rims of his sunglasses, he wiggled his brows. "Miss Gilbert."

If my heart kept jumping whenever he got near, I was going to have a heart attack before the day was out. I slid inside and let him shut the door. He appeared at the other side of the car. Sitting inside and pulling his door closed, Damon looked over and said, "Seat belt."

I pulled the strap out and buckled in, trying not to feel as if I were wrapping a chain around myself.

Damon grinned and started the engine. "Now this, Elena," he started before the engine suddenly roared, startling me into gripping the edge of the door, "is a nineteen sixty-nine Chevrolet Camaro." He shifted the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway. "Try not to look so terrified." He threw the car into drive and took off down the street. Even though we were just cruising down neighborhood streets and not going very fast, the wind still picked up. I was glad I'd tied Elena's long hair back into a ponytail.

"Can't imagine why I'd be scared. Who wouldn't love a joy ride with a psychotic vampire."

"This isn't a joy ride. You'll know when I take you on one of those."

I noticed he didn't dispute the psychotic part. And I didn't like his use of when instead of if. I hoped he was talking about the trip to Georgia he drags Elena on later.

He didn't have a modern stereo in his dashboard. Instead, it looked like the original radio that came with the car. It was tuned to the classic rock station. I was somehow unsurprised that Damon liked eighties hair bands. I tried to picture him with a mullet and nearly broke into peels of nervous laughter.

"Cute turtleneck." The high collar of my shirt pulled slightly out, right where I'd put a pair of band aids over the puncture wounds.

My heart rabbited. I jerked aside, slapping his fingers away before I could think better of it. "Don't touch me."

He smirked as he took his hand back, holding it up.

My heartrate stayed elevated. I leaned slightly towards the door instead of settling back into the leather seat. As the neighborhood houses morphed into brick storefronts, I wondered what the point of this was. Damon wasn't talking. He seemed content to just soak up the sun as he navigated the streets.

I wasn't about to break the silence. Who knew what he'd start talking about. One of his 'funny' stories?

I let out a relieved sigh as soon as the school appeared. Not that I thought Damon was taking me somewhere to murder me, really. He wouldn't have needed to leave the house for that. But it was still reassuring to know the ride was almost over.

The camaro purred like a sated tiger as it glided into the parking lot and rolled up the lane. Damon, arm slung over my seat and sunglasses on his face, soaked up the stares of the students like an attention starved sponge. I hugged my bag tighter. "See," he said as he pulled near the curb, "that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Yeah. It's been great." I had my hand on the door handle as soon as the camaro rolled to a stop. "Bye."

His hand landed on my shoulder, a firm warning grip keeping me in place. Suddenly he was leaning into me, his face right next to mine. I stared, wide eyed, as his breath stroked my lips. He stayed like that for a moment and then, ever so slightly, tilted his head to the side and stared over the rim of his sunglasses at something behind me.

"Have a lovely day, Elena," he murmured into my ear. Straightening back into his seat, he winked.

As soon as his hand let go of my shoulder, I was shoving the door open and jumping out.

"I'll see you after school," he added as I shut the door. My answering glare bounced off his smirking face.

Head down, I quickstepped away. I was up onto the sidewalk when I heard the convertible's engine growl as he pulled away. Sighing in relief, I lifted my chin.

And immediately saw Stefan.

Jaw clenched, backpack strap straining in his white-knuckled fist, he glared at the shrinking camaro.

Damon had been taunting Stefan. Damon had threatened Caroline and Bonnie, manipulated me into getting into a car with him, so he could put on a show for his brother.

Bastard.

My anger started as a smoldering heat in the pit of my stomach, climbed up my spine and set my cheeks on fire. Flushed and quivering, I struggled against the childish urge to kick at something, shout at someone. Mostly a certain smug-faced blood sucker.

While I silently fumed, I realized that while Stefan may have been Damon's intended audience, he hadn't been the only one. Half the school must have noticed—or so it looked like from the crowd of teenagers who had nothing better to do than stand around and gossip.

Including Elena's friends. I could see Tyler and Vicki over on a nearby bench, watching me and trading words that made each other snicker. Matt was frowning from his spot beside his truck. Caroline had been holding court by the doors but was now marching across the grounds towards me. Bonnie, who'd also been arriving from the parking lot, was the first to reach me. "Who was that."

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

Surprised, Bonnie fell in next to me as I headed for Stefan. "No, pretty sure I do."

I realized she wasn't going to let this drop. Why would she? Her best friend had just arrived with a hot mystery guy in an expensive sports car. "Damon Salvatore. Stefan's older brother."

"That's Stefan's brother?" She shook her head. "Wow. The gorgeous gene must run in the family."

"Yeah, well. He's nothing like Stefan. He's arrogant. Selfish. Cruel."

Bonnie's eyes widened with each cutting, nearly-spat out description. "Then how'd you end up with him?"

I didn't know what to say. Bonnie didn't believe her grandmother yet. At the same time, she'd have to work with Damon—would even one day become best friends with him. Say the wrong thing, and I'd poison the well.

On the other hand, Damon had threatened her, and she wasn't able to defend herself yet.

"Because he's good at getting what he wants," I sighed. "Try to steer clear of him, Bonnie. He and Stefan have issues. And he's not beneath using people. You don't want to get into the middle of it."

"But you're in the middle?"

"Apparently."

Caroline had reached us. I could see the questions forming as she took a breath to speak. "I thought you weren't going to need any more rides."

"So did I," I muttered.

Hands on her hips, Caroline ordered, "Spill."

"His name's Damon. He's Stefan's older brother," Bonnie answered for me. "And he's a jerk who we should stay away from."

She gave a disbelieving huff. "We should, should we?"

Oh no. "Caroline, he's bad news."

"Then why are you riding around with him?" Caroline demanded.

"Because he's using me to get to Stefan."

Caroline's lips mashed together before she said, "That doesn't explain why you got into his car." She turned suspicious. "Unless you're trying to make Stefan jealous?"

"I'm not," I said flatly. "There's nothing to be jealous of. Besides, Stefan and I are friends."

"Friends."

"I mean, we just met, but I'd like to be. I think we are. He agreed to hang out."

Caroline stared. "I don't even know where to begin," she declared, throwing her hands out to the side. She strode back to the small gathering of girls she'd been talking with.

Frowning, Bonnie and I shared a look. "She'll get over it," Bonnie soothed.

I grimaced and rubbed at my forehead. "I'm messing everything up."

"No. Care's being Care."

"I better explain things to Stefan," I muttered.

"Okay. Meet you at my locker?"

I nodded. Bonnie headed off to the doors, parting with an encouraging grin. I couldn't wait till she could give Damon aneurysms. It would make dealing with him so much easier. At least until he got over his fixation with Katherine and started giving a damn about Mystic Falls.

Stefan was seated on top of a picnic table that had been set up beneath a giant maple. Patches of sunlight and shadow flitted around him like butterflies. He'd had his head down in thought but straightened up as he noticed my approach.

His stare was searching, wandering all over my face. "Are you alright?"

It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, but then what? Stefan would try to enact his, 'Lock Damon Up,' plan early? All that would accomplish was getting Zach killed sooner than it had happened on the show. I don't think Zach had even shown him the room of vervain yet.

But Damon was a problem. Something had to be done.

I settled on saying, "Your brother is an ass."

Stefan cracked a slender little smile. It was the barest lift of his lips, but it eased some of the lingering anger from his face. "Yeah. Sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Brows furrowed, Stefan glanced down. I remembered he did, in fact, blame himself for Damon. "But you're okay?"

"Aside from a bad case of windswept hair," I patted at the loose hairs that had fallen out of my ponytail, "I'm fine."

"Your hair looks lovely."

Fighting the urge to look away from the intensity of his stare, I swept a few of the strands behind my ears. "Well. It was a lot neater before Damon insisted on driving me."

That little smile ticked a bit higher. "I stand by my earlier comment."

Grabbing my upper arm, I turned to side to look at something other than his earnest, handsome face. I settled on the line of buses dropping students off.

"I looked for your phone this morning." Stefan said, drawing me back. "I'm sorry but I couldn't find it."

"Oh." I adjusted the bag's strap before letting my hand fall. "It's alright. Thank you for going to all the trouble."

He shook his head. "It wasn't."

"I guess I'll have to talk to my Aunt about getting a new one." That would be a fun conversation.

He nodded. I noticed the crowd of students around us were starting to thin out as more trickled inside. "I better go. I promised to meet Bonnie before class."

Stefan hopped off the table. "My locker isn't too far from yours. Mind if I walk with you?"

"'Course not."

As we walked, we talked about the reading list for our upcoming English class. We had both read everything on it, not that the news surprised me. He'd probably read most of it when it was originally published. Stefan and I went our separate ways once I met up with Bonnie, and after we headed towards my locker, went on to class.

The rest of the morning passed a lot like the first. Well, there was more discussion and lecturing. I knew the way to English and was able to find a better seat—which happened to be near Stefan and Caroline. A pop quiz in Biology really made me regret not doing the homework the night before.

Which led to History before lunch. Stefan again sat fairly close, and it wasn't long through the lesson that I was glad for it. The instructor was really on a tear about a Civil War battle called the Battle of Willow Creek.

After he'd subtly insulted Bonnie and Matt, it was my turn. "Elena. Surely you can enlighten us about one of the town's most historic events?"

I glanced down at the textbook, flipping through a few pages, skimming for Willow Creek. Would this even have been in the reading? I thought it was a general American History course. Was the Battle of Willow Creek so pivotal that it'd be in a standard textbook?

"Willow Creek?" I asked, squinting.

"Yes, Elena. It was fought right here in Mystic Falls."

Oh. Well then it must've been bullshit, because Mystic Falls wasn't a real place. Annoyed, I pressed my lips together before admitting, "I don't know."

"I was lenient last year, Elena. For obvious reasons." Oh. Wow. Right. This guy. "But that ended over summer break."

I wanted to ask if it was because her—my—parents magically came back to life, but I kept my mouth shut. Let the asshole dig his own grave.

Wait. Damon kills him. Bad metaphor.

"There were three hundred and forty-six casualties, unless you're counting civilians," Stefan interjected. And Stefan would know.

The whole class looked from him to the teacher. "That's correct. Mister—"

"Salvatore."

"Any relation to the original settlers here at Mystic Falls?"

I couldn't help but turn to watch Stefan, careful to keep my amusement from showing. He glanced aside before answering, "Distant."

Liar.

"Very good. Except there weren't any civilian casualties in this battle," he said before moving around his desk.

"Actually, there were twenty-seven, sir," Stefan corrected, halting the teacher in his tracks. "Confederate soldiers fired on a church. They believed it housed weapons. They were wrong." Stefan's voice was the embodiment of confident. No wonder. That was the night he was turned, and the other vampires entombed. "It was a night of great loss."

And then Stefan delivered the knockout. "The founder's archives are stored at Civil Hall if you'd like to brush up on your facts, Mister Tanner."

You could hear the 'ooo's throughout the room. The teacher, Tanner, could only respond with an attempt at a face-saving smile. Didn't work.

I glanced at my notes, grinning. That was beautiful.

Tanner flipped open his book. "Thank you, Mister Salvatore. Everyone, page thirty-three."

I flipped forward the required pages before peering out the corner of my eye. Stefan met my glance. His mouth lifted into that small smile I was really beginning to adore.

The rest of the class was filled with history that was actually covered by our textbooks. I made a mental note to memorize dates and figures. It seemed like he'd be one of those history teachers. I was good at the cause and effect when it came to history, remembering the context and environment and the events themselves, but I hadn't been wholly lying when I told Stefan I was terrible with numbers. I was horrible at remembering dates, too.

Wouldn't that make the rest of my time here fun. Monsters and sacrifices and homework. Oh my.

When the bell rung, I was happy to stand and get out of there. I waited just outside the door for Bonnie and Stefan. I didn't miss the look Tanner threw him as he walked out, either. Stefan had not endeared himself with that little stunt.

I remembered there would be another incident between them. Stefan rattling off dates, showing Tanner up again. Tanner wouldn't be a Stefan convert until he saw him play football.

And then Tanner would die.

My buoyed mood fell. If I knew about it ahead of time, did that make me responsible for it if it happened? This seemed like one of those Good Samaritan debates.

"Right, Elena?"

Bonnie and Stefan watched me with expectant looks on their faces. I had no idea what they'd been talking about.

I offered an apologetic smile. "Sorry, can you repeat that? I kind of spaced out for a minute."

Bonnie's brows pinched together in concern. "I was telling Stefan he should join us for lunch."

"I don't want to intrude."

I wondered if he was being polite or looking for an excuse to go hunting. I decided to reassure him. "You wouldn't be intruding. But if you have other plans, that's fine."

"No." He shifted his bookbag higher up his shoulder. "I'd like to sit with you."

We headed to the cafeteria, picked our food up from the line and ended up at the same table with the same people as the day before, plus Stefan. Caroline made the mistake of asking Stefan about his brother.

"We don't speak." Stefan poked at his salisbury steak. I wondered if he regretted his choice to follow us.

"Ever?" Bonnie asked, surprised.

Stefan paused in his inspection of the food to look up and add, "Whenever we have to talk, we end up fighting." He accepted the packet of ketchup I handed to him and looked to Caroline. "Wherever my brother goes, someone ends up hurt. Take my advice and avoid him."

"Elena doesn't seem eager to take your advice," Caroline said.

"You should," he said quietly to me.

I folded my arms and stared down at the rest of my lunch, appetite gone.

Sensing the disquiet, Bonnie thankfully changed the subject back to classes. Which was how Stefan and I got back to our earlier conversation about books we'd read. That led to a discussion of our favorites. And while Elena was a Victorian romance lover, at least on the show she'd been, my tastes were more for modern historical romances and thrillers. Stefan and I got into a discussion of which was the better book: Red Dragon or Silence of the Lambs. I was firmly on the side of Red Dragon, he stuck with Lambs.

The rest of the day passed too soon. By the time the last bell rang, and I was done dragging my feet to my locker, it felt like only a few minutes had passed instead of hours.

Outside, the parking lot was filled with cars backing out and lining up for the exits. I scanned the front of the school, where a line of cars had parked along the curb in front of the entrance. Damon's car wasn't among them. I wondered if he'd forgotten.

I should have known better.

The distinctive growl of the camaro's engine came rumbling down the lane. He parked alongside the curb. The car's sleek sky blue lines gleamed in the sun. Damon's arm was draped over the wheel, his sunglasses tilted down as he met my nervous gaze. His lips curled.

I managed a tight smile at Bonnie. "See you tonight."

Bonnie, shielding her eyes against the sunshine, smiled back.

"Elena." Stefan placed a hand on my arm. "You don't have to do this."

But right as he said that, Caroline strutted past us and walked right up to the passenger door. "Hi. I'm Caroline. Elena's friend."

Damon tilted his head, sights roaming over Caroline. "Damon."

"This is a really amazing car," she said while leaning forward, forearms resting on the door.

"Why, thank you. It's nice to know there are people who appreciate her." His hand ran along the wheel with a lover's caress.

I rolled my eyes. I appreciated the car. It was the driver I had a problem with.

While Caroline continued to flirt, and Damon replied in kind, I met Stefan's concerned stare. "I kind of do." I mustered another smile for him. "See you at the Falls."

He nodded. I adjusted my bag's strap and, as if going into battle—which I kind of was—marched over to Damon's car.

Caroline was laughing at something Damon had said as I approached. Damon's sights flicked over her shoulder to me. He winked. I frowned.

"I like your friend, Elena," Damon called.

I fixed him with another unamused look before shifting my attention to Caroline. She straightened back up, smile stiffening as she regarded me. "So where are you going?"

"Home," Damon and I answered simultaneously.

I started, looking over at Damon. He turned his head to stare out the windshield. "I did say I'd take you home."

"Sounds boring," Caroline pouted.

Damon rolled back around. "So boring."

"You should come to the falls tonight," Caroline went on.

My eyes widened as I attempted to get her attention. "No way." At their combined stares, I forced my cheeks to pull the corners of my mouth up into something resembling a smile. "I'm sure Damon doesn't want to waste his time at some high school party," I tried to keep it light, but ended up sounding frantic.

"Don't be silly, Elena." His lips twisted. "I love high school parties." He focused on Caroline again. "You'll be there, won't you?"

"Obviously," she laughed. "I'm helping set everything up."

Of course she was.

"Then I'll definitely be there." His smile was a wicked thing. His sights shifted to me. "Better get going."

"Aw. So soon?" Caroline pouted.

Damon sighed. "'Fraid so. Elena made me promise. There and back." He crooked a finger at me.

My frown deepened, but I did as he bid. Sliding around Caroline, who glowed with triumph, I pulled open the car door and lowered myself into the leather seat.

As soon as the door was shut, Damon sent a sinful grin Caroline's way. "See you around, Caroline."

"I'll hold you to that," she replied, flicking her blonde curls back behind her shoulder.

Damon's grin widened before the engine growled and the car took off.

"You said you'd leave her alone if I rode with you," I accused as he swung into one of the parking lanes that headed back out of the lot.

"I didn't do anything. She came to me." Damon sighed. "These looks. They're a curse."

Sonofa—

"But don't let it be said I'm not a man of my word." I eyed him doubtfully. He lifted a hand. "I won't touch a blonde hair on her head. So long as you remain—" he pretended to think about it, "agreeable."

"Fine," I all but growled.

Damon turned out of the lot and onto the main road without signaling. "Jealous?"

"Concerned." I fell back against the seat and folded my arms. "Caroline doesn't deserve to be the rope in the Salvatore brothers' latest game of tug-of-war."

"There's a simple solution to that. Don't give my brother the time of day."

I'd rather not give him the time of day but had enough sense not to say it. "Why do you really want to go to a party full of drunk teenagers, Damon?"

"Because it's a party full of drunk teenagers." His eyes sharpened, like a pair of slate flints. "And I'm thirsty."

I swallowed and slid further down in the seat. "Please don't hurt anyone."

He hummed. "Hurting is kind of necessary."

"No, it's not. You could drink out of blood bags."

"And deny them to the poor soul who needs a blood transfusion?" His nose wrinkled. "Besides, blood tastes differently when it's been refrigerated."

"But you could do it."

He sighed. "I could. But why should I?"

"Because it's not right to attack people." I couldn't believe I had to spell this out.

Damon shrugged. "Don't care." He stretched his other arm out over the wheel before drawing his right back. "That's the best part about being a vampire, Elena. The old rules just don't apply anymore. Do what you want, whenever you want."

"And you want to hurt people."

"I want to quench my thirst." He glanced over. "I'm a vampire. I drink human blood to survive. It's natural."

"But you can do that without hurting or killing."

"But I don't care."

I thought for a moment, weighing the risk. But, hell, I had to push on his rusty moral compass at some point. "I don't think that's true."

Behind his shades, Damon rolled his eyes.

"I think you do care. You're just determined to pretend you don't."

"There's a switch we have. We can turn our emotions off like," he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, "that."

But I remembered the look on Damon's face when he'd finished feeding. How tender his gaze had been, his expression wistful as he lost himself to a memory. "Except you haven't."

"'Course I have."

"If that were true, you wouldn't care about what your brother thinks so much."

"We all have our hobbies."

"Say whatever you want, Damon." The car turned into Elena's driveway and idled. Damon lounged in the driver's seat, an arm stretched over the wheel as the other rested across his door. I took in the way his posture screamed indifference and saw it for the act it was. "But you don't fool me."

"Or maybe you want to believe I'm capable of caring whether people live or die to convince yourself I won't kill you," Damon suggested airily.

I forced myself to smile, even though he probably heard my pulse racing. "You say the sweetest things."

He turned his head and grinned. "See you tonight, Elena."

I worked to stay calm as I got out. His stare followed me all the way to the door. As soon as I was on the other side, I fell against it, sliding down to the ground, bag dropping beside me. He pulled out of the drive, and only once the rumble of his car disappeared down the street was I able to breathe freely.

Sinking my head into my hands, I wondered what I was going to do tonight. Both Salvatores at a party full of rowdy, drunk teens. Damon still trying to make life hell for Stefan.

It sounded like a recipe for disaster.