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babacontainsmultitudes · 1 year

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Normal, Sparrow, and something about heroes

EDIT: Raised the "read more" cause tumblr wants to make self-rbs a nightmare smh smh

Y'all it's so difficult to write ANYTHING lol fuck... But yeah yeah definitely got some post ep. 30 thoughts. Do need to start with some explanations/clarifications on my general stance regarding Normal which is mostly for the mutuals LOL and they know that so if things appear to lack a bit of context on that front well that's why.

There are some things regarding Norm where I lowkey almost don't want to say anything because I'm sooooo wishy washy myself ahahaha and I feel like I'm definitely gonna end up writing some stuff here and be like "ehhhhhh" later on but what can you do what can you do.

I guess I can at least start by saying that when I say that like, Norm can be self-centered, or prideful, or something to that effect, I am *definitely* not trying to say like "this negates Norm's compassion" or that like, Norm needs to be made to feel bad about that? I hope I'll be able to explain what I mean properly here but, a lot of my feelings regarding Norm's more negative traits do genuinely come from a place of concern for him??

Yes I think Norm can be self-centered, yes I think it comes from a place of loneliness and insecurity, yes I think it bleeds into his actions in a way that can negatively impact both himself and those around him, and yes I think that all of these things make him very very VERY similar to Scary... Is my general stance atm but let me, let me *try* to explain what all that means for me LOL.

I think Norm is a good person. I don't think he's *the most* empathetic or selfless or kind character we've seen in the show, but I also don't think he needs to be, or ever will need to be. He has a good heart (all the teens do, yes that includes Scary, fight me), he *does* care about other people very much, and like the other teens his frustrations are valid and generally pretty justified!

But I think Norm is someone who, perhaps pretty fundamentally, requires a pretty high level of external validation and social acceptance to feel loved, has generally gone most of his life not having that need met outside of his immediate family, and is pretty all-or-nothing and rejection-sensitive when it comes to this validation. I don't think Norm is a bad person for any of these traits (at all), even if it can impact his interactions with others negatively at times. No, above all else, these traits lead me to feel quite concerned and altogether just kinda sad for Norm.

And that's where things get a bit messy. On the one hand, Norm *is* a kind person, with good intentions, and even when I feel most frustrated with his actions, I don't take them as coming from a place of malice or ill-intent. But Norm wants to feel loved so bad, and his conditions for feeling loved (as aforementioned) are very difficult to meet, so, yes, (I do personally feel that) Norm often does, largely without knowing, prioritize this endless search for validation over other things, and having this at the forefront of his mind so frequently does inhibit his ability to truly connect with the people around him and (in many cases) actually *empathize* with them.

The difference- the difference for me between Normal and Linc with regards to Scary isn't whether or not they *care* about Scary. Even if it's a bit old now, I didn't write a whole thing on Normal/Scary and Sparrow/Lark parallels because I don't think Norm cares about Scary. Normal has *absolutely* put a tremendous amount of effort into trying to keep Scary around, to disappointing results that are justifiably frustrating for him. Normal and Linc both care about Scary, the difference for me, and what I just find so spectacular about Linc compared to all the other teens here, is that Linc goes *beyond* himself when he breaks the pic. He's not the first person to care about or try to help Scary, he's just the first person to do so in the way that she actually needs- because his general selflessness allows him to be the first person to actually *understand* Scary. He's not the first person to feel *for* her, he's the first person to feel *with* her. That is... Well I guess that is also to say that when I use the word "empathy" I mean it fairly precisely.

Which also isn't... I'm not trying to knock Normal (or Taylor) in saying this btw. The teens ALL have their strengths and weaknesses, and this was simply a moment that brought out one for Linc and another for Norm (vice versa can has and will be true at other points in time). Normal not being able to do what Linc did here is not something I'm trying to hold against him. With regards to their argument, I genuinely think that they both have plenty of reason to be upset, and ultimately it's all just one big misunderstanding. Still, I do personally think that much of why Norm is so upset with Linc in this scene has not so much to do with Scary nor with the Doodler- but is in fact at least in part Norm feeling rejected by Linc (invalidated, unloved, etc.), and acting out accordingly. Additionally, I think these feelings get in the way of Norm actually being able to understand and appreciate why Linc did what he did. They were both hurt, they both lashed out. I'm not trying to gloss over Linc's part in this either, I'm not saying one of them was right and the other was wrong or that one was mean and the other wasn't, but from what I've seen at least it seems people are almost unanimously siding with Norm on this one without much consideration for the points Linc actually makes here, choosing instead to focus solely on what *Linc's* hurt caused him to say (without acknowledging of course that in Linc's case too it comes from a place of hurt), and that much is a bit frustrating for me admittedly.

I wouldn't have expected or wanted Norm to behave any differently in this scene than he did. I think everything about Norm's behavior makes perfect sense for where he's at, and "where he's at", for me, isn't "selfish kid who doesn't care about other people" it's "scared kid who feels rejected and alone". That said, I think if Norm wants to get any better he, like all the teens, needs to start introspecting a bit more and work on himself.

And when I say that, I'm not saying "Norm is prideful and needs to be more humble" I'm saying, Norm needs to get to a place where he can feel loved, and allow himself to be loved, without it being so all or nothing.

Enter Hero!!! The chosen one! I kinda don't get why some people are just seeing this as Anthony trying to bully Norm rather than a very important opportunity for growth!!!

This feels like a point that could be easily misconstrued, so I'll try to be careful? When I say that Hero being the chosen one is an opportunity for Norm to grow as a person, I am NOT saying in becoming more humble or something like that?? Normal's pride isn't his fatal flaw, it's an afterthought of it, a manifestation of it, a defense mechanism vis a vis his fundamental insecurities, if you will.

Normal, as I see him, is convinced that he will only ever be loved, that he will only ever have "solved" love, when he is validated in absolutes. When he is the most popular boy in school who is friends with everybody. When he's the hero of the story. When he's the chosen one. If part of him sees himself as being without flaw (or the best part of teen high or whatever), it's not because he's some arrogant little brat, it's because he can't imagine himself as being lovable unless he is perfect. He isn't selfish for feeling this way, but from an outside view I think it's fairly easy to say that if Normal continues down that path, he's never going to get where he needs to go.

Hero being the chosen one, not Normal, gives Normal an opportunity to learn (or at least start to learn) that his perceived prerequisites for love (of himself) are false. Normal doesn't have to be the hero of the story. He doesn't have to be a hero. He doesn't have to be Hero, it's enough to just be Normal.

Sooooo... I think it's pretty ironic that... Upon learning that Hero is the chosen one.... So many people have jumped the gun and assumed that this means... Sparrow doesn't love Normal.

HAHA THAT'S RIGHT THIS WAS ABOUT SPARROW ALL ALONG YOU THOUGHT I WAS DONE TALKING ABOUT THIS MAN NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER

But seriously, wow, it pains me sometimes how little faith people have in Sparrow. Hero is "the chosen one"... So every single time Sparrow has relayed how much he loves Norm goes down the drain?? At a most basic level folks, your child can be unplanned and still be loved, actually. Some might even say that that's... normal.

But do you get what I'm trying to say here? The assumptions much of the fandom has made about Sparrow and his love exactly reflect the toxic trains of thought that will probably be plaguing Normal's mind and feeding into his insecurities as the whole Hero thing develops?? And these insecurities (and again false prerequisites for love) are exactly what Normal needs help working through???

But let's move away from the Norm side of things a little bit, cause the assumptions being made about Sparrow currently are much more vast than this.

Let's make something clear. We don't know Sparrow's side of the story. We don't know Lark's side of the story. And of course, we don't know Rebecca's side either. We don't know if Rebecca did or didn't know about the prophecy. It seems that at this point in time, the spouses have had their memories erased. *Not necessarily* the case, but I genuinely can't fathom a scenario in which Cassandra somehow doesn't notice that the father of her child is always kind of a little bit on fire- and conspiracy theorist Rebecca to me also might hint at the fact that at some earlier point in time she would have known more about what's going on? But that's purely speculation, obviously.

So why are we suddenly so sure of Sparrow's intentions, feelings, and *role* in bringing Hero into the world?

I... Well I've been reluctant to bring this up even though the notion has been an itch in my mind since yesterday, but eventually you see enough upsetting Sparrow posts that someone needs to step up and offer something new I guess.

So... Allow me to suggest that, Sparrow being against the idea of having a child purely to fulfill a prophecy, and refusing to partake, actually makes *more* sense.

Most especially, if Sparrow was adamantly against going through with such a plan, we now have the most sound and in-character reason so far to explain... Why Lark slept with Rebecca.

(*gasp*)

As I see it anyways! Because, yeah, it's always felt like a weird elephant in the room, and I don't really feel satisfied with the existing theories at all! Someone with as strong as a resolve as Lark sleeps with the wife of the person who means more to him than anyone cause... He was horny? Or maybe as part of some strange convoluted ploy to push Sparrow away? I'm not saying these aren't still valid possibilities, and I'm not saying that this theory I'm proposing is what happened, really it's an assumption based on an assumption, but nevertheless I think it would make a lot of sense honestly.

(More specifically, what I'm suggesting is Sparrow not wanting to go through with the plan, Lark seeing it as a necessary evil to deal with the Doodler- and we know how hellbent Lark is on dealing with the Doodler, and accordingly "doing what needed to be done", as he is one to do, of course at Sparrow and at least in theory Hero's expense.)

This would also make sense of a lot of Sparrow's more extreme behaviors towards Normal, particularly the question of his name. Through this lens, it was perhaps an affront towards Lark (and possibly Rebecca??), an assertion to the effect of "no, you will not do this again, this child will not be doomed to be a hero". This, or something less aggressive but in a similar vein.

Of course this puts Normal and Sparrow at fundamental odds with one another! Er, despite being so very very similar which isn't what this post is about but still... Anyhoo, yes, there is an important conflict at play here, wherein Normal, as we discussed earlier, sees being the hero (the chosen one, what have you) as the only way to solve love, to be loved- and Sparrow who, more than anything else, doesn't want anymore heroes in the family, because he loves his family, and what happened with Henry... Can't happen again.

#Realized I didn't end up talking about Scary as I'd intended but perhaps she deserves her own post #BLUGH OKAY TALK ABOUT A POST THAT WAS WAY WAY WAY LONGER THAN INTENDED #dndads #dungeons and daddies #normal oak #sparrow oak #sparrow oak garcia #normal oak swallows garcia #dndads s2 ep 30 #lincoln li wilson #scary marlowe #GONNA POST THIS ONE AND IMMEDIATELY FEEL ANXIOUS OOPS #I FEEL LIKE I ENDED THIS ONE IN A WEIRD SPOT #EGH I HOPE THIS MADE SENSE... MAYBE I'LL DELETE AND REWRITE LATER IDK IDK #lark oak garcia #lark oak #I JUST DON'T FEEL LIKE I CAN GET MY THOUGHTS OUT RIGHT TODAY I FEEL ANXIOUS

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uncrownedmox · 3 years

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Veil of Secrecy

Noun: The action of suppressing something such as an activity

Throughout the day Liana had watched Dean for signs of any other explosive memories or any other signs of discomfort but he seemed totally relaxed with Roman and Seth. Her would-be brother had cornered her once and asked about the bruise around her neck. His soft brown eyes spoke volumes of his disbelief of her rushed story of accidentally doing it herself. Larkin had come in after midway through their conversation, she said nothing. She helped Liana make lunch wordlessly but with one look she told Liana that she wasn’t buying her story either.

Dismissing Larkin and Seth’s disbelief over her cover story Liana watched carefully as Dean interacted with Roman and Seth throughout the day, noticing how as they spoke of past memories he commented more and more on them. Twice she fetched the Rosemary and Sage potion for him to drink, Seth always snarked out a laugh but Roman watched him like a hawk to make sure he drank it all.

It was late afternoon, Dean, Roman, and Seth were in the second bedroom putting together a crib for Sammy. Their male laughter could be heard echoing down the hallway into the front room and making all three women smile and making young Sammy giggle. Larkin as she pushes a toy back to Sammy scoots closer to Liana and whispers softly, “So what really happened to your neck?” Blushing as Katelyn laughed loudly Liana brought her hand up to massage her throat and look back at the hallway. Sammy suddenly lost interest in the truck he and Larkin had been playing with and moved onto some wooden blocks and started to clack them together.

Liana sighed and looked back at Larkin, “what makes you think anything happened?” Larkin looked at Sammy first then down the hallway then finally at her sharply. After a moment she spoke lightly, “Xavier was into some kinky crap from time to time. I got used to having bruises like that as well, Liana.” There was slight pain and discomfort in Larkin’s eyes but when Liana reached out to her she waved her off, “it’s in the past Lee. I have something way better now.” Nodding in hopes her friend slash sister knew if she needed to talk, then Larkin is looking at her dead on and giving her a wink.

Smiling brightly Liana knew it was just as Larkin said it was, the past. Swallowing, she shyly retold the story she had already told Katelyn. Afterward, she timidly asked Larkin her opinion, “how would you suggest I get him to do it again?” Larkin blinks in shock at her and it makes her blush but Katelyn is chiming in softly, “she is young Lark. She needs to find herself in her sexuality through experimentation, Jon as an experienced man should know this.” She feels her blush deepen, heat radiates with hot heat and she squeaks out. “It’s not like that, Katie. Due to how Mox came into his magic and other circumstances,” here her words stumble for a moment and both women look at her in question.

Taking a deep breath she tries to explain the best she can, “look at it this way. It’s not a split personality pre say but mood swings maybe? As Mox, he is serious about intimate things. Not saying there is no play or anything but you want ‘playful’ that’s ‘Dean.’' Looking at her sisters she sees Larkin is confused and Katelyn is somewhat lost. Sighing she murmured, “think of it like this. Ambrose,” looking at Katelyn because she knew the other woman would understand. “As my hard demanding lover and Mox and my gentler one. Dean is kinda a combination of both.” It takes Katelyn a moment but she only asks, “a playful hard fuck?” Larkin sputters and Liana winces at the language in front of Sammy. In the end, she only sighs and blushes, “si hermama.”

That makes Larkin cough, after she gets herself under control she mutters lightly, “I haven’t seen Jon as this Profeta or Ambrose thingy but I have heard him, and boy oh boy let me say this. That man screamed hardcore sex appeal. I mean by the voice alone I can easily imagine him as a Dom in one of those BDSM playrooms or whatever they are.” Liana blinks at her and Katelyn brings her finger up to tap her chin and questions, “si. Only he would use exotic toys.” Liana reaches for Sammy as he attempts to crawl too far away, bringing him back within their group she asks. “Can’t we just stick to something simple for now? Like handcuffs. I could possibly do those.” Larkin gives her a wide eye look then laughs, “Live dangerous sister! Besides, once you get him into some latex?”

Liana felt her eyes go super wide at the thought of Dean in latex, shaking her head. “I can’t see it! Tight jeans maybe.” Katelyn is laughing hard at her. Larkin is thinking about what she said then adds, “who cares what he wears. Just as long as he uses that voice again I would be putty in his hands.” Liana snickers at her comments but Katelyn turns the tables on their sister-friend. “Seth should invest in a ball gag for you. Since you like toys so much.” Larkin gives her an evil eye then shakes her head, “he would never. He loves how vocal I am!”

Before any of them could respond a male voice chime in, “that I do but when we are visiting one might be a good investment.” They all turn to see Seth leaning against the door jam, once they all see him he pops off the jam and heads into the kitchen. Larkin flops onto her back to watch him go and scrunches up her nose at him, he calls over his shoulder. “Don’t give me any sass woman.”

She pops back up and looks at them and they burst out laughing in pure contentment.

——————————————————————————————

The first time putting a crib together he was thankful to have Roman around to help, who was close to an expert on the matter by now. Looking at his older brother he murmured, “if Larkin is right and you Katie are destined with five-plus the three you already have.” Roman doesn’t even pause to look at him, “I am Samoan Uce. We normally come in large batches.” Seth snorts at that and snarky out, “between you guys it’s going to be a dozen or more.” Dean looks at the half-built crib knowing he would need it again in just a few months.

When they had first stepped into the second bedroom and laid out all the pieces and hardware for the crib their talk had been light and somber. Seth was however like an open book to both him and Roman, so when he had come back from the kitchen shaking his head and handing them a fresh cold beer. Dean asked softly but quietly, “she didn’t say anything to you about it?” He saw Seth was thinking about something, at the moment his younger brother was raising his beer to his lips. He stopped mid-motion and looked at him. “Who? About what?” Grinding his teeth together Dean sighed and took a drink of his own beer. Shooting Seth a haunted look after swallowing hard. “Liana, Seth. I thought she might have mentioned to you about the bruise, it is why you two have been staring a hole in me all day.”

Roman pauses in screwing a screw and innocently questions, “it wasn’t done in some rough foreplay?” Dean could actually hear the hope in his voice and shame flooded him and a blush warmed his face in an instant. Choking out as he lowered his eyes, “hate to break it to you Ro but I am not into that type of foreplay.” Seth actually laughs at his words and when he looks up Seth is looking out the bedroom door. “Here we are talking about choking foreplay and the girls are talking about using ball gags.” Dean blinks as he reaches for a screw to continue to help Roman in putting together the crib. Roman on the other hand laughs out, “might come in handy for your wife baby Uce.” Dean snorts as he finishes screwing in one screw.

Reaching for his beer and another screw as Seth snaps back playfully, “my wife is vocal, Reigns. Not my fault you don’t have Katie screaming the roof off the place.” Seth says it with such a straight face Dean can’t help but to laugh. Roman at first gives both his brothers an evil eye then just shakes his head. Then after a minute, he muses silently just how far this conversation has gotten off topic but is damned if he ain’t enjoying himself. And yet the question is still heavily lingering in the air, “so if she didn’t tell you Seth then how in the hell am I suppose to find out what happened?” Roman is reaching out for his beer and blinks slowly at him, Seth takes another swallow of his beer for good measure and puts the question to him. “Tried asking her yourself?” Rolling his eyes Dean snaps back waspy, “why detective Rollins I do believe you missed your calling in life.” Roman’s big frame is shaking from him trying to hold back his laughter and Dean is somewhat proud of that.

Seth on the other hand, “smart ass. See if I fucking help you again.” Roman finally loses it and laughs out loud, “you call that helping Uce?” Roman then looks at him, the laughter is dying out and there is a somber look in his blueish grey eyes. “Look Uce if it wasn’t some rough foreplay and she hasn't come clean on how it happened, you know.” Dean swallowed hard and nodded his own laughter, dying off. “I know Ro.” Swallowing hard, casting his eyes downward he choked out as he fought against the tears. “It had to be me, I mean it couldn’t be anyone else. They would’ve been,” he doesn’t finish so after a minute Seth murmurs. “They would have been dead before they had time to leave a mark. Plus you are the only one she wouldn’t fight.”

It broke him in a way he couldn’t voice but he managed to grind out, “it’s killing something inside of me knowing I did that to her and she won’t tell me about it.” When the crib was done, with Roman help of course Seth however wasn't done. “Listen, Dean, you’re Montana’s world. Right now you're handicapped because you don’t have all your memories.” Roman is nodding but he cuts Seth off, “I want to remember, Seth. I want to be the man she loves again.” Seth comes up beside him and slaps him in the back of the head, “stupid. You are THAT man.” Narrowing his eyes he opens his mouth but Roman hums out, “point and match to Rollins.” Fighting back actual tears he snarls, “this doesn’t help assholes.” Seth growls at him in open frustration now, “look dickward you asked her point-blank and she shut you down, right? Then fuck it and play hardball and GET your answers. We have seen you use magic to get what you want out of her before.” Seth takes a deep breath and adds, “she finds it charming, I think?” Roman snorts in amusement and adds, “more like a turn on probably?”

Dean glances between his brothers and sputters, “you two want me to force my way in?” Seth laughs out loud as he takes another drink of his beer. “I don’t think you can force her, Dean.” Fighting the rising heat on his face, choking out. “I can’t do what you’re suggesting, it’s not in me.” Roman tosses his screwdriver down in disgust and growls out, “yes it is! Dig deep and fucking find Ambrose. If you taught me one thing it's that she wouldn’t dare disrespect or lie to him.” He knows there must be confusion showing on his face because Seth is laughing like an idiot again but once he stops. “Look Deano, the fact is Montana loves you. All of you, but I agree with Roman. She is more relaxed with you whether you call yourself Dean or Mox. Just remember she was raised to respect the power and title of a Profeta.” Roman is humming in agreement and before he can question it further. “She will answer to Ambrose.” Looking at his brothers he sighed, “I hope to hell you guys are right!”

There is a smirk on both of their faces and Seth just hands him a fresh beer and asks, “So Deano let's talk about this lack of foreplay of yours.” Roman laughs grab a fresh beer and wait on his answer, “magic lil brother with Liana everything is always magical.” Roman bellows out a laugh but Seth is grinning like a madman, “does that go for the sex as well?” Dean lets a matching grin overtake his lips, “no Sethie the sex is out of this world." Seth is helping him pick up the extra bolts and asking, “like your seeing stars or more like mind-numbing, and your soul is exploded from your dick?” Dean is tossing the extra hardware in a ziplock bag but pauses to slyly ask, “Is that even possible?” Roman is rumbling, “hasn’t happened to me yet.” Smirking at their little brother, “sounds like you have a personal problem, lil brother.”

Seth laughs, “naw, not a problem at all I actually like the feeling, I recommend it! But a second-round is usually out of the question if done correctly.” Dean is shaking his head but deep down the darkness that was Ambrose was intrigued.

——————————————————————————————

It was around nine, and after the crib was done he had watched for a moment as Liana and the other girls had moved into the bedroom to make it. After dinner he watched as Liana tended to Sammy and put him down for the night, feeling accomplished and satisfied. He knew it was just a matter of months before she would be repeating this process with their own son and it made his heart swell with pride and love, so much love.

Once Sammy was down and softly snoring he and Liana retreated back into their living room. He was still nursing a beer, she still had an ice tea in her hand but once she sat down she stretched her back and it gave off a loud pop. Sitting his beer down on the coffee table he looped his arm around her neck, his fingers playing with her red-gold hair. She sat her ice tea down next to his beer and leaned more into him, smirking softly as he gently reached out to bring her on top of his lap. Her eyes light up and her hands came to rest on his shoulders, fingers caressing the sides of his neck. Closing his eyes at the simple touch he let a small moan work its way free from his lips as a reward when Liana started to shift and grind herself against his hardening dick. Muttering darkly, “you’re a damn tease sweetheart.” Smiling as she moaned when he placed his own kiss on her neck.

Pulling himself back before this got out of hand and he forgot what he was after. “Sweetheart, please. I would do anything,” with heavy-lidded eyes Liana pulls back and smiled sheepishly at him. She licks her lips and whispers, “please baby. I want you in me.” Moaning loudly because her words make his dick incredibly hard and the temptation was almost too great but he stayed focused. “No sweetheart, first you get one more chance to tell me how I hurt you?” Her beautiful honey eyes snapped completely open and stared right into baby blues in total disbelief. “Dean,” shaking his head he hardened his voice a little more, “you misunderstand me little girl I am not asking this time.” Her breath catches and Dean watches in fascination as her pupils dilate and her face flushes. It’s then he realizes Roman is right, the control was acting as a turn-on for her.

There is also a hint of stubbornness in her eyes that he sees, a willingness to defy and it moves something deep down inside of him. And yet, “last chance sweetheart.” He can almost hear her heart beating against her ribcage, sees her shake her head and her wide-eyed expression. He sighs softly and lets out what little magic he has currently stored up to bubble up to the surface, he expects a large amount of pain but there wasn’t hardly any and yet her reaction. “Stop it, Dean. Please don’t hurt,” he ignored her words instead he concentrated on making sure she didn’t feel any of the excess pain. The darkness was there in an instant, cold and dark, he felt the traces of the evil that lingered within and it had him second-guessing himself. Yet the sheer amount of deep soul-shattering love he felt for Liana told him that it out negated the negative traces he felt in his magic.

Closing down his thoughts and trusting in his magic, trusting in Ambrose and the love for Liana, that the darkness would protect her and get the answers he sought he found he couldn’t completely close his mind away. He found his thoughts and magic was becoming a merger with the darkness and personality. Something told him that as Mox he was never able to accomplish this, that the only time he was able to come close to this was when he was buried deep in the woman that was sitting on top of his lap. A soft murmur of “Dean,” broke through the darkness and brought Ambrose so he was more than willing to do as she commanded. “Liana,” he noticed her eyes were heavy was magic, his own voice coated must respond in kind. “Are you not my Sacerdotisa?” The question had her jerking backward and almost off his lap but his hands steadied her from her hips, his voice low and hot, “I think you are.” Bringing her forward he placed a sweet innocent kiss on her lips. Her eyes never left his and it made his magic hum, sharpening his magic he bit out. “Then you need to fucking act like it,” her answer was to scoot her hips forward more flush against him. A soft meow sigh escaped her lips.

The knowledge that this was arousing her made him harder but at the same time steeled his resolve in getting his answers. Her hands petted him gently through his hair, lips kissing him at his neck, her voice caressing him, “Dean.” Her tone was low and filled with so much desire and passion it had him slipping a hand down and to the side of her shorts and inside her panties to see how wet she was. His fingers found pure wetness, letting his fingers caress her core back and forth then removing them and bringing them to his mouth he moaned, “I will never get tired of tasting you little girl but tonight isn’t going to be about you.” At his words, Liana’s eyes flutter shut and she gasps out, “and you call me a tease.” Shaking his head he bit back a moan and was able to choke out. “This isn't about teasing, little girl. This is about you learning your lesson.” Watching as she licked her parted lips as he thrust his fingers back into her dripping wet heat.

Her hips started to twitch and move in rhythm to his fingers, his thumb brushing her clit ever so often had her buckling hard against him fast. As he watched, she rode his fingers and had her softly panting and gasping then he withdrew his fingers. Smirking as he brought his fingers back up to his lips, sucking them clean, watching Liana watch him lick his fingers clean. Her hips twitched as she watched him, her eyes held disappointment. Her fingernails dug into the skin on his bare shoulders, her small voice begged. “Mox please,” the nickname she tried hard not to call him stumbled out in her time of need but in his state of mind right now it didn’t matter to him, “think about it my Sacerdotisa. I can bring you to that sweet edge countless times, I can even.” He pulled her hips back from his crotch and unzipped his shorts and pulled his boxers down, his cock sprung free and he moaned as he ran a single fingertip down his length. All the while he watched Liana hungrily took in the site he was presenting to her, “I can even make you watch as I find my release, by myself.” Lowering his voice even more, “you and I both don’t want that, do we my sweet young Sacerdotisa, you would much rather we both find our pleasure in one another tonight, right?” At those words, he began to stroke his dick.

He kept his strokes light and unhurried, he tilted his head back- eyes closing because he didn’t need to see Liana to know she was watching his hand intensity nor that she would reach out to overlap his hand with her own. Widening his leg stance, without a second thought he removed his hand he was pleased to feel her continue to stroke him. “That’s right, baby. Nice and slow, depending on how stubborn you want to be, will determine who gets their release tonight.” At his words, she shifts and he knows what she is seeking. Raising his hands back to her hips he harshly tells her, “don’t!” Letting his eyes flutter open he muttered, “don’t make me punish you, little girl.” She whimpers and he feels her free hand on his chest. Her voice is small and filled with so much desire, “my Profeta. I want you, please.” A moment of soft ghosted words, “I am so wet for you Profeta Ambrose.” The sound of that name awakes something so hard and dark in him that he jerks her hips forwards. “Show me Sacerdotisa, show me just how badly you want me.”

Watching as she pushes off of his lap he can only moan as she quietly slips off her shirt then her bra, taking in just how swollen her breasts were he whispered, “your breasts, little girl.” his eyes lit up as she cupped herself and gently pinched her nipples hard, “Is this what you want Ambrose?” Her voice is timid and so soft he growled, “what I want is your ass bare and your legs spread open wide before me.” Her eyes glowed with her magic and he watched as she slowly stepped out of her shorts and solid white panties then make her way back to him. Hand on her elbow he yanks her body to him, moving to give her nipples a quick lick before laying her down onto the couch. Spreading her legs wide, watching her pant in desire, letting his eyes roam over her as he gazes at her core and the dripping mess she is presenting to him. Slipping to lower himself to her sloppy core he used both hands to pry her open and took a moment to stare in appreciation. Licking his lips because she is so soaking wet it almost makes him spill in his boxers. Then she is crying out softly as her hips jerk in his hands, “Ambrose please.” Humming he lowers his head but instead of a lick he takes her clit in hard long suck, it has her back arching, her moaning louder, her legs snapping around his neck in an instant.

Her hands come to bury themselves in his hair as she bolts upright when he flicks his tongue against her clit. The action causes more moisture to gather in his mouth, chuckling as he pulls back and she snarls down at him. Wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, savoring her taste on his tongue he moaned as he let his finger dance at her entrance. Watching as her hips started to buckle harder and her moaning became louder. Letting his finger dip just barely within her drenched pussy, letting her work herself harder onto his finger just to the point when she was about to explode then he withdrew his finger. This caused her to snap, “no please. You just can’t.” Letting his magic glow in his eyes, coming to lean over her he snapped. “This is your lesson Sacerdotisa, not mine.” Shifting onto his knees he lets a hand go back to slowly stroking himself, Liana meows at him and thrusts her hips upwards, “give me what I want, Sacerdotisa. Give me my answers and I will give you your pleasure.”

There is a tightening deep down in his balls and he knows he is almost done for this round. Leaning down to place a kiss on her lips he murmurs, “I am about to cum Sacerdotisa. I had hoped when I did so it would be inside your hot wet pussy but I suppose you're letting your pride deny the both of us.” Her cry is so soul-deep that he almost stops this game he has started, but one looks at the bruise on her neck and continues. Images of her on her knees come crashing down in his mind and he knows in an instant that’s how he will finish this round. Shifting to stand up he reaches out and grabs her under her elbows watching as she reaches down to stroke his dick he rumbles out, “on your knee’s Sacerdotisa. I want your mouth on me when I cum and you will swallow every last drop.” Her answer is to moan and to drop to her knees, the moment her mouth opens and engulfs him he is lost. Letting his head fall back as she sucks him dry he can't help but thank the Gods for her, for making her his.

After a few moments and she swallows she lets out a deep moan and cries out, “Ambrose please it hurts, so badly.” When he tilts his head forward again and looks down at her up-tilt face he moans at the sight of her. Her lips still have traces of his cum on them and there is such a desperate look in her eyes that his dick seems to forget that it should be going soft instead of hardening again. With a tight voice, reaching out to caress her hair. “Dry your lips Sacerdotisa,” watching as she licks at her lips, he moans again. He also notices her hand making its way between her legs, “I don’t want to punish you further Liana but you’re tempting me.” Her hand stills and she blinks up at him shyly and he nods in satisfaction but she manages to sob out, “please Ambrose it hurts.” Yanking her up he snarls out, “ you think I am enjoying this Liana? I want nothing more than to sink deep into you. The need to fuck you is driving me to a point of madness I didn’t know was possible.” Her body is shaking and he knows he needs to end this soon; she is too young to have been thrust into this lesson.

She moans, her voice is broken but she leans against him and murmurs, “yes please.” He tries to be kinder as he holds her, as he brings her in for a kiss. “Please what Sacerdotisa?” A moment of silence then a bare whisper, “fuck me, like before.” Her voice is so soft but her eyes are dark and lost to her need and desire. He growls in frustration he pushed too hard in one direction and it would cost the answers he wanted. Murmuring, he still tried, “like before?” She could only offer a whimper, “Sacerdotisa? Answer me, like before? Did I fuck you last night?” Her voice is painful and full of need, “ anything please just.” Raising his hand to cup her throat as he must’ve last night he asked, “did I punish you as I fucked you last night Sacerdotisa?” Shaking her head, she moaned and pressed harder into his hand around her throat, “just a dream, then you.” He backs her up until she hits the couch and falls, but she keeps his hand around her throat. “Then what baby?” He asks as he falls with her, careful not to hurt her, she instantly opens her legs for him and he blindly thrusts in.

She cums around him before he can bury himself all the way within her. Her voice is airy as she moans, “You, oh Gods you feel so good, Ambrose.” Leaning over her smaller body, “I am going to fuck you hard and fast baby. I need to cum again.” She sobs and her magic flutters in her eyes and her hips are thrusting against him, “you didn’t know me. Didn’t believe I was yours. You didn’t even wait.” Her words were mere sobs and her fingers were digging into his ass trying to get more of him within her. Grinding his teeth together he tries to fight against the pleasure and concentrate on her words but it was unless her body was too hungry and needful and he was too deep in the feel of her to care about the words she was groaning.

Moaning as the sounds of her cries of pleasure filled the room, he is grunting and her sobs of pleasure were louder than normal because he had driven her to such an edge. Then his balls were tightening once again, reaching out to cup her face he gave her a hard kiss as he surges harder into her. Murmuring hotly against her lips, “I am about to cum Sacerdotisa.” Then he feels it as she coats his dick and it triggers him to give a few chaotic pumps before he explodes within her. He is aware that she is mumbling something and he suddenly knows it’s the blessing, feels it when her body greedily takes every drop of his seed.

A few moments later, they both are still panting when he mumbles brokenly, “don’t ever make me do that again Liana.” Her breath is still coming out hot and jagged but she whispers shyly, “and if I want it like that again? Popping his head and raising himself onto his forearms he stares down into her magical glowing golden eyes in wonder and finds himself laughing. “Baby if you want fucked just tell me, I don’t need to go commando on your ass.” Her face goes flush but she reaches up and murmurs, “and if I want it like that again?” There is a moment, looking into her eyes before it registers with him what she means but when he figures it out he moans, “seems like my little girl likes a different form of play than I thought.” She only hums beneath him and places a kiss on his collarbone. He places a gentle kiss on her forehead.

It takes him a moment to gather enough strength to carry her to the bedroom and place her gently on the bed. As he shifts down beside her he quietly asks if she wants to wash up and she moans sleepily that she would in a minute he chuckles and curls up into his arms and blinks at him. “So we can do that again, like soon right?” Moaning he couldn’t help but smile, “next time I won’t cave in so soon little girl. Think you can handle it?” Her body stretches out against his and she wraps her arms around his neck, “I want to be the best Sacerdotisa for my Profeta. I want to serve him in all ways. The best ways.” His heart thunders at her words but she shifts in his arms and he realizes she is waiting for him to say something. Reaching out to caress her hair he mumbled, “then one lesson every night. No cry-offs baby.” Her answer is a soft snore.

Laughing lightly, he simply laid next to her petting her bare hip, and thought over their play. It never occurred to him to explore Liana’s sexual preferences before now, not that he himself had a wide appetite, no out of three of them that had always been Seth. Granted he and Roman had been the two married men and had lived vicariously through their younger brother exploits, then he had met Kayla and became domesticated. At least that’s how Jess and Renee had described it.

So, he had learned a few things tonight, Liana liked to be dominated and pushed to her limits. It told him several things about what must have happened the night before, smiling as he buried his hand in her hair his mind thought over how demanding his little lover was. Renee had liked to be teased and to liked her teasing light but Liana was hard and full throttle. Placing a light kiss in her hair and chuckling as she snuggled closer to him he mused at just how well she took her lesson tonight. Her words are whispering in his mind.

You didn’t know me- didn’t believe I was yours! You didn’t even wait.

Glancing down at her sleeping face he tried to piece her words together, to understand her desire soak riddle knowing the answer to his question was in those words if only he would tease them apart?

Just a dream, then you.

As he yawns, he knows for sure that he ain’t telling Roman and Seth about this. Cause Seth’s remark about coming so hard that your soul is exploding from dick isn’t that far off the mark.

You didn’t even wait. Just a dream.

Mumbled words said in a need to be satisfied but fuck it something was nagging him in the back of his mind. Closing his eyes, fingers combing her hair, body going lax as he starts to drift off then it hits him like a mack truck. You didn’t even wait. Just a dream. Followed by Renee’s question of ‘You don’t know what this will do to you, you honestly want to remember the years of torture you went through in that place?’ His breath caught in his throat as he jerks awake and bolts upright. Glancing as Liana sleepily moved to curl up around him.

Fucking hell!

Slipping from the bed quietly he slipped into the shower to wash the dread away. In the deep of the night, he had woken up from a dream, a memory, and had taken it out on Liana. He could feel his body wanting to shake but he supposed something, something from his time in the Tunnels was preventing him from doing so. Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself under the hot water and let his mind chase the rest of what Liana had revealed to him tonight.

He didn’t jump when Liana slipped into the shower with him and wrapped her arms around him, swallowing hard he whispered, “did I force you, Liana?” He had forced himself to stare straight ahead and not turn to hold her but at his question, he felt her push herself away and snap, “Dean, look at me.” When he couldn’t bring himself to do as she requested she growled, “I said look at me, Profeta Ambrose.” Her words were laced with her magic and he felt his soul respond, his eyes lowering to her face as he waited. “You're my Profeta. I could never deny you anything, my heart, my soul, my body is yours to command. What happened last night was unexpected but did you hurt me? No! Did you surprise me? Yes! But I enjoyed it just like tonight, it was a new kind of pleasure and I liked it very much!”

Searching her eyes deeply he saw the truth in her bright beautiful eyes and moaned but nodded in acceptance. They finished their shower in silence and slipped back into bed, he was almost asleep when she whispered. “I really did enjoy it, baby.” Burrowing deeper into the sheets and into her he sleepy tells her, “we will see about that after you take another lesson or two?” With that, she hummed and shifted to spoon against him, and sleep claimed them both.

——————————————————————————————

Sacerdotisa Ruby looked once more at the glass container that held the blood absorbing poppet, blood that was three quarters the way gone, it had been sad to kill the little nino but at this point with his mother was failing in controlling Profeta Ambrose and that made his life’s blood was more valuable to her that his life. Now a little of that life’s blood would power the poppet and let her gain power over the mother.

“I hope his death was a necessity Ruby,” glancing back, Ruby felt disgusted for the taller man, regardless if he was of her blood or not. “You have no power to question me nino,” of her blood or not the boy thought he was better than her, more powerful than her and she wouldn’t stand for that much longer. Humming, it was the man behind her that was the only way to get Liana back into the City, “do you bring me news of your sister nino?” Stilling when she feels hands at her hips, nimble fingers undoing the sash at her waist, she forces her body to respond to the seeking fingers and after a while, she feels a release glide down her thighs.

Hands bunch up her skirt and bend her at the waist in this action she lets her mind drift back to better times, when her brother ruled the City with an iron fist, to when he would take what was his and leave her spent and sometimes blooded in a heap on the floor. The boy behind her now is not even a pale comparison to the man her brother had been all those years ago regardless of that part of her brother's blood that ran through his veins.

There had not been another like her brother within the City since his death, that was until Ambrose. Jericho had been molding him nicely; he by far was still weak compared to her brother but more powerful than Bray and more than satisfying between the legs. That night in the cemetery even though he had not put any effort into their coupling had her body alive in ways she could only dream of now. Closing her eyes she let her body remember that night, trying to give something to the nino in exchange for the news that he would give her. Remembering Ambrose’s cock deep within her had her clenching around his dick and moaning, praying silently that the coupling would end quickly she chanted a blessing softly.

Feeling him empty in her, feeling him lean over her back, panting hotly against her ear as he whispers. “I have it on good word Sacerdotisa Rudy that Profeta Ambrose is taking my sister in like some kind of fucking stray. If that’s the case and if he so much as touches her I will kill him. No matter how much you like his dick.” Snapping around to face the nino she lets her hand fly, smiling icily when sees blood flow from his lower lip. “You will do no such thing, Bray is useless. To access the pools I need Ambrose. Therefore I need to restore his memories and his magic so he can fuel the streams.” She watches as he licks the blood from his lip, his eyes glowed a deep brown and for a moment she is reminded of her brother.

A smirk forms on his lips, “one chance Ruby. Don’t deny me in the matters of Liana, she will choose me and if you like I will let you watch when I take her to the pool and fuck her.” Laughing she can’t help but notice the lack of confidence in his eyes, “why would she choose you when she has someone like Ambrose? Someone that possibly could match her instead of leach off her? Someone that can give her untold pleasures instead of one-minute delights. I raised her better than that!” His scowl was dark but she pushed on, “you are not your father's son, Baron, your just a man playing pretend and the goal you have set forth isn’t in your league.”

Adjusting her skirt and sash she threw the last insult at him again, “my daughter would never choose a pitiful powerless man like you if she has taken Ambrose in between her legs, even if she was only to have pleasure from his pinkie finger it would be more pleasure your whole body could give her and trust me, my daughter will want her desires filled to the fullest.” With that, she swayed away from him and his thunderous expression.

——————————————————————————————

It’s around eight am and Dean knows he is dreaming again but there is no fog and the dreams don’t seem to reach in and tear at his very soul, he thinks for a moment it's because there is a small warm hand shaking him awake that or because his own Sacerdotisa has coated him in her magic, in her body, in her love and he is damn if he wants to explain that cause Sacerdotisa don’t share their magic and they sure as hell don’t love.

But mine does. It’s time to remember.

There is an image of a heavy metal door and when the whispered words of remembering hit him the door isn’t quite blown open but cracked open enough a person could walk through it. Memories not of his Sacerdotisa fill him but of Renee, when they met, their first kiss, the gentle way she had begged him to make love to her after he had returned from his first deployment, their wedding day.

Then there are memories of the day he stepped foot into the City the first time. Of Kai being struck down, of Cassidy dropping to his knees. Of the way Nox’s screamed. Then there is the biting memory of pain as Jericho starts his torture. As Sacerdotisa Lita demanded her lessons of pleasure.

Then the rapture of casting the spell ended Jericho. Seeing the pure horror on Sacerdotisa Lita’s face as she watched. The bliss for the next two months as he couldn’t feel his magic then pain as it came rushing back into his body. As Profeta Punk eased him back into it. As the Army finally found him and Cassidy, they proceeded to drill them for the nearly two-plus years of hell they had lived.

Then the shock awaited him back in Vegas. The rejection from his wife, at the feel of his magic, the cold hard truth at the feel of the new life that grew within her. A life that he had no part of making. Then the heartbreak of coming to the decision of leaving it, HER, all behind and return to the hell that had imprisoned him for two years.

The shock of seeing Roman and Seth stepping off of a chopper and into the City. The pettiness between his brothers and Cassidy. Then a letter from Montana, an offering of fudge. Sad honey-filled eyes haunt his dreams and make his cock hard all at the same time, then a blessing being cast. Pleasure filling his magic but his body staying empty- then there was a snap in his head.

The feel being encased in sweetness. The smell of oranges and the images of a young beautiful woman is reaching for him. And for his magic. As he sinks into her, her magic demands his and it makes him hard in new ways. The beautiful woman is moaning for him, coming all around his cock.

A soft sweet voice is calling out to him, “Dean, baby you need to wake up.” The voice calling out to him belongs to the voice that is moaning for him but it’s all wrong. He wants her to want him as a whole, and he knows (somehow) she is calling out to his weak pitiful side. “Don’t call me that,” there is amusement in her voice. “I cry your pardon Profeta Ambrose,” letting a smile form he knows she is playing now. She likes to play, play hard- hard and fast. Likes to fuck the same way too, “I need to teach to be dirtier baby.” She laughs as she whispers in his ear, “you can make me dirty anyway you want me.” Those words have him moving and rolling on top of her in a flat second, his sleep is long since forgotten.

Sadly, her eyes are laughing at him and her body is fully clothed from him. “The fuck Montana?” Her eyes are wide but her voice is questioning, “Dean?” Narrowing his eyes down at her he reminded her, “I told you not to call me that.” There is a pause and he wonders why she would ever call him by his middle name in the first place? His magic sparks at his right arms and it has her surging up in his arms, “Mox, baby?” Her voice cracks and is questioning him but he doesn’t dwell on it, instead he lowers her back down onto the bed and kisses her roughly.

There is a sound deep within the house that finally pokes his desire fogged mind and he pulls back, “Montana what’s?” Her eyes take a moment to focus and then she is snapping out from under him, “you’re a bad boy distracting me like that.” Smirking as he stretches out in the bed he lets her eyes drink him in, “Mox baby stop, we can’t.” Her voice is uncertain and she is nibbling on her lower lip, letting a hand rub his abs, watching her watch him. “Why not? Is Sammy awake yet?” She shakes her head and whispers, “Lt. Colonel Cena is in the front room, waiting on you.”

Sighing in disappointment he rolled to the beds edge and took his time in getting up, glancing up when Liana brought him a pair of boxers and shorts he smiled and nodded his thanks. Slipping them on when he was standing, he noticed Liana had slipped out of the bedroom and he listened as she started talking lightly to Sammy, glancing around he called out, “babe where’s my hiking tee.” The room, even with the air on, was hot and he wanted to wear as little as possible, she called back quickly, “dresser, left side, three drawers down.” Finding a white tee that had the sleeves cut off he tossed it on and smiled as his dog tags clinked together with the crystal necklace he wore.

Walking out into the living room he noticed that the former Major looked tired and beat all to hell and back, “sorry for the wait sir.” He felt Liana come up behind him, heard Sammy call out his morning ‘dada’, and felt a smile on his lips. Watching Cena nod in silent greeting he sat down and cocked his head when Liana plopped Sammy into his lap, “may I get you anything Colonel?” Cena smiled and shook his head and Liana nodded and went to the kitchen.

“I am sure that Rollin’s and Reign’s have explained the basics to you, LT Moxley?” Jon felt his core shift, sitting Sammy down on the floor he leaned forward, and with his magic brimming in his eyes he asked, “just tell me how the fuck do I get my City back from that greedy ass bastard?” A moment later LT Colonel John Cena smiled and leaned forward as well, “I am so glad you asked.” He could not stop his magic from sparking in pleasure.

——————————————————————————————

This story didn't want to be rewritten. I would nit pick it to death. I this point I am simply giving you this. Sorry. I am tired of staring at it. Plus with a new 4-month-old kitten in the house. Not much is getting done these days.

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amber-angel · 2 years

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Do an analysis on your fave muppet man

Rori I need you to know that I saw this and shot straight up, sucking in a huge breath with the BIGGEST adrenaline spike I've had in days. I could literally talk about Jaskier for HOURS, and have to constantly reel myself in so I hope you know what you've unleashed.

Overall opinion: is it bad if my most prevalent opinion on him is just that he's a massive slut? Because that's the first thing that comes to mind whenever I look at him. I think he's severely underutilized, but I also understand why, like, from a management perspective, they don't want their most charismatic character taking up all the screen time. I mean, I'm only watching the show for him at this point anyway, can you imagine how much worse it would be if he was a main? Also I'm just like... fucking in love with the concept of him at this point? I mean his name is Dandelion. His nickname is Buttercup. He's a bard. People call him lark in fics. I was fucking gone as soon as I heard the bread line, but it only got worse from there

One virtue: okay, I like to insult my floppy little muppet boy (with fondness) but I really do think he's an interesting character. Reading about how they changed him from the book to the screen to fit a retelling for a more modern audience, I think it was clever that Lauren (writer) decided to pull away from Dandelion as a womanizer and instead write him like a loving puppy of a man. He's layered. He's sweet and kind, but also will stab a bastard. He's empathetic and willing to sympathize, but at the same time totally down for wishing a slow death upon his enemies. And I know that his overprotectiveness of Geralt is mostly romanticized fanon, but you cannot tell me that he wouldn't jump over a counter to punch anyone who insults his best friend.

One flaw: most of the problems that I have with Jaskier, much like the problems I have with the other characters, are not actually about the character themselves, but with the way their arcs were written, or the way character development just didn't happen. Jaskier is so neglected by the writers that a lot of his growth happens off screen. It has to, or he would just be totally stagnant. And so somewhere between his last scene in the first season and his first appearance in the second, he's turned into this serious rebel spy person, but the writers are still trying to portray him as "goofy old Jaskier! haha, he's funny!" but they're doing this while he's trying to help people escape from certain death, or after he's just been rescued from fucking torture, and it ends up giving you a bit of whiplash and wondering is there any consistency here?

Favorite moment: can't be from his arc because (AHEM) what arc?? But. I am so in love with the conversation he had with Yennefer, where they actually let him be serious and connect with her in a way that s1 Jaskier would never have done. I love love love when they let him show his compassionate side, because it's there! He cares about people so much!! And let's be honest, Anya and Joey worked so well together, I know, I know that they're never going to make Geralt/Yennefer/Jaskier canon, but if they didddd it would work so wellllll

Least favorite: GOD everything about him reuniting with Geralt/being in Kaer Morhen. Big boy just walks in there with his sad eyes and nipple armor and with absolutely no meaningful apology Jaskier just forgives him?? Honey! There are hundreds of people out there who would treat you better. Yennefer being one! Anyway, then, even though Geralt claims he "needs" him, Jaskier doesn't actually end up doing anything? He's just kind of there, I think because the writers knew that they needed to put him in that season or they would lose half their fan base. He's only ever acknowledged when he's being made fun of or pushed away, and I'm tired of it.

One relationship: well, we only really see him interact in any meaningful way with Geralt or Yennefer, but I prefer Yennefer. Like, they basically have nothing in common, but they still mesh so well, and even though I know their friendship won't be explored any more (because it reads as so genuine that Geralt/Yennefer feels like stone in comparison) it would be so cool to see them move past their initial dislike and become actual friends, maybe help each other heal from the MULTIPLE traumas

Relationship to explore: I want to see how Jaskier interacts with Ciri. I want to see it so bad. She's a child and he's a bard, can we not get him singing her a fun little song and letting her have some fun for once? Let him sing her a Cintran ballad and help her process and maybe mourn the things she's lost!! He is JUST as important as your other leads, so let him be a part of the family damn it! And let him be a father figure (or at the very least a weird uncle) to Ciri

What I would have liked to see: I think I've already said it, whoops, but really I would settle for seeing more of him. Jaskier is so good, but the show barely seems to care about him, like they don't realize that they've stumbled onto the best thing they're ever gonna have! Let my pathetic whore of a man have more screen time! Let him into the family! And maybe next time you think about using him for sex appeal don't force poor Joey Batey to do that fucking shit that male actors do to enhance their abs, that fucking dehydration shit? And don't make him shave, wtf, don't add on to our bullshit beauty standards.

#asks #anyway joey batey is a gift and the witcher writers are squandering it #that's my tldr

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

Text

Y’know what I just realized? I mean, its nothing new, its just I never really thought about it before in terms of the significance here, but like....

Okay, so in post-Crisis continuity, when Dick and Jason met, it was clearly stated that Dick came back to Gotham pretty much right after he found out Jason even existed.....and that it had been seventeen months since Dick and Bruce had last spoken. And while we don’t know exactly how long after Dick moved out that Bruce took Jason in, but we do know Dick found out about Jason via his debut as Robin.....(and while Jason’s adoption no doubt made news, its entirely plausible that Dick was deliberately going out of his way to avoid all public news stories about Bruce Wayne, because he didn’t WANT to only know about events in Bruce’s life secondhand and wonder which were even real, he wanted to hear them straight from Bruce himself or not at all).....

Point is.....so Dick only found out about Jason when he debuted as Robin and pretty much went straight to Gotham in at least the immediate few days after he found out. Jason, on the other hand, spent at least six months training before he debuted as Robin, and its highly unlikely that he started training from the moment he moved in with Bruce - its never been stated concretely, but I imagine it had to be at least a few months in before he began training, as Jason adjusted and got settled and wrapped his mind around the fact that this might actually be permanent and wasn’t just a lark on Bruce’s part. Personally, I figure Jason probably didn’t start training until at least after he was officially adopted. But no matter which way you spin it, the likelihood is that Jason was living with Bruce for at least a year before he debuted as Robin, and thus before Dick found out about him.

Now why is this significant?

Because there’s no way that Jason didn’t know about Dick’s existence from pretty much the moment he moved in. Bruce raising Dick WAS public knowledge after all, his picture was all over the Manor, he still had a room that was designated as his there, and of course Jason knew all about him being the first Robin well before he began training to be Robin himself.

Which means:

That at the time of their first encounter, when Dick was still getting his mind around Jason’s existence, adoption, status as Robin, and grappling with the emotions all that brought up and trying his best to put all that aside when he made an effort to reach out and give Jason his blessing, offer of advice and support, etc.....

Jason, in contrast, had to have spent AT LEAST a year wondering about the elusive Dick Grayson, just what exactly the issues between him and Bruce were and why he’d never even met him before now or why Bruce never talked about him before he finally came back to Gotham. That’s a year of buildup, of trying to imagine for himself - absent of any other way of knowing - what Dick might be like, his predecessor, the first Robin, the first boy Bruce raised. That’s a year of picturing what their interactions might be like when they finally DID meet, whenever that happened, a year of growing expectations, of hopes for a brotherly relationship.

They were at ENTIRELY opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to even just....how much TIME they had to contemplate even the IDEA of the other.

You know how I frequently express frustration about how painting Dick as this jealous asshole when Jason met him completely ignores and overlooks the clear effort Dick was SHOWN making, to put aside his personal feelings about what Bruce had done and at least be there for Jason?

This IMO is a perfect angle for exploring how and why Jason (and people going into this or writing with an emphasis on seeing things from Jason’s POV) could have trouble recognizing and acknowledging the actual effort that Dick made, and why there’s so often this impression given off that people (and Jason) feel that Dick didn’t do ENOUGH.

And it doesn’t require vilifying either Dick OR Jason.

Because when you look at their first and second encounters through the lens of Dick having at most days to process all this before he gave his costume to Jason, the equivalent of being thrown into the deep end without warning......while at the exact same time imagining that for Jason this was something long overdue, long anticipated, something he’d likely invested a lot of time, thought and emotion into picturing it, contemplating it, HOPING for various outcomes from it.....

Its pretty much inevitable that Jason was going to feel let down and disappointed by Dick’s actual attempts at reaching out, building an initial bridge, etc. Of course it was underwhelming from HIS perspective, because on his end, so much more buildup had gone into preparing for these first initial interactions, he had so many more expectations. It makes sense that he’d have trouble seeing how fast and how high Dick DID make him a priority, and how indicative that was of Dick actually WANTING this to work, to have some kind of relationship here -

- and let’s talk about Dick Grayson, everyone, the guy who BLEEDS a need for family, a want for loved ones to care for and be cared for in turn: I feel this isn’t talked about enough either, how even though Dick was bitter and resentful at Bruce about his actions and inactions....this is the PRECISE reason WHY it makes total sense for Dick to have bonded quickly with Jason and being fast to accept him as a brother. Because at that moment in time, Jason was the only one really standing up and expressing a WANT to be Dick’s family. You really think Dick of all people was ever going to snub that, the second he realized that this kid might genuinely want a connection, a relationship with him, at the precise point in Dick’s life when he was most keenly feeling the LACK of other direct familial connections or people seeming to want those from him?

If you truly DO want to frame that time period as though Jason was cynical about the efforts Dick did make and felt they were half-hearted at best and probably just covering resentment or dislike that Jason read into Dick’s lack of initial excitement about meeting him, like for the angst or the idea they had a contentious history or whatever reason......

Here’s how you do it IMO without making EITHER of them the bad guy. All it takes is Jason looking back on it years later, and with the benefit of enough time and distance from his perspectives and emotions from back then, he’s able to see and evaluate Dick’s actions and words on just their own basis without filtering it through the lens of Jason’s disappointment at hopes dashed and expectations unmet.

(This part is important though, I think to get the most out of this particular angle, its key that it has to be a realization that Jason comes to on his own. Because for Dick to point it out, chances are it’d be dismissed by Jason and a lot of other readers as him trying to make excuses for himself, justify his behavior after the fact. When the point is that HE DIDN’T ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING WRONG, and Jason hoping for something other than what happened was understandable, BUT those hopes and expectations were a luxury born of having a LOT more time than Dick had TO contemplate the idea of a brother and from there build up those hopes and expectations. IF the takeaway from their past relationship is it soured or got off to a rocky start because Jason just didn’t BUY that Dick was sincere in reaching out to him, and all his interactions with Dick after that were reactively based on his impression that Dick was being fake with him and just not admitting to how Jason was sure he really felt, like if its not that its being claimed that Dick NEVER did anything to build a bridge to him but rather just that Jason expected more, if he were actually genuine about it.......then in that case, I maintain it HAS to be Jason that thinks back on that time and shifts his perception of whether Dick was actually being sincere or not, WITHOUT Dick actually prompting that or trying to change Jason’s mind himself.)

Anyway. Just a thought I had. Peruse at will. Or don’t. Whichever!

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placesyoucallhome · 2 years

Text

Trying to figure out what it is I need for a character to keep a hold on an alt, psychoanalyzing myself because some alts I dig my claws into and others I start out strong then just lose them entirely--

And I think it has to do with interaction. And I don’t necessarily mean ships or getting asks about them, I mean in a general ‘they have to feel like a part of a fuller world’. Despite not actually rping with Canum much I don’t feel the need to change him out with someone new, because he’s an established part of a bigger network of characters, even when I’m solo writing him he can interact with Ruhka or Lark or his own small set of npcs. Same of course goes for Lark or Al or Ruhka’s retainers, or the hrothgar lady I have plans for. The same can’t be said for Emyr, or Tristan, or really any other alt I make, and that’s the most damning difference.

Like that one post about writing I see every once in a while, ‘are you a descriptive writer or a dialog writer?’ I’m very much a dialog writer, I can’t write purple prose for shit, and I’m actually really self conscious about my writing because of it. But I feel more at home in writing characters interacting with each other, I actually really like rping multiple characters at a time.

I guess the easiest fix would be looping everyone into Ruhka’s sphere of influence, which is easier for characters on Mateus I think but it also sort of limits what sorts of characters that makes sense with. The other option would be getting that alt into an rp fc or other interaction heavy scene where they can make their own network of connections, which I think I prefer but I don’t know that I can promise myself to an fc that will expect time heavy obligations. If I can find a far more laid back one, perhaps.

There’s also the fact that I really just prefer rping certain personalities and character archetypes, though I can write a far broader spectrum than that. And ships specifically I just want to see the other character in some way with regularity, if the other writer doesn’t like their own character enough to post or write about them once in a while I can’t imagine the ship being written is any important to them either. I know not everyone writes or interacts with their characters the same way, and what I perceive isn’t necessarily the truth, but it’s healthier to try and find people that are closer to the same wavelength as you rather than stretch and stress yourself out to reach another. You can admire a writer and still not be compatible collaborators and that’s fine.

I feel like as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten pickier, or maybe I’m just learning to stick up for myself a little. Sometimes characters mesh but people don’t. Sometimes people mesh but characters or writing styles don’t. Sometimes walking away is the better course than starting a fight. Sometimes you have to defend yourself. I don’t know. I don’t really know where I was going with this either to be honest. I guess just to convince myself it’s okay to step back and figure out what I want out of the characters I have available to me.

Between Mateus and Balmung I have 5-6 toons that could be fantasia’d into something else, or otherwise tweaked to be something easier for me to rp, some have never been characters to begin with I’ve just been collecting event items on them and the like, keeping them in auxiliary basically. So I may poke and prod at a few ideas, as I’ve been doing lately anyways. I feel like one may just be Ruhka 2.0, a version of him with a little softer backstory and less money lmao. I’ve had a mind to make a more open engineer, and possibly a treasure hunter, but Ruhka does need a healer/magic user on hand so I may try that too. I suppose we’ll see.

#Quite a lot of rambling #between batches of cookies #thoughts ive been juggling but dont wanna throw at people for fear of annoying them #so open at your own risk I guess

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wastelandcrown · 4 years

Text

logan lark’s adventures in trying to appease his parents

CHAPTER 2: meet the plastics (but more stressful emotionally)

Summary: Logan Lark is a fairly average high school student. By all means, he should be impressing his parents on all grounds. Except...he doesn’t exactly have a social life. So after his parents give him puppy dog eyes, he decides to join the local theatre's youth production. Good grief...His life is about to get weird isn’t it?

Warning: Potential ooc behavior, Roman is a theatre brat to the highest degree (Sorry Roman stans), Remus being Remus

Notes: This fic is based off an idea from @under-the-blue-moonlight. Logan makes a Friend, Roman is a Brat, and the experiment finally begins

Pairings: Eventual Intrulogical, Eventual Rociet, Eventual One-Sided Logicality, Platonic Analogical, Platonic DRLAMP

Word Count: 2057

As soon as he arrives he realizes he probably should have mentally prepared himself more. Janus opens the door to the men’s dressing room, and he gets a small glimpse of the chaos.

Roman is loudly and dramatically singing along to some musical theatre song playing over the room’s speakers, Remus is playing a game of cat-and-mouse game with a kid Logan didn’t notice before for a cup of coffee, and Virgil is perched on one of the makeup benches with his knees pulled up to his chest and a Nintendo switch in his lap.

“Boys,” Janus begins, and only Virgil looks up, “I invited Logan-”

At that, Roman halts in his tracks and wildly gestures at Janus, “You deceitful little harlot! You told me you were going to intimidate him!”

“I did, I’m very scary.” Said harlot replies, then looks at Logan to back him up.

So Logan nods because there’s no use in lying to them. He had intimidated him for a short time, though he never thought it was bad-natured.

With a huff, Roman turns on Logan, “If you even think of auditioning for the lead-”

“That won’t be a problem. I intend to get the smallest part possible.”

Janus smiles at him with that, “See, Roman? Not a bad guy, just a newbie.”

Roman is about to speak again when Remus crashes into him and they both end up on the floor.

“Remus get off!” The shorter brother screams with a push, “I’m getting dust all over me!”

Remus cackles and springs up to stand, he doesn’t bother brushing himself off but offers Roman a hand, “Just for that, I’m gonna sweep and pour all the dust into your pants!”

“Don’t you dare!” He shouts again but takes Remus’ hand nonetheless, and then begins to brush himself off.

Confused, Logan speaks up, “Why did you crash into him in the first place? He was fairly easy to avoid?”

“I’m just unpredictable like that!” Remus says to him, then with the same vigor as before continues to chase down the boy with the coffee cup.

After another five or so minutes of Remus running around, he managed to tire himself out and laid on the floor underneath Virgil. The boy with the coffee, who introduced himself as Remy, sat down with Roman and Janus to discuss the show. Things were fairly quiet, and Logan was still standing by the door. Janus, Roman, and Remy were much too busy to call him over, but Remus gave him a smile and beckoned him to join him and Virgil. With another deep breath, he walks over and takes a seat. It would be important to gather information for his chart.

“Hey, nerdy wolverine! You looked like a lost puppy over there!” Still on the floor, he looks up to Logan in his chair.

He blinks slowly, then nods, “I...suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

“Can you blame him?” Virgil mutters, “It’s his first day and he has to deal with all of you.”

“I am a fucking delight to be around, Virgil!” Shouts Remus, sitting up straight and pouting at him. Then he gets up all the way and sits on the counter with Virgil, kicking his long legs like a child.

“I don’t believe we have been formally introduced,” Logan begins, looking up at Remus, “My name is Logan Lark.”

The taller boy tilts his head to the side, and grins, “Do you have a stick up your ass or is that just how you talk?”

“I-Why would having a stick up my behind affect how I talk?” Logan asks and adjusts his glasses.

Both Virgil and Remus laugh at that. While Virgil’s is soft and he hides it behind his switch, Remus throws his head back and cackles. Logan watches, and he notices the exceedingly sharp canines in Remus’ mouth. He doesn’t know why he’s watching in the first place. Perhaps his strangeness is particularly captivating up close.

“He’s asking if you’re uptight.” Virgil offers him, and then Logan gets it.

He shakes his head, “I don’t think so. Just boring.”

“Awe, Logie!” Remus coos at him, “I bet you’re super fucking interesting! And if not I can always corrupt you and make you interesting!”

Logan wonders if he could. Despite his boundless energy, extreme bluntness, and extravagant ideas of fun, Remus seemed nice. In a weird way.

“Logie?” Virgil asks with a scrunched up nose.

“It’s a nickname, dumbass!” Remus shouts with a scowl.

“I don’t mind.”

This seems to set off a debate about the merit of Remus’ nickname choices between the pair on the bench. While they debate, Logan eats his granola bar. He hadn’t been thinking when he said he didn’t mind. He did mind, or he usually would. Nicknames were usually given to him maliciously, but he hadn’t minded them from Remus. It seemed in character, despite the little he knew about his character.

Unknowingly, he had drifted into his thoughts, only realizing when Virgil waved a hand in front of his face.

“Think it’s time for actors to get to work.”

Logan smiles as he snaps back to reality, “Oh-Thank you.”

He pauses when he gets up and gives Virgil a nod, “I wish I had known tech was an option.”

“It usually isn’t, but you’re quiet enough for Joan to let you hang out in the booth when you want.” Virgil gives him a small smile like he knows Logan is not having a particularly great day, then turns back to his game.

He reminded himself to breathe again, as his chest tightened when he approached the others and sat down.

They spent the next few hours listening to the soundtrack and discussing who they would cast, what roles they wanted, and their skill sets. To Logan’s surprise, the music was actually very interesting to listen to. Hip-hop and rap were not what he was expecting. Though, it wasn’t unpleasant. He actually found himself enjoying a lot of music from the genre and hearing a musical in the style was refreshing. His father, bless his soul, mostly played things akin to The Sound Of Music.

“So, Logan,” Janus asked pointedly, “What can you do? Theatre speaking.”

“Does it matter? He wants ensemble!” Roman sighed, rolling his eyes. Logan made note of that, Roman-types are certainly going on the bottom of his chart.

“Our ensemble has to be good, Roman. Not just you.” Hisses Janus, rolling his eyes as well. Roman and Janus seemed very similar, though he much preferred Janus. He seemed like a team-player.

He cleared his throat to speak, then his voice choked anyway as he began, “I am able to sing, though I feel for this show it is important to share that I can rap.”

“No fucking way!” Exclaimed Remus, who now looked like a kid in a candy shop. He couldn’t be angry at his surprise, it is shocking. He wears a necktie.

“What Remus said!” Chimes in Remy.

With a strange look in his eyes, Roman sputters out, “You can rap!?”

“Is it that surprising?” Of course, it was. He spent nearly the rest of the afternoon proving to the others that he could rap. At some point, Janus had sarcastically asked if he would consider auditioning for Hamilton, and this made Roman nearly explode. Figuratively.

By the time the afternoon was over and the others were going home, he had been worn out by the social interaction and overall exuberant energy. Sitting in the lobby now, waiting for his father, he saw Virgil and Patton coming out of the theatre together.

“Logan!” Patton exclaimed and ran over dragging Virgil by the sleeve, “How was your first day!”

“I think it was probably tiring, he spent the afternoon with the idiots.” Scoffs Virgil, and Logan nods in agreement.

“Yes, Virgil is right. I’m exhausted and we barely did a thing.” Logan mutters, undoing his tie slightly. Had he been this tired all day?

“Oh goodness, that sounds awful! Do you need a ride home?”

“No, I’m waiting for my father. He works in the building.”

“Okay! Make sure to get a good sleep tonight, tomorrow I’m sure Janus will put you through the wringer!” Patton smiles brightly at him and walks off.

Before following, Virgil gives him a look and then hands him a slip of paper, “That’s my number. Text me when you need a break tomorrow.”

Logan is stunned silent and all he can do is nod while Virgil catches up to Patton.

He’s too tired to think, so he simply rests his head against the back of the seat until his father arrives. His father probably realized how tired he was, so he didn’t talk to him much. They got in the car, got food, and went home. Their apartment smelled amazing when they got home. His mother had been baking again. When he all but collapsed onto the couch, his mother handed him two cookies with jelly on them and he smiled. As he sat and ate, his mother and father sat next to him watching TV. He was about to get up and drag himself through his nighttime routine when his mother began to run a hand through his hair and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

When he woke up the next morning in his bed, he knew he had fallen asleep on the couch. He hadn’t realized how exhausted and stress-ridden he had been yesterday, but a full night's rest had helped significantly. Now that he was much less tired, he took out the paper with Virgil’s number and put it into his phone. Showering, dressing, making coffee and toast, his routine was simple but it made him feel a lot better. Then he remembered the chart, and he finally felt like himself again. With his focus renewed, he had an hour now before he had to leave with his father. He managed to make himself lunch and pack a small bag in fifteen minutes, before getting out his pens and a fresh notebook from his desk.

On the front of the notebook, he quickly wrote “Hamilton Performance Experiment”, and then got to work. The first six pages were reserved for a later time when he could further write in them. He assumed his time would be spent most with Patton, Roman, Remus, Janus, and Virgil. So, each got their own page, then an extra page for others he would meet. If they became important, he could give them their own page and write the page number next to their name. On page eight he began his chart. It had everything a good chart should. Clean black lines, an x and y-axis, a title. Perfectly organized. He decided to organize by week, so on the x-axis, he wrote down each day of the week. The y-axis was numbered one through ten on a scale of how easy each person was to be around. Using different colours of pen, he made a small key and put a small coloured dot to assign each person to a certain number ranking.

Roman was firmly placed on zero, he had nearly made Logan want to throw himself out of a window. Literally. His ego was so enormous that it overshadowed every other thought Logan may have had about him. Patton was a seven. Though Logan did not particularly relate to his bubbly personality, he was very helpful. He did not seem the type to slack off either, though he would need further research to confirm that. Virgil was a ten, without any doubt. Calm, quiet, and helpful to him. If he could work with people exclusively like Virgil he may never have an issue again in his life. Janus was a five, as he had been helpful but he seemed much less altruistic in his help. Logan admired his ambition, it seemed like he had the show's best interests in mind. Then there’s Remus...He had Logan stumped. He was certainly wild, but he wasn’t horrid to be around. Logan puts him as a five, for now, because he feels like he needs much more time to figure out Remus.

When he got into the car today he felt much more prepared. He had food, an ally in Virgil, and his notebook. Maybe today would be better.

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rayraywrites · 4 years

Text

Title: Maybe things happen.

Chapter 3: Cooking Games (Day 2- Swap)

Characters: Miyuki Kazuya, Kuramochi Youichi, Sawamura Eijun (minor)

Relationship: Miyuki Kazuya x Kuramochi Youichi

Rating: General Audiences

Total Word Count: 2654

AO3

Event: @daiyarpwk2020

Clicking on another video he focussed in on the same face that he’d been gazing at for hours. He laughed softly at the same lame intro he’d been hearing in each video. The same dorky glasses and apron. He gulped silently at each intense look shot at the camera when concentration was required. His smile grew as each successful cook was greeted with a brilliant grin.

“Welcome back to home plate kitchen.” The man shot a smirk at the camera before continuing, “I’m your favourite catcher, Miyuki, here to share another recipe.”

Youichi barely focussed on the actual meal, simply watching the ease at which the man moved around his kitchen and the mastery of his art. He wasn’t a mess in the kitchen, but watching this chef easily switch between different styles and types of recipes each video and make successful food each time, it rankled a bit. Yet he was fascinated.

But what drew him even more was the moments of silliness that would pepper throughout the videos. When Miyuki would sometimes attempt to lift a hot pan off the stove without mitts and then whip his hand back. The incredulous look on the man’s face coupled with rapidly shoving his burning hand under cold water pulled raucous laughter out of his mouth. He especially enjoyed when Miyuki’s housemate, Sawamura, would appear in the frame to pull silly faces that wouldn’t be seen until editing. The captions insulting Sawamura were particularly amusing for him.

He had spent a couple days watching Miyuki’s videos, realistically he was binging them. It had been a lark, having seen a comment under one of his own videos about a week ago.

gamer_goose35: you know what would be great? thechefcatcher and Mochi making a video together! They have the same type of humour! Plus think of the video options!

Youichi had been curious, having not heard about “thechefcatcher” before, so he looked the other youtuber up. That led to days of listening to the same sarcastic laughter, the snarky side comments at every recipe, and gazing at the talented movements that attracted him first.

When he finally glanced at the clock on his laptop he saw that it was approaching three am. With a slightly hysterical laugh, Youichi closed the lid and placed it aside. He’d deal with his new strange obsession another time. Right now he needed to sleep. Tomorrow, well later that same day, he had plans to shoot two new videos. He needed the sleep. Getting under the covers, he tried to convince himself to fall asleep. But each time he closed his eyes, all he saw were Miyuki’s eyes blinking back at him. He spent much of the night tossing and turning, restlessly attempting to fall asleep.

Clicking on the email icon, Kazuya began deleting all the trash that filled his inbox. Switching between his calendar and an email from another cooking channel who reached out to him for a collab, he sent off a couple days that would fit his schedule. Switching to his social media, Kazuya sent out the usual morning tweet that his followers were expecting. Nabe had recommended that he start interacting more with his fans, and disagreeing with his manager was something Kazuya had quickly learnt wasn’t a smart decision.

@thechef_catcher: good morning. But also what constitutes a “good” morning. We’re all waking up much too early and having to go to work and slog our way through the day. So really...just morning. (6:37 AM)

There, that would keep Nabe off his back, for at least a couple days. Sliding off his bed, Kazuya winced slightly as his foot hit the ground a bit too hard. Waiting for the jarring feeling in his ankle to subside before trying to stand again, he glared down at the floor. Finally feeling up to standing up again, Kazuya moved towards his closet, changing into his usual jogging outfit. With it being the off season, he could usually find Sawamura hovering around the kitchen. Sure enough the pitcher was still there, ready for their morning run.

As normal, Kazuya put in earbuds, drowning out Sawamura’s inane chatter so early in the morning and stepped outside of their apartment. He had thrown in a small heating pad into his bag before leaving the house, in case his ankle started acting up again. Running their usual route, Kazuya let himself sink into the music and the monotonous sound of his feet pounding on the pavement. By the time they rounded back to the apartment Kazuya could feel the sweat running down his neck. With a shaky grin he nodded his head back at the street, telling Sawamura to keep going. Heading back inside, Kazuya went straight for a shower, changed into his outfit for the day, grabbed his computer and headed towards the kitchen.

Today’s video was going to be about Sanuki Udon. He had spent a couple weeks working with the local udon shop alongside the chefs to perfect his technique. He had already filmed his first failed attempts a while back, following recipes online. Setting the cameras up, he prepped the kitchen before picking up his phone. Texting Sawamura that he would be busy for the next hour or so, Kazuya got started. Slipping his branded apron over his head, he switched the camera on and began speaking.

“Ohayo everyone! Welcome back to home plate kitchen. Your friendly neighbourhood catcher is here!” He said the words with an awkward smile, hating that Sawamura had convinced him to start his videos with such a cheesy introduction. Even if it worked as his fans took to the puns and silly intro, he hated it, but he carried on.

Seven years ago Kazuya would never have considered that his days would be littered with recording himself cooking, editing videos, and becoming as unathletic and baseball oriented as he had. But another bad collision at home plate, and a shattered ankle had ended his career. Six months after he managed to walk on his ankle safely, he was still just sitting around his home and moping. It had been Sawamura’s suggestion to start the channel, something to do for fun while he figured out what to do with his career now. Kazuya had been uninterested at first, putting in very little effort and just cooking whatever came to mind. But the fact that people seemed to enjoy it and Sawamura kept crowing about how the channel kept growing made him start to give it a bit more attention. But even moreso, he started to enjoy it a bit more. There was something oddly enjoyable about just talking to a camera for a couple of hours and cooking food. And with Sawamura living with him, he wasn’t just cooking for himself.

It was kind of nice.

“Alright, with a completed dish, I think we’ve completed all nine innings, and it’s time for this video to wrap-up!” He placed the completed Sanuki udon onto the front of his counter. With the recording complete it was time for editing. Luckily with experience and time he’d managed to get better at editing. Moving back to his room with the camera SD cards he settled down at his desk. The video wouldn’t be released for another week or so, but Kazuya wanted to complete editing so that he’d have the rest of the day free. As he was fiddling with the font for the side text explaining each step he completed, he heard the extra chair in the room being dragged to sit beside him. Turning his head slightly he smirked at Sawamura who settled into the chair with a loud thump! Reaching over and ruffling the pitcher’s hair, he turned back to his computer.

“How was your run, Sawamura?”

“You missed out on the cutest dog Miyuki-senpai! It was adorable, with its tail wagging everywhere!”

He couldn’t help but laugh at how Sawamura sounded like he’d seen the cutest thing on the planet. “Ah, so you met your family member, how lovely!” The affronted look on Sawamura’s face was worth all the hits his shoulder received.

“Stupid Miyuki, you’re just sad you missed out on the dog.” Sawamura’s countenance suddenly brightened as another brilliant idea came, “this Sawamura will make sure to take a photo for next time!”

Smiling to himself, Kazuya couldn’t help the sigh that escaped his lips. Sawamura never ceased to amuse him, but even moreso, he was a bright light in his life. He was still the most eye-catching sunflower Kazuya had ever seen. And fully bloomed. “Sure...whatever you say Bakamura.”

“Idiot Miyuki....” Sawamura had switched to looking at his phone, muttering threats under his breath as he often did around Kazuya.

Out of the corner of his eye Kazuya watched as Sawamura continued scrolling on his phone, becoming comfortable in the chair. Giving his full focus back to his video, Kazuya ignored his desk partner for about thirty minutes until a loud shout made him almost jump. Turning and glaring at Sawamura, Kazuya waited impatiently for an explanation.

“Miyuki! Mochi uploaded another video! It’s a cooking video!” Sawamura’s voice was loud as ever, but laced with astonishment.

He felt the joy course through his body, excitement filling his veins at the news. Both of them had gotten hooked onto @gamermaimer’s videos a few years back. Sawamura enjoyed the commentary while Mochi played the game, but Kazuya had become enthralled with the gamer’s voice. There was something soothing about it, but he also felt something from the grainy sounds. And then, last year they’d received a face reveal, Kazuya had been floored. He hadn’t expected to find spiked green hair, eyeliner, and a lip piercing as attractive as he had.

“Give me ten minutes, I should be ready to watch.” He tried to nonchalantly speak, but he knew Sawamura was aware of his crush. The number of times Sawamura had recommended that he contact Mochi to collab was high, but every time he looked at the differences in their video styles, Kazuya hesitated. But cooking? Maybe there was a chance here. They sat down to watch the video.

“Hey maimers! Obviously this isn’t my usual set up, but I’ve been inspired. One of you folks recommended a channel for me to watch and maybe collab with.”

They both laughed when Mochi fumbled with his phone to read off the channel, but then froze when he said the name.

“Oh what was it...here we go! thechefcatcher! I’ve spent the past few days watching....”

Kazuya felt his breath catch in his throat, disbelief pouring out of him. But when he turned towards Sawamura, the same surprise was on the pitcher’s face.

What.

Youichi was nervous releasing the video. He had struggled through the cook, even if he had picked a fairly straightforward dish to make. Baking was not his forte though and the roof would probably always have that strange orange-coloured splotch on it from his first attempt. But embarrassing himself for a video was not a big deal, he’d done it before. It was the fact that he’d called out his new obsession, he’d mentioned the youtuber who’d been living in his dreams. The tweet he’d posted had Miyuki tagged and for a normally brash person, Youichi was feeling uneasy about that decision.

The notification that @thechef_catcher liked and retweeted his tweet gave him heart palpitations. Deciding to take the plunge, he DM-ed Miyuki.

@gamermaimer: hi

@thechef_catcher: hey

@gamermaimer: so...uh you watched my video...

@thechef_catcher: why else would I have rt your tweet?

He stared blankly at his phone. What was that? He laughed in spite of himself, hysterically.

@gamermaimer: yeah well. What did you think?

He meant about the offer of a collab at the end of the video. He meant the proposal of trying something new for both of them. What Miyuki responded with though?

@thechef_catcher: well you absolutely failed at every step so I’m amazed you managed to get any cake onto that table.

@thechef_catcher: Geez Mochi, it’s almost like you bought a replacement cake to pretend you succeeded.

Somehow he wasn’t surprised to see that Miyuki’s personality was as twisted as it was. But it took two to tango.

@gamermaimer: well, if I sucked so bad, maybe you ought to come fix me?

He waited and the reply took more time to arrive compared to the last but it still came. He anxiously tapped the message notification.

@thechef_catcher: perhaps I will.

He let out a sigh and his shoulders relaxed. Their conversation continued, figuring out dates and times that would work for both their schedules. They agreed that the first video would be with him in Miyuki’s kitchen. He asked if Sawamura would be there, and received a teasing response. So when Miyuki asked what video they would do for his channel, Youichi proffered the only realistic response.

@gamermaimer: well of course we have to play a video game.

It was only later, when he went to go follow Miyuki on twitter as well, that Youichi realized something. He shouted angrily, throwing his phone down onto the ground. Petulantly he whined to himself, “the idiot’s already following me.”

––

The day of filming was awkward. He arrived early, not by much, but early enough that it was obvious. He had already sent out the customary tweet announcing his “secret” plans for a video.

@gamermaimer: well sometimes you get lucky with your videos. Other times you meet a moron and make a stupid decision (10:34 AM)

Sawamura was there, hovering in the dining room. Fiddling with a camera setting even with Miyuki telling him to stop touching the camera every five seconds. Youichi blinked confusedly at both of them. They were fidgety and uncomfortable. Because of him?

“Hey! Hey idiots!” They both turned to him; Miyuki put down the pots he was randomly holding, Sawamura looked up from the camera. “What the hell is going on? Some explanation for your bizarre behaviour would be wonderful, please.” The last few words came out sarcastic, and he knew the look on his face matched his tone. For some reason being around both of them was easy. In the way most collabs never were; he felt at home with them. So he skipped past politeness and jumped straight into insults. “I realize that you’re both morons, but if we could at least get the video started?”

Miyuki seemingly calmed down at that, chuckling hesitantly even as he gazed at Sawamura with a lost look. But it was Sawamura seemingly snapping out of whatever funk he was in that finally set things normal. “Mochi!”

Youichi turned to face Sawamura expectantly, but the excitement seemed to have rapidly fizzled out before Sawamura exhaled deeply, you could see the air! He laughed to himself.

“Can I get a photo with you? I’ve...We’ve been watching you play for three years now!”

He hadn’t expected that. Glancing at Miyuki, Youichi was stunned to see the usually calm face turning bright red before the chef looked down at the counter. Throwing his head back, Youichi let himself laugh freely, ignoring the squawks from Sawamura. Wiping tears from the corner of his eyes, he laughed softly one more time before replying. “Sure. Sure. But only if I get an autograph from you,” he nodded at Sawamura and then softly, “and your phone number.” He stared at Miyuki, waiting for acknowledgement. Miyuki nodded stiffly, but his eyes had only shifted from the counter to glare at Sawamura.

“I don’t exactly have three years as a credential...but is 48 hours of no sleep from binging your channel good enough?” He laughed at the stunned look on Miyuki’s face. “So, what do you say....my friendly neighbourhood catcher?”

But rather than the huffy noise he expected, Miyuki still managed to surprise him. A smirk and, “well...I think you mean a maimer don’t you, Youichi?”

He grinned.

#daiya no ace #kuramiyu #kuramochi youichi #miyuki kazuya #daiyarpwk2020 #ace of diamond #diamond no ace #oneshot #ray ray writes #day 3

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cosmiciaria · 5 years

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Radiata Stories review! (spoiler free - long post!)

I am SPEECHLESS. I can't believe I spent so many years without knowing about this game. My friend thoroughly recommended it to me but with my ps4 and many other pc games, I just wasn't in the mood for a ps2 oldie. But here I am, and I want to spread the word: play Radiata Stories.

In the world of Radiata, the land is divided into regions that belong to different races: elves, dwarves, orcs, humans (and ronsos – no, sorry, wrong game – but you can't fool me there's a lion guy who looks like Kimahri from FFX). These species have been at odds since time immemorial, and thus the dragons – Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Silver and Gold – have guarded their beings from above.

We follow Jack Russell, a 16-year-old who dreams of becoming a knight. We accompany him to the entrance exams, only to see him fail miserably against a girl, Ridley Silverlake. Despite his clumsiness and obvious embarrassment for having been defeated, he's allowed to join the Radiata Knights, alongside Ridley, only because he's the son of an important late knight. They form a new brigade called Rose Cochon, under Captain Ganz Rothschild's leadership.

This trio will be sent into action in no time. Their dynamics are fun and there's a bit of rivalry between the two new knights, but they get things done. Ganz is proud to finally be able to be captain of his own brigade, and regards his two pupils with care and wisdom. This seems to be the flow the story is going to follow.

An important quest arrives: Rose Cochon brigade must reach the Elf Region and ask the Light Elves leader for a favor. However, things get tough in their journey there: a blood orc attacks the Dark Elves village, and the brigade plunges in to fight and defend.

In the battle, Ridley gets mortally wounded. Jack gets all frantic and desperate, and the brigade asks for the Elves' help. Lord Nogueira, the Dark Elf leader, decides to do the unthinkable for non-humans: the only way to save Ridley is to perform the transpiritation ritual, a spell only available for elves that allows them to take the soul of a dying fellow and use it to heal another one who might still live.

The ritual is successful, and Ridley's soul is fused with that of a small elf who'd died in the battle. Everything seems to settle down for a bit, with Jack and Ganz returning to Radiata City filled with good hopes for Ridley.

The next day, you're fired from the Knights.

This is where the game opens up for you!

From now on, it's just you, Jack, in the middle of a big city, paving his way to the top of the Vancoor Theater guild, the guild of warriors. Since the only thing you can do is fight, better to put it to good use and earn some money in the process!

The game offers a variety of things to do. You can start recruiting people as party members. You know, like, in Dragon Age, you can recruit characters into your team? Or, in any other rpg, that you have a team of five or six characters, maybe some more? Yes? Ok, here in RS you can recruit (listen to me) over 170 characters. Yep, you read right. Mind you, you can't recruit them (catch 'em all) in your first playthrough, but just so you know, yes, this game is that big.

Some people will ask you for a favor before they're added to the 'friend list', but others will join your right off the bat. Once you have a respectable team of four party members that you choose, you can begin doing solo missions, which are the guild's assignments to you and will redound in money and goodies. You get to know the other guild's members, you get to fight alongside them, you get to know and care for the civilians in the city. With a night-day system, if this game is anything, is alive.

NPC's have their own schedule: following the clock in the top left corner, they do and say different stuff depending of the moment of the day you approach them. They're walking around the city, performing random things, making them seem alive. Some events are only available at night, some others only during day. Some people will be nice, others not so much. Some parts of the city will shine, others will look depressing and dirty. Birds chirp, trees are swept by the wind's fine breeze, mosquitoes swarm around – this game breathes life into its pixels in every corner.

Now that we're on the aesthetic aspect, I must admit, this game looks gorgeous. With a very prominent anime artstyle, still it aged pretty well for today's standards: sometimes the lighting was too real, the sunlight pouring from the mountain's side, the character's long shadow stretching onto the road. The animations are good as well, as are the physics: I am beyond amazed by how well clothes and hairs move as flawlessly as if they were real. Each of the recruitable characters have a different victory pose and they have different lines for everything. Some particle effects are really nice, since I didn't think there existed the technology for it back then. The main city is huge, and when I say huge, I mean, every door you see, you can enter, and inside you'll find at least a two-floor building with objects to interact with and people to talk to. And don't even get me started on how BIG the Vareth Institute is in itself – and all that stuff is optional! The world is also vast and filled with brimming elements, although don't be fooled by the illusion of 3D: this game is, mostly, a 2D experience when you want to go from point A to point B.

You'll spend a good chunk of your game doing tasks for the guild. In the meantime, Ganz is somewhere playing the bandit and Ridley is hearing voices in her head. In this 'middle' part of the game, the story seemed to drag on forever for a bit: I wanted to go on with the main plot, and, while you can actually do that (just hit the sleep option over and over until a cutscene appears), the game tends to make you go through long and tedious solo missions to get that Grind™ you need. Dungeons are not long or too big in reality, but the number of encounters (which are forced on you since you can't avoid enemies by circling around most of the times for the 2D aspect) turns what should've been a walk in the park into a dragging hell. This portion of the game, I'm not going to lie, seemed a bit too long for me. And since the gameplay mostly consists in pressing the circle button and hearing Jack yell "Ha! Haiiyaah! Ha! Haiiyaah!" for ten hours straight, yeah, it can get boring.

But I guess the game was trying to make you feel at ease, comfortable around these walls. You're training your fave party members, you go with them everywhere to play the warrior and earn some money, you get occasional messages from Ridley telling you everything's fine – until the plot makes a halt and suddenly you must choose.

I'll keep this spoiler free, but this game is almost fifteen years old, so these are no news: there will come a point where the plot branches into two possible paths, the Human side, and the Non-Human side. I can't tell you which one is right, for there seems to be pros and cons in both, so I'll let your heart decide. For what we care now, I chose the Non-Human side, completely convinced with my decision, only to see myself doubt in many instances.

At this point, your plot shakes. Your comfort zone breaks. Suddenly, things are changing: your team is not there anymore, Ridley acts weird, where the hell is Ganz, what's going on with the dragons? Who am I supposed to trust in this world full of people who just want to exterminate each other?

I won't spoil it. I'll just say, that whatever you choose, please stand firm by your decision. You'll need that conviction, because the game is going to make your ground tremble a few times. And with those endings that await you – man, I don't know if I want to finish either path.

So, to avoid spoilers, I'll talk about the characters a bit!

Jack is your main protagonist, as you could've guessed. He's your average shonen main guy, at least in the beginning hours. He's clumsy, he wants to be a hero, and he even mocks shonen protagonists by saying that he'll awaken to a dormant power and save the world with his friends. But life hits him hard, accuses him of things he hasn't done, and so Jack evolves across the story. His character development is subtle, but it's there: he starts off as a brat who wants to fight, ends on a mature note, with some quite insightful thoughts and reactions I haven't expected from him. Normally, the shonen guy remains a shonen guy; this doesn't happen here. Jack ends up being an adorkable character, worthy of respect, sympathy, and a force to be reckoned with.

Ridley remains a calm force during the game. She's collected, she's well-educated, and she knows her way around. At the beginning, she can't stand Jack much, but as days go by, she starts to consider him as an equal and true friend. In the Non-Human path, her romantic feelings towards him are crystal clear: there's a small spark between them, that flickers every now and then when the plot allows them a moment's respite. Only them and a handful of other characters know the truth behind the transpiritation event, and as such there's a profoundly deep connection that keeps them together, although they're separated most of the story.

Ganz is ma fave boi and he must be protected at all costs. A young and promising man, Ganz was created to be likeable. You can't help but sympathize with his funny appearance: chubby, huge armor, huge sword, and funny moustache. But he's also a man of wisdom, with a golden heart. He's righteous and wants to do good. And he deserves all the love in the world.

Other notable characters are Genius, a scientist who's obsessed with the transpiritation thing that went down, and may know more about the plot than it seems at first glance; Natalie, a guarding woman who works as Ridley's not-so-secret bodyguard; Larks¸ the leader of the Knights and whose motivations remain a mystery to me even to this day – I can't read into this character at all!; Lord Zane, the leader of the Light Elves, who laughs maniacally when no one is watching and I can't bring myself to like him; Gawain, Ganz's father, who disappeared 16 years ago since his best friend died; and Cross, Ridley's fiancé, who just wants to be the best hunter and paves his way to the top of the knight ranks by any means necessary. I hate this guy so much, his only trait is 'I am a bad person' and that's it, he's so cartoonishly evil it makes me want to punch the screen. Probably you see more of him in the Human path, but unless he has a very tragic backstory to redeem him, he's not likeable at all. I mean, you can say that he has ambition and he gets s*it done, but still, damn him, and his voice actor, UGH.

Despite some minor thingies, the relationship between the characters is gold. Jack and Ridley are cute and make me wanna draw the meme of NOW KISS every two seconds. Jack and Ganz are companion goals. Ganz and his father – I loved that they kept their interactions personal and off screen. Idk why, but this story is about Jack, and yes, I care for Ganz as well, but his trouble with his father was his own, not Jack's, so I guess this is a director's decision which I'm 100% behind.

The plot can get predictable at times, but there's also a healthy amount of plot twists that made my jaw drop in a few occasions. I mean, I guessed who the bad guy was since the beginning, but let's face it, it's pretty obvious and the game doesn't hide it. There are other things that made the plot unfold worth my time, like trying to recruit that awesome character, or like what is the deal with Jack's late father, or what the hell is going on with Ganz, and what will happen to the city now that I'm on the Non-Human side? And the game answers them all (I read that the manga answers even more questions, so treat yourself).

All in all, RS is a vast jrpg experience, with high replay value and tons of things to explore. The world seems small, but it isn't. There's always a reward for those who wander off. For a ps2 title, this game is giant. And in the good sense. I thought I had seen the pinnacle of the ps2 era with Final Fantasy XII, but I'm highly considering changing my view on that one.

The endings are bittersweet in both paths. There's not a complete happy ending, I warn you. Things get darker towards the end, and the story knows how to subvert expectations in the good way. Remember Jack saying he wanted to be the hero like in a shonen anime? Well, not happening in this game guys. At the end of the day, this isn't a shonen story: this is a Radiata Story (roll credits), and like in every country's history, sometimes blood must be shed for events to take place and situations to unfold.

I am beyond pleased with this game. I'm considering playing through the Human side now – but first I need to recover myself from this Non-Human ending. I'm not ready to face more tragedy yet.

Go play it. Just do it. You won't regret it.

And pray that Tri-Ace develops ONE DAY a decent sequel.

#radiata stories #tri ace #jack russell #ganz rothschild #ridley silverlake #square enix #videogame #videogame review #review #ps2 #valkyrie profile

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pilferingapples · 5 years

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Tell me more about Marius and Montparnasse being mirror images of each other :3c

Since you ask, Nonny! But this will be a Long Post:

they really do get the same physical description:

Marius was, at this epoch, a handsome young man, of medium stature, with thick and intensely black hair, a lofty and intelligent brow, well-opened and passionate nostrils...As his mouth was charming, his lips the reddest, and his teeth the whitest in the world, his smile corrected the severity of his face, as a whole. At certain moments, that pure brow and that voluptuous smile presented a singular contrast. ( 3.6.1, Hapgood translation)

A lugubrious being was Montparnasse. Montparnasse was a child; less than twenty years of age, with a handsome face, lips like cherries, charming black hair, the brilliant light of springtime in his eyes; he had all vices and aspired to all crimes. 3.7.3

--both got that Snow White thing going on:P Hugo doesn’t bring in physical descriptions a lot in Les Mis; when he does, it’s for reasons beyond just painting a visual--generally to evoke a Type and/or some hefty Symbolism (always Some Symbolism, tbh, it’s Hugo).

More importantly, though, Hugo sets up Marius and Montparnasse as being different sides of the same virtue/vice. Marius gets chapters talking about Heroic he is and how his poverty actually improves his nature because Marius overcomes it by working . Montparnasse, by contrast, is led into a life of violent crime because he wants to be idle.

There is like... a World of Concepts to delve into there, but in contrast with Montparnasse , it’s clear what specific fate Marius is being saved from by his time of poverty. He is, by choosing to refuse either debt or the safety of his family wealth, essentially refusing to become the kind of wealthy asshole that Bamatabois and Tholomyes are. It’s a life that would be very easy for Marius to have-- a life that Gillenormand is even sort of pushing him towards, though Gillenormand would doubtless find Tholomyes sorts to be impossibly dull and classless. It’s a life Montparnasse is willing to kill for , literally. And it’s a nice damn life! --If you don’t mind being the absolute worst sort of person, a person who cares for nothing but image, and who lives at a self-imposed distance from everyone else; someone who helps no one and wouldn’t know where to start if they wanted to, but hurts a lot of people and never cares, because caring is ever so uncouth.

Hugo really does see idleness as massively dangerous, at best--a soul-destroying thing. It’s portrayed as an injustice that Valjean can’t get work , not just that he just can’t have food because Humans Need Food. Part of the wrong Tholomyes commits against Fantine is taking her away from the habit of work ; it’s an important part of her Hope Spot in M-sur-M that she gets to enjoy Honest Work again, and earning her living by labor. To force Idleness on to another, or lead them into a Lack Of Work, is treated in Les Mis as a moral wrong. For working people to not have work available is a condemnation of the system! Again, it’s not about money (though Hugo definitely thinks work should pay enough to live on), the work itself is treated as something essential. For someone to choose idleness for themselves by that logic is...what, practically moral self-harming?,and a kind of deep depravity.

(Hugo does not like this ideal of the dandy. He does like flâneurs, though! That’s definitely something I want to get into more later, given how often the two are conflated....)

Anyway, Montparnasse is damned by the exact vice that Marius saves himself by avoiding--a vice that is, in Hugo’s moral universe, a very big deal (as I try and fail to reckon with here). This makes Montparnasse the crucial Example A for Hugo’s insistence on the valorization of Marius’ decision to work through his poverty! Work redeems Marius from the dangers of Idleness--and for Hugo, those are real and desperate dangers, that really do lead to crime.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Even before the Gorbeau raid, Marius is always vulnerable to the damnation of Idleness. He’s prone to slip from thinking into daydreaming; he veers away from work when he thinks it might cut into his independence and Reverie Time. The narrative is not entirely negative about this with Marius, but it is treated as a potential weakness-- something fine while, and only while, it’s kept in check by his habits of work and thought.

Because, post-Gorbeau mansion, Marius really does start to fall to the Demon of Idleness! He stops working altogether; he goes into debt, Gasp!; he loses the habit of work , he loses focus, he spirals into depressions and goes into pointless, directionless obsession with Cosette and starts spending all his time in The Field of The Lark, a field famous, though Marius doesn’t know it, for being the site of a murder . Murder most Romantic, yet, committed over a passion. Marius is, at this point, symbolically mixing the role of lover and killer; as Montparnasse also does, rather less symbolically.

And hey, why is Marius spiraling into The Hell of Idleness?

Because of A Girl. Or rather, because of the Ideal Future he’s projecting off his interactions with that girl. What was the Start of Darkness for Montparnasse, again?

The first grisette who had said to him: “You are handsome!” had cast the stain of darkness into his heart, and had made a Cain of this Abel. (3.7.3, Hapgood)

Now obviously the grisette who complimented Montparnasse isn’t responsible for his murders, any more than Cosette is responsible for Marius pining his life away in The Field of Dramatic Murder Symbolism. I don’t think Hugo means to genuinely blame the women for the men’s behavior at all-- but both Marius and Montparnasse do start their downward slide in pursuit of the elaborate head-canons about their own futures that a woman’s attention inadvertently sparked.

BUT WAIT !! THERE’S MORE!

Marius and Montparnasse are both romantic interests for Eponine (and both are dead ends, with Marius representing a healthy future that she can’t have and Montparnasse representing the doomed future she doesn’t want). Both of them try (ineffectually) to act as guides and friends to Gavroche. Both of them do feel a certain duty to Thenardier, not so much for his own sake--neither of them owe him squat-- as because of an existing sense of duty to others. Both of them do have a sense of loyalty to their friends, -- just as they share a potentially damning vice in Idleness, they both share a real virtue in their sense of loyalty and duty to comrades. Note that this is a real sense of duty and loyalty for Montparnasse as well as for Marius--he really does take a risk to free the rest of the Patron Minette! But Montparnasse has given that loyalty to horrible people for a horrible cause.

Also-- while they do both have a real sense of loyalty to their groups (groups where they are the junior members), they are also both prone to getting distracted from those friends and their goals by romantic interests-- Marius may be far more serious in his love for Cosette than Montparnasse in his flirting with Eponine, but they do both have this tendency to romantic distraction! That Marius, at the barricade, overcomes his to take his post again , while Montparnasse toooootally flubs his role in P-M’s Gorbeau scheme because it’s Flirting Time, is another manifestation of the Curse of Idleness, really.

So yeah: Two dark-haired fresh-faced young Romantic beauty types, sharing in common a (potentially) Fatal Flaw and a (potentially) saving Core Virtue, sharing similar relationships to their relative social groups and to specific characters. Both Very Good At Violence; both set into a new course of life by the sudden awareness of their potential future, prompted by a woman’s attention. --And I didn’t even get into the importance they both put on presentation (though in very different ways, again reflecting their crucial divergence)!

Montparnasse is who Marius might easily have become if he’d been willing to Coast on his money and status-- oh, Marius would have been a murderer in the way Tholomyes and Bamatabois are murderers, then, not likely the hands-on style Montparnasse has (though then again, Marius is prone to passionate overreaction...) . But, as the narrative links between Montparnasse and those two emphasize, it’s really not such a great difference. Montparnasse is the shadow haunting Marius, a reminder of why his dedication to work and independence is so crucial. And the ways Montparnasse and Marius diverge from each other are a constant, complicated combo of choices and circumstances changing very similar people into two utterly different lives.

#Montparnasse talk #Marius talk #long post #like...1500 words #RIP me #and also your dashes #Antithesis in Les Mis #Hey Nonny Nonny #answereds

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torestoreamends · 6 years

Text

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child NYC Recap 28/09/18 (Part Two)

Once upon a time the original cast gave me my favourite ever Part Two, in a show performed on a Friday night almost two years ago, and last Friday’s performance reminded me of why their Part Two shines so much. There was so much about it that lived up to the bright but distant memories I had of what they used to achieve when they were on form, as well as some gorgeous new details that made the show sing. So here, without further ado, are my as many highlights as I can remember from last Friday’s show:

-It’s quite clear how much Anthony respects Alex and enjoys acting with him. The second they were in a scene together he came alive (hilariously Anthony thought that office scene was his worst scene of the show — it was not). That office scene was precisely what I needed for closure with these two, and it was a lovely thing. I forgot that Alex doesn’t face Anthony when Draco and Scorpius are close up and talking about Astoria, instead he faces off the front of the stage, with Scorpius to his left all small and hunched with his shoulders up and his arms folded like he wants to disappear. And as they talk they’re shining with that silver light, and they’re uncomfortable with each other but there’s so much desperate love there, with Scorpius hanging onto his dad’s words the way he does with no one else.

-I noted the Rakie influence when Noma did the ‘I’m minister for magic’ line. It’s not quite as vindictive, but it is an authoritative statement of power to Snape and it’s beautiful.

-Floorpius. Everywhere. I finally remember how Anthony inspired that mess, because he IS Floorpius. Most of the Voldy timeline was spent with him lying on the floor, and in Snape’s office he actually crawled across to the door before he got up to go through it. He also sat on the floor by the lake during the Patronus scene, and once he was out of the lake and back in the real world, he stayed on the floor. He was down there saying hi to everyone, and sort of kneeled up to say hi to his dad, who threw the robes right in his face, knocking him back to the ground. Then when he realised the Time-Turner was missing he lay down on his front by the lake and scrabbled at the water with his hands. There was more later on, but that sequence was the best Floorpius I’ve ever seen in my life. The people around must have been so confused about why I was laughing so much throughout the entire thing...

-Time to continue gushing about Jamie and James! I missed Jamie’s angry Harry so much. When he explodes, he really goes (having said that this might be one of the most restrained shows I’ve ever seen from him, which was cool), and there was a moment in this scene when he fired up so much that Albus actually flinched, shuffling back, head bowing, body hunching up small. I’m always astounded by how tiny the Albuses can make themselves, and James is one of the tiniest I’ve seen. More on those two later.

-The first fuck up of the day was when the jump scare didn’t work — the hand went before the sound. I’ve seen worse, but it was less than ideal.

-Jamie Parker reacting to Harry’s dreams. I love this man so much. When his Harry starts to spiral he crashes to rock bottom so fast, and this was the start of the spiral. He woke up screaming and convulsing and clutching his scar, absolutely panicked, unable to breathe. You know he’d rather be alone with his nightmare but it made me glad Ginny was there to take care of him, because he was lost to it. And then of course the second he realises what the dream means, Harry takes off running, because Jamie’s Harry is the quintessential action hero Harry. He’d rather be doing than standing around waiting. If he can feel like he’s doing something, influencing something, then he’s marginally more okay. (The way Jamie Parker runs — a hundred times faster than anyone else on stage, leaving them all in his dust — is one of my favourite things about his Harry.)

-This was a fun dorm scene. It was the start of the adorable little Scorbus moments, and by that I mean the physical signs of a ridiculous friendship. There was so much larking about between the two of them, and the scene ended with the sort of play fight that I’ve been desperately missing since the original cast left. The handsiness, I’m pleased to report, continued on throughout the rest of Part Two, especially in Godric’s Hollow.

-One of my (many) favourite James Romney moments came in the Owlery Scene. Albus handed Delphi the Time-Turner, and the second she took it he sagged in relief and buried his face in his hands. It was clear even from the dorm scene prior that he didn’t want responsibility for it, and that he was desperate to find someone who would help them — Delphi was his someone. He called her, she came, and he was so glad to have an adult in charge of the object that had ruined worlds. I’ve never seen an Albus so pleased to have the thing out of his hands, to be taken care of by someone. In fact it might be one of my favourite ever little Albus things, because it fits so perfectly with so much of what’s going on with him at that point in the show.

-Paul knelt for the reproposal and my heart melted. It was also so good to hear him say Scrupius again (and to see everyone’s reactions to Ron’s infuriating speech in that scene — he was having so much fun talking about getting drunk).

-The maze was the first time a bit of blocking on broadway made me jealous. Although the maze itself has been lifted and brought to London now, the blocking is very much not the same. My biggest complaint about the London blocking is the amount of time the boys spend offstage — Krum hovers at the front of the maze for a while unnecessarily, so the boys aren’t onstage for the line ‘what heroes do we have within our midst?’ Whereas in New York, Krum leaves the stage before that line, and the boys arrive back onstage during it. On the night we saw it, Scorpius stopped and hid with his back to the hedge, while Albus peered down the other pathway, they then whispered the next couple of lines. I’ve never seen an Albus and Scorpius really trying to hide like that before. I’ve seen them panicked and running and hoping they’ve got away, but never truly believing it to the extent that they’d try and hide.

-Because of the new blocking, Albus ended up on the other side of the stage during the second bit of torture, and the ensuing encounter with Cedric. It was strange to watch it in reverse, but I didn’t mind it at all. I actually think that Ben might be my favourite Cedric. The pacing of this encounter was beautiful. There were so many long pauses that were held perfectly still. Ben and James worked magic with this moment, and Ben had exactly the right poise and nobility to him. I also really loved how Albus reacted to having his bonds released. He gave this little hiss of pain and relief and rubbed his wrists.

-Another great result of the new blocking is that now, when Albus says ‘no, wait!’ as the walls pull back to reveal Delphi with the time-turner, it actually does make some sense. He sees what she’s doing and it seems as though he’s trying to work out what to do about it before they rush into something. I remember talking to Theo at one point about that line, and how Albus can’t see what’s happening, and I definitely prefer it when the walls peel away simultaneously and it’s very clear that Albus can see Delphi at the same time as Scorpius.

-The second fuck up of the day was the Time-Turner noise not working as the boys went back in time with Delphi. At first I thought this was deliberate, and I actually really liked it. It made it sound as though something was wrong, like they shouldn’t be doing what they were doing. You could hear the reverb of their voices (‘your dad loves you very much’ etc.) but not the ticking of the clock. However, when the voices faded and there were still no clock ticks and no smash of sound when they arrived in the past, it was clear that something had gone wrong. That arrival in the past is way less effective without the smash of sound: the boys just sort of hurled themselves away and kept going, but it didn’t have the same impact. However, there was some great acting thereafter, particularly when Albus ran at Delphi and tries to grab her foot to pull her down. I also loved the amount of Time-Turner glitter that rained down on the boys once Delphi started flying up.

-The blacklight section at the Lyric is really cool. In London not every surface is covered with writing, and the stuff written on the ceiling seems to be a projection rather than bona fide blacklight writing. However, in the Lyric they’ve covered everything and it’s all genuine. From the balcony I could see everything, all the boxes lit up, and the ceilings and the walls, throughout the entire theatre. The most exciting thing I spotted during the short time we had to take everything in was a huge snake drawn on the ceiling above my seat.

---

This cast come into their own in Act Four. I suspect that’s how it’s always been, but I never had anything to compare it to. It’s also worth noting that the best shows I’ve ever seen them do have been on Friday nights. So basically we picked the right show to go to.

-The one time Jamie P resists being action hero Harry is at the end of the second EGM. When he’s wheeled offstage then, he sits on the steps in despair, and you could fully believe that Harry would just stay there for a while, sitting alone on the steps and feeling utterly hopeless and helpless before going off to his office to start reading those papers.

-I actually didn’t mind the Broadway station master! He was incomprehensible at least, which is always fun.

-The Broadway pumpkin transition is a lovely thing. I haven’t seen such a joyful Sorting Hat since Ged left. He threw the snow up in the air above his head, so it sprinkled gently down onto the stage as he walked away. The other highlight was that James and Lily actually interact during the scene. After they play with the snow together they put their arms round each other, and they’re the last couple to walk offstage as the boys run on. It’s so sweet, and it’s the most interaction they’ve ever had in any version of the show. And as they leave, the doors fall into a new, jumbled formation, leaving Lily and James’s door (red, with a lion’s head knocker) right at the heart of the street.

-Some Albuses run after Lily and James when they leave the house, some fall after them like they’re tied by a string; this one walked trancelike in their wake until Scorpius caught him and pulled him back.

-For those unfamiliar with my current interests, Lily and James’s door in New York remains lit with this white spectral light, even when the scene moves away from Godric’s Hollow. This gives the effect in other scenes of the ghosts of Harry’s past haunting him. It basically destroyed me. If anyone’s interested in the full meta (which includes ramblings about the doorway as a link between Harry and Albus), it’s here.

-I basically paid $400 and flew to New York just to see Jamie’s office scene again, and it really did not disappoint. It’s not the sob fest of London (and actually the second part with Draco was the more powerful for me on the night) but oh it’s still wonderful. One of the papers fell on the floor and he angrily snatched it up. He slammed his hand into the desk on ‘years! Years I spent there’ just the way he used to. Although there was more terseness, a Harry closing himself off from Dumbledore, rather than the emotion of London, every single decision, no matter what it was, come right from the core of Harry. Perhaps the only person in the world who understands Harry better than Jamie Parker is JK herself. He just gets it on a profound spiritual level, and everything he does works for the character. This scene (this whole act, the entire show in fact) is one of the best acting performances I’ve ever seen. Jamie is just stellar and professional and a cut above. It was a true joy to see him again. Also shoutout to Edward, who was a great Dumbledore and supported the scene beautifully.

-I forgot how much I love Alex’s version of the second half of the office scene. He didn’t do the ‘mwahaha’ at the start, which was sad, but instead he did this limpid laugh, like he started off laughing evilly and then realised how pathetic he sounded given the situation so it turned into a mockery of itself. Draco mocking his own behaviour as an adult is great, it shows how much self awareness he’s gained. As the scene goes on, Alex and Jamie get to flex their considerable rapport, and Alex gets to show off his emotional side. I’d forgotten until halfway through the scene that when Alex is acting emotional he makes himself sound on the verge of tears (when he actually cries there’s no indication in his voice), and he absolutely got me with it. This was another scene full of long pauses and lots of space. Harry hesitates, wanting to say yes, that they should go, but when he thinks about it logically he knows it doesn’t make sense, and if he’s to protect his son he needs something that will really work, not just get more people hurt. This is one of the moments when Harry and Albus are just so similar — their realisation that rushing into things has got people hurt, and the guilt they feel for that.

-The Lyric Theatre stage is pretty huge, and the Godric’s Hollow doors are pushed nearly all the way to the back. I’m pretty sure this is part of the reason why, on Broadway, Albus doesn’t do his traditional thing of starting the central Godric’s Hollow scene sitting on the doorstep. Instead the boys start the scene sitting at the front and centre of the stage, right on top of where the lake normally is. It made for a more intimate scene, and I actually loved the realism of it. It felt like they were two boys who had been out in the cold for hours and were running out of energy and ideas, sitting together on the freezing ground and grasping at straws. This was also the scene where they most felt like friends, with a healthy dose of play fighting, high fives, and messing around. This, for me, was the scene where the Scorbus came into its own, and it was the best friendship I’ve seen Anthony play out with a cover.

-At stage door after the show, Poppy said that she and Jamie had been trying some new things that night, and undoubtedly the scene where they find the blanket was one of the scenes where that was in evidence. There’s a different rhythm to these scenes now, different and fresh, but they’re just as emotional as they ever were. In this one they knelt together for a long time without speaking, clutching each other, in tears. When Harry finally picked up the blanket and realised that it was damaged, Ginny was so heartbroken for him that she didn’t move away from him to look at the blanket for a long time. She held his hands and comforted him, before finally acknowledging the problem and looking at the blanket.

-One thing that’s relevant to this scene that I forgot to mention in my Part One recap is how this cast rewrites lines to suit them. They say some of these lines in ways that aren’t written in the script and in ways that no one else will ever say them, and that is in no way a criticism. One such line comes in the blanket scene — ‘and maybe I can come and find it, and you, on Hallow’s Eve’. Jamie rewrites that line to centre it around Albus, whereas the line as it’s written focuses on the blanket. I love that his Harry is making that effort to make this about Albus, he’s trying, and that minute bit of phrasing is an example of how true he is in his love for his son.

-Back to Part Two, and I just want to acknowledge the fact that Jamie still does my favourite thing ever, and it’s still breathtaking. When Albus throws the blanket up in the air for Ginny to catch and goes sprinting off, Harry’s head whips round, like he’s felt the ghost of his son running by, like he can feel Albus’s presence in the room with him, and he’s going to keep staring at the spot where he knows Albus disappeared because it’s everything he has to hang on to. It was stunning when I first saw it, it’s stunning now, and I missed that moment so much.

-I enjoyed the blocking changes when the adults arrive in Godric’s Hollow. Ron is placed with Hermione between him and Draco. When Hermione says her line about old times it’s clearly not directed at Ron, which makes complete sense because he was never in Godric’s Hollow. It also means she can act as intervention between Ron and Draco, and that’s exactly what Noma does. She stands between them, a powerful presence who won’t let them fight each other when there are bigger things at stake. It really does give her a greater sense of authority over the scene, and I love that.

-That. Malfoy. Hug. Somehow in the last year and a half I’d forgotten about the magic, the genius sleight of hand, that Alex does with the Time-Turner to somehow have his hands completely free and unimpeded when Anthony comes running at him, so he can just hug, unencumbered, and keep hugging and holding for the rest of the scene. It’s something that no one else has ever been able to accomplish and I still don’t understand how he does it, but he does. Anyway, Anthony comes flying at him hard enough to knock him over, and Alex grabs him and catches him in the air, and there are legs everywhere and it’s so emphatic and joyful and it’s so Draco and Scorpius. That hug is everything. It’s the world and it’s beautiful, and it gets such a reaction and rightly so. And once the hug is over they keep going, holding each other’s hands, Draco ruffling Scorpius’s hair, more hugs, foot nudges, everything, because now they’re together again and everything is okay they can’t bear to be physically apart from another second.

-It’s a different story with the Potters. Ginny accepts her son into her arms with such utter relief. She squeezes him so tight and in this performance he looked so tiny, even next to her, small and swamped in his mum’s arms. Then, Ginny reaches desperately out to Harry, who hasn’t yet joined them, and she keeps reaching out. He looks at her, then he draws his cloak around himself, adjusts his cuffs, and turns away. He’s not ready yet. They’re not safe, Voldemort is still there, he still has so much to feel guilty for. He can’t. And that is the story of how the Potters broke my heart at the exact same time as the Malfoys were trying to heal it.

-This show was all about pacing. Careful, slow, deliberate. The cast had all the time in the world to play with. The scene between Ginny and Harry while Albus was sleeping on the bench had every ounce of that slow deliberacy. It was such an intimate conversation, different again to how it’s felt to me before — Ginny was a bit harder with Harry (that was sort of a theme of the whole show actually), but he thrives on that and they get there in the end, to that place where they’re holding each other again. That’s how they always end up, because they’re a team, and they’re facing everything together, no matter what.

-I think the Transfiguration may have been done in a different order here, but I didn’t keep a note of who joined the spell when so I can’t be sure. I suspect Hermione may have joined earlier, as she was on the other side of the church in the preceding scene (standing right behind Scorpius so their impeccable connection on ‘you’re right’ was all the more impressive and sweet).

-One thing that I noticed for sure with the Transfiguration was that every time someone joined the spell and there was that awful sizzling sound, Albus flinched, like just seeing his dad in pain was giving him pain. I also very much noticed that as well as the strobe lights that we have in London, which illuminate Voldy as he emerges from Harry’s robes, in NYC there’s a matching strobe light shining directly into Harry’s eyes and onto his face. How Jamie handles that I do not understand. It looked painful.

-We travel halfway round the world and we still get Paul’s Ron checking in on the Malfoys while they’re keeping watch by the door to Godric’s Hollow. He just can’t resist interfering with their business. You also get Draco touching his son on the shoulder not necessarily affectionately, but more to tell him to remember to keep watch.

-I missed grumpy Ron lingering outside the door to glare at Draco after the ‘mildly enjoying it’ line. Thornley really makes his point with that one (as he always has)

--So in London, Jamie B runs directly at the Expulso flame, so he’s painfully close to it when it erupts out of the ground. He seems to end up right on top of it, deliberately going towards it, and while I acknowledge that this is for dramatic effect, it’s still very stressful, and I swear he gets much closer to it than is reasonable. Anyway, Harrys wanting to set fire to themselves is clearly an international problem, because Jamie did the same thing. It did look a little safer on Broadway, but I suspect that was partly to do with my distance from and angle to the stage. One day someone’s going to slip or run an inch too far, and then it’ll be the bench all over again except there’ll be fire involved this time.

-I dearly missed Jamie’s screams in the death scene. No one can scream like Jamie P. He’s a master of it. He channels every ounce of Harry’s pain until you feel it like it’s your own pain. I’d like to say that I know exactly what Paul and Noma and Alex and Anthony were doing in this scene, but let’s be honest, I was clinging to my seat as the Potters ripped my heart out.

-This was actually the site of another of my favourite little Albus things too. When Harry fell, Albus didn’t go with him straight away, and he lost all physical contact with him in the process. He stayed standing, awkwardly, sort of glancing at the house like he didn’t know what to do. Then he slowly bent down and hovered his hands over his dad’s back, like he desperately wanted to touch him but wasn’t sure if he was allowed. Finally he dared to touch his dad’s back, and when he did he melted down onto the ground next to him and that was how they were when the lights faded, father and son, finally connected.

-I never thought I’d use this word to describe Anthony or his Scorpius, but there’s only one way to describe his descent down the stairs towards Rose in the penultimate scene: smooth. Of course smooth is a very relative term. Basically what I mean is that when he hurled himself down the stairs he didn’t look like he was putting himself in physical danger like he used to. There was no falling, no awkward splits, he just ended up sitting on the step with his cloak wrapped round himself, attempting to look suave. But there was something impressively slick about the manoeuvre. It’s been well practiced.

-I forgot how much I love the slow hug. I remember very clearly the first time I watched that one (it might have been the first time it happened because I remember not being alone that day and I remember everyone else also freaking out). Scorpius slowly, deliberately walking up the stairs to Albus like he’s doubting himself every step of the way but that he won’t be stopped by anything. And when he gets to Albus he stands on the step below and he reaches out and awkwardly leans in and administers a tight hug that wraps round Albus’s body and arms, and renders him incapable of hugging back or escaping until Scorpius realises what he’s doing and runs away. That was the quality of the hug on Friday night, and I wasn’t prepared to be reminded of how much I miss it.

-I’m sure I’ve mentioned the back wall of the stage in recaps before, once I was going to write a full on meta post about it but I never finished it, but if you haven’t seen me talk about this before, here’s some context. In the final scenes of the play (once upon a time from when the burning bed emerged from the floor but now only for the very last scene) the brick wall at the back of the stage peels away from the wood panelling below it to create a gap. In London this always gave the impression of extra space, but mostly of the stage becoming the ruins of Lily and James’s house and then a sort of framework, a scaffolding or structure for Harry and Albus to grow their new relationship around. Everything had been torn away, destroyed when Voldemort cursed the baby Harry, and now they were left with the raw materials to start over. In New York, where the stage is enormous and the wall pulls back a lot further, I got a different feeling. It made the space Harry and Albus meet in during the final scene feel very much outside, but somehow contained, like the sunlight was streaming through cloister windows or over a garden wall. It felt like the graveyard was contained within a courtyard at the centre of the castle or perhaps a walled garden in the grounds. It gave the final scene such a strong sense of setting, and it was beautiful. That scene felt new and unique, airy and bright, which is appropriate because it is absolutely all of those things.

-I have always loved with a passion the way Jamie does the ‘and I know that heart is a good one’ line. He did it differently in this performance, with a ferocity, no pauses, tearing straight through like he had to make his point and have Albus hear him. When he zipped up Albus’s jacket and ruffled his hair he was almost rough with it, rough and forceful and desperate, but then when he was done there was a long moment where they just looked at each other, Harry and Albus, shining in the golden sunlight, Albus hearing from his dad that he’s a good person and actually believing him for the very first time. The long beat of silence felt so bright and warm and hopeful, and then Albus bowed his head in a nod and Harry knew he’d understood and they moved on. I suppose the point of this description is to say that it was different but no less beautiful than ever before.

-Of my favourite James Romney lines, the pigeon racing line has to be well up there. I’ve talked about the pacing in this performance before and how masterful it was, well this was one of the bits where the pacing of lines really changed how the characters reacted. Here Albus said ‘I’m not going to be a wizard dad’, and then he stopped for a good second while his dad’s expression changed to confusion and horror. He toyed with him for a moment before finally making it clear that he was joking: ‘I’m going into pigeon racing’, and Harry was flooded with relief as he realised his son was teasing him. I think that might actually be my favourite pigeon racing line. There was that something to it that made it more than just an awkward joke.

-I can’t not mention the final hug, which was one of those ones where Harry took hold of Albus and hugged every inch of him, squeezing his body tight and cradling his head. I love it when they give us those hugs at the end of everything, and it’s pure beautiful relief.

To sum up, I’m so glad I went. There were things that I didn’t like about this performance, which I haven’t mentioned above and don’t really intend to discuss apart from in person. But on the whole and on reflection, I got everything out of my trip to New York that I wanted. I saw Jamie and Poppy and Paul again. I fell in love with Noma in a new way. I got my closure on Alex and Anthony. And I met a wonderful new Albus (I have now seen every Albus so far). There was nothing more I could have wished for from it, and I know that other people haven’t necessarily felt the same, but that was my personal response.

This performance gave me everything I always want in a performance of this show: it taught me new things about the characters and allowed me to explore in new ways the story I love. It also let me reconnect with a cast that I’d forgotten how much I love. The original cast do something to me, they give me this ability to see the show with such clarity, they sharpen my focus and my memory, and when I see them they make me want to write and write and keep writing until I’ve chronicled every tiny detail of their immensely rich performance. I love that about them. It’s unique to them, and no other cast will be able to do that for me. Cast two felt like home, cast three make me so immersed in the story and emotionally connected to it, and the original cast bring out some kind of intellectual depth in the show that captures and fires my imagination. They did that for me over two days in New York and I’m immensely grateful for that.

It’s also worth saying that I’ve thought a lot about the fact that James Romney will be the only Albus I ever see just once. I’m certain I’ll see Ryan again in London, and all the others I’ve seen multiple times. At first I didn’t know how I felt about it. I loved his performance so much that I thought I would be sad or feel like I was missing out, and I do a little bit. I wish I could see him many more times and find every little nuance in what he does. But actually, now, I’m happy that I get to have these glowing memories of his performance. He will always be the Albus whose performance is locked in my memory, that I will never be able to go back to. The memories will remain untarnished, unexplored, because I can’t look further than I did in those five hours, and that’s kind of cool. I will see his Albus though rose-tinted glasses, and maybe I’ll forever love him unreasonably, but that’s alright. Maybe that’s how other people who only see the show once and love it feel about everyone and everything involved. It’s fun to be able to get a glimpse into that world for once...

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peremadeleine · 6 years

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This is sort of something I've rambled about before on this blog, but it's only just hitting me with full clarity now.

It's been a while, a few years probably, since I've listened to Les Mis all the way through. I still love the story, but I don't stay interested on the same fannish things all the time these days. Anyway! I was rereading my thoughts on the musical yesterday and going through movie clips, too, and it struck me: I like the music, and it will always be special for introducing me to the story. But the musical doesn't even represent (adult) Cosette poorly.

It doesn't really represent her character--as written by Hugo--at all.

She doesn't have a proper solo, and the lyrics of that solo don't tell you much at all about Cosette--certainly nothing about Hugo's Cosette. Hugo's character is the Lark, the "wild," "brave" "barefoot adventuress" full of life, running through the garden she's cultivated personally and singing loudly as she plays her piano; a budding fashionista; an adoring daughter who won't stand by and let her father suffer. She stargazes, chases butterflies, and watches handsome soldiers through her garden gate. She prays for her mother's soul every night. She is, moreover, besides being a major character herself, a primary source of motivation for three other characters, one of whom is the protagonist of the entire story!

From a previous post of mine: Half-heartedly demanding answers from Valjean and sitting in the garden with Marius during “A Heart Full of Love” are the pitiful scraps of “bravery” and “wildness” the musical allows her. She is dreamy, but her dreams are almost all about Marius, because the musical can’t be bothered to give her a bigger role.

The lyrics of "In My Life," her quasi-solo and one of adult Cosette's only Marius-free scenes, reflect little of the character she’s supposed to be. The musical repeatedly, continuously reduces Cosette to the Pretty Love Interest. She interacts more with Marius in the second act than with Valjean, and a good chunk of her lyrics are about Marius: meeting him, falling in love with him, losing him, comforting him...and she doesn't even get lyrics in her own wedding scene! (This isn't totally surprising since the wedding is, of course, dominated by the Thenardiers, which I've definitely complained about before.)

I used to get really angry with musical fans for dismissing Cosette, and it still annoys me since we are, after all--no matter how short her adult character falls, no matter how poorly she's written--introduced to her as a helpless, abused child. All grown up, though, she lacks much that would make her charming or even interesting. Especially with so much energy, time, and attention paid by the musical's second act to the June Rebellion and Les Amis, Cosette comes off sort of like window dressing. She's nice to look at and has some pretty songs, but her entire arc boils down to "oh, I fell in love with Marius today!"

And of course Valjean has these lines: "Dear Cosette, you're such a lonely child / How pensive, how sad you seem to me."

Cosette does become preoccupied with Marius after meeting him in the book, but "pensive" and "sad" are not ways I would describe her character the majority of the time. In the novel, she's just so full of life, of joy, of love (which is part of the reason why Valjean decides they should leave the convent) that it seems wrong for the musical’s hero to reintroduce Cosette to us as “lonely,” “pensive,” and “sad”!

Also, this line of Cosette's re: Marius--"in my life I'm no longer alone"--really bothers me, too; she's not alone, nor would she have felt alone, because she has Valjean! The musical greatly diminishes and twists the relationship between grown-up Cosette and Valjean, though. Particularly in the movie, there's something tense and almost uncomfortable about it that I don't like and which is certainly not canon to the story as written by Hugo. Valjean grows frustrated, almost angry with his daughter during "In My Life," and their next direct (vocal) interaction doesn't happen until the final scene of the show!

I also wrote this in my long, overall rant years ago, and I still think it sums up my feelings about Valjean and Cosette's weirdly truncated musical relationship: By reducing the importance and physical presence of Valjean and Cosette’s relationship, the musical also reduces Cosette’s importance. She is the single-most precious person in the world to the musical’s protagonist, Valjean—he literally dies without her—yet she is barely there at all.

As an adult, she appears in five or six scenes, often as a secondary or backgound character: in "The Robbery," when she and Marius meet, she has no lines. She takes center-stage in "In My Life" (mostly to sing about Marius) and sort of in "A Heart Full of Love," (again to sing to/about Marius--though this time she's one of two female characters doing so at the same time!). She gets a few lines in "Attack on Rue Plumet," then as part of the ensemble (to sing about Marius yet again) in "One Day More." In Act 2, she has exactly three quite small scenes. Again, she never sings a single note in her own wedding scene, and even in the Finale, she has just a handful of lines (though fortunately this time they're not about Marius).

It's small wonder that Amanda Seyfried struggled "to explain Cosette and give the audience a reason [to see her as] a symbol of love and strength and light in this tragedy" in "the little time that [she] had." At least the movie tried, briefly, to expand the role by throwing in the "Suddenly" reprise, in which Cosette grieves for her father's sudden disappearance.

So Cosette's canonical personality is erased, and everything that happens between her final scene as a child and her first scenes as a bland adult character makes it sadly easy for the audience to forget her previous suffering. Especially beside the oh-so-exciting Les Amis--fighting for their Noble Cause--and even Eponine--whose character is unfortunately also defined by her feelings for Marius, but who is at least given considerably more to actually do on stage than is Cosette--it's not very surprising that Cosette, in her minimized role, seems unimportant, even (ugh) “spoiled”.

The tragedy of all this, to me, is twofold. Cosette embodies the overarching theme that Hugo wanted to convey in Les Miserables. Her transformation from abused, dirty waif to vivacious, kind-hearted young woman exemplifies the kind of positive social change in which Hugo believed. After reading the novel, I was also suprised and thrilled to discover in Cosette such a delightful, vibrant, and rather whimsical character (I felt similarly about Anne Shirley when I finally read Anne of Green Gables). It's really sad that the musical dismantled that character almost entirely. Regardless of how pressed for time it might have been during its development, or of the constraints of a stage musical vs. a lengthy novel, I think the musical's treatment of Cosette does a major disservice to its source material.

#cosette #cosette fauchelevent #Cosette Defense Squad #tagging cause why not #my poor Cosette </3 #idk maybe I've realized this before too? but after so long 'away' it hit me in the face like (haha) a brick today #she really is just a Pretty Love Interest in the musical when she is (or should be) SO much more than that #les mis for ts #long post for ts

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brin-guivera · 3 years

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Curse the Fae by Natalia Jaster - Review

This book. Wow. I’m really not sure how I can convey just how much I loved Curse the Fae – I was expecting to enjoy it because I’ve loved all of Natalia Jaster’s books but this one just blew me away. I am speechless (which doesn’t happen often!)

This one is for sure my favourite in this series so far (and I adored both Kiss the Fae and Hunt the Fae). I actually wasn’t expecting Cove and Elixir to eclipse my favourite-until-now pairing Juniper and Puck – but what can I say? I’m a fickle beast (just like one of those tricksy fae! Only slightly kidding; but it really is a testament to Natalia’s writing that she has such lovable characters that steal your heart). Before I dive (heh) into my review, first I want to make clear that although I received the book to review directly from the author (I’m on her ARC Team) all views are my own.

***** Curse the Fae is the third book (but thankfully not final – there is another to come!) in the Vicious Faeries series and the perspective shifts to the eldest (and sweetest) sister Cove. Like her two siblings, Cove has been summoned to the Faerie after accidently encroaching on their lands when trying to escape poachers (this all happened in the first book). All three of them have to undergo a game – where losing means forfeiting their lives. If just one of them fails their tasks they all pay the price. Lark was called to the mountains and Juniper to the dense forest lands. Cove must brave the deep, subterranean waters of the river fae and their poisonous viper of a leader – Elixir. Known as the most vicious of all the Fae rulers, Cove despairs of ever being able to thwart him. However, Cove is determined to win her game and she finds inside herself an inner fortitude to challenge this dangerous opponent at every turn. There is nothing she wouldn’t do for her family and she knows the stakes are so very high but she cannot fail as to lose would mean more than just her life. From the very first, Cove and Elixir clash and there is a battles of wills between these two very different characters. Their interactions are fascinating. Cove practically kills Elixir with kindness and Elixir clearly doesn’t know how to respond to this having never experience much of this in his life. I think what I love most about this pairing is their inherent vulnerability. Both of them have suffered great loss; Cove her first family, Elixir his parents and his vision (yes, this fae lord is blind but this doesn’t hold him back one jot). It increases the stakes exponentially because as you get to know them you cannot help but feel for both of them and want both of them to come out on top – even if you are not sure exactly how that could possibly work. The push and pull of their interactions throughout the book are delightful, and when they finally let their guards down their connection is exquisite – dare I say it, but I actually found them to be the most sensual of all the pairings (the steam is quite something else). I’m not always a fan of the smutty stuff but it worked for these characters and made sense as part of their story. I’m also a sucker for relationships where one of the pair is sunshine personified whilst the other is the grumpiest grump to ever grump and that was Cove and Elixir to a tee! The two of them are the antithesis of the other but it makes their developing bond that much more earned. Cove brings out the lightness hidden at Elixir’s core and Elixir gives voice to Cove’s inner darkness (which is definitely a part of her despite her inherent sweetness). I am such a huge fan of this series and this book was just sheer perfection. I am so fond of both Cove and Elixir and so happy to have been able to share in their story. It was also amazing to get to see the other couples again; feisty Lark and elegant Cerulean, clever Juniper and bawdy Puck! I just love them all so much! I was super happy to discover the trilogy has been extended to a quadrilogy (or, ergh… however you want to put it!) There is absolutely no way the story could have been wrapped up in this third entry, not without cutting off a great junk of Cove and Elixir’s story, which would have been a great disservice to them. They deserved their chance to shine and shine they certainly did! Like I said at the start, any of my words are just totally insufficient to describe this beautiful and lyrical story so I’m just going to recommend you check it out for yourself – you will not be disappointed! 5/5 stars.

Link to blog here

#curse the fae #hunt the fae #kiss the fae #vicious faeries #natalia jaster #fantasy #book review #book reviews #BOOKISH #favourite books #books #my reviews #brin reviews

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marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer · 7 years

Text

MTVS Epic Rewatch #202

BTVS 7x17 Lies My Parents Told Me

Obligatory Soundtrack

Stray thoughts

1) Tbh, instead of the Spike or the Ripper spin-off, THIS is the spin-off the Buffyverse needs and deserves…

We don’t get to see much of Nikki Wood but the little we do, I love. She definitely has Buffy’s sass, spunk, and punning powers. And she can kick ass!! I just think it’s such a wonderful premise to have a black slayer fighting demons in the backdrop of 1970s New York.

It’s also neat to see the interactions between Nikki and Spike and how they mirror Spike’s relationship with Buffy in the early seasons – Spike chasing after her in what looks like foreplay to him while the Slayer only feels hatred and disgust towards him yet they’re still pitted against each other as worthy opponents.

2) I truly feel for Robin in this scene, though.

I mean, getting his ass saved by his mother’s murderer must be very conflicting, to say the least.

3) This is such a sad yet truthful statement…

Hey, any apocalypse I avert without dying? Yeah, those are the easy ones.

4) Oh, Giles, don’t you ever go changing…

BUFFY Maybe you're right. Maybe everything is fine.

BUFFY Giles, what's wrong?

GILES Have you seen the new library? There's nothing but computers. There's not a book to be seen. I—I don't know where to begin, Buffy. I mean, who do we speak to?

I just love that amidst all the chaos and end-of-the-world-ness, he’s worried about the school not having a library.

5) I think this scene was kind of meta, don’t you?

SPIKE Oh, bollocks. With all the rubbish people keep sticking in my head, it's a wonder that there's room for my brain.

GILES I don't think it takes up that much space, do you?

BURNNNNNN!!!

7) The CGI, though, it’s so cringey, looks like they did that with MSPaint.

8) Oh, and the cringefest continues, yikes…

I mean, where do I start? First, there’s the poem…

Yet her smell, it doth linger, painting pictures in my mind. Her eyes, balls of honey. Angel's harps her laugh. Oh, lark. Grant a sign if crook'd be Cupid's shaft. Hark, the lark, her name it hath spake. "Cecily" it discharges from twixt its wee beak.

I mean, it’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not… good. “Balls of honey”? Really, William? Really?

Then, there’s the fact that he’s obviously obsessed with Cecily and writing what apparently amounts to be a creepy amount of poems about her with HER ACTUAL NAME in them, and then he goes, “Hmmmm, Who is't is this cecily thee speaketh of? I knoweth not whom thee couldst possibly beest talking about. I has't nev'r hath heard such a name. Cecily, thee sayeth?”

And then there’s this, which is almost as cringey and disturbing as what comes later on between these two…

WOMAN She's lovely. You shouldn't be alone. You need a woman in your life.

WILLIAM I have a woman in my life.

WOMAN But you ne… Oh...

She’s like blushing? They’re flirting? I just…

9) I get everyone freaking out about Spike’s trigger being activated, but the truth is, the trigger seemed to be dormant until they went messing with his head. What I don’t get is Spike wanting them to unchain him, though. It doesn’t make much sense when he had chained himself before and even asked Buffy to off him a couple of times. Why would he want to be free now that he knows he could still hurt people? I understand they were building up the conflict between Buffy/Spike vs Giles/Robin by having him ask to be released and having Buffy agree with him WHEN IT’S OBVIOUS HE SHOULD BE CHAINED UNTIL THEY FIGURE IT OUT AND IT’S COMPLETELY OOC FOR BOTH HIM AND BUFFY TO ARGUE OTHERWISE.

10) I fucking love Drusilla’s reaction here…

WILLIAM We'll ravage this city together, my pet. Lay waste to all of Europe. The three of us will teach those snobs and elitists with their falderal just what—

DRUSILLA Three?

WILLIAM You, me, and mother.

11) And then he goes and does the most sexual thing a vampire can do with a human BUT he’s surprised when that other thing happens? I’m sorry, but your relationship with your mom was weird way before she made a move on you…

12) I truly don’t get why they can’t read into The First’s actions and realize that it was manipulating them into doing exactly what they were planning to do. It’s so obvious to me, and I expected more from Giles, tbh. I can understand Robin because he had a personal vendetta against Spike and that’s obviously more important to him than the grand scheme of things. But Giles?

ROBIN Mr. Giles... You got a moment?

GILES What's on your mind?

ROBIN The same thing that's on yours. We got ourselves a problem.

GILES Spike.

ROBIN Yeah, if that trigger is still working, then the First must be waiting for just the right time to use it against us.

GILES It does seem doubtful the First simply forgot it had such a powerful weapon.

ROBIN Yeah, a while back, it slipped up. It told Andrew it wasn't time yet for Spike. So, whatever the First's ultimate plan is, it's obvious that Spike must play an integral part in that. Something needs to be done.

GILES Buffy would never allow it

Robin conveniently leaves out the fact that The First contacted him personally and divulged the fact that Spike had killed his mother. It truly doesn’t get more obvious than that! And I understand why Robin wouldn’t care. It was selfish but totally understandable.

On the other hand, Giles’s stance is rather disappointing. Not only because he fails to read between the lines but also because he’s clearly underestimating Buffy’s ability to make the tough calls when push comes to shove. Buffy had always proven that she has what it takes to make sacrifices for the greater good, even if that means dying or killing someone she loves. And at the same time, we know that she finds strength in her emotions and her love for others. So it’s kind of bewildering that Giles doubts her at this point.

There’s also the hypocrisy of him washing his hands clean off her when she needed him the most and was actively asking for his help but trying to dictate her actions and decisions now by deceiving her. I think that’s what gets me angry, really. It’s not his trying to off Spike, as daft a move that was. It’s his lying to her and deceiving her in order to do something he knew she wouldn’t agree to.

13) So, this is for the greater good, Robin? Hmmm….

It looks more like you’re trying to fulfill your revenge fantasy. Or maybe he had a weird crosses fetish?

14) I mean…

ROBIN No, I don't wanna kill you, Spike. I wanna kill the monster who took my mother away from me.

Technically, he could never kill the monster who killed his mother. To begin with, Spike has a soul now and by the show’s standards, he wasn’t the same person who’d killed Nikki. This is the reason why Robin chooses to use the trigger. But the monster that shows up when Spike’s trigger goes off is not the person who’d killed Nikki either. When Spike’s under the influence of the trigger he seems to be a much more primal, instinct-driven, lethal vampire, which is not the pre-soul Spike we’ve known.

15) I really like how the fight is juxtaposed with the scene between Spike and his mom. It’s a really nice way to show how he gets to accept and overcome the burden that makes the trigger work. You can see that he’s beaten not because of Robin’s punches but because of what he’s remembering.

I mean, who wouldn’t be traumatized…?

16) I kind of see some of the points both of them make during their final conversation. Spike, as usual, makes some very good observations as regards Robin and his vendetta against him in the sense that he’s trying to put the blame on Spike for getting robbed of his childhood when that’s not really the case. While it’s not true that Nikki “knew what she was signing up for” because being a Slayer is not a career choice or even a calling, she did choose to put her duties as a Slayer before her personal and family life, which is why she ended up getting killed. I think it would be interesting to see how she got that mentality. I can imagine her arriving at the conclusion that she had the chance to make the world a better place for her kid, which makes a lot of sense in my opinion. I can’t help but see her “the mission is what matters” statement as influenced by the Black Power movement, too. The thing is, the fact that Robin grew up without a mom was the result of a number of reasons. That doesn’t take away from the fact that Spike was, indeed, his mom’s murderer, but it feels like Robin was trying to channel his anger into Spike because he couldn’t deal with the fact that he resented his mother for not choosing him over her job. On some level, he must’ve blamed his mother, too. It’s just a very complex issue, and I don’t think Robin would’ve gotten over the whole thing just by killing Spike.

17) I’m not a fan of the resolution, though. The fact that Spike overcomes his trauma by pissing all over Robin’s in the most brutal way feels so wrong and unnecessary, and I don’t understand why the writers made that choice and expected the viewers to see Spike as the hero in that scenario. Of course, I didn’t want him to get killed and I do like how he got rid of the trigger – by being forced to confront what he probably deems his most horrible deed and understanding that what matters about his relationship with his mom is not its ending but everything that came before. But I don’t get why he had to be so brutal with Robin in order to do that? Telling him that his mom didn’t love him and all that? Like, these are all things Robin probably thought himself a million times before, but having someone else spit them out in your face – your mom’s murderer of all people – feels like the ultimate humiliation and I don’t appreciate the writers building up Spike as a “strong/badass” character again by trashing Robin in such a horrible way. I can’t imagine how anyone would cheer for Spike here? It feels wrong to do so.

18) This is the moment you choose to bring this up, Giles? Why wasn’t this an issue before? Why didn’t you question this before?

GILES You want Spike here even after what he's done to you in the past?

It’s such a douche move to bring this up when it suits your purposes instead of showing concern about this because, I don’t know, you’re worried about Buffy reconnecting with her attempted rapist?

19)

BUFFY I'm in the fight of my life.

VAMPIRE Really?

BUFFY Not you, Richard.

“Not you, Richard” is going to be my new “Take it easy, Joan.” I’m calling it.

20) I just love how the second Buffy realizes that Giles has been stalling her, she slays the vamp without even looking. It probably was harder for her to not kill him.

21) This also rubs me the wrong way…

BUFFY You try anything again, he'll kill you. More importantly, I'll let him. I have a mission to win this war, to save the world. I don't have time for vendettas. The mission is what matters.

I get that she strongly believes Spike is a warrior they need in this fight, but that doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t stop him from killing Robin, someone who’s also an asset – vendetta or not - but more importantly, an innocent person. This is so unusually cold of Buffy, and I don’t like it at all.

22) I don’t know why Giles assumed that Robin would succeed in killing Spike? If he’d been smart and sneaky about it, of course, but Robin was more concerned about his vendetta and putting on a big show, he was probably the least qualified person to try and kill Spike because of how emotionally involved he was in the whole thing. It’s precisely because of his emotions that he didn’t succeed. And besides, fighter or not, he didn’t stand a chance against William the Bloody, which is the one he wanted to fight. Giles was kind of stupid, tbh. Like, he trusted this guy who he barely even knew with a very important task, one that would cost him his relationship with Buffy. And he didn’t even bother to make sure that Robin would do it in a foolproof way.

23) See the hypocrisy?

BUFFY He's alive. Spike's alive. Wood failed.

GILES Well, that doesn't change anything. What I told you is still true. You need to learn—

24) This is Buffy’s kiss of death, tbh, and I fucking love it, it’s so extra.

25) I’m kind of torn when it comes to this episode. I feel like it’s a solid episode in the sense that it explores both Robin’s and Spike’s issues with their mothers and Buffy’s relationship with her mentor/father figure. On the other hand, this is an episode that centers around three of my favorite characters in the show – Buffy, Spike, and Giles – and I can’t say that I like any of them in it. I can handle not liking one of them at once, but shaking my head at all of them simultaneously is too much for my poor fangirl heart, you know? I don’t know. They come across as idiotic, brutal, and cold, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I love these characters, and watching them act so unlike themselves for the sake of the plot… I just get this uncomfortable feeling I can’t shake off. I feel... like second-hand wrongness or something.

26) If you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi. Thanks!

#Buffy the Vampire Slayer #BTVS #Rupert Giles #Buffy Summers #Spike #Robin Wood #MTVSepicrewatch #BTVSrewatch2015 #mine #recap #Lies My Parents Told Me #btvsrecap

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