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skyeventide · 3 years ago

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my trsb fic has so many notes to the text that they didn’t fit within the ao3 notes’ section character limit lmao, so here is the lengthier version of it. you can consider it a teaser I guess? but either way, I need some place to store these and link them back in the fic.

contents here, cut for length

on the matter of the mother of Gil-Galad

Celebrimbor’s names

shibbolething all over Thauron’s name

actual quotes and canon

On the matter of the mother of Gil-Galad

Meril-i-Turinqi is a Book of Lost Tales character, lady of Tol Eressea, kin of In(g)we but also similar to the Solosimpi, which is to say the Teleri.

The character of "Meril" on the other hand, is a proto-Amarie, Finrod's love interest. In the early draft of Meril's appearance, Finrod is married and is father of Gil-Galad: this draft is obviously discarded and Finrod becomes childless, while Meril transforms into Amarie, who does not join the exile. Gil-Galad is instead transferred to Orodreth, which iirc is Tolkien's last word on the matter (I don't count the Fingon thing as even canon-adjacent, ChrisT was quite clear in admitting the mistake). Now I recall Orodreth is said to be married to a Sinda; why did I discard that? Cause I initally forgot it. Rip to me and Orodreth.

However, what I had was: a proto-Amarie, who is a Vanya, and a BoLT character who is of the family of Ingwe (so a Vanya), but also like the Teleri (so of the third clan, even though not a Sinda). And so Meril-proto-Amarie became Meril-i-Turinqi, wife of Orodreth.

The full headcanon on Meril here would have her as daughter of a Vanya who is kin of Ingwe and of Telerin nobility (or royalty? they're all big on intermarrying between royal families), which fulfills both sides of the coin and also stays true to the statement that Elenwe is the sole full-Vanya to join the exile (I'm gonna assume this excludes any non-royalty followers). Now regarding the parentage of Orodreth, he is here son of Angrod, as I feel that is a better option in almost all respects. This poses some issues with regard to age, as I recall Orodreth-son-of-Angrod and Idril as being named the only two non-adults to do the journey to ME (again... this surely excludes any non-royalty youngsters, but nonetheless). Obviously these issues grow even further if one also includes the matter of Celebrimbor being Aman-born to a wife who doesn't follow Curufin (and therefore the matter of his age at the time of exile), but reconciling these versions is borderline impossible with how the origins of Celebrimbor keep changing throughout the conception of the legendarium.

Long story short, I up the age of Orodreth to be at least old enough to speak softly with Finarfin (here his grandfather) during the flight of the Noldor, but I have him already married though childless. Finduilas is born early into the exile and Gil-Galad is her younger brother.

Meril returns to Aman at the end of the First Age and rules Tol Eressea for the exiles who are stuck there until the Ban is fully lifted.

Celebrimbor's names

FN = father-name, MN = mother-name

I do not claim to have come up with "Tyelperinquar is an epesse", that headcanon, which nonetheless I'm sure happened separately for other people, is one I first read in a fic by Tyelperintal on AO3. That of course means that I could no longer go with the FN Curufinwe MN Tyelperinquar option, and needed another mother-name, which I also borrowed from the same story, and went for Ilvanon, "the perfect". It's pretty, and also speaks of a mix of high expectations and love.

What in this story made me accept the epesse headcanon is the matter of the origin of "T(y)elperinquar" as a name. Vinyar Tengwar (and most recently also NoME) explains how "silver fist" is a name common among the Teleri, famous for their ability to smith silver even among the Noldor, and it is also mentioned how other similar names, such as Tegilbor "calligrapher", are given to people based on their skill. This, however, directly contradicts the fact that elves don't give the same name to more than one person. That statement is problematic in itself (impossible that all elves across all time are aware of all names that ever have been used -- and also of course there's the usual royalty exceptions, that however may well be exceptions because they are royalty), but if it is a common name among the Teleri and we are to keep the duplicate names lore in mind... my only solution is that it's a coveted epesse, given to the very skilled.

Celebrimbor picks it as his chosen and preferred name over FN, already shared by two people and preferred as chosen name by his father, and the potential arrogance of picking his MN with its meaning.

This still led me to problems of both spelling and language choices.

As far as spelling goes, there's several variations. I'm marking with * the one that is not canonically attested, but can be inferred.

Pure Telerin: Telperimpar

Quenya-Telerin compound that maintains the Telerin spelling of silver: Telperinquar

As above, but shortened: Telpinquar

Pure Quenya: *Tyelperinquar

Pure Quenya, shortened: Tyelpinquar

I use all these except the last one at various stages: I decided (though I go back and forth on this) that his household might have used pure Quenya, and his mother sticks to it; the person in Tirion panicks and uses the shortened version Telpinquar, which together with Telperinquar (Telerin spelling maintained) was more common among the Noldor. The Tirion passage exemplifies the uses and applications of these names, how they were given and altered.

This leads me to problems of language and POV, Celebrimbor vs Tyelperinquar. His mother, in her POV, always uses the latter, but Celebrimbor himself uses the former. The true problem here was adapting my feeling that Celebrimbor would be far more used to thinking of himself as Celebrimbor (as opposed to the Quenya name) vs Tolkien's statement that elves do not use names in another language when speaking in X language. This doesn't stay wholly true through the legendarium and the texts, so it's something I've decided to partially ignore when it comes to POV, though I tend to stick to it in first person dialogue. Something that again I try to tackle in the text itself -- when Galadriel tells Celebrimbor which language to speak and which name to use for her.

I am not entirely satisfied with all my choices here and I might revisit them in the future, but for the moment, here we go.

Shibbolething all over Thauron's name

Another language and spelling headache. As I encountered the problem of Sauron, I encountered that of the spelling of his name: the eternal TH/S issue. Were I to have Celebrimbor's mother, and Celebrimbor himself, stick to the Shibboleth? I initially attempted to circumvent this by using Gorthaur, but the issue described just above, about mixing languages, yet again bit me in the ass.

Of course it comes down to characterisation: would Mrs Curufin stick to the Shibboleth, and would Celebrimbor? The matter with Celebrimbor was that I don't believe he spoke Quenya with any real frequency after the Nargothrond business, not as a choice but rather due to circumstances and preferences of those around him. With Ercasse, the conflict is part of the character, and that sadly meant that the TH/S choice became less of a personal choice and more of a political one, as usual.

That got me thinking about the circumstances around her and something interesting came to me: Finarfin spoke Quenya with the Shibboleth, because of the Teleri. And in the Darkening he becomes king in Tirion, and also has to adjust things with the Teleri -- not an easy task, imo, when he turns back only after the pronunciation of the Doom, and not just after the kinslaying occurred. Additionally, the Vanyar spoke preserving TH. Additionally x2, by the Fourth Age, Exilic Quenya (which uses S) is associated with those who rebelled and returned to Aman -- meanwhile any Sindar preserved TH naturally, as it's a sound that never went out of use in Sindarin.

So I chose to take these things and make something of it. If Finarfin maintains TH to keep the Telerin influence; if the Noldor who remain in Aman decide to step closer to the Vanyar in an anti-rebellion reactionary manner and to conform to the speech of the king; if Exilic Quenya gains the lower status of language of the exiles; and considering the canon fact that in later ages the elves are more likely to preserve language rather than change it -- what are our chances that Shibbolething gains opposite connotations as time passes? My conclusion was high chances. So I decided to implement it.

And so Ercasse doesn't have to think about her personal allegiances anymore and has a path built in for herself in these social changes. And Sauron is Thauron. (Unless Galadriel is talking: she doesn't Shibboleth, and uses “Sauron” and “Sindarin”.)

Quotes and canon

Many things I wrote are based on canon snippets. Here I tried to collect them.

On Celebrimbor and the mention of the bath of flames in his speech. It isn't, in fact, a corny lineage reference, but rather a metaphysical or pseudo-physical concept of purification from the Lost Tales:

Yet now the prayers of [their parents] came even to Manwe [the highest Valar], and the Gods had mercy on their unhappy fate, so that those twain Turin and Nienori entered into ... the bath of flame... and so were all their sorrows and stains washed away, and they dwelt as shining Valar among the blessed ones, and now the love of that brother and sister is very fair;

On the naming of Mithril (appears in the upcoming Nature of Middle Earth, as well as already published in Vinyar Tengwar):

[Celebrimbor] was a great silver-smith, and went to Eregion attracted by the rumours of the marvellous metal found in Moria, Moria-silver, to which he gave the name mithril.

On Celebrimbor's ambition and assorted choices, from Letter 131:

In the first we see a sort of second fall or at least ‘error’ of the Elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel, still sadly with the mortal lands of their old heroic deeds. But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of ‘The West’, and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They thus became obsessed with 'fading’, the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them. They became sad, and their art (shall we say) antiquarian, and their efforts all really a kind of embalming – even though they also retained the old motive of their kind, the adornment of earth, and the healing of its hurts. […] But many of me Elves listened to Sauron. He was still fair in that early time, and his motives and those of the Elves seemed to go partly together: the healing of the desolate lands. Sauron found their weak point in suggesting that, helping one another, they could make Western Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor. It was really a veiled attack on the gods, an incitement to try and make a separate independent paradise.

Legolas and Aragorn and my choice to use the word love:

"[...]Yet whatever is still to do, I hope to have a part in it, for the honour of the folk of the Lonely Mountain." "And I for the folk of the Great Wood," said Legolas, "and for the love of the Lord of the White Tree [Aragorn]."

Celebrimbor and the Elessar. It must be noted that this Celebrimbor is not Celebrimbor son of Curufin, but I still liked the tidbit of lore. From there my choice to have three different Elessar stones, one made by Feanor, one by Enerdhil of Gondolin, one by Celebrimbor (in the fic redressed to Celebrimbor son of Curufin, and without the romantic love for Galadriel):

But he did not say to Galadriel that he himself was of Gondolin long ago. Therefore he took thought, and began a long delicate labour, and so for Galadriel he made the greatest of his works (save the Three Rings only).And it is said that more subtle and clear was the green gem that he made than that of Enerdhil, but yet its light had less power. For whereas that of Enerdhil was lit by the Sun in its youth, already many years had passed ere Celebrimbor began his work, and nowhere in Middle-earth was the light as clear as it had been, for though Morgoth had been thrust out into the Void and could not enter again, his far shadow lay upon it.Radiant nonetheless was the Elessar of Celebrimbor; and he set it within a great brooch of silver in the likeness of an eagle rising upon outspread wings.

On the vale and the stream where Formenos is located, I utilised this passage from Lost Tales:

[...] here the entire people of the Noldoli are ordered to leave Kor for the rugged dale northwards where the stream Híri plunged underground, and the command to do so seems to have been less a punishment meted out to them by Manwe than a pre-caution and a safeguard. In connection with the place of the banishment of the Noldoli, here called Sirnúmen ('Western Stream') [...]

Relevant LotR quotes about the Eregion passages, used for soil description extrapolations and other elements:

Suddenly Gimli, who had pressed on ahead, called back to them. He was standing on a knoll and pointing to the right. Hurrying up they saw below them a deep and narrow channel. It was empty and silent, and hardly a trickle of water flowed among the brown and redstained stones of its bed; but on the near side there was a path, much broken and decayed, that wound its way among the ruined walls and paving-stones of an ancient highroad. ‘Ah! Here it is at last!’ said Gandalf. ‘This is where the stream ran: Sirannon, the Gate-stream, they used to call it. But what has happened to the water, I cannot guess; it used to be swift and noisy. Come! We must hurry on. We are late.’ [...] "...there is a wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the elves, if once they dwelt there." "That is true", said Legolas. "But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them: Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago."

More TBA if anything comes to mind.

#writing stuff #trsb21

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cybernaght · 4 years ago

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Guardian rewatch: episode 11

The episode starts with Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan at the totem/pillar containing Sang Zan, as the long flashback continues, this time depicting Sang Zan’s life after the loss of his lover. It’s actually quite affectingly dark, and Wang Chaowei’s performance is enjoyable.

Here, we are also graced by prop swords: those are made out of painted wood, which is very charming. Believe it or not, this is the only thing I want to say on those swords. Give it time.

Sang Zan’s revenge journey is complete when he is ambushed by his people at Ge Lan’s grave, and then uses the Mountain/River Awl to put his entire tribe on ice. Tragically, as he is stripping his own soul away from his body, he realises that the love of his life was there all along, silently watching his downfall.

Back in the now, Zhao Yunlan asks Hei Pao Shi’s opinion on the story they have heard. The later replies that it does not contradict the information he possesses. This is pretty much good enough for Zhao Yunlan, who in a matter of weeks went from feeling quite skeptical of the Envoy to trusting his every word.

The Chief moves to free Wang Zheng from her dark energy binds. His attempt is unsuccessful, and he gets repelled into Shen Wei’s arms, who catches him and then moves them both to safety.

Finally, Zhu Jiu shows up, and we have the first of four fight sequences that happen in this set.

Okay, so, initially I had written two pages of notes depicting every single thing I questioned in those action sequences, from conception, to camera work, to performance. You are not getting to see them, because they felt really mean-spirited. In general terms, it becomes very obvious very quickly that the production team had neither time, nor money to spend on those fights, so across the board they look rather sloppy: the choreography is repetitive, camera is not always adjusted well to capture the moves, and while Zhu Yilong and Wang Naichao’s stunt doubles are performing very admirably, the actors do make mistakes here and there. There’s even the same take being reused in two different sequences.

It’s this one.

Fight Number One.

Shen Wei sees Zhu Jiu and sprints into action, attacking him. It’s a dynamic little fight, and two men are shown as more equally matched than they have been before; if this is a choice it could have something to do with Hei Pao Shi’s self-admitted weakness when spending time above ground in his disguise. Neither of the men manage to land any hits on each other, but they both attempt a nice combination of punches and kicks. The editing becomes a little hectic, which is disorienting, but at the same time simulates escalating action and masks a few moves that are so muddy that they are difficult to discern.

Example: can you honestly tell me that you understand fully what is going on here? Who is attacking, who is blocking? What is the intended target of this attack?

After the brief scuffle, the two arrive at a stand-still when Shen Wei throws up a shield, and they pause for a quick conversation which establishes in a concise manner the reason for their conflict: Shen Wei calls Zhu Jiu a murderer, and gets called a traitor to his people in return. It’s interesting that as the accusation is thrown at Hei Pao Shi, we cut to Zhao Yunlan looking flabbergasted.

Then, Zhu Jiu breaks through the shield and initiates another fight.

Fight Number Two.

This one is very short, and shows Shen Wei clearly gaining the upper hand. He even lands a hit to Zhu Jiu’s ribs, but I think this is actually a mistake. As in, a performer mistake: there is no reaction, and the presence of a block suggests that the hit was meant to aim higher.

After a barrage of attacks, Zhu Jiu throws a wide sweeping punch at Shen Wei’s head, which the other man avoids in an extremely dramatic manner with a lot of pretty twirling, curtesy of Zhu Yilong’s stunt double. Finally, this time Shen Wei launches some dark energy at Zhu Jiu, which the other man blocks with considerable effort.

Shen Wei fires a bolt of energy at Zhu Jiu’s head, but hits the pillar instead, creating a bleeding fracture on it. He instantly realises he may have made a mistake, potentially doing exactly what Zhu Jiu wanted him to. This also creates an energy barrier around the pillar and Zhu Jiu, that Shen Wei cannot penetrate.

Fight Number Three

Sang Zan appears from the crack in the pillar and attacks Zhu Jiu. It’s clearly an impulsive move motivated by watching this man torture his lover for the past hour: Sang Zan is not as good of a fighter, not to mention that he is a semi-corporeal human spirit, so he gets overpowered easily. A lot of this fight is just a combination of straight punches thrown to and blocked on the opposite side of the body, but they do tell a story, which is quite nice. The story is as follows: Sang Zan surprised Zhu Jiu with the first one enough to throw in a kick in there. By the time the second of the punches arrives, the Undergrounder is prepared enough to put the attacking arm under control, and by the third one he is prepared to swivel Sang Zan around fully in a lock.

Out of the four fights this is actually my favourite one: yes it’s very uncomplicated, but it has clarity to it. On top of that, Wang Chaowei is actually pretty good here.

Having restrained Sang Zan, Zhu Jiu moves to syphon out the ghost’s life force, forcing him to disintegrate in front of the person who loves him. It’s utterly devastating on multiple levels.

Shen Wei twirls into action once more, closing the distance on Zhu Jiu.

Fight Number Four.

Continuity-wise this entire sequence is a little bit all over the place, partly because it reuses shots from Fight Number One. This time as the two men engage, Zhao Yunlan goes for his revolver, taking it out in wonderful slow motion. As he attempts to aim, the two separate. Composition-wise this is pleasing.

There are a couple more moves before Zhu Jiu freezes in a block, which is a big mistake: Zhao Yunlan finally shoots, sending the villain flying. He then proceeds to move to Shen Wei’s side. He does not have to, but I gladly believe that this is where he wants to be. Using the pause, Shen Wei extracts the Awl.

This prop is gorgeous.

Zhu Jiu flees, leaving the heroes to deal with the aftermath.

Wang Zheng is coming to terms with losing Sang Zan after only seeing him once in the past hundred of years. I cannot imagine how painful it is for her; but Shen Wei can. His quiet hidden agony is seeping through his disguise, as Wang Zheng asks whether he has ability to bring Sang Zan back. When she sinks to her knees begging him to do so, it’s pure agony. It must be really painful to be seen as someone who needs to be pleaded with before performing an act of kindness and decency.

Of course Shen Wei will help. How could he not. Even without being begged, even without Zhao Yunlan looking at him imploringly, I can’t picture Shen Wei not restoring Sang Zan.

Outside, Guo Changcheng and Chu Shuzhi are still fighting the Youchu. Props to those two for selling the hell out of this fight: they somehow manage to actually elevate the badly CGI’d monsters.

At the end of the fight, Xiao Guo shocks his older friend, enraging him greatly. To be fair, for a complete novice Guo Changcheng is not at all useless in a fight, and it’s not his fault that the weapon he’s armed with has a surprising and unpredictable range. It’s even sadder that Guo Changcheng will take Chu Shuzhi’s outburst as the indication that the other man really definitely hates him.

The party gets reunited inside the cave. As Zhao Yunlan recounts the events of the day, he makes a point of praising Hei Pao Shi in front of his crew, which is kind of sweet of him.

Shen Wei goes to explain Zhu Jiu’s plan, and shares his suspicion that the Undergrounder could not have worked alone. He mentions that there must be someone behind the Evil Plan, obviously already suspecting who that might be, but doesn’t share any details.

Zhao Yunlan nods thoughtfully and proceeds to offer Sang Zan a job, proving even further the point that he does not vet people at all. I know the boy is Wang Zheng’s sweetheart, but he does have a history of being extremely homicidal. For some reason, despite Zhao Yunlan doing that, those around him still think that he needs convincing before accepting Sang Zan into their found family. Guo Changcheng tearfully asks Zhao Yunlan to not separate the couple, and even Shen Wei chips in with a grave “they held to the person dearest to their heart, not abandoning each other in life or death.”

Completely brushing past Hei Pao Shi’s severity, Zhao Yunlan latches onto the idea of Hei Pao Shi having been in love, and asks with a cheeky grin whether there is someone the Envoy cares about deeply. The irony is delightful.

Shen Wei looks down, trying to merge into background: this is not a conversation he is ready to have in the forceable future. Chu Shuzhi in the meanwhile coughs pointedly at the disrespect shown to his Lord. This forces Zhao Yunlan to change the subject, covering the inappropriate question with laughter.

Chief Zhao proceeds to playfully scold Sang Zan for leaving Wang Zheng to grieve for him, and then invites him to live at SID and work in the archives: full board, no salary. Zhao Yunlan loves happy endings, and here he can arrange one. His glee is evident.

Shen Wei, too, can’t help but smile one of his secret little smiles before quietly teleporting away.

After nightfall, the party returns to the village, and Zhao Yunlan finds Zhu Hong asleep. He shakes her awake, instantly worried over how disoriented the snake Yashou seems to be.

As Zhao Yunlan is checking in on Zhu Hong, Shen Wei rushes in to greet him, uncharacteristically happy and carefree. He appears to be genuinely in a good mood, and has a reason to feel elated: the mission was a success, mystery uncovered, villain fended off, happy ending achieved, and all with his secret being intact.

Zhao Yunlan stares between him and Zhu Hong for a few seconds, uncertainty evident. Then, he lets go of the wariness, and melts into an honest, heart-warming, infatuated smile.

Bai Yu knows exactly what the show was always meant to be, and I am living for it.

In the evening, the banquet is held to celebrate the end of the trip.

Zhao Yunlan finds himself being plied with alcohol, feeling pressured to accept refills despite getting more and more uncomfortable, to the point where his face is creasing with obvious pain. Shen Wei, who opts to drink water due to his own non-existent alcohol tolerance, notices his friend’s discomfort.

He glares darkly after the first glass, his brow furrows into a micro-frown by the third one, and then he finally snaps and snatches the liquor away.

Zhao Yunlan actually attempts to stop Shen Wei from drinking. He is clever, and realises instantly that Shen Wei is doing this as a way of helping out. From his actions here and his reaction later, it’s evident that subject of alcohol has come up before, and he knows Shen Wei does not tolerate it, his worry obvious.

“Since when have you started drinking?..”

First time watching this scene I distinctly remember saying out loud, “Oh I do hope he passes out Lan Wangji style”.

Well.

The downside I guess is that we never get to see how drunk Shen Wei behaves.

Zhao Yunlan puts a protective hand on Shen Wei’s arm, and then excuses himself from the table to bring the unconscious man back into the house under Zhu Hong’s narrowing gaze.

Having put Shen Wei to bed and connected him to a drip, Zhao Yunlan replays one of their first conversations, remembering this intense feeling of kinship they shared from the moment they met. Zhao Yunlan’s hands are restless with worry.

Finally, he reaches to grab the jacket, which Shen Wei has been wearing all day, and stops abruptly, sensing a familiar putrid smell of Youchu blood. He freezes, processing this new information. Then, he just laughs, before tucking Shen Wei under the jacket.

Shen Wei wakes up to a bright morning light and a note Zhao Yunlan left for him underneath his glasses. The note is accentuated with a winky face, because of course it is.

Shen Wei thumbs through the jacket in his lap, then lifts it to his nose, notching the exact same thing Zhao Yunlan had the night before.

We then finally see the events of the previous day from Shen Wei’s perspective staring with Zhu Hong attempting to hypnotise him. Shen Wei breaks the attempt without any visible effort, ordering the Yashou to not use hypnosis willy nilly out of what appears to be genuine concern. It would make sense if it was concern using the same logic Shen Wei applies to the rest of the SID squad at this point: they are Zhao Yunlan’s people, Zhao Yunlan's cares about them, therefore Shen Wei protects them.

He then encounters a Youchu, conjuring a sword into his hand.

Before reading my thoughts below please scroll down to have a look at the disclaimer which I have placed in the notes at the end of the recap.

Now, onto the sword essay.

Shen Wei’s sword looks about 80cm or so long, and constructed in a very curious way: the sharp edge is divided into three distinct sections, curving significantly at the higher third of the blade. This is interesting to me because on pretty much all swords I have seen the sharp edge (also known as true edge) would be solid, and it’s actually the false/blunt edge that would have a section in which it is curved or sharply slanted towards the point and sharpened, making the sword fit for stabbing as well as slashing. This sword is also thinning at the lower part of the blade, the way meat cleavers sometimes are. I kind of like it because it indicates that this sword would be actually suited for directly blocking incoming blows, the way sabres generally are not. In terms of physics I can’t imagine this sword not being very uncomfortably balanced. The heaviest part of it appears to be in the middle of the blade, which would make it very fitted for brutal attacks, but equally a nightmare to manoeuvre. This is exacerbated by a pretty but clearly light and utterly impractical fishtail pommel.

The grip of the sword is ever so slightly curved, also made of metal and would be long enough to fit two hands on it if need be, only the aforementioned fishtail pommel makes that impossible. The blade is decorated by what looks to be a faux Damascus pattern.

I wish the lighting was less washed-out, because I find it hard to discern the materials used. For what it’s worth, the blade looks like steel even if the handle does not. It does not look blatantly plastic, at any rate. Glaring sideways at my friend Baxia from the Untamed.

All in all, it’s a pretty fantasy sword. I could not locate an exact historical counterpart for it at all, although trying to find anything non-generic in terms of Chinese sword history has been challenging. The shape and length of this sabre do not directly correspond to anything I saw, especially considering its very distinctly shaped edge. Which, for a fantasy sword, is not at all a bad thing.

And now we need to talk about reverse grips. Because they are much loved by fight choreographers and stunt coordinators around the globe and I have opinions on that.

When you rotate a sword - any sword - into a reverse grip, the following happens:

One, you are significantly shortening the reach of your blade.

Two, you are limiting the range of moves available to you.

Three, you are making protecting your head and upper body excruciatingly awkward. You are either risking overextending your joints beyond what is comfortable for most people, or blindsiding yourself altogether by crossing your own arm over your face. Or, you know, both.

With this sword in particular, the part of it which does the slicing is actually curved out pretty significantly. This means that in order to apply the actual cutting edge to the target while in reverse grip you need to angle the blade away from your body by flexing your wrist sideways at an angle that cannot possible be pleasant: this is not the way the wrist joint is designed to move.

Reverse grip can be useful with short blades (knives, daggers), especially if held in an off hand, and there are a limited number of effective reverse grip moves in German longsword canon. That said, the only translated manual on single handed Dao swords that I found was Jin Yiming’s 1932 Single Defence Saber and… nope, not a single reverse grip guard or move in sight.

Generally speaking, the only reason to ever rotate into a reverse grip before performing the opening move is that it’s kinda hot.

Which.

I reluctantly admit, it is.

Sorry, where was I?

Oh yeah.

This could have worked. If the actual slash Shen Wei does was shot over his shoulder, with the beast animated running at him, it may have worked, cheating the massive gap between the CGI Youchu and the Envoy. But for some reason the slicing action was shot in profile, with Youchu being animated separately, also in profile and nowhere near the blade. Because you can’t put it in the same shot and explain why Shen Wei is not hacked to pieces by its claws.

Don’t get me wrong, Zhu Yilong looks really damn good wielding the sword. It’s just that everything else surrounding this moment makes me weep.

I do understand that taking about real life physics and real life combat performance in relation to an inhuman character of de facto urban fantasy series fighting a poorly CGI’d creature might be a moot point. But opinions have been promised and so opinions are delivered. And if you think this is me being worked up about blade work you should see me watching the Witcher series.

Anyway.

After getting Youchu blood on him, Shen Wei keeps moving. Outside the cave, he sends a ward to protect Zhao Yunlan and then transforms into his Hei Pao Shi persona, magical girl style.

It’s appropriately glorious, complete with his robes billowing in the wind as the camera spins around him.

We are then shown the moment Zhao Yunlan would have smelled Youchu blood in the cave, commenting on how rank it is.

With jacket in his hands, Shen Wei ponders, “Am I unable to hide my identity any more?”

The Road Trip story draws to a close, as many of them do, on Guo Changcheng writing his diary.

The episode, on the other hand, launches headfirst into the next case. We get to meet Tan Xiao and little Zheng Yi, are introduced to their relationship, see that the sound waves can be lethal in a way which is plot-significant, and have a whole set of gruesome underworld-related deaths.

My favourite part however, is this shot putting a tank full of fish chunklets in focus as Zheng Yi plays violin in the background. It just tickles me a lot.

At the SID, Guo Changcheng is suffering from diarrhoea, and laments his woeful existence, commenting on Chu Shuzhi’s clear dislike of him, as he calls the other man a giant popsicle. Unbeknownst to him, the Undergrounder in question is quietly reading Xiao Guo’s diary in an adjacent cubicle.

“Who is this?”

“A giant popsicle”

The rest of the office speculates on the way Hanga tribe’s food and water has affected their digestive systems. Zhu Hong comments that losing two members of their team to stomach problems for one Hallow is not a bad deal. Lin Jing counters that they did, in fact, loose three members of their team, making a vague gesture towards Zhao Yunlan’s office. Da Qing volunteers to go and shake the man out of whatever daydream he’s been stuck in.

Zhao Yunlan is staring into mid-distance as he swirls the lollipop stick in his mouth, memories of Shen Wei replaying in his mind. He is not just thinking about Shen Wei being suspicious and surviving a whole bunch of encounters he logically should not have; he also recalls Shen Wei and Hei Pao Shi both being protective, both being compassionate, both being by his side.

“What kind of person do you think Hei Pao Shi really is?” He asks out loud when Da Qing appears. The cat Yashou replies that the Envoy is an important person who should be admired from afar, and scolds Zhao Yunlan for adopting a familiar nickname for him. Which is simultaneously a good point - and a reason Shen Wei must have been really lonely for a very long time. When he was young, all but Kunlun admired him from afar. Now that he is in the modern times, I imagine him being kind enough to be liked, but not really letting anyone in, until Zhao Yunlan once more barges his way into his life.

Yunlan asks whether it was possible that Hei Pao Shi lives as a human, but Da Qing argues that as an important Underground figure he surely lives there rather than on the surface.

“Why would he be up here? To see his lover?”

“He does not seem the kind who would have a lover”

Speaking of lovers...

“Have you contacted Professor Shen since he came back?”

We can discern that Zhao Yunlan has not, in fact, contacted Shen Wei, opting instead to brood alone, collecting his thought before he decides how to approach that particular subject.

An opportunity to contact the professor falls into his lap only a short while later, when they leave the office to investigate the murder scene, and Lin Jing finds that the last two calls from one of the victim’s phones was to a landline. Lin Jing asks, incredulously, who would be using a landline this day and age.

As it happens, Zhao Yunlan knows such a man. Zhao Yunlan orders his subordinate to dial the number, and Shen Wei replies. He squeezes his eyes shut for a second and just... laughs.

On a separate note, can we please have a second here to admire Lin Jing’s Snoop Dog T-Shirt?

All the way across town, Zhu Hong and Xiao Guo are visiting the snake tribe to ask Zhu Hong’s Fourth Uncle about the Hallows. Guo Changcheng is very much freaked out by the Yashou surrounding him, but not as freaked out as he gets when the Fourth Uncle comments on him and Zhu Hong being a cute couple.

The episode fades to black on Zhu Hong being knocked out by a sedative by her own family.

Next up, Episode 12: Why You Always Lying

———

Notes.

1. The Disclaimer.

I would like to state that my base knowledge - both practical and theoretical - is overwhelmingly Eurocentric. I have done some research in the last couple of weeks, and I have actually gotten my hands on a polycarbonate version of a generic single handed dao/sabre so I could get a feel for it, but I have never trained or fought with it. I would maintain that performance safety techniques are pretty universal, as I would maintain that in terms of physics, a sword of a certain shape is designed to be used a certain way regardless of where it originates. That said, I certainly have less authority when critiquing sword work I am not culturally familiar with. Please, take my words on the subject with a massive grain of salt here as well as in the future.

2. Full disclosure on my angle in this. I am proficient in fight performance, have choreographed for the stage, but my main thing is combat education; I am working towards getting certified as a stage combat teacher, and regularly assist in classroom environment. My first instinct watching fight sequences therefore is to give cast a whole bunch of notes. I am doing to best to curb it here, focusing more of storytelling and composition and such.

3. Apologies for taking longer than usual to post. Lockdown is lifting where I am, and in person physical training is returning to higher education. You can imagine that after months of inactivity and isolation seeing students AND handling large chunks to steel for hours on end is rather physically and emotionally draining.

4. … Before pictures, this recap is ten pages long. How is this recap ten pages long??

#guardian #zhao yunlan #shen wei #recap #rewatch #overanalysing fight choreography #overanalysing swords

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ghostmartyr · 4 years ago

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SnK 133 Thoughts

They’re trying to stop the apocalypse but they’re dummy traumatized and the clap of their sins keeps alerting the glow tree.

Kids, just remember: Body count doesn’t matter, it’s how you feel while producing that body count. If you’ve killed people to stop genocide, you are not immune to being party to genocide. ⭑⭒⋆

I’m being reductive because I’m not too eager to go over how not all murder is created equal again.

Going by a good faith read, I do think what the narrative is attempting to establish is that these characters all know what it’s like to be backed into a corner and do desperate things they’re horrified by.

Putting aside the extra psychological difficulties of his childhood preceding the choice to knock down the wall, Reiner believes he’s saving humanity. There’s an island full of devils, and he’s attacking them. He, Bertolt, and Annie are dumb kids who do what they’re told. Because they think it’s right, or because they want to go home, or just because they are dumb kids.

Armin’s killed plenty of people with the power of the Colossus. He can’t plead innocence; he attacks Liberio’s port intentionally, knowing exactly what terror the people on the ground will be going through.

Connie kills the friends he’s trained with for years, when the worst thing about Reiner and Bertolt revealing themselves is feeling betrayed by comrades he loves.

None of this is directly equivalent. Dumb children at war are trying their best. Always, this conflict has been orchestrated above their pay grade. RAB get abandoned behind enemy lines and are told to make the best of it. Armin destroys Marley’s port because Marley will not stop going after Paradis, and Eren has forced a renewed conflict that they need to move against fast. Connie betrays his friends because they’re okay with letting the rest of the world die.

No one on this ship has enjoyed any of this. They have consistently been doing their best with the information given to them while people with more power drag them into fights that never should have happened.

Shiganshina falls because Marley chooses to murder Paradis.

Liberio falls because Eren turns himself into Paradis’ only hope and puts himself into a situation he can’t win alone.

In the crudest way of putting it, these people are grunts. They’re not the ones who picked the game being played. They’re the ones being manipulated into war after war.

That’s why they look at each other without counting the bodies. It isn’t the scale of their actions that hits at this moment, it’s the decisions they’ve made to be part of it. They choose to keep fighting. When it creates an outcome they hate, what can they say? ‘Look what you made me do’?

Whatever their reasons, and whoever set up the board, they are the ones who participate. In this case, pure moral imperative is the driving force. Daz and Samuel die because they’re willing to let genocide go uncontested. That’s on them.

Guilt doesn’t work like that, though. Daz and Samuel die because they are killed. Connie kills them. He betrays their trust.

All of this is to say that the people on the ship truly do understand each other perfectly, even despite the difference in scale. It’s a bit on the nose, but I don’t think anything they’re going through is at odds with the people they are.

Applying that feeling to Eren is a feat of misguided grace that... hell, I don’t know.

As a human person, I like grace as a concept and want more of it. I don’t want the world to burn, I want the burning to stop, and for everyone to be okay in the end even if they don’t deserve it. A world where we all get precisely what we deserve seems an incredibly dark place to me. That doesn’t leave room for mercy or kindness. You get what you earn, and nothing more.

The more time we spend on this portion of the story, the more I’m inclined to think that the themes agree with me. Our heroes at this point aren’t full of the rage they’re entitled to. Every inch of them is tired, and they’re not here for more death. They’re willing to keep going, but even the thought of killing Eren, when he’s massacred thousands, makes them all hesitate.

Everyone wants to go home and have the fighting stop.

That’s all.

Whatever happened, and whose fault it is -- forget all of it, just give them a place to rest and have it be over.

Thematically, yay. I approve. Beautiful. We start out with a series that makes a name for itself almost entirely on the back of the spectacle of violence, and after years of participating in that violence, the main cast wants nothing to do with it anymore. Love it.

Within the plot, I am not in the mood to have Eren’s traumatized friends apologize for not understanding him.

I get it.

I get why they all feel this way.

I do not like reading it.

They’re projecting their own guilt on someone who has shown a reckless disregard for their lives and sanity.

They’re trying to reach Eren as a human being and friend when he’s done his absolute best to make himself unreachable.

That’s sort of the point Reiner thinks is being made. Eren has intentionally set them up as his adversary so that if he has to be doing all of this, maybe there’s still a chance someone can stop him.

Okay, fine.

It falls short for the same reason all of Eren’s stuff is falling short.

We don’t actually know what the fuck is going on with him. We’re guessing.

You know those picture puzzles you do as a kid? Draw a line from bubble 1 to bubble 2 to bubble 3, and eventually you will make a bunny. Or a dog, or flowers, or something that looks like a picture in the sloppy mess of numbers.

Eren’s general portrayal matches that of a toddler who doesn’t yet know his numbers, and understands the instructions to be that he’s trying to get to the last bubble by scribbling lines through all the other bubbles.

Look, it’s a bunny.

And Eren’s friends are all like, oh wow, that’s such a good job! We’re going to put it on the fridge!

Then people come over and are like, why is there a constellation of a deer jumping through a house on the fridge, but they hear the child did it and immediately are like, oh yeah, that’s the best bunny I’ve ever seen, I can’t draw like that.

The child, being a child, is like, ‘Damn right. I’m going to be in bunny museums.’

Meanwhile, I’m just going to come out and say it.

It’s not a fucking bunny.

What it is, I don’t know, but it is not a bunny, stop calling it a bunny, it is actively erasing the knowledge of what a bunny looks like in my mind.

So ends this skit on what Eren’s portrayal has been like.

Eren has decided that this is all necessary. He doesn’t like it, and wants someone to stop him, but he is totally going to do it, and he knows he’s going to do it because future vision told him so and he’s really sad about that even though he’s emotionally in a place where genocide sounds like the only way out but that is wrong.

I think I’ve said before that Eren getting to this place mentally isn’t too off the rails. His sanity has been deteriorating with each mission, and he’s nineteen. Snapping like this could arguably be expected.

But the last we see of Eren’s thoughts, we still have this back and forth of how he refuses to yield the future to fate, but he already feels condemned by that future because he chooses to cause it.

Eren is clearly trapped by this web of contradictions, but his motivational core is so obstructed that it’s hard to actually connect to. It is easier to say that Eren’s gone off the deep end than it is to spend any amount of time asking how Point A became Point 3.

That’s frustrating, as a reader. I don’t want to be told a story, I want to experience it.

Eren’s experiences are not universal.

I need some hand-holding here. There needs to be a few more clear indications of Eren The Person, and how the individual we know wrapped around to making these choices.

Hooray, he’s not taking away their powers.

The guy he let run his cult still nearly killed all of them.

Hooray, he’s protecting his island.

He just actively courted an international incident so everyone wants the island dead.

Yes, Eren thinks that hope is lost before he makes these choices. That’s how moving forward drags him to this place; he doesn’t have the vision to imagine a world where this isn’t happening.

If you don’t fight, you can’t win, and Eren’s still fighting. But he’s forgotten what winning looks like. All he knows is the dreary march forward.

I would like for that to be explicit, not me extrapolating. Because even as I’m typing all of that, and feeling like it makes sense, it has the confidence of tissue paper, and I know my numbers, but half the numbers making this bunny were missing, and I’m not an artist.

The story I’m digging around here for is one I could like, but I don’t trust that it’s actually the one being told, because too much feels unexplained and weird. You can’t just make your main character nuts and use that as an excuse for anything.

Well, okay, you can.

You shouldn’t.

Please don’t do that.

Which I guess leads us to Eren and OG Ymir doing a Shining twins thing.

Here is my wild speculation.

The Attack Titan is the only Titan capable of resisting the Founder. It cannot be controlled, it simply continues forward, fighting for freedom.

When Eren talks to Ymir, her eyes losing their shadows are the cue for him taking full control of the Founder.

Now we’re back here, and her eyes are shadowed again, with Eren’s joining the ride.

I think that where we’re going to end up is that Eren’s mental fragility made him incredibly susceptible to the Attack Titan’s core nature, and enough of that nature aligned with Eren’s that everything except pursuing a way forward fell away. The Attack Titan is Ymir’s furious will, and she’s had it suppressed for 2000 years. I don’t think either one is emotionally capable of surfacing and deciding to resist the urge to march forward and destroy this world that has cursed them so.

Making my theory that yeah, okay, Eren’s lost it, but he lost it with the help of ancient plot magic, which we are now seeing the full extent of.

Does that have any basis in anything?

Who the fuck knows.

But one thing is very clear: Eren’s not free.

“In order to gain my own freedom... I will take freedom away from the world. [...] You are all free.”

The Attack Titan “has always moved ahead, seeking freedom. It has fought on for freedom.”

Eren, embodiment of the Attack Titan, is the first one to hear Ymir in 2000 years. Going with the vaguely logical theory that Titans are all pieces of Ymir herself, the Attack Titan is the part that rebels against every indignity she bows to in life.

Zeke frees the Founder from its promise of peace. Eren frees Ymir from the chains tying her to the royal family’s will.

All that’s left is 2000 years of trauma, and the ability and will, for the first time, to lash out.

It’s not what you’d call surprising.

It’s the getting here that I take issue with. Now that we’re here, yeah, got it. But I really don’t feel like Eren’s journey here has been done well enough to capture the emotional rawness that is trying to be accessed. His friends are shouting for someone who is effectively dead, for all the presence he’s showing.

Then you’ve got Annie and Kiyomi sad.

ON A BOAT.

While Falco wants to be a Titan with WIIIIIIIIIIINGS.

Kiddos, you’re very cute, and I support you not wanting to sit still and do nothing while the world is ending, but I can’t begin to express how little I care.

Except that your families are alive and you two and Annie deserve to be reunited.

SO FINE, OKAY, FALCO CAN HAVE HIS WINGS AND SAY HI TO HIS PARENTS AND GABI CAN SAY HI TO HER PARENTS AND ANNIE CAN SAY HI TO HER DAD AND IT’LL ALL BE FINE DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THE FUCK WE’RE GOING TO DO ABOUT EREN?

BECAUSE YEAH, I’M SURE THE AIRSHIPS ARE JUST GOING TO SPLODE HIM AND END ALL OF THIS AND EVERYONE WILL HOLD HANDS AND SING SONGS THAT THE EVIL HAS BEEN DEFEATED AND THAT WILL BE THE END OF IT.

Conversation: FAILED

Attack: probably FAILED

GO AHEAD, MANGA. SHOW ME THE DEUS EX MACHINA. I’M NOT GOING TO LIKE IT, BUT I AM PREPARED FOR IT.

inb4 yeah they just are going to bomb Eren with Armin that’s how we end this.

133 status: Still Looking For A Win Condition (This Ain’t It Chief)

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 133 #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #Survey Corps #tl;dr #chapter post

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whumpbby · 4 years ago

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I finished typing and now I feel I have to preface it with a: this is all a monologue about Jedi and Force and Lucas’ inability to show the good story he wants to tell - just a warning. This is in no way meant to contradict the other post with that quote floating around or argue against it - just my own rambling coming to a conclusion I keep struggling with when it comes to SW universe and the ways it makes no sense to me and how I feel deep in my bones that Lucas is a crap storyteller.

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I don’t know why, but for all the interesting concepts Lucas talks about, Anakin’s fall never sat well with me. In time I came to the conclusion I would respond better if the Jedi culture surrounding it wasn’t so contradictory to itself.

And if he wasn’t so heavily leaning on the concept of the ‘pure love’ that is unconditional and undemanding and ‘unselfish’. Tldr: that love does not exist outside of poetry and romance dramas and imagination. Like every other emotion humans feel, love is conditional.

Take the first trilogy - I got that. The Jedi were largely missing and there was not much lore-wise, but the vibe it gave was measured and peaceful and mindful, and all the things that stood against the Empire - that represented the Dark Side in a very concise way. It wasn’t too nuanced, so we could buy it in this very simple ‘princes kidnapped b ya dragon’ story. This is as good as Lucas gets.

But then the prequels happened and Jedi became this weird, extremely specific, but conflicting idea. They are not supposed to take sides in politics - except when they do. They are not supposed to kill - except when they do, with freaking relish. They are not supposed to love or hate or allow emotions dictate their ways - oh, except when they do. And they can have sex - just not sex with someone they want to settle down with (oh boy, is that a signifier of a story written by a guy or what?). All seems to be ‘except when they do, as long as it can be adequately justified to make them look good’.

And I do have an issue with the idea of ‘Anakin was too old to join, he was already attached to his mother’ which is, when you think about it, is insane. Learning to control your emotions and letting go of your wants, Buddhist way, fine.

Aiming to train children to not be attached to their parents? What? How young a child has to be for that attachment forms? How is a meditation and repeating mantras going to help a 5-year old who is missing their mom at the temple? How do you even expect to train a child out of missing their mom??? How is it NOT better to get an older child that can reason above the instinctual and hardwired need for their mother?

But let’s say Anakin’s attachment to his mother was ‘selfish’ from the beginning - but, that’s the thing, was it? Was it really? They were slaves and she was his only family, okay, obviously that made his attachment stronger and more layered than, say, a normal middle-class Coruscanti kid who could love their mom without constant fear that any day they can be separated forever by someone who didn’t give a shit. In that sense, yes, Anakin was desperately attached to his mom and afraid of loosing her - there was fear in him. Right, I’m there with you, Yoda.

But the movies show us that the way Jedi seem to approach these hard subjects is by not approaching them at all - oh, well, we can’t take him in. He had a difficult childhood and there are issues attached, get him out of here.

In a galaxy full of races and issues and the Force being tied to any and all creatures in any and all circumstances - this was the hard line Jedi were drawing. In essence, either only accepting kids young enough to not remember their parents (and I see absolutely no issues whatsoever that could happen here, nope) or with childhoods perfect enough not to have any issues whatsoever. Anyone else? Adults that discovered Force when they were older? Kids like Anakin with hard childhoods? Creatures that were either culturally or chemically wired differently enough that the tight reins Jedi held over their emotions weren’t possible for them? Nope. Go away. You are a bad person in the making.

If you spend a moment contemplating, you will realise this is such a white privileged guy way to think about it. And if you stick your head into the microwave for a couple seconds, you can almost understand how Lucas thought this is something profound and mystical.

No that I think about it... I always thought Sith were freaking clowns - their philosophy makes no sense, their ‘rule of two’ is hilarious, everything about them is just so badly designed and thought out, and who would ever decide to join of that creepy cult of their own volition? It made no sense!

But, as an answer to the egalitarian and contradictory ways of the Jedi - Sith make all the sense to exist. And let’s forget about the Light and Dark (that I don’t believe exist above the ways of personal emotional expression that in time trains the Force around a person in certain ways - like a person can train their brain in and out of anxiety ofr example), but focusing strictly on philosophy - yeah, being a Sith makes sense when any other way is barred form someone by no fault of their own. And barred with an excuse they are a bad seed anyway.

“You fear/hate/desire hence you can’t access the Force with us” = “Well fuck you, then, I will access the Force in my own way, using these exact emotions!”

Like, Sith are clowns, but Jedi suck in their own very special way and their fall was just waiting to happen.

I get a strange feeling that Lucas created Jedi as a class of a warrior monk in DnD and then scrambled to create their enemies out of the simplest contradictions. Light-dark. Love-Hate. Peace-Fear. Etc. But because Jedi were so simple - once they started to gain popularity and he had to expand their lore and layer on the philosophy, he hit a wall. Or rather, the bottom of the kiddy pool. Because a ‘warrior monk’ is not an a ‘good’ class, but he wanted them to be mostly warriors, but also a force of good in the galaxy, because Star Wars is the same simple story repeated again and again with a new set of characters (regardless of how much fake politics is thrown in to obscure that fact) so this whole universe is basically built on giving Jedi reasons to fight and kill, and adequately justifying them. And then the Dark Side had to catch up by being more ridiculously evil at every turn - accidentally unmasking the way Jedi philosophy falls apart under closer scrutiny.

So like, to make a full circle, the one thing the prequels did well was to show Anakin’s fall (and I am not gonna argue, it was effective and he is a villain of this story) but they also presented - I think against the creator’s intention - why it was pretty much inevitable. Not because Palpatine was there to whisper poison, or because Force itself strived for ‘balance’ (even though the latter is a hilarious idea I love to contemplate) - but because Jedi, as presented in the movies-media around them, as a philosophy and way of life is inherently contradictory and unsustainable from the point of being a, well, a breathing, thinking being. The ‘selfish love’ argument would work so much better if it wasn’t presented with an example of a kid who was born a slave and the people who saw it as a strike against his character, and did very little to address the specific issues that could arise from that before it was too late.

Would it fucking kill them to let go of their strict training routine and ensure that his specific emotional needs were met? That Shimi was, I don’t know, NOT A SLAVE. They seem to interfere into politics just fine when need arises - but not when it’s a sandy planet in the ass-end of the universe no one cares about. Then no, we can’t liberate one slave. That would be acting in self-interest - not in the interest of not allowing one of the strongest members of out order to fall into the ruin we have forseen form the beginning.

It would work better is if Anakin’s ‘selfishness’ was presented as his inability to let Padme leave him for someone else/just leave him - not to be unwilling to let her die.

Think about it for a moment - he wasn’t presented with the idea of Padme leaving him. With the idea of his mother not loving him anymore. He was firmly and, form his point of view, believably, presented with the idea of both of them DYING. Which actually happened to his mom, solidifying the fear in his mind.

Yes, he was not meant to go on a rampage and kill the ones who killed Shimi - but wasn’t he? The Jedi are not against killing. Only killing in self-interest I guess - when self-interest is not one’s life and their political affiliation or their ‘job’ at hand, that is. Revenge is a no-no, but a military retaliation is a yes-go. Can’t kill anyone who wronged me - but I can kill those who wronged a person who gives me orders. How does that work within a Jedi doctrine?

How, in good conscience, can you present this scenario, George, and then try to spin it into this big philosophical bullcrap about unselfish love???? Jedi murdered people over political squabbles - but I guess that’s okay because they weren’t invested??? And that’s better?!?!? George! What the fuck! You are such a bloke my head hurts!

In case of Anakin, Jedi were essentially Elsa’s parents. I pretty much despise Elsa and the film she crawled out of, and I personally don’t like Anakin as a character either, so this is not stanning in any way, but their issues scream ‘I was raised by well-meaning idiots’ and shows the level of botched storytelling I just can’t reconcile.

Which, you know what?

Luke, who spent years studying Jedi ways and taking them into himself?

I can believe than this Luke would try to kill his nephew at the barest whiff of the Dark Premonition instead of helping him manage his motions in a somewhat healthy way - that seems to be exactly what a real Jedi would do, after all.

#star wars #rant?#thoughts?#rambling #jedi suck blue balls #and so do sith #sw #lucas should never write on anything that isn't a post-it note

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carewyncromwell · 4 years ago

Photo

At last, my friends, we’ve come to the end! This is the final part of my POTC AU. *cue the confetti and noisemakers*

I’ll be creating a masterpost for this AU in the next few days, so that it’s easier to start at the beginning, but before we jump right in, I want to thank those people who contributed to the POTC AU during its development by creating content for their own characters -- @hphm-brooke, @danceworshipper, @rosievixen, @smarti-at-smogwarts, @theguythatdraws, @dat-silvers-girl, @that-ravenpuff-witch, @hogwarts9, @drinkyoursoupbitch and @samshogwarts -- as well as my dear friend @cursebreakerfarrier, whose character Jules I roped into this thing at the very start before having any concept of how big this thing could get and I feel so blessed to have been able to write for. I also just want to thank you all for the overwhelming flood of support you guys have sent my way for this project -- I truly have loved every minute of it, and I hope to finish some of my other unfinished projects as well as create other fresh new material for you guys in the near future! I love you all! xoxo

One last time -- previous part is here, and full tag is here!

x~x~x~x

Even with McNully’s brilliant ploy giving her an extra smattering of glory to cement her position, Carewyn had still initially feared the crew who had been on the HMS Lion would take her to task for her insubordination of Cutler Beckett. It turned out she really needn’t have worried.

“Lord Beckett may have been chosen by the King to take charge of the Empire’s anti-piracy campaign,” said Carewyn’s old lieutenant when she questioned him about it, “but he selected you as the Admiral of the fleet. Therefore it’s only right that we, as your subordinates, follow your orders -- whether they contradict Lord Beckett’s or not.”

“Even though I’m the sort of person to threaten the King’s chosen representative with my pistol?” asked Carewyn, her eyebrows raised.

“Even if you did far worse than that,” said the lieutenant, his eyes blazing with resolve. “Your orders saved a lot of our men’s lives out there, when Beckett’s no doubt would’ve led to their deaths. It’s only right that we protect you -- that the Navy protects you -- just like you protected us.”

His boyish face broke out into a broad smile. “We won’t betray you, Admiral. None of us will.”

With the Navy’s defeat at the hands of the Pirate Lords, Carewyn charted a course straight for London. The fleet had just started the month-long journey when about three days in, the Flying Dutchman emerged out of a gigantic wave and pulled up right alongside the HMS Royal. The Navy’s sailors immediately prepared for a fight, as they knew that the Dutchman was no longer under their control, but Carewyn held the order to attack, instead allowing the ship to approach.

The sailors on board the Dutchman were unrecognizable to Carewyn’s eyes -- gone were the barnacle-encrusted, shark-or-fish-headed crew members she’d seen before: all she saw were a band of very human, though admittedly very dirty and ragged-looking pirates. Sticking out amongst them was a handsome, clean-shaved man with a stylishly-embroidered coat, a brown ponytail, and discerning brown eyes, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a shorter, stockier man with very long curly dark hair tied back in a ponytail that swished around behind him like an oddly sentient tail. It was these two men that came aboard, when Carewyn invoked the right to parley with the Dutchman’s Captain in her office.

Percy shut the door to Carewyn’s cabin’s door behind the two men, taking off his tricorn hat just as the pirates, Ben, and Carewyn already had now that he was indoors. It was only once Carewyn, Percy, Ben, Jacob, and Ashe were alone that the two Navy officers and ex-Navy veteran dropped their professional masks and the two pirates dropped their intimidating glares, and Jacob and Carewyn ran forward, throwing their arms around each other and squeezing tight.

“Jacob!” Carewyn breathed against his shoulder as she clung to her brother.

Jacob cradled his younger sister close, absently trailing his hand through her hair in repetitive strokes. “Oh Wyn -- my brave Wyn...”

Carewyn pulled away just enough to look at Jacob. Her eyes trailed over his face, down to the long scar on his chest exposed by his slightly open shirt, and over his curly ponytail, which was currently squiggling like a ribbon in mid-air behind him.

Jacob smiled a bit sheepishly.

“Seems all sailors on the Flying Dutchman become a bit more ‘sea-like’ upon tying themselves to the ship. Rakepick’s hair kind of went all ‘jellyfish’ when she was captain -- probably because of her talent for shocking betrayals,” he added with a rather nasty smile. “Ashe thinks that my hair’s been evoking an eel. Fortunately I reckon I won’t start sprouting gills or turning green unless I actively shed my humanity and ignore my role as ferryman like Jones did...”

The severe look on Carewyn’s face made the smile slowly slide off of Jacob’s face.

“Jacob...when Jones was captain of the Dutchman, he wasn’t allowed to visit dry land but once every ten years,” said Carewyn, her voice betraying the anxiety she felt despite her best effort.

Jacob’s eyes grew a little more solemn. “...I know.”

Seeing the pain in his sister’s eyes, he immediately swooped in and trailed a hand through the hair near the front of her face.

“Wyn, I already planned for this. The whole reason I left you on Isle de Muerta is that I wanted to get Jones’s heart and force him, any way I had to, to release you from the contract.” He swallowed. “...I knew I’d have to be prepared to follow through, if I was going to threaten Jones’s life -- that I’d have to be prepared to become captain of the Dutchman myself, if it came to it.”

Carewyn looked if possible even more upset. “...You mean you planned this? You were really going to kill Jones, to stop him from impressing me into service?”

“I was not going to condemn you, Wyn,” Jacob said in a very forceful, pained voice. “I couldn’t let you suffer because of my mistake -- ”

“Two wrongs do not make a right, Jacob,” Carewyn shot back very harshly. “Jones may have been heartless, but he was still a person!”

“If you disregard the tentacles and claw, anyway,” Ashe said rather coolly. When Carewyn whirled on him with a very reproachful look, he spoke again before she did, “Carewyn, your brother had his fair share of conflict about the whole thing. He hated the thought of killing Jones and joining the crew of the Dutchman. He hated the thought of not being free to go where he wanted, to lose so much time with you...with me.”

Ashe’s eyes were very stony, but they still flickered over to Jacob, narrowing slightly with something oddly resigned. Carewyn’s gaze softened significantly.

“...I hated it for him too,” the merman said lowly. “I still do. But I hate the thought of Jack having died there on that deck more. I hate the thought that Rakepick would’ve actually managed to kill him this time, and there would’ve been nothing I could’ve done to stop it. Your friend the Pirate King couldn’t save your brother’s life, but she did prevent him from dying...all because she, like me, couldn’t bear the thought of you two never seeing each other again.”

His lips actually turned up in something of a weak, wry smile upon Carewyn.

“I understand your frustration -- your brother can be amazingly thick -- ”

“Oi!” said Jacob, a bit offended, but Ashe ignored him.

“ -- but I’ve been very fortunate to know the same intense, selfless love from Jack that he feels for you. I’m not going to act like it’ll be easy -- I mean, even if I’d be able to stay on-board on the Dutchman with Jack while he’s here in the land of the living...whenever he goes to the next world as ferryman, I won’t be able to follow. But I can always meet up with him at sea, in my regular form -- I can always catch up, given the proper time...just like I did while Jack was serving under Howell Davis. Until then, I’ll just find someplace to wait.”

Carewyn considered Ashe for a long moment, her blue eyes rippling with a rather indiscernible expression. Then, looking a bit more determined, she strode right up to Ashe and took hold of his shoulders.

“You won’t have to find a place,” she said. “You’ll have one with me.”

Both Jacob and Ashe looked taken aback.

“You’re family, Duncan,” said Carewyn with a smile. “And everything I’ve ever done -- everything I’m doing now -- is for my family...my blood one and my found one.”

She glanced at Percy, who beamed, before turning her gaze back to Ashe.

“You’ll always have a home with me, when you don’t have one with my brother,” she said very firmly. “Always.”

Ashe looked faintly stunned. His eyes trailed over Carewyn’s face, analyzing every inch as if he’d never seen anyone quite like her. His gaze flitted back over to Jacob, whose face had broken into a very warm, tear-choked smile.

Seeing the intense emotion in his partner’s face, Ashe couldn’t help but bow his head and clear his throat as he struggled to keep his composure.

“Ahem...well...that’s...nice.”

He glanced at Carewyn out the side of his eye almost hesitantly. The Admiral’s smile softened that bit more, becoming more sympathetic, and finally Ashe’s face slowly broke out into a very small, soft smile too. He brought up a hand and rested it on the crown of her head, lightly messing up her bangs.

“Guess I’ll just stick with you in the interim, then,” he said airily, “considering the Brethren Court’s instructions.”

Percy blinked in surprise. “The Brethren Court?”

Jacob nodded. “We took a vote and our Pirate King decided that a ‘representative’ should deliver the Court’s demands to the Admiral and the British Crown. Originally the plan was to have Ashe and me rendez-vous with you, and for Ashe to stay with you until ‘the terms were met.’”

“Jack would’ve done it himself if he could, but of course, he sort of needs to stick to the sea, unless he wants to waste his ‘one day every ten years,’” added Ashe.

“What terms did the Court decide on?” asked Ben, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. “I assume they want pardons for themselves and their crews...but just pardoning a mob of pirates isn’t going to fix things on its own.”

Jacob nodded. “Aye. The Court requested a ‘path toward reintegration’ -- one that includes pardons, as well as a job that suits our sailing and, er... ‘financially-inclined’ talents and can be used to build a future for ourselves and any families we may want to support. Amari’s First Mate said there would only be a 58% chance that the King would accept those terms, but he hoped that you ‘being put under duress’ by a pirate while submitting those terms in writing might improve the odds slightly -- ”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Carewyn very primly.

This startled both Jacob and Ashe. Carewyn exchanged a wry smile with Ben.

“We’re already heading to London right now,” said Ben, his smirk noticeably broader than Carewyn’s. “The Admiral plans on requesting an audience with the King himself.”

“With Beckett gone, I’m in the best position I’ll ever be in, to make my move,” Carewyn said, her blue eyes flashing with determined fire. “I’m done with staying silent -- I intend to convince the King to give every pirate the chance to start their lives over.”

And so Carewyn sailed for London with Ashe, Ben, and Percy as her entourage. Meeting King George I would be a formidable proposition for anyone, but Carewyn fortunately was able to prepare a little ahead of time. The Weasley family had grown up near London, so Percy was able to give Carewyn some advice of how to approach the King --

“His Majesty was born and raised in the Holy Roman Empire, so English is not his first language. There are some rumors that he really doesn’t even speak English at all, but I think that’s highly exaggerated -- anti-German sentiment more than anything, you know. One thing that’s for sure, though, is that what he says goes. He’s even ostracized his own son and heir, so I’ve heard, since he was more popular with the British people. But he also can’t stand the Tories -- they never quite accepted his claim to the throne, over the Stuarts...honestly, there are a lot of people who’ve never really warmed up to the man...”

“And financially?” asked Carewyn.

Percy considered this. “...Well, the King’s very wealthy, certainly -- everyone knows that. But I suppose profit would always be advantageous, for the sake of the Empire...”

Carewyn smiled wryly and shook her head. “The Navy has been commanded by the East India Trading Company more than the King himself, as of late. Beckett once equated money with power, and I think there was a reason. If the King’s been leaning so heavily on the Company, that tells me that it had financial resources the Crown is in desperate need of, so the Crown’s own coffers currently depend on the Company’s success.”

Ben got an delighted, devious glint in his eye.

“Bet he’ll be absolutely thrilled to hear what happened to his fleet, then,” he said sarcastically.

Ashe and Carewyn exchanged a smirk too.

“I reckon you could play to that desperation,” said Ashe dryly. “A lack of or loss of wealth is a very common fear among men, I’ve found.”

Carewyn nodded in agreement.

Within twenty days, the HMS Royal docked in London, a few days ahead of schedule thanks to the almost miraculously clear weather and friendly winds. Carewyn then traveled with Percy, Ashe, and Ben to Kensington Palace. It was only one of many castles owned by the King, but according to Percy, it was the one King George I had renovated the most, so Carewyn sussed out that it was likely his favorite of his residences and so, in her opinion, the best place to seek him out first. Her intuition turned out to be spot-on -- as it turned out, both King George I and his son the Prince were there, and although the King was occupied with his Ministers and couldn’t meet with them until that evening, Prince George Augustus was eager to meet the famous Admiral Weasley and requested an audience in one of the royal drawing rooms.

The Crown Prince of England was an amiable and warm, but not a very clever or intellectual man of about forty years. He expressed a lot of interest in Carewyn’s experience as a Navy hero, sounding rather like a child as he questioned her about facing off against the likes of Orion Amari and the crew of the dreaded ship Revenge. Carewyn did have to tailor her stories somewhat, but after a while, she was able to get Prince George comfortable enough that they ended up talking casually over a game of Cribbage, where Carewyn gleaned a few other helpful insights. For one, Carewyn learned that both the King and Prince knew several languages, the first being French, which was the preferred language at court as well as among royals abroad. She also found out that the royal family had never visited the colonies themselves, and that King George I’s leading advisor on matters of business -- the First Lord of the Treasury, Sir Robert Walpole -- had been personally putting more stock in the East India Trading Company than on investing any additional money into the colonies. From the sound of things, he believed as Cutler Beckett did in the power of money over noble ancestry, and yet the Prince conceded that his wife and father both thought well of him and that he was relatively amiable.

When Carewyn finally got her audience with King George I, she sure enough encountered Sir Robert Walpole. He was a broad middle-aged man with a powdered white wig curled into ringlets who stood beside the gray-wigged, tiny-eyed elderly King -- and the news of Cutler Beckett’s fate and the outcome of the confrontation at Shipwreck Cove visibly troubled him. As Carewyn had thought, the Crown had been counting on the East India Trading Company’s profits to flow back toward England to offset the national debt brought on by the War of Spanish Succession and Britain’s other conflicts...and so, when she made her proposal to the King, she felt rather confident.

“Votre Majesté...the scourge of piracy is indeed a threat, not just to the lives of our citizens, but to the Empire’s prosperity. But the East India Trading Company is a business -- they’re not trained in military matters, nor do they know how best to use the resources of the British Crown to combat this problem. They’re not equipped to deal with sensitive matters of state, which truthfully, I believe this to be. We don’t need to get England tied up in another military conflict...particularly when there’s a much more cost-effective alternative.”

King George I raised his graying eyebrows with some interest, but did not speak.

“And what alternative would you suggest, Admiral?” asked Walpole, looking rather curious himself.

“Investing in the colonies,” said Carewyn very firmly. “There’s still a lot of undeveloped land out there -- a lot of trading potential in beaver skins, lumber, and tobacco -- the possibility of wealth that’s been left untapped by the East India Trading Company, with their intense focus on Asia. These men who have become pirates, many of them, were privateers under us during our War against the Spanish. They know shipping and are in need of honest work. They’ve asked for it explicitly. I say that we offer pardons to those pirates who would be willing to work for a new trading company in New England -- one that can be for the colonies what the Company in India already is.”

Walpole frowned deeply in thought, considering the proposal. King George straightened up slightly in his throne so he could peer down at Carewyn with a beady eye.

“You believe, truly, that these criminals would want honest employment?” the old man asked.

His voice was very quiet and laced with a husky German accent. Apparently Percy was right to think the rumors that he couldn’t speak English weren’t true, but he seemed a bit uncomfortable with the language, all the same.

Carewyn smiled at the King. “Oui, mon roi. Beasts can survive on human flesh alone, but humans need a home and money in order to live well. Et les pirates...pardon, I hope that word is correct...sont juste les humains.”

King George’s tiny eyes softened noticeably.

“Your French is very poor, Admiral,” he said in rather smug amusement, “but your word choice is correct.”

He looked at Walpole. “What say you, Earl?”

Walpole considered his answer. “...It could be an interesting proposition -- were we able to locate someone who’d be willing to put his name, reputation, and estate on the line, to fund such a company...”

“I volunteer.”

Ben took a step forward and gave a low, but clipped bow to the King.

“Lord Earl, Your Majesty, this is Captain Gordon Cooper, of the HMS Royal,” Carewyn introduced him. “He was instrumental in helping me lead our men during the battle at Shipwreck Cove.”

“I already have a small sum of money saved up, your Majesty -- enough to purchase one or two ships of my own, to start with,” said Ben. “I truly believe that the profits I could make with those two ships just from offering safe passage to the colonies would be enough to fund the purchase of another. All I’d need would be some collateral to pay a crew for each ship in advance.”

"A standard ship would only need about ten well-bodied men to sail it and transport its cargo efficiently,” Carewyn said quickly, seeing the slight hesitation in the King’s expression. "I’m no expert in finance -- ” she inclined her head respectfully in Walpole’s direction, “ -- but in order to settle more land in the colonies, trees would have to be cut down...which means more lumber to transport back to England. If the people Captain Cooper’s ships are transporting are settlers who are incentivized to build homes there -- possibly with the promise of land ownership -- then their arrival alone would spark a boom of lumber sales. That could then pay back the investment several times over.”

Walpole’s lips spread into a smile, one wryer than the King’s. He was clearly a much more discerning man than either of the two Georges, but he seemed pleased by the proposition, nonetheless.

“...Indeed it could,” he granted. He glanced at the King. “I daresay old Townsend would be pleased to have some financial leverage for his talks with the Spanish and French...”

“Mm...”

King George I gave a short, pompous nod before turning back to face Carewyn and the others.

“Very well. I grant my favor.”

Walpole inclined his head to Ben. “Captain Cooper, the Crown grants you and your Company permission to sail. We shall provide you a loan of 10,000 pounds sterling for your first twenty sailors and any necessary ship repairs, to be paid back with interest within a year. If your sailors complete a successful -- namely, profitable -- round-trip expedition to London on board those ships, then they will receive a full pardon from the British Crown for their past crimes and be permitted to continue working as part of your Company.”

Carewyn’s companions’ eyes all lit up.

“Understood,” said Ben, his face consumed by a huge grin.

“Admiral Weasley will deliver the terms to the pirates -- quietly,” said the King with a stern eye. “I expect written reports and good results.”

Carewyn’s face burst into a brilliant smile too, which she tried to obscure when she brought an arm up to her chest and gave a low bow.

“Mais oui. Merci, votre Grace -- we’ll work hard pour England, et pour vous aussi.”

The King’s eyes sparkled with the trace of a wry smile. “Vous etes un garçon très divertissant, Amiral. J'espère que votre français se sera amélioré lors de notre prochaine rencontre.”

With the King’s blessing, Ben purchased the ships needed in London and, with Percy’s help, prepared them for their first expedition. Carewyn returned to the HMS Lion with Ashe, taking it out to sea just far enough that the Flying Dutchman could emerge from the water and pull up alongside the Navy ship. Carewyn relayed King George I’s decision to Jacob in her cabin, and the Captain of the Flying Dutchman was so overwhelmed with pride that he threw his arms around his little sister and squeezed her with all of his strength. Carewyn, however, found herself unable to celebrate.

“What’s wrong, Wyn?” said Jacob. He tilted his head to look at her, his eel-like ponytail twitching almost curiously behind him. “You did it -- you convinced the King. The Lords at Shipwreck Cove, all the people who live there, will be able to live normal lives again, and it’s all thanks to you.”

“I know,” said Carewyn lowly.

Despite herself, she just couldn’t meet her brother’s gaze. Her eyes lingered on his shoulder.

“...I just wish I could’ve given you that kind of normal life too,” she admitted.

Jacob’s blue eyes darkened. Bringing up both of his arms, he encircled Carewyn and held her tightly against his chest as he rested his head on top of hers. Carewyn bit her lip, trying to hold in her emotions as best she could.

“I wanted to bring you home,” she murmured. “The whole reason I wanted to fight for a world where pirates could be forgiven was because I wanted you to be able to come home...you and Bill and Charlie and Jules and Orion...”

Jacob squeezed Carewyn that bit tighter. Both Cromwells were crying now, even though they both stubbornly fought to keep themselves from breaking down into full sobs.

Ashe shared a grim look with Jacob over Carewyn’s head. Then he came up beside both of them, resting a hand on the crown of Carewyn’s head and leaning his forehead against his lover’s, and hummed something low under his breath. The resonant bass tone seemed to slowly calm Carewyn’s heart and breathing and help the tears ebb.

After a moment, she took a deep breath and looked up at Ashe with muted gratitude, before she turned back to her brother.

“...Now that I’ve done my duty and made sure the Crown’s terms were delivered, I intend to send in my resignation to the Navy. I can’t support Ben’s new Company while I’m still Admiral without worrying about a conflict of interest, after all.”

She offered a weak wry smile, which then slowly morphed into a much more gentle one.

“Besides...I think I’m ready to finally stop fighting.”

Jacob’s teary eyes softened fondly. “Then live, my sweet Wyn. Live in peace and happiness...”

With a heavy breath, he picked up the Dead Man’s Chest he’d brought with him back off Carewyn’s desk and faced Ashe.

“I’ll need to head to the next world soon,” said Jacob. “Would you...?”

Ashe inclined his head in a solemn nod. “Give it to me, Jack.”

Very carefully, Jacob placed the Chest into Ashe’s open hands, trailing his own much dirtier, faintly trembling hands over his lover’s once he’d taken it. His eyes darted from Ashe to Carewyn, looking heartbroken and almost starved -- like he longed so much to never look away from them again.

“Be safe,” Jacob mumbled, “and...please, keep a weather eye on the horizon for me?”

“How dare you ask me that.”

Ashe trailed his lips along the side of Jacob’s face in lingering, messy kisses, only pausing briefly to look him in the eye, blazing brown on blue.

“I will always wait, Jack. I will always find you again.”

Carewyn’s eyes were just as soft as she reached up into the inside pocket of her jacket and slowly withdrew a familiar star-like, sapphire-and-diamond pendant for Jacob to see.

It was the one he himself had given her on Isle de Muerta.

Jacob’s eyes flooded with more tears as Carewyn wrapped both of her arms around her brother’s neck, hugging him tightly just as she had then.

“We’ll be there, Jacob,” she murmured. Two streaks of tears slid from her closed eyes. “I promise.”

Jacob delivered the British Crown’s terms to the Brethren Court at Shipwreck Cove within two days, after he’d returned from ferrying the proper souls to the next life. Within a month, a ship full of twenty sailors had arrived in London, ready to man the red-and-blue-painted ships Ben Copper had purchased. The two ships set sail for the colonies, the first up to New England and the second down to the Caribbean, which allowed Percy to return home to Port Royal and go about his duties as Commodore and Ben to finally be reunited with his love Wendy Gordon and propose marriage as a free and prosperous man.

Once the two ships returned to London another month later, the first wave of pardons was signed. From there, Ben’s enterprise -- the Gordon-Cooper Trading Company -- grew, taking on more ships that then proceeded to employ the once-most-wanted criminals in the world and give them a chance at a new life. And Carewyn -- retiring with full honors from the Navy and settling in New York City with Ashe under her real name for the first time since she was a child -- visited the dock every morning to see every ship that came in.

The first ship to New York brought Ellie Hopper. The once-Pirate Lord of the Mediterranean Sea ended up colliding with the soft-spoken third son of the well-respected horse breeder Johan Schaefer in upstate New York, and the two were married within a few years.

The second ship brought Merula Snyde and the stylish Frenchman Andre Egwu. The captain of the so-called “most powerful ship on the seven seas” continued as a merchant, breaking off from the Gordon-Cooper Trading Company to buy her own ship and engage in the tobacco and sugar trade between New England and the southern colonies. Andre opened up his own clothing shop in Philadelphia and soon became one of the most sought-after tailors in Pennsylvania.

The third ship brought Bill and Jules.

When Bill caught sight of Carewyn at the dock, he practically barreled his way down the ship’s gangplank and shoved a good ten people aside to reach his best friend. The two gingers and Jules then clung to each other for what felt like hours, tears of joy streaming down their faces as Bill trailed a hand through Carewyn’s now-loose-flowing hair and Jules fawned over Carewyn’s pretty new dress.

Bill and Jules also brought a letter from Charlie with them --

My twin, Carey,

I’m sorry I won’t be able to give you this news in person -- but I won’t be accepting my pardon for a while yet.

At Shipwreck Cove, I met a woman named Sarahi (I don’t believe you know her, but she knows you, and Orion spoke very well of her), who grew up in the area of the Pacific Ocean. According to what she’s said, it’s been left largely in chaos since the death of Bartholomew Sharp -- sea serpents, carnivorous sirens, giant squids, the whole lot...and as Pirate Lord of the Pacific, it’s my responsibility to manage things there. But hey, you know I’ve never been afraid of a little adventure! Particularly when I’ve got a good crew on my side. My First Mate Barnaby’s injuries have completely healed, so we, Sarahi, and Samantha O’Connell will be heading out within the next three days on the new and improved Revolution. Sam and Sarahi helped me paint some red dragon wings on the sides, just as a flourish!

I miss you so much, and I miss Bill already, just writing this -- but I know that we won’t ever be truly apart, even when I can only see you in my mind’s eye. I know you’ll probably be worried about me, Carey, but please don’t be. I’d trust my crew with my life -- I already have, honestly, and they sure haven’t let me down yet! I can’t wait for you to meet them. I reckon you’d probably “mother” the hell out of Barnaby, and Sarahi was really happy when I told her how good of a singer you are, so she’s very excited about the prospect of singing with you. And Sam...I reckon you and she will get on famously.

Remember, Carey...we’re family, now and forever! You’ll be in my mind and heart always, until I sail up into New York Harbor and see you again! If Bill hasn’t given you the biggest hug ever for my sake, then give him a good kick to the shin and remind him. Take good care of him, Jules, and Percy for me. Love you so much.

Your brother,

Charlie

Bill and Jules Weasley ended up settling down and starting a family of their own in New York City, just twelve blocks away from where Carewyn and Ashe lived. It was not uncommon over the years for both Carewyn and Ashe to pick up babysitting duties, though Ashe most frequently would just use his particular talent for singing to put any fussy children right to sleep and then drop them off in either Carewyn’s or Jules’s lap.

Over the next six months, more and more red-and-blue ships passed through New York Harbor, dropping off more pardoned ex-pirates so they could start new lives in the colonies. Then one day, toward the end of spring, Carewyn left the brick house she shared with Ashe as if to head for the dock as usual, only to stop mid-step at the sound of someone shouting her name.

“Carewyn!”

She turned around, her ginger hair flourishing behind her as if in slow motion.

A man had just leapt off the back of a carriage he’d been hanging off of without the driver’s knowledge and was now running toward her. Carewyn squinted, taking in his unfamiliar dark ponytail and sailor’s clothes -- then, within seconds, she recognized the handsomely smiling, bearded face and his shining, galaxy-like eyes.

“Orion?” she breathed.

Her heart seemed to seize up, as if it were being squeezed in someone’s hand and yet being given wings at the exact same time. Then she threw herself into a run, and it slammed against her rib cage, as she ran to him, flat-out ignoring how her knees kept getting caught in her hoops and her heeled shoes pinched her feet.

“Orion -- ORION!”

She just about tripped into his arms. Orion caught her and swooped down on her, burying his face in her hair.

“Carewyn...” he murmured against her neck.

“Orion,” said Carewyn.

Her voice was strained with the effort of trying to contain her joy. It felt like she was being stretched at the seams and probably could’ve exploded from all the intense emotions beating at the edges of her heart. She secured her arms around his neck and clung to him -- she brought her lips up to the side of his temple and kissed it, resting her forehead against his briefly before finally pulling away enough to look him in the face.

Orion was beaming from ear to ear as he brought up a hand to trail his thumb gently along her cheek.

“...Carewyn Cromwell...I don’t think you’ve ever looked more fair.”

Carewyn smiled. “Does that mean you like my new look?”

“Yes,” said Orion, his eyes grazing her black-and-white-striped dress and the diamond-and-sapphire pendant tied with a black ribbon around her neck briefly, “but that’s not why you look so fair. You’ve been my moon goddess, previously...but now you are Libertas, personified.”

Carewyn laughed, her face contorted with confusion. “What?”

“Libertas, Carewyn,” repeated Orion, his huge smile never faltering. “The goddess of freedom! Freedom is the most beautiful thing, Carewyn. I’ve longed for it all my life, but never could truly have it, whether because I lacked the means of survival or because I was a pirate who could only live on the run. And when we first met again, on the Artemis...the thing that hurt me the most, seeing you again...was knowing that you were trapped by your position -- enslaved to the duty that made you hide who you were and march lock-step with the likes of Cutler Beckett. But now you...in this moment, here...you are free. It shines in your eyes, on your face -- it radiates off of you like a star, Carewyn. Better still -- because of you, I am free. For the first time in my life...I’m completely free to chase my heart’s desire...”

Orion’s smile seemed to shrink slightly, not out of lack of happiness but out of something almost like nerves, as he reached into his lone remaining belt and slipped out a familiar black-lidded compass.

"McNully, Skye and I have been offered salaried positions with the Gordon-Cooper Trading Company,” he said a bit more seriously, “so I may have to return to sea in the future, but...”

When he opened the compass, its scarlet arrow was pointed right at Carewyn.

“...My heart’s desire has not changed. I would always return, if you...”

He trailed off, his tone oddly shy for how calm his face appeared. The once-Admiral’s red-painted lips spread into a bigger, fuller smile too as she rested her hands on top of his.

“I wouldn’t have married you in the middle of a storm if I didn’t want to build a life with you, Orion Amari,” she said gently. “Or is it Cromwell now? We may want to make a decision about that...”

She smoothed some dark hair out of his eyes.

“I already told you that I want you to have a home. If you need to fly like a bird...then I’ll be your nest.”

Carewyn placed a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. His black eyes softening, Orion brought up a hand to hold the back of her head, holding it in place. He kissed her chastely in return once, twice, and then deepened the kiss on the third go. After he released her, he lingered, his lips brushing up against hers as he smiled down at her.

“...My dear Bedlam maid...I will always follow your song home.”

Carewyn’s blue eyes sparkled affectionately. “Then I’ll never stop singing.”

“See that you don’t,” said Orion, his black eyes glittering with some wry amusement. “I do believe I said I’d envisioned a life for you where you married a man that you could sing for.”

Carewyn laughed quietly, but after a moment, she brought her forehead beside her husband’s, her arms secure around his neck as she held him close and sang for him.

“So now these two are married, and happy may they be, Like turtle doves together, in love and unity.

All pretty maids, with patience wait, that have got loves at sea – I love my love because I know...my love…loves…me.”

#THE END!#*collapses*#holy friggin' s***#wow #I'm overwhelmed #but happy!#very happy!#83 #interestingly george i died about a year after the end of the golden age of piracy #so really it's a good thing that carewyn was able to make nice with both him and his son who of course became george ii #george ii also retained walpole as an advisor so the piracy pardons would've been able to continue into george ii's reign :)#ashe naturally would spend half his time at carey's place and half on the sea with jacob when he was in the world of the living <3 #and yes charlie would pop into new york harbor now and again with his crew #I just see him living happily ever after on the high seas rather than on land #I'm sure there were other pirates who followed charlie's path too #hphm #hogwarts mystery #carewyn cromwell #potc au #orion amari #jacob cromwell #duncan ashe #percy weasley #ben copper #gwendolyn gordon #samantha o'connell #sarahi silvers #barnaby lee #my art #my writing

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darakshafatimasstuff · 3 years ago

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Hazrat Horr (as) the most lucky martyr of Karbala 💔A story that does not let us despair of God's mercy 💯💯

Horr was the name of one of the high-ranking commanders of the army of Omar-e-Sad who faced the grandson of the Prophet of Islam.

Hussain-ebn-Ali, with orders from Yazeed-ebn-Muawiah to either get Hussain's allegiance for his corrupt Khalifat, or kill Hussain and all his friends. It was Horr and his army who first faced Imam Hussein, and then kept them under siege, preventing them from getting water.

On the day of Ashoura, Horr made a huge decision.

Right before the battle started, he left his position and the army he was commanding, and joined Imam Hussein, and was the first to be killed in the way of Allah, by the army he used to be a commander of just a few hours earlier. The name Horr means free, freeborn, noble, freeman.

The fate, sometimes, plays a game. The factory of creation, constantly producing uncountable things, stones, trees, rivers, animals, insects,human beings, sometimes shows a scene of humor, creates an innovation or an exception: it writes a poem, paints a work of art, does something unique...

In one word, it can be said that these items have a character. From among the houses, Kabeh, from all the walls, the China Wall, from the planets orbiting the sun, earth, and....from all the martyrs: Horr.

The artistic hands of destination have composed this scene with utmost precision, and as if to emphasize the importance of the story, have selected all the characters of the play from the absolutes, to make the story most effective.

The story is about a choice, the most important manifestation of the meaning of human being. But what kind of choice? We are all faced with several choices in our everyday life: career, friend, wife, house,major..

But in this story, the choice is much more difficult: the good and the evil. And even so, not from a philosophical, scientific, or theological perspective.

Instead, the choice here is between the truthful and the deceiving religion, between the just and unjust politics, with life being the price to pay.

To further emphasize the sensitivity of the situation, the author has not put the hero of this story in the middle, equally between the right and the evil. Instead, the hero is the head of the army of the evil. On the other hand, the director of this play has to find symbols for his story to make them most effective.

Should he have Promete on one side and some demons on the other side? But this makes the story too mythical...Spartacos and Crasios? no...this makes the story nationalistic and gives it a class dependent nature.

How about Ebrahim and Namrood? Moses and Feroh? Jesus and Judas? no... again, for most of the people these are metaphysical and heavenly characters different from common ordinary people.

Having them as heros reduces the effect of the story, and causes people to admire them, but never think about following their examples in their everyday life. However, the main purpose of this story is to teach, to show the ability of the man to change, to show how it is possible for a common and even sinful man to reject all his social, family, and class ties and show a god-like change.

The history of Islam is full of contradicting features. The two lines starting from Habil and Ghabil, existing throughout the history side by side though in different faces, have also continued in Islam. Now, both these streams are dressed in Islam, but in opposite directions. Ironically, our hero is faced to choose between the most extreme end sin each of these parties:

Yazid, and Hossein.

Indeed, had this story been created by an author, he should have been recognized for his genuine and art...

What is the name of this hero? For a historic figure, what is important is the role he plays, and not his name, since his name is something chosen for him by his family, according to his parent's taste..On the other hand, if the story is created by an ingenious writer,he would choose a name which is relevant to the role of his hero.

In this story however, our hero has been named by his mother, Horr,as if she has been able to foresee the sensitive role his son is going to play. And thus, when the Imam of freedom attends his bloody body, just before his death, tells him: O Horr! God bless you! You are free both in this world and in the world to come, just like what your mother called you!

Although Horr has played a unique role in the history, the essence of his role is not just confined to himself. The meaning of his action, in fact, includes all human-beings, and indeed defines humanity.

It is what distinguishes the human-beings from other creatures, underlining the responsibility of man with respect to God, people, and himself. And Horr has not played this with words and concepts, but with love and blood. If one grasps the depth of this saying from Imam Sadegh(AS) that All days are Ashoura, and all places are Karbala, and all months are Moharam one readily feels the extension: and all human-beings are Horr!

Our history, starting from Habil and Ghabil, is the manifestation of the eternal conflict between the two poles of God and Satan, though in each period of time these two poles have disguised differently. Therefore, in each period of time, every human-being finds himself just in the same position as Horr did: alone, in the middle, hesitating, between the same two armies.

On the one side, the commander of the army of evil shouts on his soldiers: O Army of God! attack! and on the other side, an Imam, with a voice echoing throughout the history asks -and not commands- Is there anybody who wishes to assist me? and you, the man, should choose.

It is by this choice that you become human. Before this choice you are nothing, you are just an existence without essence, you are standing in the middle.

Thus, the man who has found existence through birth, finds essence through choice. It is by this choice,that the creation of man completes, and this is exactly when the man feels this heavy burden on his shoulders and finds himself alone,as God and the nature have left him on his own on this dangerous decision.

Now we can evaluate our hero, we can feel what a long journey he has gone through in what a short time, to change him from a Yazidian Horr, to a Husseinian Horr. If he stays with the army of Yazid, his world is guaranteed, and if he joins the small army of Hussain, his death is eminent.

It is the morning of the day of Ashoura, and although the battle has not yet started in the fields, Horr realizes that the opportunity would not last. Time goes by fast, and the moments count. The storm has already started within him.

From the beginning, Horr was hoping that the events would not lead to war, but now war seems to be unavoidable. Human-beings have limited capability in tolerating shame and scorn, except for those who are genius in this respect and can tolerate disgrace unlimitedly.

Horr never had thought that being an employee of the government of Yazid would mean collaborating in Yazid's criminal acts. For him his job was just a source of income without having anything to do with politics or his religion.

Horr now realizes that adding his position with his religion is impossible. Thus, hopelessly and as a last resort he talks with the commander of the Army (Omar-ebn-Sa'd) who like himself is reluctant to get in a war and has accepted the mission to become the governor of the province of Ray and Gorgan. What would then be better than coming up with some sort of a solution without getting involved in the blood of the grandson of the Prophet and his family.

Horr and Omar-ebn-Sa'd both have come all the way from the palace of Yazid to Karbala together and they share the same status and social class. Horr asks Omar:

Can't you find a peaceful solution for this situation?

You know that if it had been up to me I would have done as what you propose, but your master Obeid-Allah-Ziyad did notaccept a peaceful resolution!

So are you going to fight with this man (Hussein)?

Yes, by God, I will fight a battle the least consequence of which will be separated heads and broken arms!

Now, it is evident that no longer can he play games with his religion. Now, the two separate their paths.

For Horr, Yazid's army of tens of thousand is now nothing more than a bunch of faces, without meaning. A crowd of men without selves, a group of people without hearts, those who shout but don't know why, fight but don't know for whom.

Now the Jesus of love and conscience cures a blind and resurrects a dead, creating a martyr from a murderer. In a journey it is not enough to ask for the destination, but one should also ask from the origin.

Thus, the length of Horr's journey becomes evident when one realizes from where he started, and to where he ended, all in half-a day's time. In his emigration from Satan to Allah , Horr did not study philosophy or theology, nor did he attend any lectures or schools.

He just changed his direction, and it is in fact this direction which gives meaning to everything: art, science, literature, religion, prayers, hajj, Mohammad, Ali...

Having started his journey, and riding his horse, he slowly leaves his Army toward Hussain. Muhajer-ebn-Ous, who sees him agitated and worried asks:

What's wrong with you Horr? I am puzzled by your case, by God if I were asked about the bravest man in our army I wouldn't hesitate to mention your name, and now you are so disturbed and worried?

I find myself between the Hell and the Heaven, and I have to select between them, and by God I will not choose but Heaven, even if I were cut to pieces or burnt to ashes!

The creation of Horr was completed and the fire of doubt has led him to the verity of certitude. He slowly approaches the camp of Hussain, and as he gets closer he hangs his boots from his neck, and keeps his armor down (as a sign of remorse)

I am the one who closed your path O Hussein. He didn't accept Hussein's invitation to rest for a while..

Is there a repentance for me? He can't wait any longer, he returns to the front and attacks the army of Omar with the most severe and bitter words, letting his ex-army and ex-commander know that he is no longer a slave, he is free, he is Horr.

Omar-ebn-Sa'd, his ex-commander, responds by throwing an arrow and yelling

Be witness and let Amir-ol-momenin know that I was the one to throw the first arrow at the army of Hussain!

And this was how the battle of Karbala started.........

انا للہ وانا الیہ علیہ رَاجعُون 💔

Reference:

Maqtal vol. 02 page 301

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serialbydesign · 4 years ago

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Defining Psychopathy

Psychopathy, often confused with sociopathy, is an anti-social personality disorder. Both mental health conditions are characterized by:

Need for violence.

Disregard for social norms, conventions, and laws.

Lack of remorse & guilt.

Deceitful nature.

However, sociopaths usually are emotionally unstable and tend to act on compulsion, lacking patience and planning. Psychopaths are attentive to details, calculated, and plan every action they intend to pursue – be it legal or illegal. Therefore, they leave few clues and take fewer risks. Over time, multiple conceptions of psychopathy developed – most of which overlap, but some contradict others.

Just like sociopathy, psychopathy can be caused by genetic and environmental factors. This means children can inherit it from the parents but also develop it during the lifetime after abuse, emotional shock, or living in an unsuitable environment. But one can also acquire psychopathy after a traumatic brain injury. It has been discovered that the prefrontal cortex is responsible for our social behavior and acquired psychopathy is often linked to trauma in this area.

Another prevalent theory states that psychopathy is genetically inherited and can be triggered by environmental factors, while sociopathy is only developed throughout life. No matter which theory we follow, Dexter Morgan is much closer to being a psychopath than a sociopath. However, he does struggle with keeping his Dark Passenger under control at times.

Dexter Morgan, The Psychopath

Dexter Morgan is a forensic expert, but he most frequently calls himself a blood spatter analyst. Even though he commits horrendous crimes throughout the show, we root for him and find bits of ourselves in his narratives. We see how he evolves from a cold-blooded serial killer to a cold-blooded serial killer who cares about some of those around him. The personal way in which he narrates his experiences further increase the connection we feel with this character. He often contemplates on aspects of the day-to-day life using first person pronouns in plural forms, which works on our subconscious. This is one of the many techniques used by real-life psychopaths, and Dexter Morgan proves again and again that they work.

“They make it look so easy, connecting with another human being, it’s like no one told them it’s the hardest thing in the world.” – Dexter Season 5 episode 12, “The Big One”

Dexter’s sense of righteousness instilled by his adoptive father fires up conflicted feelings on his morality. On the one side, he murders people in cold blood and enjoys it. But on the other, he gets rid of ��bad seeds” the justice system could not charge. Ultimately, he is saving lives while satisfying his dark passenger, being a modern vigilante.

“We all make rules for ourselves. It’s these rules that help define who we are. So when we break those rules we risk losing ourselves and becoming something unknown.” – Dexter Season 7 Finale, “Let’s Give the Boy a Hand”

These, together with his continuous struggle to control his urges and do as little damage as possible to society, make us all feel sympathy for Dexter. Because we know the terrible things that happened to him, we understand what caused this behavior. But would he feel the same about us?

The Profile of Dexter Morgan

Dexter Morgan is persuasive, intelligent, deceitful, and a psychopath.

He killed well over 100 people (at least 134 documented cases) and shows no remorse about this – in fact, he believes he benefits society. Moreover, he likes to take trophies – a single drop of blood from each of his victims, carefully placed on a glass slide. Dexter has a ritual that is full of meaning for each of his victim’s crimes and likes to confront them and let them know he knows what they did. He feels empowered by this, he feels he finally has control.

Dexter is neat, sometimes compulsive, and likes to keep order in his life. He always plans his actions and waits for the best and safest time to make a move. This is what differentiates himself from a sociopath. He likes being and working by himself because using his “mask” is tiring. But even though he has an anti-social behavior, his social skills are way above average.

“People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I’ve faked them all and I fake them very well. And that’s my burden, I guess.”

Dexter Morgan can be best psychoanalyzed using Freud’s structural model of the psychic apparatus which defines three dimensions of the mind:

The id represents our uncoordinated instincts, with a focus on pleasure and desire. The id is often associated with evil, lust, sin, and the like. The super-ego is the moralizing element, responsible for assimilating social norms and behaviors. It’s the virtuous, pure, and wholesome dimension. The ego, a realistic and rational influence on our thought process, usually mediates these two antagonizing elements.

Even though most individuals naturally balance these three dimensions, Dexter Morgan struggles do so. He spent all his life observing those around him and trying to mimic their behavior, knowing he will never act like them naturally.

Dexter’s Id

After the age of 6 years old, most individuals suppress their id and manage to focus their mental and emotional energy towards following social norms. But Dexter was not able to do so and, as a consequence, his id rules his life. Even as a child, Dexter enjoyed killing animals. In fact, taking a life is the only thing that makes Dexter feel alive. Sex does not interest Dexter, which we can also blame on the trauma he suffered as a child at a critical age for his (among others) psychosexual development.

Dexter’s Super-Ego

Dexter refers to the people surrounding him as humans, feeling detached from his own humanity. There is plenty of evidence throughout the show that demonstrate Dexter has a seriously underdeveloped super-ego if any. His adoptive father, Harry, created an artificial super-ego dimension in his mind through a few strict guidelines. However, Dexter’s subconscious never adopted them as its own and, as a result, he sometimes struggles to follow them.

Dexter does not understand religion. The only higher power he knew was his adoptive father, who also created the code. He has difficulties in developing real relationships of any nature with those around him but has gotten very good at faking them.

Dexter’s Ego

Instead of balancing out the 2 other dimensions, Dexter uses his ego to hide them from society. He goes above and beyond to hide his true self. He fights the recurrent feeling of emptiness that can only be relieved by killing.

How Dexter Morgan Came to Be a Psychopath

There are a few theories about how Dexter became what he is, but they all rely on the emotional and psychological trauma he suffered as a child.

Dexter saw his mother brutally murdered when he was only 6 years old and sat in a shipping container in a pool of her (and others’) blood for 2 days. This affected his emotional development and understanding of social norms, which he has difficulties adapting to.

Dexter understands he is a disturbed individual. But even though admitting the problem is often times the first step to resolving it, psychopathy has no cure (yet). There are no pills, vaccines, or therapies that erase traumatizing memories from our subconscious, induce empathy, or warm up a murderer’s blood.

But Dexter lacked a mother figure during his most important years, even before she was murdered. He was deprived of the warmth, closeness, and affection only a mother-son relationship would provide. Even though loving, his mother was not as present in his life as she should have been – and neither was his father. They were both addicted to drugs and involved themselves with dangerous figures, which ultimately lead to their demise. Even though a loving, caring family took him in at the age of 6, the damage was already done.

“I was there. I saw my mother’s death. A buried memory, forgotten all these years. They climbed inside me that day. And it’s been with me ever since. My dark passenger.” – Dexter Season 1 Episode 11 “Truth Be Told”

Moreover, his need for power and control were overindulged in a try to create a warm environment for the troubled child. But this only increased the distance between Dexter and humanity, between an impressionable child and his remorse and guilt.

Dexter Morgan & His Dark Passenger

Most of the time, Dexter Morgan is able to suppress his passenger. But it still needs to be let out from time to time, and when it does, Dexter refers to the process as the Dark Passenger “taking over”. He already knows that it will get out one way or the other, so he doesn’t try to fight it. In fact, Dexter finds comfort and acceptance in his Dark Passenger, the only entity that accepts him for who he is.

“I love Halloween. The one time of year when everyone wears a mask… not just me. People think it’s fun to pretend you’re a monster. Me, I spend my life pretending I’m not. Brother, friend, boyfriend – all part of my costume collection. Some people might call me a fraud. Let’s see if it will fit. I prefer to think of myself as a master of disguise.” – Dexter Season 1, Episode 4

Dexter manages to separate and balance out his natural self and the façade brilliantly. He is seen as a loving son, brother and as a reliable and helpful coworker.

The Code of Harry

Harry was more than just Dexter’s adoptive father. Together with Aaron and Deb, he was his family in the most real sense of the word.

“If I were capable of love, how I would have loved Harry.”

Since they could not stop Dexter’s urge to take life away, Harry decided to channel it. Therefore, Harry developed a code together with his therapist in which he confided about Dexter’s condition. As his father put it, the code focuses on survival and doing as little wrong to the world as possible. Dexter needs to be sure he kills the right person and to have proof for his deeds. But above all, he needs to never, ever risk having collateral victims.

Even though frustrating and rage-inducing at times, Dexter abides by the Code of Harry. However, he does take advantage of technicalities to satisfy his dark passenger at times, racing with the police and even hiding evidence in order to punish criminals himself even with his friends’ and coworker’s career on the line.

“Without the Code of Harry, I’m sure I would have committed a senseless murder in my youth. Just to watch the blood flow.” – Dexter Season 1 Episode 3, “Popping Cherry”

The Morality of Dexter

Yes, Dexter Morgan is brutal, ruthless, and cruel. Ever since Harry Morgan took him in, Dexter made efforts to comply with social norms. Even though he pretended for decades, he makes efforts to preserve appearances every day. None of the behaviors he adopted for so many years got under his skin, none of them come naturally even after all this time.

But this doesn’t mean Dexter Morgan is stone-hearted or completely devoid of feelings. After all, he does feel anger, hate, and affection and admits that he needs the people in his life. He realizes how scared he is of losing his family.

Even though supposedly rudimentary, some of these feelings scare and intimidate Dexter Morgan because he doesn’t know how to handle them.

#private posts: all #private posts: muse inspo

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theholycovenantrpg · 4 years ago

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CONGRATULATIONS, MAI! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF ABADDON.

Admin Cas: Where to begin with this firecracker of an app, Mai? Abaddon is full of complexities, but that didn’t pose a problem for you: you captured every single one of them to perfection. The way you described how she clung to her divinity in Hell, even as she felt it rotting inside of her, was truly *chef’s kiss*. There was so much to admire about your application — the clear development you have planned for Abaddon, the way you expanded on her relationship to her pseudo-family of demons without diminishing any other part of her, the balance of her divinity and her profanity — but I think the standout for me were your writing samples. She’s so level-headed, so elegant, and I’m completely in love with her and this whole application. I’m so excited to see what you do with her! Your faceclaim change to Nazanin Boniadi has been approved. Please create and send in your account, review the information on our CHECKLIST, and follow everyone on the FOLLOW LIST. Welcome to the Holy Land!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | mai.

Age | twenty-four.

Personal Pronouns | she/her.

Activity Level | 6/10. i work and am in grad school full time, so my activity varies depending on my workload for the week, with end of fiscal quarter and midterms/ finals being the busiest, though i try to post a reply every 2-3 days. i’m pretty much always on my phone though, so i respond to messages quickly!

Timezone | est.

Triggers | REMOVED.

How did you find the group? | rosey!

Current/Past RP Accounts | kenna

IN CHARACTER

CHARACTER | abaddon. & i would like to change her fc to nazanin boniadi!

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? |

my libra ass saw the light/ dark conflict and said BET. but actually — i’ve always been obsessed with the concept of DUALITY and the fragility of the line that exists between two extremes (a line that is very much jagged, drawn with shaky hands into the sand; too easily, too inevitably erased by the violence of the tides). this quote i especially love:

“the distinction between holy & heresy was always

a question of fire: the distinction between whore & saint lies

in who’s burned for it — the distinction between martyr & false

god lies in whose testimony is set ablaze”

with abaddon, there is the obvious light and dark conflict: the war between her angel and demon sides. but there are also more subtle dualities: her roles as a mother and jailer (and even within this, guard and executioner); her loyalty to God and affection for the great betrayer; the righteousness she brandished against raphael yet acceptance of soul’s damnation. she’s a mess of contradictions, a wildfire contained in a matchstick; a rose flooded with blood.

abaddon’s biography also reminded me of a conversation i had with rosey. i asked how she chooses her characters, and rosey said it was easy: she likes to take characters that live behind the curtain and polish them until they shine. this was a revelation for me, as most of my characters are larger than life: with the precision and heat of a single beam of light or the ferocity and tragedy of a monster who eats their own heart. always in the forefront. it was why abaddon captured my attention. not because she is a background character, but because she chooses to be. she is the maternal figure; the one who quietly deigns to pass judgement with nothing more than a cool flash of her eyes. at least, outwardly. i view her as the margaery tyrell type — subtly calculating, biding her time and moving pieces behind the scenes when no one’s watching. tugging strings gently.

doubtless, she carries love in her heart. love and tenderness — and she wields them like a finely crafted weapon. (gotta love that #range). it is very much an exchange, though the vulnerability comes from a real place. as does the manipulation.

PLOT IDEAS

THE SELF.

i like to call myself wound

but i will answer to knife.

keeper of the black cells | many millennia spent in hell and still shining gold. bloodstained gold, perhaps. but gold nonetheless. and how did she do it? i struggle not to sigh as i type, she followed god. but really, that’s the answer. because even as she rose within the ranks of the demons; even as hell easily latched onto her soul, a beast with all claws and no shape, a beast that looked like her; that tried to eat its way out from the inside, abaddon clung to her divinity. she accepted the punishment given to her; she became her own executioner. and within the abyss then the black cells, even as she is able to walk through without chains, abaddon is the oldest prisoner of them all. because even as she doles out torture with nothing more than indifferent press of her lips, she allows herself to feel. there is the guilt, resting upon the rust of the chains that tear apart limb. there is the recoil, the violent churn of her stomach as blood mingles with air until her vision is spilt wine. and then there is the pain — her own pain — as if it is her flesh she is slicing apart. as if it is her joints being separated from limb.

but as with everything for abaddon, there is a duality. for as much as she is a prisoner, she is a KING. she owns the black cells. she’s its keeper; its protector. its mother. the black cells are her territory, and i think it is very much on purpose. i think abaddon gives out punishments as often as she gives out scraps of tenderness. it is she who paints the darkness, but it is also she who gives light, with the knowledge that a man dying from thirst will close his eyes in reverence as a single drop of water lands upon his tongue. the prisoners bend to the sound of her steps prowling the stone halls, equal parts devotion and fear within their black hearts (hearts that they are all too willing to carve out of their chests at her will). i love entertaining the idea of abaddon using the cells for her own purposes, whether it is seeking out information to stay in the loop with what is happening in every corner of the land, to an insurance policy, if anyone were to catch her ire (looking at you, judas).

dmitri | her heart is half darkened, half rotten. yet whenever her gaze meets with his, the drumming in her pulse turns to something tidal. and in the waves: potential. i think dmitri is the key to the reconciliation between the two opposing sides of abaddon. after all, they are a creature wrought from calamity, yet they still shine molten gold, and she can’t help the comfort and exhilaration she feels in their presence, as if discovering her reflection for the first time, awed by the glory yet frightened by the carnage.

maybe, in another world, this could have been a love story. but it’s not. more likely, i see the potential for abaddon dragging dmitri further into the darkness — judas has plans for them, after all, and abaddon’s loyalty rests with her makeshift family. (but that begs the question: is she then choosing to damn herself along with him? is she choosing to forsake the light within her — the balance within her — for the only love she has ever known? for family? and is that not another sort of light? a different sort of divinity?)

THE DEMONS.

“you can turn around in the dark,

with the man who wants your heart looming so big,

so big over you, and you can give it to him,

so bright and red and pure that it destroys him.”

the mother | i think it is very possible that the demons seek out abaddon before judas or damien. she is more gentle, more kind, more approachable. and less likely to slit their throats in one move (though let’s hope they remember to guard their hearts, too). and for her part, abaddon plays into this image. she listens to their concerns, often abstaining from comment; but there is something to be said for the steadfast gaze in which she regards them, the way the smoke clears from their lungs as she fixes them with her serene, though cool, eyes. it’s not love. but there’s a tenderness all the same, a mother’s sweetness; honey given to an ailing child — even if the honey is dripping off a knife. even if the mother has her own plans.

judas |

it’s something like a waltz.

loyalty to the great betrayer. the irony is not at all lost on her.

he had been there, when she fell. and some days, she wonders if he had not been waiting, for how quickly she had taken to him, even when their companionship felt too much like holding onto a switchblade that cuts before it opens — but this, she reasons, is different sort of knife; terrible and beautiful and coated with poison at the hilt. abaddon is, after all, too accustomed to the spill of her own blood; to the moments when she stitched herself back together with nothing more than the fevered faith of a child looking up at the moon every night, even when its face is turned away in indifference — maybe especially then.

let him cut me then, she reasons, as she walks with judas hand-in-hand through the cells. let him try. i will give him tenderness; i will give him devotion. i will be the lamb at his altar, all delicate flesh and wide eyes. and i will wound as i am wounded; twist PRAYER into PREY.

the child waits. the moon blooms blood red.

many thoughts… head full. at first glance, one might be tempted to label abaddon as the antithesis to judas. he betrayed god. she clings to her devotion. he destroys. she nurtures. he is the snake within the tall grasses. and abaddon? nowhere to be found (and maybe that’s because she is the grass — ever present and plainly within sight, swaying to the wind, both everywhere and nowhere at once; a place of sanctuary until it becomes the unfurled curtain). i would argue, however, that they’re more alike than you might think.

when she had first been hurled into hell, she’d grieved. she’d fallen, and the faces that stared back at her wore smiles that she couldn’t discern from snarls, lips pulled back and teeth gleaming white against the shadows that clung to their frames (the same shadows she would come to wear like glorified battle scars). yet, for as far as she had fallen, ABADDON WOULD ASCEND. and judas played no small part. of course, she had known exactly who he was. still, she followed him, pulled towards him with the same inevitability as an apple to a bruise. from judas, she learned to tear apart skin with a tongue sharper than teeth. and then later on, that she didn’t need to open her mouth at all, for what weapon is more powerful than the hands that bear the skin?

but he is still judas; there’s no division between where his name ends and his person begins — something abaddon has never forgotten. and as much as she learned from him, she kept her eyes wide open, just as she had when watching raphael’s ease in cruelty. and this, i think, is where abaddon sets herself apart — why it is she who is considered judas’s equal and confidant. she sees and understands exactly who he is, what he is. still, she stands beside him. (she would not kiss the ring, as so many had before her. abaddon, instead, kisses the flesh beneath.) still, she extends to him her tenderness, baring the delicate skin of her throat for him to kiss. for him to slit. it’s almost like a game — a balancing act, as everything in her life is, turning herself into a sacrifice filled with poison. and if he were to bite? (to betray her, as is etched into his nature?) he would find that it is a poison of his own making.

personally, i find the idea of judas getting betrayed by the one being he considers his confidant very sexy. the most obvious way is if he questions her loyalties and throws her into her own black cells (as mentioned in the judas app) — in which case, he has a wicked surprise coming his way. the second, more likely way, is if he harms damien or azazel (though damien is more likely). abaddon holds their makeshift family very close to her heart, for they had been the ones who made hell feel like home for her. but family doesn’t mean stability, and abaddon has long accepted the possibility of a conflict between judas and damien. i don’t even think it’s a matter of loving damien and azazel more than judas. it’s not the betrayal of the person; it’s the betrayal of their family. it’s the betrayal of her last whisper of hope for some semblance of peace and happiness within the punishment she has accepted for herself. and for that, he will not be forgiven.

THE ANGELS.

“who am I? […] a monster among angels or angel among monsters,”

raphael | i think it’s funny that the raphael app casted him as cersei, because from the beginning i described abaddon as margaery (though i also have not watched game of thrones, so we may both be bobo the clown on this part). raphael and abaddon’s dynamic really does make me a clown, though, if not bobo. for as much as they are antagonistic to each other, circling each other like hawks, elegant and watchful, they are foils. raphael is the healer; abaddon is the punisher. yet it is he who revels in pain and she who recoils. it was he who god favored, sending the ill-fated angel with the justice to strike at him into the depths of hell. yet it was she who mourned the loss of their creator; she who desperately clung to the shreds of her divinity, of Him, while raphael sat back and watched mutiny unfold.

but they are also similar. because it is in perfect synchronization that circle each other, as if guided by an invisible hymn for which no words exist. they are both patient — too patient, with their clever little machinations while watching the other players make their moves. poised to strike. lightning in a bottle. so what if we were to smash that bottle?

arael | it would be too easy, to use arael as a pawn. the angel does nothing to hide the pain and desperation in her eyes as she drags another being to the cells, and even if she looks away (she doesn’t), abaddon can hear the rage that thunders in her throat as she tells her to keep going. and of course, she does. and of course, the idea artfully arranges itself on the slight arch of her brow: how natural it would feel, to create leverage. to plant false information, use arael’s wrath for her purposes? and it would be no one’s fault but her own, for letting rage blind her to the monster in front of her. yet, as quickly as the seed plants itself, the ground dries up at its feet, barren of any notion of willingness, and abaddon isn’t stomach carving arael into a weapon, as she does with her own prisoners. even as the grief melded bars that encase the angel are thicker than any within the cells.

why? because she’s soft!! abaddon knows vulnerability well; so used is she to wielding it like a weapon. she knows the dance, the game, the exchange. yet arael had shown vulnerability without abaddon giving any at all. TO BE SEEN ALLOWS YOU TO BE HUNTED and arael had exposed herself without asking for anything in return. so as much as it is easy; as much as the possibly calls to the darkness within her heart like siren’s song, the other part, the part that loves, that understands, simply can’t get herself to manipulate arael.

overall | i’m interested to see how abaddon interactions with all the angels, honestly. i think she definitely feels a spark of anger whenever she sees them, for their betrayal of god, and it’s ironic how the being that mourns Him most is the one He casted out of His domain. and i’m hoping that the angels try to use her as a pawn. she is, after all, within the hearts of judas and the anti-christ. and within her own heart: light. wouldn’t it be all too easy, then, to try to get her on their side? to coax information from her under the guise of her first family?

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE KILLING OFF YOUR CHARACTER? | yes.

DRIVING MOTIVATION

peace. stillness. she never thought she’d find it, after her descent from heaven, and she’d spent most of her days yearning for it, using the little light she had left inside of her like a candle against the darkness of hell, never recoiling from the pain as the wax melted and burned her flesh, for she deserved it — had god not decreed it so? yet somewhere along the line she’d found family. precarious, fickle family. but one she cherished all the same. it was in the companionship of judas, the intensity of damien, and the bright glow of azazel had she found a love she had never know within the ranks of the angels, even as she had called them her brethren while their creator looked down upon them with the cool judgement of a father. within the ferocity of the demons, she had found love. and i think that’s what abaddon would claim her driving motivation to be.

i think it’s cute. fanciful. but no.

i suppose it could be called love. or peace. but more precisely, it is labeled as CONTROL. she had sliced raphael down with her own definition of justice, despite the consequences she had known would be enacted upon her. i do think some part of it is rooted in morality and what she thinks is right and wrong, but morality only serves as the thin veneer for the control of the world around her and the sight before her eyes.

when god had punished her, it was with acceptance that abaddon had descended, giving up control for her creator, as she views His will above her own, trusting in His judgement and the notion of balance. but had she not wrestled back that same control, as soon as her wings touched hell? had she not gripped onto the light within her, the divinity within her, with claws sprouted from her determination? she had refused to give up her agency, her identity, even as hell tried to chew her up and dismantle her heart brick by brick with all its rotten teeth. even the black cells serve as a mechanism for control — abaddon is its sole ruler, and it is with her will that punishments and tortures are enacted. even when it’s upon herself.

so my long haul pitch is this: TAKE IT AWAY. threaten her sense of control. abaddon is too content watching behind the curtain, moving chess pieces discreetly, balancing power and molding it into her definition of peace. while that is a very fun and sexy time, i would love for her to be forced into the light she cherishes so much. to make big, impactful moves. to rise into her full power and call in the favors she gift wraps as tenderness. i want her to be driven to choose, to forsake balance. TO SMASH THE SCALES ALTOGETHER.

CHARACTER TRAITS

(+) empathetic, diplomatic, loyal

(-) indulgent, obsessive, manipulative

I /

She searches for Him.

In the folds of dawn. In the hallowed darkness.

For years she wanders during the brief moments of respite; in the space between silences while the world is made anew, taking every chance she can to escape the gazes that dance over her form, tenderness and devotion briefly landing upon her before they flit away to the other demons within her family. And for once, she wishes they would overlook her altogether — such is her desperation to find Him. Such is the love and loss that seizes what remains of her soul, grief so acute that she wonders how the others haven’t heard its echoes within the empty chambers of her heart.

She will find Him.

And she will hold Him within her arms, bestowing upon Him the divinity and light she has so stubbornly held onto. (The traitorous, infested part of her heart can’t help but grin at the thought; Heavenly Father casted down from his throne, just as he had done to her. Spat from above with all the care of a rotten seed of faith.)

He will not ask for forgiveness, but She will give it anyway.

II /

How many years has it taken for violence to become sweet? Once metallic and revolting, now familiar, comforting; like a poem known by heart, and Abaddon gives herself a moment to savor the taste, swirling it in her mouth before she knows is the time to spit it back out, lest it transform into an addiction of her own making (sometimes she wonders if it hasn’t already). Such is the price of balance.

But the moment is interrupted, her back slammed against vibrant cobblestone, ridges pressing onto tender flesh (this, too, does not hurt as much as it thrills — as much as it comforts).

“You were gone.” Level. Casual. Elegant, even, and her lips curve upwards as she meets the gaze of Judas, though elegance gives way to a quiet sort of rage lined within his dark eyes. It’s a warning as much as it is a privilege, his rare show of genuine emotion.

“I was.” She waits, and she can feel the wearing of his patience.

“Where?” A demand decorated in politeness, ever the gentleman.

It only takes a moment’s shifting of expression; her subtle mocking of his empty decorum shifting into a confirmation of his suspicion that there is a detection in movement, Judas’s arm moving to unsheath a dagger and hold it to the base of her throat. Warmth trickles from where divine metal meets skin, but she doesn’t move away. For a moment Abaddon simply closes her eyes, wondering how it would feel to be enveloped in such warmth — even if it tastes too much like self-destruction.

It is at the same time that she opens her eyes does her head tilt towards the dagger, lips ever so gently caressing its blade and coming away stained pomegranate. A tender kiss, not unlike any of his own.

And she smiles before she moves, a lightning strike to match his own, wrenching the dagger from her confidant’s hand and plunging into her chest without so much as a wince of pain, her gaze never leaving his.

“Do you doubt my loyalty, dear Judas?”

He doesn’t answer, and she merely listens to the echoes of his retreating steps.

#accepted #accepted: abaddon

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pass-the-bechdel · 5 years ago

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Continuum full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

73.81% (thirty-one out of forty-two).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

32.75%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Ten.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

One, episode 2.07, “Second Degree” (50%).

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

One, episode 3.09, “Minute of Silence” (18.2%).

Positive Content Status:

The definition of unremarkable—it may not be making any egregious mistakes, but aside from its chief concern, it’s not saying anything of interest (average episode rating of 3.00).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Season three not only had the best Bechdel scores, but the highest amount of female characters.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

Season four. While it didn’t feature the episode with the least female characters—that would be season three—it features the least Bechdel passes and the least amount of female characters.

Overall Series Quality:

Worth watching. It won’t blow your mind, but it won’t waste your time, either.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

If a word describes Continuum, it’s “solid”. It’s a well-made show, one that understands the basic building blocks of well-made genre television and doesn’t attempt to upend them for the sake of upending them (except when it does). However, my enjoyment of the series is more intellectual than visceral, and creating a list of my top ten favorite episodes is nigh-impossible, since I don’t really feel that strongly about them as individual units.

So if the series is rarely great—if even its best rarely makes your heart race the way the best episodes of Nikita or Person of Interest do—then why do I still consider it exceptional and worth one’s time?

Reason number one: Kiera Cameron.

Television, over the past decade, has done a steady job of perfecting its female genre-show anti-heroes, which, unsurprisingly, has resulted in a fair amount of sameness. It is often enjoyable sameness, to be clear—Root and Shaw are fantastic characters, and I love them—but sameness all the same. These female characters do not care for the rules (except when they do—for example, they never look unattractive or unmade-up). They are loud. They are often hedonistic. There is a sense that characters have to be fun, even if they are A Lot. They are, in many ways, rebels. And to be clear, these stories are absolutely necessary; that we now have these characters is important. Yet, there are other ways to be, which are also equally compelling and equally feminist.

Kiera Cameron is not a rebel. All she ever wanted to be a comfortable drone (even as her instincts told her something was terribly wrong) and a mother. In another place, in another time, she’d be one of the Nazis who were allegedly “just doing [their] job,” which is not something one usually says of heroes. She is also decisive, quick-thinking, adaptable and manipulative, with a keen understanding of people. She likes operating under a clear leadership structure, but she can operate perfectly well—thrive, even—without it. Within forty-eight hours of being stranded in an entirely new world, she has integrated herself into its law enforcement apparatus and made a life for herself.

Kiera is, in the end, the best part of Continuum, because of the way the series allows her to be shaped by her contradictions. Credit must also be given to Rachel Nichols, who is one of the more underrated white actresses currently working on television. Continuum asks a lot of Kiera, and she allows her to be a lot of different things while still being recognizably Kiera.

A good protagonist deserves a good antagonist, and boy, does Liber8 deliver. The group may have an extremely silly name, but it is, like Kiera, something one doesn’t see every day: an enemy group with a point, and which arguably holds the moral high ground, even as it performs mass murder.

In a worse show, the various members of Liber8 would have been hypocrites. They would have either not believed in what they preached, or been more concerned with themselves than with the cause, or proved willing to abandon it for their survival. Alternatively, they would have been presented as all bark and no bite, more Robin Hood than Osama Bin Laden. And while all those things are true for one specific member of the group—Kellog—the fact that he exists at a remove both allows the series to explore that hypocrisy, while leaving Liber8 free to actually be something else.

Furthermore, I enjoy that Liber8 is smart. Mass murder is not the only thing they do. While I’m not sure I’d call Continuum a competence porn series the way something like Leverage is, there is something very satisfying about seeing Liber8 continuously switch up their tactics and be clever about how they approach their battle against corporate interests. Yes, they do mass murder, but they also do blackmail, corporate espionage, political assassination and political patronage, sabotage, whistleblowing, community-building, and public relations. They know that their cause will need funds, but don’t sell out in order to obtain them. It is very satisfying.

I’ve heard commentary on Continuum arguing that the series’ unwillingness to cast explicit judgment on Kiera is a weakness. In her own small way, she is complicit in the oppression of millions, and is willing to replicate oppressive power structures; shouldn’t the series have something to say about that? And yet, this...objectivity, I guess you could call it, is, I feel, one of the series’ chief strengths. It’s not that the series isn’t aware of what Kiera believes and has done; it’s just that the series trusts the audience to draw its own conclusions. Kiera can be heroic and have a fascist mindset. The members of Liber8 can be mass murderers who are also in the right. Dillon can be a cheerleader for the privatization of his police department, and still be sympathetic. A TV series can be a traditional police procedural at heart and admit that cops are scum 80% of the time. One doesn’t negate the other, and that the series goes as far as it does with its characters and concepts feels uncommonly audacious for the sort of show this is.

Another element that makes the series memorable is its commitment to its central conflict. Person of Interest may have been about the surveillance state and the increasing role of artificial intelligence, but most of its episodes were actually about Finch and company being super-heroes. The same could have been the case for Continuum—“police procedural” is a key part of its DNA—and the fact that it isn’t—that its anti-capitalist sensibilities are almost always there, and critical—helps make the series feel singular, and relevant. It’s not the first TV show to have something to say about a specific thing, but it’s easily the show most dedicated to saying it.

This, however, is a double-edged sword.

Simon Barry, Continuum’s creator, is a white dude. It shows. For all of the thought the show puts into the dangers of unchecked capitalism (or just capitalism, if you’d prefer), it puts very little, if any, into how oppression is shaped by prejudices or group identities. The future of Continuum may be terrible, we’re shown, and yet it never quite seems terrible enough, or weirdly uniformly terrible. That Jaworski, of all the Liber8 members, is the one who is most forcibly dehumanized by the corporate state rings very false. Having the majority of Liber8 consist of people of color isn’t enough—not when the series is claiming that 2077 is a direct reflection of 2012.

Similarly, while the show boasts more female characters than is the norm for shows like this, I can’t actually say it does much beside that. Going through the series, it’s hard not to notice that very few of the female characters have what I would consider a satisfying overall story. Betty is killed off after months of misery. Katherine is killed off before she can really have any sort of impact besides filling in a necessary storytelling role. Garza and Emily are in a sort of limbo by the time the series ends. Ann Saddler just disappears. Aside from Kiera, only Sonya is said to have a story with a beginning, middle, end, and like Betty’s, it ends with her death. While these are all fantastic characters, their stories are generally disappointing.

Part of the problem is, of course, that the show barely has time for deep dives into its characters’ psyches, given all the things on its plate. The show only has so much time to spend on character development, and its priority is breadth rather than depth. On the other hand, it’s hard not to notice that of the characters who do get consistent focus and character development (Kiera, Alec, Carlos, Dillon, Julian), only Kiera is a woman.

It’s also worth noting that while the show kills off fairly similar numbers of male and female characters—at least when speaking in absolute numbers—things look quite different when speaking in relative terms. It’s perhaps best seen with Liber8’s dwindling numbers: sure, you can kill off Jaworski, Chen, and Kagame, but you’ll still have Travis, Marcus, and Kellog. Kill off Sonya, on the other hand, and the hole she leaves becomes very hard to fill. The same rings true for the series as a whole, which is why its final season feels so bereft, when it comes to female representation.

Additionally, while it’s pleasing to see male and female characters used more or less in the same way (although it’s worth noting that this doesn’t actually result in a 50/50 gender ratio) it is less so when the series in turn makes an implicit argument that there is not a sexist element to institutionalized oppression. Scattered instances of potential subtext aside, the series has very little to say about sexism in the future, which again, rings quite false when so many of the characters are freedom fighters.

And yet…

Had the series been more traditional, it’s likely these issues would have felt fatal. Instead, they merely feel bothersome; they annoy instead of cripple. It either speaks to how satisfying Continuum generally is, or how dispassionate my enjoyment of the series is. In any case, Continuum does what it does so interestingly, it’s hard not to set all of these aside and just get swept away by it. It tried something different and did some very interesting things with it, and, as it turns out, that’s more than enough.

#Continuum #Female Representation #Bechdel Test #MimeParadox #full series review

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dillydedalus · 5 years ago

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january reading

why was this january at least 3 months long

unequal affections, lara s. ormiston (audio) this is jane austen fanfiction about an alternate version of the story where lizzy does accept darcy’s first proposal - their ensuing engagement, which (because lizzy doesn’t go off about how she feels about darc in this one) is full of unspoken conflicts and tensions & hella awks. the initial premise needed some suspension of disbelief but once i got over that i found it super enjoyable, pretty believable in terms of character interactions and interiority (darcy is a dick), funny & sweet. i don’t think i will necessarily start getting into JAFF now (tho goodreads rly thinks i should), but this was just. nice. wholesome. also now i want to reread p&p..... 3/5

lincoln in the bardo, george saunders (uni) ya know what i really liked this. this is about abraham lincoln mourning his young son willie during the civil war, not exactly a topic i’m particularly (at all) interested in, but the execution is so cool - it’s told partly thru fragments from historical records, books, letters (both real and imagined) and partly thru the voices of the many ghosts stuck in a kind of limbo in the graveyard, who are trying to get willie to move on, while they themselves desperately try to stay in limbo, bitter about what went wrong in their lives and in denial about their state. & it’s done really well, the polyphony and contradiction of the historical record (one chapter has a bunch of quotes about how ugly lincoln was & then the last is like ‘idk i thought he was kinda handsome’), and the ghosts are so sad & bitter & desperate & hopeful. 4/5

the steppe & other stories, anton chekhov (tr. from russian) bunch of short stories from 1880-1890s russia. to be honest, i found most of them pretty boring, although ‘the duel’ is pretty good, an interesting look at how sticking too closely to your worldview/ideology/morality will probably either make you a useless disaster person or a eugenicist douchebag. some of the other stories were okay as well, but overall: 2/5, i’mma stick with his plays

perfectly preventable deaths, deirdre sullivan teenage ocd witch book! this is a pretty good YA witchy horror book about twins who move into their new stepdad’s castle (yeah he has a castle) in a weird irish village where girls have been going missing for decades. creepy magical-ish things start happening (of course) & our narrator isn’t sure whether her sister’s new age-inappropriate boyfriend is just creepy, or creepy. i love the concept of ocd witchery & the atmosphere is really good as well, but the pacing is off, with slow build-up & a climax that happens way too quickly. also like can someone please say the word ocd it’s not gonna kill ya. 3/5

the priory of the orange tree, samantha shannon gonna be controversial here & say... yeah this should have been a duology. give the world some room to breathe, give the characters some room to breathe (give me another book w/ a cover this spectacular). anyway, this is a bigass book about eastern vs western dragon lore, a holy queendom (go sabran of inys!!), dragonriders, lesbian sword mages, how religion & historiography marginalises women, and magical trees. & like, okay, i wrote a lil thing right after finishing it about how i had some quibbles with it but enjoyed it overall but you know what? the more i think about it/let it sit the more complaints i have and the more annoyed/disappointed i get. 1) i liked all the characters fine, but none of them feel like they have any depth - i feel like i could sum all of the main characters up in like 3-4 words, and while i was rooting for ead/sabran, even this, the most central relationship of the book felt... surface-level. like, there were some big emotional moments but generally all i felt was like ‘good for her’ or ‘that sucks i guess’, 2) this world & its mythology is very much inspired by eastern vs western dragonlore so i understand the need to ground the fantasy world with real-world parallels but the extent to which some of the countries are literally just fantasy versions of real countries was... frustrating? irritating?? this is especially grating as, while inys is very clearly fantasy!britain, there is a lot of cool world-building (religion, aristocracy, history/myth) to make it more than that, while fantasy!japan and fantasy!china are literally just ... ‘what if japan but with dragons’. i did like fantasy!netherlands because at least you don’t see that a lot. 3) so much of the plot is just people travelling to different locations to get and transport different items but most of the travelling is cut short by some magical animal/being turning up and just transporting them in a cutscene.. 4) considering that this is all about dragonlore the dragons sure aren’t as important in the end as the three macguffins of power. 5) i loved so much about kalyba but not where it led, that said i want a kalyba-hawthorn-nurtha backstory. okay that’s it for now but like. idk. this had a lot of potential but the execution was just severely flawed. 2/5

trust exercise, susan choi this was super hyped, especially for a game-changing twist of some kind, but has a rather low rating on goodreads (3.18!) so y’all know i was intrigued. i’m not going to give away the twist because it is genuinely really cool if not really all that original, but this is a really clever & cool book about theatre kids, teenage dramatics, constructing your own narrative and what that excludes, elides, changes, and most of all consent & abuse (some very triggering depictions of sex/sexual abuse here). i really liked this, and am considering buying a copy so i can reread it. 4/5

soldiers of salamis, javier cercas (tr. from spanish by anne mclean) very meta novel about a writer called javier cercas writing a book (tentatively called soldiers of salamis) about a (real) falangist poet who escaped a mass execution & survived in the forest for a while with a group of republican deserters. ‘cercas’ researches, speculates, despairs, talks to roberto bolano (who compliments his previous books lol), and finally tracks down the man who he believes/imagines/hopes to be the soldier who let said fascist poet go, leading him to consider who really should be remembered & written about. made me think about that one poem about reading ezra pount that ends w/ a veteran saying ‘if i knew a fascist was a great poet, i’d shoot him anyway.’ interesting book altho i far prefer his book anatomy of a moment, one of the weirdest & most fascinating nonfic books i’ve read. 3/5

the stopping places, damian le bas (audio) damian le bas comes from a settled british romani family and, feeling somewhat unsure about his place in & connection to the community, he decided to go on a roadtrip through britain (+france) in a van to seek out the atchin tans or stopping places, starting with the ones his great-grandmother remembers from her childhood before the family became settled. he combines the travelogue with insights into romani culture(s) (mainly british) and history, as well as his own family history. it’s really interesting & engaging (the history&culture more so than the travelogue) and le bas narrates the audiobook himself & sounds like a cool dude. 3.5/5

confessions of a bookseller, shaun bythell bythell records a year of working as a second-hand bookseller, with an entry for every day. he talks about the impact of amazon, rude & weird customers (but also nice customers), his weird staff, and some of the books he’s reading. the look into bookselling in the age of amazon is pretty interesting but much of this is banal & repetitive, & if it wasn’t the perfect thing to read in little bits while at work i probably would have dnf’d it. 2/5

giacomo joyce, james..... joyce super short story by my man jamesy joyce that never made it out of manuscript (literal). not much to say about this - it’s interesting to see jj play around with themes while still working on portrait & thinking bout ulysses & the prose is nice, but the whole english tutor feels attracted to his student is a bit... eh. 3/5

#the books i read #one major disappoint but oh well :///#long post

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thisisnothingthisisone-blog · 6 years ago

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rurouni kenshin ova: trust & betrayal (tsuiokuhen)

spoilers!! major spoilers!! if u watch it before u read this it’ll probably be better. but it’s up to u.

i first watched this series of four half-hour OVAs about 3 weeks ago, and i’m really still heartbroken. i’ve watched it another 2 times since, alone, in the dark, with good audio setups to honor its quality, and it’s lost none of its grace, beauty, or emotional impact. it’s easily one of my favorite anime works ever at this point, and i can confidently say that i think pretty much everything about it is perfect.

first, a short evaluation of the artistic quality of the piece. it’s phenomenal, imo. the visuals and animation are beautiful, lush, with a high degree of hand drawn craftsmanship. colors are used symbolically and strikingly, and the visual metaphors are rich- even techniques common to film, like expressing high emotion through scenes in nature, are used effectively and elegantly. the music is absolutely gorgeous, grand, majestic, orchestral; but so incredibly tender and sorrowful as well. it’s reminiscent of illustrative impressionist composers, ravel, debussy, and has the intensity of romantic ones, rachmaninov; or at least, those are the composers i found myself listening to as offshoots of the OST. i’m no expert on narrative techniques, but i found the pacing, characterization and development, everything about the storytelling to be fitting, effective, and impactful. the mood and tone are somber, but not necessarily bitter; it is dark, and depicts the brutal truth of war, killing, murder, death, and justice; but so, too, does it depict the humility with which ordinary people live their lives despite the suffering abundant in their world. it’s even structured a little similarly to a symphony, i think; the first movement is striking, and sets the tone for what is to come; the second movement extrapolates what is set in the first, and introduces tension, and promise; the third movement is romantic, and moving, the heart of the whole thing; and the fourth, the climax and the ensuing aftermath, the penance. i would definitely recommend this movie based on overall quality alone.

that said, several things in particular pique my interest in this film and the ways that they relate to patterns in my life: the concept of the supremely idealistic hero, who believes in justice but who is utterly gentle and naive; the similarities to the story of inuyasha and kikyo; and the intense appeal of romantic tragedy for me (and, maybe, you).

the idealistic hero. there’s a line in the film where kenshin’s mentor is thinking to himself about kenshin’s potential, and he thinks, (not verbatim, just what i remember) “he is pure. and because he is pure, he will continue to improve, as he is driven by the desire to become strong, to the point where i would consider him a simpleton.” and later, kenshin quarrels with his master about the morality of ignoring conflict and the suffering of the masses, when the principles that come with his strength dictate the a responsibility to protect the weak. i often find myself identifying with characters like this — characters who are idealistic and naive, who desperately believe in abstract justice, without any knowledge of the many gray areas in human morality and behavior, who ultimately wish to use their strength for the benefit of the anonymous “people.” i mean, pragmatically, it’s a ridiculous notion. how can one person decide what justice is for those he has the power to kill? who is he really protecting by doing so? and tomoe does a good job of pointing out the hypocrisy in his actions.

a bit on tomoe — she is a really interesting character to me. i’ve always had a fascination with the “tragic cold beauty” type that develops a warmer side to her, but for whom this warmer side is the cause of her tragedy. there are some quiet, subtle scenes where she looks at reflections of herself, which belie the undertow of her being at war with herself in those moments, where her intentions and desires are confused. she’s a powerful character, her power stemming from her contradiction. their relationship is built up over spare, poetic moments that belie a subtle, but intertwining chemistry, that is delicate and poignant as it is framed by the political instability and widespread turmoil of the times. she recognizes kenshin to be a child in his naivety regarding his ideals. her sorrow over the crops that die in the rain is just as palpable as kenshin’s despair over the antithetical nature of his killing. though her taking on the role of being a “sheathe” for the “brandished sword” of kenshin’s rage and anguish is founded on sexist expectations (that are still common today), she is not depicted as a weaker character by any means. different, and subordinate; but just as necessary, valuable and significant as kenshin, though ultimately she dies as a lesson to him- she serves her purpose beautifully, and then is burned away. they are brought together by death and lost love, and as the iris flower dies without the rain, and only her memory is left after the fighting dies down. she is a character trope that isn’t meant to live, as things that are too beautiful always wither away; she is meant to remain a memory, a reminder, a metaphorical and literal scar.

back to the idealistic hero. i think what attracts me so much to kenshin’s character in particular is the same as what makes tomoe fall in love with him: the so, so incredibly gentle nature of his spirit lying beneath his intense desire to do good in the world. a scene where kenshin and tomoe are together in the house they’ve escaped to, eating the vegetables they planted and harvested together, and tomoe mentions that kenshin’s everday could have been like this, if different things had happened in his life. the contrast between the peaceful life full of small happinesses that he could have had, and the brutal, violent, soul-crushing life he leads then — and the yearning i feel for the life he didn’t have, was very real. his “justice that seems like insanity” is haunting and beautiful, but i also want him to be happy. but his “justice” is detrimental to the gentle, kind person he truly is and wants to be. the idealistic hero can’t exist in the real world the way he thought he could; his shedding of naivety and realization than his only real strength is in protecting the people he cares about is sobering. ideals are abstract, but we live in a constantly shifting, unpredictable world that constantly changes like rippling water, and if we wish to live any semblance of a fulfilling life, we have to learn to not be a stone, which is eroded; but to flow along, carving out a space for ourselves within the tide.

these ideas are explored similarly in the manga series “Azumi,” wherein ax extremely strong, quick, genius assassin is a cheerful and loving girl at heart, who forms quick connections with people and only wants to be kind and have true friends. in this manga there is a theme of comparing her to a bodhisattva — a theme that i think is implied in the rurouni kenshin OVA as well. a bodhisattva is a figure from mahayana buddhism, a religion popular in east asia for a period of time (sorry i haven’t taken art history in a while!!), that has reached enlightenment but delays transcendence out of compassion to save other suffering beings. azumi and kenshin share the characteristic of being extremely powerful assassins, to the point of being like gods of war, or gods of death, who, because they are enlightened in their arts of fighting, cannot be allowed to form lasting connections with people they care about. anything they do form a connection with is killed and taken away from them, keeping them on the path of deified violence that they don’t really want (until, for kenshin at least, the war dies down and he swears to never kill again. i haven’t finished azumi so i don’t know what happens). (if any of this inaccurate please lmk, i’m not that knowledgeable about buddhism;;;)

inuyasha and kikyo. inuyasha was a big part of my adolescence, and i think one of the series that really got me into anime in the first place. it’s not a great series honestly, in terms of artistic merit, but it’s plenty fun and full of surprises despite all its shortcomings. but i remember really liking the story of inuyasha and kikyo, and i see kenshin and tomoe’s story being compared to this in other places on the internet as well. the similarities are certainly there — the cold, long black haired conventional beauty meets violent demon, together they learn to be human and to love, which ultimately causes their downfall and the false betrayal and tragedy of the love that never was, which makes it all the more romantic.

the intense appeal of romantic tragedy — i want so desperately for them to be able to continue their lives happily together, yet at the same time i know that that would make for a bland ending (or maybe not. but,). the moment that breaks me isn’t the climactic moment of tomoe’s death, but the way that her spirit still comforts kenshin as he finishes the job started during the war, and carries his will to never kill again once it is over. the tragedy is what makes the love story so good; it wouldn’t be half as appealing without it, but it’s also what makes it painful. pain and sweetness, together, suffering and love, to feel pain is to feel love and that’s how you know, this is a theme in my life too though in different ways. maybe i just savor the feeling of being heartbroken, but not for myself. i want to feel tragic. i want to be saved. no one can save me in real life, but at least i can dream, project onto this immaculate story. there’s something really feminine about tragedy, for me. (i don’t consider myself a femme, necessarily, but if i had to choose i would lean femme, i think femininity of any kind is a thing to be treasured.) it’s something i felt when i was in the throes of identifying with mitski — she’s such a tragic character, branded in such earnest, genuine sadness and controlled despair. to hold the sorrow without the visceral pain, and peek into a feeling that’s meant to be desired. do i wax poetic? i can’t help it. i’m a romantic, through and through.

also, just another thing. i think another thing that makes the whole deal extra sweet for me is the effeminate appearance and nature of kenshin, haha. it’s certainly not trying to be ~queer~ or anything but it’s one of those things that, i feel like, resonate somewhere innately for those of us who seek out representations of people outside the cis/het norm. i’ve heard that fans of yuri tend to enjoy this series lol.

i honestly can’t think of anything this OVA could have done better. i think there might have been something but i can’t remember it anymore. if you have any thoughts, feel free to reach out~

#rurouni kenshin #anime discussion #anime review

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jimejarcia · 2 years ago

Text

My highlights on Jane Ward's - The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (2020) because it was easier exporting it here than to my drive

(Sexual Cultures) Jane Ward - The Tragedy of Heterosexuality-NYU Press (2020) - (PDF) (Resaltar: 191; Nota: 1)

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▪ 36 (she has a ref for that lol)

▪ many straight men find themselves

with women they don’t actually want to talk to; both parties learn to fake

interest in the name of relationship success

▪ many straight men find themselves

with women they don’t actually want to talk to; both parties learn to fake

interest in the name of relationship success.

▪ sense of what it

means to keep on living and looking forward to being in the world

▪ It is possible for straight men to like women so much, so deeply, that

they actually really like women. Straight men could be so unstoppably

heterosexual that they crave hearing women’s voices, thirst for women’s

leadership, ache to know women’s full humanity, and thrill at women’s

freedom. This is how lesbian feminists lust for women. I do not despair

about the tragedy of heterosexuality, because another way is possible

▪ Najmabadi argues that as the

new concept of heterosexuality began to circulate in the nineteenth cen-

tury,3 Iranians resisted one of its defining principles— that men should

feel love for, and desire companionship with, women. This idea was

a “hard sell,” Najmabadi explains, not only because it conflicted with

long- standing beliefs about women’s subordination and degraded status

(how could men love their inferiors?)

▪ Romantic marriage— and the

forging of bonds between white men and women— was offered to white

couples as a white- supremacist strategy during the early Jim Crow era

and later offered to African Americans as a central pathway to member-

ship in American “normality.”13

▪ aggressively marketed heterosexual love to Americans, campaigned to

make it appear more appealing than homosocial intimacies, and devel-

oped myriad techniques to both normalize and unravel the misogyny

paradox. As they did this, they built both an industry and a culture out

of the contradictions of straightness

▪ the Eugenics Publishing Company

▪ quo of the time: men and women commonly wished harm on each

other, found each other disgusting, and were made utterly miserable by

marriage.

▪ Taking this conflict (i.e., women’s desire for

sexual pleasure and men’s lack of interest in providing it) as a starting

point,

▪ hygiene products marketed to white

women to promote gender and racial purity,

▪ husbands’ rape of their wives appeared to be

the wedding- night default and that this formative sexual assault stood

to ruin marriages from their outset

▪ African American physicians and social reformers declared it a

social and political right

▪ Marriage

▪ marriage to be reconceptualized as a freedom, rather than an

economic obligation or necessity

▪ African American reformers focused on

the ways Black sexual respectability was best achieved through Black

women’s freedom of choice

▪ For Maher, the gap between the fantasy and

the lived experience of heterosexuality (or the reality of married life and

parenting after the wedding day and baby’s birth) left women disap-

pointed and wanting more, a craving that was soothed by watching the

fantasy reenacted on screen over and over again

▪ Despite her sharp analysis of misogyny, Forward,

like Norwood, ultimately placed responsibility for change in individual

women’s hands. Women needed to stop normalizing men’s abuse, set

limits on what they would tolerate, and learn to assert their own needs

▪ One of the great

paradoxes of the heterosexual- repair industry is that this unrecipro-

cated care of husbands is, at least according to Maushart, the reason that

straight women initiate 75 percent of all divorces, but it is also relent-

lessly presented (albeit in ever- new forms of self- help) as the “solution”

to women’s misery.

▪ To the extent that women do need to ask some-

thing of men, they learned that they should do so with patient guidance

and a hefty dose of gratitude.

▪ Disguised

as a form of pop- feminist self- help, He’s Just Not into You reinforced the

notion of a simple gender binary wherein straight women desperately

grasp for men and straight men plod along with no logic, agency, or

emotional depth whatsoever.

▪ But it is

worth noting that the heterosexual- repair industry takes many forms,

several of which emerged or expanded in the late- capitalist period.

The global sex- and romance- tourism industry, for instance, now tar-

gets both women and men, capitalizing on the broad range of reasons

that straight people have become disillusioned with heterosexual court-

ship.75 Homosocial online communities have also proliferated, offering

spaces where straight men, in particular, can vent their frustrations with

heterosexual relationships.

▪ New Age self- actualization seminars and Christian megaevents are

also popular spaces for heterosexual repair, merging long- standing

bioessentialist arguments about gender difference— or masculine and

feminine “energies” and “destinies”— with the project of personal trans-

formation.77

▪ the very gender binarism and misogyny

that produce heterosexual misery are also the interventions proffered to

consumers to remedy it

▪ find out fairly quickly that I am not one of the

women they are interested in seducing. A thirty- eight- year- old feminist,

I am far too old, too serious. Perfect. I am just a fly on the wall

▪ In other words, straight men are finally bur-

dened with some of the labor of making heterosexual desire functional,

though they come to this work, as did their early twentieth- century

counterparts who resisted loving women, with fear and ambivalence

▪ strategies used by dating and seduction coaches are composed of

old, new, and repurposed attempts to reconcile heterosexual desire with

misogyny; intimacy with “faking”; feminism with the science of gender

difference; and seemingly private problems with neoliberal interventions

(self- actualization seminars, personal coaching, and other financial in-

vestments in personal and relational improvement

▪ Their industry is

also a transnational and imperialist one; as American and European

coaches offer seduction bootcamps around the globe, they name and

then “solve” the heterosexual disappointments and desires of men in the

global South.

▪ stunning example of the misogyny paradox, pickup artists built

their success on helping other men resolve the tension between straight

men’s socialization, on the one hand, and straight women’s reality, on the

other. They spoke directly to men’s sense of a lost heterosexual birthright

and an unfulfilled media- fueled expectation that men, no matter how

average in personality or appearance, would have access to a reason-

able amount of uncomplicated sex with women they find attractive.3 The

filmmaker Sut Jhally calls this the “male dreamworld,” a fantasy world

in which young, beautiful women are presented to boys and men as an

entitlement,4 and the feminist writer Laura Kipnis, too, has noted the

perplexing disparity between powerful, straight, white men’s inflated

sense of their own appeal and their over- the- top requirements of the

women they desire (Kipnis describes men like Harvey Weinstein and

Donald Trump as “bulbous, jowly men; fat men who told women they

needed to lose weight; ugly men drawn to industries organized around

female appearance”).5 But as pickup artists knew, many men reached the

pinnacle of heterosexual misery when their dreamworld could no long

integrate real women. In reality, the women these men encountered had

grown tired of men’s sense of entitlement, their scripted flirtations, their

braggadocio, and their aggressive and self- centered approach to sex.

▪ ,6 one

of the immediately observable features of the trainings is the likability of

many of the men who circulate within them, a feeling that stems largely

from their vulnerability and mutual care once inside the protected space

of the seminar.

▪ It

seems like . . . the mood of an infertility group for women

▪ How old are you?’ you say, ‘Old enough to be your father.

And it’s past your bedtime!”

▪ Coaches also gave extensive

attention to what they called “inner game” by replacing men’s defeatist

psychology with a willingness to get “blown out,” or rejected by numer-

ous women, without being psychologically annihilated by it

▪ This “fail harder”

ethos comes directly from corporate, sales- driven motivational frame-

works, which, as the sociologist Rachel O’Neill argues in her outstanding

study of London- based seduction bootcamps, makes seduction less of a

game than it is a form of work, in which men become sexual entrepre-

neurs who approach sex in terms of long- term investment and increased

▪ the coaches at Love Systems, al-

though the negging technique has a bad reputation, some mild and play-

ful negs, used sparingly, are proven to work because they do the opposite

of what women expect. Instead of fawning over women and showering

them with false compliments, men can neg women to show that they are

confident enough not to beg for attention

▪ that men and women want fundamentally different things out

of heterosexuality, and as a result, their attraction and relationships are

fraught with conflict and misunderstanding

▪ hetero-

sexuality works best when men and women learn to say and do things

that they don’t actually want to say or do

▪ hetero-

sexuality works best when men and women learn to say and do things

that they don’t actually want to say or do, for the sake of heterosexual-

ity— to express interest, gratitude, and connection, whether they feel it

or not. In the heterosexual- repair industry, this is not about manipula-

tion; it is about learning an advanced relationship skill.

▪ For one thing, no one likes the idea that sexuality

is scripted and formulaic, even when it is

▪ centuries- long heteropatriarchal campaign about the unique

and mystical nature of romance itself (a campaign that has long served

as an ideological cover for women’s oppression at the hands of men who

claimed to love them

▪ It not only builds on a

century of popular and scientific theorizing about purportedly natural

gender differences and the trouble they cause well- intentioned straight

people, but it also upholds the value of individual self- actualization

(i.e., taking dramatic steps to know yourself and get what you want,

right now) and embraces neoliberal mantras once reserved for cor-

porate motivational posters, applying them to heterosexual sex (“Fail

harder!” “Embrace a mastery mind- set!” “Show her your leadership!

▪ .e.

▪ seduc-

tion coaches worked from the premise that most men, in their natural

state, are not what straight women want. And most women, in their

natural state, are not what men want

▪ Their work

illuminates that straight culture exists in a very conflicted relationship

to what I have elsewhere called “gender labor,”20 the intimate work that

must be done to make both heterosexual attraction and the gender bi-

nary appear natural

▪ On the one hand, gender labor smooths out the

contradictions, but on the other hand, the very act of doing this labor

exposes heterosexuality as a high- maintenance, nonautomatic project

▪ how to be less boring and

weird,

▪ what men receive in return for their enrollment

fee is an entire weekend reflecting on what women actually want from

men and from heterosexual sex itself.

▪ what actually happens

once trainees and the women they have seduced transition from public

to private space, where sex is believed by many men to be a foregone

conclusion. But the curriculum does ask men to actively disavow ag-

gressive masculinity, to exercise empathy, and to spend more time than

they’ve ever spent thinking about the rigged conditions under which

straight women must negotiate sex with men.

▪ which they

call “kino”

▪ For coaches to draw so heavily on scientific and corporate lingo—

kinesthesiological data, best practices, strategy, leadership, and so on—

may seem unsexy, but coaches believe that these are “male languages”

that resonate powerfully with their clientele

▪ Rachel O’Neill expresses a similar concern that this view of

women having a strong but socially repressed sex drive causes seduc-

tion trainees to paradoxically believe that challenging a woman’s “last

minute resistance” is a means of honoring women’s sexual impulses.23

In the seduction industry, acknowledging women as sexual agents

does little to intervene in long- standing claims that women say no

when they actually mean yes

▪ straight women who do not want to have sex with a given

man but consent to his sexual requests because doing so yields other

things that straight women want (safety, making nice, getting it over

with, money, straight privilege, etc.)?

▪ Here was evidence of the power and resilience of narra-

tives that repackage men’s deficiencies as enticing challenges for women

▪ wheels of sexual access or to continue receiving women’s emotional

labor, this makes no intervention into men’s profound sense of en-

titlement to women’s bodies and women’s love, nor does it pose any

challenge to men’s unrelenting attachment to their own masculinity

as the core of their identity, the foundation of their goodness, the basis

on which they connect with other men, and the primary contribution

they think they’re making to the world.

▪ classes, suggesting to straight male

students that if for no other reason, they should at least embrace fem-

inism because doing so will result in better heterosexuality— more

authentic relationships with women and better sex based on women’s

enthusiastic interest, rather than women’s placating and ambivalent

consent. But I don’t feel good about this approach; I want men to be

feminists because they value women’s humanity, because they identify

with women, and because they see that the gender binary is a histori-

cal, political- economic, and cultural invention that has caused no end

of suffering for women and also for themselves. When men extend

empathy and subjectivity to women out of self- interest, to grease the

▪ A SICK AND BORING LIFE

Queer People Diagnose the Tragedy

I’m going on record here to notify every heterosexual male and

female that every lesbian and every homosexual is all too aware

of the problems of heterosexuals since they permeate every as-

pect of our social, political, economic, and cultural lives. . . . I

think all of us are authorities on the heterosexual problem.

— Jill Johnston

Once you’re on this track, you’re pretty much a lesbian and you

think like a lesbian and you live with lesbians and your commu-

nity is lesbians, and the heterosexual world is foreign.

— Gloria anzaldúa

▪ As I have written about elsewhere, method-

ological critiques are also frequently used as a deflection strategy when

readers feel implicated or threatened by new and/or critical ideas

▪ as

▪ “I often reflect on Edith Massie’s [sic] quote in John Waters’s Female Trou-

ble: ‘the world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life.’ Probably the

most obvious part is the inability for many straight couples to be honest

with each other about their additional attractions. . . . I think this is sad

and sews mistrust.” (queer Latinx male)

▪ Back in chapter 1, I quoted from the fabulously over- the- top character

Aunt Ida, played by Edith Massey in John Waters’s 1974 cult film Female

Trouble, who scolds her straight- identified nephew about being a het-

erosexual: “Queers are just better. I’d be so proud of you as a fag. . . . I’d

never have to worry. . . . The world of heterosexuals is a sick and boring

life.” So too does one of the respondents above quote Aunt Ida’s wise

words; we both hark back to a dark and utterly bizarre film from 1974 to

find corroboration for something that remains true to our present expe-

rience and yet is rarely acknowledged. Indeed, “boring” was the most

frequently repeated descriptive term used by my queer interlocutors to

describe straight people and/or straight culture. Things that bore us are

not just uninteresting but often also often tedious, repetitive, unorigi-

nal, mechanical, and sometimes mind numbing. To bore something is

also to make a hole in it, to hollow something out; hence, sometimes

being bored feels like being completely empty. Significantly, Valerie

Solanas began SCUM Manifesto, her 1967 wild feminist screed against

the patriarchy, by reminding readers that oppression and boredom are

interconnected: “Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and

no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to

civic- minded, responsible, thrill- seeking females only to overthrow the

government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation

and destroy the male sex.”14

▪ boring

▪ Things that bore us are

not just uninteresting but often also often tedious, repetitive, unorigi-

nal, mechanical, and sometimes mind numbing. To bore something is

also to make a hole in it, to hollow something out; hence, sometimes

being bored feels like being completely empty

▪ To bore something is