#i feel disappointed with those pseudo fans

[scribeofmorpheus]

Veilguard Review: Doom Upon the World

Warnings: Spoilers for Veilguard, very political review (considers race, gender, religion and choice consequences centred around established Thedas).

Another long post: 4k words

In my first review (Love, Wisdom and Pride), I focused on the relationships most pivotal to Solas’ arc reaching resolution: Inquisitor and Mythal (though heavily Solavellan inspired, I tried to be aware of how the Inquisitor’s role as a rival/friend outside of romance was still considered as an important relationship in his story). This review, on the other hand, will focus on the worldstate and what we lost [x], as well as my speculations on which story beats/companions/advisors I feel should have been integrated into the story for a deeper emotional payoff for past Dragon Age players (and overall story cohesion).  

N.B: This review is definitely a critique of something I love, born from love, because—yes, I had expectations; yes, they were high; no, I don’t think that’s a problem; no, I do not hate the game we got, but I mourn for what the devs clearly were building towards with the last 3 games in the series, and from what we know from the internal struggles with Bioware under EA’s helm (as evidence from the development time, layoffs, staff’s disappointment, and the differences between the final game and the concept art) the only thing getting in the way of a truly epic game was corporate meddling and greed.

Spoilers below the cut.

Without further ado, the primary criticism I have is that Varric should not have been our advisor! I read a post somewhere that succinctly surmised the that Varric was chosen as our Advisor so that:

Solas would make an “irredeemable” mistake for all the Solas haters to use as an excuse to simply view him as an antagonist, simplifying the goal of the game to: stop the elf from bringing down the Veil.

Varric was used for marketing purposes rather than story depth choices; he’s popular, beloved and an easy carrot for the EA stick to dangle in front of loyal fans.

His writer has literally been trying to kill him off for the last 2 games! Varric was supposed to die in Inquisition! (lol)

I firmly believe he should have been holding the blight back in Kirkwall, and that his position as Viscount of Kirkwall should have affected the outcome of the blight spreading in the South!

Advisors in the North

Right off the bat, the two best choices for advisor, (excluding the Inquisitor out of favouritism) should have been Dorian and Morrigan.

Dorian: because we’re in the North, the Shadow Dragons are by far the more “grassroots organisation against imperial power” kind of organised body the Inquisition started out as. Since we don’t have a calling to fight against like the Wardens in Origins or a family to try and keep together in a city on the brink of implosion like Hawke, or a pseudo religious-political body to inspire Hope in the faithful like the Inquisitor, Valour, Love and Hope cannot be at the heart of this story. It has to be JUSTICE [x].

Justice for the culmination of Anders’ story; for Merril and everything she endured to repair the eluvian; for Fenris, the origin of his lyrium tattoos (which according to GhilDirthalen’s post, there was a plot point linked to elves whose lyrium bodies did not possess latent magical prowess) and the slaves in Tevinter; for the rebelling elves that should have formed factions as the Dread Wolf’s Agents like the Trespasser epilogue hinted at; for misunderstood spirits hurt by mages like Cole; for the ancient elves like Abelas; for the templars who saw the corruption in their ranks but had no way out because of lyrium addiction like Sampson; for those corrupted by red lyrium that was spreading throughout Thedas with no cause or cure; for the dwarves like Branka, obsessed with the answers held in the Anvil of the Void, or Harding, or Shaper Valta who saw a Titan and witnessed the death of the Legion of the Dead; for Sandal’s prophecy!; for the qunari oppressed by the Qun, turned talvashoth, searabas, hisraad like Bull! Justice for two decades worth of worldbuilding on the part of the writers and the devs who loved telling these stories.  

Morrigan: is self-explanatory to the story they were crafting between Solas and Mythal. And what would have been even better is if they actually just explained away the Well of Sorrows’ choice unaffecting the Inquisitor because Morrigan eventually had to assimilate the essence from the well to keep the Inquisitor from going mad—like the anchor had to be tempered by Solas in Trespasser. Easy as that!

The best part is that pitting Morrigan and Dorian as foils of each other further allows the game to have greater stakes and tension because Morrigan (changed by Mythal’s righteous anger and need for justice for what was done to her by the Evanuris) could champion making choices more detrimental to Thedas but ultimately in line with Solas’ plans. And Dorian could make choices that put the safety of Thedas’ citizens at the forefront by sacrificing headway in stopping Solas and his Agents from advancing with their plans!

Best yet, we could have had a hardened vs softened Dorian depending on whether you recruited him in Inquisition, and/or did his quest.

[Inquisitor concept art by Matt Rhodes]

Favouritism Bonus Round: The Inquisitor (or alternatively Morrigan) should have been the voice to champion Rook to seek out the wolf statues, and they should have been present when discussing the memories, as it would have given them more gravitas when uncovering the literal story of "Solas is Andrastian God creating the Veil" or "the Dalish Dread Wolf is being proven to be a saviour" or "Elves originally being spirits in the beginning", or "Titans were at war with the elves" beyond comments like: “Oh, Solas regrets this” or “They were doing it”. (This is the issue with having a “couch setting” for a “war room”—discussions feel less intellectual, factions don’t necessarily bring their own unique viewpoint into the interpretation of Solas’ decisions/Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain’s presence, etc.) Everyone is not digesting the material given like it’s a clue to stopping the world from ending but rather like gossip. With the Inquisitor, as either a friend to Solas, a rival or a romanced Lavellan, finally finding the Dread Wolf’s Achilles Heel after vowing to stop him would have rung true, closed the loop.

Sigh.

This is also why I feel the Inquisitor should have been the one in Varric’s place—like literally. I mean recovering from an injury after failing to catch up to Solas in ACT 1, possibly dispatched by Agents of Fen'Harel! Because they could then be forced to pass the mantle to hunt down Solas to “Rook”. Not dead. Or a blood magic illusion. Just, Inquisitor, wounded, making small talk, sometimes bringing up plot points from Inquisition—your Hawke on the battlements in DA:I or Alistair in the gardens with Morrigan and Keiran.

It would also make more sense for the Inquisitor to be able to use the eluvian to travel between Skyhold and the Lighthouse, allowing for believable absences during plot points where their lack of action inspite of their presence wouldn’t make sense. Not to mention more gut-wrenching if we heard about the South from Inky rather than reading 4 letters!

Previously, I stated how the Inquisitor’s presence needed more weight in the non-Solavellan endings! Some people’s Inquisitor befriended Solas, some hated him, either way, the Inquisitor should have been present for the final showdown beyond a passive observer! If the Inquisitor ended up being the last friend/former love that Solas destroys (in a bad worldstate end where you don’t collect Mythal’s essence), which then prompts Rook to fight him because Solas’ last tie to empathy failed to redeem him, that would have added so many layers! The Inquisitor falling is the last straw for Solas too, whether friend, lover or foe, he fought beside them, stopped Corypheus with them! The Inquisitor was partially his making of a hero; his first “good” mistake! It would then make sense for him to snap, choosing to be a villain in the hopes of being stopped because he can’t stop himself, he’s come too far! Rather than the ‘I am a God’ ending they gave us.

Agency of a “Rook” on an Empty Chess Set (Factions and Backstory)

Personally, from both a writing and a viewer’s perspective, I think our protagonist should have always been linked to the Shadow Dragons (and the factions choices shouldn’t have been incorporated. This is more because, framing one’s backstory as being a member of a faction—not a people with established political positions in Tevinter—siphons the narrative of personal stakes. Imagine being a mage who could have begun with higher approval in Tevinter but lower elsewhere, maybe they’d be saved from the Venatori’s thrall that was linked to Neve’s companion story—again linked to Ashur and the Dragons. Or an elf mage could begin a storyline like that of the city elf in da:o but focused on the Shadow Dragons’ tackling slavery’s presence in Tevinter. A Qunari origin could explore being a refugee aided by the Shadow Dragons as they flee the Qun because they don’t fit in the dogmatic religion. A warden could be a criminal in Tevinter, showing us what is considered ‘rules for criminality’ in a city that corrupt and extremist.

Overall, the factions don’t add much diversity to Rook’s background, backstory, dialogue tree or influence on the world state beyond a last name that doesn’t really matter. With a Shadow Dragons’ background, the very ethos of “Rook” would have been about overcoming oppression, and then the nickname makes sense too, a name to stay concealed, to keep loved ones safe while DAV’s protagonist battles politics, blood mages and blighted gods. It would have been even more meaningful if the nickname “Rook” paralleled “Dread Wolf”, in that it was bestowed by your origin-based backstory antagonist and then used as a call to freedom (we wouldn’t even need a cutscene, this could have been revealed in part of their banter/dialogue). This simple choice would have allowed us to focus on Treviso and the Antaam’s occupation and Tevinter and the Venatori’s rise to power on a more personal level. It would also place our Rook in a position to be a foil to Solas’ “do what is necessary for the greater good” vs “be better than those that came before” plot lines. Building off this, the hardened companion status between Neve and Lucanis should have formed a parallel, with one tilting towards understanding Solas’ extreme efforts to stop the Gods, whereas the non-hardened character should have taken the role of foil. Both of whom would add balance to the tension when discussing Solas’ memories or even in exploration banter during missions (one the “devil” on your shoulder, the other your “angel” depending on where Solas’ actions stand for you since Inquisition).

Finally, the Shadow Dragons' should have been linked to Dorian more directly, potentially created with backing/support from the Inquisition’s advisors/Inquisitor directly (since their default attire is the Shadow Dragon apparel).

Companions: Cole for Compassion; Briala for Rebellion and Revenge

Cole

In my review Love, Widsom and Pride, I briefly touched on the fact Cole (whether recruited, not recruited, kept spirit or changed human) was absolutely necessary as a companion. Because it doesn’t matter which version was present in the world (RIP the tapestry), every iteration of Cole works synergistically with appealing to Solas’ spirit side:

If he wasn’t recruited in Inquisition, he could simply have his default origins as a compassion spirit that ‘follows’ the greatest pain in the Fade that yearns to be healed, giving a compassionate viewpoint to Solas’ folly.

Recruited-to-the-Inquisition Spirit Cole could have a greater connection to Solas than even Varric, seeing as Cole was most likely a literal representation of Solas rewriting his own history of corruption by preventing a spirit from becoming something against its nature.

Human Cole would have a deeper connection to the world of Thedas, and could have been a great tool to prove how change was inevitable, not always a bad thing, and inevitably out of even Solas’ control. And he could still offer insight into Solas' mind via 'remnants' of the time he was more spirit.

Briala

What I enjoy about this companion head canon is that Briala is literally Solas’ direct parallel story-wise:

She’s in love with Celene, the ‘best’ choice for ruler in Orlais even though she burned Briala’s alienage. They share a great power imbalance, with Celene able to affect the fate of all elves in Orlais, yet is unwilling to free them, return the Dales, or concede power even though she claims to love Briala, too. Briala is a rebellion upstart, raised by Felassan for crying out loud. She controlled the eluvians and knew how to get around the crossroads, she has more of a bone to pick with Solas than any other NPC not close to the Inquisitor! (Celene and Mythal share many similarities as well, with Celene seen as the more benevolent of rules when compared to Gaspard the Warmonger; and if Gaspard is in power but controlled by Briala, her being dethroned from her seat of power by Agents of Fen’Harel when she lost access to the eluvians would have been a great story arc to explore).

Sidenote on DAV's Romance, Companions and Choice Consequence

Building off having either Cole or Briala as a companion, I do think it would have been nice to have them as non-romanceable too. Don’t get me wrong, I know it's great to have options, but I do feel making everyone “pansexual” wasn’t the right way to go for all the companions. It takes away character choice, personality, taste and individualism from the companions. Dorian’s story would not be nearly as impactful if he could have been romanced regardless of gender. Solas being unwilling to romance any race besides elf (though a direct correlation to the developers being afraid of the ‘evil bisexual’ trope that was popular in the 2010s) also adds to his story; where he’s reluctant to see the world as real, to accept non-elven people as having agency, because that would mean he wasn’t walking through a see of Tranquil, but instead, he was the Forgotten One out of time.

I also firmly believe that a possible reason Cole wasn’t a companion despite there being plans in place that he’d return (Trespasser epilogue slide, I remember you), is because I can 100% see an EA big-wig being like: “He’s unfuckable. Give us someone hot and brooding and slap a demon in them and you’ve got fuckable-Cole” and then we got Lucanis.

I like Lucanis. I’m not crazy about him, but I enjoy the Machiavllian family drama. Very Renaissance Medici story beats. I adore Mary Kirby as a writer, too, but I feel the introduction to the Crows of Antiva should have been Zevran’s mantle, or he should have at least haunted the narrative and missions related to the Crow factions (of which there should definitely have been factions within the Crows). Considering the fact I romanced Lucanis, I couldn’t shake the fact that a lot of his “acceptance for being bound to Spite” beats paralleled a Human Cole having been ‘cured’ from Compassion.

The romances seem less… memorable to me than past games. The importance of choice means you have to accept the story unfolding based on the consequences of your choices; and gender-locking at least one companion would show the cause and effect of beginner choice. Taash is actually written to prefer women over men, which is vital to their arc around gender dysphoria and being non-binary, they would have been a perfect candidate! I imagine their story would also be a great way to explore how being one race attempting to romance another could have a slower progression rate (again, because of Taash’s multi-cultural background, and their complex feelings at having been raised by a mother so tied to the Qun, them being cagier around a qunari Rook romance would also have added layers!) But with everyone available to be romanced, and having no initial repercussion for early game choices despite which character model would have bruises or cuts (Neve or Harding), genuinely roleplaying as Rook, and not as someone using Rook as a stand-in for ourselves, is more disconnected than previous games. This is why the romances feel off to me. Doing the romanceable companions’ storylines seem like I’m the one trying to date them, not Rook. Maybe it’s because Rook’s established personality is the direct repercussion of a sanitized worldstate!  

Foibles of being ‘Unproblematic’: A Sanitised World

The issue with trying to make a game that won’t touch on difficult topics, is that, when you make that game a sequel to a series that was literally built on the backs of tackling real world politics, it makes a lot of the world seem plastic. A poor imitation perhaps.

The World of Thedas book actually tells us that Thedas is a fantasy setting that uses the real world as its backdrop for conflict and world building. Andraste is Joan of Arc. Andrastian faith is Christianity founded by a woman. Orlais is the French bourgeois era. Fereldan is more Highlands/Celtics region if it never had a chance to expand because of the blight. Elves are the disenfranchised (and a direct parallel to popular elven cultures that were often portrayed as the pinnacle of advanced magic/civilisation). City elves live in alienages (literal ghettos). Dalish elves (native to the land) are being run out of their homes, the Orlesian’s are trying to claim the territory for their Empire, and their numbers are dwindling, their culture and language a poor imitation of what it had been, barely surviving colonialisation! Dwarves have a caste system that determines everyone’s future! Dagna had to leave her home! Harding grew up on the surface. Varric’s whole plot thread anchoring him in act 1 of DA2 is helping his brother discover Deep Roads riches so they can get their family’s title again.

And through all 3 games prior to Veilguard, we’re told the Ventaori are monsters, the Imperium is crueller to its elves/slaves than any place in the South! The best option beyond turning Feynriel tranquil in DA2 (one of the few Dream Walker mages) is to send him to Tevinter. What becomes of a half-Dalish mage in Tevinter? Neve, our first companion beside Harding, is determined to make Dock Town a place worth living! So, to walk into Veilguard and have no slavery storylines in a place called the fucking TEVINTER IMPERIUM (modelled after the fucking Roman Empire close to collapse) is so jarring. So unbelievable. What injustice is Neve battling? What woes has Dorian been dealing with in the Magisterium?

The closest we get to seeing the darkness that exists in the world (besides the hanging corpses lining the streets of Dock Town if you save Treviso, is the side quest where a father makes a deal with a demon to keep his child alive by sacrificing so many innocents).

And then there's Tevinter's "savage" neighbours, the Invading forces of the Qun! Frightening, right? But from the blasé manner the Qun's rigidity is discussed, it is framed as though anyone can simply up and leave the Qun if they so wished it, according to Taash’s mom. Yes, Taash is being hunted, and their mom is taken prisoner, but it was all in service to a tablet that discussed fire-breathing, not about returning to the Qun. Iron Bull being deemed hisraad holds less severity when the consequences of leaving a subjugating, dogmatic, religious-political society are simply... nothing. There's no anchor to Taash being raised in Rivain for safety reasons beyond keeping their fire-breathing secret. And what of all the elves that commit to the Qun? Why are there no elf converts among the Antaam? What about the fucked-up stuff the Dwarves of Kal-Sharok were doing before Veilguard? Kal-Sharok dwarves apparently were changed by the First Blight, and are supposed to have a ‘tainted’ appearance according to the World of Thedas concept art book. Why are they just... normal dudes in booby armour (lol)?

[Imshael! A demon/spirit of choice & Calpernia as potential companions is insanity>>!]

I possibly wouldn’t have these strong opinions if the games gave the companions more… just more ‘controversial’ stories with harder choices! Veilguard in a way feels like playing a game with child-lock on. Yes, what happens to Tevinter or Treviso looks awful when you see it, but the side-quests, companion stories, NPC dialogues and world around the ‘mise-en-scene’ don’t reflect this--it's like set dressing. The “I can’t believe the Venatori are evil” side comments by Rook in Tevinter when the Venatori takes over become whiny, child-like and “hopes and prayers” coded. Do something then, Rook. You are the hero of this story, are you not?

I am forever grateful that Lucanis is actually hardened and removed as a romance interest if you sacrifice Treviso (finally, good old dragon age consequences).

Now onto good criticism of our companions!

Companions: The Good, the Balanced and the Essential

Good: Neve and Davrin.

Neve is our eyes and heart to Dock Town, our humanising presence for the Tevinter Imperium. She is also written in a way that I find her to have the best agency as a non-romanced character than most.

Davrin is a breath of fresh air for the reputation of the Grey Wardens, he’s the genuine article. Him owning up to being young and foolhardy when he rejected the Dalish ways in search of adventure, only to be battle-hardened and then become more appreciative of the fact he was taught to live in harmony before he was exposed to the discord of the Deep Roads is such a good character growth moment.  

Balanced: Harding. Harding grows into a much more invaluable story piece when she unlocks the Stone Sense and uncovers her people’s history. It’s a rather short-sighted choice to have her be one of the Ultimate Sacrifice characters because what becomes of the story of the Stone? Who hears the song? Who will speak of the Titans to other dwarves if she is chosen to go on the final mission?

Essential: Antoine and Evka! No notes, they should have been conditional companions in a side quest! They’re fleshed out so well, and their relationship is real and built into their character, but it’s not all they are! Antoine is smart, hopeful and also tortured by the new blight. Evka is powerful, pragmatic and also caring.

The Red Herring that should have been: Bellara as an Agent of Fen’Harel! Her storyline would have worked with the concept of being found ‘suspicious’ by players if the Agents of Fen’Harel were an active group. A Veil Jumper in Arlathan whose brother got entabgled with a Forgotten One? Someone who is an outright believer in the elven pantheon? O, Bellara, the power you would have had as a possible double-agent in our midst, only for us to have been wrong in doubting her and having it be someone else! Race and position to power should have inforced so many story beats in this game, man!

Finally: Religion, Where?

I’m a little exhausted, so I’ll wrap this part a little quickly. Religion is paramount to understanding the decisions and states of mind of so many characters in Thedas. Leliana’s arc alone is one of the most intimate insights into Andrastian faith! The Inquisitor is literally responsible for appointing the Divine! The Divine can call for an Exalted March! The Black Divine is a huge plot point when discussing the differences between the Southern and Northern iterations of the Chant. Tevinter’s Old Gods (Archdemons) are blighted dragons linked to the Evanuris that whisper the will of their masters to humans. Archdemons are responsible for the Blight, our first “save the world kiddo” moment in da:o! So where is the disbelief in the streets that Elven Gods exist? Why is it always “Our Gods” are back? What about city elves who believe in the Chant of Light? Where is the Black Divine? Why is everyone okay remaining Andrastian when the fact Solas made the Veil is revealed? Where is the politics and religious civil war in the streets between NPCs?! Between companions? Why isn’t there a cultish, zealous group of extreme Andrastians following Solas around? Why isn’t there another version thinking of Solas and all elves as the second coming of Maferath? How are city elves fairing compared to Dalish elves at the reveal it’s their pantheon gunning to end the world? Again! RACE AND POLITICS MATTER! They always mattered in Thedas before, yet here they are anecdotal at best.

The Veil Should Have Come Down

It’s apparent to me, and numerous others, that Veilguard was stunted by its attempts to be an entry piece that wasn’t alienating to new players of the RPG game format, but it was also haunted deeply by it’s very EPIC tapestry mechanic (chocies mattered!). Ironically, Veilguard served to be a soft re-boot of the series. This, I think, was the grandest mistake. If they meant to reboot the series for future instalments, we should have fundamentally changed the physics and rules of Thedas completely to allow the next instalment to start from the literal ground up. By bringing down the Veil, we’d finally free the Titan’s, introduce the concept of Dwarves with magic, awaked the Forgotten Ones and maybe allow for new species/lore/concepts to shape the future. And to work around the tapestry, they could have simply set the next sequel 200 years later. Sent our heroes to rest. Ended with a new canvas.

It should have concluded with the very ending that was prophesied by Sandal in DA2:

“One day the magic will come back. All of it. Everyone will be just like they were. The shadows will part, the skies will open wide. When he rises everyone will see.”

Bonus: Anaris should have been a DLC boss with Fenris involved!

Why, you ask? Just this data-mined codex entry still present in the game:

Truth be told, like they did with Corypheus in the Origins DLC, I think they could very well bring him back as the big bad of DA5—which I think should have always been about fleshing out the war between the Titans / the Forgotten Ones / Evanuris!

Anaris and a waking Titan?! That would have been beyond amazing!

Which… again, is why the Veil should have COME DOWN!

P.S.: I know a lot of these criticisms seem like unhappy nitpicks, but I did enjoy Veilguard, I got an ending I could live with. BUT I am so angry by how many roadblocks are placed before game devs with a clear story in mind--as is obvious with the concept art book. Obvious threads were leading to Veilguard having always been the end of the Dragon AGE! We kill the last Archdemon! The last dragon linked to the Gods and the blight! The game developers have even alluded to having fought tooth and nail with EA's suits, but could only manage to give us the game we got. And I'm beyond grateful. But MAN does it hurt!

Remember to say thank you to the writers/artists/voice actors on their socials, they deserve a little love too.

Fin!

[ingravinoveritas]

just a heads up so you’re aware I’ve sent this blog to both georgia and anna incase they’d like to take legal action against you have a nice day.

Hello there, Anon. I realize that you actually sent this logged in, as I still have Anon turned off at the moment, but for all intents and purposes, this is an Anon, and I appreciate you showing the courage of your convictions by sending your message from a throwaway account.

That being said, I'm amazed at how I've been in multiple fandoms over the years, and as many things change, some things never do. This really is déjà vu all over again, as I got an Anon just earlier this year calling me ugly and accusing me of being jealous of Georgia and AL. The wording of your Ask is different, obviously, but I have a feeling the intent is exactly the same.

I'm assuming, of course, that since you sent Georgia and AL my blog, you also sent the blogs of all the people commenting on my posts over the last few days. And the blogs of the people commenting on @problematicwelshman's posts. Oh, and the names/screenshots of all the commenters on the Daily Mail article, in the interest of thoroughness. Or maybe (and I'm just spitballing here) all of that starts to seem like a pretty big waste of time when you really think about it. Maybe Georgia, for instance, has bigger things to worry about than what I'm writing on my silly blog, things like transphobic lunatics like Graham Linehan and Posie Parker making actual libelous statements accusing David of being a groomer and an abuser. Maybe she's emotionally drained from fighting those battles, fighting on David's behalf and her children's behalf, and does not have the time nor is about to thank you for telling her about my blog. Again, spitballing.

I have to say, though, pseudo-Anon, that I am disappointed. As I've said many times before, I am more than open to hearing from people who disagree with me and sharing those opinions on my blog. This could have been a moment for a real discussion, for you to message me saying, "I don't agree with your perspective on Georgia and Anna, and here's why" and I would have read your thoughts with as much care as I do every Ask that comes into my inbox.

But it seems clear that you find fear to be a strong motivator, hence your decision to threaten me. I think you may have made a miscalculation, however, in assuming I am equally as motivated by it. I recognize what you are doing here for what it is: Intimidation, in an attempt to shut me up. You are free to dislike my thoughts and opinions all you like, and I will never tell you or anyone else that they have to agree with me. But it would also help you to understand that even if you did manage to bully me off of this site, there will always be people posting and saying things that you do not like.

As I've said to others who have sent me similarly hateful Anons, I'm genuinely perplexed as to why you would go to these lengths when you could simply block me and keep scrolling. It's much easier, and there is a lot less likelihood of you being disappointed when things don't work out the way you hoped. And in the end, cultivating your own online experience and learning how to cope with opinions other than yours will go a lot farther than "tattling" on fans that you dislike (such as I've seen fans doing with the Asks they send to Neil).

I normally end these responses by thanking folks for writing in, and while I'm not particularly inclined to do that here, I do appreciate the humor of you ending a threatening Ask with "have a nice day" (as it gave me Grandmama Addams vibes from The Addams Family). So I will sign off with the same:

[seeingivy]

method acting asks + extra headcanons!!! (don't read if you haven't read the final chapter yet!!)

MAYA AND MARCO HEADCANONS I SHALL DELIVER

marco and maya are twins and born on new year's day 💌

in the first met gala chapter, when y/n performs seven with marco, she calls marco her sunshine boy - which is actually what eren and y/n call baby marco too!!!!

maya is a little bit more shy and sensitive and eren calls her star girl, which he says is perfect because he then calls baby marco, maya, and y/n his little universe bc they're the sun, the moon, and the stars 🥹 (he's literally a sap)

eren is SUCHHHH a girl dad like he literally practices braiding hair on y/n before the baby comes just so he can be a pro at it (and gets really annoyed when her hair grows super slow)

teddy LOVESSSS marco and maya sm like those are literally his pseudo-baby siblings and he loves them just as much as lily

they let their kids decide if they want to do acting/singing - and they both end up doing it! marco ends up being an actor and maya ends up being a singer (kinda like their parents hehe)

levi CRIES over the names AND when he holds them the first time.

maya has a crush on connie the way teddy had a crush on y/n. eren HATES it btw.

jeankasa's second kid is born around the same time as them and when they get a little older, jean tells eren to keep his "cooties infested son" away from his second daughter

(jeankasa kids are all girls btw like I don't make the rules)

@elliesbabygirl

THIS IS ONE OF THE SWEETEST, MOST CRAZY, MOST PERFECT ASKS I'VE EVER RECEIVED IN MY LIFE!!!! i'm so flattered that you said all of these sweet words, and truly being chronically online has somehow brought this insane piece of work to all of us, and honestly it makes me all the happier for it!!!!

like not to be a miss fan account girl, but I love celebrities I think they're so silly, I think celebrity drama is insane, and I am very cLEARLY obsessed with olivia rodrigo that this just kind of came out of that.

I wish there was a triple threat award I could give YOU for all the love you've given ME. while some of your asks did get eaten by how annoying tumblr is, the ones I did receive were always so like...well thought out and fully expressive about each little detail that i'd put into like....my 13k damn chapters...like it takes time and dedication to show love to writers - which mind you, most people don't and really makes it all the more special that you do!

I literally just do this for free, in my own time when I get a chance out of how busy I tend to be outside of this. i'm a walking stressball at most times bc I have like two jobs, a bunch of volunteering and EC's outside of that and getting sweet comments like this makes this feel all the more worth it and like im reaching peopel AGH

I love you so much!

not to be a disappointer but:

she doesn't! she actually doesn't win any more awards from the institute for her albums, but wins TONS of other smaller award shows and breaks records all the time

she gets information about it after birds of a feather doesn't win anything or even get nominated, and while she's initially irritated, she just decides that she's not going to submit to have them bc nominated anymore if they're not going to get nominated since she's blacklisted anyways

eren writes a very threatening letter ofc

^^historia gets KIND OF annoyed about her not submitting anymoer, bc like I said, she's kind of meant to be a foil to y/n in the sense that she's y/n if y/n was still obsessed and cared about this stuff too much - and she thinks y/n is kind of being pretentious by not nominating herself

she actually doesn't care after some point bc she literally breaks records all the time and knows that it's just some type of thing that they're holding against her

(eren + marco + maya always tell her that she's a triple threat in their hearts)

I literally had to put this in two screenshots bc @najaemism left me a literal ESSAY OF SWEET STUFF ABOUT THIS FIC and it kind of makes my heart hurt.

first of all, to my name twin - I LOVE YOU SOOOOOO SO MUCH WTF. first and foresmost, so glad that you've joined the dark side by watching aot bc lord it is literally one of the most painful shows i've watched and (clearly) I haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished it. i'm so flatted that some silly little words I wrote convinced you to watch four whole damn seasons of the show 😭 LIKE thats actually insane to me

THE TWEETS (while they're so time consuming to make) LITERALLYYYY ARE ONE OF MY FAVORITE PARTS OF THIS FIC like I love to make the dumbest jokes on there for my fellow chronically online siblings bc its literally so fucking funny to me. connie truly meeting his soulmate on stan twitter - bc of course he would - and the most insane anime villian oikawa making an appearance, bc duh, of course he would

(he was never a big fan of y/ns music but his girlfriend was so he decided to give it a try and now he's obsessed with her.)

(side note ymir and sofia are literally taylor lautner and taylor lautner. like girl taylor being a fan of twilight and taylor swift when she was younger just to date the guy from twilight when she's older and be besties w y/n??? that's LITERALLY SOFIA bc sofia loved aot when she was a kid, and was in one of the old chapters - I think new year's day - and then grew up to literally date someone from aot like that's mrs. taylor lautner of method acting)

they literally rot my brain and take up like 50% of my cortex bc I think about them all the time to the point where it's ACTUALLLYYY unhealthy like

I'm so glad you're here!!! i've got some fun things planned hehe <3

correct.

like I shit myself too I can't believe i've been writing this shit since july. like this is the definition of out of hand this was literally supposed to be a request for someone and 280k words later we're all here feeling all types of ways about it

AND AGH!!!! not the roommates fans like why are you guys kind of the ogs THANK YOU SM FOR BEING HERE!!

fun fact: eren and y/ns cat in the last chapter of method acting has the same name as the cat from roommates! <3

y/n does in fact get her new ring with an emerald in it. eren is annoyed he didn't think of it earlier bc its actually perfect

eren, in general, gets really into jewelry after he custom designed the saturn necklace for her during the second met gala so he always gets her really unique pieces

they do have the kids! I gave marco and maya headcanons at the top of the post <3

I love you @tangerine-neonlight <3

@feelya THANK YOU SO MUCH - BOTH FOR YOUR SWEET WORDS AND YOUR CURIOSITY <3 i'm so glad you enjoyed the silly little words I wrote about literally the best boy ever eren jaeger I love you sooooo soo much <3

[inkykeiji]

Is it okay for me to take the 🌱 (sprout) emoji ? bc I will definitely be hanging around to ride this Sunday ship to the ends of the earth

Also also alsoooo since im already unhinged. Can you imagine the discussion when robin flies back home?? How she left two siblings and is now meeting this established MARRIED couple. I low key see Sunday in all his fanfare almost shading the siblings from each other. Like always supervising conversations and never leaving them quite alone. Bc listen he put in all this work to make you the most dutiful, satisfied and content wifey. And he loves robin yes, but she went off and made her life and he won’t let what he built at home crumble. So he sits there, smiling and comforting when robin tries to ask if youre happy and comfortable. And I imagine her getting frustrated when Sunday delves in to explain on your behalf that yes you are quite happy. And robin is just getting so frustrated and youre just smiling up at Sunday oblivious with nothing but admiration and I just. Phew. I have sooooooooo many thoughts about this man. Pls how he’s with you in bed??? Boy just the experience to tell 

absolutely bb of course you can!!! welcome to the anon club wooo 🥳🥳 hehe <3 i am v excited to have u here with me to scream over sunday!!! any sunday pieces i write will be posted over on @inkyajax! c:

tw: incest / pseudo-cest

oh robin is 100% like what the fuck sunday??? but in her polite, cordial robin terms :) it’s the absolute last thing she expects to arrive home to, and it sends her for a fucking loop initially, sputtering on her response the moment she hears her precious baby sister call their elder brother husband, quickly and efficiently choking out her surprise to be demure and discreet, just like her brother taught her. but then she takes a moment to truly reflect on it, meditating on the situation as she stares up at the glowing plaster stars still smattered across her childhood ceiling—didn’t sunday promise he’d finally have those removed?—and she can’t believe she didn’t see it coming sooner. 

she can’t believe it blindsided her. i mean, really, what more could she expect with sunday? he’s always been over-protective, over-possessive, and entirely overbearing with his need for complete control—thinly veiled ownership of his siblings. and, suddenly, robin feels immense guilt. she should’ve known better, should’ve tried harder to shield you from him, shouldn’t have turned a blind eye and gone off to selfishly chase her own dreams (and, oh, if she ever discloses these thoughts to sunday, you know he’ll agree with her, using her compassion and culpability as a weapon to hurt her more, to break her down and rearrange her views and opinions his way). 

as disgusted and disappointed as she is with her brother, robin still tries her best to keep the peace as best she can throughout these increasingly infuriating interactions, smiling and sweet even as she begins to spit certain words through clenched teeth, even as her body continues to coil with every instance of sunday cutting you off mid-sentence. 

it would be especially wise of sunday to mediate all communication between his two sisters, easily ensuring all interactions flow through him. he is, by all intents and purposes, a filter on you and your words. it’s hard for robin to trust what either of you say when you’re around each other. robin knows this, because sunday has done the same with her, several times throughout their life, overseeing her responses to reporters and fans alike. as such, you can bet your ass she’ll be attempting to devise some sort of plan to get you completely alone so she can interrogate you honestly and properly—now, whether she actually succeeds at that is another story entirely. 

what’s worse is the precedence sunday still rules over her with. sure, she can recognize this is wrong, and yes, she can feel as guilty and remorseful as she wants to, but can she resist sunday’s clever, covert manipulation? the same manipulation that she’s been eroded by, poisoned by, for her entire life? the same manipulation that has kept her unwittingly trapped beneath her brother’s thumb, tail feathers pinned under his nail? 

probably not. 

how effortless it would be for sunday to consistently and continuously chip away at robin’s resolve, at robin’s logic, to convince her that no, truly, this really is what’s best for their dear baby sister, sunday swears it. who better to take care of you, to nurture and love you, than your righteous older brother? who better to anticipate and fill your needs than your own flesh and blood, just as he always has, just as he always will? 

no one, that’s who. and robin knows this, deep down, too—sunday just has to ensure that she realizes it. 

please sprout don’t even get me started on sunday in bed i fucking black out at just the THOUGHT of that man fucking you ooohhh my god

[edge-oftheworld]

saw a post on parenting adhd kids and how if you're the kind of parent whose preconceived notions of parenting and lifestyle vs stress tolerance ratio is such that you get really annoyed whenever your child is hyperactive, suppressing those emotions isn't gonna help you radically accept your child and raise them to feel as if the way they are isn't wrong. sometimes you need to vent in a trusted private space (preferably with a therapist) in order to prevent the resentment from building and work through the emotion to uncover and nourish the love you have for your child.

and I feel like this fandom (on the other app, the one the band members will see, not this one) notorious for complaining about everything and criticising everything and rarely showing kindness are kind of the same as emotionally repressed adhd parents (many of whom were our own parents). there's a certain intersection of neurodivergence and mental illness where the closest thing to meeting our lifetimes of unmet needs is a song or a show from an artist we're attached to as a person, and we start to view them as a sort of pseudo carer from a distance, who will validate our emotions (through their discography and statements) and hear and cater to our sensory preferences. unfortunately, obviously, this is something that's physically impossible for them to do.

just like most adhd parents are unrecognised neurodivergent (and going through life on Hard Mode because of it, in need of help and less stress) I really do think the fans who are being the most ableist are the ones who need the world to be less ableist to them the most. but just like our parents who instilled a feeling of shame in us that takes a lifetime to untangle, there's no excuse. there's a boundary and they're the ones crossing it: they should do better. I sometimes say artists are healthcare workers. but comprehensive health care (or in this case, community mental health care) needs a team and if you try and get everything from only one part of that team, you're going to get disappointed and end up resentful of them when they can't do everything to help you get better. and if they don't realise they're meant to be part of a team, it's going to feel demoralising to them. anyone who is constantly criticised is going to start feeling like they're not enough. I worry sometimes, when I see this cycle of retraumatisation play out. I get disappointed in society. and so I need us to do this together. complain and vent, but do it on fucking discord or MAYBE tumblr or preferably in private chats. then, like an adhd parent, you work through that emotion and uncover and nurture the love you have for the artist--not as someone who is going to solve your problems but who is going through it with you. you're all going to be okay.

[this-is-chaos-magick]

https://www.tumblr.com/this-is-chaos-magick/761040354318368768/httpswwwtumblrcomthis-is-chaos-magick7609472

I agree with all of this pretty whole heartedly (except for the Marvel hates her part, I just think screenwriters for the studio don’t know how to write her because of how much the comics writer truly despise Wanda as a character. House of M sucks and you’ve been dooped lol). But to your point of Wanda trying to find help, and find people who will still accept her (which definitely makes the monumental task of changing easier), and I’ve always thought that the X-Men would be pretty perfect for that part of her story.

I say this because the X-Men are very well known for some of their members having done some extremely awful things (for some of them, worse than what Wanda did in MoM), but the thing about those members is the fact that they’re not only trying to be better and redeem themselves, but in some way have a found a pseudo family or found some form of relationship where they feel seen and aren’t alone. With Wanda, I always think of Rogue, someone who was raised as a rather villainous force, who joined the X-Men, and hasn’t felt like a good person, but she still tries, and is never alone, and I think that’s something Wanda needs at this point. More than reuniting with Vision or finding her kids, it’s finding a good, stable support system, one that’ll encourage her to do better and get therapy, have empathy for her and her past, and just generally give her a safe space to be seen and fuck up.

I’m sorry for the rant, I know it’s also extremely X-Men pilled, so my bad. But I genuinely want Wanda to be treated with empathy from people who will see her for who she is.

Hey sorry again for the late reply,

I was being sarcastic (is that the right word😭) on the mcu hating Wanda thingy, it's like a running joke eversince dsmom... since they keep making her suffer :(

I agree with ur comment about Wanda being with the mcu X-Men but I don't think X-Men is coming to the mcu soon, it seems Feige keep dilly dollying about them (and also....I don't think x men fans would want mcu Wanda's character to be with them...and the discourse would be annoying) mcu writing kind of sucks right now...and let's be realistic .....Wanda is mostly likely gonna come in the next avengers movie as a shock value and probably...oh god probably gonna be captured by RDJ's doom or some annoying shit like that...and I hate the fact that's mostly like is gonna happen...💀[annoyed screaming] Since mcu knows how to disappoint us with always making the worst choice possible

Okay enough with negativity let me be positive, 🙏

With Agatha all along releasing...and her having a coven, if Wanda returns... somewhere in the future I am hoping for her to be with Agatha and her friends...I know Wanda and Agatha have issues with each other, but them both being free of the darkhold influ...maybe they will understand each other, try to forgive each other and then be friends and then mentor her? I want Wanda to learn more about magic I am upset that Wanda literally just got into magic in the mcu and they killed her quickly...:((((( we really need a scarlet witch movie, tbh I don't think Wanda actually died in the dsmom even tho I always makes a post about it (I am dramatic ass hell) you know since the witches road is getting used in Agatha,

you know I have a idea for a scarlet witch movie

its mixing the original writing from mcu writers ( Jac Schaeffer save us) and a bit of Scarlet witch (1994) storyline, trust me I already think this through it could work with the right writer and director [I'll make a separate post why I think so let me just edit it in the drafts if anybody is interested] also gives Wanda a villains to fight that could work with her mcu storyline

[cutiemarkofcain]

Rick and Morty spoilers. Under cut for length and negativity. This was eating at me.

I hated That's Amorte so much. It literally makes me angry. I was so excited for it. They were hyping it up. It was written by the same person who wrote Final Desmithation- a really entertaining episode! Morty was going to be in it a lot! It was compared to Pickle Rick and Vat of Acid! And then... we got this mediocre thing.

I have seen Pickle Rick and Vat of Acid, and you sir, are no Pickle Rick or Vat of Acid. And I'm even kinda meh about those episodes, but at least they showed the complexity of Rick's character!

Okay, characterization. Rick was reduced to the toxic dudebro fan ideal of him: asshole who gets away with being an asshole because he's always right. Morty- poor Morty! Finally gets an episode this season and he spent the whole time being pushed around and shat on by other characters and the narrative. Don't get me started on the rest of the family. They were fucking demons- I felt like I was watching an episode of Family Guy, just swap Morty for Meg. (Disclaimer, I haven't watched Family Guy in years, but I remember it being really mean-spirited for a while, I don't know if that's still the case, but yeah that's what I'm referencing.)

As for the theme... I just really dislike moral dilemmas that are totally bizarre and never apply to the real world. Just strikes me as pseudo-intellectual. And what is this episode trying to make a point about? Assisted suicide? The meat industry? Capitalism? Pick a fucking lane.

The story was the worst part. We've seen Morty try to do the right thing, only to make things worse, so Rick has to fix everything (Mortynight Run, Rattlestar Ricklactica, etc), so nothing new there. And it's fine that that's not new, because at this point it's happened enough that it's a trend, but That's Amorte does nothing new with it. The scene where Morty was letting his family have it was reminiscent of a similar scene from A Rickconvenient Mort, except it had emotional weight there. Here, the family's dismissal of Morty is treated like a joke. The suicide angle worked so much better in Analyze Piss because the subject was treated with the gravity it deserved, whereas here it was an element in a stupid thought experiment. And that scene showing the random dude's life? I was so pissed I refused to watch. It was like they realized what an emotionless husk the episode had been so far, so they tried to tug at the heartstrings in the laziest, easiest way possible, with some poignant scenes and sad music. That shit worked in Vat of Acid because it was about Morty and we care about Morty. I can tell when I'm being emotionally manipulated.

All in all, it felt like they took a bunch of superior episodes, had no understanding of what made them good, and threw them into the blender dimension along with a bunch of spaghetti. It felt like it was written by AI.

I can say, with confidence, that it was my least favorite episode. There was nothing I enjoyed about it. Less than Rickdependence Spray? Hell yeah, that episode was dumb but funny. Less than Raising Gazorpazorp? ...Okay, that one had no redeeming qualities either, but I didn't get hyped for it, so it wasn't a disappointment. Less than the last two episodes of season 6, which I refuse to remember the names of? Yes. Even though the last one bored me, at least Rick was nuanced and interesting there. As for the penultimate one... welllll, I mostly felt betrayed about that episode lying to us, so I feel I can't properly judge its quality. So that one doesn't get a score.

This episode offended me as a fan of Rick, as a fan of Morty, as a fan of the show, and as a writer.

Rick and Morty forever, huh? If it's just going to be an eternity of Rick being an insufferable smug jerk, Morty being abused, and both of them being miserable and hateful to each other, I don't even want another day of them. I guess this is the "Too Bleak, Stopped Caring" trope in play.

The only thing that makes me feel slightly more at ease is pretending like this episode didn't follow the main family. And that's why everyone felt like they were from season 1 and hadn't gone through any character development. (The mind eraser device looked different, by the way.) But that only solves the characterization issue, not the rest of it. Edit- realized that couldn't be the case because of how Summer says "parmesan".

Okay, I think that's everything I wanted to say. I hope that's everything, because I don't want to talk or even think about this episode anymore.

[camerawhoisalsocam]

"A rwby critic and a longtime dc fan" Hate to break it to you?

But RWBY manages to stay consistent. DC? Where do we even begin on their retcons.

Look, if you wanna whine and complain, that's fine. But at the end of the day, Monty , Miles, Kerry? At least their work is forever in progress.

All you people do is insult them on social media and then wonder why people won't listen to you after you complain. People enjoyed the crossover, and part 2 will be there soon.

And unlike you, the rest of us intend to enjoy things...which, as a critic, I understand that's rather difficult.

First things first thanks for being my first anon I honestly didn't know if I had it turned on or not. Also congratulations for being my first rwby related braindead anon, now I know I've made it. Now onto the response

Rwby has consistency? Yeah its consistently disappointing and dogshit. Trust me I know all about DC's retcons, bad stories, nonsensical decisions that the writers make that make the characters worse. Wanna know the difference between RWBY and DC? Rwby has had only a few interpretations, the main canon, the crossover, ice queendom, the books, the antholgy manga, a few comics (some being dc crossovers again), and rwby chibi. And half of those can even be considered pseudo canon. With DC? They have had DECADES of comics, movies, cartoons, TV shows, and all sorts of different adoptions. Because DC is bigger they can have alot of bad, but SOOOO MUCH more good.

Next up, dont bring Monty into this. I wont discredit his work and im not gonna say "this wasnt how he wanted rwby" or anything like this. Let the guy be. This is specifically going towards Miles and Kerry, I wanna have faith they're good people, twitter says otherwise for Miles. I know they can make some decent writing, early rwby, camp camp, they even wrote some of RVB. They haven't made anything good nowadays which is why im mad, I know they can write but keep fucking up!

And if your gonna say all I do is whine and complain maybe you should remember that your complaining about the opinion of some random guy on the internet. But hey you arent completely whining your giving a passive aggressive anonymous ask.

If people like the crossover, good. Im glad someone can find some good in a film and series I dont like. I may not have enjoyed the crossover but get good on you for finding it enjoying. I know why people dont listen to us "whiners" its cuz we hurt their feelings and were big mean cyber bullies. Im a dude on the internet, why the hell should you take it so seriously. What did you think I'd take you seriously as well? I know the real reason why rwby fans dont listen, its cuz RT doesn't listen. They dont see the genuine harm in their writing or dont want to acknowledge it and so their fans piggyback off their mentality. You fans dont listen because RT has their heads so far up their asses they think that RWBY will do fine because there's brain rotted fans like you who'll defend this hot garbage and do nothing but constantly try and shit on people who have an opinion. And quite frankly I think my opinion is right

Dont call yourself a critic, I dont know jackshit about you so for all I know your a fellow cave troll. Reply without the anon button and prove it next time. I know im not a professional writer or critic, I say that I am since im just been watching both franchises, im a dude on tumblr, dont take that part seriously. But I do know how to form an opinion on what I like and what I think is terribly written schlock thats being defended by fans who have a weird symbiotic relationship with a company that will treat their fans like shit.

So all in all, cope. I dont like the dogshit crossover, Miles and Kerry's writing sucks now, and you've officially made my morning. Thanks for stopping by anon. Next time RWBY makes something good for once i'll actually talk about how I like it, maybe with some criticism but hey, nothings perfect. I understand thats rather difficult to understand

[kai-keda]

Can you elaborate on your S4 feelings? I'm having trouble understanding from your posts

I’ll probably make a more in-depth and organized post in the future once the English version drops.

Right now I’m just left disappointed and don’t really want to talk about why I am cause I feel like the show isn’t too far gone yet. It’s more feelings of “I don’t want to deal with how the fandom is definitely going to take all of this” and “I’m losing that faith that we’ll ever get the moral that relationships are nuanced and instead we’re just getting another ‘your hero was the villain all along’ pseudo-intellectual bs”

Now I really am thinking it should have just ended after EYD. It was such a perfect book-end.

I went from “Oh that ending was beautiful. End the series there.” to watching the fansubs of the first episode of S4 and thinking “Oh never mind there IS more to tell! Wukong angst about his past, YES!” and now I’m back too “This should’ve ended after Tang’s “Embrace Your Destiny” speech”

Everything I complained about and hated about how the fandom treats Wukong and his mistakes is only going to get worse in the fandom spaces because of this season. And I just… don’t want to deal with it.

I’m not in the right mind space to deal with it.

So I’m taking a step back from thinking about the things I disagree with and sticking to getting my sister into the show, hanging out with the friends I’ve made alone the way, vibing in the 18+ server and working on this silly Jack-Spicer-Designed-The-Power-Glove-That-Freed-DBK crossover plotline.

I would always joke about the fandom being a perfect mirror to the DB fandom. But those were only ever half-jokes. And it’s getting worse.

Especially in regards to Vegeta fans and Goku.

[slayr0s]

diamonds by luke hemmings

 a self-centered and pseudo-philosophical review of a song i love

despite being a long time fan, it took me a bit to listen to when facing the things we turn away from by luke hemmings. prompted by a fear of being disappointed, perhaps, or pure laziness. my first listen was quite superficial, and i ended up enjoying the lead single, starting line, the most. now, almost a year later, i find myself gravitating towards diamonds. navigating themes of self-discovery, self destruction, and losing yourself in between.

the song opens with the line “cut like diamonds and sink like stones”, setting the tone for what is a song about trying to find the sense of self you might have had once, but that’s long gone. diamonds form under pressure, they’re often associated with wealth, and beauty. they’re sharp though, and can cut, as seen here. this opposition between the pain of the cut and the beauty of the diamond is the first of many, showing a clashing of perspectives in the speaker’s identity. despite maybe feeling, or being compared by others to, a diamond is just a mere stone, and will sink. this shows the opposition between the speaker’s opinion on themselves and other’s opinions. while one might be bright and beautiful to the people, they might not be on the inside, or at least not feel like it. “i’m so much older that i ever thought i would be” illustrates the part where you’re losing yourself. not everything comes according to plan and that’s terrifying. sure, it’s a good thing you’re still there, but you’re lost, who are you now? the use of three different gramatical tenses shows this confusion. this is reinforced three lines later with  “i’m so much colder that i ever wanted to be”. the prechorus starts with three question, depicting the speaker questionning themselves. those questions seem to be answered with the simple “i need to see it”. no answer yet, just a need for knowledge, a need for this answer as to who the speaker really is. “is it the way it’ll always be?” finishes the chorus. yet another question. the speaker is starting to lose it, maybe there’s no light, maybe you never really know yourself. 

as you can probably guess, i stopped this afterone of the three themes. i might continue it or maybe i’ll stop being a narcissit. eventually. 

[mineofilms]

Review of: “Knock at the Cabin”

Heavy Spoilers Ahead. Read with Care…

Knock at the Cabin (2023) Writers: Paul Tremblay (Novel), M. Night Shyamalan, Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman (Screenplay) Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan Stars: Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge IMDB Rating: 6.2/10 Stars Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 64%

“Knock at the Cabin” (2023) which confused me with “The Cabin in the Woods” (2011) is the first M. Night Shyamalan movie I have seen with No twist. This movie is played straight the entire time and that made this very hard to swallow. I have never done well with movies, plots that revolve around a binary decision. It is either this or that, anything else is irrelevant. It was sort of weird, the movie watching experience I mean. I did take issue with the cast. I have never been a very big Dave Bautista fan as a leading man. He is good to play smaller roles but to be the center point in any role. It doesn’t work for me. Basically the man cannot really act well. Like I said, he can do well with very small and his character being limited but to give him too much dialog, it really is film-cringe. I don’t know, bad call in my opinion. The movie itself flowed fine. When I sat and watched it I was getting those: “It looks like a thriller, feels like one, tone feels right,” vibes. My big issues are with the plot, the resolution. The whole 3rd act. I mean this will totally get the social media, "how this movie should have really played out," treatment.

If this happened in a real reality, right now, and not a pseudo-reality. We'd all be doomed. If I had my chance at it. Out in the woods, yeah, the gun would have been in a much better position. If I got a chance to defend myself from these four horsemen at any point in the story I wouldn't even hear them out. If I got my hands on that gun. I would have systematically murdered them all without even getting huffy about it. My point of view is; I am already dying/dead from my own medical/mental health combinations. Those four people canceled their lives the second they forced themselves into the home from my perspective. As far as the whole of humanity goes; I do not know if I would sacrifice what is and has been defined as mine since I was first able to understand concepts of any make or model. If I am chosen. God/gods, choose the wrong person and wrong family. If a God, or gods demanded I make a sacrifice, boi.... aren't they gonna be disappointed lol. I have sacrificed enough for three lifetimes. No meal ticket here. No FKs given either and I am not sorry about that. If there was a lesson to be learned I fail to see what it is.

I always pull from the Matrix: ReLoaded, at the end of the film where Neo realizes he is NOT the One but merely just “a-One,” the sixth One. Neo is The Sixth One to appear in the sixth Matrix iteration in which the trilogy takes place. In each iteration, The One is guided by the Oracle and then the Keymaker to a holding room of sorts where The One gains an audience with the Architect. That for all Neo’s abilities he is as powerless as all the humans trapped inside the Matrix. All choices up to this point have been weighed, measured, calculated and manipulated to get Neo to reset the Matrix for the Machines. That the free will Neo is striving for is not real. A binary information system displayed on a 2D surface appears as 2 points. There is Left and there is Right. If you want to see the Puppet Master’s fingers on the strings one has to see this on a 3D surface. Right now, the way society sees this as just 2 points on a sheet of flat paper. I never look at decision making that simply. I always assume both choices have something else at play. Call it, a lifetime of being on the wrong side of this binary information system for most of your life…

Now my head is in this place that if one or a group attempts to force this binary logic-choice upon me. If I have no other recourse other than to choose red choice or blue choice, left choice or right choice and I do not feel like either are what I stand for, or will accept, then I WILL choose my own way. I will look at Morpheus, I take both pills, give Morpheus the finger and jump out the goddamn window. Whatever happens, happens. My only recourse is to never give them what they want or even need. That my last ditch of independence before it is taken from me is to not comply… I will not submit… One or the group cannot force a win in their favor against someone like that, but people continue to play by the rules of a binary information system, even in fiction, especially in fiction. We take these huge liberties with our characters we write for fiction but less and less now I see the level of practical and realistic growth in their decision making processes. I know we are talking about fiction here, but this fiction in this specific story is related to our current reality. Yet, it doesn’t obey any of those rules. I feel pretty strongly about the current logical approach we take with the Left/Right binary information system. I do not believe in it more than there being a lack of evidence to support the belief in Jesus Christ. I believe in the concept Jesus more than I do the binary information systems and I absolutely DO NOT believe in Jesus Christ as a religious savor, in any capacity. I hold that concept very high on my own personal knowledge system that binary is bullshit. I guess I am crazy or a Sociopath lol. In that respect I had a very hard time seeing the plausibility of these very human situations and choices in “Knock at the Cabin.”

Other than that, it wasn't bad. I actually liked the gay couple aspect and it not coming off overly WOKE. Oh, it’s in there, of course it is, but at least it wasn’t shoved down our throat and it was important to the story. This at all didn’t feel forced like it always tends to feel. Like, it’s a thing but not a thing. I don’t know if that was dark humor or not. If I look at this movie as totally dark humor from beginning to end. Then I think it’s sort of a middle finger to our current world culture view, then this movie is brilliant. If it is supposed to be taken seriously, the choices and decisions do not make much sense to me in that scenario. If the whole movie is like, “hey we got these four people/horsemen, or whatever, that are gonna try and convince a family to sacrifice a family member what possibly could go wrong?” You get a foreign kid with a physical deformity that no one wanted so they gave it to Americans, not even knowing they were a gay couple. You have a gay couple where one side the parents do not understand and see their son as a failure/disappointment and the other guy is a domestic violence victim because of his sexual preference of being a gay man in modern times. If those are your odds, then that is the joke. That is the humor. I honestly could not tell whether or not this movie was played straight or is really a satire on our world culture. If it is a satire then it is brilliant, if it is straight then this movie was poorly executed.

That in and of itself is funny to me. So yeah… It wasn’t terrible but nothing special. If you are bored, it is worth a watch but there is nothing must see here. It is just a solid thriller that tries to act like reality but really isn’t real nor does it even feel real. This is what you get when you try to get people to care about your characters so they try to put themselves into the decision making process. Me… I would have lost my mind and after a few hours. I would stop cooperating in any capacity. I’d have no problem at all watching each of them kill themselves. If anything, I’d lose my patience with how slow they are about it all. The problem I have with this is the great human experiment from my perspective is a huge mistake. Do not give me that power… I won’t make the choice that is expected of me by the masses…

One of the last things that was eating at me about this movie is every time the family said no to a sacrifice one of the four horsemen were killed and then the doomsday event happened. At no point were we told or shown what would happen if one or all of the four horsemen did not contribute to their own death. What if they said, hell no. I am not doing this. The movie suggests that these four people came together via the internet due to their strong visions. That, if they didn’t do this the visions would get stronger. Ok, fine… They get stronger… You’re telling me these four people felt so compelled to meet and attempt to force these people to choose? And on top of all that, they are a Gay couple. So they do make note that they are being targeted because they are Gay. It comes up, it is quickly discussed and disregarded. That is when this movie starts to break apart for me. Plus one of the four are the person that previously attacked one of the couple some years ago that set the decision making process for him to purchase a gun to begin with. It is because of all this that I feel he would have had the gun on him or at least in the cabin, somewhere where he could quickly get to it before they all broke into the cabin. I just think it would be highly unlikely the gun would be in the safe in the vehicle.

The other part of this is these four horsemen have collectively decided to corner, bully and force this part of this all onto this family. If I were one of them. If I were forced to either force someone else to contribute over, them, the group saying, this isn’t right. I do not care how bad these visions get. That I won’t do this. Regardless if this is real or not. If this is the message of the movie then humanity is absolutely doomed. The reality is all four of these people would have committed suicide before they planned to hunt down this family and force them to compile. And if they were able to plan something out what kind of shape would they be in mentally/emotionally? Spending months not sleeping, slowly thinking you are crazy. Again, the real reality of the situation. If all four showed up and tried this, they all should have been shot dead before they actually got into the cabin, but that isn’t how fiction goes. Sort of why this movie really needed that M. Night-Twist and it didn’t get it. That is why I think this might just be that dark humor here but who knows. M. Night movies have been so miss pretty much since “The Village” and that was 2004. Sure, he has a decent one come and go. “Split” from 2016 was decent enough but it is rare to find anything in his catalog after 2004 that comes as highly recommended. He is capable, but we haven’t seen much that gives us those “SIGNS” vibes…

 Review of: “Knock at the Cabin” by David-Angelo Mineo 2/26/2023 2,009 Words

[spngoo]

☮ Live and let live.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/10/2021: CREEPSHOW

There is so much to say about this deceptively simple movie, I don't know if I can even cover it all—but hopefully I'll be able to point in the general direction of its broad borders. CREEPSHOW looks to be just a fun gimmick: an anthology movie by two life-long fans of EC Comics that emulates the format with a collection of five horror shorts and a wrap story featuring a Cryptkeeper-like ghoul. The production is vividly colorful and includes graphic, hand-drawn frames-within-frames that refer directly to the aesthetic of comic books like Tales from the Crypt. The tone of the stories is similarly faithful to the source; in each one, people corrupted by their peccadilloes meet with an ironic comeuppance at the hands of the natural or the supernatural, their lives ending with a disturbing yet funny punchline. CREEPSHOW is not the earliest screen adaptation of horror comics, and it hasn't been the last, but it may be the only iteration that imitates the EC brand, while also evoking the cultural atmosphere that surrounded those books when they were new and highly controversial.

George Romero has made a lot of movies in different styles, from his quiet psychodramas with their touches of magic realism, to the grimy, gory apocalypse of his LIVING DEAD series, to…well, the feverish cartoon reality of CREEPSHOW. The chief connecting thread throughout Romero's filmography is the paranoia and alienation of his protagonists. This rings loudest among the survivors of the zombie plague, but it is equally present in the pseudo-vampiric melodrama of MARTIN, and the Stepford-like social satire of SEASON OF THE WITCH. It makes sense that a horror giant like Romero would have such a strong feeling for marginalization, when you consider that he grew up in an era where all of society's ills were being blamed on the horror movies and comics that he loved. However broadly, CREEPSHOW delivers a strong vision of childhood in a world where adults could not be trusted: They could be cruel, ignorant, selfish, and censuring, all the while hypocritically pawning off their culpability on the media that provided children with a welcome escape.

The film begins with a turbulent domestic situation in which young monster kid Billy (Stephen King's son Joe Hill) is threatened and demeaned by his father (Tom Atkins), who focuses his wrath especially on Billy's beloved comic book collection. The scene is as exaggeratedly pulpy as anything in the movie, yet it hums with an emotional intensity that prevents the viewer from dismissing it as pure pastiche. The shorts the ensue are also full of characters who are threatened by those who are supposed to love them: Parents, children, and spouses are all equally threatening, creating an undercurrent of isolation and disappointment that flows beneath the outrageous, blackly comic horror that prevails. Stephen King's screenplay deftly balances humor and terror to keep things fun and exciting, but Romero's signature despair is branded on every segment.

But about Stephen King, for a moment: The weakest piece of the film is "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill," in which King himself plays a gawping hillbilly who gets infected with a ravaging moss from outer space. I actually have a gripe about King that I don't hear from others as much as I think I should, which is that he presents himself as this man of the people, yet his stories are often populated by almost minstrel-like caricatures of poor, rural, working-class individuals—often surrounding a protagonist who has reached escape velocity from his rustic home town and is working on a respectable literary career. Not that I think it's unreasonable to treat people you love to a certain amount of ribbing, but I question whether King is really as sympathetic as he is accepted to be, and his extra yokelly performance may give you an idea of what I mean. Yeah, sure, this is supposed to be comic book-y, but in the context of many similar bits throughout King's career, it can start to feel pretty condescending.

The dip in quality of "Jordy Verrill" is extra stark when you look at the rest of the cast, which includes multiple Tony and Emmy winners giving first-class performances. Because Romero is so associated with the invention of the modern zombie, and also with Tom Savini's groundbreaking gore effects, sometimes people fail to mention that he was really an actor's director. Romero demonstrated a fine feeling for people right from the start, and even a live-action cartoon like CREEPSHOW displays his emotional sensitivity and his ability to get the best out of his cast. Although a certain cynicism plays out in all of Romero's films, his basic sympathy for humanity is what makes his work effectively tragic, rather than judgmental and nasty.

CREEPSHOW may not warm your heart as it chills your bones, but it is likely to make you feel something deeper and more powerful than you might expect from a garden variety comic book adaptation, especially one so frankly schticky. And on my closing note, I'd like to say that CREEPSHOW is one of the only movies I've ever seen where the comic book format is evoked, and it doesn't look like complete shit. Almost every time I see a live-action movie using illustration elements for its transitions, they're lazy and awful and it's obvious that the filmmakers wanted to make the hipstery gesture of being comic book-like, without putting an ounce of effort into it or even just trying to make it look nice. The message always seems to be, "We know some people think comics are cool but we have no idea why; we think they're stupid, and we think you're stupid too, but we want your ass in a seat so here ya go, sucker." Mercifully, Romero DOES know what's good about comics, and he serves it up in spades. Just another piece of evidence of his sympathy and respect for humanity, the viewer included.

PS My husband and I re-watched this movie during a trip to Pittsburgh, and we both had super scary nightmares that night, so the mojo is still working. Happy 40th anniversary CREEPSHOW!

[yvesdot]

would love to hear more about ur anti-F451 ideals <3

wait depending on why ur opposed to it the heart may have been tonally inappropriate

(in response to this)

Nooo don’t worry! Funniest message/addition I’ve received in a while.

I personally don’t like Fahrenheit 451 in part because I’m an honest Bradbury fan and I think the plot structure is fundamentally disappointing. Perhaps I’d feel differently on a fourth read, but I find many of his short stories much better written.

However, the main issue I have with it is that it is taught by progressive people as if it is progressive. Let me tell you: it’s not. Bradbury was not responding to real, precedented book burning (usually of progressive and/or minority-authored texts—F451 was published ~20 years after the Nazi book burnings). What’s the book he’s most worried about? The Christian Bible, which is the central text that Montag seeks to protect, despite his inability to comprehend it. This is all we really need to know about Bradbury’s grip on reality.

Take a look at this speech by Beatty, the police chief villain of the novel, as to “how we got here.” Warning: even more racist than you expect.

Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did...

...It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.

...You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right?

Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book.

(bolding mine)

Quotes like this one reveal his true, misplaced anxieties: Bradbury perceives the Oversensitive Minorities as the book-burners. Bradbury himself was not always a shining star of progressivism even in his most progressive-leaning writing (see his portrayal of Black people in various pseudo-progressive short stories). Does this mean nobody should read him, or F451? Of course not; I’m a Bradbury completionist myself. The meme post is honestly hilarious, which is why I didn’t want to be one of those Um, Actually! people—it’s not really relevant, in my opinion, to the joke. Good post, OP! I mention this here to put Bradbury’s fears of offended minority readers in context.

From Faber, the mentor figure with the Bible:

It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No, no it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget.

Bradbury’s real concern (outside of minority backlash) was television. While he was right that technology would progress and become more handheld (and often all-consuming), his fears seem to come largely from a view of television as “replacing” reading, which it has made no real signs of doing. This is actually the reason F451 is so popular: the majority agrees, and has always agreed, that books are irreplaceable and television is “low art.” This book has mass societal appeal... because it ultimately challenges nothing about society.

Every generation acts like new tech, new adults, new everything is terrible. (1) (2) (3) (4) This makes the book popular again and again as people insist that now technology has finally gone too far (as opposed to when he wrote it? he wrote it about your generation!), but it’s something a real visionary should have been able to see past. It’s classic, uncreative paranoia.

It’s honestly embarrassing for Bradbury to count television out of “infinite detail and awareness,” particularly because it’s only developed further in that direction since. Take Bojack Horseman, Squid Game, Mr. Robot, or any other critically acclaimed television show in the last decade: we’re seeing an explosion of real art here, using the unique elements of the medium to produce better writing. Bradbury was wrong, and he should have recognized it.

So, if it’s not well-written or insightful, what is F451 teaching? Why is it present in classrooms across the country? I read this book in high school myself, and I am shocked that progressive teachers continue to assign it as though it can tell us anything (other than, perhaps, how the group in power will always manipulate social causes to portray themselves as the victims). Bradbury wasn’t right about the future, outside of some predictable technological progression. Books aren’t being burned just because they’re books (or, God forbid, because they’re Christian. Good Lord.) The Evil Minoritees have failed to bring down the giants. Nobody is going to put up four screens in their living room, because the furniture would block the screens.

F451 is a lovely beach read. It elicits those big, easily-provoked emotions: what if I am the only smart one left alive! What if all books are disappearing! What if low art is prevailing!! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that self-aware indulgence, the way people love books about strapping gentlemen and maidens who fail to exist in real life. We just have to be aware of that inaccurate manipulation of our emotions, and perhaps come to understand that this educational text isn’t as educational as we once thought.

P. S. Bradbury once wrote a New Year’s piece for Playboy, at the turn of the century, about what he expected to happen in the 2000s. He predicted the ultimate return to glory of...! cassette tapes. Let that be a lesson to other visionaries ^__^

[marvellovegalore]

Loving You

Chris Evans

Synopsis: Chris is over the moon, he's met you and life couldn't be better - you're all he's ever dreamed of and there's nothing you could do to ruin that.

Warning: explicit language, sexual content

No one in your industry would ever consider you difficult to work with, neither mean, arrogant, conniving or calculating. Most would go out of their way to praise you, proclaim their adoration for the movie star of dreams. On the other hand, your previous partners would. Ex-boyfriends that would bravely volunteer to be interviewed about your past relationship would recount their experiences with the same look as a shell-shocked soldier. If they could, they would gather in a support group for those left with deeply affecting, unresolved trauma - left by you.

You would deny it, if you could be bothered; or if the media had declared your heartbreaker ways to be of public interest. Which they are, but you’re largely untouchable therefore they're unreported. A Hollywood starlet, philanthropist, trend setter and tastemaker - alongside with being viewed largely as a sweetheart. Your childhood nannies coming in storming with adulations and saccharine recollections of a sweet and shy child. Friends that are more than happy to celebrate you on social media and fans who fill the internet with high production videos of you strutting on the streets and red carpets cement the idea that you are the moment, and you are loved.

To the world outside of the sphere of your ex-boyfriends, you were the most eligible bachelorette. There was no flaw in sight, no illusion to dispel or enchantment to break; you’re the real deal. Until you get bored, and you need to hurt someone. Because hurt people, hurt people. As the saying goes. There’s no need to go into that - just yet.

So, when Christopher saw you at the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscars after party, he fell head over heels. Your eyes cast a spell on him, and the enchantment was cast by the world’s master mage, you. You barely realised what you did, you were in no mood to flirt or truly fraternise. You were attempting to drown your sorrows of missing out on another Oscar win for the second time - in a mojito glass. You looked spectacular, possibly more than how you looked during the ceremony. But to Chris, your face of indignation looked like the angelic expression of a good second place loser with no hard feelings. He attempted to approach you, but too many people go into his way, they came with unprovoked film criticisms and pseudo interview responses that would get them into the academy board. All he wanted was to see your face up close and know how you spoke when you weren’t being regarded by a crowd of enraptured spectators.

He could see that you weren’t being left alone either, you hadn’t won the Oscar, but you are being treated as if you did. Your eyes bounce off of him every once in a while, but he couldn’t capture your attention - and then you left the party. You hardly made the French exit you were seeking. Stars old and young clamoured to say their goodbyes and kisses on your cheeks. You finally managed to escape. If Chris were to attempt to lie and say that he wasn’t disappointed, a blind woman could have seen right through him. His heart dropped, and he couldn’t explain why - he didn’t even know you.

Some other actor friends managed to drag him to a more intimate after party, the setting hardly intimate. A compound nestled in Hidden Hills, twenty-four-hour security circling the property, of one starlet who presented herself at the beginning of the night but chose an early slumber rather than socialising.

You came in half an hour after him, a miniskirt showing off your incredible legs - which were insured for an absurd amount.

His breath caught in his mouth. You were dressed down, but you looked too incredible to even try and claim you didn’t try. Everyone’s head turned and everyone was captured by the beauty at the door, accompanied by a friend. Your demure appearance fooling everyone into thinking that the attention was unwanted. You grabbed yourself a drink and half an hour later you were still enveloped with a group of equally intoxicated friends.

Though, Chris was determined to get your attention. He grabbed a drink off of the barman and slowly and easily made his way to you. The word ‘chill’ being chanted over and over again in his head. He was dead set on not making a fool of himself. Three steps away from you, glass of mojito clutched in his hands, his anxiety being beaten down and desperately suffocated into his stomach and away from his brain. He goes over his words, and before he finishes walking to you, you turn suddenly.

Your eyes pierce into his, a smirk glossing your lips. “Hi.” Your voice is low, characteristically different from your stage voice - your accent just as strong.

“Hey, got this for you.” Chris thrusts the glass into your unexpectant hand, some of the drink splashing out over the frosted rim. “Hope, it’s not too presumptive of me to have gotten it for you?” His eyes have glossed over, he shifts his weight from one foot to another. You shake your head no, a sweet smile playing at your lips. He’s even easier on the eyes much closer up. “Sorry you didn’t win that Oscar, real shame, I was rooting for you!”

You store it in the back of your mind that this man manages to look like a golden retriever even when he’s several drinks down, “It’s nothing, what does it mean anyway, I’ll still get more jobs in the future.” You take a sip of your drink after he takes a sip of his.

He compliments your eyes, your complexion and goes on an eager rant of how much he admires your capacity for acting. You drink in the adoration diluted by alcohol and take his words with a pinch of salt. After twenty minutes of solid, drunken conversation you’ve moved to a nook shadowed by statues. Your legs next to his on the red velvet sofa. You remark on the class of the artistic statues, clearly purchased illegally from a Mediterranean museum. He barely takes in your words, much preferring to intoxicate himself with the sight of you - and his fifth beer.

You’ve decided that you want him. Badly. But you’ve sussed him out. He’s not just going to be a one-night stand - in the animal kingdom he’s a Golden Retriever, and those aren’t dogs to be messed with. Your last fling was essentially a Doberman pinscher - discardable - but this Chris had to reeled in slowly.

You interrupt his musing about the Boston markets with a kiss.

Your lips smoothly capture his, your lipstick smearing over his lips. His hand presses tightly on the small of your back, arm underneath your waist holding you up higher. Stars explode inside your eyelids and his fingers grip tightly onto your shirt as your tongue licks his bottom lip. Your entry is granted, you lips pressing tighter against each other. Your eyelashes dance over his. Your hands rise to his face, your hands imprinting themselves onto his cheekbones. His hand brushes over the bare skin of your leg, his fingertips tracing the insides of your thighs. A small moan rises from the back of his throat.

The hold you have on him is cemented, you part away from him. You untangle yourself from him and stand up from the sofa, your eyes refusing to look at him, you smooth your clothes and slowly strut away from him.

Chris looks at the fire that you’ve set on his limbs in disbelief, he doesn’t grasp what you’ve just done. Did he do something wrong? Does he smell? No. You just didn’t care for the ceremony of the first ‘after-kiss’ moments.

He doesn’t see you for a year.

You truly are elusive - to the media and him.

He couldn’t get you out of his mind, and the fact that you starred in another award-nominated film did little to help him forget you.

You were curious to understand whether you really enticed him or not. You decided to not pursue that line of questioning, and never bothered to reply to his direct messages. It wasn’t done with the intent of hurting him, you just didn’t care. But life has a way of putting things in your way that deep down you didn’t know you wanted.

--

Nevertheless, here you are, with your boyfriend of a year - Christopher, sat across from you telling you story about his nephew. You simper, your eyes flitting between the sight of him and the view of the sea. The coast of Martha’s Vineyard enraptures you, you drink your wine, eyes steadily moving to the coastal view.

You grew up coming here. Your family often choosing the quiet island to rest in during the late spring holidays. You brought Chris back here to stay at your family holiday home as it’s not too far from his own family home, a perfect last stop after spending the week with his family.

He watches you curiously, his blue irises begging you to let him in to your thoughts. You refuse silently and beckon the waiter. You ask for the bill, it’s quickly on the table and you pay - ignoring Chris’ refusals. You smile at him, for the second time during dinner. He responds in kind, remarking on your bad mood and how he’s glad you’ve cheered up after having some food. He muses on the lovely weekend you’ve had together as you leave the restaurant. Candlelight following you as you make your exit with your hands holding each other tightly, his other hand in his preppy shorts.

You walk slowly, watching the sunset. His arm finding its way around your shoulders. His sweet and intimate embrace enveloping you in warmth. Your heart beats quickly against his bicep as you near your home. Your hands tremble for some reason and you practically sprint up the porch steps after you’ve crossed the gate and walkway, leaving Chris five steps behind you.

You open the door and make a quick beeline for the kitchen in the far back of the house. You enter the pantry, ignoring Chris’ questions of what is wrong. You take a bottle of Rosé out of the wine fridge and forgo pouring it into a glass and drink it straight from the bottle. It tastes incredibly sweet, and Chris finds you eventually in the pantry. He looks at you in surprise as you gulp the drink.

“Everything okay, baby?” He walks to you, his hands failing onto your hips, his adoring eyes almost boring into your soul. You refuse him entry into the pits of your emotions. Steeling yourself against the onslaught of therapy-like talk.

You don’t want him to know that hurt people, hurt people. And that you’re one of them.

You kiss him, silencing his calming words.

His fingers tighten on your sundress. The colour melding with the colour of his fingers. Your lips become one.

You go through the steps of getting out of the pantry in a seemingly choreographed dance, your dance ends in the smaller reception room; your bodies tangling themselves on the rug. Neither of you giving a care to fact that you’re undressing in front of the window overlooking the pool and coast.

The flickers of the setting sun’s rays highlight his now bare chest. He returns his lips to yours in a hypnotising kiss. Your hands dance with the muscles of his back as you caress his skin, his torso vibrating in between your legs with the fervour of his movements. Your dress is ripped off your body. He directs his attention to your right breast, his soft lips caressing your skin. His tongue lashes slowly against your nipple, you fight to hold back your moans as his hand lowers to your pussy. His fingers pushing aside your pants, his fingers sink into you like it’s their second nature. Your head rolls back as he makes love to you with his fingers and his lips lower down to where his fingers are. He licks you where you need him most, his love for you being written inside you with his tongue.

You orgasm. Slowly.

And all that runs through your mind is how much you’ll miss him.

You pull him up to you, you turn over and straddle him. Tasting yourself on his lips as the sun sets even lower. The waves crash against the shore violently as the wind picks up. You lower yourself onto him and start riding him, your hips bucking in an impassioned manner against his. He doesn’t hold back his moans as he caresses your breasts and stomach.

You realised you loved him four months ago, but every time you catch sight of his loving eyes when you’re fucking, it makes you fall in love all over again.

Chris switches and puts you on all fours, he grips your hair in his hands, the rising intensity making him grip you harder. His thrusts are merciless, his spare hand spanking you and stroking, you’re on the cusp of a sensory overload when he turns you over. On your back you have the most beautiful view. A strong ray of sunlight brightening his eyes as he makes love to you. His kisses are tender but intense. His hand grips onto yours, your fingers intertwined and his other hand griping onto your face.

A tear slips out of your eye, you wipe it away quickly. Your increased sensitivity makes the second orgasm come, Chris fucks you through your breathy moans and you throw your head back. Momentarily blinded by the bliss; the pink sky wakes up from the saccharine, cloudy state. Chris orgasms into you with four thrusts.

You push away from him and stand up; you pull on your silky pants. You sigh and leave Chris on laying breathless on the rug. You walk upstairs and enter your room. You use the toilet, wash your hands, have a glass of water and throw on a short black dress. As you pull on your boots Chris enters the room, a smile gracing his lips.

He pulls on some shorts, “Want to tell me what all that was about?” He gives you a confused expression as he lies back against the bed, taking one of the fluffed pillows from behind him and tucking it between his chest and arms.

Hurt people, hurt people.

You turn towards him, facing away from your walk-in closet. “When we fuck, I have to think about other men to get through it.”

His eyes widen alarmingly, he turns to you, the light of the tv making him blue. “Say that again?” The disbelief is almost tangible in his words.

“I feel embarrassed about being seen with you now. I feel I’m just too good for you.” You walk into the closet and you hear him stomp off the bed.

“No, rewind to what you first said.” His voice is louder, his features twisted with confusion and hurt.

“I have to think of other guys to get off,” your eyes connect with his, you don’t look away, you fight the smirk biting at your lips. “I can’t stand the thought of being with you any longer. I’m sick of it.” You grab the suitcase that was packed for you when you were at the restaurant. “Also, you’re not as ripped as you were when we met, there’s other guys that can provide that image for me.”

“Take it back.” The hurt he’s feeling is completely tangible now. “Take it back right now. Right. Now.” His eyes are pleading with you to have mercy.

You've decided that you've gone past the point of no return. “I’d be happy never have to see you or have to hear from you - ever again.” You scan his eyes, your heart swelling with an eerie feeling of pride as his eyes flood with held back tears.

“This must be some elaborate prank— “he chokes on his words, his hands reach for yours, but you step back.

“This year has been tedious, completely boring and I’ve gotten nothing but only ten decent fucks from you.” Not true, and both of you can attest to that, you've had the best sex, your mutual adoration is clear when you make love. So, Chris is at a loss to understand how this is all being said and happening. “I’m off to New York, stay as long as you like or don’t. I don’t care. Have a nice life.” You slip past him.

Taking his heart and soul with you.

He can’t stop the tears from ballooning in his eyes and then trickling down his cheeks.

He must be stuck in a nightmare. He doesn’t know how long he’s been pacing in this closet filled with your clothes, your smell haunting him.

He rushes downstairs and there’s no sign of you. He stumbles outside and there’s no sign of you or your driver. He rushes in to get his phone and calls you. Five times. The sixth time it goes straight to voicemail.

He feels his heart break.

He falls right in the spot he’s in. He vomits his heart out, the pieces being spat out onto the wooden floors. The blood shinning underneath the soft lights of the lamps.

He wants death. Slow and steady death.

——

Part Deux -