#i could write an essay on how he views thoma

[pub-lius]

Hello, recently you answered an ask about how Hamilton reacted to the Hamilton-Madison fallout, and one of the things you said was "These men were very crucial figures in American law, which shows that, unlike men like Jefferson, he [Hamilton] was very selective in who he chose to associate with when it came to his work."

Was Jefferson particularly indiscriminate when it came to finding collaborators, or was Hamilton particularly selective (or a little bit of both)? Could you provide some examples for this contrast?

hello first of all, the structure of your ask had me literally salivating screaming crying on the floor because this is such a wonderfully structured ask and it is the perfect formula to get an in depth response bc there’s so much i could talk about here. i love you. anyway-

Let's break this down to each dude. First, the worst dude, Thomas "freak" Jefferson. Jefferson's political career began when he joined the House of Burgesses, which, as the name implies, is a house of Burges (its a legislature). His first major publication was A Summary View of the Rights of British America, a Revolutionary work of literature that called King George III a cunt in formal language, was done entirely by himself, and it was rejected by his contemporaries for being too radical. This gained him a reputation for being a blue haired liberal.

Source: The American Heritage Book of the Presidents and Famous Americans (book 2)

Jefferson would go on to write The Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms with John Dickinson in July, 1775 to, yk, explain the causes and necessity of taking up arms against the British. John Dickinson was a very well known politician, being a member of the Continental Congress and one of the elite group of Americans who had the chance to be educated in England. Both Jefferson and Dickinson were known revolutionary voices, despite the differences of opinion that would arise between them in the following debate on independence. They were also both members of the Second Continental Congress.

Source: American Battlefield Trust, Delaware Historical and Cultural Affairs

The question of why Jefferson worked with Dickinson is most relevant to this ask. And the answer, in my opinion, is just because it was convenient. The Continental Congress was the best- "best"- men of each state coming together to represent their respective homelands. Dickinson and Jefferson most likely had conversations about the subject they would go on to write about, and decided to write it down and publish it for public benefit. We'll come back to this later.

Okay, now the elephant in the room: the Declaration of Independence. I find this subject so boring so bear with me. Jefferson was chosen by the Declaration committee (consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman) as he was already known as a Revolutionary writer and one of the best educated of them. He wrote the original draft on his own- well, technically- and then it was edited by the rest of the committee, and then by the rest of Congress.

Oh, but Henry! You said technically! Why? Well, dear reader, I'll tell you, be patient, jesus fucking christ. Jefferson highly based the Declaration off of Richard Henry Lee's resolution calling for independence in the Continental Congress, but mainly off of the philosophies of John Locke. That famous phrase we all know was almost word-for-word the writings of John Locke. I even once wrote an essay on how Jefferson essentially plagiarized John Locke in my sophomore government class.

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness..." -Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Source: my pocket Declaration/Constitution LMAO i really busted that out like an absolute nerd

"All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions." -John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, 1690

Source: brainyquote.com and a suspicious PDF of excerpts that I narrowly avoided a virus while accidentally downloading

I think that the Declaration is a pretty good example of how Jefferson, and 18th century American government, usually performed. This famous document was created by committee, and through education on 17th century philosophy. There were not multiple men working on the original draft of this, and the men who did work on it were not selected by Jefferson, and his major works are almost entirely attributed to him alone. He'd go onto write other historical documents such as Notes on Virginia and Anas (which are a more interesting and complex document) in this same form.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, Founders Online

He did consult with other men when it came to information and intelligence on political enemies later in his political career. These men were mostly hyper-relevant Democratic Republicans, who tended to be rich, southern landowners (aka slaveholders), at least those who associated with Jefferson. The most iconic of these were, of course, James Madison and James Monroe. Jefferson frequently consulted them, and Monroe (allegedly) gave Jefferson copies of the documents Hamilton showed to him to prove he had not been speculating with James Reynolds, but had actually been sleeping with his wife.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman

To summarize, Jefferson was not necessarily indiscriminate with who he associated with, and he didn't even really work that much with other men on his major writings. However, we can see a definitive pattern of Jefferson only really associating with other members of his class, neither below or above him. And this just very simply makes sense. Jefferson, as did the rest of the 18th century, believed that there shouldn't be any cross contamination between the social classes. He also believed that the only really smart people were in his class. And he wasn't aggressive about this, it's just a passive belief due to the way society was structured.

UNTIL!

Alexander Hamilton was literally opposite to Jefferson in every sociocultural way. In Jefferson's eyes he was an ambitious upstart who rose through the ranks, defying the social order that kept society from collapsing.

You'll hear a lot of people say that in forming America, the Founding Fathers had undone this rigid social class system, but that really isn't true. The class system in Europe was entirely different than the one that developed in America, but it still definitely existed in some form. Without the court system, America formed a loose sort of aristocracy that depended on land ownership and/or success in the mercantile business. In Europe, you'd see members of the clergy having their own class, but in America, it was entirely based on wealth, and less on birthright, but if your parents were not wealthy, the only way you could become wealthy was by getting in on some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, like owning a plantation or being a lawyer.

What made Hamilton different from this was that Jefferson, and other enemies, could literally watch in real time as he rose through the ranks. He could see him go from a captain in the artillery, known for his bravery in the New York campaign (someone who would eventually be forgotten), to Washington's aide-de-camp (okay... but he'll probably still fade into obscurity), to a member of the Confederation Congress (oh! well, okay, but that doesn't particularly mean anything, this is probably the highest he'll get), to the only New York delegate in town for the Constitutional Convention and the only person from New York to sign it (well that'll get him in the history books...), to the FIRST SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY OF THE NEW US GOVERNMENT (WHAT THE FUCK HOW DID HE FUCKING DO THAT WHAT THE FUCK GET HIM OUT).

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

So, let's talk about Hamilton's political career now, specifically through tracking his writings.

One thing the musical gets right is that Hamilton DEFINITELY utilized anonymous pamphlet publishing throughout his political career. And these are some of my favorite documents ever. From A Farmer Refuted to The Monitor to The Publius Letters to Pacificus, Hamilton absolute served irreparable cunt in all of these writings, and there are more than what I've listed, I just haven't finished my chronological list of Hamilton's published works.

"I'll use the press, / I'll write under a pseudonym, you'll see what I can do to him [Jefferson]." -Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton by Lin Manuel Miranda

Source: Blumenthal Performing Arts

All of these anonymous publishings had some things in common that I've used to categorize them:

A target (usually a person he didn't like and thought was immoral)

A core lesson (typically a political stance he was taking at the time that he wanted to defend and garner support for publically)

A newspaper publisher that was symbolic or strategically important in some way (either an enemy newspaper, and up-and-coming newspaper, an old friend's newspaper, etc.)

multiple editions

2-3 coauthors/beta readers

Almost each one of these publications follows this pattern, though number 5 tends to be the least common among all of them. But, since his college days, Hamilton would ask for his friends' input on his writings (whether or not he accepted their advice is not confirmed). Before he would give his college-era speeches, he would consult with the small debate group he and his friends made before he gave those speeches. When he was writing The Publius Letters, he most likely consulted with his lover, John Laurens, on the subject matter, as Laurens had close connections with congress, and the target (number 1 on the above list) was Samuel Chase, a congressman who had basically scammed soldiers out of food, causing many to starve for a prolonged period.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, John Laurens and the American Revolution by Gregory D. Massey

Like Jefferson, Hamilton had his magnum opus, and the influence of others played a major role in defining the document. Hamilton would ask other men, including William Duer, and Gouverneur Morris to write this document, but ultimately settled on John Jay and James Madison. This was, of course, The Federalist.

William Duer was related to Hamilton by marriage, as they married a set of cousins. Duer was educated in England and worked for the East India Company, which gave him a very good resume to be one of Hamilton's coauthors. However, the two submissions Duer made for The Federalist were rejected. Gouverneur Morris was a blue-blooded politician who gave the most speeches at the Constitutional Convention, a whopping 173. He spoke multiple languages and had been educated at King's College, which is now the ivy league Columbia. Morris was too busy to contribute to the project.

John Jay was the first coauthor selected. He had been the main draftsman of the New York State Constitution, a negotiator of the Treaty of Paris (1783), and was another alumni of King's College. He later became the first chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, and negotiate a treaty with Great Britain. Hamilton often called on him in regards to political matters, and the two were close, lifelong allies. Jay only wrote five of the 85 Federalist essays, because he was hit in the head with a fucking brick during the Cadaver Riots.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

The other principal author of The Federalist was James Madison. James Madison, in my opinion, was the most qualified to write The Federalist, despite his later delusions about the Constitution (which were largely the result of Jefferson's influence on his opinion but that's neither here nor there). James Madison was educated at what was considered the greatest educational institute in 18th century America: Princeton (then called the College of New Jersey). Madison was the reason Hamilton wasn't able to take an expedited course to his degree, because Madison had attempted to finish his four year education in two years, and had a nervous breakdown... fun fact...

But, still, he got his law degree from Princeton, and was in several legislatures, including the Virginia Governor's council where he met Jefferson. And of course, he was the author of the Virginia Plan, which was the foundation of the US Constitution of 1787. His notes on the Constitutional Convention are the most complete set of notes, and he was there every fucking day. So yeah, James Madison knew the Constitution pretty well, even if he eventually cared too much about states' rights to recognize what was blatantly written in the Constitution, and maintained that viewpoint until his presidency.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman

The Federalist was not as evenly divided between the authors as Hamilton intended, since he could not shut the fuck up, but that's not the point. The point is that the men he sought to be his coauthors had several things in common: they attended prestigious educational institutions and had long histories of Revolutionary work. Reading of these men's person histories reads like you're going through a company's qualifications for their employees. Because it almost was except they weren't getting paid. Hamilton sought out these men based on their qualifications, and, as you can see by William Duer's rejected submissions, he had a high standard that they had to fit for him to affix his name next to theirs (which he didn't do until the weeks leading up to his death because he knew he was gonna die but that's a topic for another time).

I KNOW THIS IS LONG BUT IM STILL FUCKING GOING BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE ME THE CHANCE TO ANSWER COMPLEX QUESTIONS ABOUT HISTORY INSTEAD OF THE SAME FOUR SHIT SUBJECTS THAT EVERY HISTORIAN COVERS IN THEIR BOOKS THANK YOU OKAY

This pattern of finding qualified contributors to his works continued throughout his life. Now, idk if you know this, but Hamilton was actually planning another The Federalist-style publication right before his death and i am LITERALLY SO EXCITED TO TALK ABOUT THIS

Hamilton told his visiting friend James Kent that he wanted to look through all of history and analyze government and the various forms it took throughout all of written history. Mirroring The Federalist, he intended to invite six to eight authors, including John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, Rufus King, John M. Mason, and James Kent. He thought that each of these men would write about the subjects in which they specialized (Kent on law, Mason on theological history, etc.) Hamilton would be in charge of writing a synthesis on the previous volumes.

"The conclusions to be drawn from these historical reviews he intended to reserve for his own task and this is the imperfect scheme which then occupied his thoughts." -Chancellor James Kent

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

As you can imagine, these additional dudes followed the pattern shown above for Hamilton's qualifications for his coauthors, especially for a project this big. I mean, if this could have happened, it would have been literally incredible. I did the calculations, and it would have taken Hamilton five years after 1804 to get rid of all of his debts. If he had lived for that length of time, he could have started on this project, and alleviated the debts that later plagued his family. But that ties into my other theories on Hamilton's death, and that is just too weighty of a subject to get into in a post that's already this long.

To wrap this all up, the conclusion we can draw here is really just related to the class differences between Hamilton and Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton was not bound by a lack of social mobility in the 18th century, since he completely decimated that concept by his existence, which allowed him to view his co-contributors more objectively and more selectively. He handpicked those who he worked closely with based on their qualifications and their experience. His categorization of their abilities in that last example shows that he specifically sought them to speak on subjects they were most acquainted with.

Jefferson, on the other hand, didn't have that kind of social mobility, nor did he desire it. Jefferson stuck with his peers, who were mostly all lawyers of the same religion and political beliefs. While I'm not saying Hamilton was going around and writing alongside Democratic Republicans, he certainly didn't pick those he worked with based on like-mindedness or status. He chose them entirely on the basis of their revolutionary resumes, and that is really the difference we see in these two men's respective political careers. Was that the reason Jefferson was president and Hamilton wasn't? Definitely not. Was that the reason they didn't get along? Well, it certainly didn't make them like each other. Does it make Hamilton smarter? No, surprisingly. Do I like Hamilton more because of this? No comment.

I know this is lengthy, but I've literally been brewing up historical theory in my head for the past six months without having any outlet for it besides ranting at my parents and scribbling in the margins of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (as you can tell by my sources). I genuinely cannot say how much I appreciate this kind of question, because it not only gets me thinking, but it allows me to remember why I got into history in the first place, and why I want to spend the rest of my life educating people on the wonderous world of pussy politics between middle aged men that are so decomposed, the matter that made up their bald ass heads is probably in your drinking water (have fun thinking about that). Anyways, thank you for the ask and I hope you got enough examples :3

[fluffypotatey]

hey u know how mk only calls wukong by his title and never his name? and how wukong rarely if ever calls mk "mk," instead usually opting for "kid" or "bud?" and how both of those things are kind of representative of their relationship and how both of them care about each other a lot but they aren't honest with each other or with themselves about the other and how neither of them really wants to confront the fact that the other is a person with flaws and struggles? haha yeah <- normal <- lying about being normal

be glad i have been released from class now :) [narrator: she would later find herself late to her 2nd class while writing this]

so happy you have given me this excuse to talk about— i mean, yes! it is super normal to be thinking about this all the time and be comsumed by it and let me explain why:

i will start by going off on a tangent about names and labels and their narratove importance in stories because i love them and have a problem. (idk the word count here. viewer discretion is advized. i just wrote. it is long. beware)

In the Case of Names: a Sunburst Duo Essay

by Yours Truly <3

In the Case of Names in LMK: a Summary (please for the love of pete be a summary)

Ok, so, let me give y'all a quick overview (i failed. this is you're only warning. i failed, and this became a monster of an essay. run while you still have the chan—) of names in the literary sense. When studying novels and books and shit in your literature classes, you will notice that your professor might discuss the importance or ill-importance of characters' names in the story. For example: in the classic novel Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist's name is fucking Guy Montage to illustrate how he's just some fucking guy, a John Doe, a man stuck and complicit in the dystopian world.

You get me? No? Sorry, you want more examples? Fine then :3 let me introduce you to a story called Hard Times by Charles Dickens. It is an allegorical novel that criticized the utilitarian movement going on in dear old Great Britain in the 19th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution. Some fun characters were Johannes Bounderby and Thomas Gradgrind. Tell me, what images did you imagine when I gave you those names? Did you think of a bouncing ball for Bounderby? Were you imagining something square or maybe a mechanical grinder for Mr. Gradgrind?

Remarkable isn't it. The way choosing a name has on a reader/audience's perception of the character. Names are not just placeholders for a character. Names are the identity of that character. Names can establish their starting arc or their ending. Names can be visual in the sense that they invoke a strong idea of what a character might resemble or what themes they will present the audience with. Removing a character's name also removes their identity.

Remember that.

Anyway, I have talked enough about names in the general literary sense. Let us move on to LMK.

Given that this show is based off of Journey to the West (JTTW), many of the names of the antagonist are already provided, and their English translation is pretty literal (Demon Bull King, Lady Bone Demon, Red Son) with some exceptions (Jing & Yin, the Gold and Silver Demons), but their names all provide a description of what they are and how they should be viewed. Spider Queen is a spider demon and views herself as queen. Pretty solid characterization there. Lady Bone Demon, she's a bone demon and has enough rank to be considered a lady (or that could just be to ID that she is a woman but eh). Princess Iron Fan: she's a celestial princess and wields an iron fan. Got it? Good. These examples are simply here to show that a majority of the JTTW antagonists are still fulfilling their roles as antagonistic characters. What I mean is this: since "A Hero is Born," MK has been fighting against the Monkey King's old enemies from the JTTW book. It's like the moment MK inserted himself into the role of successor, the antagonist themselves were inserted to redo their old role of fighting the "Monkey King." It's almost as if nothing has changed beside the fact that their new op enemy is a "human" wielding the legendary staff.

[hmmmm, wait i actually never put this into words until now and it's fitting very well with the whole "MK's fight against Fate/the Narrative" but we'll just put a pin in that.]

However, when it comes to MK's friends (Pigsy, Tang, Sandy, Mei), they all share different names from their reincarnated/ancestral counterparts (Zhu Bajie, Tang Sangzang (they just give Tripitaka a last name lol), Sha Wujing, and Ao Lie). Their identity is separate, distinctive from who they are meant to reflect to the audience. (But look at how Tang still shares the same 1st name to the blessed monk, see how he's the one whose powers are the most similar, see how he being pulled into the direction of emulating the monk, see how much Tang fights it, see—)

Fascinating huh? But let us move on before I forget myself.

In the Case of MK's Names: a Paragraph (DO NOT, i repeat, DO NOT GO OFF THE RAILS)

So, in the English version, there is a running gag about how MK's "real" name is long and complicated, and we don't actually know it. All we know is that MK switched it long before the pilot. And even before MK has that talk with Master Subodhi in s4ep7 (or 6? 8?), I would chuckle at how on the nose his name was. MK the Monkie Kid... how silly of the show writers....ahaha, what a funny little decision to make :)

Do we know why MK changed his name? Other than his original one being long, no. Do we know why MK specifically? We don't know. Maybe, in his fanboy brain for all things Monkey King, MK thought it would be cool to have a name that identified close to his idol. A name that identified with someone he wished to emulate and be as powerful as and felt so connected to. But what do I know? I am a mere local gal who feeds off of metas and theories and all things relating to my beloved sunburst duo.

Then, we have MK's many titles: Monkie Kid (IDs him as the new generations Monkey), Successor (IDs him as the one who will succeed Sun Wukong in both the title of Monkey King and power), Noodle Boy (pronounced "New-dle Boi and IDs as the boy who works in his surrogate/adopted dad's noodle shop), Delivery Boy (his actual job for the noodle shop), and last but not least, Harbinger of Chaos.

What makes a harbinger? What is chaos? What are their intentions? Are they good? Bad? Neutral?

So, I've already defined harbinger before and many others have as well, but to sum up: a harbinger is a being/person/thing that announced the coming of something be it good or bad but most of the time the focus is bad. A "Harbinger of Chaos" then, would be the one to announce the coming of Chaos™️ and the disruption of world order. Is this a bad thing? Well, the show presents it at the moment as so, but that doesn't mean it will be. Honestly, the show has shown order and fixed structures more in a bad light and promotes free will and choosing a destiny that fits you as the good thing 👀 (another thing to pin in the MK might to go war with Fate)

But now I have established MK's names and must shut up and move on before I no longer can.

In the Case of Sun Wukong's Names: some Paragraphs (STAY ON TARGET PLEASE)

I will admit that my knowledge of names in China is very low, and by low, I mean I know nothing (most of what I do know comes from asking friends and informational sites). So, let me begin this segment with an excerpt of Sun Wukong gaining his name from the book itself :) and break it down with my interpretation and how that is applied to LMK.

When the Patriarch heard this, he was secretly pleased, and said, “Well, evidently you have been created by Heaven and Earth. Get up and show me how you walk.” Snapping erect, the Monkey King scurried around a couple of times. The Patriarch laughed and said, “Though your features are not the most attractive, you do resemble a pignolia-eating monkey (husun). This gives me the idea of taking a surname for you from your appearance. I intended to call you by the name Hu. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what’s left is a compound made up of the two characters, gu and yue. Gu means aged and yue means female, but an aged female cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is better to give you the surname of Sun. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what we have left is the compound of zi and xi. Zi means a boy and xi means a baby, and that name exactly accords with the fundamental Doctrine of the Baby Boy. So your surname will be ‘Sun.’” When the Monkey King heard this, he was filled with delight. “Splendid! Splendid!” he cried, kowtowing, “At last I know my surname. May the master be even more gracious! Since I have received the surname, let me be given also a personal name..." ..."You will hence be given the religious name ‘Wake-to-the-Void’ (wukong). All right?” “Splendid! Splendid!” said the Monkey King, laughing. “Henceforth I shall be called Sun Wukong.”

What a fucking cutie <3

So, what can we gather from this excerpt? Sun Wukong just gained his official name. No longer is he a monkey with descriptive titles, no longer is he a monkey without a surname to be referred to as and respected for. He now has both a surname and a personal name. And while I don't fully understand everything Master Subodi listed when naming Sun Wukong, it is important to note the importance of it and how happy Wukong is to receiving it.

Before this, the book would simply refer to Wukong as Shihou (stone monkey) or the Handsome Monkey King. Both of these are descriptive titles that just inform you what Wukong is rather than who, just like with the other demons met in JTTW. But now, we get to know him as Sun Wukong, someone more than his titles and such. There's even an explanation in the preface how Wukong's own personal name has significant meaning or relation to Buddhism, but I won't get too much into that since my knowledge is of that is 0 and I want to try and stick to LMK.

Now then, let us examine Wukong's name in the LMK sense. Literally everyone in the show call him either Monkey King or "simian" (and if he really pissed them off, Sun Wukong). The only people to refer to Wukong by his personal name is Nezha, Macaque, and Peng. It is literally just these three. And while we could argue all say it like "Wukong (derogatory)," I believe Peng's the only one who means it. Meaning, I think Macaque says Wukong because he was the closest friend of SWK, thus that's the only name Macaque would ever call him (sure, he said Monkey King and shit in s1 but that was when he was duping MK soooooooo). Nezha calls him Wukong because after the whole Havoc in Heaven and journey stuff, he is the new oldest member to befriend Wukong and not be enemies with him (yes, he will get annoyed and aggravated by him, and he will not always believe Wukong's intentions are great, but he still cares and is his 2nd closests living friend).

Peng, on the other hand, does not give a shit. I fully believe that guy never cared for Wukong. They only joined the brotherhood because of Azure (they even offered for Azure to be the brotherhood's leader). I do not think Peng cares for formalities when it comes to people they dislike. We could argue that maybe Peng cared for Wukong in the beginning, but I do, honestly, not believe it. The only reason Peng even felt betrayed was because it messed up Azure's plan. Not because the two were sworn brothers.

But yeah, very few characters actually call Sun Wukong by his name, and when they do, it establishes not just how close they are/were, but also how long they've known each other. It's the same thing with how Wukong refers to others. He barely calls Pigsy, Tang, and Sandy by their names. He will give people nicknames and shit just to place a safe distance from them because of his own very unhealthy attachment issues.

In the Case of MK and SWK's Names for Each Other: the Actual Sunburst Duo Essay (you are free now.....)

Speaking of attachment issues, let's talk about the Sunburst Duo and how much these two need to sit down and talk.

So, we have discussed how names are integral to identifying a character's purpose, thematic journey, description. We have discussed how a person's title can clue in on certain characterization, present or future, and how they demonstrate the way others view them. Now let us apply this to our beloved sunburst duo.

As mentioned in your ask, @gumy-shark, both MK and Sun Wukong barely call each other by name (MK never has as far as I am aware, and SWK has done so only a few). It's "Monkey King" from MK and "kid," "bud," "buddy" from SWK. Rarely do the two ever think to say each other's name.

In the beginning, I originally thought MK only calls Wukong "Monkey King" as a way to be respectful, and with Wukong, I assumed he called MK "kid" simply because MK was very young to him. However, as we get into s3, and especially s4, MK and Wukong have grown a lot closer. Neither of them see each other as just a mentor or student but as friends. And yet, they cannot seem to stop calling each other by their title or nickname.

Thus, the distance is still there. S3 ends with Wukong promising to do better as a mentor and be more honest with MK, and we do seem him attempt this. He gives out more praises, he's more open about his feelings and then gets sucked into the memory scroll. But here's the kicker: the two are doing a reverse in their dynamic.

When it starts out, it is Monkey King who establishes the line between the two. He will simply be MK's mentor and teach him all the kid has to know in order to succeed him. MK is ecstatic to even be near SWK. This is his idol, the guy he's had a special interest in for years probably. He now gets to train under the Monkey King. He wants to do good. He wants to kickass. He wants to be just like him.

But as the story goes on, we see SWK open up to MK more and care for him deeply and want to protect him, and we see MK uncover the skeletons in SWK's closet and feel so alone and learn that the power he used to wish for is not what he expected. And in the aftermath of s3, it is now SWK who is opening up and trying to help kindle and safely guide their friendship in a healthier path(ish). It is SWK who is placing his own protege on a pedestal because "loook at him! isn't he so great and powerful! he will help this world a lot more than i did". It is SWK who is disregarding th original rules he placed. But now ,it is MK who is keeping the distance more than SWK. It is MK is trying to force some kind of distance. He feels like he shouldn't burden SWK with his doubts and worries. He is terrified of his own powers and their capabilities and worries his actions will make the same mistake as his mentor.

With s3 and s4, SWK has called MK by name quite a few times. Especially in s4. It's not a lot, but it's definitely more than before. And yet, MK cannot call Wukong by name. Personally, I think he might still feel like he's under Wukong's shadow. As his successor, there is a legacy that he will carry when Wukong actually retires and gives his title to MK (which is what I assume Wukong will do??? It is still unclear what exactly MK's succeeding SWK of). And that legacy is quite the burden. I would not be surprised that MK is unable to place himself as being worthy of taking Wukong's place just yet (if ever).

This guy was his idol for a long time. And with that, you tend to place a high pedestal for those people. MK has given Wukong such a high pedestal, and Wukong is very aware of it. It's why the guy even keeps his distance in the first place, and why he's scared to disappoint him. But, MK has learned so much, has been told of the tales and pain his mentor inflicted on others in the past (a past SWK greatly regrets), and yet cannot find it in himself to lower that pedestal or even allow himself to think about it. Because if he does, then he will have to acknowledge his own pain and his own disappointment in someone he not only admires but has come to love like family. And it is very hard to reckon with the hurt and pain caused by someone you consider family.

So yeah, they are silly monkeys who cannot communicate to save their life and need to just sit down and talk or else this will continue to boil and explode and we'll have a SWK and MK showdown (fuck yeah! i will be crying so hard).

[end of essay]

[muppetable]

Happy birthday!!!!!🥳🥳🥳🥳🎊🎊🎊

If you could choose two sanders sides character arcs to focus on for the finale, what would they be and why???

ty!!

hmm logan and remus. i'm totally not biased because they're two of my favorites lmao

so i know with wtit they've already had a little story dedicated to them, but they parallel each other and i think it would make for an interesting story for c!thomas to realize he's pushing them BOTH away.

this was gonna be a short answer but i ended up writing an essay sorry lmao

someone's made a post about it already but logan and remus have so many parallels in their intentions despite having complete opposite methods. i think it would be cool to see that fully realized in the series rather than just an asides episode that displays it less as the parallel and more as "remus fucks everything up for logan". don't get me wrong it was a great episode!! i'm just saying i want to see it explored further.

the parallel is that both remus and logan want c!thomas to take time to work on himself by showing him everything else he could be doing. but the difference in method is that logan is trying to help c!thomas by giving him tasks to do to refocus, while remus is showing him everything that could go wrong to convince him he's not doing great. remus is trying to get him to seek help, while logan is trying to help by himself. it's an interesting way to view it.

but no matter which way could work better- adding stress or lessening it- both remus and logan are being ignored. remus's intrusive thoughts are getting repressed no matter how many times c!thomas is told that's unhealthy, and c!thomas isn't hearing out logan's perspective due to being more emotional than logical. another cool parallel the finale should explore!

also, remus is the only character who's purpose to helping c!thomas hasn't been addressed in the show. each side has their way of being helpful and harmful, and it seems like only the fandom knows remus is also trying to help while c!thomas doesn't.

here's the list of harmful traits that have been mentioned in canon:

patton: focuses too deeply on emotion and throws logical thought out the window

roman: ego crisis

logan: too strict on deadlines

virgil: stressing c!thomas out too much

janus: causing distrust among c!thomas's friends by means of deception

remus: causing intrusive thoughts

meanwhile here's the list of HELPFUL traits from each side addressed in canon.

patton: lets c!thomas see the good in everyone

roman: helps c!thomas follow his dreams

logan: seeks knowledge that could be useful to c!thomas (as well as the viewers or writer!thomas)

virgil: keeps c!thomas alert

janus: self care king

remus:

radio silence. literally no helpful traits have been addressed for remus, despite them being clear to someone like me who analyzes too deeply. he IS trying to help c!thomas by reminding him things could be worse, but instead of taking a "count your blessings" approach, he's taking a "hey look how fucked up this would be" approach.

while remus's purpose hasn't been realized and is useful, logans IS realized and useful but c!thomas just doesn't listen. the biggest difference between the two isn't their method- it's the way c!thomas is ignorant to them. he ignores logan's helpfulness and just isn't aware of remus's.

i don't know how this ended up being so long but i just really want to see these parallels and contrasting stories addressed rather than played off as "haha remus makes rube goldberg machines to piss off logan teehee how silly of him!"

[nekasu]

@scarletooyoroi​

Thoma had always proven himself to be an amusing conversation partner for Neka. It also never failed sparked feelings of bitterness in him, not at the man himself, but rather inward. Neka regretted the circumstances that had led him to become as jaded as he. It was a pill he forced himself to swallow, a stark reminder that it was his own fault and nobody else’s. That unlike Thoma, his own warmth and friendliness was genuine yet a suppression of his own melancholic nature. Hidden insecurities lay dormant, but Neka still found joy in helping others and making them smile.

The reason Neka had worded his query in such a manner was that he’d wished that Thoma wouldn’t have asked him the same question in return. Either way, an agreement was an agreement, and while neither of them was native to Liyue, Neka wasn’t one to sacrifice his reputation of truthfulness in order to avoid an uncomfortable question. A faint smile graced his face as he pondered Thoma’s words. “A practical if unexciting answer. Not that I wouldn’t consider a lifestyle like yours if I had the chance, but that would’ve required me to meet someone like Ayaka sooner in my life.”

As Neka spoke, he stared straight forward with an almost wistful expression on his face, not looking at Thoma. “To me, my Vision is a much more complicated affair. While sparing you the more tedious details about my life, this is not the first time it was granted to me. Since I’m sure me leaving such a puzzling admission without explanation wouldn’t be fair, I’ll elaborate: I became so disgusted at my original ambition that I forsook it and lost my Vision as a result. It only reactivated once I’d found a new focus for my efforts.” Now, if Thoma thought to ask him to provide more information about that particular matter, Neka would refuse albeit politely.

Reaching to his side, Neka grabbed his Vision and absentmindedly ran the trinket around his fingers, eyeing it front and back. It had been with him the entire time, even when it had gone dark. Never once did he consider getting rid of it, even when it’d became nothing more than a reminder of painful decisions suitable for holding papers down. 

The two were similar enough on the surface, but deep down they were very different fundamentally. He couldn’t help but wonder how both of them would have turned out had their situations been reversed. “Your outlook is based on a nurturing flame helping to guide and protect, truly commendable, truly. On the other hand, mine is based around the notion that sometimes, one must destroy in order to protect. An icy determination to kill one’s own heart in order to make the most beneficial outcome a reality.” That didn’t mean that such decisions were easy or he was ever happy making them, but he at least could find solace. 

“One more question, much more random than before: have you heard of a youkai known as an amanojaku, by any chance?” There was something very heavy that weighed on Neka’s mind, and he was trying to figure out the answer to it, even if he had to go about it in a roundabout way.

[darlington-v]

Yes it was /gen

Okay, going to write some analysis here then.

i don’t like the way that the fandom uses the word apologist because it is so much like the internet’s use of “problematic”. something problematic can span anywhere from a simple mistake to active harm and proactively promoting bigoted beliefs. being an apologist can span anywhere from simply enjoying his character to maybe someone believing that dream has genuinely done no harm including in the way outside of the realm of fiction. it’s honestly pretty ridiculous and i can’t really stand it but it has become such a big part of our fandom’s culture that i can’t really get away from it and use it for simplicity’s sake amongst friends or in lighthearted manner, but rarely ever will you see me use the word legitimately in my analysis.

i find strong discomfort in anyone who has a “[character] apologists dni” in their bio or in their abouts or byf because if you find discomfort in someone sympathizing with or enjoying a character from a work of fiction you enjoy then i cannot begin to conceptualize the reasons you would watch that series.

works of fiction aren’t meant to have all of the characters be paragons of morality, who are spick-and-span in their history and have never harmed a fly, because honestly that’s just not realistic and to implement it into your characters is poor writing. even children’s shows will bring up villains, and even children will enjoy villains. better children’s shows will give depth to their villains or antagonists. one that i immediately think of is steven universe, which handles emotions really well. thomas sanders also has some really good content geared toward a younger audience that displays how good people can do bad things or good people can deal with bad things.

and regardless, we’re allowed to enjoy characters who are the epitome of cartoon villainy, which dream isn’t in my opinion, but you’re allowed to enjoy a villain. in fact, if you ask any queer person who’s seen a disney renaissance film or films around that era, and are probably a bit older to have seen that when they were especially popular, who their favorite disney character is, they’ll probably tell you the villain of that film as a lot of them were queer coded. ursula was modeled from a drag queen, scar is a more flamboyant lion out of the pride, jafar is a little nonconforming with his eyeliner and has a... peculiar tone of voice and infliction with the way he speaks, and there are plenty of other disney villains you can look up who are queer coded that i’m drawing a blank on. queer people could relate to them because they were so blatantly queer coded. we’re the flamboyant “villains”, and we take pride in that. it’s campy. it’s perfect for us.

you’re allowed to enjoy “evil” or “ill-intended” characters. you’re allowed to “support” them because they aren’t real. they’re not actually hurting anyone. they can’t hurt anyone.

even if i didn’t think dream was redeemable, which i do, it is still okay and reasonable for me to enjoy him. he’s a sympathetic character! i can get behind his causes. his actions and ideals at their core are something i can identify with, like, i can sympathize with wanting unity. i can sympathize with willing to get your hands dirty and becoming the villain for that cause. i can sympathize with self sacrifice, on an extremely personal level. i can sympathize with being told you are something you’re not, and letting that affect your mental health.

wanting unity is something i feel like everyone can relate to. we all want some form of peace. like i think if you look deeper into dream’s character you will see that he is a sympathetic character. like, if you watch other streams or even watch old stream highlights you can see that there is more depth provided than just what you may get from bench trio or any other pro l’manburg character’s point of view.

i’ve written an essay on this before, but, a sympathetic character is a good character. that character is well written, because while you can disagree with that character and their actions, you can follow their line of understanding. you can understand why they did it and you can either relate or be horrified by their actions. or even dislike their actions. but a sympathetic character is interesting, they’re compelling. and that doesn’t mean being morally correct all the time or doing the right thing all the time, or even doing the WRONG thing and then apologizing for it all the time. to sympathize with someone is to understand them, even if you don’t agree. even if you cannot relate to their actions or decisions, you can understand why they did them. 

a good character can be a bad guy. a good character can be repulsive whilst still being a good character.

it is human to be bad. it is human to do bad things. it’s important to remember that. in regarding terrible actions as something that makes you a monster creates room for people to continue to do those actions. it creates room to excuse them.

and, as far as redemption goes, i think most if not all people are capable of redemption and that extends to fictional characters who are and always will be structured around people. this honestly applies to... any character. i can go into depth about why specifically i care a lot about dream and how he is a character i think who is genuinely currently astray and misguided, but i think the message i’ve left is the most important one to note.

there’s a serious lack of critical analysis in this fandom and i’m literally a mod for an analysis blog. i really feel like we should emphasize on that. if dream apologists, or wilbur apologists, or quackity, or technoblade or any other character who has done harm to others, if people who sympathize with those characters make you uncomfortable i would really like you to ask yourself why? because they are still integral parts of the narrative. if the characters themselves make you uncomfortable then... again, i have to ask, why are you watching the dream smp streams?

i don’t have the answers for you, i would just like more people to look deeper into things and ask themselves why. like genuinely. and this is in regard to anything and everything, whether it is fictional works or real life behavior. ask yourself why someone may behave that way, or maybe why an event would happen in that fictional work.

tldr;

yes! i am a dream apologist. i sympathize with dream and he is my second favorite character after ranboo. if you’re uncomfortable with that, i encourage you leave because i don’t want you to be upset every time you log onto tumblr, but also because i don’t really want to encourage that sort of behavior. if you’re willing to listen and understand, then by all means i would love to have you here to listen and read some analysis i post or reblog. i implore you to ask yourself why, like really WHY are you uncomfortable with it, as well.  like, you don’t have to tell me or anyone for that matter, just chew on the question yourself in your own time.

tldr part 2: yes i am a dream apologist.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

The Hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson #23.5: “Don't criticize me-- I mean Thomas Astruc! I'm-- I mean, he's doing my-- I mean, his best!”

If you've read my post on “Animaestro”, I mentioned my main inspiration for starting this blog was @hypocrisyofandrewdobson​, and I briefly mentioned some stuff about him, and that I think he's far worse than Astruc will ever be.

I encourage you to check out The Hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson or @soyouareandrewdobson​ to learn more about this man, because today's post is sort of a spiritual addition to their roster.

It all started when someone asked a user on Tumblr about why Astruc is so unpopular among the fandom.

The user here makes some good points that highlight just how the fandom turned on Astruc, and how it's a little unjustified, and some of that I get.

It's Dobson's response that is laughable. Andrew Dobson, someone who is known for taking criticism poorly, is defending Astruc for taking criticism poorly. And it's not like he's stepping in to defend the man from haters. He's really doing this to justify his own behavior because of how poorly he handles negative feedback.

A few months ago, I had made a post criticizing Astruc's political views, all while hypocritically advocating for free speech. It was a dumb post, I didn't think it through, and after I realized I had alienated some of my followers, I recklessly deleted it. In hindsight, I should have left it up, if only as a monument to my failure. I still have the post explaining that I deleted it, and that's staying up.

What does this have to do with Dobson's argument? That whole debacle showed me that sometimes, you have to consider the feedback you get from your audience, and if it's negative, take that as an incentive to learn how to not do something like that again in your work. Whatever you do, don't ignore your screw-ups and sweep them under the rug like I tried to do.

Instead, Dobson is claiming that criticism is meaningless because the thing being criticized is already out, and Astruc is working on the next season without even thinking about what people didn't like about Season 3. I mean, when I work on an essay in school, I turn in a rough draft before the actual assignment is due, and the professor tells me how to improve my work. I don't say that I can't fix it because I'm already thinking about my next essay.

It's also very hypocritical when you find out that Dobson himself has slandered certain shows and creators with little room for argument. Like the time he called Batman a Mary Sue...

The time he got angry at Rey and Kylo Ren hooking up in The Rise of Skywalker because he views Kylo Ren as a metaphor for all the “toxic” Star Wars fans...

The time he complained about Nintendo supposedly changing the lore of their franchises to ignore the DIC cartoons he views as canon (Yes, that version of Link is his favorite)...

And that time when he rambled on social media about how sexist the character Quiet from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was without even playing the game and made up stuff about her.

Whether you agree with these points is irrelevant, because the point is he isn't above viciously criticizing others like what he supposedly hates people do with Astruc. Yes, he has a point that making a TV show is a collaborative effort, and other writers may add in stuff Astruc won't like, but Astruc still holds a fair share of the power among his writing team given how he's only gotten more involved recently with the show's writing and directing.

And here's the biggest reason why I think Dobson made this post: He's also terrible at taking criticism.

How exactly is it okay for Dobson to criticize other pieces of media when he hates them, but as soon as he or someone he likes gets criticized, he'll rush in to defend himself or the person he likes?

With how he talked about criticism earlier, it almost sounds like Dobson isn't actually defending Astruc from criticism, but more like he's defending himself from criticism. I guess you could he’s being very... hypocritical.

[anarmorofwords]

Hc turns out Alastair actually likes politics

Hes smart and hed like to make a change in the way shadowhunters are treated

Hes like Christopher in that aspects, wanting to use different ways to advocate and carry out his mandate thought hes a good fighter

But he thinkseverything is extremly wrong and corrupted and its all shit after the breakup and he starts having HIS own thoughts

And necesarily he doesnt want to actually actively participate in politics

He wants to live his life and be happy

But it never stops nagging him that there is something wrong

So he does what he knows how to do

He writes, and advocates, and apologizez to Thomas cause he is aware Gideon is high up in politics but see your fathers not the problem im critisizing a system.

Writes it under A.C.

And everyones knows its him but no one can prove it so

Hes very vocal aboit his opinions

Once he dies the clave really tries to hude everything he did

All his small victories, his writtings everything because it challenges their costumes. Until Alec is able to find them

And theyre brilliant

And after getting 1900's speak (which is hilarious cause he just walks around the apartment with Alastairs letters like "hey babe what does effontry mean?" And magnus will shout "means someones being a huge dick" "Thank you Magnus")

Its actually pretty smart

He asks if Magnus has any idea who AC is and Magnus really doesnt know (he wasnt in shadowhunter buisness around that time he just visited offly) (and by offly I mean every ten years)

So he takes one of the letters for some time to try to figure it out and after reading everything just clicks like "Oh shit this was Cordelias brother"

And Alec is like???

Magnus: okok remember how I told you half your ancestors just didnt just "not marry" but were excrutiatingly gay

Alec nods

Magnus hands him the letter: see this was one of your ancestors lovers and he was a smartass cocky mf

After that lovely explanation he actually gets down to genuinly explain who Alstair was

His theory was really good Alec noted

At the end he takes into account some of the things he wrote

And when he finds an old letter (that had nothing to do with politics) he gives it to Emma

She lost everything she had of her family besides her sword

He knows shed like to have his ancestor as equally liked to participate in fuck the clave agenda

ok wait I'm having a moment *aka crying*

You KNOW this is exactly what he'd do. Like, I don't even know what to say I'm so emotional about this concept

He would totally see Charlotte's struggles with Maurice and the rest of Clave, and that's even more reason to keep it anon (to a degree, as you said) so people couldn't say he's biased (because Fairchilds/Lightwoods/Herondales' are friends and everyone knows that.)

(But honestly would many people be able to guess it's him?!? Like those asses that used to know his wittiness and eloquence wouldn't believe his opinions changed (because even after he starts "living with his dear friend Thomas" and gets closer to Lightwoods etc., that's not enough proof for people to suspect him, and he's not vocal about his views. and his friends etc wouldn't say. Idk just thinking out loud)

Oh I'm pretty sure Thomas wouldn't mind BUT ALSO IMAGINE ALASTAIR JUST STRAIGHT UP DISCUSSING THESE THINGS WITH GIDEON

like we know Gideon basically adopts him (aka that's a headcanon I'll never ever abandon it's canon shut up everyone) and loves him like his own son and so they just meet for dinner/tea/whatever to chat, and Alastair would often just suggest things to Gideon so he could present them to the Clave please this would be perfect

Also I don't know as much about Enneagram as you, but from what I've read wanting to leave their mark on the world is pretty important to eights, so on one hand yes those writings helping and inspiring Alec years later is beautiful af, but also THE CLAVE BURYING IT ALL FOR DECADES BREAKS MY HEART

just... Alastair dying, say, probably somewhere around/after WWII, and seeing how mundanes world went to shit and seeing similarly dangerous fucked up notions among the Shadowhunters (I barely remember TMI, but I doubt the Circle jsut appeared out of nowhere and there were no idiotic ideas like theirs before ) atahgasyab my heart </3

the thought of Magnus reminiscing about TLH gang to Alec shit shit shit- *cries more*

And damn Alec would find so much comfort in Alastair's story - a man who fought for the right cause even despite all he went through, and even in those much worse times. It brings Alec strength to face his own battles, reminds him to never give up. sometimes he's tired and defeated and thinks maybe it would be better to just leave it all behind and try to fight for nothing more than his own family's well-being, but then he glances at one of those essays, framed over his desk, and he takes a deep breath. He thinks of Alastair, and says to himself 'its for him'. For the guy that didn't get to see the changes, but relentlessly advocated for them all the same. Its for Thomas, Eugenia and Anna Lightwood, Matthew Fairchild, Kamala Joshi, who all should not have lived through those struggles. That's what he can do for them now.

fuck fuck fuck look I don't like Emma but the thought of her smugly realising one of her ancestors was not only a badass gay icon but an advocate for change that messed with the Clave as much as he could hold up I'm gonna cry-

Basically-

[grandhotelabyss]

Sure, you could pay to read the New York Times, or take an extra minute out of your day to blow through their paywall, but for free[*] you could be getting the good information about John Stuart Mill that was just dropped at johnpistelli.com. There’s plenty of nuance in his almost legalistic prose, I promise you, as he heroically tried to synthesize the Enlightenment with Romanticism. An excerpt from my new essay:

How is the infrastructure of free speech to be erected and sustained? Through a proper education, one in which students are allowed to hear a diversity of views from those who hold them. Citing precedents in intellectual history from the Platonic dialogues (in which philosophy is conducted as an argument between multiple personae) to the legal practice of Cicero (who learned the opposing counsel’s case better than his own) to the process of Catholic canonization (which invites the “devil’s advocate” to speak against the candidate for sainthood), Mill argues that students must be prepared to defend their own positions against counterarguments they themselves are able to reconstruct from the inside: “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” Otherwise, people will hold even their own opinions lazily, unfeelingly, and without really knowing why—a state of intellectual torpor that bodes ill for the polity.

Precisely the situation in which once-august and now-bathetic institutions like the Times sadly find themselves.

I don’t even know why I started reading or rereading On Liberty the other day, nor do I remember if I’d ever read the whole thing before or just excerpts in college. I do remember reading all of The Subjection of Women in a Western Civ class, and then answering a final essay exam question in the same class where I was invited to imagine and write out a debate between Mill and Hitler. I recall having some fun with the stage directions: “Mill lifts both eyebrows in startled alarm” and the like. The professor would no doubt be fired today. 

Anyway, I think I went back to Mill because George Bernard Shaw had me wanting to revisit the Victorian sages (and indeed to expand my knowledge of some of them beyond the Norton Anthology)—nothing to do with the news. But current hegemonic left-liberalism has of course abandoned Mill’s liberal ideal of free speech without even seeming to understand its rationale—they appear as well to be in the process of abandoning any theory of mind whatever, ironically returning to a fully infantile state—so On Liberty remains pertinent. 

Two things I didn’t get to discuss in my essay since I try to keep these things short enough for Goodreads:

1. Mill was a Malthusian who thought the state should seize control of breeding. He disfavored “a woman’s right to choose,” to use an obsolete phrase from my youth, to opposite effect as does the religious right today: he might not outlaw but mandate abortion, for generally eugenic reasons. This seems to me inconsistent with the broad principles of On Liberty and premised on a flawed and zero-sum idea of humanity’s relationship to nature and economics.

2. I quoted but did not elaborate on Mill’s beguiling sentence, “It may be better to be a John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles than either.” I first encountered it before I ever read any Mill at all as the epigraph to James Wood’s paralyzingly eloquent essay against Thomas More, “A Man for One Season.” Wood’s idea is that More was no better than Knox, a religious sectarian, and therefore not a fit Periclean hero for a liberal, secular society. But is it really better to be John Knox than Alcibiades? It’s a case of two extremes, an unenviable choice. I confess I haven’t read any Thucydides since my first year of college, but I do recollect that Athens’s golden boy (and Socrates’s boy-toy) was an unreliable man, to say the least. Still, would I want to found Scottish Presbyterianism or hang out with Socrates? I swing sexually the other direction, but Al seems to have enjoyed primarily female company anyway, among all his wild and dangerous political intrigues. Wherever you come down, it’s certainly a thought-provoking sentence.

_________________________________

[*] While I have been “playing real good for free,” like the “one-man band by the quick-lunch stand” in the Joni-Mitchell-via-Lana-del-Rey ballad, if you like it and if you’re able, you might please send money or buy a book to keep the operations ongoing. Thank you!

[pointnumbersixteen]

How do you see The Captain's coming out, and growth in confidence and self acceptance thereafter taking place?

I like this question! …and I’m probably going to elaborate on it a bit more than many people will want to read (I noticed back when I was regularly writing essay length posts that they did not get a lot of love) and it’s probably going to get even more ramble-y than usual (brain has not been braining as cooperatively as it should recently and the decision to drink half a bottle of wine right before answering this- sorry- probably does not help), but here we are.  

 About coming out scenarios, none of mine are particularly elaborate. While I do think he needs to come out for his story line to progress, I can’t imagine him making a big thing out of it (long or elaborate announcements, heart-to-hearts, emotional displays of bearing his authentic self or any of the like), either with the group, or person-by-person, for several reasons:

First off, that sort of a coming-out to-do is a more modern notion, and I doubt he was a particularly modern person even when he was alive, seventy-five years ago. His notions of privacy and propriety are probably much more conservative than ours, and I feel like that makes it unlikely that he’d go into any sort of detail, at least at early in this process, about his feelings/emotions or the specificities of his attractions. We’re talking about a man who doesn’t even use his own name. It’s difficult to picture him going into depth about his desires and love life.

Secondly, he’s a bit of a social coward. (He’s not a physical coward, of course, he jumped on that bomb in the garden without hesitation, and acknowledged after the fact that he gotten caught up in the moment, and therefore hadn’t really thought about how a bomb couldn’t hurt him.) And I get it, I’m a bit of a social coward, too, so no judgement. He probably faced a lot of ridicule in his life. Being a social coward is totally fair. But he doesn’t put himself into situations that might involve awkward interpersonal interactions if he can help it, and legs it whenever interactions he’s already in become to awkward for him. I feel like he’s probably quite desperate (although he’d never admit to it) to save face and protect what bits of his ego remain unscathed.

Think about it: he could have spoken to Fanny on his own about her nightly screaming disturbing him in s1e1, they have a clear association established at the outset of the show, they leave Heather’s room together at the end of the very first scene, but he doesn’t do so until he has the weight of the whole group to back him up about the screaming at their meeting. He had to buck up his courage and give himself his little ‘over the top we go’ pep talk before going to speak to Alison in Gorilla War. Also, if there was actually something wrong with his soldiers’ horseplay after hours in Reddy Weddy- if it was breaking regulations or even his own orders for quiet hours- and he heard it, he could have gone down directly when he heard it, confronted whoever was involved and order them to stop or put them on report. But no, instead he addressed the entire group of soldiers in a sixteen point morning brief. He even dispatched Pat to confront Alison about the party in s2e2, instead doing it himself… and spit out his apology/reconciliation with Pat at the end as fast as possible. And as for legging it when things get awkward, see his retreats following the group confronting him in Getting Out and after Alison telling him he wasn’t needed in the Grey Lady- and on a more figurative than literal level, but most relevantly, his quick turn from ‘I’ll miss you’ to ‘we’ll miss you’ with Havers in Reddy Weddy.

This is not a man who wants to be in awkward or embarrassing situations. And I think that coming out, at least at first, will probably be a bit embarrassing for him- it was scandalous in his time, and I think it will take him longer to get over that feeling and come to terms with himself than it will to finally acknowledge that he’s gay. So I doubt he’d make more of it than he utterly feels he has to, at least at first. And of course, he’d have to be a bit afraid that people would judge him or stop associating with him over it, as sadly, in his own time many people would have done, and most of the ghosts are from even earlier times than he was. So that might add more hesitation…

And thirdly, he doesn’t like and/or respect many of his house mates. The other twentieth century ghosts are the only ones he spends much time with. I doubt he’d go out of his way to communicate much of anything to the rest if it wasn’t “mission related” much less discuss his sexuality with them. He mostly disregards Humphrey. See his, “Oh, it’s you.” Mary obviously doesn’t like him and he only associates with her when it might be useful for his ‘missions.’ He clearly doesn’t think much of Thomas and doesn’t really even bother including him in his plans. These aren’t people he’s going to have heart-to-hearts with.

With those constraints in place, here’s a non-exhaustive list of possibilities by which I might see his coming out finally happening. They’re really just scenarios I made for myself on how I might see him coming out and I like to keep my options open (the first three are strategies he might go for, the last is an alternate scenario, presented in decreasing levels of directness on his part):

1) The ‘pull the bandage off quickly and hope it doesn’t sting too much’ strategy.

The Captain waits for the end of one of their various group activities or meetings, where all announcements seem to be made, gets up, clears his throat, stammers a bit, announces it tersely, using the most proper popular word for homosexuality that existed in his time (think: “Heh-hem. Er. Um. Well. It has recently come to my attention that I am- er- well- as it happens- gay. I, uh, thought it should be noted. That is all.”), and then beats a hasty retreat, so he doesn’t have to try to cope with the potentially negative aftermath. Of course, there isn’t a negative aftermath, because many of the ghosts already have guessed and the rest don’t really care. Someone, probably Pat, because he does the bulk of the emotional labor in the group, and more importantly, he’s Cap’s closest friend, would have to go after him. He would of course be initially defensive, and Pat would have to sooth his feathers a bit- or maybe just spit it out over his defensiveness- that he guessed a long time ago and so had plenty of other people, and they were just waiting for him to be ready, and really, it’s fine, and no one’s going to disown him for it.  

2) The ‘well maybe I should tell my friends with the hope they support me’ strategy.

He gets together with a small group, the people whose company he actually values, definitely Fanny and Pat, maybe Julian, probably Alison either at the same time or after he finishes with his ghosts pals, and says it in much the same way as the previous scenario, but waiting for their reactions rather than retreating straight away. Pat and Alison, I expect, would answer with something like ‘yeah, we figured that one out a long time ago, actually, and it’s completely fine’ and Julian’s reaction would probably be something like, ‘well, obviously.’ Fanny’s had a lot of character growth since season one, when I expect her reaction would have been very shrill and judgmental, probably still would be a touch less warm and/or nonchalant, but I picture it as something like a sigh, followed by a pat on the arm and something like, ‘well, I still like you better than everyone else here, anyway.’ Word would eventually trickle to everyone else by way of social osmosis. Or not. No one seems to care if Humphrey or the plague ghosts are well informed.  

3) The ‘I’m not brave enough to actually go through the process of actually telling anyone anything about me so let’s just drop hints and hope everyone figures it out without making a big deal about it’ strategy.  

The indirect approach (I’m rather fond of this one, but mostly because it was my own primary coming out approach)… he first sends out feelers to certain people on the topic of homosexuality, probably Alison, since she’s modern, hosted a lesbian wedding, and very much implied that she’d be ready to keep scandalous secrets for him in Reddy Weddy, and  possibly maybe also Julian, as he’s the most sexually experienced/knowledgeable, and after Alison spent a while inundating him with ‘it’s okay to be gay’ messages (along with a sudden and entirely unexplained influx of LGBT media) as she’s socially clever enough to see that’s what he’s looking for and after Julian spent a while telling him probably far more than he ever actually wanted to know about the potentialities of gay sex, that might boost the Captain’s confidence enough to let him start dropping hints to people, instead of telling them outright (consciously commenting on the attractiveness of men they see rather than occasionally accidentally blurting it out- see ‘the handsome one’- occasionally putting forth an opinion or stance on the LGBT world ‘it would have been nice if gay marriage was acceptable when I was alive,’ maybe occasionally mentioning how certain men would make cute couple), expecting them to meet him in the middle and figure out the point on their own… of course, many of them have already realized, so this isn’t a problem. It’s entirely possible, though, that Mary (world view not terribly grounded in reality) and Kitty (lack of life experience and/or instruction about life, see the how are babies made subplot) never pick up the hints on their own and someone else eventually has to tell them.

4) The ‘someone puts him out of his misery’ scenario.

Cap acknowledges to himself that he’s gay first and then, wishing to avoid embarrassment or lack of acceptance, obviously, awkwardly, painfully tries to disguise it and in doing so draws attention to it, until a third party decides to put him out of his misery and tell him that many of them figured it out ages ago and that everyone is fine with it. Maybe Pat. Maybe Alison. I kind of like the idea of it being Fanny (with her lovely character growth and her couple of suspicious glances his way in the Perfect Day), actually, by way of something like ‘You know, I was entirely prepared to continue on living with my husband, George, keeping his secrets, about the, uh, sort of person he was, and you’re at least one better than him, given that you at least never murdered me- or, for that matter, never married some poor woman you had no interest in to shield yourself from scrutiny… and so, what I’m saying is, I wouldn’t turn my back on you for being the, uh, sort of person you are, either, and maybe things have progressed enough that you don’t actually have to keep secrets at all.’ Cap would take all of this in with a mixture of mortification and relief. I’m rather fond of this scenario, too.  

 As for the second bit of the question, once his sexuality is out there, though, and no one judges him or hates him for it- and some are quite supportive- I do see him becoming more self-accepting. If no one’s judging him, does he need to judge himself so harshly? And also more confident. Because some of those things that he’s always felt different about and in the past has probably been ridiculed about in the past (even if he’s in denial about being gay, he and quite a few other people had to at the very least note that he’s not particularly interested in women), are, apparently just fine now. So he’s a bit more just fine now himself. And that weight of always trying to be someone else, someone who’s just right, can lift and he can relax a bit more. And that would probably help him a lot, too. I see it as a slow sort of thawing process. No matter what way he comes out, I still see Alison as very helpfully providing a variety of LGBT media to help this process along. And maybe he’d eventually get to the point where he processed enough and warmed up enough to be able to talk more in depth, at least with his friends, about what it was like being him in repressed pre-war Britain, and what sort of men he’s attracted to (I enjoy the idea of him and Fanny- gradually overcoming her own repression- scoping out hot men together). Maybe he’ll even luck out one of his male housemates will decide (or has already decided) that bisexuality is a valid option and he’ll get a date (insert whichever ghost y’all ship him with here). I bet Alison would totally help him set up a nice date, too, with her convenient still-functional-in-the-mortal-realm hands. And it would be nice to maybe see him get a taste of actual happiness.    

[charmingpplincardigans]

Books 2021

I read so many books this year! Or well, I listened to so many books this year. There was a moment in September where I had gone through 70 and thought, 'I could read 100 books this year if I really tried', but uh, you can probably tell that shortly after that I stopped trying. See also the part of the year where my collected non-fiction reading looked like I might be gearing up to build a sexbot to upload my consciousness to. I'm still not ruling that out.

The Parable of the Sower // Octavia Butler (science fiction)

Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology // Adrienne Mayor (non-fiction)

The Duke & I // Julia Quinn (romance)

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches // Audre Lorde (essays)

Perfect Sound Whatever // James Acaster (non-fiction)

The Viscount Who Loved Me // Julia Quinn (romance)

Dearly // Margaret Atwood (poetry)

An Offer From A Gentleman // Julia Quinn (romance)

How to Write An Autobiographical Novel // Alexander Chee (memoir)

The Sandman: Overture // Neil Gaiman, JH Williams III, Dave Stewart (fantasy)

Romancing Mr. Bridgerton // Julia Quinn (romance)

Cemetery Boys // Aiden Thomas (fantasy)

Here For It // R. Eric Thomas (essays)

To Sir Phillip, With Love // Julia Quinn (romance)

Sandman (audio) // Neil Gaiman, Dirk Maggs (fantasy)

The View From the Cheap Seats // Neil Gaiman (essays)

Bluets // Maggie Nelson (poetry)

Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living // Jes Baker (non-fiction)

A Study in Scarlet // Arthur Conan Doyle (mystery)

When He Was Wicked // Julia Quinn (romance)

The Sign of Four // Arthur Conan Doyle (mystery)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes // Arthur Conan Doyle (mystery)

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes // Arthur Conan Doyle (mystery)

The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar // Maurice LeBlanc (mystery)

The Return of Sherlock Holmes // Arthur Conan Doyle (mystery)

Sex, Race, and Robots // Dr. Ayanna Howard (non-fiction)

It's In His Kiss // Julia Quinn (romance)

The Raven Boys // Maggie Stiefvater (fantasy, re-read)

The Dream Thieves // Maggie Stiefvater (fantasy, re-read)

After Callimachus: Poems // Stephanie Burt (poetry)

Blue Lily, Lily Blue // Maggie Stiefvater (fantasy, re-read)

The Raven King // Maggie Stiefvater (fantasy, re-read)

On the Way to the Wedding // Julia Quinn (romance)

Call Down the Hawk // Maggie Stiefvater (fantasy, re-read)

Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place a transgender memoir // Jackson Bird (memoir)

Felon // Reginald Dwayne Betts (poetry)

If Birds Gather Your Hair For Nesting // Anna Journey (poetry)

Mister Impossible // Maggie Stiefvater (fantasy)

Visual Poetry in the Avant Writing Collection // edited by John M. Bennett (poetry)

Everybody Has a Podcast (Except You) // McElroys et al (non-fiction)

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb // Cat Sebastian (romance)

Counting Descent // Clint Smith (poetry)

The Paper Magician // Charlie N. Holmberg (fantasy)

Somebody's Daughter // Ashley C. Ford (memoir)

Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything // Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen (non-fiction)

The Family Plot // Cherie Priest (horror)

Don't Call Us Dead // Danez Smith (poetry)

The 99% Invisible City // Roman Mars (non-fiction)

The A.I. Who Loved Me // Alyssa Cole (romance/science fiction)

Upstream: Selected Essays // Mary Oliver (essays)

The Glass Magician // Charlie M. Holmberg (fantasy)

DMZ Colony // Don Mee Choi (non-fiction/poetry)

Turned On: Science, Sex, and Robots // Kate Devlin (non-fiction)

Fierce Fairytales // Nikita Gill (fantasy)

One Last Stop // Casey McQuiston (fantasy)

Medium Raw // Anthony Bourdain (memoir)

Aerial View of Louisiana // Cleopatra Mathis (poetry)

The Body is Not An Apology // Sonya Renee Taylor (non-fiction)

Dolly Parton: Songteller // Dolly Parton (memoir)

Winter's Orbit // Everina Maxwell (science fiction)

The Universe of Us // Lang Leav (poetry)

The Master Magician // Charlie N. Holmberg (fantasy)

Paperback Crush // Gabrielle Moss (non-fiction)

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat // Aubrey Gordon (non-fiction)

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? // Caitlin Doughty (non-fiction)

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing // Hank Green (science fiction)

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor // Hank Green (science fiction)

The Midnight Bargain // CL Polk (fantasy)

Unmentionable // Therese O'Niell (non-fiction)

Here //  Richard McGuire (comic)

Mr. Humble & Dr. Butcher // Brandy Schillace (non-fiction)

A Darker Shade of Magic // VE Schwab (fantasy, re-read)

Good Omens // Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (fantasy, re-read)

A Gathering of Shadows // VE Schwab (fantasy, re-read)

Women and Other Monsters // Jess Zimmerman (non-fiction/memoir)

Lessons on Expulsion // Erika L. Sanchez (poetry)

[tomthesoftie]

Oh ok yeah thanks #57

taken for granted

a/n: this came out longer than expected, it’s almost 3000 words... this is probably super angsty, maybe... also, i’m going to work on ‘nothing can go wrong’ soon but i have to write two essays for school so i’m sorry if there is a delay... enjoy xx

pairing: mob!tom x reader

warnings: swearing, angsty shit, fluff at the end, mob!tom is a dick

masterlist                     prompt list

57. “Stop pretending you’re okay ‘cause I know you’re not.”

Tom rarely spent any of his time with you now. He was always too preoccupied with his mobster duties. On rare occasions, he would join you in your shared bed, but by the time he arrived, you were already fast asleep. You always tried to fit with his schedule to at least say goodnight to him or wake up to see him by your side, but all your attempts failed. So when Tom said he had a free day, which he could have whenever he wanted seeing he was his own boss, you jumped at the opportunity.

You woke, bundled in the white sheets, yawning and stretching before looking to the usually empty space beside you. Tom laid there, curls tousled and chest heaving peacefully. You felt a warmth in your core, and you smiled. 

You decided to get ready for your day with your boyfriend, preparing brunch and a list of things you could do together in your single day together.

things to do:

1. eat brunch together

2. go out on a romantic walk

3. have afternoon tea

4. come back home and make cookies together

5. watch a movie

6. make a surprise dinner for tom

7. snuggle and let the rest of the night flow as it goes

Tom sat up on the bed, stretching his arms while letting out a loud yawn. He hadn’t slept this well in a while. 

A delectable aroma blew into the room, tickling his nose. He breathed in the scent, following it to its source. He stared at the table of his favorite foods displayed in front of him. 

You entered the dining room holding another plate of food. You placed the platter neatly between two other plates, finishing off your first surprise for Tom.

“Christ, darling, what’s all this for?” Tom spoke.

You jumped, not realizing he had been standing there, “Oh my goodness, Thomas, you scared me,” you looked at the food, “It’s all for you. I wanted to make your day off enjoyable. Besides, we haven’t spent much time together in a while.”

He smiled, “I love you so much.”

Blushing, you replied, “I love you, too. Now let’s eat.”

Brunch was pleasant but awkward. You didn’t know what to talk about with him, so you resorted to staring at him while he ranted about problems. It wasn’t that you didn’t care for his problems, but you wanted this day to be about the both of you. You plastered a genuine smile on your face, though it began to falter.

“I was thinking that we could go out to town and just walk around, that is if you want,” you suggested when the two of you finished your meal.

“O-Oh, um, sure. Let me go get ready, love,” he walked over to you, placing a gentle kiss on your forehead before quietly thanking you.

His small signs of affection were enough to erase your worries. You told yourself you overreacted about him talking about himself at breakfast. He did care.

-

Hand in hand, you and Tom strolled through the crowded streets of Kingston upon Thames. You admired the beautiful city, feeling lucky to be able to live there. 

More than you wanted, Tom’s attention went to his phone. He laughed and smiled at whatever was on his phone. He typed away, glowing with happiness.

You felt a pang of jealousy.

Who could be making Tom feel like this? He seems to be enjoying his day more with the person throw his screen than the one right beside him. You thought to yourself, grip loosening on his hand.

He didn’t notice the change, and you frowned. Your boyfriend was glowing with happiness, and you would be a bad girlfriend if you ruined it. You put on a fake smile, hoping it would convince him even though he hadn’t looked at you at all since brunch.

He cares, you convinced yourself.

“Um, Tom?” You asked, seeing the tea house you were planning to get afternoon tea at.

“Mhm?” His eyes were locked on his phone.

“I was thinking that we could get some afternoon tea. We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” you tried to look him in the eyes, only to fail miserably.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you want,” he mumbled.

Still holding his hand, you pulled him to the building. The receptionist looked at Tom then to you, noticing the lack of attention he was giving you. You tried to smile it off, but she gave you a look of sympathy before bringing you to your table.

It was a shame Tom’s eyes were glued to the screen of his phone. The table you’d gotten had a perfect view of River Thames. 

“Tom,” you squeaked.

He didn’t respond.

“Tom,” you said louder.

Still no answer.

“Tom,” you said in a demanding voice.

His head snapped up, “What?”

You sighed. This day was definitely going unexpectedly. The worse part about it all was that you wanted the day to be over. You were mad at yourself for that. He cares about you, so why couldn’t you care about him?

“D’you like how the day’s going?” You asked in a softer tone.

“Mhm, great,” he said flatly.

You didn’t know what else to say, so you let him go back to ogling his phone. You wanted to cry. The only day you had with him, wasted.

Tears filled your eyes, feeling ignored by Tom. To avoid tears from rolling down your cheeks and exposing your true feelings about how the day was going, you dismissed yourself to the ladies room. 

Tom heard the rawness in your voice and looked up. Your head was down as you excused yourself. He carefully watched you as you quickly scattered away. He heard a sniffle but doubted that it came from you. You were the one who dragged him along, anyways.

-

You were thankful to be back home. You didn’t feel like preparing a grand dinner anymore. You felt like going to sleep and end the day. 

Goddamnit, Y/N! Pull yourself together. He’s always putting you on top. You need to put him on top now, you scolded yourself.

Trying to muster up all the remaining sanity in you, you headed to the kitchen and worked away. 

Hours passed as you prepared the meal. You made sure nothing went wrong, working slowly. With precision, you plated each meal. Your hands shook, and you droplets of sweat rolled down your forehead. 

“Done,” you murmured to yourself, smiling.

Everything looked beautifully put together, as you were an amateur. You gave yourself a small pat on the back. Then it struck you. You missed some things on your list.

4. come back home and make cookies together

5. watch a movie

You slapped your forehead. Where had the time gone? You felt terrible. You missed a couple hours of spending time with your boyfriend. Hopefully the dinner would make up for it.

-

Unsurprisingly, dinner wasn’t much different from the rest of the day. You were thrown to the side while he enjoyed himself.

No, he hasn’t had the time to relax and enjoy himself in a while. I can’t blame him for that, you sighed, I just wish he would enjoy and relax with me.

“Thanks for the dinner, darling. It was... delicious,” he hesitated.

Your attention moved to him. You gave him a small smile, feeling slightly offended by his hesitation.

He left the room, moving to the living room. You were left to do all the dishes and work by yourself. 

Great.

-

You stepped out of the shower, drying yourself off. You slipped on Tom’s oversized shirt, wearing a matching set of lingerie underneath. You hoped it was enough to grab his attention.

You heard murmuring downstairs. You walked down the stairs, seeing Tom on the couch with Tuwaine, Harrison, and Harry.

“H-Hello, boys,” you said, catching their attention. “Sorry about my - um - improper outfit. I didn’t know you’d be coming over.”

“S’alright, love. Mind getting us some wine, though?” Harrison asked, smirking.

“But-- I-- Sure,” you said pathetically.

You brought them four glasses and an expensive bottle of wine, opened of course. 

You settled beside Tom, who inched away from you. It struck your heart.

“Don’t you think you should at least go get properly dressed before joining us?” He glared at you.

“O-Oh, sorry,” you whispered, feeling a tug at your heart. “I think I’ll be heading to bed now. Goodnight,” you announced, walking away in a rush.

You rushed up the stairs only to hear Tom complain, “She gets so clingy and annoying.”

Tears poured down your cheeks. A silent sob ripped from your lips. You ran to the room, tripping over yourself several times.

He didn’t care at all. He cares about himself. Only him, you realized.

-

“Mate, she’s your girlfriend. She cares about you. You shouldn’t say that shit about her,” Tuwaine said, feeling sympathy for the girl.

“It’s true, she’s been clinging to my ass all day,” Tom groaned.

“Have you gone out with her recently? Talked to her, at least?” Harrison asked.

Tom didn’t respond, keeping his eyes trained on the bottles of wine ahead of him. That answered enough.

“Tom, did you think that she just missed you?” Harry interrupted the silence.

“Just drop it, guys,” Tom snapped, starting to feel slightly guilty. 

-

You laid in your shared bed, holding yourself in your arms. The blanket wrapped around your body as a shield. 

Quiet sobs escaped your mouth, tears rolling onto your pillow. You were offended Tom would call you ‘clingy’ and ‘annoying.’ You tried so hard to make this day good for him, and he thinks you’re clingy.

You cried yourself to sleep that night, happy that Tom didn’t come to bed before you fell asleep for once. 

-

Tuwaine, Harry, and Haz left after a couple wines. They tried to convince him to treat you better but only received the response, “Let’s talk about something else.”

Tom had seen his own faults after a long, irritating talk with the boys. He was being an ass to you for no reason.

He hurried up the stairs after putting all the dishes into the sink, hoping to catch you awake. To his dismay, you were already out. Tear streaks decorated your puffy face while some new tears slowly moved down your face.

He placed a pained kiss to your forehead. You stirred, moving into his familiar touch. A small smile danced on your lips. His hand moved to caress your cheek, admiring your beauty even when you were in pain.

Without waking you, he slid into the space beside you in bed. He held your waist, nuzzling his face in your neck. You pressed against him, attracted to the heat. He smiled and leaned to kiss your head again.

“Goodnight, darling,” he whispered before drifting to sleep.

-

You woke up with a pounding headache. You tried to sit up but something, or someone, held you down. You looked at the warm figure holding you and saw Tom with his arms wrapped around you. You felt a sting in your chest and tried to pull away. 

You were able to maneuver out of his arms without waking him.

Dizzily, you made your way to the kitchen. You got yourself a cup of water and took some pain relievers. You plopped onto the couch lying on your side. Your legs tucked, and you curled your body into a ball. Without knowing, you fell asleep not too long after.

-

Tom noticed you were out of bed when he woke.

“Darling?” He mumbled, looking around.

With no response, he assumed you had gone to the kitchen for breakfast.

He dragged himself out of bed and headed to the kitchen. Surprisingly, you weren’t there. He saw a cup and pain relievers lying on the counter.

“Princess?” He looked around, still no sight of you.

He walked over to the dining room then to the living room. He saw your limp body on the couch, letting out soft sighs. You were cuddled into a tight ball, shivering from the cold. Picking up a blanket from the room, he draped it over your shaking body. He sat on the couch with you, rubbing your body warm over the blankets. 

-

You felt a weighted cloth enrapture you, giving you warmth. Instinctively, you snuggled into it. A pressure rubbed up and down your arm, further warming you.

You opened your eyes to see Tom hovering over you. You looked closely at him, believing this to be your imagination. Under the sheets, you pinched yourself and felt sharp pains on your arms.

“Ow,” you mumbled.

“Are you alright, love?” Tom asked, worry flooding his features.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you sat up and began to put some distance between the two of you.

“Where are you going?” He scooted closer to you until you had no where else to go.

“I gotta get ready. You should, too, ‘cause, y’know, work,” you fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Wait,” he grabbed your wrist as you began to walk away, “I don’t have to do anything today. I can stay with you.”

“No, it’s alright. Besides, there must be someone to interrogate today,” you snapped, pulling your wrist from his grip.

He didn’t know why your mood had changed. Just yesterday, you were so loving and warm to him. 

Did you overhear him last night? He worried.

“Love,” he knocked on the door, “can I come in?”

He heard a couple of sniffles behind the closed door and frowned to himself.

“Just a sec,” you called out with a pained voice.

Tom could hear your tears in you voice and concerningly asked, “Are you okay in there?”

“Yeah, just fine,” you squeaked, slowly feeling your composure falter.

“Darling, open the door,” he demanded.

“Wait a moment, please,” you said too weakly.

“Open the do-”

“I will,” you snapped, “I’m trying to get ready, s’all,” you replied with a calmer tone.

You heard no response from him and expected that he left, so you jumped when the door was thrown open. The brunette stood in the doorway, staring at your red rimmed eyes.

“Tom, I’m fine,” you wiped away a stray tear, smiling, “See? Perfectly fine.”

“No, you’re not! Stop pretending you’re okay ‘cause I know you’re not,” he growled.

“It’s not much of your problem, is it?” You glared at him, beginning to lose your patience.

“Not much of my problem? How is my girlfriend not my problem? It’s my duty to protect and care for you. Why are you-” He was infuriated.

“Well I wouldn’t want to come off as too clingy! Maybe I don’t want to annoy you!” You shouted.

So you did hear him, Tom sighed.

Seeing the evident guilt and shock in his face, you continued, “That’s right, I heard it. You couldn’t’ve even waited for me to get back to the room! Some boyfriend you are,” you mumbled the end, pushing past him.

“Wait,” he called after you, “I didn’t mean what I said. It was just in the heat of the moment. I was just stressed with everything going with the mob.”

“Right,” you nodded unbelievably.

“Haz and them helped me see that I was the one in the wrong. I shouldn’t have called you that. I’m sorry, love, truly, very sorry,” he pouted at you.

“You really hurt me, Tom. I planned a whole day out for us yesterday. You ignored me for practically the entire day,” you hiccuped, a rush of disappointment filled you.

“I know. I’m so sorry, love. I was such an asshole. You deserve to be treated better. I’ll fix that, I swear. I’ll spend more time with you. We could go on dates again. I’ll even make sure that I’ll go to bed with you,” he carefully walked over to you as if you would run if he got too close.

“But how would I know if you were talking shit about me to your mob cronies?” You asked, doubtful to trust him.

“I’ll personally have Haz, Tuwaine, or Harry slap me if I do, but no need to worry, love, I won’t take you for granted anymore,” he placed a gentle kiss to your head, “Now, would you like to join me for a day of just us?”

You giggled, “No, I wouldn’t,” hurt filled Tom’s features, “I would love to.”

“You’re such a tease,” he chuckled, “but I love you for it.”

You smiled up at him, “I missed having you around, Tommy. I spent so many nights yearning for you.”

“No more nights like that, alright? I’m here til the end of the line,” he answered softly.

-

And so, Tom kept his word. Everything has changed. He became the same Tom that you had met at the coffee shop. You obviously still disagreed with him running the mob, but he would always reassure you, telling you that he wouldn’t leave you.

He didn’t did care after all. He cares about himself the both of us. Only him us, you realized.

[bbygrace]

some ‘essay’ on how ghosts portrays death and my predictions on how each ghost may have died

i did mention parts of this in a little rant i did a few weeks ago but i thought id put my thoughts and observations into a more cohesive form and seeing as in-depth english gcse level essays are becoming popular in the ghosts tag i thought i might as well join in

‘essay’ starts below the cut

i think that i might’ve mentioned before that ghosts does a very good job of making light of death, while also keeping the sadness and seriousness of it. the best example for this is probably pat’s death. pat’s entire concept as a basic form is comedic in itself: he is a scoutmaster who was accidentally shot dead by an 8 year old with an arrow. when we see his death play out in the show most peoples immediate reaction is to laugh. his death was humorous. the way he gets shot in the middle of talking about how dangerous archery can be, the way the kid who did it (keith) tried to cover it up by passing the bow to another scout, pat’s mumbling about getting one of the kids to drive him home as he fumbles to find his keys - these are all comedic elements of his death. it’s supposed to be funny. however, at the same time, his death is still sad, especially when you consider the fact that he died in front of a group of children. this is made even sadder when we see how much pat’s death affected keith even into his adulthood. while pat frantically searching for his keys with his massive keychains is funny, there was also the sad element to it which was the panic he was experiencing. he knew he was going to die, but he still had a little bit of hope that he could manage to get home and see carol one last time. there’s a perfect mix of both the light and dark of death. it’s funny because its a comedy show, but its also sad because its death, which is one of the major themes of the show. we know that pat’s death still negatively affected him. as far as we know, all the ghosts’ deaths affected them negatively (with the exception of some ghosts, specifically kitty, whose death hasn’t been explored in the slightest, so we dont know how it affected/affects her), some more than others. while pat was upset by his death and shows signs of trauma from it, he isn’t nearly as affected as mary, for example, perhaps because his death was relatively quick and/or because he just adapts and overcomes (most) things quickly. all the other ghosts’ deaths that we know of have been portrayed the same way as pat’s, with both the comedic and upsetting sides being shown. this reflects the way the ghosts themselves feel about death. they’ve all been dead for a long time, and having already experienced death, they’re no longer scared by it. they may be traumatised by it, but as it’s already happened and they’ve all experienced it, they can relate and unite over it. a few examples of when this is seen when they’re placing bets on whether a subject will stay or go and pat saying ‘i’m dead, you’ll be dead soon’. this suggests that they have a relatively light view of death as a whole concept, and the thing they’re sensitive to is their own particular deaths.

how the other ghosts’ deaths apply to this

thomas’ death was sad - the way he died alone, waiting for isabelle, the whole scandal with francis and the way he basically caused thomas to die and the fact that thomas went without knowing this for centuries. however, there were also comedic elements to his death, mostly centered around the circumstances surrounding the duel, like his awkwardness when challenging the officer to the duel, the way he (unknowingly) died partly because of mary shelley and the pigeon he shot and then proceeded to apologise to as he was dying. thomas’ death in itself - dying from being shot in a duel - isn’t exactly funny or ridiculous, but the circumstances surrounding it and the events leading up to it are. almost everything that led up to his death was humorous, mostly due to the way the other ghosts told it, his awkwardness and how different the reality of his death was to this false, dramatised version that he had made up to help him feel better about it, and to try and impress alison. the mood then gradually decreases until he actually dies and kitty says ‘he waited and waited, but she never came.’ we then end up at the lowest, saddest point of his demise - him dying alone, waiting for isabelle. it then rises again when we see thomas’ concerned reaction to becoming a ghost. the atmosphere flows from funny to serious very smoothly, and a lot of the time its a mixture of both.

as for fanny, the comedic aspect of her death was her catching her husband cheating and then being pushed out of the window with the rest of the ghosts watching it all go down. it’s a funny thing to picture. however, because it was a death, it was still sad. it still affected her negatively. she still kept george’s secret for all those years. she was murdered by her husband, someone who should’ve loved her and looked after her - she trusted him and he abused that trust. we see multiple times that she’s bitter over the fact that he cheated on her and she takes that out on other people, for example, she’s angry at the fact that the wedding is a lesbian wedding in s2e6. while this is partly due to her upbringing and the time she lived in, her views on homosexuality were also heavily affected by the fact she walked in on her husband cheating on her with two men. fanny’s acceptance that people should be allowed to love who they want after talking to humphrey is a huge development in her character and how she copes with her death. in the scenes during and following her conversation with humphrey, we see her death and the effects it had on her portrayed in the most serious way they had been so far. up until that point, her death was referenced almost purely comedically, with the sadder aspects being deeper within the writing. they become more apparent when really considering what that must have been like for her and when looking at how it affected her.

my predictions for the other ghosts’ deaths based on this

every example of a death we have seen so far has been ridiculous, funny or ironic in some way, whether that be the actual cause of death or the events leading up to it. because of this, i believe the rest of the ghosts’ deaths will have a comedic element to them.

starting with robin, i have no strong ideas on how he died. a lot of people seem to think that he was struck by lightning due to his powers. i think that this is a solid idea and i can see it working, but i think he also could have possibly died of a disease or by being crushed by something like a boulder or a mammoth or something. i don’t really know if his cause of death would be particularly funny, i think instead that his reaction and behaviour/events leading up to his demise will be the comedic aspect, with the sad part being that he was alone in death, with no one to talk to for thousands of years, as far as we know.

as for humphrey, once again i don’t think his actual cause of death would be the comedic part, unless it was botched by an inexperienced executioner maybe. i think he was probably executed for a humorous reason. he seems like he was probably a bit of a dick in life so i wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case.

the same applies for mary - i think she was probably executed for a seemingly insignificant reason, because women could be accused of witchcraft for doing pretty much anything at the time. however, she is still deeply traumatised by her death and is only starting to come to terms with it, so i doubt her death would be particularly funny. her death in itself (being burnt at the stake) almost definitely won’t be the comedic part.

i’m almost certain kitty’s death was her sister’s fault. we know how poorly she treated her and we know that her death was caused by someone else. i think the sadder perspective of kitty’s death will be her naivety and trust that she had and still has for her sister, despite the awful mistreatment she received from her. she didn’t know she was being mistreated by her - she just thought that was the way all friends/sisters were and as long as she was making other people happy then she was happy too. i think she was most likely poisoned (which would explain the vomit thing that happens in s2e6) or she died from exposure to the elements due to being left outside, probably while playing a game. as we know next to nothing about how she died or how she feels about her death, i don’t know what could be funny about it, so i’m going to assume that it could also be related to her naivety and innocence, but in a different way. it may seem dark, but she probably died smiling, without really knowing what was going on. her reaction to her death and her attitude and behaviour leading up to it will most likely be comedic, unless she was murdered in an ironic or obscure way.

every time i try to even begin to figure out how the captain died i feel like clawing my brains out. i literally have no idea how he possibly could’ve died. perhaps his cause of death was unusual or interesting and that’s why its so hard to figure out - maybe it’s just incredibly obscure. i can see both the circumstances surrounding his death and the cause of his death having the possibility of being comedic. maybe his death was embarrassing and that’s why he hasn’t talked about it, because he’s ashamed and wants to pretend it didn’t happen. we know he does this already with his sexuality: he doesn’t want to think about it or acknowledge it so he pretends it doesn’t exist, because if it doesn’t exist then he doesn’t have to worry about it, and he could be doing the same thing in regards to his demise. tom kingsley, the director, said on twitter that his ribbons are upside down for a reason. i don’t know if this is related to his death or not, but my guesses are that it probably is as if they were applied long before his death he probably would’ve fixed them. my thoughts are that they were probably put on him either by himself as he was dying and they were put upside down by mistake and he didn’t have enough time to fix them/he wasn’t in a good enough state to put them on properly, or that they were put on his uniform by someone else. i think his death definitely will have a lot of sad tones to it, but i don’t think it’ll be entirely negative, especially considering how he acts under stress.

i don’t think i even have to talk about what the comedic aspect of julian’s death would be. this also makes it a little harder to figure out what the sad aspect of it was, apart from the fact he died. maybe it could be the way he was viewed by the public and the way he died before he could do anything to improve his image, but, judging by how he acts in death, he probably wouldn’t have even thought of trying to change for the better in his lifetime, but i could be wrong. the negative side of his death will probably be related to his public image and how he was the ideal ‘disgraced MP’ stereotype and that’s pretty much all he was known for. as for how he died, asphyxiation, heart attack or something drug-related seem to be the most plausible ideas.

i’m not really sure how this theory applies to the plague ghosts, i guess they’re some sort of exception. their deaths weren’t particularly comedic or sad. i can’t really see any way for their deaths to be written the same way the others are, as the way they died was very common and hard to make particularly funny or sad, especially both simultaneously.

conclusion

basically, i think death is portrayed and written very effectively in ghosts. the show lets you know that you’re allowed to laugh, it’s supposed to be funny. it’s a comedy show, after all, and these are fictional characters. at the same time, you’re being told you’re allowed to cry. the show is sad at times cough cough, s2e3, cough cough, because these characters have experienced sad things like the person they’re deeply in love with leaving them before they even have a chance to develop their relationship or make sense of their own feelings, most notably death. death is sad so of course that’s going to be conveyed in the show. it’s almost impossible to make a death not sad, especially considering the likeableness of most of the characters except julian. however, death can also be taken lightly in the context of the show as the whole point is that they’re dead, we wouldn’t have ghosts if they were alive. they died years before episode 1 took place. it’s already happened, but it hasn’t been dealt with completely, and thats where the sadness comes in. they’re still processing and dealing with the trauma that came with their deaths. both sides of the event are shown, because the characters feel both good and bad about their deaths. they feel bad about it because of everything they lost and the way they died and the circumstances of their deaths but they also have positive feelings surrounding their deaths because of the situation they’re currently in. they can kind of just do whatever they want (as far as their physical boundaries allow them to) without consequences, because what can happen? they’re dead! they also have bonds with each other and, now that alison and mike are there, they have something to keep them occupied and aware of how things have changed since they were alive. every cloud has a silver lining and all that.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Extra Training

"Where are you going?"  Ryouga wanted to know.  Iris tucked her D-Gazer into her pocket, checked on her deck, and shrugged.

"To the movies with Haruto,"  she told him.  Like she did every weekend.  It was something to do that wasn't dueling - not that she disliked dueling, there wasn't really any way that she could, not with having grown up in a household of duelists.  But it wasn't the be-all and end-all of her existence, and she only carried the deck around because Vector would start handing out knives if she didn't. 

Not that Iris had anything against knives, either, but the way Ryouga and Rio both stared at Vector when he offered her extra lessons told her quickly they didn't need to know how good she was with them, even without Vector's help.  Uncle Michael gave her sword-fighting lessons every weekend after all.  Edged weapons were as useful a tool as a dueling deck, and one that most people were less likely to think an eighteen year old might use against them.

Iris far preferred to handle her own problems.  The last time she'd complained about someone being annoying, everyone in the family plus a few extras - such as Uncles Michael, Thomas, and Chris, as well as Uncle Yuuma and Uncle Kaito, came down on the offender like the proverbial ton of bricks.  It took months> for anyone to ever talk to her again at school.

At least she didn't have to worry about that with Haruto.  They all liked Haruto and he knew how not to get on their bad sides.  Plus, he'd learned more than a few things that his brother didn't know about, so he kept her secrets about what she could do that her elders didn't know.

And he was a fantastic sparring partner.

Ryouga regarded her thoughtfully, then nodded.  "Enjoy yourself,"  was all he said.  Iris knew what that meant - don't murder someone without one heck of a good reason.  She was fine with that.  Rio had taught her what a good reason was.  So far she hadn't had to kill anyone and she didn't really want to.  She liked learning dueling and fighting for reasons aside from blood-lust, no matter what Vector swore by. 

So she headed out of the mansion and to the center of town, where Haruto sat outside of Heartland Tower and waited for her, kicking his feel lazily in a fountain.  She vaguely remembered that he'd been a bit sickly and weak when they were children.  Most of that had been before she'd come to this world, so she'd heard of it mostly as stories from Ryouga and Uncle Kaito, or from Haruto himself.  When she'd first met him, he'd been getting better, and she'd helped him improve over the years.

Now one couldn't tell that he'd ever been at risk of dying at all.  He leaped to his feet as soon as he caught sight of her and waved, eyes bright with joy.

"Ready?"  He wanted to know as she drew closer.  Iris smiled; she did enjoy spending time with him.  And she enjoyed what they were about to do just as much.  Maybe even a bit more.

"Ready."  She nodded, one hand dropping down to where she kept her duel disk - and the little secret hidden inside the same pocket.  Haruto nodded as well, and the two of them headed off.  Both of them knew very well that Omoid - oldest offspring of Obomi and Orbital 7 - followed them.  Omoid followed Haruto anywhere he went and did anything he could in order to help him. 

Haruto had had to do a little reprogramming as he got older to make sure Omoid kept certain things he and Iris did a secret, but as long as they came home without any major injuries, most things could be hidden from the eye of elder siblings.  Iris did wonder how much Uncle Kaito really knew.  He didn't seem like the type of person who would easily be deceived. Yet if he did know what they did - not every lesson they had from Uncle Michael was sanctioned - he said nothing at all about it.

They arrived at the Arclight mansion relatively quickly.  This wasn't their original home, or so Iris had been told.  They moved to Heartland on a regular basis a few years earlier and set up residence.  That was fine with her.  She liked spending time with all of them.

Though she wasn't ever going to forget the day that Uncle Thomas and Uncle Vector both ended up baby-sitting her at the same time.  Three fire trucks, five police cars, and she still didn't know how they'd avoided being arrested.  Ryouga didn't like to talk about it.

Michael welcomed them there as soon as they entered, guiding them to the familiar sparring grounds. 

"It's just us today,"  he told them.  "Chris is working with Kaito and Mizael helping out Father."  His lips twitched.  "I'm not quite certain where Thomas is, though.

That was fine with Iris, and apparently Haruto to.  She'd known about them being busy anyway.  She slipped her duel disk out, flipped open the hidden slot in the back, and her sword hilt dropped into her hand. 

"I'm ready for training!"  She declared, and Haruto matched her motions with his own.  Michael chuckled.

"I didn't expect anything less," he told them, and the three of them settled down to the business of sparring together.  Iris snapped the hilt, hitting the hidden button, and the blade itself unfolded.  This was new technology, spurred on by various companies in the city, and Michael had given each of them one of these as a surprise present.  It certainly made keeping these lessons secret from the rest of the family a lot easier.

She took the lead, approaching quickly, and striking.  They didn't often work with live steel first, but Michael's point of view on the matter was that one, they needed to use it as often as possible, and two, they needed to be careful. Using wooden or foam bats wouldn't teach caution. He knew how to take care of virtually any injury they could inflict on each other, and after five years of learning, they both knew how not to hurt the other.  Michael promised that they would be able to hurt other people if the time ever came.

Iris wasn't so sure if she wanted that, but she also knew the first lesson he'd taught her - never to pick up a weapon of any kind, be it a sword or a duel disk, unless you were both willing and capable of using it.  The Numbers War was long over, but who knew when something else might happen and she might be one of those called to arms.  Better to be ready and never need it, than need it and not be able to do anything.  Ryouga and Rio absolutely agreed on that, at least.

So she sparred and she learned, and Haruto fought her with all of his strength.  She pushed back, struck down carefully, judging her strength and where she aimed, and pushed him back.  He twisted his blade, making an attempt to disarm her, and she stepped back, getting out of the clinch and taking a different angle for her counterattack.  As time ticked by, Iris could not contain the pure joy that came from being able to do this at all.

She remembered her life in the past very clearly, and how she'd died.  She might not want to attack other people, but she would always want to be able to defend herself.  That was one of the reasons her clothes were specially made to be just shy of being actual armor.  Ryouga had insisted on that after they'd all come back from the trip to the Astral-Barian World.  She'd never been there, but she kind of wanted to, one of these days.

Metal clattered against metal, ringing loudly, but they could still hear Michael's firm voice instructing them on what to do.  Eventually he called a halt - both of them dripped sweat, and Iris wanted something to drink.  She slipped her sword's blade back into the hilt and started to turn around for the exit.

In the exit there stood Ryouga.  No, not Ryouga - Nasch. Her king.  His eyes stern and his lips not smiling at all.  Iris swallowed and essayed a smile of her own.

"This isn't a movie,"  he said quietly.  "This is very much not a movie."

"I know."  Iris agreed.  It wasn't as if she could argue that.  She would keep the secret, but he clearly already knew it.  She'd never been able to argue with him when he looked at her like that.  She worried at her lip, then mentally shrugged.  "It's just extra lessons, that's all."

Nasch nodded faintly.  "How long have you been doing this?"

"A while now,"  she answered.  Neither Haruto or Michael said anything else.  She suspected Michael was a little annoyed, if only because Nasch had entered without - she guessed - asking permission. 

"I can guess."  He crossed his arms, regarding her thoughtfully.  "Have you been hurt?"

"Nothing bad."  Iris shrugged.  "I can hold my own.  We're good at this."

His eyes softened ever so lightly and she began to breathe easily.  Or at least easier. "I noticed.  Did you relay think I believed you were going to the movies?  That you like them that much?"

Iris ducked her head.  "I hoped?"  Didn't most teenagers go to movies with friends?   She didn't think she was that out of touch.  Sure, she didn't have that many friends at school she could open up to, but she'd heard them all talking about movies and going on dates.  She did like movies, but going to see them every week just seemed boring.  She would have far preferred going to the ocean or up to the mountains.  The few times she'd hung out with Yamikawa at the Duel Lodge had been very instructive. 

"I think it's going to be a couple of weeks before you do this again,"  he told her quietly.  "And if you want to do it again, then I want to know about it before you go.  Understand?"

"Got it."  Iris knew she was getting off easy.  Ryouga nodded slightly before he looked at Haruto.  "Kaito's probably going to say the same thing to you."

"Kaito-sama already knows,"  Omoid piped up. "I told him after their firsts unofficial lesson."

Haruto blinked.  "I thought I reprogrammed you so you wouldn't do that."

"You did."  Kaito stepped up next to Nasch.  "I reprogrammed him back." 

Iris could see the pride in Kaito's eyes regardless of his words.  Whatever else he felt, he was glad Haruto could do these things.  If Kaito had really objected, then they would have known it long before this.

Ryouga gestured to her, and she started over.  She knew that she wasn't going to be seriously grounded - he'd let up on the punishments and let her make her own mistakes for a while now.  He wouldn't be that upset about extra lessons.  If anything, what had to have upset him was that she'd not told him the truth.  He'd get over it. 

Just to prove it, she glanced over to Michael and to Haruto.  "I'll see you next week,"  she addressed Michael first, then Haruto.  "Tomorrow?"

"Sure,"  Haruto agreed calmly, with Michael nodded.  He was clearly having trouble keeping himself from laughing.  Kaito and Ryouga both snorted, but Iris knew what they sounded like when they were upset, and this wasn't it.  Everything was fine. 

Together they all headed out.  Iris couldn't have been more satisfied with what happened.  She'd had a great workout and she didn't have to hide her extra trips from the others anymore.  She'd more or less wanted to tell them from the beginning; events just hadn't fallen out that way.  Being older did come with some advantages. 

Ryouga still made her wear her helmet on the way home. 

The End

Notes: One day I might write more about Omoid and Haruto. You really think Kaito wouldn’t have one of those little bots assigned to keep an eye on his brother?

Ryouga was probably a lot angrier than he let on, but Iris is eighteen. She can make her own decisions, and Rio probably lectured him on that. Maybe I will write that side piece eventually.

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

Half-Bad by Sally Green. Man, this is grim. It’s good fantasy, and the writers breaks certain writing conventions to convey the story better, which is fascinating. But it’s so grim. There’s two more books in the series and I want to get ahold of those before I say more.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. Did I say Half-Bad was grim? This is grim. Grimdark to the max. But also a fascinating premise, that the crime of murder and its accompanying guilt manifests an animal companion that marks you for the rest of your (shortened) life? If you can stomach some of the imagery and if you do well with being plunged into unknown terminology and figuring it out on the go from context, this is a good read.

Dropped titles: Pursuing God’s Will Together by Ruth Haley Barton and How Should We Then Live by Francis Shaeffer. One was a recommendation, one was semi-assigned reading because I’m a non-voting member of a ministry board. In both cases I got about halfway through. I have the gist of both books and I’m enjoying neither. At all. I started to avoid Audible altogether. The moment I gave myself permission to stop listening to them and pick up the next Thomas Sowell book on my list, I was right back on reading, because I’m actually interested in what Sowell has to say. Note to self: it’s ok to drop books that you find uninteresting. (this preceded a Sowell binge reading session)

Dismantling America (and other controversial essays) by Thomas Sowell. I was surprised at how much more of an edge Sowell has in this book, but the appearance of the edge here makes a certain amount of sense. This is the first collection of newspaper columns I’ve read by him, and he has way less time to make his point in a column than he has in a book. With that in mind, his points have much less groundwork than I’m used to reading from him when he spends a whole book on a topic (though I’d guess that each point he makes probably has a crapton of citations in the printed book, like the rest of his work. He’s quite thorough about his research). This is probably not the best title of his to pick as a first read, but it’s good and interesting. My main take-away point from this book is that politicians look out for politicians, and expecting them to do anything else is naive. And, in fact, many things attributed to a politician’s “stupidity” is far from stupid, in fact they are brilliant within their set of incentives and constraints. It just rarely aligns with the general public’s best interest. Thinking about it again, it MIGHT be a good first book. It sums up a lot of his views into bite-sized digests. It just doesn’t substantiate each and every claim as thoroughly as some of his other books do. That’s my grain of salt.

Compassion Versus Guilt by Thomas Sowell. More of the same, a collection of essays by Sowell. Different ones, on a different theme. A couple that sound like they could have been written by the authors of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, his satire is on point.

Ethnic America by Thomas Sowell. This was a fascinating read for me. This book traces 8 groups of ethnic migrations to America. I descend from Scottish, Irish, and Russian Jewish immigrants, and seeing what the different groups had to content with over the years was very enlightening. A few things that stood out to me were; each immigrant group seems to have very different cultural strengths and foibles, inter-group violence is not new (but not always in the directions modern people would think), almost every group has its own upper class that disdains and reviles its lower class, and each ethnic group is far more variable and differentiated than the general category (“the Irish” or “the blacks” or “the Jews”) makes them out to be. More and more I’m coming to mistrust the general racial category as referenced by either political party because it seems to be a linguistic expediency that sacrifices the truth of a situation for a fast rallying point.

Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? by Thomas Sowell. I’m not even sure what to say about this book. It’s short and punchy and gives me a lot to think about. Sowell definitely has zero sacred cows. Toward the end of this book he addresses some of his critics who piled onto Ethnic America, which was interesting. Also, while reading this, I have begun to realize how much of a disadvantage I am at in analyzing arguments because I’m unable to understand how people slice numbers into statistics to make their point. I’m at the mercy of the conclusion they draw at the end of the statistics because, until they summarize their findings, I really don’t understand what the raw numbers are saying. I’ve had this feeling for a while, but in this book, Sowell dissects some of the foundational studies and statistics that buttressed later civil rights cases, and I realized that if I just read the statistics and data from those cases and the statistical rebuttals that Sowell has side by side, I would not understand what was being argued at all. I can only rely on the end conclusions put into words at this point, but the written conclusion is not the proof, the numbers are. This gap in my understanding is disheartening, but I hope to continue sponging up knowledge in the hopes that I will be able to think more critically in future years.

Maverick, a Biography of Thomas Sowell by Jason L. Riley. My parents pre-ordered this for my birthday a few months ago and it arrived a few days ago. I have torn through it. I think I got a more cohesive overview of Sowell’s progression through his body of work and added several titles to my wishlist. The biography is fairly minimalist on Sowell’s personal life and focuses more on his ideological clashes with… well, everyone, left and right, people he disdained and people he admired. Maverick, alright. Also Riley takes a look at how each of Sowell’s books (or grouping of books) came about, for what reasons, and what was going on at the time.

People of the Book edited by Rachel Swirsky and Sean Wallace. This is a compilation of Jewish sci-fi and fantasy short stories and can probably be summed up best by this paragraph in the introduction: “These stories allow us to identify with, although briefly, so many different characters and places, they entertain us and they give us comfort. And yet, the tales in this anthology often have a melancholic tinge, similar in tone to the minor keys of our musical liturgy. We don’t want to be too comfortable, too happy. Because that might bring some bad luck onto us, might tempt the evil eye.” I also sensed a whole lot of anger in the undercurrent of these stories, and that saddened me.

On deck/currently reading: The Brothers Karamazov, The Rational Bible: Genesis, re-read of Basic Economics, and War Nerd.

Shows

Dropped series: Hilda. The first season was lovely on so many counts. The second season’s antagonist… bothers me. So does Hilda’s behavior. And given how much time I spent on Star and its accompanying disappointment, I’m not really interested in continuing Hilda any further. I’m shelving it at this point. There are other things I’d like to watch.

Infinity Train Season 4: Now retitled “The Wormhole Judgment Line” I believe, lol. It’s hard to top season 3, but it was a solid story. Good. Interesting. The resolution with the villains int he last episode felt kind of out of nowhere and I’m really not okay with Morgan’s behavior even if the plot wants me to feel sorry for her, but those things aside, it was enjoyable. I hope Infinity Train is picked up again, I’d love to see more.

On Deck: The Mandalorian or Wandavision

Movies

Jiang Ziya. Okay whatever this studio produces in this line of movies, I will be watching it. I definitely don’t understand all the significance of what I’m seeing but it’s creative along COMPLETELY DIFFERENT lines than US animation and it’s an absolute joy to behold.

Raya and the Last Dragon. Suffice it to say, it would take an intensive blog post (or a movie review of the style I used to do as one half of The Storytrollers) to cover all the things that bothered me about this movie. I will take the thing that bothered me the most and be brief: I find the moral to be terrible. I take major issue with the idea that repeated blind trust in the face of repeated betrayal will reshape the world, given that I extended blind trust to people who never changed for many years. I take issue with the worldbuilding, I take issue with some of the designs, and I take issue with the moral. I was exceedingly disappointed in this movie.

Profile. Now THIS was a good movie. I would not be averse to seeing more movies shot like this, using the computer desktop as both film set and character. In addition this was an interesting topic, though I was tense for the whole movie, afraid the main character was going to slip up. Very good, very tense movie to sit through.

Mighty Ira. So, this is a documentary about one of the great leaders of the ACLU. It was interesting to see this, especially since it shed more light on the whole Skokie situation than I’d heard of before. Good watch. Informative.

[selfdestructivecat]

Virgil Sanders

@therealashpollo

I love you both so much for this.

First Impression

I remember that I actually watched Sanders Sides out of order, since I did not realize there was a chronological order, so I don’t remember which episode I had watched first? But I thought he was broody and angsty and, admittedly, I did think of him as the bad guy for a bit, since he was Anxiety and I have terrible anxiety myself.

Impression Now

He is my favorite character, no competition. He totally fits the mold for my typical comfort character: gruff and distanced, but incredibly loyal and protective. I adore him to pieces and want nothing more than for him to be happy.

Favorite Moment

Oh no I’m not sure if I can choose! I love so many moments! I love him in The Twelve Days of Christmas, his little smile at Patton’s jokes never fails to make me melt (AND THE CARD HE GAVE PATTON, AHHHHHHH HE CARES!)

He was also fantastic in the Puppet episode. I loved that he went along with Patton and Roman’s idea even though it made him uncomfortable, because he wanted to help. Him teaming up with Patton was so darn cute!

(“When you lo-CARE FOR someone, nothing hurts more than their scorn.” Yeah just watch me absolutely sobbing in the club right now.)

And ooooooh I LOVED him as the overworked, stressed techie in Can Lying Be Good! His expression as he faded in the lights or swept the stage were just absolutely priceless. You can tell he didn’t want to be doing any of this but he still went along because he wants to help! He was trying his best!

I could write an entire essay on Flirting with Social Anxiety, but I’ll get to that later.

But in the end, I have to go with Accepting Anxiety: Part 2. Specifically when he was calming Thomas down with the 4-7-8 technique to get everyone out of his portion of the mind. You can tell how much he genuinely cares about Thomas and the others, and HIS LITTLE SMILE DURING ROMAN’S SPEECH! HE DESERVES THE WORLD AHHHHHHHHH!

Idea For A Story

I have tons of ideas bouncing in my brain for stories about Virgil. I recently came up with a Pokemon AU that could be the catalyst for a Virgil-centered story. I also adore stories where Virgil is physically protecting the others or Thomas, since he’s fight or flight.

Maybe for a story idea, Thomas is in a dangerous situation (perhaps getting mugged?) Virgil is terrified, Patton having to try to coach him out of a panic attack while the other sides are trying to figure out how to get out of this situation. Eventually, the attacker takes out a weapon, and Virgil just... stops breathing. All signs of the panic attack are gone, and he’s impossibly still with a hauntingly blank stare.

The shadows seem to close on the commons. Everything moves in slow motion.

Virgil jerks violently, and the next thing they know, the attacker is knocked out cold on the ground and Thomas’ knuckles are throbbing with pain.

Unpopular Opinion

I know a lot of people hate Virgil being characterized as being cute or the like, but I actually don’t mind it? I like characters being able to show vulnerability, and as someone with anxiety who has unwillingly been subjected to situations that forced this vulnerability on me, I think there’s a lot of potential in this area.

I’ve always thought of him as the youngest side, and of course he’s sarcastic and tough as hell, but even the strongest people need support, and who doesn’t need a good cry every once in a while? Give me the other sides taking care of him! And hell, give me Virgil taking care of the others! They’re a FAMILY, your honor!

Favorite Relationship

Prinxiety!!! My love for this ship honestly stems from me searching up fanfics when I first got into this series, and fics for this pairing were popping up the most (and by then, Flirting with Social Anxiety had just come out, so that was just pouring a bucket of gasoline on the flames).

I just adore their banter and dynamic, and how they support each other through actions, and how they used to be enemies but through time and working hard getting to know each other, they became friends! Even if they aren’t romantically confirmed in canon, you can’t deny that they are extremely close (FWSA is absolutely proof of this).

Just... Roman and Virgil working together, Roman willing to give up a chance at love because he realized that it scared Virgil, the infamous push, literally the entire end card for that episode.

Honestly? Through loving Virgil as a character, I actually grew to appreciate Roman more, since relationships need communication and balance to work. I had to get to know Roman better if I wanted to understand their relationship in a romantic sense, and so the side that used to be my least favorite character is now very dear to me.

Favorite Headcanon

I’ve written about Spider!Virgil before because that headcanon owns my entire heart, so I’ll go with another one that I love.

This is a pretty common headcanon that I’ve seen thrown around, so I won’t claim credit for it, but I love the idea that Virgil was basically raised by Janus. He, Janus, and Remus were inseparable, helping Virgil to learn that his spider-like appendages were actually super cool, and that he was valuable both as Anxiety and as Virgil.

But as Thomas grew older, things changed. Remus’ intrusive thoughts became more gruesome and uncontrollable, and although his intention wasn’t to scare Virgil, the anxious side was terrified. Janus started to change as well, eventually believing that he had to act as the villain to look after Thomas and resorting to trickery. Virgil hated it, seeing the person who he used to trust more than anyone hiding things from Thomas and even the other sides. From him.

His family’s new behavior, on top of the new terrifying possibilities life began throwing at him, was a huge factor in his transformation into Paranoia.

Virgil didn’t want to resort to trickery like Janus. He didn’t want to be viewed as the bad guy like Remus. He wanted his family back, wanted Janus to read them stories and for Remus to take him on adventures and to return to normal.

He felt impossibly alone.

When he finally reverted back to his normal self, he left for the Light sides. He doesn’t regret it, he loves Logan and Patton and Roman, but occasionally late at night, he would miss his fellow dark sides so much that it hurt.

And, perhaps on those same exact nights, his past family would be feeling the same.

Ahhh thank you guys so much for the asks! This was so fun! :D

Send Me some Character Asks!

[acdhw]

ACD meeting Oscar Wilde

From Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle, by Daniel Stashower:

Why, then, should he have wanted to make his detective a drug user? For the modern reader, the image of Sherlock Holmes plunging a needle into his arm comes as an unpleasant shock. To Conan Doyle’s way of thinking, however, the syringe would have been very much of a piece with the violin, the purple dressing gown, and the interest in such abstruse subjects as the motets of Lassus. With Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle intended to elevate the science of criminal investigation to an art form. To do so, he needed to cast his detective as an artist rather than a simple policeman. Conan Doyle himself, with his broad shoulders, muscular frame, and ruddy complexion, could easily have passed for a stolid London patrolman. Holmes offered a striking contrast. He was thin, languid, and aesthetic. He easily fit the pattern of a bohemian artist, with all of the accompanying eccentricities and evil habits—one of which, sad to say, was cocaine. “Art in the blood,” as Holmes was to say, “is liable to take the strangest forms.”

The image of the Victorian habitué would have been very fresh in Conan Doyle’s mind as he sat down to write The Sign of the Four. Only a few days earlier, he had met a young man he regarded as the very “champion of aestheticism.” In August of 1889, Conan Doyle found himself invited up to London for a literary soiree. The editor Joseph Marshall Stoddart, of Philadelphia’s Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, had come to London to arrange for an English edition of his publication. While in Britain, he hoped to commission work from some of the country’s promising young writers. At the time, Conan Doyle’s work was receiving far greater exposure in America than in Britain, owing to the lack of American copyright protection for foreign authors. Several of Conan Doyle’s stories had appeared in pirated anthologies, which, he noted with dismay, “might have been printed on the paper that shopmen use for parcels.”

Conan Doyle may have regretted the lost profits from these unauthorized printings, but they brought him a substantial American readership at a time when his name was less well known in Britain. Now, with Joseph Stoddart anxious for a meeting, Conan Doyle had reason to feel warmly toward his American audience. “Needless to say,” he later wrote, “I gave my patients a rest for a day and eagerly kept the appointment.”

The dinner was held in the West End at the prestigious Langham Hotel, a setting that would feature in three future Sherlock Holmes adventures (SIGN, SCAN, and LADY—my note). Two other guests enjoyed Stoddart’s hospitality that night. The first was Thomas Patrick Gill, a former magazine editor who had gone on to become a member of Parliament. The second was Oscar Wilde.

At thirty-five, Oscar Wilde was already a notorious figure in London society. Though his great plays were still ahead of him, he had made his reputation with his early poetry and with essays such as “The Decay of Lying” and “The Truth of Masks.” From the first, however, his true fame owed less to his literary output than to his celebrated wit and flamboyant personality.

It would be difficult to imagine two men more unlike each other than Oscar Wilde and Conan Doyle, and their first meeting must have produced raised eyebrows on both sides. The hale and hearty provincial doctor, with his bone-crushing handshake and earnest, direct manner of speaking, had traveled up from Portsmouth in his best professional suit. The world-weary, languorous Wilde cut a rather different figure. “He dressed as probably no grown man in the world was ever dressed before,” the actress Lillie Langtry once wrote of him. “His hat was of brown cloth not less than six inches high; his coat was of black velvet; his overcoat was of green cloth, heavily trimmed with fur; his trousers matched his hat; his tie was gaudy and his shirtfront very open, displaying a large expanse of manly chest.” One assumes that such attire was not a familiar sight in Southsea.

The two men also differed in their literary views. Conan Doyle, the champion of historical realism, was a born storyteller, and took pride in his clear, unadorned prose style. Wilde, by contrast, had set himself up as the leader of a movement dedicated to “art for art’s sake.”

Even so, the two writers got along famously. “It was indeed a golden evening for me,” Conan Doyle said of his meeting with Wilde. “His conversation left an indelible impression upon my mind. He towered above us all, and yet had the art of seeming to be interested in all that we could say. He had delicacy of feeling and tact, for the monologue man, however clever, can never be a gentleman at heart.” Only eight years earlier, Conan Doyle had gone up to London to see Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience, which featured a thinly disguised parody of Wilde in the character of Bunthorne, the “fleshy poet.” Now he found himself sitting beside the “singularly deep young man” himself, while the pair of them basked in the attentions of a renowned American publisher.

Wilde impressed Conan Doyle with his “curious precision of statement,” as when he described how a war of the future might be waged: “A chemist on each side will approach the frontier with a bottle.” Not all of Wilde’s remarks showcased his famous wit. To Conan Doyle’s surprise, Wilde had not only read Micah Clarke but expressed enthusiasm for it. One must treat this report with caution. It is frankly difficult to conjure an image of Oscar Wilde, the archetype of Victorian aestheticism, with a lily in one hand and Conan Doyle’s robust epic in the other. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Bracknell expresses her disdain for the “three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality” that she has found in a perambulator. One imagines that Micah Clarke would have brought a similar reaction from Wilde, though he may not have wished to say so to the author.

The evening ended with both men agreeing to produce a short novel for Lippincott’s. A few days later, Conan Doyle wrote to Stoddart to propose an idea. “I shall give Sherlock Holmes of A Study in Scarlet something else to unravel,” he declared. “I notice that everyone who has read the book wants to know more of that young man.”

Oscar Wilde also did well out of his association with Lippincott’s. His contribution was The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of the finest novels of the age. Upon publication, however, Wilde’s book came under attack for its perceived immorality. “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book,” Wilde declared, by way of defending himself. “Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” Conan Doyle, who came to regard some of his own stories as a trifle risqué, would not have endorsed this sentiment. Nonetheless, he thought Wilde’s book was excellent and sent a letter saying so. “I am really delighted that you think my treatment subtle and artistically good,” Wilde wrote in reply. “The newspapers seem to me to be written by the prurient for the Philistine.”

——

To summarise, this excerpt supports the points previously discussed elsewhere:

1. The influence of the aesthetic movement and Wilde in particular on the image of Holmes. No wonder Holmes comes off as queer-coded. He is queer intrinsically.

2. Doyle admired Wilde and was vocal about it but chose to be more cautious in his own writing.

Picture credits: londonremembers.com, hauntedjourneys.com

@garkgatiss, @sherlock-overflow-error, @sarahthecoat