#honestly i do believe the houses are way more nuanced than presented here

[snapeysister]

The Wizarding World network has published a Housepride Bingo and I sort of liked it. 🖤

While trying to assure myself I was more Slytherin than Hufflepuff, I turned out to be pretty Hufflepuffy (8 overlaps) with a Ravenclaw/Gryffindor addition (7 overlaps each) and very much not Slytherin (5 overlaps). Sorry Severus, we must be less similiar than I thought, at least where these bingo creators are concerned 🤷🏻‍♀️

Download and repost your own results if you like, I've added the templates at the post's end!

Here are mine:

Tagging @sneverussape @i-will-steal-your-intestines @snake-queen7 @nightrose64 @ailec-12 @uniquerunaway @hbprophetie @rose0jam @glowstar826 @tavsianus @rickmandowneyjr and whoever else would like to whenever they like to :)

[scoundrels-in-love]

I genuinely loved Seun Gyeom struggling to write his little diary and I thought it was very telling in every scene.

There’s many interesting little details around it, including that he didn’t shy away when Mi Joo was present at any time, but loudly, childishly proclaimed his friend shouldn’t read it. It reveals the trust he has in her, same as with how he handed over her phone - even if he may not believe there’s just anything for anyone to really hide on it.

In fact, if one thinks about it, it’s possible that in a possessive, controlling household like his, his father felt entitled to keep an eye on his phone, especially when he was still minor.

Because it doesn’t seem that he is very familiar with concept of private. Or even being fully honest with himself. Before conversation with Mi Joo, there’s this instilled sense of needing to conceal himself, as if there was someone to impress, he couldn’t admit being scared last night, not even to himself in his private diary.

He is so happy to have ‘learned’ how to write it, his face is so open and silly and I could cry over it, honestly.

But back to matter at hand, Mi Joo accuses him of putting up walls which he can’t quite comprehend. Like @kd729 said here, he just doesn’t know how to be open about some things, to be honest with himself about it, even, or that he isn’t doing that. It’s not a privilege he’s had before. It’s a request he doesn’t know how to grant, because it’s not the sort he’s used to.

Plus, emotional decisions just aren’t something he’s ever had to share with anyone. They were either decided for him (like shoulder injury and the surgery) or he had to make on his own, like choosing to be a runner, beating the bullies up and so forth. There’s no one he’s had to or could rely on in these, which is why he says he didn’t know she’d care so much, but by doing so, he effectively locks Mi Joo out of his life and inner world, because these decisions of leaving for the night or the house deeply impact her as well, which he can’t really recognize because he doesn’t think it matters to her, on emotional level especially. (None of his other decisions mattered to people around him this way, only how they benefited or bothered them.)

But back to Seun Gyeom and vulnerability and expressing himself.

While he does open to her in quite many ways, such as explaining why he did what he did for Woo Sik (that we see him do for no one else in such depth or nuance), he’s never learned to show his caring through words because he’s never had the example to learn from. He makes an attempt, but does it all backwardly, as if he’s granting her request.

His friend likely doesn’t quite know how important he is to Seun Gyeom because he showed his affection through following him around and being his quiet fan in a sense. He shows his care through actions, by preparing food or distracting the ladies or buying her shoes or coming to clean windows with Woo Sik, not starting the race (the moment words are involved, he asks for Mi Joo’s help) or patrolling the area to make sure it’s safe and so on.

No one around Seun Gyeom is good at saying ‘I like you, you are important to me’, his sister would sign up for the deal instead of saying that and writes it off as something to do for her sibling, his mother stays quiet as support for his choices, his coach would feed him or ruffle his hair, but call him an asshole. His friend grumbles at him more than anything, even if Seun Gyeom knows he cares, but one of their phone calls ended badly and it was ‘made up for’ by going out of his way to meet up. Even Woo Sik is grateful, but calls his behavior annoying and ends up with small machinations to take care of him and Mi Joo. Dan Ah would rather make Mi Joo jealous to get her invite Seun Gyeom over than say ‘I am worried’.

And the girls that would show interest in him and possibly say it vocally usually leave him behind after a month. Because he is boring and bland, and weird and annoying.

Part of him probably believes he himself just isn’t lovable. He was never good enough for his father (or his mother). His handsome face and money is attractive, but the rest is too dull to like long term. The insecurity he shows by asking if she’s stopped liking him runs deep. Her somewhat frantic reactions toward him don’t exactly help either. (I really appreciate that Mi Joo went back to say she didn’t hate him. Even when she’s upset, she instinctively understands what are the underwater rocks he might conjure in her words.)

He does learn, though, gradually. When Mi Joo says he shouldn’t worry and rest up, he immediately reciprocates and tells her the same. He is also happy to mirror her words from Jeju island. She has given him easy examples to follow and he gladly does so. He also speaks more with Woo Sik about taking care and doing it together, etc.

Anyway, this got way too long because I mashed two separate ideas together but TL;DR is that the diary was perfect way to show him struggling with being honest about his deepest vulnerabilities and how eager, if still scared, he is to learn.

[valberryy]

efficacy. — zhongli

hi!! this started out as an oc fic, but i thought i'd convert it to a reader insert!! i tried to change some of the more "explicit" oc info, so hopefully it's fine now!

pairing: zhongli x gn!reader

content warnings: mentions of blood/injury/death, contemplations of/vaguely attempted murder, slight swearing. if these topics are sensitive to you, i'd recommend clicking away.

i. 

[Name]'s life would be nothing without order. They found a certain comfort in routines—working at the bookshop with Jifang in the afternoons, working for their less-than-legal clients once night fell. There was an odd kind of safety they found in it, in completed contracts and crossed-out bounties on a board: as they wiped the blood off their blade at sunrise, they found themself glad they no longer lived at the whims of ice, and snow, and migrating deer.

Tonight was odd, though. 

A dagger twirled deftly between their fingers, and [Name] raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the informant sitting before them. A mask and hood alike obscured his face, and he seemed almost to hesitate slightly beneath their burning gaze—a newbie, then, or a fool.

"So?" they asked, their voice like a whip-crack in the silence. "Don't waste my time."

"Apologies," he said, and [Name] had to resist the urge to scoff. At another raised eyebrow the informant dug through his things and passed them an envelope. 

Gingerly, they tore it open. "...Wangsheng?" they muttered to themself, before glancing back up. "I trust you have the right compensation?"

A stiff, "Of course," was their only response. 

The knife between [Name]'s fingers stilled, before it became embedded in the cheap wood next to their now-client's head.

They stood, gave an almost-mocking flourish of a bow, and walked off without another word.

ii. 

[Name] did not glance up from the shelf they were restocking when the footsteps of another customer coming up the stairs came into earshot, only saying a gruff, "Welcome," as they grew closer.

Their only response was a content hum, and they resisted the urge to sigh in relief that this particular patron wasn't a chatterbox. 

The minutes trickled by in comfortable silence, as the man—for he was a man, [Name] learned, as soon as they looked up and towards his direction—browsed through their selection. The only sounds to be heard were the blowing of the breeze and the idle chatter of people walking past.

"What a fine collection you have," he said, and turned to face the counter they were seated behind. At the sight of his face they were thrust back into two nights ago—an unpleasant evening in a dingy old house, an envelope in one hand and a cheap knife in the other. 

Not now, they thought to themself. Not now, when the blood can seep into the floorboards. The smell will hang for days.

"Thank you," they elected to say in reply. "...Will you be buying?"

He nodded, a thoughtful hand on his chin. "Indeed. The entire stock, actually."

[Name] faltered. "The entire…?" They coughed into a fist, regaining their composure and leaning forward on the counter. "That's going to cost you, sir."

They could almost see the excited sparkles around him as he opened his mouth to speak again, and whatever thoughts they had on how elegant and refined he seemed were thrown out to sea.

"Yes, of course," he began, "there truly is no treasure greater than knowledge, after all—there is a subtle nuance to the art to capturing a moment in time so vividly using just words alone…" 

As he continued to ramble, [Name] rested their chin on their palm. The daggers concealed beneath their clothes were cool and heavy on their skin—a constant reminder, a subtle threat. 

When his voice trailed off they gave a small, polite smile, standing upright again. "If you have the Mora, there should be nothing stopping you, sir."

The faraway, almost dreamy look in his eyes grew lucid at the mention of Mora. "Ah, of course. Mora," he said, and started patting his pockets searching for his wallet.

When neither of them heard the telltale clinking of coins, they glanced at each other almost exasperatedly. 

"My deepest apologies—"

"...No, it's okay—"

The knife still burned against their skin, but they brushed it aside for a moment to grab an unwrapped copy of a book under the desk. They held it out to him, their face blank but the faintest, faintest hints of amusement dancing in their eyes.

He was…interesting. Dead men can rarely boast as much.

 "Take it," they said, simply. 

His eyes seemed to widen in pleasant surprise. "Are you certain?" he asked, and at [Name]'s casual shrug in the affirmative he gingerly took it from their hands. 

"Thank you kindly," he said, raising the package in the air and inspecting it. "I'll have to repay you, for this."

They looked at him again, and thought of the envelope from the other night, thought of how they could almost feel his pulse as their fingers brushed just seconds prior.

"I'll hold you to it, then, sir," they elected to say.

Not now, not now, not now.

iii.

On his lips played a gentle smile that [Name] couldn't help but to distrust. 

"There's a restaurant I believe you'd like," he had said. "Allow me to treat you for lunch, as thanks."

Their head had thus begun to swim with backup plans and what-ifs. Did he know? Was this some elaborate ruse to poison them? Surely not, right? They had been so careful up until now, too…

They blinked away their initial surprise and canted their head to the side. "Where?"

At that he went off onto another tangent, just as long as the ramble he had gone on a few days prior. [Name] found themself zoning out, glancing at where they knew his jugular was beneath his collar—or perhaps poison during their impromptu outing would fare better?

No, they scolded themself, there would be witnesses at a restaurant.

"...Don't worry, of course, I'll be sure to bring the Mora this time around," he said with a velvety laugh, and [Name] suddenly found themself back in the present.

They leaned forward on the bookstore counter, an eyebrow raised. "I don't even know your name, Mister Philanthropist." 

Another smile graced his features, then—apologetic this time, and he outstretched a hand for them to shake. "My apologies," he said. "I am Zhongli, consultant for Wangsheng Funeral Parlor."

Gingerly, they took his hand in turn. They could feel the rhythmic beat-beat-beat of his pulse under their fingers.

Soon, they thought. 

"Call me [Name]," they said, and forced themself to smile.

A few days later, it just so happened that both of their schedules were free. 

"Would you still be willing to indulge me?" Zhongli asked—he had been visiting more often lately, and it just so happened that many of his visits happened to be on the days [Name] was there, as well. Jifang seemed curious, and honestly they were as well—did he enjoy their company? Was there something about their short, curt responses that didn't turn him away?

Or maybe he was planning something, too?

Nevertheless, despite their raging paranoia, it wasn't like they were in much of a position to complain. Jifang seemed content at their new, distinguished guest, and [Name] took it as an opportunity to learn more about him for the time being. 

"...If you so wish," they said, plucking the book he was holding out of his hands to wrap it for him. 

"Only if you do, my friend." Damn him and his deflection. "But it is my firm belief that the generous receive what is due to them, in time."

They hummed idly as they thumbed through the book he had chosen—something or other about the natural beauty of Inazuma—and then glanced back up at him.

And that was how they found themself here, they supposed.

Their table was relatively silent compared to some others, but it was by no means uncomfortable or awkward. With the idle chatter of other people and the clear sky above as a backdrop, the two dined in comforting silence—only the clinking of ceramic against each other to be heard, and to [Name]'s surprise, no traces of poison to be found whatsoever.

As the sun began to dip down the horizon, and all their food had been finished and the bill paid, the two found themselves taking a stroll down by the docks. Zhongli's gaze was trained ahead, while [Name]'s flitted about cautiously.

"Forgive me if I'm prying, however…" he began, "...But you're not a native, are you, my friend?"

A jolt, then, a bolt of white-hot fear running through their limbs. Did he know? Did they give themself away? 

"I'm not," they said. "I was born abroad." 

A satisfied hum was their response, and when they turned to glance at him, they found the smallest of smiles on his face.

"It's getting late," Zhongli said. "Thank you for today. I'd like to do this again, with you."

[Name] took pause at that. They thought once again of the envelope hidden under their drawers, and the knives hidden under their clothes.

They thought about the way Zhongli rambled on about whatever tale it was the storyteller across the street had spun—how "that indeed is one interpretation of it, but in the original text, the author actually meant to imply that…" 

There was a pang of what almost felt like guilt in their chest, at that. 

"...And I, you," they said, finally, "...my friend."

iv.

Perhaps stumbling into your supposed assassination target's home half-bloody with an arrow sticking out of your side was not the brightest idea, but in [Name]'s defense were two things: first of all, they had no fucking clue it was Zhongli's in the first place, and secondly, they couldn't exactly keep running from their angry former client with an arrow sticking out of their side.

And thus whatever levels of discretion they normally would have had were thrown out the window as they climbed into Zhongli's in the dead of night, and probably knocked something over in the process (if the new bruises were anything to go by). 

(To be fair, they had been calling each other friends for a while now. Is this what friends did? [Name] couldn't be sure—their shady friends weren't exactly the best examples, after all.)

They had just sat up and groaned in pain when Zhongli came in, alarmed first at the noise and then at their sorry state. 

"...Sorry," they muttered through gritted teeth. "Thought the place was empty—ow, shit! I can—I can do it mysel—"

"Nonsense," he said, his voice and hands firmer than they had noticed before. "...I still haven't repaid you for your favour to me, after all."

They stopped for a moment, at that. "...I thought the lunch was repayment?"

Somehow, Zhongli found it in himself to laugh, albeit tensely. From where they were sitting, they could see his face a lot more clearly than they had before—the tenseness in his brow, the flecks of gold in his amber irises, the way his nose crinkled at the density of the smell of blood.

"No," he replied, "that was a thank you."

They hummed, before hissing in pain again. "Pull the other way; the arrowhead went in at an angle—"

"Ah, yes, my mistake…"

[Name] continued, "I suppose this is your repayment, then?"

They only barely hid their surprise when he shook his head again. 

"I'm doing this because I want to, [Name]."

(Somehow, they liked their name better when hearing it from him. Was it the timbre of his voice? Was it the appeal of hearing your name from a man who was supposed to be long-dead?)

"...I see."

As he sealed the last of the bandages and allowed them to adjust their clothes, he helped them over to what they assumed was a guest room, of sorts. He helped them to take a seat on shaky legs, and placed a firm, almost comforting hand on their shoulder.

"Promise me you'll be more careful, my friend."

They glanced away, their face oddly warm. Wasn't blood loss supposed to do the opposite? "I can't guarantee that, Zhongli."

He followed their gaze over to the floor, and then glanced back at them. "If not that, then I'd at least ask you to…rely on me more," he said, and something about the sincerity in his voice struck them as odd. 

They almost wanted to burn that envelope in their drawers when they went home.

[Name] glanced back up at him, forcing themself to face his questioning gaze.

"...I'll try." 

But only for you.

+1.

In [Name]'s life, there exists a line they do not dare themself to cross. On one side stands sweet Jifang from the bookshop, the tenacious Traveller and their friends, and the ghosts of their loved ones from Inazuma; and on the other stands themself and their other shadowy benefactors. 

The first to tread the line between the two was Zhongli—who, despite the bounty on his head, still managed to maneuvre his way into them somehow being able to call him their friend.

Honestly. The Seven damn him and his stupid charisma, and his stupid voice, and his stupid encyclopedic knowledge of silk flowers.

When [Name] woke up, they were not in their home. 

Through their shock they failed to register the bandages wound around their torso, and bit back a yelp of pain as the wound threatened to reopen. In the dark they could see their overwear folded neatly on the bed next to them, and Zhongli asleep, slumped over in a chair.

Suddenly, they were acutely aware of the old bone knife under their clothes—their only souvenir from home, unstained by blood for years, and years, and years.

Would Zhongli be its first, then?

Quietly they stood and dug through their folded clothes until they felt it—the uneven blade, the worn-down grooves near the hilt. They skulked their way over to where he slept, and tried to ignore how painfully peaceful his slow, even breaths were.

His eyes fluttered open just as they pressed the blade to his throat. He seemed too calm, though, not even a twitch of his hands or a hitch in his breath to give away any surprise at all. All he did was place a loose grip on their wrist—a stark contrast to their white-knuckled, shaking hand—and ask,

"What are you doing, [Name]?" 

They grit their teeth. "...I'm sorry," they said, "but I have a contract to complete."

Something in Zhongli's eyes softened at that. This was his domain, they realised—contracts, and contingencies, and wordplay. 

His grip on their wrist tightened, ever so slightly, and he traced his free hand over their clenched jaw. "But so do we," he replied. "I've still never paid you back, after all."

There was a pause, then—a long, pregnant silence. 

"May I kiss you?" Zhongli asked, his voice like a whip-crack in the space between them. [Name] said nothing, but the crease between their brows deepened further. 

The dagger embedding itself into the floor and the soft, firm press of their lips against his was enough of an answer.

[dangermousie]

Heelo mousie! Love your blog! Do you mind recommending some of your favourite Chinese BL novels or shows?

I've seen the untamed and read it. I'm currently reading heaven's official blessing and I saw the donghua. Anything other than these two?

Awww, thank you!

Novels: I am gonna be lazy and literally copy/paste the entire danmei section of my top 10 web novels post (except MXTX’s stuff since you are already reading it.) Let me know if you need help finding any of these.

Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor   antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both  as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men   always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be  friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest  parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is  also finding the middle path between their two very different  philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or  dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and  setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period  setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with  character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our   protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant,   sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s  servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as  we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and  occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named   Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers  and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both  out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely  likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two  take up farming, get involved in  the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

The Wife is First - OK, this one did not make my top 10 web novels but it’s a sweet, fun gay cottagecore fest. Our ML, a royal prince, and his spouse, a smart if delicate aristocrat, keep house, eat noodles, play with their pet tiger, make out and spoil each other rotten, while occasionally fighting battles and outwitting their court enemies. It’s so very mellow. That couple redefines low drama - they are both nice and functional and use their brains. It’s as if a nice jock and a nice nerd got together and then proceeded to be wholesome all over the place.

I mean, the set up could be dramatic - our ML the prince, lost his fight for the throne and is about to be killed. The only person who stayed loyal to him is his arranged husband the aristocrat guy who ML never treated nicely since he resented marrying him (marrying a man in that world is done to remove someone from the ability to inherit the throne.) And yet the husband stood by him not out of love but beliefs in loyalty blah blah. Anyway, he transmigrates back into the past right after their wedding night and is all “I got a second chance OMG! I don’t want the throne what is even the point? I want to live a good long life and treat the only person who stood by me really well!” And he proceeds to do so to the shock of the aristocrat who had a very unpleasant wedding night and generally can tell the man he just married would rather eat nails than be married to him. But soon enough (no seriously, it’s not many chapters at all) he believes the prince is sincere blah blah and then  they get together and they pretty much become cottagecore goals.

In terms of dramas, I only do period dramas (or novels) so I am not the person to be able to recommend any modern BLs. There is a flood of upcoming (hopefully) period BL dramas but it’s relatively thin on the ground now. The two I will recommend is Word of Honor (which is AMAZING) and Winter Begonia (which I just started watching but which owns me already.) I have a tag for both - the one for the former is huge and I cannot recommend either strongly enough. I’ve heard good things about The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, but I am not big on mysteries so haven’t watched it for myself.

In terms of the upcoming BLs, the ones I am most looking forward to are Immortality and Winner Is King, but The Society of the Four Leaves also looks promising.

[shijiujun]

On Translations

Once again, I’m just plain incensed by dumbasses who think it’s okay to firstly, steal someone else’s hard work and secondly, think they’ve got some right to edit that person’s work because they think they’ve got a better grip on English (not true btw) - It didn’t happen to me (well, as far as I know) and I’m not in the Guardian fandom and I don’t personally know the person who’s dealing with this ridiculous shit, but oof am I angry after seeing the tweet.

Just saw on twitter that some asshole stole a translator’s works (Guardian, Chinese to English) and edited it - Yes it’s just like the MDZS saga a few weeks ago when some white person who doesn’t have any Chinese language knowledge, tried to ‘improve’ translations done by another person who actually knows what they’re doing in both Chinese and English - And then put in on Wattpad with a ridiculous letter and intro where they said: “Great things can be made greater” to explain why they edited the English of the original translation.

“Great things can be made greater,” said the thief.

“I hope my actions will be appreciated,” said the thief again.

Like wow, once again, the audacity - There’ve been extensive arguments on translations since the MDZS saga a few weeks ago and obviously the fan who took ExR’s translations and ‘made them better’ stupidly stepped on a landmine by fucking with the MDZS fandom that has a longer history, more resources and clout than the amount of time she’s been exposed to MDZS via CQL, and got bitch-slapped by the rest of the fandom where there exists a majority of fans knowing clearly what to do and not to do.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of all fandoms, especially smaller ones - The user i saw is a translator for Guardian and the mofo 1. Stole their translations 2. Edited the translations to ‘better english’ 3. Wrote that they don’t know who did the original translations but “they know where to find me” *cue my eyeroll* 4. And after op commented to say please credit at the very least in May, they’ve been ignored so far - but luckily they’ve got some supporters as well to help report the mofo.

Aside from the ridiculous thievery (not crediting, blatantly lying and stealing, being an arrogant, indecent person stuck on that high horse) of course, the “I believe that great things can be made greater” is a fucking load of bullshit in this instance, and I mean taking someone else’s translations and adding your own spin to it because you think you’ve taken tests in English as a first language in school all your life (fuck off, a lot of these translators did too), that you’ve got some superiority over English or because you think it reads funny?

Granted, most fan translators don’t put up flawless translations (once again, these translators are FREE LABOUR), but you get it for free and you don’t have to (and can’t) read the original text, so suck it up.

Moreover, the disgust that I feel at the claim that the thief’s work is now ‘greater’ is extremely visceral - It’s not a greater piece of work because the thief stole it, period. No one asked for the thief’s help.

(In case you guys are curious the stolen post on Wattpad is here: https://my.w.tt/7dehLj7D56 and if you’d like to report just follow the instructions)

On Chinese to English translations:

1. If you don’t have good grasp of the original language, you have no right editing the translated work after, regardless of language. Until you can clearly understand the original idioms, context, characters etc. or have at least lived with the language for a substantial part of your life, honestly, just stop, you’ve got no right! 

Sure, some translators aren’t as good as you like them to be, but the argument is always, well, you wouldn’t even have this minimal translation if they didn’t do it, so yay you’re like a few sentences and words closer to the text than you were before. If it’s really that bad, hopefully there are better translations and you can ignore the one you’re looking at, but the same rules apply across all translations!! Don’t disrespect the translator (especially when they’ve done nothing wrong except try to give you access to more content).

2. For Chinese, it’s even worse because the language is known for its hidden nuances and complexities within just two to four characters that, when translated into English, can sometimes take up to two long sentences to explain. That’s why sometimes shit reads funny. It’s not that these translators can’t do English, but Chinese to English acrobatics is beyond your comprehension, hell sometimes it’s beyond translators’ comprehension, so thanks for editing something you’ve got no idea about. This user Bee made a very good argument thread IMO about this on Twitter which I suggest people read

3. Adding your edits to a translated piece of work especially without permission or discussion with the translator, honestly who the fuck are you to do that? Either work your damn ass off by painstakingly translating the original and then editing it however you like, or just... enjoy the free content. Chinese BL novels (in this instance and as in many instances i’ve seen) and some of these translators have been around for longer than you’ve been in the fandom, so suddenly when you have an interest in the content, in a culture and language that you’ve never seen before, are unfamiliar with and have zero knowledge about, you think that as a fan you now have the right to edit someone else’s work that was already done correctly? 

The fact is if the translator wrote a bogus line in the English translations, you wouldn’t have known, and when you upload it as your own and ‘improve’ it, you would be a joke, but you didn’t read the original text did you, so what makes you are any sort of authority to edit the translations?

4. Of course this is not to say that non-Chinese speaking people can’t enjoy the same content or have excellent, poignant discussions and understanding over the content, but honestly a lot of translations don’t capture 100% of a Chinese novel because the nuances are just that complex, and translators do their best to convey it regardless - This is why RESPECT FOR THE TRANSLATOR IS IMPORTANT. And I don’t mean simply paying lip service and typing “we respect all translators for their hard work on this work”, and then disrespect it entirely by not crediting, by the simple act of editing without permission etc.

Respect their interpretation and translations, because it can differ from translator to translator translating the same sentence (and people who don’t speak the original language want to compete with that, I don’t understand?!)

5. Honestly, considering how people are still arguing on the semantics of the Bible for example, not only in its original language but also in English alone - if people can’t agree on every sentence of the holy text and what each sentence means to different people, fan translators get a fucking pass

6. I read in Bee’s threads where someone disagreed with their argument of ‘only people who understand the original language can translate and edit’, saying that it’s okay if the editor doesn’t have a grasp of the original language - I understand that yes, someone else’s English might truly be better (for e.g. actual editors but also please don’t proclaim that you’re one just because you think the translator hasn’t lived with English for most of their lives or whatever), but even then, the editor has to work really closely with the translator because the translator is the primary source of the translation i.e. they know exactly what is going on in a particular sentence in their heads that may not have been translated fully, so how can non-Chinese reading editors truly understand the translated text on its own, editing in silos?

7. Perhaps in actual publishing houses that deal with official translations, this is a fallacy that is ever-present and editors do that anyway without understanding the original text (not sure about this, I’m bringing up the point for consideration, hypothetically putting this out here), but my issue with ‘editors’ in the fan translations space is that they come off sitting on some high horse because they think they’re better in English than you are (which of course yes, might be true, but then read points 1-6 again)

8. A thief is a thief, don’t put up an open letter or disclaimer explaining your motivations. It’s plain and simple, you stole someone else’s work, claimed it for your own and are riding on the great (sometimes not so great but still great, if you get what I mean) work that the translator did. You don’t get to claim ownership for any part of it, even your edits. And once again, “original work belongs to the translators” without actually naming the translators? Fuck off.

9. God, I hate Wattpad and Instagram (okay sometimes Twitter but Twitter seems to be a halfway point) - The Sanctuaries for Lazy Content Thieves Where The Platform Endorses Their Shitty Behaviour

10. Aside from translations, I’ve also seen assholes stealing like shitposts and jokes - These are the hardest to prove as well and it’s almost impossible to claim ownership when someone steals your jokes. Thieves only wish they had as creative a brain as some of you (didn’t happen to me but to a mutual) do. The audacity. The audacity! if the work was actually done and paid and recorded, if TurnItIn.com was available for fandom posts, these thieves would be out of gas.

11. Fan translators are not obligated to answer to any of their readers when it comes to why they translated something a certain way. You don’t like it or don’t agree with it, simply ignore, close the tab and go find another translation you like, it’s that simple. Nowadays readers 1. Threaten/Diss the translator directly and rudely 2. Steal the work 3. Add their own spin on it without understanding the original content and say: Yay! Look at this I made it so much better so give me some attention 

*****

The point of this post is not to claim ownership over any fandom or content just because translators or Chinese-speaking/reading people in the fandom know the content better. It’s also not to say that non-Chinese speaking/reading people can’t enjoy, understand, have great discussions over original Chinese content, because just from MDZS alone you can see that they can. Of course there are also individuals who might not be able to speak the language but are familiar with Chinese culture etc. because they’ve studied or lived it well, or maybe they’ve actually watched decades of Chinese drama to be able to analyse it properly now, all that’s awesome. 

Also, I’m all for people who are learning Chinese (or any language for that matter) to translate something as practice. That’s great, that’s good, that’s to be admired!! 

It’s non-Chinese speaking/reading people who claim they know the original content better than translators without any discussions, claiming some superiority over the content because they think the translation is not done well enough without doing any of the ground work that I really have an issue with (and also the fuckers who steal of course XD).

*****

And unfortunately I had too much time on my hands today and got pissed off after seeing the tweet so some of you have to read through this drivel XD

[a-lockman5]

Lucky Love {Devi x Paxton}

A/N: Another request! More Devi and Paxton being adorable! I made a lot of jumps in this one and changed POV, so hopefully it is not too confusing. There was a lot of time together, and I really liked the pieces so I didn’t want to let them go, but also I would have written an entire novel of filler if I didn’t make time jumps. So  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Hope you enjoy!

Summary: Paxton doesn’t know what it is, but the more present Devi was in his life, the better things seem to be for him. 

Warnings: Fluff.. that’s about it 

Requests are closed at this time as I’m already like 4 behind (you guys are awesome!), but ask is open.

MASTERLIST

“Oh, hey, umm, I’m in your neighborhood. Thought maybe we could hang out, but uh, it seems like you’re busy, so… Uh… Anyway, you can give me a call or text. Whatever… Okay.”

The first time Devi listened to Paxton’s voicemail, she saved it, but told herself she wouldn’t listen to it again. She was with her mom and Kamala on their way home from Malibu. She’d just kissed Ben Gross, and Kamala, thankfully, distracted her mom long enough that Nalini was none the wiser. Devi’s mother wasn’t the reason she wouldn’t listen to the voicemail again though, Ben was. She just had the most amazing moment topped by the most amazing kiss with Ben freaking Gross. She could hardly believe it herself, but she wasn’t going to taint that by listening to a voicemail from another guy.

“Oh, hey, umm, I’m in your neighborhood…”

The second time she listened to Paxton’s voice crackle across the line, was when she was lying in bed trying to fall asleep. It was the same day that she promised herself she wouldn’t listen to it ever again. She lasted six hours, and honestly, she was proud of that. It was five and a half hours longer than she thought she would last. He sounded vague and detached, and she knew that. Ben was expressive and he wore all his emotions on his face. Why would she throw away such a great moment with Ben to listen Paxton ask her to hangout or whatever? Logically, it didn’t make any sense. She just needed to think about Ben and fall asleep.

“…Thought maybe we could hang out, but…”

The third time Paxton’s voicemail reached her ears was after she’d sat bolt right up in bed from a weird (not entirely bad) dream. Paxton and Ben were fighting over her. Not like fighting in the cafeteria though, no. Instead, it was a medieval joust, with horses and swords and giant sticks, and an amazingly detailed crown for her to wear. In the dream, she thought she gave Ben her favor, but after Paxton knocked him off his horse, he magically had her favor instead. She was so thrilled for his victory mid-dream that she didn’t question it. Then to top it all off, they kissed… again! Except, it was a dream this time, but it reminded her of the real time, and… well shit.

*Can we talk?* she sent the text without another thought.

*Yeah. On the phone?*

*In person. I’ll meet you at school?*

*Sounds good.*

“… uh, seems like you’re busy, so… Uh…”

The fourth time she listened to the voicemail Paxton left nine hours earlier, she hung up before it finished as the very person she dragged out of bed was getting out of a town car. He walked over with a bag full of Devi’s things, smiling sheepishly. When he reached her, she graciously took the bag from him and met his eye for the first time since they’d kissed. Almost instantly, she saw his face fall.

“You didn’t mean it, did you?”

“What? No, it’s not like that. I” –

“It’s okay, I get it. It was a big moment, you were emotional. It’s no big deal,” Ben told her.

“It was a big deal… and I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me the last couple weeks. I think I was just swept up in the moment or some other Hollywood cliché… I should have found a better way to say thank you.”

“I’m glad you told me. I care about you, I think you know that,” he nodded. “Nothin’ hurt.”

“You’re not mad?”

He sighed. “Can’t be mad at you for being honest. Now, if you make it weird and blow me off at school when we just started becoming friendly rivals, I’ll be mad. Friends?” he asked sticking his hand out.

“Friends,” she met him for a handshake. “Thanks, Gross.”

“Anyway, you can give me a call or text. Whatever… Okay.”

The fifth time she listened to Paxton’s voicemail, she recognized every nuance in his voice that slipped past her the previous listens. He was vulnerable. He came to her house to ask her to hangout even though the last time he came to her house, her mom called him an idiot. He was trying to sound aloof, but she could tell he was scared. Scared of what? Her mom? Or was he scared of her?

She didn’t want to waste another second waiting to find out so, at 9:30AM she found herself riding a scooter to the Hall-Yoshida residence. When she got there, she was about to knock at the door when Rebecca and her parents opened it, fully dressed. It looked like they were leaving.

“Devi?” Rebecca greeted quizzically. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, Becca, Mr. and Mrs. Hall-Yoshida. Is Paxton here?”

Rebecca’s expression changed into a wide grin before she answered. “No, he has a swim meet this morning and is already at the pool. That’s where we’re going. Want to come?”

“Uh…” Devi hesitated, taking that moment to realize she didn’t even change out of her pajama pants which were adorned with several pink frosted donuts. “You know what, Becca? I will see you there. I’m going change into something a little…”

“Less pathetic?” she finished, as her parents stepped by them. Devi was sure she heard Mr. Hall-Yoshida snort in laughter at his daughter’s sass.

“Assessment noted. See you in a bit!” Devi called over her shoulder as she retreated to her scooter.

As soon as she got home again, she ran up to her room. Hair curly and half up? Done. Makeup? Applied. Red glitter on cheeks? Lightly brushed. Cricket stickers in place of eye black? Nailed it. Red knee-high socks? Donned. And the final touch – a white Sherman Oaks High School Crickets t-shirt cut into a cut-off and worn over her red tank top with denim shorts. She looked like a real-life superfan. Unfortunately, after perfecting her appearance, Devi realized she was late for the meet.

The next thing Devi realized was, while you always see people dressing up for football games, no one does that for swim meets. At least, not at Sherman Oaks High. Sure, there was plenty of red and white spirit wear, but nothing quite like what Devi had done. As she stood at the entrance to the aquatic center, Devi thought to run straight back home before anyone realized she was there. Besides, was a grand romantic gesture really what Paxton’s voicemail called for? It’s not like he poured his soul out to her. One could argue, he didn’t put himself out there at all. At most, he extended an olive branch after blowing her off before. Yep, sending him a text later today was a much better alternative to the embarrassment she was inevitably racing toward the longer she stood there. Devi turned on her heel, and immediately found herself face to face with Rebecca who held a mountain dew and an orange Gatorade.

“Devi!” she brightened up immediately, before taking in her outfit. “You look great!”

“Really?” If Rebecca was complimenting her outfit, then maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was just a trendsetter.

“I mean, it’s a little cringey for a swim meet, but it’s a look for sure,” she elaborated. After her shrewd assessment of Devi’s clothing choices for the second time that day, Rebecca’s eyes lit up. “Oh, will you take this to Paxton?”

“Me? I don’t know. I don’t think I” –

“Yes, you have to! He sucked in his first event, and he needs a boost,” she told her, thrusting the sports drink into Devi’s hands. “Look he’s right over there with Eddie waiting for their next race.”

Okay, Devi, deep breath. Own it. She told herself. With her thoughts racing, Devi attempted to strut toward the side opposite end of the pool where Paxton sat talking with Eddie Tan. As she got closer, she worried about stumbling in her steps, or tripping over a swim block. That fear was, of course, ridiculous because all the blocks were at the end of the pool, and she was walking down the side. No, this time she was not going to be clumsy. She was a different woman now. She’d kissed two boys in the last two weeks – she was a GD siren.

“Devi?”

“Paxton, hey,” his voice broke her from her internal monologue. She advanced the last few paces, as he stood to meet her.  “Becca asked me to bring you this.”

“Thanks,” he breathed in a smile.

“Hey, are we finally getting cheerleaders?” Eddie asked, coming up beside Paxton. “You look fire.”

Devi’s smile grew tenfold. “Thanks, Eddie, but no, not a cheerleader. Just trying to be supportive,” she grinned looking at Paxton.

“Dope,” Eddie nodded, before being called away by their coach.

“Thanks for this,” Paxton told her as he uncapped the Gatorade and took a sip. “Hey, you know I came by your place yesterday?”

“Yeah, I know. I came by yours this morning. You were already gone.”

He nodded with a small smile. “Cool. Well, I better get back. My next event should be up soon.”

“Cool.”

***

Paxton took another gulp of the Gatorade as he watched Devi’s retreating form. She heard his voicemail, and now she was at his swim meet looking like she wanted him to give her his jersey. If he had one to give her, she’d be wearing it. He was nervous when he never heard from her yesterday, and if he was honest, he slept poorly because of it. He felt tired when he got to the pool this morning, and it showed during his backstroke race. Eddie was trying to get him out of his own head when Devi showed up.

“Yoshida!” Coach Bryant called down to him. “You’re up next for breaststroke. You good?”

“Yeah, coach,” he replied, capping his drink. “Good to go.”

After putting his earplugs in, pulling his goggles on, and securing his swim cap. Paxton was waiting behind his block for the previous heat to end. Five deep breaths, and he would be ready to go. 5…..4….3…2.. –

“Woo! Paxton!” he heard a cheer from the stands. When he looked up, he saw his favorite nerd in the bleachers, standing with his mom and sister. They started in on a rehearsed chant, each one yelling a different letter of his initials. “P! H! Y! – P! H! Y!”

He couldn’t fight the smile from his face as he stepped up to his block. Devi came to his house this morning. She dressed up for his swim meet today. She was sitting with his family, and they were enjoying her.

When the starting gun sounded, Paxton dove into the water. It was effortless – such a stark contrast from his previous race. He couldn’t even describe how he was gliding through the water. If he didn’t know any better, he would think Rebecca spiked his Gatorade. Before he knew it, he was finished.

Coach Bryant hoisted him out of the pool by one arm as people cheered all around him. “That’s a PR, kid! 58.8!”

Paxton pulled his cap and goggles off just before his coach wrapped him in a bruising hug. A moment later, he was thrust back, and Bryant landed a sound clap on his back. “I don’t know what changed between your first race and now, but don’t change a thing. Got me?”

Paxton’s eyes flickered over to Devi in the stands, she was beaming right back at him. “Got it, Coach.”

***

“Paxton, you were amazing!” Rebecca told him when he came out of the locker room.

“That breaststroke was Olympic qualifying time, kiddo,” his dad wrapped him in a one-arm hug, “at nearly 17! You keep that up, we’re going to be watching you win gold medals.”

His mom put an arm around Devi’s shoulders with a sly smile. “Well, if you ask me, I think Paxton had a good luck charm.”

“Oh, no,” Devi shook her head with a smile as her cheeks reddened. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I know one thing,” Mrs. Hall-Yoshida continued, “we would be happy for you to ride with us to Paxton’s meet on Tuesday.”

“Mom’s right, we can’t take any chances. As long as you’re free, Devi, we’d love to have you,” his dad nodded.

Paxton gave Devi a lopsided grin. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”

“You were amazing. I mean, I’ve seen you swim before, but you were just so fast today. Becca said you struggled in your first race, but you looked fine to me,” Devi rambled as they climbed into the jeep, “better than fine. And what your dad said about the Olympics! Do you think you’ll try to qualify for 2024?”

He huffed out a smile. Her mind moved so quickly her mouth could barely keep up, and it always left him speechless. It embarrassed her, but it just reminded him of how smart she really was. “I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you excited? How are you so chill about this?”

He shrugged. “I just swam. I didn’t even try; I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Wow, you should not try more often,” she smiled.

Actually, he was planning to try a lot harder than he ever had before. “You want to get some food?”

Her smiled widened. “Sure.”

“Cool.”

They drove on for few minutes in silence, and he noticed Devi tapping furiously on her phone screen. For a moment, he wondered who she might be texting, but then he remembered.

“I’m guessing your mom doesn’t know where you are?”

“Yeah, she’s freaking out,” she scoffed before her eyes widened in alarm. “No, not because I’m with you! Just – I left this morning before she woke up. I’m just letting her know I went to the swim meet and that I’m going to Fabiola’s to study for history at 4:00.”

“Conveniently leaving out what you’re doing right now,” he pointed out.

He glanced over, and she drew her bottom lip between her teeth while she stared out at the road. Paxton could almost hear her thoughts pinballing in her head as she figured out what to say to him. Should he tell her how much her mother’s disapproval – no, that’s not quite right – her disdain for him, hurt his feelings? Well, not in those words certainly. Hurt his feelings? Yeah, right.

“I should tell you, I’m sorry,” she finally said, as they swung into the parking lot of a local burger joint. “I should have stuck up for you when you came to my house after Ben’s party.”

“You did,” he shrugged. “We’re cool.”

She shook her head. “I stuck up for me. I should have warned you about how she is with boys. To be fair, I don’t have a lot of experience yet myself, but I did know that she reminds me constantly, I can’t have a boyfriend until I’m old enough to rent a car. I knew that she would freak out if she knew I kissed you, but you didn’t.”

“It’s really okay. Not the first girl’s mom to not like me,” he grinned. It wasn’t true. He’d won over the mother of every other girl he’d gone out with. Some of them made him uncomfortable like Mrs. Harrison, but others just found him charming. Devi didn’t need to feel bad about it though. It’s not like she said those things, and like she said, it didn’t even have to do with him really. “Can we go in?”

She supplied a weak grin in return but nodded. Just as they were going to get out, it started raining. He watched his companion deflate as she watched the big raindrops plop on the windshield. Paxton grabbed around the backseat for his extra jacket, handing it to her once he had it. “Here, it’ll keep you dry.”

She nodded with a suppressed smile, pulling it on and putting the hood up. Without another word, they slid out of the vehicle and jogged into the restaurant. While they waited to be seated, Paxton turned to Devi. He noticed her shiver and clutch his jacket tighter around her. Between the downpour outside and the cranked AC inside, she was probably freezing. Without thinking, he placed a hand on each of her shoulders, rubbing them furiously in attempt to help warm her up.

“Thanks, but aren’t you cold?” she asked, subconsciously leaning into his touch. “You didn’t even put your hood up.”

“Me?” he replied with a devilish smirk. “Nah, I spent the whole morning in a pool. Besides, my hair was already wet,” he told her, shaking his head so drops of water showered her lightly. When a delighted laugh was her response, he smiled victoriously. He didn’t have to be smooth or suave with Devi. She liked him when he was raw, genuine, and dorky. If he was honest, it was a relief – no stress of trying to impress her because she already liked the real him.

He needed to tell her how he felt. Wasn’t that the whole point of going to her house yesterday? He wanted her to know that he liked her, that he was glad they kissed, that he didn’t care if her mom thought he was stupid. He liked her. They sat opposite each other in a booth after ordering their food. She hadn’t said a word since they sat down, but neither had he. The tension between them was running high as Paxton realized this was the first time things really felt like a date. In hopes of making their first date official, he reached across the table and covered her hand with his. Her eyes zeroed in on the action and grew wide. If she thought she was surprised now, just wait until she heard what Paxton was about to say.

“I kissed Ben!” Devi blurted.

Paxton’s head drooped as his brow furrowed in disbelief. “What? When?”

“Yesterday.”

He looked away from her as his hand dropped to his side. His face screwed up as he tried to process the information she gave him – mouth opening and closing as he fought to think of something to say. After a deep sigh, he hung his head until rubbing his face briskly with one hand. Finally, he made eye contact with her again. “So what? You guys together now or something?”

“No, it didn’t mean anything. I just – okay so yesterday, I almost missed spreading my dad’s ashes because I’ve been in a huge fight with my mom and ran away from home since the day after Ben’s party. My mom and cousin were in Malibu, and I wasn’t going to make it in time. Ben drove me all the way there, and I made it. And I made up with my mom. And we spread Dad’s ashes together, and I just got to really remember him. I got to remember him without it coming up at an inconvenient moment, without trying to push the memories away,” her eyes filled with tears. “I got to remember him with my mom, and I’ve been so unfair to her because she lost him too, and… and Ben was still there after we left the beach. He was still there waiting for me. And things have just been so hard, I’ve felt so abandoned and alone, and I probably would have kissed that little weasel Russia from model UN if he’d been there – I know you don’t know who that is, but the point is, the kiss wasn’t about Ben. I would have kissed anyone if they were there for me in that moment. I…” she trailed off, tears escaping and sweeping down her face. “I’m sorry.”

Paxton’s chest felt tight as he watched cry silently. His body moved of its own accord, carrying him over to her side of the booth and wrapping her in his arms. He pressed her head against his chest, before hushing her gently. “It’s okay… shh… I got you… you’re okay.” Tucking her head under his chin, he rested against her until he felt her body start to relax too. He scooted away when she started to pull her head up.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” she sniffled before chewing on her bottom lip.

“For what? Devi, if I hadn’t blown you off at school, I would have been the one in Malibu with you,” he told her. “You’ve been through a lot, and I’m done dumping on you. It’s not fair.”

She nodded with a weak smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He smiled back and slid back out to take his seat across from her again. “Can I tell you what I think?” he asked, waiting for her nod to continue. “If you really would have kissed anyone in that moment, and I believe you when you say you would have, then it doesn’t sound like you’re ready to have a boyfriend right now,” he watched her hang her head at his words. “Hey, this isn’t me telling you that I don’t like you. It’s the opposite of that. I like you. I like you a lot actually.”

“You do?” she asked perplexed, brow furrowing in a way that made him want to kiss her.

“Yeah, I do. That’s why I went to your house yesterday, but, Devi, I don’t want to date you if you’re not ready for that…”

Her voice was barely above a whisper as their food was placed on the table. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

Paxton thanked their server before turning his attention back to the girl across from him. She looked broken again. The only other time he’d ever seen her look that way was after Gross’s party. After her friends walked out on her. “Devi, I’m not going anywhere. I just want to be your friend while you figure stuff out. If we end up dating, I want you to be sure it’s what you want – not something to distract you from your problems.”

Things were silent between them for a few moments as they started in on their meals. Paxton glanced at her, and she was eating – he was glad of that – but she was still kind of sulking. An idea sparked in him as he tapped her foot under the table. “Hey,” he smiled. “You know what I could really use?”

“What?”

“Some help studying for the history test.”

“Well, I’m supposed to at Fabiola’s in forty-five minutes,” she reminded him.

“Right… do you think your friends would mind if I came along?”

For the first time since they sat down, Devi smiled.

***

“I got a B?” Paxton gaped at his own history test.

“A job well done, Mr. H – Y,” Mr. Shapiro nodded as he continued passing tests back.

“Dude!” Trent exclaimed, fist bumping Paxton. “You get a tutor?”

“I got three,” Paxton smiled, turning around to look at Devi. She was already smiling at him. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“I know,” she teased. “Seriously though, you did the work. I’m happy for you.”

“My mom was on to something, you know?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re my good luck charm. I stick with you, you’re gonna get me on the Stanford swim team.”

And she did. After that history test, Devi started unofficially tutoring him in all his classes. She was officially tutoring him as far as her mom was concerned, and therefore, it was a job, not her hanging out with a boy. They studied at the library, at either family’s dining tables or at Eleanor or Fabiola’s. The last time they had studied at Devi’s, her mom invited him to stay for dinner. If that wasn’t enough, she actually conversed with him about how much she had heard about his swimming career. Apparently, Coach Bryant’s wife worked at her Dr. Vishwakumar’s dermatology practice. It felt like a big victory to Paxton. A comparable victory was Devi’s help in preparing him for the SATs and a resulting 1300 score. He couldn’t believe how much things had turned around for him academically, but with Devi’s help and support, he felt unstoppable.

He ended up with a scholarship that covered 75% of his school fees to join the swim team, and his parents could not have been prouder. He wasn’t crazy about being five and a half hours from home, but he was thrilled, shocked even, to have gained admission to such a prestigious school. He knew that things were going to be challenging but was grateful when his new coach told him they had a team tutor. Devi suggested making sure he had a strong relationship with the tutor. As a collegiate athlete, he’d have a lot of pressure on him both in the pool and in the classroom.

“You’re smart though,” she told him as she helped him pack before move-in day. “Your SAT score shows that. Don’t second guess yourself, and don’t let people think you’re just a pretty face.”

Paxton smirked. Even after everything they’d been through, she wasn’t afraid to admit physical attraction. They never started dating after that conversation about making sure she was ready, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to. All he’d learned in the last two years was, Devi was far more special than he’d realized when their friendship began. Watching her heal after her father’s death and blossom into the woman he saw now was beautiful, and Paxton was just thankful to have a front row seat. Hearing her stories about Mohan and seeing how much she shared with her father made his heart swell, and he never missed an opportunity to tell her, her dad sounded a lot like her. He loved the smile she’d give him when he did too.

“I’m gonna miss you, Vishwakumar,” he murmured, pulling her close.

“Stop acting like you’re going off to war; it’s 2021. You can facetime me whenever you want,” she replied into his shoulder. She tried to pull away but stopped when his hold tightened.

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“I’m counting on it.”

***

“Mom, come on, this is the only school I’m going to see without you.”

“Yes, khanna, I know this. That is why you must be prepared,” Devi’s mother responded, pages of her questions pouring out of the printer.

“I’ve gone on three other visits with you, mom, I know what to ask. And you’re going to ask the admissions office again if I decide this is what I want.”

“I do not know why you are even visiting this school. You are to go to an ivy league school.”

Devi groaned. “Mom, they have the number two law program in the country. They are every bit as prestigious as any of the ivy leagues and you know it.”

“Yes… and you are certain you want to be a lawyer?”

“I’m certain I have plenty of experience with fact-based arguments,” Devi smirked.

Her mom glared playfully at her. “They are usually riddled with emotion in my memory.”

“Part of the charm,” she smiled back. “It would be nice to be closer to you too, Mom.”

Her gaze softened before pulling Devi tight to her chest. “Just be safe, sweetie. I love you. I will see you on Monday.”

Sherman Oaks had two weekends per school year for upperclassmen where they were invited to take a long weekend for a college visit. Devi, Eleanor, and Fabiola decided to take this opportunity to visit the one school all three of them planned to apply to. Devi’s mom had taken a great deal of convincing, but in the last two years the relationship between Devi and Nalini had remarkably improved. They’d gone to therapy sessions together to process Mohan’s death – they learned how to be more open and sympathetic to each other along the way. They still argued. Nalini still had high expectations for Devi, but they never doubted that they loved each other. And Nalini’s trust in Devi had flourished as a result. Thank goodness, otherwise she never would have gotten the opportunity for an unsupervised college visit with her best friends.

Did they listen to way too many showtunes on the drive up for Devi’s taste? Yes. Yes, they did. Had Fabiola developed a weird taste for country music? Yes, she had. Thankfully, when a road trip is five and a half hours long, everyone gets a shot at picking the music. With plenty of snacks to go around, they were set for a great weekend.

Once arriving on campus, they congregated with other prospective students at the student union for the beginning of their visit. After a quick tour of the union, their next stop was housing and where they would be staying for the weekend. After housing, they toured the Cantor Arts Center, SLAC, Bing Concert Hall, and so many other destinations that it made Devi’s head spin. When they broke for the day, all three girls were happy to go rest in their room.

“Wow, this campus is like its own city,” Devi collapsed on a bed.

“You’re telling me! They have five different venues for their performing arts,” Eleanor gushed.

“And the number one engineering school in the state,” Fabiola agreed, “in one the most progressive areas in the country.”

After a few minutes of tired but enthralled conversation about the different things they liked about campus, the girls fell silent, all lying perpendicularly across the same twin bed. Devi was close to dozing off when Eleanor shifted beside her.

“So… have you told you know who that we’re here?”

Devi tried to suppress her smile. “No, I figured I would surprise him tomorrow after his meet.”

“Has he called yet?” Fabiola smiled.

Paxton and Devi had maintained a strong friendship through the recent months of his first semester and swim season at Stanford University. He facetimed her the night before every meet because “it’s the closest he could get to having his good luck charm with him.” She often told him, he was silly, but man, if she didn’t love every second of it.

“Nope, but he better hurry, otherwise I’ll be asleep,” she joked.

“Do you think he’ll recognize the dorms?” Fabiola asked.

“Good point…”

***

“What’s up, Pax? You seem tense,” Michael asked, tugging one of Paxton’s earbuds out.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s stupid, just some superstition.”

“Didn’t talk to your girlfriend last night?” his friend smirked, tossing an arm over his shoulder to stretch.

Paxton smiled despite himself. “Shut up, man. She’s not my girlfriend.”

“You made her your woman-crush-Wednesday last week, and I didn’t even think people did that anymore.”

“Dude, whatever. She’s my best friend, and she’s the reason I’m here,” he shook his head as they both continued to stretch through their conversation.

It was true after all, at least in his opinion. If Devi had never approached him at the beginning of his junior year, his future may never have looked like this. She had mentioned before he moved up here, he could facetime her whenever he wanted. He systematically took advantage of that. Rationally, he knew that Devi could not affect how he swam. However, the more present Devi was in his life – the better things seem to be for Paxton, so he talked to her the night before every swim meet.  Did it have to be deeper than that?

Of course, it did. Paxton had never let go of his feelings for Devi. In fact, they only grew. She’d changed him into a completely different person with her friendship. Or did she just let him be himself? Yeah, that’s what she did. Devi saw him more acutely than anyone else he’d ever met… and she liked him. He wanted to be better, smarter, more motivated because she believed he could be. It made him believe it too. Did her not picking up his call last night change any of that? Absolutely not, he knew that. Did it make him feel like something was missing, just like if he didn’t get to listen to his music during warmups? Yes. Yes, it did.

“Huh… maybe you’re the reason she’s here.”

Paxton’s brow furrowed at Michael, before the latter nodded over Paxton’s shoulder. Paxton turned, and there she was, just like that first meet when everything changed. She had her red knee-high socks, her Stanford t-shirt and her denim shorts. Eye black under her eyes, and he couldn’t tell for sure, but he suspected the vertical lines would prove to be redwood trees. He wasn’t sure when the smile spread across his face, but his cheeks were already hurting from how happy he was to see her there.

Fabiola and Eleanor were with her, dressed similarly, and it was Eleanor that saw him first. She waved happily with one hand while nudging Devi and pointing toward him with the other. Devi beamed at him with the biggest smile he’d ever seen her wear. He wanted to wave. Hell, he wanted to run over to them, and wrap Devi in his arms. He wanted her to know how much having her there meant to him. He didn’t do any of those things though. He was stuck in his own shock and his body felt warm everywhere, so he just smiled at her and didn’t stop until Michael finally nudged him again.

“Get movin man, you gotta be in the pool soon,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t want to tear a muscle in front of your girl.”

Paxton rolled his eyes, shoving Michael’s shoulder good-naturedly before returning to his stretches.

When it was time for him to assume his starting position in the pool for the backstroke, Paxton followed his same routine – five deep breaths. 5…..4….3…2.. –

“P! H! Y!”

Just like almost every meet for the last two years of high school, he could hear his initials being chanted. And just like all those other meets, he knew Devi was the one that started it. It tapered off quickly while the starter waited to give his command, but it took effect.

When the starting gun sounded, Paxton had an out of body experience. It was like magic how easily he glided through the water. Somehow the race felt faster than the few seconds it took for them to start. When he brought his head fully out of the water, he could hear the raucous, thunderous cheering. He saw his time flash across the board: 51.8. A world record. A world record.

The rest of the meet was a daze. His other events were good, but not world record good. His teammates were congratulating him and talking about the parties they would be throwing for him – away from the coaching staff, of course. That all was great, but Paxton only had one thing on his mind, one person really. As soon as coach had dismissed him and he had his sweats donned, he was out the door.

People were shaking his hand. Smiling at him. Pulling him into hugs. Some were friends, classmates, teachers. Some were strangers. Paxton offered polite smiles and thanks as he continued to push past them. She was lingering toward the back, leaning against a wall with her friends talking about something on Instagram. When he finally made it to where no one stood between them, she was still probably eight feet away, and he froze. In that moment, he took all the little things he loved about her all at once. Her beauty, her intelligence, her faith in him, the way she reached inside him and pulled his walls down, the way she laughed at his jokes, and even then how she pretended to bored and look casual, but was chewing her bottom lip, his favorite sign that she was excited and nervous to see him again.

“My girl,” he breathed out, just loud enough to catch her attention.

Her eyes lit up when she saw him, and they both closed the distance between them. He wrapped her in a soul-crushing hug. Anyone around them might think it had been years since they’d seen each other instead of the few short months. He pulled away just enough to lean in for the one thing that had been on his mind all day – but then he stopped short.

“You didn’t kiss anybody yesterday, did you?” he asked.

She shook her head ‘no,’ as her cheeks took on a pink hue.

“Good. You think you’re ready for a boyfriend?”

She grinned with a small nod.

He matched her grin with a toothy smile. “Cool,” and he dove in. Finally, after two long years of not feeling Devi Vishwakumar’s lips against his, there he was kissing her, and boy, was it worth the wait. One hand cradled her jaw, the other clutching her back, holding her close as though if he let go, she’d disappear. He couldn’t even begin to describe how the actual kiss felt. Instead, he was so caught up in the monumental fact that is was finally happening. There was no one else – no Ben Gross to get in their way. She’d grown so much over the last two years, and so had he. She was ready. They were ready.

“Wait,” he pulled away. “Just to be clear, you are ready for me to be your boyfriend, right?”

She smiled, rolling her eyes, and pushing him away playfully. “Yes, dork.”

It was then he heard the cheers coming from their friends. Behind Devi, Eleanor and Fabiola gave them a thumbs up. Over Paxton’s shoulder, Michael let out a low whistle. When Paxton caught his eye, he winked and said, “thought she was just your best friend.”

Paxton looked back at Devi, her eyes finding his again immediately. “She is so much more than that.”

***

“Paxton Hall-Yoshida has done it again! He’s broke his own record!”

Paxton overheard the highlights of his 100m backstroke earlier that day as he walked the tunnel to where they were waiting. It was better than he could have imagined. He told his parents that he really wanted to give Devi one of the tickets for his events today. When he told them why, they were happy to help fly her out to them. It was five years since he realized Devi Vishwakumar was his good luck charm. And sure enough, she came through for him again today – sealing a gold medal for the backstroke. He was going to come through for her too.

“Hey,” she said when she saw him before tilting her head to the side. “What are you wearing?”

He glanced down at the expensive suit he’d donned in the locker room – the best suit he owned. “This? It’s nothing,” he smiled as he reached her.

“Where’s your bag?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her as his left hand slipped into his pocket. “I have everything I need right here.”

“Paxton, you can’t leave your stuff – what are you doing?” she asked suddenly, as he knelt down in front of her. Her eyes grew wide when he popped open the ring box.

“I’m feeling lucky, Devi. What about you?”

[harry-sussex]

You're lovely, and I enjoy seeing your blog on my dashboard. I'm sorry this has been such a difficult thing to process. It's always really difficult to rework an image of someone you once thought you knew. However I'd like to just put it out there - sometimes (I think the large majority of the time) news is presented in the most sensationalist way, such that nowadays I make a point of de-sensationalizing any news I read in my head. In the case of the whole Harry's memoir thing- I can sympathize with Harry as a person possibly just wanting to take back some control of the narrative for himself. Not just in the most recent events with family (that I tend to think are less horrifying than the fandom/Twitter sussex squad discusses it anyway), but in all aspects of his life. I do not at all think he's going to put his family on blast. I can easily imagine Meghan reigning that dialogue in; she has the tendency to think before she speaks that he seems to lack. And he loves his family. Similar to The Interview promos, I imagine the publishing house knew to increase the interest by implying it to be a tell all memoir. I think he's just done a lot of growing up that he didn't know he had to do over a short period of time, esp re: implicit bias/racism in the setting of media's blatant attack on someone he loves, and is disappointed by the institution's and his family's response to it. I think he's emerged a more introspective and aware human, albeit a disillusioned one. Yes it breaks my heart to think that Meghan won't get a break from the tabloids any time soon. If I were him I'd counsel him to write it & sit on it for a few yrs. But I don't want to give the media the power to destroy Meghan in my mind, and I pray she & Harry won't either. I think she'll be okay. She's a strong one, and I think he's able to draw that same link for himself and be thoughtful about what he does. No one likes being misunderstood/misinterpreted, and I wouldn't be surprised if Harry's especially triggered by that given his history with the press. Maybe this idea emerged from therapy, idk. I can empathize with that, even if I wouldn't do it myself. I hope and pray Meghan gets the support she needs from him and her loved ones in the meantime. I'm honestly not going to read it. I think the less attention I give the BRF the better off they are, unless they're doing something immoral/illegal (see: Woking pizza alibi). And I think at the end of the day, people will unfairly judge other people, especially public figures that have tragic pasts and are publically fighting with the media. A lot of it is going to be noise and I'm not going to give my energy into figuring it out. I like to think I've got a good sense of who they are as people - flawed but ultimately well meaning and earnest. I'm a huge admirer of Meghan and think Harry got really lucky with this one and I'm proud of him for choosing her in more ways than one. I believe Harry and Meghan are lovely people, and I 100% believe their interview. I believe that there are people in the palace with a lot of unchecked power who deliberately uncovered her and Archie from BRF protection for reasons of believed superiority over Meg & Arch. And they're figuring out how to deal with that as a couple and a family. And it's none of my business past that imo. I pray for them and hope it'll eventually end in peace for them all. Just wanted to add another perspective, and hopefully some levity. xx M

Hi, dear. First thing’s first, I really appreciate that this is off anon lol. I love it when people own their opinions, and it says a lot that you did. So thank you for that.

Second of all, I really appreciate the nuance and perspective that is in this message. I agree that the news is sensationalist, and my initial reaction was based off of that. I did watch the promotional clips of the interview and I believe it did sour my expectations going into it when I watched it nearly a week after it aired. I did my best to stay away from Tumblr because I didn’t want that to hinder my view, but it was impossible to separate the promotions that presented the information one way from what it actually was, and thank you for bringing that up with respect to the memoir because I hadn’t considered it. I will say that my knee jerk reaction is pretty on par with the way I still feel about it 24 hours later, especially since I got the news directly, not from Tumblr or Twitter or anywhere else, but you’re right that it could have soured my view from the very start.

I appreciate that he wants to take back some of the narrative but I think that ship has sailed, tbh. He did that with the interview and now I just think it feels like information overload. At some point, people are going to get tired of hearing the wealthy, privileged, powerful Prince complain about his life while more than 4 million people have died due to a global pandemic in less than 2 years. Not to say that he doesn’t struggle - in the words of Roxane Gay, there is no oppression Olympics (and that can be extended to struggle Olympics) - but people view it that way and will get tired of it, if they haven’t already.

I also agree that Harry’s past with the press has tarnished the way he has handled the media and the public post-exit, when he’s finally in a position to strike back without being somewhat obliged to them as part of the circumstances of his birth. I understand and sympathize with him but I just don’t think the public does, and the public matters much, much more than the perspective of one single American fan, to whom he’s never been obliged, and I simply do not think the public will afford him that same understanding, sympathy, and leniency. The public and the media are critical to his humanitarian work - his mother never realized that towards the end of her life, and I truly don’t think she would have been the martyr/saint she is perceived to be now if she had lived, because she did not know how to meet the media in the middle and eventually that started to piss people off. He’s starting to piss people off now and if it doesn’t bother him personally (which it definitely does), I don’t want it to affect his causes. The Invictus Games, Sentebale, Walking with the Wounded, WellChild, Mayhew, Smartworks, Archewell, etc. deserve better than to suffer the wrath of the media and an apathetic public because their patrons simply will not shut up lol.

I guess my point is that they will be unfairly judged (regardless, but especially due to the way they’re handling things), and I think it would suit them better in the long run if they adopted a different strategy. I really sympathize with the fact that he feels frustrated with the narrative that has been manufactured but I really, really think the narrative will only get worse and worse as he continues to go on and on about how badly his life sucks, basically. Again, I don’t deny that he struggles - we all do, some more than others, especially when there are mental health issues - but the public, to me, simply does not care. My own therapist has told me to simply stop caring about the things that I discuss with him. Not to say that they’re not relevant, important, or worthy of discussion - they absolutely are - but his point is that you cannot change people and you are wasting your energy and struggling yourself because you want to change them so, so, so badly that you’re neglecting your own self care in the process. I hate that I do it to myself and I also hate that he appears to be doing it to himself. I’m sure a lot of this conversation has been brought up in his own therapy, and I’m no professional, but I’m doing my best to heed the advice of my own therapist - which is the opposite of what Harry is doing - and it’s done wonders for me, when I actually can do it.

If there’s anything I know from this whole thing, it’s that Harry is absolutely punching above his weight, love him as I may, and that he adores, adores, adores his wife. He has chosen her from the very second she came into his life and I couldn’t want anything more for him or from her. I’m not going to lie, I would have been in this thing for any wife that Harry chose, because I was here long before Meghan specifically came into his life. However, I am glad every day that he chose her, that he loves her, that he wants to protect her, that she loves him back, that he lives the life with her that he’s wanted as long as I (and I’m sure he) can remember. I love her because he loves her, and I would have no matter what, because at the end of the day, it’s his happiness and comfort that matters to me, that has mattered to me since I discovered him and how wonderful he can be more than 7 years ago. What more could I ask of Meghan? What more, as his fan to the end (annoy me as he may), could I want for him? Who could say anything about her in that regard? If there’s anything that has come of this mess, to me, it’s that Harry loves, loves, loves his wife. I will always be happy for him and I will always be proud of him for choosing her, even if I don’t always agree with the way he goes about it.

I’m looking forward to peace, too. I cannot wait for things to just die out, for them to work things out as a couple and as a family, and for everyone to move on. The family will still do their thing and the Sussexes can do theirs, but I cannot deal with this back and forth, tit for tat, petty nonsense anymore. They’re wonderful and flawed, like the rest of them (except Andrew), and I just hope that they can all come to some kind of agreement or terms that lets this die down. It’s exhausting for everyone - themselves included. If I’m this tired, I can only imagine how tired they all are.

Thanks for stopping by, and sorry for the essay (essays, these past 24 hours lol). I really appreciate your kindness in this message, your presence in my notifications (I do see them!), your nuanced perspective and like I said before, I really, really appreciate that you own it!

[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

The Guardian’s Oath, Part Sixteen

Here it is, my beautiful readers, the last part of this ongoing saga! This was something that I originally thought I’d complete around mid-October, so that I could continue with a couple of other Halloween-themed pieces I had in mind. Oh well... Christmas is traditionally a time for ghost stories, not that this is really a ghost story... anyway...

Thank you very much to those who have followed along with the story. If you’d like to get yourself caught up on what this is, you can find all the previous chapters linked in the Master List. But whenever you’re ready to find out how it ends, you can just click to “keep reading”.

(As always, what gets published here is first-draft, unedited, unchecked rawness. There are going to be spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, hell, you’re lucky if I don’t start calling characters by different names halfway through. I apologize for all that.)

Pairing: Feargal Devitt/ Finn Balor x OFC

Word count: 3,115

Content warning: Honestly, if you’ve made it through the rest of the story, there’s nothing here that’s going to bother you. And saying more than that would probably mean spoiling the story. 

“Imagine my surprise when we got home and found out you’d run off on some servant’s errand,” he whispered. “What on Earth would have possessed you to do that?”

“I just wanted to get outside and do something to feel useful.”

“And then when you finally get home, you’re in another man’s arms.”

“That’s not true. He was helping me up the walkway and-”

He held my face in his hands and kissed me, hard. 

“Tell me, where else did he have his hands today?”

“Feargal, you’re being ridiculous,” I chided, but then cried out a little as he trailed his hand down my body, finding my nipple through my clothes and pinching it hard. 

“What else did you let him do to you?” He gripped my face in his hand and pushed me down on the bed before climbing on top of me. “What was it that left you so sore and weak that you couldn’t walk without his help?”

“You know perfectly well that-”

He kissed me, roughly pulling my skirt up and running his hands over my legs. 

“I haven’t been allowed to touch you in so long.”

I was stunned as I realized what he wanted, as I felt him tearing away at my undergarments. 

“You can’t be serious. The door is open. Susan could walk in! The children could walk in!”

He merely grunted and loosened his own clothing enough to free his erect member, the weight of it even more impressive than I remembered against my thigh. He kissed and bit at my neck, snarling softly like a beast, like a beast I knew all too well. He thrust inside me hard and immediately I knew something was wrong. The pain was sharp and overwhelming, and I almost cried out loud but for the fact that he placed his hand over my mouth just in time. 

“Please,” I sobbed into his hand, shaking my head. “No.”

As suddenly as they had started, his movements stilled. He stared at me wide-eyed and in shock. 

“My love,” he gasped. “I forgot that… I am so sorry.”

He withdrew from me and tucked himself away, stroking my hair with one hand. He continued to apologize even as I assured him that everything was alright.  He straightened his clothing and rose unsteadily from the bed, carrying himself out of the room and downstairs with an almost drunken gait even though I called after him. 

It took me a few minutes to recover myself enough to sit up and smooth my clothing into a more presentable state. I looked into the crib next to the bed and saw my son lying quietly, his eyes blinking and staring off towards the window. I hesitated to touch him in case he started crying but I could not resist the urge to place my hand on the blanket next to him, so that I could feel the heat of his body against mine. 

I moved to leave, meaning to head downstairs when it caught my eye: three scratches on the wooden frame of the crib, three parallel lines the like of which I had seen before. 

*

Once I had seen the Demon’s calling card and after Feargal’s sudden outburst, I knew that I had to do something. I had looked in the eyes of both my husband and the demon and now I truly believed that they were one and the same. I knew that the scratches I had seen on the crib were fresh because I had kept my eyes peeled for any sign that Balor might come to carry out his threat to take Michael away. No one could have snuck into the house and up to our room in the light of day. It was Feargal I had seen holding him. And I had experienced his bizarre behavior immediately afterward. 

I knew I couldn’t say these things to anyone else. Even saying them in my own head, they seemed insane. But my baby’s life was at risk and, by extension, the lives of William and Sophia, who I had sworn to protect. Although I had no confirmation, my instinct remained that getting Michael baptized would put him out of the Demon’s reach. Whether or not that would solve our problems, I did not know. 

My plan was to wait until everyone was asleep and then to leave with Michael. In order to avoid involving anyone else in the town, I resolved to walk the distance to the next village and to present myself to a pastor there as a young mother afraid for her baby’s health and insistent that he be baptized. There was no chance I would make it back before everyone awoke the next day, which meant that I would need an excuse to tell my family, something I had not yet worked out. I told myself that something would come to me because it had to. 

Every day I stared at the scratches on the crib and worked out the path I would take, what I would wear to keep us both warm, all of the details that I needed to know to accomplish my goal. I had not chosen a specific date but one night I felt a chill over my skin as I watched Michael sleeping and I knew that the time was at hand. 

I had lain awake every night making sure I knew every angle, every board, every nuance of the room so that I could get up quickly and access the clothing I had stashed for easy access. Feargal slept peacefully next to me and as I looked at the soft curve of his lips, my resolve faltered. He was still so beautiful, so much more than I ever could have imagined I would have as a husband. Surely I was mad to even think he could be a monster? 

Then I closed my eyes and forced myself to think of the ferocious look in his eyes when he was jealous, so pale and cold, just like those of Finn Balor. I thought of his touch, and how his hands and arms felt exactly the same against my skin. And I reminded myself that, as impossible as it might seem, this might also explain what had happened to his first wife. It pained me but I had to move forward. 

I slipped from the bed an inch at a time, freezing in place any time I thought Feargal showed a sign of stirring, and dressed myself in the clothes I’d prepared for the journey. Then came the most difficult part. Michael was asleep in his crib and I knew that picking him up would wake him. Ever so gingerly, I held a scarf against his face, so that at least the sounds he made would be muted. 

When I lifted him, however, it was like he understood that he should remain quiet. His blue eyes opened and looked around but he immediately curled against my breast and settled as if he was about to fall asleep again. I wrapped a blanket and my cloak around us both so that he would be warm and made my way to the stairs, walking to the rhythm of my own heartbeat. 

I had spent weeks memorizing where to walk on each stair to avoid making the floorboards creak under my weight and when I reached the bottom, I congratulated myself, for I had executed the descent perfectly. I hurried to the street door, confident that the rug would disguise any sound, and slowly turned the key to unlock it. It hadn’t been easy, but I had practiced moving the key so that it made hardly any noise, even when the deadbolt slipped back. What is most important to understand is that my plan had unfolded flawlessly to that point and that I had made so little noise that even the infant in my arms remained at peace. 

“Where are you going?” came the sharp voice behind me. 

I spun, biting down on my tongue to avoid crying out, and found myself facing William and Sophia, both in their nightclothes but looking almost unnaturally alert. I closed my arms tight around Michael and struggled to think of an adequate answer. After all, I had assumed that I would have the time to think of some cover story while I walked. I had nothing prepared to explain myself, even to children. 

“Where are you going?” William repeated, his voice rising. 

I held my finger to my lips in the hopes that no one else would overhear us. 

“What are you doing up? Go back to bed!” I whispered. 

“We heard you moving around,” he answered. 

I knew that that was not true. I knew how deeply they slept and I had not heard a sound behind me until he spoke. It was impossible that they had heard me and I had not heard them. It was more like they had already been awake and downstairs, lying in wait for me. But I couldn’t say that to them, so I tried to make an excuse. 

“Your brother is sick. I’m taking him to see a doctor.”

Sophia arched her brow at me. “Why not just send for the doctor to come here?”

I swallowed and once again motioned for them to stay as quiet as possible. “I don’t care for the doctors here. I want him seen to by someone else.”

“But that’s silly,” she responded sharply, although at least quietly. “It’s dangerous taking him outside, especially if he’s already sick. You should tell Father and have him go.”

“I don’t have time to explain right now,” I insisted, “but please, just go back to bed. We’ll have lots of time to discuss this when I come back.”

“No,” William pouted, “she’s right. You need to leave him here. As long as he’s here, we’re all safe.”

Sophia pinched him hard on the arm and he cried out, fortunately not very loudly. 

I struggled to understand what he meant, why he thought that having a sick baby remain in the house somehow meant that we would be safe. It was possible, of course, that he simply didn’t understand how sickness worked, but then it would make no sense that his sister had upbraided him for saying it. Was she embarrassed that he might look foolish? No, I thought, it was something else. He’d said something that she specifically didn’t want him to say. 

“Why do you think you’d be safer with him here, William?” I asked, focusing my eyes solely on him. 

He looked at his sister, who shook her head quickly. He continued to stare at her for what seemed like a long time. Finally, it was she who responded. 

“You promised you’d protect us. You can’t protect us if you’re not around.”

“I’ll be gone less than a day. You aren’t in any danger.”

She shook her head again. “We’re not safe from him until he gets what he wants. Michael needs to stay here and so do you.”

I blinked, not quite believing what I’d heard. They weren’t safe until “he” gets what he wants? Who did she mean? Was it at all possible that she knew of the demon and his determination to take the baby? And would her words not indicate that she wanted to help him? 

I stared into her dark eyes and felt a shiver go from my skin down to my very core at how cold they looked in the low light. William’s expression was impetuous but hers was more frightening because of its utter lack of human emotion. There was no hint of anything childlike or innocent about her. 

Somehow, I could feel that she knew that the demon Finn Balor was lurking and that he was determined to take this child, my child, the third child of the house, away to be with him. And she believed that letting him do so would protect the family from him in the future. Did she know that he had also threatened to take me? Did she care? 

Unable to come up with another word to say, I grabbed the door handle and opened it, motioning to the children one last, desperate time, to keep silent. 

It was no use. 

“Papa, papa, come quick, please!” William cried at the top of his voice as I stepped through the threshold. 

I scurried down the path to the gate and was shocked that as I reached to lift the bolt that Feargal came storming out of the house. He was still in his pajamas, but had managed to pull on his great-coat and boots in the mere seconds that had elapsed. I was so struck by his sudden appearance that I stood frozen in place for a moment until I realized that he was nearly upon me. 

I darted onto the road and turned to head towards the town and the main road there, only to be blocked by him as he ran through the gate and stood in my path. 

“Helen, what are you doing? Get back in the house this instant!” he exclaimed. 

I shook my head and retreated, back down the street, although there was only the beach and the ocean in that direction. 

“What’s gotten into you?” he persisted, following my every step but allowing me to maintain a distance between us. 

“He needs to be baptized,” I stammered, clutching tightly at the bundle in my arms as he started to stir. 

“Of course he does. I told you, I’m arranging it with Reverend Devlin.”

“No,” I snarled, “he needs to be baptized tonight. He can’t wait any longer.”

“Ok, I haven’t spoken to the Reverend yet,” he admitted, moving towards me as I continued to back away. “I’m sorry that I haven’t kept my word. But I’ll speak to him first thing in the morning, I promise. Just come back inside and come to bed.”

He extended an arm to me and I felt my heart breaking. How could I have thought such horrible things of him? But just as I was about to take his hand, a cloud crossed the moon and as it did, I saw the face of the demon, the shadowy skin and white eyes, the voraciousness and danger and I could no longer convince myself that this man was merely the gentle country pastor I had believed him to be. 

“You cannot have him,” I spat. And I turned and ran as fast as I could- not terribly fast, I will admit- even though I knew I was running towards a dead end. 

The thudding of footsteps behind me was my greatest impetus to keep moving and so when I reached the rickety stairs that lead down to the beach, I did not hesitate. I nearly fell and crushed Michael against my chest to try to protect him from the roughness of the descent. Once on the sand, I continued to scramble along as best I could, until I felt my arm grabbed roughly from behind. I spun away, tightening my grip on the baby and screamed in anger and fear. 

“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he shouted at me, struggling to be heard over the fierce wind off the sea. 

“I know you mean to take him, to harm him. I know what you are,” I cried triumphantly. “You think that I’ll let you steal him away and condemn him to hell with you?”

“For God’s sake, Helen, this is insanity! He’s my son!”

As he spoke, I once again saw the light of the moon obscured by a cloud and the hungry face of the Demon Balor was revealed to me. He reached forward repeating that Michael was his son and I started to run again, almost falling as I did.

“He’s my child and you will never take him,” I screamed, stumbling and barely regaining my footing. 

He advanced on me, and as he did his face shifted from the distraught, desperate Feargal Devitt to the hungry, demanding Finn Balor. I wanted to believe that only one of them was real. I wanted to believe that I could separate them. But why would God have favoured me with a perfect husband and happy life? Who was I to deserve to be Mrs. Devitt, wife of the country pastor? 

I backed away as fast as I could, careful to watch him for any sudden moves. 

“Is this what happened with Sarah?” I taunted. “It is, isn’t it? She knew what you’d do if she had a third child, knew that you’d claim it and take it away.”

“Helen, please…”

“But she tricked you, didn’t she?” I continued, trying to be mindful of the stones in my path. “When she found out she was going to have a third child, she went to see the woman in the village, Susan’s aunt. She wanted to get rid of it, didn’t she?”

“Stop it now, you need to come home.”

“And you must have been furious when you found out.” I found myself piecing the story together as I spoke, more upset with every syllable but unable to stop myself from continuing. “Did you attack her? Is that why she ran from your house in the middle of the night? Did she die trying to escape your wrath or did you smash her skull against the rocks of that cave?”

At that, he lunged at me, knocking me down as he tried to wrest the precious bundle from my arms. I landed hard but the sand was at least a little forgiving and despite being winded by the fall, I continued to struggle with him, to keep him from claiming my innocent child. 

I sat up, clawing at his face, which did force him back a little. I clutched my baby in one arm as I tried desperately to scratch and slap at Feargal, at Balor, at both of them together, until he fell back on his haunches, panting for breath. 

“He’s not moving, Helen,” he shouted at me. “Why isn’t he moving?”

I didn’t want to allow him to distract me, but I knew that the bundle in my arms had stayed unnaturally still. Looking down, I tapped at his face to revive him, my breath quickening when I could not get a response. A heavy hand landed painfully on my shoulder as I struggled to wake Michael from his slumber. 

“What’s wrong?” he shrieked. 

“I don’t know,” I sobbed, rubbing at his tiny chest with my hand. 

“What have you done, Helen?” he roared, shaking me by the shoulder. “What have you done?”

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 33 of 26

Title: The Edge of Worlds (2016) (The Books of the Raksura #4)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person

Rating: 9/10

Date Began: 11/28/2020

Date Finished: 12/09/2020

Two turns after The Siren Depths, Moon has settled into life in the Indigo Cloud colony with young children of his own. But when all the adult Raksura experience a disturbing, shared nightmare that foretells the destruction of their home at the hands of the Fell, things are about to change. Soon an expedition of strange groundlings visit The Reaches, claiming they need the Raksura to help investigate a mysterious abandoned city far to the west. Believing the two events are linked, Moon and the others embark on a journey to avert disaster. However, they soon find more than they bargained for when a Fell attack traps them in the deadly, labyrinthine city ruins.  

If eyes fall on this, and no one is here to greet you, then we have failed. Yet you exist, so our failure is not complete. 

Full review, some spoilers, and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book:  Graphic violence and action. Some mind control stuff (par for the course at this point). 

This is a difficult book to review because it is, for all intents and purposes, part one of a longer two-part story. While the three previous books were all self-contained, The Edge of Worlds isn't, even ending on a cliffhanger. I feel like this duology might have been written as a single book but got split for publishing reasons. As of this writing I have not read the next book, The Harbors of the Sun. So take what I say with a grain of salt, because my commentary assumes the next book will address certain things.

The Edge of Worlds’ core plot builds on threads from the previous book-- mysterious ancestors, bizarre dead cities, the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds, and so on. This book doesn't include any new details about the ancestors, which are just called "the forerunners", but I expect the next book to touch on this more, as it’s been a consistent Thing in the series. There's also another mysterious, ancient ruin critical to the plot. However, it’s pretty different than the underwater city in The Siren Depths, so doesn't seem repetitive. Oddly, it reminds me of House Of Leaves with its vast size, impenetrable darkness, and sentient (?) traps.

The book also explores Fell/Raksura crossbreeds in yet another way. Previous books depicted them as terrifying weapons (The Cloud Roads) or just weird looking Raksura (The Siren Depths). The Edge of Worlds splits the difference, introducing a Fell flight that seems much more sympathetic and reasonable than any encountered thus far-- led by a crossbreed queen. My criticism of the Fell way back in The Cloud Roads is they're basically an Always Chaotic Evil horde of predators, but this new idea adds a lot of nuance. Though I am assuming the next book goes into this more, as they’re just introduced here. It's important to remember the Fell and Raksura are descended from the same ancestor, and even though Raksura are the heroes of the story, there are a lot of similarities between the two species. Overall this is one of the most intriguing threads in the series, and I'm glad we keep coming back to it in new ways.

Another thing this book does differently is perspective. Moon is the POV character in the other main entries. While that's still true, there are several interludes from the perspectives of others. For practical purposes this is to show what's going on outside of the main party, particularly so Malachite showing up at the end doesn't feel like an asspull. Also, certain events really do need to be explained when Moon isn't present. I can respect that.

From a reading standpoint I really like these alternate points of view. They're all minor characters-- Lithe, Ember, Merit, River, and Niran-- which is an interesting choice. Ember's interlude is actually my favorite part of the book. It's fun to see a more "traditional" consort approach an awkward situation, and I like his initial struggle to accept and treat Shade (one of the crossbreeds and a personal fave of mine from the last book) as a regular consort. Ember comes off as very submissive in the rest of the series so it's fun to see him take charge. Also this part features a scene in which two intimidating Raksuran queens, Pearl and Malachite, have the most tense tea service of all time. It's just hilarious. 

This book actually has a trans analogue with the Janderan, the primary groundling species, who apparently choose their gender when they reach adulthood. Specifically there’s a focus on a young man named Kalam, who just took that step. This doesn't feel like the standard fantasy/scifi copout because humans literally do not exist in the series. Wells handles trans/nonbinary/agender characters (human and otherwise) extremely well in The Murderbot Diaries so I feel it’s in good faith. LGBT rep in the Raksura series has been great so far, honestly. Moon/Jade/Chime is like... canon, man.

Another general observation I haven't previously noted... I love how many interesting and varied flying ships there are in this world. They're all boat-like (nothing like airplanes) but there has been a different kind in each book. Considering that most of the main cast can fly it's interesting that flying ships are consistently integral to the plot. It would be so easy to cop out and design one ship that every society uses, but Wells really makes them all unique despite serving similar functions to the story. The ship in this one is organic, powered by living, cultivated moss. I dunno! I just think it’s neat. 

I do have one criticism for The Edge of Worlds, keeping in mind it's part one of a longer story. The pacing. This book is pretty slow; it takes a while to get going and then there are lots of lengthy travel sequences. As long as there’s interesting flavor to it, I generally don't mind this approach. It allows for breathing room and character interaction. But even I started feeling bored at points and had to power through. It feels like a lot of the travel could have been cut from the book without losing much. For example, the journey to the colony tree in The Serpent Sea took up maybe a few chapters. I appreciate travel in this series from a worldbuilding perspective, but in this case I think some time gaps would have been fine. The action doesn't pick up until the party arrives at the ruin, in the latter half of the book.

Also, this isn't really a criticism, but there are several references to the Raksura novellas and short stories. I haven't read them (yet) so they’re totally lost on me. I can't blame Wells for including references, both as a wink/nudge to people who have read them and because ignoring relevant ideas makes no sense. But as someone lacking context it comes off as awkward to have a character think “WOW, this is just like that one time Jade had to do this one thing!” and I’m just like “...it is???” 

Despite this I like just about everything else in the story, especially the second half. It really does feel like a proper finale, bringing back notable characters from throughout the series (not anyone from The Serpent Sea yet... I do have my suspicions here, though). River seems to be getting a mini redemption? The labyrinthine, dark city is creepy, and the artifact they find inside it is super unsettling. All the climactic action is intriguing, particularly regarding the new Fell crossbreeds. The novel ends abruptly, but that’s understandable since the next book leads right off from it. I'm really excited to see how the Raksura story concludes.

[movienotesbyzawmer]

October 19, 2020: Friday the 13th

This is happening. I am going to watch the first eight Friday the 13th movies over the next eight evenings.

Am I an idiot. Will I even get through them all. Why.

The earlier movies in the series came out at a time when I was a pre-teen movie fan who really wanted to get past the too-scary barrier and just enjoy horror movies. I think rewatching the first couple on cable back in the early 80s helped me get used to horror movies. But it's not like I ever was a huge fan of, just, straight slasher movies. I'd appreciate the effects and the gore, but I never thought they were excellent movies.

So here we are at the first one, still the most famous one. I remember it well enough that I don't think anything will be scary or surprising, but it's been so long that I suspect it will look very, very dated. Let's pop this sukka in…

Right away we get to hear the familiar "riff" or whatever you want to call this bit in the score that goes CH CH CH CH CH HA HA HA HA HA HA. Good job coming up with that.

So they tell us that it's Camp Crystal Lake in 1958, and we cut between teenage camp leader people doing a singalong and a POV stalkercam creeping around. It really doesn't look like 1958 in any way. But that turns into a POV murdering of two boinking teenagers; definitely owes a debt to Halloween, which came out two years earlier. But that ends with the title of the movie shooting out toward us all and shattering some glass we didn't know was there! Oh mercy what a surprise how will I ever get any sleep.

Ha! A crazy old man jumps in front of the nice girl and be-s all scary at her with the portentous "death curse" warning. Kinda hard to believe this movie came out in the same decade as Blue Velvet, is my comment on its dramatic maturity.

0:12:45 - Kevin Bacon's first appearance! Do people remember that this is one of his earliest roles? Still a couple years after his small role in Animal House though, so he was actually known.

So now we're at the camp and we see the girl who makes it to the end. She's talking to the dude with the mustache who is, what, the owner of the camp? There's a creepy tension maybe because they will want us to suspect he's a bad guy later. Or maybe because awkward exchanges are a consequence of movie budgets being small. But there's also dumb plot exposition about how, okay, fine, she'll stay on the job until Friday but then she has to move to California to pursue her real interests. You know, art drawings!

Ooh, now the first girl, Little Miss Backpack, catches a second ride, but we don't see the driver, it's all POV! She's in trouble, and we don't know who it is! Is it Moustachio? She's on the run through the woods! Limping, oh no! And… SLASH! That's kind of interesting because it was looking like she might be the protagonist. But in the brilliant clarity of this very nice, newly-restored Blu-ray presentation, we see her cruelly dispatched by way of some pretty mediocre gore makeup. Good enough for what must have been a pretty low budget I guess. But hard to believe this came out just one year before An American Werewolf in London.

0:26:20 - "What Do I Do", says the snake-chasing counselor guy. It's a funny delivery! And I actually like some of the angles in this scene.

Now there's this motorcycle cop character who shows up to Be A Cop at them. The actor seems like he's not very experienced, but like he was cast because he has a weird way of talking that was amusing during the casting sessions.

Bah ha ha ha, the weird dude from town is lurking in the pantry! He emerges shockingly to deliver another warning! The only reason that happens is to make us wonder if he is the stalker. "You're doomed! You're all doomed!" Way to embrace that dialogue, buddy.

It's kind of like the director didn't give these counselor actors individual character notes; he just told them all "you are spunky young camp counselors, that's it, that's the direction".

So Kevin Bacon and his girlfriend have repaired to a little cabin so they can Do It, and something that's occurring to me is that, unlike what we're more used to seeing in slasher movies, they aren't focusing on the sexual attractiveness of the females. The guys and the gals are all just kind of good-lookin-enough young adults who are all into each other. I'm going to keep an eye on how this progresses as I get deeper into the series, if I even last the whole eight movies.

Whoa a dude is dead in the bunk above where they're Doing It! We didn't see that guy get killed even, right? He looks enough like another one of the guys that I might not have noticed his character was absent.

The KB death scene I totally remember, and at first it looks quite good and is a good shock! But because this restoration is so clean, you really notice the color difference between where it's KB's head and a fake body getting speared. Other than that, though, that is pretty exquisite horror movie violence, that death.

KB's girlfriend is looking like she's about to get murdered, and while she is in skimpy underwear, I still don't think it's like that to titillate us as much as to make her seem vulnerable. Am I being naïve? Maybe. The rest of the gang is playing strip poker in their quarters, but they're such regular people and not being filmed in any kind of steamy way.

The pace really slowed down after those couple of bloody murders, but audiences at the time were probably pretty shocked by how bloody they were. Both of those deaths were very much in close-up. At this point in the movie, though, there's a more careful suspense. We go back to Moustachio, chatting in a diner, then having car trouble. It's plodding in a way that seems actually pretty smart. I feel suspense building.

0:56:58 - I don’t remember this scene at all… one of the girls is all by herself and she clearly hears someone calling for help. It's not done in a "maybe it's the supernatural echo of the drowning boy's screams" way. It's just a lure. The girl goes outside, someone turns floodlights on… and we cut away just as she's ostensibly about to get all killed up.

So now it's just the short-haired girl and the dark haired guy that didn't die yet. Are they the last ones left? Other than Moustachio? That happened quick!

1:02:10 - First mention of it being Friday the 13th. It's really not significant to the story or to the whole series. They were clearly just stoked that they claimed "Friday the 13th" as a property.

Moustachio just got killed; no violence; it was just so we could see that he recognized the killer. Plus also now we know for sure he's not the killer, even though we figured that because he was off at the diner while killings were happening. Our minds are really spinning trying to solve this diabolical mystery!

I do like how they are drawing out the suspense at this point. Lots of little moments where maybe a lurker is about to get them.

How come people used to make coffee in the exact same was as they make hot cocoa? Just get a mug and put some coffee crystals in there and some sugar, then pour boiling water in there and serve?

Boom! After all that meticulous slow action, dude is dead on the door! Up until this point, the main girl had no idea that actual deaths were going on, and suddenly she's the only one left alive! It is exciting to watch her figure out what she'll do.

What she does first is go all in on blocking one door. It's kind of unintentionally funny, and also maybe that's what any of us would come up with.

In case she wasn't sure if the other gals were still around, a cadaver of one of them is heaved in front of her through a window! Just like that she undoes all her door work because she sees a jeep pull up. Are we supposed to recognize it as Bad Jeep from earlier? I think we are. It's a nice lady, but we are suspicious because Bad Jeep. But why would she throw a girl through a window and then just a few minutes later arrive in a Jeep?

The Jason's Mom actress is awesome, super intense. Only problem is that it's a little hard to believe that she's twenty years on from being a mother of a kid who was at a camp.

The main girl is on the run and found a rifle, and is just like OMG where is ammo, and she looks as desperate as I'd be. This is fine, you guys. Fine work. Fine, fine work.

1:26:40 - We're near the end. The chase devolved into an I-found-you-hiding-in-the-pantry fight. Jason's Mom got laid out on the floor and there was a little blood, so the main girl was like, time to just kneel by a canoe with my back to all of everything. But Mom is there and the fight ends with her being beheaded, because somehow there was a machete there that only the main girl knew about! The machete from the snake incident earlier that was in a totally different place, I guess. So she rewards herself with a midnight canoe ride by herself on the lake, which honestly should have been pretty free of murderers, not that dumb a move.

What is dumb is this ending. She wakes up in the hospital, vocally convinced that The Boy Jason pulled her under, even though she didn't see what happened because he grabbed her from behind. But there were cops there looking right at her at that time, they should have seen. Also, like, so do you slip into a coma when you fall overboard or something? Last time I got fully submerged in water I didn't wake up in the hospital with lots of questions.

So that's that! I watched Friday the 13th and told you what I was thinking as I watched it. It is not without virtues and the Blu-ray transfer looks very nice, but it is a slasher movie whose intended audience is no more nuanced than the undefined blob of camp counselor characters that make up most of the movie.

(next: Friday the 13th Part 2)

[massistocchifontana]

Do you really see me… actually seeing your partner and adore everything they are

Do you really see me… actually seeing your partner and adore everything they are

I can honestly say that this is one of the most difficult topics to see and hear when I work with women. The amount of times I’ve been told “he doesn’t see me”, my heart sinks because I am fully aware that when a person gets to this point there is usually an affair looming.

 As human beings as much as we may enjoy our solitude at times, we are definitely not made to be in strict isolation. We crave connection and because we are social beings there has to always be the mindset of advancing within a relationship or the inevitable stagnancy period will hit.

 There is a double bind when someone doesn’t feel like they are being seen. The double bind comes in when you ask the question “have you done everything to show who you are?”. When we hit this point of stagnancy, we revert into bad habitual patterns that served us in the past. These bad habits include negative thinking loops and behaving out of character. We become complacent and this stagnancy will eventually turn into what I call “relational rot”.

 This rot is like unattended damp in a house. We may notice it as just a small wet patch, but give it enough time and it will become your worst case scenario. This is where I can be thankful to the natural evolution that many people eventually go through, because the vast majority of us with experience and age begin to recognise the importance of working in a relationship and our attitude towards this work changes. Add the additional choice of doing work and you have a solid formula for success.

 We feel a lot of shame in our younger years but statistically speaking the older we get we experience less shame but then after the age of 50 this is when we see another decline into more shameful feelings. The reason why I bring this up is that we always have opportunities in our development to see where we can do more work. We have the choice to identify what is working and what isn’t and make a concerted effort to change things. This includes being seen, being heard, seeing another and hearing the other. 

 Lets look at the mechanism behind the feeling of not being seen…

 According to a previous post on the “Relational foundation system” I created, we can already see where someone goes wrong when they don’t feel seen and heard. There will more than likely be complacency in all the 7 areas and although one party may feel that they are not being heard or seen, it is more than likely that something has changed in them too. This process is very much about self-reflection and understanding where the shifts in the relationship have taken place.

   If all these 7 areas are maintained and achieved, there is nothing saying that your partner and you included will not feel adored, heard and seen. If you have two parties applying these principles to the relationship there is bound to be success. But working in the deficit the individual who feels they are not seen will be in a position of neediness and more often than not act out in ways that are not aligned with how they usually are.

 This can include a flurry of emotions ranging from anger to shouting to emoting violently, being dismissive of their partner when discussions arise, a general sense of irritability, never looking at oneself as part of the problem and ultimately a general sense of defensiveness that is not aligned with their default behaviour.

 The problem with this kind of behaviour is that one has been pushed to such an extent that this becomes a mini-breakdown of sorts. It’s like watching two people not listening to each other and instead of taking a step back to reflect and readjust emotionally, our voices go louder and louder with the hope that the other will hear what we’re saying.

 One area in the Relational Foundation System that needs to be named is communication. We can identify that communication is essential in all the 7 areas but what I mean here is the actual linguistic communication that we use to speak with our partner. We need to become so aware of the nuances in our language that the moment we think we’ve understood our partners language, it is here that we need to do more work on the understanding because no doubt we’ve missed something again.

 This happens all the time in the later stages of a relationship. In the early stages because we are more curious about the unknowns of the individual in front of us, we are more attentive to the linguistic nuances. We ask questions curiously and attentively, we communicate with intention. We look for clarification and we give clarification. Our attitude is about alignment rather than complacency. We are very present in the progression of understanding the other and this is usually what makes us fall in love with the person.

 The question here is what is it about consistent work in a relationship that most fail at maintaining?

 This is where I believe that most of us will get it wrong or have gotten it wrong. If we begin to invest as much time in the manner of how we relate to others and use the Relational Foundation System as a baseline to prompt us in constantly striving to maintain the strength in the pillars. By consciously implementing the pillars, even if it just one of them there is no doubt that you will experience a change in the relationship.

 Via Con Dios

[thesffcorner]

Get a Life Chloe Brown

Get a Life Chloe Brown is a romantic comedy, written by Talia Hibbert. It follows Chloe Brown, a freelance web designer from a wealthy family, who one day has a near death experience. This shakes her profoundly, not just for the obvious reasons, but also because she realizes that if she were to die, she would have nothing to show for herself; no friends, no boyfriend, no adventure and no interesting events. In an effort to change that she makes a list of things to do, and meets a person that just might help her do it: Redford, her new superintendent. I was interested in this book ever since I heard it was coming out, because the premise, for whatever reason reminded me of a mix of two things: the profoundly stupid, yet profoundly watchable film What’s Your Number, and Michelle Pfeiffer’s story-line in New Years Day. This book is neither stupid nor silly; it’s one of the funniest, well written rom-coms I’ve ever read, and not since Red White and Royal Blue, have I liked two characters this much. Let’s start with the writing. I didn’t know Hibbert was British, but one page in and this book was so British it hurt. From the jokes to the banter, I felt like I was watching an episode of Bad Education, and I laughed out loud more times than I can count. Both characters are very snarky, and Chloe especially has a rather dry sense of humor that comes off as rude to others, because it’s so stiff. I found it hilarious, though the real standout for me was Red, because his internal monologues had me in stitches. Let me give you a sample of the jokes, here are a few. “We definitely have bears” “We don’t. If we had bears, it’d be in the news all the time. You know. Fine upstanding British man attacked by a bear. EU to blame. Brexit now.” Gigi appeared helpfully on her shoulder and said “Don’t mumble, darling. Nice big words. Repeat after me: ‘I want to ride you like a stallion.’” “Red snorted: ‘Who are you, Dr. Phill?’ ‘Ah, don’t start that manly crap. We talk about our feelings in this house, boy.’ ‘Can I talk about my feelings for your wife?’ ‘This bowl would be a great hat on you’” This couldn’t be more up my alley. Outside of the humor, the writing on the characters was equally well done. Not only do we get a very good sense of both Red and Chloe as individuals, but Hibbert makes the chemistry between them palpable. I believed that these two people could barely hold off from ripping each other’s clothes off, and later, when they became more emotionally invested, I believed in their romance. All the characters are well written; from Chloe’s family, especially her sisters, to Red’s friend Vic and even his mother. Because we get POVs from both Chloe and Red, I was worried they might sound the same, because both are such snarky characters, but they didn’t; they have very different personalities and ways of approaching their problems, which I found was translated quite well. The plot wasn’t particularly complex; it mostly just follows Chloe making a deal with Red so he can help her tick off things on her list, and slowly getting an understanding of what is actually important to her and what isn’t. The book does also follow Red coming to some realizations of his own, notably what he wants to do with his life, now that he’s escaped an abusive relationship. Which leads me to two points of caution for this book. The first is that the cover and the synopsis might mislead you into thinking that this is straight up comedy, which it is, but more in the vein of How to Be Single or Trainwreck. There are some really heavy topics discussed in this book: there is the aftermath of an abusive relationship, disability, trauma from loss, PTSD even, and a very brutal verbal fight that doesn’t pull punches. It’s a funny book, but it has surprising depth, and Hibbert really touches on some heavy and complicated topics, while maintaining an overall light tone. There’s even a warning on the first page of the book about some of the triggers, so tread lightly. The other point are the sex scenes. Now, readers of romance, and those who are familiar with Hibbert’s other work, will probably know that this book has sex scenes. I’ve heard from other people that they either found them extremely hot or completely over the top. I fall in the former category; the sex is explicit, but I think the scenes are paced well, are genuinely engaging and steamy and actually explore the characters, and their growing attraction to each-other. The only critique I do have is that the characters, especially Red do sound a bit OOC in them, because there’s a lot of dirty talk that is a bit much even for him, but honestly, outside of laughing at it, it didn’t personally bother me. Let’s talk about characters. There aren’t many, but each gets a moment to shine. Out of the supporting cast, my favorite was Vic, though I can’t wait for Evelyn’s book, because she seemed like a hoot too. Out of the leads, let’s start with Red. Redford, who I imagine is named after the dog, being a ginger and all is a charming, attractive and confident man, who has been through a really abusive relationship that has made him spiral into bad decision making. He has quite a few flaws, the most notable being a chip on his shoulder about being treated as a spectacle, or a commodity, by people who are richer than him and can therefore buy him in many ways; buy him for his looks, his time, his talent or just simply observe him like some kind of circus animal. I found all of his quirks understandable and well written; he does make some stupid decisions, and he seems to be incapable of saying no. But he was the better adjusted lead out of the two, which was nice. He did veer off into being a little too perfect and considerate at time, which was just a tad unrealistic, but I really liked his personality a lot. Then we have Chloe who I adored, even though she falls definitely in the tradition of quirky, type A female protagonists. She is obsessed with lists, organization, planning out her days and her life, and there’s a good reason for that: she suffers from fibromyalgia. I will admit; while I do know two people in my life who have, fibromyalgia I knew very little about the disorder. I didn’t know that it seems to be caused by trauma for one, nor did I know that it leads to brain fog or short term memory loss. I think the way the illness was described in the book, and the way it impacted Chloe’s life was presented very well; I can definitely understand and sympathize with how she had developed her coping mechanisms, the healthy and unhealthy ones. Chloe is a very strong character; she is funny, she is smart, she is witty, and what I liked most was she knew her limits, knew when to push and when to take a break, and was actively fighting to live a life she would be proud of, in spite of fibromyalgia. I really liked how well Hibbert explored both what it’s like to live with an invisible illness, and the toll it takes both on the person and those around them, but also how having an illness or a disability doesn’t mean that the person can’t take care of them-self or live a perfectly good life. I’m not disabled, so I can’t speak to that representation, but as just a humble reader who wanted to learn a bit more, I was satisfied. One other thing to note is that Chloe is both plus size and black. In terms of race I appreciated the conversation she had with Red about privilege, and I think perhaps a bit more could have been explored on that front. In terms of weight, Chloe’s weight is mentioned at several points, but it’s not really a factor. I kind of liked that; Chloe gets to be a fat girl who is content with her life, and it’s not even a factor. It was nice. Overall, this book was great. It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s very sexy, and it tackles some deeper issues and topics like class and disability in a nuanced and lighthearted way. If you are looking for a good romance with some substance, I highly recommend it.

goodreads

[cloudbatcave]

Cloud Plays White: Finale

This is a long one, folks, since I realized I had a bit in my notes I had forgotten about and only found after I posted this, lol, so I have now edited it in.

when we last left off I was criticizing Alder for being useless in apprehending Ghetsis and Iris for not just taking me to Drayden’s house herself when it is Right Fucking There. 

So I’m still futzing around Opelucid here.

“No way, without pokemon, I’ll be lonely and sad! …but am I just using my pokemon, then?”

wow, seems there’s some brain cells there after all. you keep exercising those, brah.

I run into a guy who thinks that it’s okay for team plasma to take pokemon from weak trainers, even though he considers himself one and feels bad for the people they rob.

There’s another dude in the same room who used to be part of team plasma but left because it was weird for him that everyone thought the same way.

See, I appreciate this part of the game’s writing - I wish there was more stuff like this, people who are conflicted and their viewpoints being front and center instead of the simplistic garbage we’re fed by Iris and Alder and company.

Though there’s an absolute nut job who says that despite the years he’s trained with his pokemon he’ll let it go if it makes it a perfect being and I am just not even gonna unpack all the lunacy there.

There’s a kid who thinks that just because N has the legendary pokemon, he must be the hero.

I am very concerned about everyone in Unova being so gullible.

“Your Scrafty looks like it can try a little harder.”

WELL FUCK YOU TOO RANDOM LADY??? LAD DOES HIS BEST AND I WILL NOT HAVE HIM SLANDERED THIS WAY

I finally go to Drayden’s and get told how the original dragon performed mitosis and now we have two dragons and also they once destroyed the region with fire and lightning but it’s chill.

“People may hurt pokemon even more by imposing their selfish thoughts on them. But no matter what, Pokemon and people believe in each other, need each other, and will continue to live together…”

Drayden is smarter and more nuanced than like, anyone else, why is he not a main character.

Iris chips in about how much she can’t forgive Plasma and Drayden mentions they don’t know how to wake up Zekrom.

Well, to be fair, I’d be very surprised if they did.

Off to the gym, this’ll be interesting since I have no ice or dragon moves on my team.

I get through the trainers okay, now time to fight Daffodil.

Her Haxorus was a bit tricky but nothing I couldn’t handle, and when I walk out Juniper shows up.

And somehow she knows how to resurrect Zekrom. Cool!

She blahs about how it’ll wake up when it deems someone worthy and talks about how much I’ve changed and shows me to the gate where the route to the pokemon league is.

“Chirae? Do you regret setting out on your pokemon journey?”

UH.

MAYBE?

mmm, that’s not fair to my pokemon though - nigh everyone around me may be looney tunes or incompetent, but they’ve been good pals.

So I hit “no” after all.

and she gives me a master ball. dope.

I make it to the gates of victory road and I honestly really like the bit where each section of them is themed after the badges! That’s a nice touch, I think that was only also done in the FRLG remakes if I recall correctly. It makes it feel a lot more ceremonious and important.

Ah here come my two idiots.

Bianca asks Cheren to smile and he’d probably implode if he did. He finally isn’t an asshole though, good for him.

The bug badge guard tells me to “fight valiantly like an insect” which is funny but I guess does make sense. Ants can fuck some stuff up, man.

Honestly I want to be a badge gate guard, seems like a fun job.

Also, I caught an excadrill in a raid the day I wrote this, and caught an excadrill in this game. Their pokedex entry includes this gem:

“Their tunnels can be destructive to subway systems”

Given the battle subway exists in this game, their insurance payments must be obscene. Imagine getting your match interrupted by a giant mole with metal fists that doesn’t give a fuck.

I named her Beans. She looks like a Beans.

I also caught a Deino. The Irate Pokémon that can’t see and tackles people to learn about its surroundings. I feel a kinship with this creature.

I named him Mezzo for laughs.

And I managed to get myself back to the beginning of victory road. Good job, cloud.

Okay I think I’ve found the right path, found a new dude to beat up which is a good sign. Apparently he’s lost too.

Love when a trainer switches out to a Pokémon mine doesn’t have a type advantage against and it gets wiped in two hits anyway. Death is inevitable.

“I’ve thought about what I can do to help my Pokémon win and I finally figured out the answer!”

Is it git gud?

Flame charge raises my speed, opponent’s klang uses automotize to prove it can do that too, dies because it’s too busy trying to go fast.

Then I get nailed by a flare blitz. Darmanitan is toxic to gen 5 nuzlocke runs, I swear. Especially since I have no one on my hodgepodge team resistant to fire. At least my unfezant is faster.

“Read what your opponent wants to do. Your opponent is human and may change plans from moment to moment. Be careful!”

There’s some meta joke to be made there but I’m not thinking of anything witty. Something something AI having a point even if not in this context.

Back to the beginning again but I think I know what I need to do now.

I looked at a walkthrough to check, tho, lmfao. Was tired of climbing up there only to fall down the wrong spot.

“There’s an item at the bottom! Do you want to slide all the way down?”

You’re the devil talking and you tempt me but I will ignore your silver tongue for now.

So I’m at the league and I thought Cheran would pop out of the bushes before I got here. That’s weird. I could swear he fights me one last time before I challenge the elite four.

NO CHERAN. OKAY. WHAT. IS MY GAME GLITCHED??

I guess not! Huh.

All right then. Time to try and see if I can win with my very unbalanced team.

Lmfao yeah my first attempt against the ghost trainer crashed and burned. Literally, thanks to her Chandelure. Very glad I saved on the outside. TIME TO GO TRAIN MORE.

No Marty, you may not learn wild charge, this is a no recoil moves household, self harm is bad.

Some grinding later, I am ready to try again.

Shauntal gave me a little trouble but was much more manageable. Grimsley was easy, only his Krookodile gave me issues.

I really like the elite four battle areas in this gen, I do admit. Very aesthetic.

Ah shit I know that Musharna is coming.

Never mind, that pink and purple snoozeball went down easy. I didn’t have a single Pokémon faint.

Unless Marshal breaks the trend the fights have actually gotten easier as I went.

He actually was a bit tricky, gave me a good show.

Hello endless stairs, hello N and Alder, hello giant random castle that just explodes out of the ground somehow.

“What has just appeared is team plasma’s castle”

Thanks mate, never would’ve figured that out without you. Why do you need a castle. 

Oh wow, the gym leaders finally decided to be useful and fight the sages for me instead of letting extremists wander around unchecked.

Thanks y’all! Trying not being pointless more often!

“Ignoring team plasma...that would be a terrible thing for us gym leaders to do.”

You all already did that, Elena. I watched as Clay and Iris let these assholes go. We could have avoided this whole plot if literally any of you had done more earlier.

So the game says the castle was built by the Pokémon team plasma took but how the fuck did they like...work underground...you know what I’m not gonna even think about it too hard because it makes no sense and I know that. I must make my peace.

I also like how the castle is nonsensical and yet there’s a line of dialogue about how they’ll liberate the Pokémon in PCs too for their Master Plan(TM), which is surprisingly thoughtful. This game is so inconsistent with how much sense its lore makes. It’ll come up with something clever and then wear its underwear on its head the next minute.

“Will you go the Pokémon league?”

Hey what - WHY DID YOU TELEPORT ME HOW CAN YOU DO THAT. DO YOU HAVE AN ABRA OR WHAT

THAT WAS RANDOM

Well at least there’s someone there to randomly teleport me back too.

WHEEEEEE

Hi Reshiram, convenient how that mini fire tornado you made didn’t burn me or N.

Hi Zekrom, convenient how your lightning didn’t hurt us either, you’re a considerate chap

Aight, let’s see if I can catch this bastard

...I did and it only took me like five balls. Okay then.

N gave me a good fight, so there’s that.

Love how Ghetsis’s bouffalant kills itself via recoil from its own move and my scrafty’s rocky helmet.

He gave me a good fight too though.

I do like the ending, despite my issues with how the game presents its message. N is a great character and I appreciate what Nintendo was trying to do with the game’s plot, they just...didn’t really delve into it like they should have.

I’m glad I replayed it. I still have my issues with gen 5 but I see a lot more of its positives now.

We’ll see if I do any post-game content, I have gotten kind of attached to my grump-ass trainersona and his weird team.

[mediaeval-muse]

Book Review

Echo North. By Joanna Ruth Meyer. Salem: Page Street Publishing, 2019.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Genre: YA fantasy

Part of a Series? No

Summary: Echo Alkaev’s safe and carefully structured world falls apart when her father leaves for the city and mysteriously disappears. Believing he is lost forever, Echo is shocked to find him half-frozen in the winter forest six months later, guarded by a strange talking wolf—the same creature who attacked her as a child. The wolf presents Echo with an ultimatum: If she lives with him for one year, he will ensure her father makes it home safely. But there is more to the wolf than Echo realizes. In his enchanted house beneath a mountain, each room must be sewn together to keep the home from unraveling, and something new and dark and strange lies behind every door. When centuries-old secrets unfold, Echo discovers a magical library full of books-turned-mirrors, and a young man named Hal who is trapped inside of them. As the year ticks by, the rooms begin to disappear, and Echo must solve the mystery of the wolf’s enchantment before her time is up, otherwise Echo, the wolf, and Hal will be lost forever.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: blood, violence

Overview: I picked up this book on recommendation from a friend, who also recommended Rosamund Hodge’s Cruel Beauty. I’m always looking for a fun fairy tale retelling, and there were parts of this book that I found clever and enchanting. What prompted me to give this book a middling rating was not the book’s concept or the author’s imagination, but the writing. I felt like Meyer didn’t take advantage of the opportunities for rich descriptions - either of her magical settings or character emotions - and as a result, I think the prose prevented me from fully engaging with the characters or the fantasy world.

Writing: As I said above, the descriptions in this book are rather sparse. While I’m not advocating for lengthy paragraphs that pile detail upon detail, I do think that Meyer could have offered more to make her story feel more vivid. She has some nice turns of phrases and metaphors here and there, but on the whole, I didn’t feel like her prose brought her world to life. For example, when Echo (our protagonist) arrives at the magical house and has her first meal, she describes the banquet: “I sampled little bits of everything: the meat was tender, the fruit summer-sweet, the soup hot and rich with flavor. The glass of pink liquid tasted lightly of honey and berries, and fizzled pleasingly on my tongue.” While I don’t need a catalog of all the food, I did find this description lacking - it doesn’t exactly impart any feeling of richness to me. The same is true for descriptions of the house. Descriptions are given matter-of-factly, without taking advantage of language to impart a sense of otherworldly or magical beauty. Doors are simply red, blue, green, or some other color, stairs are made of dragon scales or paper, some doors are carved with birds or trees. I wanted to be dazzled by this house, but in the end, nothing really popped for me.

The lack of rich descriptions also made for problems in portraying character emotions. While characters would sometimes act in ways that indicated how they were feeling, I felt like a lot of emotions were simply told to us. It felt like Echo (who narrates the story using a first person perspective) had very little interiority, and that her narration was keeping her at a distance from the reader. Meyer attempts to make up for this, I think, with a quirk of hers, which is to repeat something two or three times or to put something in italics. For example, when Echo and Ivan (a guide she hires to take her through the wilderness) slip through some ice, Echo describes rescuing Ivan as “I wrap my other hand tight around Ivan’s arm, and pull” or, when describing emotion, Meyer writes “he wept and wept.” It wasn’t overly irritating, but it happened enough for me to notice as a pattern.

I also thought that the prose was lacking in terms of pace. The entire book seemed to progress at roughly the same pace, which made some parts feel rushed and others feel slow. While it may not be a problem for readers who like their stories to move along, I found that it rushed through events that I would have liked to see explored more or given more emotional weight. It gets a bit better in Part 2, but I still would argue that with all the travel scenes, the pace might not suit some readers.

Plot: The plot of this book follows your typical “Beauty and the Beast” or “Cupid and Psyche” structure. A girl is taken to the home of a prince (or lord, or what have you), the latter cursed by a witch to appear monstrous by day. The prince makes clear that the girl must not look at him at night (which is when he changes back to his true form), lest he be taken by the witch forever. You can probably guess the rest.

In terms of remaking or subverting this plot structure, Meyer doesn’t do anything I’d call revolutionary. It proceeds as one might expect. Where this book shines, however, is in the details that make it unique. For example, the magical house that Echo must routinely “rebind” (something akin to stabilizing) using her magical needle and thread was a lovely image, and the threat of its “unbinding” was intriguing. The library of mirror-books, too, was a wonderful addition, and was an interesting way to think about how we “experience” stories. I also really liked the transformation scene (which readers might be familiar with if they know the story of Tam Lin, for example). The transformations really hammered home how scary and dangerous it might be to hold on to someone as they change form, and I think Meyer handled it well. I also think the stuff she does with time was clever (though I won’t spoil it for you).

But by far the biggest flaw in the plot is the lack of shape. While I got the sense that Echo wanted to help the Wolf, there were so many scenes of her wandering (the house, the mirror-books, the frozen wilderness) that I couldn’t see how scenes built upon one another to progress towards some kind of end; scenes simply happened. I also would have liked to see a recurring theme wound into the plot. While there are some (self-acceptance, the power of stories, etc.), they aren’t really integral to the unfolding of the plot. They’re just kind of there.

Characters: This story is told from the first person perspective of Echo, a sixteen year old girl who was disfigured as a child by the very wolf who pressures her to live with him years later (this isn’t a spoiler - it happens right away). Echo was a refreshing protagonist in that she wasn’t always confident in herself and didn’t have that “pretty but thinks she’s plain” vibe. However, I also found her to be a little too perfect. She reads so much about anatomy that she has basic healing skills, she teaches herself piano, and learns to fence so she can be somewhat competent in any given battle situation. Her only real faults are that she tries to help others too much - she tries to please her stepmother, but ends up angering her by being better at piano; she tries to rescue the Wolf, but accidentally angers him, etc. I wanted a little more nuance from her, some real flaw that she could grow from. I think her scars suggested that her character growth was one of self-acceptance, but I don’t think it was strong enough or woven into the plot other than the moments when she expresses some angst.

The Wolf (our “beast” in this “Beauty and the Beast” tale) is likewise a little void of flaws or interesting personality. He’s mostly there to teach Echo how to care for the house and to be mopey about his impending fate, dropping bits of lore or information when needed. I honestly didn’t get a real sense of why Echo ended up feeling affection for him, other than he was kind. Even when we learn of his connection with the mirror-books (and that’s all I’ll say about that), I didn’t quite understand the appeal. I did like the reveal towards the end of his true motives, but I do wish there was more to him so that we could see why Echo feels things for him.

Supporting characters were likewise a little flat for me. Echo’s stepmother was a bit too stereotypically nasty, the Wolf Queen lacking motivation or nuance, and Mokosh (a fellow reader) a bit too convenient. I never got the sense that they were characters, mostly just archetypes.

Other: This book doesn’t have a lot of proper worldbuilding, which may please some readers, but annoy others. Echo’s village is never really named and we don’t know how magic really works or how it fits in with the non-magical world. I was a bit bothered by the lack of worldbuilding because it meant that I wasn’t fully aware of the limits or rules of the magic, nor did I get a strong Slavic “flavor” to the story.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in

fairy tale retellings (especially “Beauty and the Beast” or “Cupid and Psyche”)

enchanted houses

Slavic folklore

[meggannn]

the itsv commentary is so full of great facts and bts info so i wanted to write down all my favorite parts, but i just ended up writing down anything that was interesting, which was honestly most of it. four thousand words later i ended up with their commentary on practically half the movie. i’ve put the interesting or funny bits that i jotted down behind a cut if anyone is interested.

this commentary audio had Phil Lord (co-writer, producer), Chris Miller (producer), Bob Persichetti (co-director), Peter Ramsay (co-director), Rodney Rothman (co-director, co-writer), but it was kind of difficult to tell who was talking most of the time, so i didn’t include names on who said what, unless I knew for certain who was talking.

The first Miles sticker in the film is a “glitch” flashing on the Sony Pictures Animation logo. “Already putting his stamp on the movie.”

RIPeter is meant to be an amalgamation of all the Spider-Man we know, “good and bad” (as the dance happens, someone corrects him:) “Good and GREAT.”

(“I’ve got an excellent theme song, and a... so-so popsicle.”)

“That joke saved the movie.” “The dance move or the popsicle?” “The dance move. I resisted that dance joke and Rodney pushed hard for it (…) It told the audience what movie they were watching.”

“It was Rodney who was really pushing for him to be in this relatable idea of [Miles] not knowing the lyrics to this song but singing along.” “We started animating before the song was finished. It was really easy to not know the words then.”

“There are three very long shots that introduce Miles.” (The shot at home, the shot of him walking past Brooklyn Middle, the shot of him entering Visions.) “That was a deliberate choice, to open with a big crazy Spider-Man montage, and then with Miles, start a different pace, long shots, and just watch him and how he is, and don’t get too fancy with it. Although ironically these shots are really fancy.” The shot of him walking past Brooklyn Middle and the one of him walking into Visions are meant to directly contradict each other: his comfort zone vs him out of place in new surroundings. (Megan’s note: My take is that with these shots they might have been trying to represent his home, his past, and his future.)

“Everything [in this scene from color to sound] is meant to go from a very heightened experience with Peter to a very naturalistic experience with Miles.”

For the scene in the car, Shameik and Brian sat in chairs to set up in a car, with microphones and a rearview mirror. “Brian might have even been a little annoyed at Shameik a couple of times, and I think you can feel it in here, in a really wonderful way.”

(Talking about the chromatic aberration) “Sometimes it looks like you’re watching a 3D movie without the glasses on.” “That was on purpose.” “Every frame is supposed to feel like a piece of printed art.”

“On the cover of Great Expectations, there’s an image of Magwitch grabbing Pip’s shoulder in a cemetery.” “Foreshadowing!”

A side character named “Smiley Kid” is in several shots of miscellaneous Visions students. “Because he’s not a real person, I think we can say he is our least favorite person.” “I think he comes around. He’s great, then he’s bad, then he’s great again.” “He’s like the extra in every live action who worms his way to the front of every shot.” “He just almost always looks in the camera.”

Miles’s expression when the teacher calls him out at trying to fail was “completely ripped off of President Barack Obama.”

Benson Avenue was meant to call back to where one of their fathers grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

(“Hypnotize” by Notorious BIG playing on Aaron’s stereo) “Biggie Smalls in an animated Spider-Man movie. In what universe?” “This is the ideal timeline that we’re living in.”

(This comment is said as Miles presses his face on the glass:) “That changed people’s perceptions of the movie. When we had this in, it really lit people up.” (To be honest, I can’t tell if this comment was made in response to Biggie Smalls, or to Miles pressing his face on the glass.)

They all loved Mahershala Ali. “The shoulder touch would work if your voice sounded like Mahershala’s.” Everyone was in awe every time they recorded with him. “He makes you want to be a better person when you’re around him.” “He’s got a high bar.” “Then he goes away and it kinda wears off.”

The subway Aaron brings Miles to was a place he and Jeff used to paint in when they were young, which adds another layer to him talking about/missing Jeff when he mentions it to Miles. The age difference probably means Aaron was younger than Jeff, and now he’s the older one with Miles here.

There’s a bigger history between Jeff and Aaron that’s only hinted at, and part of it is the reason why Miles has his mother’s last name, not his father’s. It’s implied Jeff was worried his bad history would follow Miles if he took his last name. Also because “then he would be named Miles Davis.”

They were excited to depict a spider-man experiencing spider-sense for the first time.

“We did the most expensive thing. In all choices.”

“People ask, How does Miles with a cop and nurse parents afford Jordans? And the answer is, they were a gift from his uncle.”

(On Kingpin’s animation possibilities.) “We always had this idea that he was the living expression of a black hole. The right for him is this floating head on a body that we could scale up and down depending on the shot with hands at the end of arms.” “While creating a black hole, he is a black hole.”

Someone felt very passionate about including the dimensional map showing the other universes the collider was connecting with. “It felt so important to me.”

(Paraphrasing this one) “Once Phil and Lord gave the MO to push convention, the gauntlet had been thrown, we started getting crazy stuff back. And a lot of the time our art direction would just be like, ‘Yeah! COOL!' ‘Do more of that!’”

(Peter rolls his eyes as the Prowler menacingly steps forward) “I like that [RIPeter] is exhausted at the idea of being killed.”

“The Prowler chase sequence was the first sequence that went through the whole pipeline.” (This and the cemetery scene were the first.)

(The burst card of Miles jumping over the subway tracks) Bob Persichetti: “I had such high hopes to do a lot of burst cards, I think that’s the only one I actually did.”

(as Rio comforts Miles in Spanish) “We never translated on screen (…) The idea being, this is the fabric of Miles’s life.” “This was inspired obviously by Brian Michael Bendis” (co-creator of Miles Morales and his longtime writer) “and Miles’ bicultural background. But also Phil Lord grew up in a bilingual house.” “And I took Spanish in high school.”

(Stan Lee cameo) “[Stan is] the only performer in the movie who we went to. Everyone else came into recording studios, but Stan Lee, we dispatched the microphone to him.” “Everybody wanted to animate Stan.” “If you hit pause any time a train goes by, because everyone wanted to animate Stan, he’s in almost every single train.” “He’s an extra in a lot.”

(Miles reading comics before jumping off the building) “If you notice in that comic book, it’s True Life Tales of Spider-Man, and to keep his cover, his name is not Peter Parker. In the comic book, his name is Billy Barker.” “Great.” “Who could ever figure that out, right?”

A bunch of drawings around the grave of Peter Parker’s tombstone were all done by different kids of people on the show.

They mention the cemetery scenes was one of the first ones finalized. When they were still trying to figure out how to bring Miles to life, “you can see that his performance evolved from this [cemetery] scene.” “It’s super expressive.”

There was lots of debate on how much paunch should be on Peter B’s stomach. There are something like 3-5 different body models used throughout the movie.

They all loved the scenes of Peter B in his apartment: the cut to him crying in the shower, to pinned to the bed with his butt out, to his pose on the futon flipping through channels. Someone really liked “[his] little quivering [spidey] eyes on the seahorse shot.”

The comic book page-flipping device was a “late breaking” realization of how to transition between flashbacks and present day.

Chris Miller did the voice of the cop dispatcher on the radio saying the “Child dressed like Spider-Man dragging a homeless corpse behind a train” line. “The role I was born to play.”

In the walk-and-talk scene in the alley, they felt inspired to take a lot of crazy shots. “We were passionate that a Spider-Man movie needed to be shot from their point of view, where every surface can be the ground.”

“Because of questions on the internet, we took of one of Miles’s shoes. Just in case anybody wanted to know why he was sticking.” “Another thing that I was passionate about but nobody cared about but me.”

“One of the big tricks of this sequence and of this relationship was to let you believe that Peter was a good guy even though he was being a real… turkey… to Miles.” (Peter saying “No, does it look like it’s working? No! No, it’s not…”) “This was one of the few moments that we added kind of late just to know that he was a sweet pea underneath it all.” “Finding the right level for his not caring about Miles, and then learning to care about Miles, finding the right level from the beginning all the way through to the end, was something that took a lot of nuance.”

The interrogation/alley and burger scenes probably went through the most amount of reworks and rewriting than any others, because there was so much exposition and “you got tired” watching two heavy information scenes in a row. And given how often they said “this scene went through so many iterations” in this commentary, these two scenes must have been a LOT of rewrites. (Some of the alternate burger scenes can be seen in the film’s trailers and alternate universe cut.)

“I still kind of miss the unfinished version of this shot, where his feet… He had no toes for a really long time for some reason.” “You had to say like fifty times, ‘We’re gonna add toes right?’” “‘We’re gonna get his toes on there, right?’”

“One of the things about Kingpin is that he just magically appears outside of the car. Because there’s no way he could get actually get through the doorway.” “Maybe in the future where you guys are watching this ten years from now, someone will have figured out how to animate that. But in 2018 it’s still impossible.”

(Miles finding Peter in the vents) “These moments were really when you started to feel the relationship between the two of them develop.” “I love that Miles has to fight to occupy the same space and become an equal to Peter.”

(Peter mockingly blah-blahing as Doc Ock explains the danger of the collider, then saying afterward “Oh nevermind, that is bad.”) “For the sake of a laugh, we undercut the stakes, and then immediately had to buy the stakes back.”

“We went through probably 70 different version of what Miles would look like while invisible … and I like how how he comes in and out of invisibility was stylized to some degree.”

They say the Doc Ock/Peter scene was “really really bad at one point” and now it’s “one of the most wonderful surprises.”

Ock’s computer is based off of Phil Lord’s actual desktop. Some files are cut off the edges of the screen because they just dragged things off of the internet.

(Peter glitching in the chair) “I’m remembering all of the conversations that determined that it was funniest if you left Peter’s head unglitched.”

It was Justin Thompson’s idea to use soft robotics for this version of Dock Ock’s tentacles.

Everyone, from animation to the sound team, saw Doc Ock’s tentacles about 3 months before completion, went (exasperated) “Oh THAT’S what they look like? We’ll have to redo X Y Z whole thing…”

You can tell they loved the monitor joke. “Very silly things happening around very cool things.”

The Bagel! text was added last minute. “That was a joke pitch by Justin that was taken seriously.”

“Everyone felt empowered to pitch crazy ideas, and that’s why it felt so rich and deep.”

“It’s no understatement to say that this look in the forest is one of the hardest things in a movie like this. To make something look realistic is something we know how to do pretty well. But to make it look graphic and illustrative is almost impossible.” “Especially when you’re close and far to trees within the same shot at times.” “We had so many conversations with Danny, our V Effects supervisor, like, ‘But, you guys, we’re going to be in a forest, you really don’t want the leaves to rustle in the wind?' ‘No, we’ll be okay!’” (Later, when Peter and Miles swing off together, the leaves rustle:) “See, the leaves can move, guys!” “We just CHOSE for them not to.” “It was an absolute creative choice.”

“This is another moment in the story when we really open this beat up to let Peter and Miles have a victory together and cement their bond, that you really were rooting for their relationship. We breezed through this quickly and you didn’t have the same connection with the two of them.” “One of the things in the screenplay that we discovered really late is that you needed to have a lot of smaller, positive accomplishments throughout the center of the movie to have it work right.” “(…) This middle section of the movie is about Peter and Miles learning to fall for each other, basically.”

(During Gwen’s intro) “We give just enough to hopefully tease you guys into being really into each one of these characters’ origin story.”

“One week of days and nights just passed in that one shot.” “She hit a time anomaly on her way to this dimension.”

“She vibes with Miles after he had been bitten by the spider, and she purposefully bumped into him there, in case you didn’t catch that.”

“We were trying to make Ock such an intelligent and socially awkward person that then turns into this really formidable equal to Kingpin.”

(When Peter thwips May’s doorbell and then exhales with his hands on his hips.) “One of my favorite poses in the movie.” “That pose gets a laugh all by itself.”

“‘You look tired’ is a thing my mom says to me every time I see her.” “It’s accurate.”

“I fought hard to have (May) kick that door open.” “I tried to cut that and then you uncut it, correctly.” “Let’s be honest, she’s not treating her house very well.”

(In the Spidey Lair) “Lots of Easter eggs here.” “We should’ve put an actual Easter egg in this shot.”

They debated for a long time putting the B-team spiders in the picture at all, knowing it would be more work, wanting to make their characters worth being in the picture without taking away from Miles. “Nothing worked in the movie until it had something to do with Miles and his story.”

(On the spider team testing Miles:) This angle was “late-breaking, on the backside”: “This made it feel like they all cared about Miles, even though they maybe didn’t believe in him.” “Just Peter going ‘Cool it.’ For the longest time we didn’t have something like that.”

(Pretty sure this is Peter Ramsay) “When you’re making a movie it’s like you’re building an emotion machine. You’ve gotta have all the parts calibrated the right way, make sure it’s properly oiled, cause if it isn’t, the gears are gonna stick, and you’re not gonna feel right.”

The Prowler Sound™ is not a jaguar or cat, but an elephant. “We only did the dark scenes first cause they were easier to light.” (Some of those scenes they mention are Miles running from the Prowler, the cemetery scene, Miles writing the note in Aaron’s apartment.)

They tried about a million songs for Peni while she makes a new goober. (The song used is not in the soundtrack, but it’s “Want It Here” by Xenia Pax.)

(On Peni’s Heelies) “This shot’s not long enough to get her from the kitchen to the couch.” “Is that why?!” “That’s one hundred percent why. Just put those little wheelies on here!”

In the first draft, there was an idea there RIPeter was a grad student under tutelage of male Doc Ock so that’s how Liv and Ock knew each other.

“The table pushing into Miles. That was something my older brother, when we would fight when we were kids, he would do that to me.”

(When Aaron closes his eyes, refusing to kill Miles:) “That little look. ‘Cause he knows what’s coming.”

(They’re all quiet as Miles carries Aaron to safety, caught up in the scene.) “We’re all kind of gripped.” “We’re supposed to be giving interesting anecdotes here, guys, come on.” “It was so cold that day…”

Prowler’s death was the first session they did with Mahershala. “He’s a method actor, and his death scene, it was like he was really dying.”

“We gave animators the freedom. You can make Miles unattractive. He can ugly cry, because this is raw and it feels so emotional.”

(When Miles throws his sketchbook out the window, only for it to immediately come flying back in:) “It’s a one-shot transition from deep emotion and regret and pain. We said, ‘He’s gonna throw the one thing out that really represents his uncle, yet it’s gonna come flying back in.’ It was hard to make that shot work.” “It’s a great story statement that you can’t lose the things that make up your past.”

When everyone is talking about someone they’ve lost, an alternate line has Ham saying “I lost my uncle. He was electrocuted, and it smelled so good.” It got a lot of laughs, but the team says that from then on, the audience “resisted” Ham because he killed the mood, and it was hard for people to see him as anything other than a goofy cartoon, so they changed the line to “Miles, the hardest part about this job is you can’t always save everyone.” (Megan’s note: I think they probably didn’t bother to re-animate the others’ facial reactions after changing Ham’s line, because judging by the reactions from Peter and Miles in this shot it feels like Ham just said something annoying/out of place lol.)

When Peter says “It wasn’t their decision” (for Miles to stay behind), Miles has a very quick reaction shot where he turns away, bites his lip, and shakes his head. Someone mentions it’s one of their favorite shots of Miles.

(On the scene with Miles and his dad at the door) “When Brian Tyree Henry saw this scene [with a rough performance, just animation], he got the movie. It made such an impression on him. He was very happy to come in and pick any lines up for us and just keep working.” “We were working on the shots on layup for this. The idea of having them be on thirds to start, then coming closer, and finally ending with the final split-screen shot at the end.” “And Jefferson crosses the scene, which I think is really interesting. They start off on opposite sides of the screen. He makes the first move.” “It’s amazing to me to see Miles transformed by his father.” “It feels earned.”

“In an earlier version of that scene, Aunt May gave him a version of that speech, which was nice, but it needed to be Dad.”

(Later on, someone mentions:) “Tom was the first one to say ‘It shouldn’t be Aunt May at the door, it should be Dad.’ And we all sort of slapped our foreheads going ‘That’s absolutely right.’”

“After our premiere, my 9yo son [Luca? Luka?] asked me this. ‘So Papa, you know Miles spray-paints one of those suits and it becomes his suit. Super cool, Papa, but it shouldn’t fit him. It’s way bigger.’” (Laughter) “Did he have to wait a few hours for it to dry?” "We cut out the sequence where Aunt May sewed it tighter and altered it.” “And they had the hair-dryer express drying it. ‘Your friends are in danger.’ ‘Well just let me let it dry first!” “I tell you, spray paint, five minutes and you’re dry.” “She pre-altered it. She knew he was coming. She said, ‘It took you long enough.’ It all happened in advance.”

“The scene of Miles falling and everything slowing down and I always appreciated that Phil called out he was ‘falling and rising’ and the same time.” “It made the movie. A rare thing that goes from the stage directions all the way through production and onto the screen.”

“This sequence used to end with him getting hit by a truck. But really felt like it was time for Miles to get a big victory.” (Megan’s note: This scene is shown in draft stage in the alternate universe cut. Miles makes his leap, free-runs over some trucks and buildings, and his scene is interrupted when he gets hit by a truck and crashes to the ground. There’s a moment where he collects himself, the pushes himself to his feet and runs off into the city to join the others at the collider. I interpret this idea to be their showing how Miles fully embraces the “Get back up” lesson, since Miles’s pose in the sketches imitates the same one in the basement when the spiders are hazing him and he’s on the ground.) “And now people applaud.” “There’s a general attitude with this movie that was like, ‘How can we do things differently?’ That was a case of when we were like, ‘What if we didn’t have the audience feel really good in this moment?” (Laughter) “What if we had them feel really bad? Right at the moment they want to feel good, what if we made them feel terrible?” (Joking) “Let’s poke THEM in the eye.” “I think in early drafts, we just were like, Miles is losing and falling short the whole movie until the very end. And when we put that up, we realized that you needed to see him slowly winning and winning and winning until he won even bigger at the end.”

A set-up that never fully made it in the movie is that Fisk runs charities for Spider-Man and that’s why the dinner was set up like it was.

The bread scene was on the chopping block for a long time. “By adding this interaction, and making it about Peter and MJ and something real, all of a sudden this scene was worth it.” “It’s necessary to know what Peter’s giving up by sacrificing himself.” “It lasts just long enough because we learned that if you stay way from Miles too long--” (They interrupt here to point out two cameo people at dinner, “Danny and Josh,” who I couldn’t get a cap of) “--We lose our connection to the movie in a way. But at this point we care enough about Peter to want him to get back to MJ too.”

“The servers that were holding the movie were moving slow by the end of this shoot. And we had the best computers.” “At a certain point I think we overloaded Imageworks’ server. There was a moment they were afraid the movie was going to break their machine.” “Which was our whole idea. Our whole approach was, how do we break these pipes that make the movie?”

(During the final collider fight sequence, but they don’t specify what idea this was about specifically:) Chris Miller: “One of the only times I can ever remember saying ‘Okay you’ve gone too far.’ There was one brand where I was like, ‘I don’t get this.’ A few of the drawings that were somehow even more insane than this.” “What you’re saying, Chris, is that there’s a version of this scene that’s even crazier than this?” “Literally the only time I can remember going, ‘Okay guys, you’ve done it. You’ve broken it.’”

“I’m sure there’s are filmmakers watching this, so I think this is a learnable lesson from this sequence. Which is if you want to put something super crazy in your movie, wait until the very end when a lot of movie has been spent on your movie and your release date is 3 to 4 months away and they literally cannot stop you or else they have no movie.”

One of them points out Miles webs a turntable to propel himself upward. (Megan’s note: Miles also does this just as his own theme starts playing, which starts off with a record-scratch. I thought that was cool.)

(The moment when Gwen calls Miles “Spider-Man”:) “That choice went through a lot of iterations like “What’s the end of their relationship?” That she calls him Spider-Man instead of giving him a kiss on the cheek? It makes me well up just thinking about it.”

Kingpin breaks the glass of a building and the pieces fly toward Miles. Bob Persichetti calls these “Dorito chips.”

After the train enters a collider steam, there are versions of the interior of the train that flash from all five dimensions. There’s a futuristic Peni version, an old-timey Noir version, there’s a Gwen version… “As it passes through the beam, you get to see five versions of the train existing at once.”

(Vanessa and Richard seeing Kingpin) “This idea of repeating mistakes (for Kingpin). No matter what, he was gong to keep repeating these mistakes.” “He’s still who he is.”

“It was my dream to have Kingpin headbutt Miles and it finally came true.”

Each one of these character is in a black costume, and black surrounds them, and yet you can still see what’s happening.

“I remember people wanting to cut the shoulder-touch at the end.” “Who wanted to cut this?!” (Overlapping chatter) “No names in the screen.” “I remember feeling, oh my god. You’re LUCKY you got the shoulder touch in.” “The fact that you could pay off a set up that wasn’t even a set up…”

(On Miles seeing inside the universe as the collider explodes) “And then this. How long can it be? Let’s make it way too long!”

“The Anvil (that clanks at the end) was in Ham’s pocket?” “In the hammer space.”

(Miles hugs Jefferson) “This was the moment everybody went ‘Oh, YES.’ No matter what, we have to get to the hug, and the disguised voice, and the ‘I love you.’”

Someone describes the ending soundtrack as “Miles’ playlist meets Aaron’s playlist meets a superhero movie.”

They indirectly confirm Peter B and MJ do get back together. “Peter B gets his happy ending.” Another bit someone mentions was a late addition.

“I like that the movie starts and ends with Miles in his bedroom by himself.”

“We could do a whole other commentary saying completely different things.” “Probably four.” “We should do an alternate universe commentary.”

“You’re your own champion, I think that’s the idea. This is a story of empowerment. A champion is not coming from outside of you to come and save you. It’s your job.”

(As the credits roll) “Every name you see right now, we’ve seen them cry.” “We’ve made them cry.” “Every name you see right now has yelled at us.”

(On the post-credits scene) “We thought of this (post-credits scene) two months ago.” (They recorded this commentary in Dec 2018.) “We wanted to get Miguel in there and show the opportunities of where the multiverse could go.”

“I looked this up. This IS the most expensive dumb joke of all time.”

“We didn’t finish cleaning the cell on that close-up of Spider-Man.”

[jinjojess]

Jess Talks FE3H

I had a Thought the other day that I shared on my Twitter, and @goldstarzzz asked for some elaboration on it. Since Twitter sucks for nuanced, long-form discussion, I decided to type it up on my blog instead (though the draft I was working on during my trip home on the train has been lost twice because of annoying reasons I don’t want to get into now).

Be forewarned that I’m gonna be verbose here, so this shit will be long.

Obviously, we’re going to touch on some FE3H spoilers, so be aware of that.

I haven’t finished any of the routes yet, but there’s something that I want to discuss about the game--namely Edelgard and how if you aren’t on her route you get very little in the way of context for why she does the things she does.

While on one hand, I like how realistic that restricted perspective is, since in real life you don’t know the motivations and past experiences that have shaped a person unless you actually do make an attempt to engage with them and get to know them, and it fits in nicely with the themes in Three Houses of how history is written by the winners, everyone is the Hero of their own story, and conflicts are not Good vs. Evil so much as clashes of worldview/agenda between groups of fallible individuals.

However, the fact that you don’t get any context at all from the other routes does Edelgard dirty as a character, and is where we get these tiresome, dumbass takes like “Edelgard is literally Hitler” and “Edelgard just does things for no reason” from fandom members who are only engaging the narrative on a superficial level. 

(As an aside, there’s nothing wrong with just taking a narrative at face value, but you do have to give up any claim to commenting on its non-subjective quality if you do that.)

And I mean yeah, if you’re on one of the other routes then it does kind of seem like Edelgard’s heel turn comes out of nowhere, rather than a steady, uneasy build to an eventuality. In a game where you couldn’t get close to her beforehand and see the dominoes lined up along the fault line, as it were, this would be Bad Writing (e.g., Monica/Chronia), but you can take the time to hear Edelgard out and listen to her justification before that happens. She’s a playable character with an actual route, which is a big departure from the usual villain.

The things Edelgard is fighting for are objectively good: eliminating the aristocracy; disrupting the Church’s unquestioned authority; dismantling obsession with crests and fate and birthrights. She’s a trauma survivor who wants to help people who have been hurt and destroyed by the machinations of the Rich and Powerful. 

Her methods may not be ideal, but honestly, is she doing anything any different from anyone else in the game? It’s possible she does and I haven’t seen that yet, but so far the things you do on her route aren’t much different than the things you’ve been doing all game already, just under the banner of Seiros. Sure, you have no emotional connection to the NPCs from the East or West Churches, but that doesn’t change the base fact that you’re still going out to exterminate them at the behest of someone who outranks you.

Edelgard and her route’s existence is a challenge to the status quo of Fire Emblem--it makes the player question the usual set up of Good Guys vs. Bad Guys, makes you stop and wonder if hey, maybe all these brigands you’ve been hacking through have the same level of interiority and charm as the characters you’ve been playing as.

The problem with this is that Three Houses is still a Fire Emblem game. Yes, what you’re fighting for is ostensibly different, but the way you get there is identical: kill off the Enemy until they run out of guys on the map. So even if the point is that Edelgard’s goals are lofty but her methods are unacceptable, the entire theme goes belly up since Claude and Dimitri are basically using the same methods. Unless they have some mechanic I haven’t heard about where you can diplomatically resolve conflicts, they are functionally identical to Edelgard with regards to what they actually do. 

This dissonance between the themes and the mechanics reminds me a lot of Pokemon BW, with N and Team Plasma. They’re positioned to address the elephant in the room re: Pokemon’s base premise, but then because they’re restricted by the mechanics, every dispute is resolved with a battle, which kind of undermines the whole thing. Even N, who is depicted as the one who most sincerely believes in pokemon autonomy and rights, still battles you to prove that battles are unethical.

Is this realistic in that many real people will use noble goals as a smokescreen for their actual, more selfish agenda? Sure! But while that applies nicely to Ghetsis and his little cult, N feels more like he’s intended to be an anti-villain, someone who Has a Point Actually, and you should critically examine your actions in-game. It’s far more powerful when the antagonist isn’t actually wrong, just different from you, and it’s a shame that N had to sacrifice some of his integrity as a character to fit into the format of a Pokemon Game.

Going back to Edelgard, while I’d 1000% percent be down to be able to play from the perspective of someone who’s manipulating people under the guise of social reform, that a) doesn’t seem to be the intention, and b) doesn’t really fit with the other themes of moral relativity. If you make Edelgard a Bad Guy but Claude and Dimitri Good Guys (or Neutral Guys, even), that doesn’t really say much about the nature of conflict.

So it seems like Edelgard should be just as sympathetic as the other two leads, yet there’s some really troubling things in the way. 

For one, the fact that she’s a noble herself and the heir (later Empress) to vast resources, including a military that unquestionably heeds her, makes her crusade feel more like condescending Noblesse Oblige rather than a revolutionary uprising. There’s a kind of scummy appropriative element to it that is difficult to ignore, especially since you have Dorothea right there, who’d make a much better figurehead for this movement than the heir apparent to a goddamn Empire.

(Side note but Edelgard also has the misfortune of being a literal Imperial, which in today’s society is not a connotation neutral thing. Being from a “kingdom” or an “alliance” is quaint, but “empire” has become such a staple trope for villains that it’s not even surprising that she’s the one who heel-turns. Add in the fact that Hubert is presented the way he is, and it becomes really obvious which of the Three Houses is going to be the Problematic One. Fire Emblem just can’t help being itself, even when it’s toying with more mature themes.)

But on an even more general level than that, Edelgard’s convictions get a bit undermined when her goal is “stop the powerful from using the less fortunate as pawns” but all of her victories happen thanks to...putting her social inferiors in mortal peril. 

Like yeah, right after you choose to side with her (and she manages to get over the vapors that induces), she has that moment where she appears to be cognizant of the paradox, but I somehow feel like her route isn’t going to end with her dissolving the Empire and handing off all the power to the populace.

She can’t, because this is a Fire Emblem game, and in Fire Emblem games, you win the war at the end. There’s a heavy cost, of course, and we’re all going to have a moment of silence about it, but there’s still a victory and a happy ending when it’s all said and done.

Obviously, if this doesn’t happen at the end, and all four routes (including the Church one) close on a Pyrrhic victory or something, then I will stand corrected and be very pleased. However, my money is on the standard happy ending that conveniently ignores that the common folk are going to be feeling the effects of the war long past any of the privileged, powerful people in your game.

So yeah, that’s my thoughts on how I think Three Houses took some really interesting steps toward being more nuanced, but still gets tripped up on its identity in some ways. Given the way the narrative is set up, this ends up affecting Edelgard way more than the other characters.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.