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a-little-slice-of-fandom · 4 years

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In derry girls, what did you think of the episode where clare came out? Im irish (republic) and gay so i love that it was included, but some of the language used makes me uncomfortable i guess? I get that NI in the 90s wasnt very accepting but the directors have said that they already portrayed it through rose coloured glasses so having michelle say d*ke feels unnecessary. I love the show though and can certainly look past it! I was just interested in what you thought :)))

Hey anon!

Personally I love this episode of Derry Girls! In fact it’s probably my favourite episodes. I already liked Clare as a character throughout the series, probably because I relate to her a bit too much, so to have her be revealed as gay was just like the icing on the cake. Good representation for northern Irish characters are few and far between, and gay northern Irish characters are basically non existent. Derry Girls was this hit TV show that provided many with the first chance to see themselves represented meaningfully on TV, and that includes myself.

However, I think there’s a lot of really important stuff in this episode that people either don’t notice or just don’t really talk about, which I do understand because Derry Girls is, at the end of the day, a comedy and it’s much more fun to quote characters like Aunt Sarah saying “you cannot move for lesbians these days” than to think about the darker side of Northern Ireland.

(T/W for homophobia discussion!!!)

(Also this sort of turned into a ramble about acceptance by the end of the post but I just have a lot of feelings on what Derry girls represents and I feel like non northern Irish viewers maybe don’t catch onto that because they don’t have the necessary context)

Derry Girls, as a show, is so interesting and personal to me because it manages to perfectly strike the balance between presenting Northern Ireland as a deeply flawed and divided country, but also presenting it as a place where people can be happy and live their lives to the fullest despite the ever present danger of the troubles. And that’s a genuinely refreshing portrayal of N.I that we usually don’t get. However I’d argue that if Derry Girls doesn’t at least try and illustrate, to some extent, the causal and very rampant homophobia of northern Ireland then it runs the risk of romanticising Northern Ireland at the time, which I think is incredibly dangerous. I do think that the show is intentionally more digestible and does filter things through rose tinted glasses, however I’d argue that simply glossing over the homophobia would have actually been a bit disrespectful to the queer history of Northern Ireland and could erase the experiences and struggles of the LGBTQ community in N.I, both then and now. If the show doesn’t acknowledge that things were shitty then we paint an inaccurate picture of what it was like, and arguably still is like, to be gay in Northern Ireland. And considering that Derry Girls is one of the very few good depictions of Northern Ireland, it’s incredibly important that it’s an honest depiction.

You specifically asked about Michelle, but I think it’s important to talk about Michelle and Erin in relation to one another, and how they are both products of their time and of a deeply homophobic society.

(Now I’m going to briefly discuss Michelle’s use of the d-slur here however I just want to acknowledge that I’m probably not the best person to talk about this since it’s a lesbian specific slur and I’m not a lesbian. I welcome any additions to this post!)

I think Michelle sort of represents the overt and “loud” homophobia that’s present in our society. Michelle saying the d-slur is far from the first homophobic thing she says. I mean It’s literally a running gag in series one that she calls James “gay” constantly. And the sad thing is that Michelle’s off handed comments throughout the series are incredibly realistic to what you’d hear in Northern Ireland even today. I remember the f-slur being chanted during break time at my primary school, without anyone fully understanding what that word meant. Michelle is a representation of the homophobia that’s deeply ingrained into N.I to the point where it’s not even thought about or even seen as an issue. I mean...no one ever really talks about Michelle’s comments. Now whether or not they had to include her saying a slur specifically to illustrate the homophobia of N.I is not for me to say. You could change that sentence in the script and I think the point of Michelle representing “loud” and homophobia would still stand.

On the other hand...I think Erin represents the much more insidious and “quiet” homophobia.

Firstly, she has no issue with capitalising off a very personal essay for her own gain, shrugs off any protests that this might be wrong and doesn’t consider how her actions may hurt the writer of this piece (who is later revealed to be Clare).

Even the language she uses is a bit uncomfortable, saying that “a real life lesbian walks among us”. Are lesbians wild animals or mythical creatures? That seems to be what Erin is implying here. Plus Erin tries to make it out to others such as Sister Michael that she’s doing this because she genuinely believes in equal rights and wishes to stick up for the LGBT community, but when Clare actually tries to come out Erin is clearly confused and she reacts very badly. I mean, Erin literally says she doesn’t want Clare to come out and demands she get back in the closet, and you can see how hurt Clare is by this reaction. And this scene is kind of played for laughs and I think that straight viewers probably found Erin’s reaction quite funny...but this scene hit way too close to home for me. It’s the classic “I have nothing against gay people, but I’d just rather I didn’t have a gay friend/child/co-worker because they make me uncomfortable” that’s way too common in Northern Ireland. It’s the idea that people can present themselves as liberal and open minded, but when finally confronted with something that doesn’t fit their narrative, their societal conditioning kicks in.

As a queer woman, it was never Michelle’s causal homophobia that made me uncomfortable, it was Erin’s reaction...because it hit way too close to home. It’s a perfect representation of the “quiet” homophobia that’s still a massive issue in Northern Ireland today.

(Also the context of when Derry Girls was released is super important! Series one of Derry Girls was released in 2018...but Gay marriage wasn’t actually legalised in Northern Ireland until January of 2020 and even then it was quite contested by conservatives. Now I’m not saying there’s social commentary here but that’s absolutely what I’m saying.)

Now I’m not saying that Michelle or Erin themselves are homophobic, nor am I saying that they’re bad people. I think that they are teenagers that have absorbed a lot of homophobic rhetoric due to the time and the society that they live in. Although Erin’s reaction to Clare trying to come out was painful to watch because it felt so real, I don’t think her reaction was malicious. Erin is a teenager who has grown up in a homophobic society and now doesn’t really know how to react to this new reality and probably didn’t realise how hurtful she was being to Clare. (This isn’t me trying to excuse her reaction, again I am part of the LGBT community and I’ve experienced that exact same reaction from people, it’s me trying to understand Erin’s reaction). Erin and Michelle have both absorbed rhetoric from their deeply homophobic society, and unfortunately this rhetoric continues.

Plus I just want to comment on this idea of acceptance and change in Derry Girls. Derry Girls is set in the time of great change in Northern Ireland, where people were sort of starting to accept that people are allowed to be British or Irish or both. But this process was messy and it wasn’t instantaneous. And the acceptance of the LGBTQ community in Northern Ireland was the exact same. It didn’t just happen overnight. It was a slow and messy process of change, of people re-evaluating their previous beliefs and being given the chance to grow as people and to learn how to accept others. That’s not to say people haven’t made mistakes in the past, because they have, but they’re willing to take the steps to change. I‘ve always thought the LGBTQ subplot of Derry Girls is sort of a parallel to the overall process of change in Northern Ireland in a political sense. And I think that flies over so many people’s heads because they don’t have that context of the political situation in N.I.

(And this theme of acceptance is seen again in the series finale of series 2 with James! ✨ Thematic consistency ✨ )

Because at the end of the day, Clare is accepted by the group. In fact, we see both the teenagers and the adults actively take steps to make her feel loved, welcome and accepted. My favourite moment will always be Granda Joe saying “you’re a very talented people” to Clare in the most earnest voice. Clare is still loved by her friends and although they don’t exactly know what they’re doing, they do try and show their support for her. They absolutely make mistakes, and they did hurt Clare, but they’re trying and I think that stands for a lot, especially at the time.

And I think all of what I discussed was absolutely necessary to Derry Girls. Derry Girls might be a somewhat rose tinted portrayal of Derry in the troubles, but it never tries to romanticise the situation that the teenagers were in (because no one should be romanticising the troubles). I think that this stance of portraying the harsh reality of homophobia in N.I is equally important to the narrative of Derry Girls. I see my own experiences in Clare, despite the fact it’s 30 years later, so if they didn’t at least attempt to show the homophobia in Ireland it would have felt disingenuous and too “perfect”. Again, I’m not saying that Michelle using the d slur was the right way to go about showing the “loud” homophobia of Northern Ireland. That’s not my decision to make. However, just because Derry Girls is making efforts to present Northern Ireland in a more digestible way to audiences (especially non northern Irish audiences) doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also acknowledge the reality of Northern Ireland at the time.

(This all kind of makes it sound like I want Clare to get hate crimed which I obviously do not want. I think the way that Derry Girls showed the issues in Northern Ireland were perfect and very much necessary, minus the use of the d-slur specifically which wasn’t necessary to the plot.)

Anyway thank you so much for the ask anon! This was much more rambly than my usual posts but I just really have a lot of opinions on Derry girls because it does mean a lot to me and it often does hit close to home.

#derry girls #michelle mallon #erin quinn #clare devlin #enya discusses: derry girls #long post

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deathandhumanresources · 4 years

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Chapter 2 - Administrative and Clerical

As the pages of my book filled, progress on “The Plan” reached a fever pitch. Father’s groundwork was impressive when it was only sketches and doodles but the first draft of all Creation turned out to be more wondrous than any of us could imagine. The Djinn’s constructs were massive in their execution and the Angel’s philosophical designs imbued every structural cell with Father’s purpose. Each day, I grew busier processing the requests for names from every Angel working in the “Living Things” department. As the work grew more complex, with weirder and more diverse ideas arriving for my designation every day, I became more confident in my abilities. Before long, news of my efficiency reached the Upper Angelarium, where the Archangels gathered.

“Are you sure you won’t get in trouble for this?” I asked the Cherub called Ornias as he held his creation towards me. “This one seems like plagiarism to me.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” Ornias replied, though I couldn’t help but hear a chiding in his voice.

“I mean you stole this design from other Angels. I think I’ve seen this tail before. I’ve definitely seen this bill...”

“I may have taken inspiration from a few of my fellow spirits but this design is an original.” The fat Angel’s snorting face puckered into a look of disingenuous offense.

“It looks like you just mashed five other animals together!” I grabbed the design by its webbed flippers. The thing turned its duckish, rattish head towards me and stared with curiosity. I placed it on the ground where it scurried behind Ornias’ rounded form. I apprehensively asked, “Is this a joke?”

“A joke?” Ornias spat, “Does creation seem funny to you?” In truth, neither of us knew if Creation sounded funny because neither of us fully understood the concept yet.

“Is it mammal or bird?” I probed, attempting to refocus the conversation.

“Yes.” Ornias replied with so much indifference, that I wanted to reak wrath on the Angel’s stupid face.

“I’m truly at a loss, Ornias. Perhaps you have a suggestion?”

“Well, I was sort of thinking we could call it a,” he choked as if stifling a laugh, “a Platypus?”

“Oh, come on!”

“Alright, alright!” Ornias guffawed as he reached forward and clucked me on my back with his palm. “Look, I somehow got this one past the Approval Department and all I need is a name to make it official. Wouldn’t it be the best if this thing ended up crawling around with all the other animals?

“Well,” I considered, “I don’t know...” In truth, looking at the creature made me understand comedy a little bit more. And it was cute.

“What do you say, old pal?” Ornias thrust his right hand forward in a gesture that all Angels agreed meant “mutuality.”

“We’ve never met before today, Ornias.” I abstained from returning the gesture.

“Think about it.” The Cherub plucked his weird design up from the ground and turned to leave. As they flew away, the creature wriggled in Ornias’ grasp to look at me again. I smiled and it shook, startled, before burrowing into hiding in the Angel’s arms.

“Erm... next!” I called to my constantly growing queue. I had set up my operations in a vacant cubelike room of the lower Angelarium. When I found the room, it invoked a feeling as though I had meant to be there all along. Inside the cube was a chair for me to sit and a desk for me to place my book. From the room, I allowed one Angel at a time to enter and present their creation to name. As always, the Angels queued naturally and rarely made a fuss.

The next Angel in line entered at my call and I was surprised to see that it was a Principality. For those of you not well versed in Angelic Hierarchy, the Principalities are the assistants to the other Choirs of Angels. They deliver messages and perform tasks for Angels too busy to complete those tasks themselves. They are the delegates and were designed by Father to be pushed around without much fuss.

This Principality had hair as gold as wheat (a plant designed just days prior) and skin the color of olives (a plant that hadn’t been designed yet but one I’m referencing retroactively.) Her physique was rigid and she towered over the other Angels in the queue behind her. Her wings were so soft that they resembled clouds in the distance. Her expression was one of annoyance, brought on by having to wait in a queue when there were other tasks at hand.

“Hi there!” I greeted, somewhat fearfully. “I did not know Principalities were invited to create for ‘The Plan!’”

“I am Eremiel.” the Angel interjected, “I am not here on Creation business.”

“Ah.” I said “Well I am afraid that I am in the middle of naming every single living creature. Is there something I can help you with?”

Eremiel reached into a pouch slung around her bony shoulder. She produced a page of parchment that she began to hold out to me. Before I could take it, she snatched it back.

“Were you designed to be able to read?” She asked dryly.

“I have the gift of all languages.” I replied, confused, bemused, and anxious for what news Heaven had for me now.

“Good.” The Principality unceremoniously dropped the parchment on my desk. The page slid across the surface and landed in my lap.

“They’ll see you after you’ve finished your duties for the day.” Eremiel spoke with vexation as she left the room. On her way out she bumped the next Angel in line, an impossibly beautiful spirit with a crown of light and holding a round rodent with enormous ears. Before the offended Angel could protest, Eremiel’s eyes widened and she gave a look that clearly said “Get out of my way or you and the rat will be broken for all of eternity.” The beautiful Angel cowered and Eremiel launched off into the higher Angelarium.

I unravelled the parchment in my lap and read the message within:

TO AZRAEL, ANGEL OF NAMES

YOUR PRESENCE IS DEMANDED

TO DISCUSS IMPORTANT MATTERS

REGARDING YOUR FUNCTION AND PURPOSE

YOU ARE TO REPORT TO THE HALL OF THE ARCHANGELS

FOR JUDGMENT

AS SOON AS YOUR DUTIES FOR THE DAY ARE COMPLETE

BE PROMPT

SINCERELY,

GABRIEL, ARCHANGEL AND CHIEF MESSENGER

“Urp...” Was all I could say as I let the parchment roll up and sway back and forth on my desk. I felt my face go pale. I don’t know how long I sat, silent and staring, before I heard a meek “Ahem” beyond my doorway. It was the beautiful Angel and its creation.

“Oh, er, next!” I called.

The Hall of Archangels stood at the top of the third sphere of the Angelarium. My work was mostly clerical so I hung around the bottom of the third sphere. The upper sphere was for Archangels and Principalities. Beyond the third sphere was the second sphere. That place was the work area of the middle management Angels: the Powers, the Virtues, and the Dominions. Above the second sphere was the first sphere, the upper management sphere. The first sphere was where the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones worked closely with Father on “The Plan’s” most important projects. Above the spheres sat Father’s throne, where he shined his radiance on all Angels below him.

I nervously clutched my parchment of invitation as I approached the entranceway to the Hall. The landing for the upper sphere was paved with bricks carved from a porous grey stone that felt soft under my feet. Rounded outcroppings of the stone jutted from the walkway in symmetrical pairs leading from the landing and into the upper sphere. Prototypes for the aforementioned flowers adorned the outcroppings in a manner I found aesthetically pleasing. A massive silver arch marked the entry to the halls. Great, angled runes were carved deeply into the arch, spelling in a now-forgotten language, “DILIGENCE, VIGILANCE, GLORY.”

The landing was bustling as Angels of all different Choirs launched and disembarked to and from the Heavens. Each spirit possessed a face of focused officiousness as they passed by and around each other on the walkway. Many of them held stacks of paperwork and they would bump gracelessly into one another, mumbling indifferent swears before rebalancing and continuing on. None of the Angels offered so much as a wayward glance at me as I shuffled uncomfortably towards the archway. I felt so out of place.

When I bypassed the arch and into the Hall, I looked above to see the walls and ceiling had been carved of the same soft, grey stone and painted with a mural. The art of the hallway depicted the Heavens, complete with all manner of Angel flying and smiling as they worked at the building blocks of Creation with hammers and chisels. A rendering of Father sat on his throne at the apex of the curved ceiling, his smile was the biggest. In his left hand, he held a sash decorated with the same runic font as the silver archway. The text read “PERFECTION.” In his right hand, he held a strange blue orb that I recognized as the initial design for “The Plan.” I did not notice it at the time, but the Djinn were not pictured in the mural at all.

I came to a series of turnstiles preceded by booths with Angels inside. I watched as visitors approached, spoke briefly with the booth Angels, and pressed past the turnstiles before resuming into the hallway. I puffed up my chest and attempted to imitate the zeal of the patrons around me. I approached a booth on the far end of the vestibule and stepped toward the turnstile.

“What’s your business?” the bored looking booth Angel asked blandly.

“Oh, er...” I fumbled with the roll of parchment at my side before passing it to the turnstile guardian.

“Mmm, yes.” He unrolled the note and studied it with nonchalance. I rocked from side to side on my heels for an awkward moment before he continued. “You are scheduled with Gabriel in the Western Atrium. Do you know where you’re going?”

“I’m afraid not.” I meeped.

“Oh.” The Angel curled his upper lip, “A tourist.” He hefted from his seat with a grunt of vexation and leaned over his booth towards me. He reached a slender arm past my neck in a manner meant to lead my gaze. “See the wisp of red cirrus cloud that stretches along the wall mural?” He did not wait for me to answer. “Follow that ‘round the rightmost corner and straight along until you reach the double doors labelled ‘Virtue and Punctuality.’ You’ll find the Chief Messenger’s office within.”

“Alright.” I murmured as I squinted towards the mural. I did not see red cirrus clouds. I turned back to the booth Angel to see he was regarding me with furrowed eyebrows.

“You can go along.” He chastised. With a nod of his head, he signalled to a line of equally annoyed Angels behind me.

“Oh.” I said and pressed at the turnstile. It did not move at first so I shuffled uncomfortably, trying and failing to look like I knew what I was doing. Finally, the arm loosened and I tumbled forward, almost falling to the floor. I pulled my wings around me in embarrassment and hustled into the reconvening crowd beyond the gate. I felt overwhelmed by the roaming crowd and was instinctively drawn to the wall and out of the way of the bustle. I inspected the mural for the wisp of red cloud described by the booth Angel. At first, I found no evidence of such cirrus and I felt a panic rise inside me. After a moment, I noticed a streak of cloud, more pink than red, cast behind the drama of the painting and across the cosmos. I followed the path around the corner into a straightaway that appeared to go on indefinitely. The hall had many pairs of doors across from each other on either side of the walkway. As I strolled passed, I couldn’t shake the curiosity to open one of these doors and look inside.

The red cirrus on the wall lifted onto the ceiling of the hallway and led to an extension of the main hall’s mural. The color pallet from the previous painting shifted to a radical use of greys and reds. The whisping cirrus fed into a large black stormcloud that loomed over the extension of the hallway. Vibrant flashes of lightning illuminated the backdrop of the scene and made many of the boisterous storm clouds look like violent cosmic explosions. When I stopped to admire a detailed expression of cloud, I noticed the painted silhouette of an armor-clad angel amongst the dramatics. Its outstretched wings matched the curvature of the stormy display behind it and it raised its arm high above its head. In its hand, it held a long, menacing sword that extended high into the heavens above it. A streak of blue lightning extended from a nebulous point in the storm to meet the Angel’s sword where it curled coyly toward the tip of the blade. I had not noticed before but the scene depicted in this hallway’s mural was populated with the silhouettes of many menacing Angels, each dressed in a similar armor and each held a long-tipped sword. My sense of wonder towards the illustration slowly became one of apprehension. I pulled my wings closer around me.

The bustle of busy spirits slowed and thinned out as I continued down the straightaway. I walked slowly, craning my head to either side to read the designations above each approaching doorway. “Virtue and Punctuality, Virtue and Punctuality,” I repeated to myself, trying my best not to forget what the rude booth Angel had told me. To my dismay, none of the doors on either side of the hall included either of those words. Many of the doors instead read similar titles, like “REGIMENT AND RULE” or “CLASSIFICATION AND CARTOGRAPHY.” As I wandered, I began to get a little confused. It wasn’t until I meandered to the set of double doors at the end of the hall before I realized I had reached my designation. As clear as day, the words “VIRTUE AND PUNCTUALITY” hung in a flowing gold font over the doors’ brick and mortar archway. I should have figured the Archangels would signify their meeting place in such a glorious manner.

I did my best to stifle my nervousness and pushed at the rightmost door. At first it did not open and, when I pressed a bit of my heft against it, there was a brief give before more resistance. I heard an “Oop!” from beyond the barrier. I leapt back, embarrassed. Apparently I was pressing the door into someone! There was a bit of murmuring behind the door before it opened inward. I gulped in shock when I saw who stood before me.

“Ah, Azrael!” exclaimed Lucifer, his mouth curled into an unfamiliar smile. “Right on time, I see! It always pays to be punctual for a meeting at Virtue and Punctuality.” His demeanor was glaringly contrary to how he spoke in our previous meeting. I found the change pleasant but disturbing at the same time.

“Er,” I croaked, “I did not realize you would be attending, Mister Lucifer.”

“Mister Lucifer!” He repeated with a laugh over his shoulder, presumably to whoever else was in the room behind him. “What did I tell you about this kid, Gabe?” He turned back toward me and stared with a strange admiration I had only seen before from Father. “No, I won’t be joining in on today’s meeting, but do know that the higher ups are aware of your progress. You’ve yet to disappoint, little Angel.”

A warmth erupted in my face. It felt like shame and pride all at once. I opened my mouth but I didn’t have anything to say.

“Lucifer,” a dry voice called from behind the Archangel, “If you’re going to praise the creature’s punctuality, at least let him in the door to be punctual.”

“Ah, of course!” The smiling Lucifer took a labored step back and held the door open for me to enter. As I inched my way in, he snuck his towering form around me and out into the hall. “Best regards, Azrael!” He said as he let the door close between us.

The room was not as grand as I had expected. The magnificent aesthetic of the main hall had not transferred to the Archangels’ chamber. Instead, the walls and ceiling were a clean, abstract white. A skylight cropped from the ceiling’s center, allowing Father’s light to shine on the room’s simple furnishings. Ahead of me was a rectangular slab of marble cloud. It hung motionless in the center of the room, illuminated by the light from above. Ten marble white chairs surrounded the slab and sat suspended in a similar fashion.

At the opposite end of the slab from me sat two radiant Archangels. The first I noticed was a giant of a spirit with earth-brown, craggy skin and locks of flowing silver hair. He wore the same night-black robes that I had recognized on Lucifer but the mass of his chest and arms were bulging at the seams. His enormous hands were clasped together and resting on the slab, his fingers were dressed in several thick, golden rings. His eyes were the shocking blue of a lightning flash and his nose and lips were wide on his muscular face. He looked at me, wordlessly, with an expression barren of emotion.

The Archangel to his right was slender, petite in comparison, but something about her presence was far more threatening. She too wore the black Archangel’s robes, though the cuffs and collar were decorated with an elaborate, gilded pattern. Her amber hair poured from the top of her head in short waves that flowed down to her neck. Her face was narrow, almost gaunt. Her sharp chin pointed downward and her colorless lips were pursed. A needling nose drew a line from those pursed lips up to eyes blacker than a tempest.

“You may have a seat.” The smaller Archangel called and extended a welcoming hand toward the floating seat closest to me. Her voice was curt and intimidating, it lacked the song that hung in many other Angels’ voices.

“I do apologize for the short notice.” She continued as I approached my chair and sat down. “With Creation rapidly approaching, we have been encouraged to expedite certain processes.”

“No trouble at all!” I cried out, perhaps a little too loud, across the table. “In truth, I didn’t realize ‘The Plan’ was coming together so quickly. That’s good news!” I smiled. When the gesture was not returned, I said, “Isn’t it?”

“Hm.” The slender Archangel replied noncommittally. She raised her hand to her face and rubbed at her cheekbone with her finger. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve invited Archangel Uriel to this briefing. He will be sitting in on the interview process.” With her other hand, she offered an introductory gesture to the large Archangel to her left.

“Thank you, Gabriel.” Uriel’s craggy lips lifted into a welcoming smile and he unclasped his hands to place them both face down on the slab. “I wasn’t supposed to attend this meeting but, after hearing everything, I wanted to put a face to the name!”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted, “Gabriel, was it?” My eyes met the slender Archangel’s and she gave a slight, acknowledging nod. “What is this about an interview process? I’m afraid I don’t know why I was summoned today.”

Gabriel’s gaze shifted to meet Uriel’s for a moment before returning to me. “Your summons,” she said wryly, “explained that we were to discuss your function and purpose.”

“Now, now!” Uriel laughed in a thunderous tone that shook the room. “Like you said, Gabriel, things are happening so quickly these days. I get the feeling little Azrael here hasn’t been brought to speed with the recent influx of,” he paused as he searched for the right word, “adjustments being made to ‘The Plan.’” With each passing word that passed through Uriel’s lips, I preferred him more and more to Gabriel.

“Adjustments?” I repeated.

“He is little, isn’t he.” Gabriel sequitured and clicked her tongue, her voice permeated with venom.

“You must forgive Gabriel.” Uriel’s grin widened. “She is an auditor, after all. Father designed her to look for incorrections throughout the process. I imagine you’re more used to the friendliness of the Angels in the lower circle.”

“Ah, sure.” I lied. If spirits in the lower Angelarium were ever friendly, it was an event I had certainly never witnessed first hand.

“We’re not here to discuss my function, Uriel.” Gabriel reached below the chair and slammed a weighty book upon the slab’s surface. It was the second book I had ever seen, after my own. “This is about your progress, Azrael.”

“Oh.” I gulped. “I figured there were no discretions. I thought the naming process was coming along quite, er, nicely.” I hung my head and cursed in my mind whomever had complained about my process. I could only imagine it was that pedantic Qaspiel, still angry with his Jellyfish. Or maybe it was Ornias pulling a cruel prank, like his Platypus.

“Indeed.” Gabriel murmured as she flipped through an innumerable amount of pages in her book. “Yes, we’ve received word from Father and confirmation from Lucifer that you are, in fact, exceeding expectations.” Despite the commendation, her voice produced no kindness in its tone.

“Oh.” I said again. “Then, er, what’s the problem?”

“Problem?” Uriel laughed. “Azrael, your work is splendid! Before you came along, most Angels were designating approved creations with a complicated number system. It was getting ridiculous! And don’t get me started on trying to talk identification with the Djinn! They ID everything based on chemical composition! Gabriel,” he turned, “remember when Fuqtus gummed up the ledger for WEEKS because he referred to seagulls in his notes by the number of carbon atoms in their feathers?”

“Mmhmm.” Gabriel vaguely confirmed as she continued surveying her notes.

“Then Father comes along and says he’s tasked an Angel with giving every living thing a name! ‘A name!?’ I said, ‘How’s that going to help anything?’” Uriel turned back toward me. “But then you come along, you take a look at the seagull, you call it a seagull. It’s like that’s what it was supposed to be called this whole time! I mean, come on, it’s a gull that flies over the sea!”

“Quite.” Gabriel snapped her book closed. “What Uriel is trying to get at is that there has been a highly irregular decision made on your behalf.”

“Highly irregular?” I felt foolish repeating everything the Archangels offered but I was so nervous, my higher cognitive function had ceased.

“A promotion.” She asserted.

“A promotion!?”

“Will you stop that!”

“Azrael,” Uriel offered, “we would like to advance you to the role of Principality. Specifically we, the Archangels, need a note taker for our meetings. We figure that no one, so far, has taken detailed notes like yours. Of course, this will start after you’re done assigning your names but, by our projections, we should be finished up with creating new creatures here by the end of the week. So,” he puffed up his chest and lifted himself from his chair, “What do you say?”

I didn’t know what to say.

#fictionmetaphyicsangelsdemonsmagicmagickoccultmy writingwritingdeathgrim reaperreadthisfantasyhumorwitchcrafthorrorreligion

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itsomgitsgreenblogging · 4 years

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Labor of Love Chapter 5: A Critical Role Fanfic

I really can’t believe that this is the penultimate chapter of this fic, just one more chapter after this! It’s crazy. Again, the amount of support I’ve gotten over this AU is something I really appreciate, especially in these weird times. Thanks so much and I hope this chapter delivers what you need!

Enjoy!

Read on AO3

Read on Tumblr: Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4

Preview:

Somehow or another, Essek found himself at the gym.

Essek hated the gym...well, it was more the idea of the gym that he hated. He didn't like working out, nor did he enjoy being sweaty or sore. He had never achieved that post workout glow that so many claimed to get. Instead, when he finished working out he tended to look and feel like someone had run him over and then scraped him off the side of the road. His distaste for the gym had never been a problem before. He had a membership because...well, he felt that as a functioning adult he ought to have one and it was no more than that.

But Essek had to face the facts...he had gained some weight. It wasn't that he wasn't active or taking the stairs...but he was simply eating more than he had ever eaten in his whole life. And frequently. That was the real kicker. Three meals a day would have been some insurmountable hurdle before. He hadn't ever been hungry and when he did eat...it all tasted bland. But now? Well, Caleb had certainly changed a few things in his life. Essek was slender as most elves were, but he felt that if he were eating sweets he ought to at least commit to the gym for minimal activity.

Essek was on the treadmill, having plugged into to listen to a forty minute podcast as he walked at a brisk pace to get his heart rate up. Though, the way that the podcast was analyzing one of his favorite movies was enough to do that in spades. Regardless, Essek was about thirty minutes in when he noticed someone familiar on the other side of the room.

Yasha was impossible to miss, after all she was a veritable mountain of a woman. Tall and broad and muscular in the way that was mostly left to bodybuilders. The fact she was at a gym wasn’t what was surprising to Essek...the fact that she was at his gym was what was really throwing him off. Why was she there? That was a stupid question, obviously she was there to work out like he was. What were you supposed to do when you saw someone you knew in a public place? Essek didn’t know Yasha well...she was an acquaintance, but unlike most of his other acquaintances he actually didn’t despise her so his usual plan of attack to escape as quickly as possible didn’t seem appropriate. What did people usually do in this situation? Should he walk by and see if she saw him and reacted? No, then it would seem unnatural. Better to just finish up what he was doing and hope that she just left and didn’t notice him. That seemed like the most prudent course of action.

Essek spent the last ten minutes of his power walk trying not to crawl out of his own skin with anxiety. Essek had just finished his walk and was taking a drink from his water bottle when the sensation of being watched washed over him. Essek looked over and met Yasha’s gaze. They stared at each other awkwardly for a few moments...Yasha had just settled down from pull ups and was stretching her arms. She really was impressive, she could probably snap Essek’s spine in half by just flexing her arm. She waved at him awkwardly, and Essek...knowing he had to go through the door beside her to leave walked over in her direction.

“Good morning,” he greeted, hoping his voice sounded normal. His smile was plastered on his face like it was duct-taped and hanging by a thread, because there was little else he could do. “I didn’t know you came here.”

“Only recently,” Yasha confirmed, shifting on her feet as if ascertaining the best way to become smaller and less threatening...as if she were concerned that Essek was a prey animal who could be spooked at the sigh of her. “Fjord’s swimming...and I like to work out here because it’s not busy.”

“I understand that,” Essek admitted. If there was anything worse than being sweaty and sore and uncomfortable...it was being all of those things while also around people who could judge you for it. “Well...I’m done, and I was going to grab a smoothie at the bar...so…”

Essek tried not to cringe at his blatant awkwardness. Yasha nodded seriously, and then to his surprise placed back the dumbells and looked at him expectantly. Oh. She thought it had been an invitation to join him and not a hasty retreat. Well it would be rude to correct her, Essek thought at himself. Essek couldn’t be rude to her, even if he wanted to. She was Caleb’s friend. It was strategically important to him to be nice to Caleb’s friends. And also...he didn’t want to be rude to her, which was a new development in his life because he normally liked being rude to people but the thought of being mean to Yasha made him feel like he was going to choke on his own tongue for some reason. Was this what people felt all the time? He wasn’t sure this was a positive change anymore.

Essek meandered over to the place where a perky half-orc who looked like she could run ten miles a day and probably did hot yoga to unwind took his order. Essek got some kind of healthy smoothie monstrosity and sat down to drink in the noticeably uncomfortable chairs. It was as if they wanted to make you feel bad for sitting, another reason why Essek hated the gym. Yasha joined him, drinking her own smoothie. For the most uncomfortable minute of his life, Essek wondered if Yasha was expecting him to say something. The problem was that Essek was horrible at saying something. Or, he was at least horrible at saying something when it wasn’t one of the things that he was being paid to say. Essek still didn’t understand how people went around just...starting conversations and not seeming disingenuous. And worst of all, he was sure this would get back to Caleb and he didn’t stand a chance of escaping this conversation without fucking that up somehow. Thankfully, Yasha took pity on him and spoke first.

“So...Caleb,” Yasha noted.

“Yes. Quite,” Essek said.

And then neither of them were talking again, and Essek could feel his panic twisting at his gut. The quiet went on for at least a solid 30 seconds, with Essek squirming in that gods-awful seat and just wishing someone would just take him out with the nearest barbell. And then, Essek came to a sudden epiphany.

“Oh...was there something you wanted to ask?” Essek offered, and Yasha nodded.

“Yes.”

“I see...alright?” Essek asked, hoping that Yasha wasn’t planning on being the one taking him out.

“You like Caleb?” Yasha asked, and it wasn’t a question that was really a statement. It was a genuine curious question.

“I do,” Essek asked, not willing to commit to the other “l” word out loud. He could only get into trouble by doing that. Yasha nodded, her expression thoughtful as she regarded him. She met his eyes briefly and then ducked back down to look at her smoothie.

“And Caleb?” Yasha asked.

“...you’ll have to ask Caleb about that I suspect,” Essek said. Yasha nodded seriously but didn’t lift her gaze again, instead, she seemed content with swirling the straw of her smoothie. Essek didn’t know if he could say for sure...their relationship was in a bit of a hazy spot right now. What did you call someone you went on a date with and kissed once? Who texted you saying they wanted to do it again sometime. It wasn’t like they were together. And they certainly hadn’t had sex, so Essek wouldn’t call Caleb his lover or friend with benefits. But Essek had met his friends and been over to his house before. It was all very confusing to Essek in a way that it probably wasn’t confusing to anyone else on the planet. What would he call Caleb? His almost-boyfriend? That felt so juvenile, and yet that was the best description he could think of.

“You make him happy,” Yasha said, looking back up at Essek.

“...I’m glad, he makes me happy too,” Essek admitted. “All of you do...I wasn’t very happy before I met all of you, but I think I might be getting there.”

“That’s good,” Yasha said, her quiet voice sure and firm in her conviction. Essek was about to agree with her, when he spotted Fjord ducking out from the hallway. Though Essek wouldn’t say that Fjord was his type, it was hard to deny that the man was attractive. Especially as his hair dripped and droplets traced the column of his neck and his shirt clung to his chest. He felt like to preserve Fjord’s dignity and Essek’s own honor he ought to look away.

“Oh, hello Essek,” Fjord greeted kindly. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“That makes two of us,” Essek noted, trying to find Fjord’s eyes more interesting then his see-through shirt...which he was having a hard time with.

“I...uh, heard your date with Caleb went well,” Fjord said, looking somewhat awkward for the one in the group who tended to do the talking. Essek wondered if it was because he was talking about his friend, or if it was just the topic of romance that was somewhat daunting for him. Essek nodded, only because he was bereft of any substantial answer. Fjord seemed to accept this. “Well, I’m glad. It’s good for Caleb...to, you know, have someone he likes spending time with.”

Essek was about to say something...to agree perhaps, when Fjord’s phone buzzed. He looked at it, did a double take, and then immediately looked at Yasha.

“Yasha, we’re gonna need to go,” Fjord said, calmly but firmly. “Issue at the bakery.”

Yasha nodded and stood up from her seat as she did.

“Essek, it was nice seeing you,” Fjord promised, holding out his hand. Essek took it, and was surprised but the assured grip. “Have a nice day now. We’ll see you in...three days right?”

“Thank you...you as well. I hope that everything is fine at the bakery,” Essek wished, thinking suddenly of the vow renewal. “See you then.”

Fjord smiled and then him and Yasha were off, leaving Essek behind. Essek threw away his drink, his stomach flipping like he had just been in a car crash.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Essek grumbled to himself under his breath as he rushed out to his car. He turned on the radio in an effort to drown his own twisting and agonizing thoughts but found himself still extremely unsettled. “Why are you so stupid?”

“Welcome back, you are listening to 836 KRN, Rosohna Hit Music, back with more of our top ten countdown. Number 1 again for the second week in a row is “Best Laid Plans” by Kaylie-”

Essek growled, and turned the radio off.

------

By the time that Essek arrived to the party, it was in full swing at the Theylss ancestral home. Cars lined the streets, not that Essek minded parking further away. He personally always enjoyed having a moment or two to breath in the fresh night air and cool his head before interacting with his relatives. It never did him well to come into a viper den at full throttle. Essek made a subdued entrance to the party, handing off his overcoat to be hung in the closet and then finding the closest server carrying drinks. Even from the first moments, he attempted to stick to the outer fray of the party, but as always his mother sniffed him out within five minutes of arrival.

"Essek," Deirta called, waving him over. Essek obliged her. "A wonderful suit. Did you get it at the family's tailor, darling?"

"As always, mother," Essek sighed. He did look rather fetching that night, but then again he always did. He had opted for a black suit, but with some touches of gold as opposed to his usual silver to spice things up. He had wondered what Caleb would have thought of him tonight, and then had immediately stopped thinking about it for danger of getting an aneurism.

The entire den was here, half-siblings and distant cousins, “uncles” and “aunts” and relatives of every sort and enough spouses and lovers and children that it made his head spin. Usually he would find a dark corner after he got his drink (or drinks) and fade into the background after his round of greetings. Unfortunately his mother had hooked him like a fish before he could do so, and was probably planning on subjecting him to another round of introductions. The event was being held at the ancestral home, as most important den events were. Really, this was just a family reunion but with other causes. Namely, all of the relatives were here for the Vow Renewal that they were all invited to as members of Den Theylss. Essek would have to play a balancing act between den member and employee, and would have to find a way to make everyone happy. But then again, he was good at performing miracles for an atheist.

“I am happy you made it tonight,” Deirta said as she smiled at a passing great-uncle. “I thought you might have been too busy.”

“Too busy?” Essek asked. “For the den? Never. But what did you think I would be too busy with?”

“Preparations, dear, that’s why we are all here, isn’t it?” Deirta pointed out. “Our Queen’s most glorious Vow Renewal, I hear it will be quite the event and that you have had a lot to do with that.”

“Don’t gloat around family, Mother, it’s a tad gauche isn’t it?” Essek said with a pointed smile. “I have done only what my employer asked of me, and little else.”

“The only thing that is gauche is being too humble,” Deirta said. “In this fast paced time, it is important to continue to uphold the good name of Theylss in this city, and the world, Essek. And you do that, and you are almost faultless in that regard. In fact, if the rest of the relatives could follow your example I dare say our influence would be felt all the way to Tal’dorei.”

“I am sensing a but, Mother,” Essek said.

“Oh no caveats, I’d rather not politics right now dear.”

“I’ll pretend like you're not the one who told me that everything is politics. Well then if the den’s influence in Tal’dorei isn’t on your mind, what would you like to talk about?”

“I should like to know about the maiden who stole my boy’s heart, enough that he should see fit to mention her to me,” Deirta said with a light disingenuous laugh.

“Mother,” Essek said warningly. Deirta looked unimpressed...in fact, she seemed charmed at Essek’s annoyance.

“I am aware of your private nature, Essek, and I respect that.”

“Are you?” Essek asked sarcastically.

“I am. In fact, I think it’s a good thing to keep certain things private. You have never caused a mess that I have needed to clean up, a standard that not many of your siblings or cousins have met before you nor have they after. I do have certain expectations, but I also trust that you will choose a partner befitting of your station and of our family’s reputation.”

“And if I haven’t?” Essek asked.

“You know the answer to that, Essek,” Deirta said. “I will do everything in my power to make you see reason and try to convince you of a partnership that will equally benefit you and your chosen mate.”

“Mate,” Essek said, nose scrunching with distaste.

“I know, I know, call me old fashioned,” Deirta sighed. “You know, your brother brought his girlfriend with him tonight. You ought to have brought yours.”

“We aren’t together like that,” Essek told her.

“Oh?” Deirta asked, though she didn’t sound too surprised.

“We’ve...hung out a fair bit, but only gone on one date. That night that you called me was our first one,” Essek informed her.

“I’m sure we could have impressed her as your second outing.”

“Mother, I’m not sure that meeting the den is the best second date idea.”

“But you expect the arrangement to continue, as it were?”

“I should hope so...it seems like it.”

“Oh Essek, won’t you tell me something about her? You know I could just get on the phone and find out.”

“Yes, but you won’t.” If you know what’s good for you, is what Essek didn’t say but his mother surely heard.

“You know that it is only because I worry for you,” Deirta said before stopping and smoothing the lapels of his already immaculate jacket. “Only the best for my boy.”

“Of course, Mother,” Essek promised, and his mother gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and seemed to dismiss him. Essek couldn’t help his sigh of relief as he turned around, and then suddenly realized that he had been deposited right in front of Verin and his girlfriend...who for the life of him he couldn’t remember what her name was. She was half-orc and wore her hair in braids and an understated but appropriate little black dress. However, despite her orcish features, she was relatively delicate in her frame...which led him to believe the other half was drow, though he wouldn’t ask her for fear of being rude. What was her name? Sanemi? Sa...something-or-other?

“I see Mother’s done taking you for a walk,” Verin noted, raising his glass.

“I suppose she’s waiting for me to demonstrate my knowledge of sitting and staying,” Essek said, taking the free seat with a sigh.

“You remember Samezi?” Verin said, motioning to his girlfriend.

“Hello,” Essek greeted as he inclined his head to her.

“It’s been a bit,” Samezi said, lifting her glass to her lips and taking a sip. “Still up to the usual business then?”

“As always,” Essek said. “I tend to stay busy with my job being what it is...especially now. I imagine that you are also busy, aren’t you Verin?”

“Oh come off it,” Verin said with a roll of his eyes. “My job is just as important as yours.”

“Of course, of course,” Essek said idly.

“But then again, not all of us get to have a hand in the Bright Queen’s Vow Renewal,” Samezi pointed out before leaning forward and looking extremely interested. “There has to be something that you can tell us.”

“What, so you can write about it in your paper?” Verin laughed.

“I’m an investigative journalist,” Samezi scoffed before giving Essek a shrewd look. “Though of course my colleagues in the Culture section may like to hear a rumor or two...to drum up excitement and interest of course.”

“All I can say is, that Leylas Kryn intends for this ceremony to not only demonstrate the Xhorhassian cultural boom, but to celebrate the influx of peoples and cultures that define our country on the world stage.”

“What a perfectly formulated answer, almost exactly word for word from the XCI press release,” Samezi sighed, almost pouting but not quite. Essek wasn’t particularly moved, though he imagined that Verin was a sucker for it.

“Actually, exactly word for word. I was the one who wrote it,” Essek reminded her.

“...what exactly do you do for Leylas Kryn?” Verin asked, and Essek normally would be annoyed considering he had literally been working this job for five years and had probably explained this to Verin at least a dozen times before, but he was feeling charitable today and didn’t feel like embarrassing his brother in front of his girlfriend. He probably embarrassed himself in front of her enough without his help.

“Anything that she requires of course,” Essek said simply.

“Like a mob enforcer,” Verin said.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, badge-boy?”

“You really are the most insufferable person I know,” Verin scoffed.

“I know,” Essek said smugly. “But you make it so much fun, you know?”

There was more that Verin seemingly wanted to say, when there was the sound of a bell ringing. Essek resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Could their Mother do anything without the artifice of drama? But of course she probably got off on asserting her power and dominance over all the relatives. Like beckoned dogs, conversations stuttered and they were all directed to the long and elaborate set up dinner table. Deirta sat at the head of the table, and everyone sat at their assigned seats...though there were no names everyone knew the order in which they were expected to sit.

“Before we sit to eat, the prayer?” Deirta said as they all stood at their seats. Essek duck his head like he was expected to. “Bless us, O Light, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy radiance, through the Luxon our Lord.”

“Blessed be,” Essek murmured along with everyone else. At that point only after Deirta took her seat, were they permitted to sit alongside her.

The dinner itself was the usual fair afforded to them. There were about six courses, soup, salad, appetizer, entree, dessert, cheese and fruit course, and then after dinner drinks. Essek managed about two bites of each, and resisted pushing food around on his plate like a teenager. There was just nothing appetizing to hearing a distant cousin talk for the fourth time about their job in the stock exchange, or an uncle complaining about things with a vaguely racist undertone. Really the act of dinner was a performance for everyone involved. They were all supposed to hem and haw at his mother’s beautiful silverware and ancient passed-down porcelain that probably belonged in a museum somewhere, and then admire a small four bite piece of fish with an inedible garnish that the caterer had made that was so in vogue right now.

The food wasn’t even good, Essek thought frustratedly. It just looked pretty. What was the point of eating something that looked pretty if it wasn’t sumptuous? He thought of all the simple things that Caleb and his friends had prepared, all the delicious and heartfelt food that put this celebrity caterer to shame. He hadn’t thought himself a food snob before...but it appeared that he had become one with Caleb’s help. He wondered what Caleb would do at this stifling display, food besides the point. He had the sense that Caleb could be a social chameleon when he wanted to be, not unlike him really. Essek was sure Caleb would do well amongst the den of vipers and hold his own, if his family could even get past the fact that he was a human.

If his family could get past the fact that Essek was gay.

Now, to the credit of his society, gay relationships were normal. After all, Leylas and Quana were their spiritual leaders of the nation...and actual leaders in the most important arena which was the public consciousness. He wouldn’t even be the first Theylss kid to have a significant other of the same sex. But it was always who you were dating that was the issue. Essek had never cared enough before to put any significant other through his family. As he watched the candles burn and fat globs of white wax drip to the antique candle holders...he wondered idly what the reaction to Caleb would be.

Did he want that? Did he want Caleb to go through the scrutiny? Did Essek love Caleb enough to subject him to this? Or maybe it was the other way...maybe he was selfish enough to consider it. Would Caleb even like him...if he knew who Essek really was? He liked to pretend he was different...but at the end of the day would he just be a Theylss? Would he ruin everything he had with his intentions?

Essek was sipping a dessert wine and idly checking his phone under the table, sneaking it like he was a teenager in school again. Really, he was mostly trying to distract himself from his spiralling thoughts. His mother shot him a few disapproving looks, but wouldn’t say anything unless someone else said something first. His mother was dependable like that, she never cared unless it would hurt her reputation. His phone buzzed in his hand, and it made him jump.

Essek stared at his phone. Caleb?

“Excuse me,” Essek said, shrugging off the looks and slipping into the hallway outside the dining room. No one really noticed him leaving, or if they did they didn’t care enough to stop him from going. After all they had just entered into the retell stories they had heard a thousand times part of the dinner, and Essek was scarcely involved enough in any of those stories to even be considered a background character they needed to call on.

“Hello, Essek?” Caleb’s voice rang in his ear.

“Hello?” Essek asked, confused albeit slightly delighted that Caleb was actually calling him and giving him such a clean out.

“Are you busy at the moment?”

The tone in Caleb’s voice took the delight right out of Essek’s mind. Essek prided himself on being able to read the mood in a room...growing up with the mother he did certainly made such a skill invaluable. It didn’t take a genius like him to figure out that Caleb sounded stressed.

“What’s wrong?” Essek asked, ducking out into the sitting room away from prying eyes and listening ears. His back was against the wall, so that if anyone came around the corner he would be able to see them. There were plenty of things he needed, but the Theylss family inserting themselves into this situation somehow was not one of them.

“Accident with the cake,” Caleb said. “A shelf broke and fell on it along with everything on the shelf, and basically completely smashed it. We’re going to have to remake the cake in a day.”

“Is it possible?” Essek asked, calculating in his mind all the things that could go wrong. What would he have to do to make up for this? How could he make this situation work for his and everyone else’s advantage?

“It’s possible, we’re going to have to close the bakery and spend all night today, all day tomorrow, and maybe even the next night working on it. We hadn’t put on some of the most intricate designs so those are safe, but the flowers and the cake itself is ruined.”

“I see,” Essek said, taking a deep breath. Okay, it was a rescue operation then. That was something Essek could certainly handle.

"I wanted to call you first to ask...should we tell the Bright Queen?"

"Under no circumstances. If we can fix it, it's better not to worry her," Essek said firmly before he surprised himself. "Are you in need of any extra hands?"

"Extra hands?"

"I offer my assistance of course," Essek clarified.

"Yes, if you don't mind. We could definitely use some more help on this,” Caleb said, sounding relieved. “Danke-thank you, Essek. I can’t tell you how much that makes me feel better.”

“I’ve hardly done anything yet,” Essek said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll see you then.”

Caleb hung up the phone and Essek immediately exited the room to where the rest of the family was seated.

“Forgive me, but I’m going to have to leave,” Essek said, scooping up his jacket. “Work emergency.”

“Really?” Deirta asked, eyebrows flying into her hairline. “Anything I should be concerned about?”

“Not at all, Mother. As always, you know I can handle it,” Essek said, moving over to give her expectant turned cheek a kiss. “Have a wonderful evening, and I’ll see you all at the Vow Renewal.”

Essek walked quickly out the door before anyone else could get a word in edgewise. He started up the car, and broke probably five different speed limits on his way to the bakery. When he arrived, the bakery seemed dark and quiet, but he had been told the back door was open. With a bit of hesitation, he opened the back door into complete chaos.

“Essek!” Jester said, rushing to embrace him. Her smile was full of frosting and glitter...literally. She looked like she had gotten into an argument with powdered sugar and a tinsel. Her arms were soft and strong and wrapped around his middle like he was the person she had most wanted to see in this world, and Essek felt so oddly close to tears that he half wanted to run back out the door. “Oh Essek, I’m so glad you are here! Oh wow, you look so nice! I’m sorry I think I got stuff on your jacket.”

“It is no problem,” Essek said, shucking off his jacket. He draped it over his arm with care...after all it was an expensive jacket. “I pay for dry-cleaning anyways.”

“Is Essek here?” Caleb said, appearing from around the corner. He looked frazzled, utterly fried and blanched by stress. His hair was half-falling out of his bun, and his clothing was in general disarray...more than usual. “Essek…”

“Give us a moment?” Essek asked Jester, who saluted and then skipped back to the back of the shop looking pleased with herself. “Thank you for calling me.”

“I am very glad you are here,” Caleb said breathlessly, managing a fragile smile.

“Of course, whatever you need,” Essek said, reaching out automatically and then his hand froze. Caleb didn’t move away, and so bolstering his courage he tucked a stray lock of copper hair behind Caleb’s ear. “Everything will be fine. We’ll get what we need to get done, done.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Caleb said before suddenly his face flushed as he seemingly took in Essek’s outfit. Oh. Well, Essek thought. It seems like his efforts would go appreciated. It was a rather unexpected but appreciated gift during the sudden stress.

“I never disappoint my employer, I doubt this will be the first time it happens,” Essek said. “What’s the status with everything?”

“We remade the cakes this morning. Yasha and Fjord were just pulling them out of the freezer now,” Caleb said as they walked behind the counter. “The sugar flowers were a total loss, so Nott, Jester, and Caduceus are working on that. Still need a fresh batch of the filling and we still have an extra batch of the frosting so we’re using that to start...though we’ll probably need to make another too.”

“And the enchantments?”

“We had extra of the syrups we were using to soak into the cake that contained the main enchantment. We have stock of the illusion enchantment, but we’ll have to redo the custom starlight enchantment though,” Caleb said as they entered the chaotic workplace. It was the part of the bakery that Essek hadn’t yet seen. There were long work tables, walk-in fridges, large industrial ovens and stoves and sinks as well. The sinks were a catastrophe of pots and pans and Essek could see the attempts to clean out the fridge where the shelf had given way.

“This,” Essek said, pointing to the mess. He rolled up his sleeves as he assessed the disaster in front of him, formulating a plan of attack. “This I can handle, as well as any assistance you may need on the enchantment. Cleaning up this will help everything flow smoother and more efficient, as well as keep things sanitary.”

“Essek I couldn’t-”

“You can and you did, you already asked,” Essek informed him as he put his foot down.

“But you are wearing a suit that probably costs more than all of my clothes put together,” Caleb argued.

“And I’ll buy a new suit and I’ll buy you one too while I’m at it,” Essek said shortly, as he placed his hands on his hips. “Go mitigate your own disaster, I’ve got this handled.”

“Thank you,” Caleb said, full of gratitude. And for a moment Essek was sure Caleb was going to kiss him, but then Fjord’s yelp drew him away with another look. Essek surveyed the damage in front of him, just as something was thrown at his head and obscured his vision. Essek yanked the offending cloth off and realized he was holding an apron.

“You might need that,” Beauregard pointed out. Essek looped it over his head and tied it securely to his waist, thankfully it was grey. Grey was a color that Essek could work with.

“Now he looks like one of the team,” Jester said happily as she delicately rolled sugar into beautiful petals.

“It suits you,” Caduceus said, walking by with a tray full of decorations and sparkles and jars of glittering orbs.

“Where are the gloves?” Essek asked, yanking open the dishwasher which...thank all the gods in the merciful plains was empty.

“Second drawer to the left!” Veth shouted back shrilly. Essek opened the drawer and found a pair of bright pink rubber gloves. It almost hurt him physically to put them on...but oh, the things he would do for love. Essek immediately set about separating out the hand-wash-only utensils from the machine-washables, after which he did a cursory soak to the hardest hit items bowls with dried-on batter or fillings or any other number of things that may occur during the baking process that was still a mystery to Essek. The rest of it was power-washed and then loaded up into the two industrial grade dishwashers efficiently. Even with both full and running, there was still a large amount of things to clean, though it was already much neater and more organized. Not knowing where things were supposed to be placed, and not willing to break the concentration of those who needed it to ask, he set about laying out the rest of the hand-washed things by category so it would be easy to find as they dried and then scrubbing down the counters that had been marred by the dirty dishes.

Essek was just hand-drying some of the wooden spoons when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Caduceus standing in front of him with a tea-cup

“Want to give this a try?” Caduceus asked Essek. Essek looked to see the table of decorators all holding their own cups, and a tea-set placed on the work-bench.

“We are taking a fiver,” Beau answered the question that had just popped into Essek’s brain.

“Oh,” Essek said, as Caduceus pressed a cup into his hands. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Caduceus said. “It’s important to take a deep breath and a minute, especially during creative pursuits.”

“I haven’t done anything particularly creative,” Essek pointed out, looking upon the work table that was overflowing with beautiful white sugar roses, and beautiful dark purple sugar calla lilies, and silver hydrangeas. Yasha was admiring some of them and gave Essek a shy wave that Essek returned.

“Come over here,” Jester said as she waved him over. Essek walked over and saw what Jester had been furiously working at. He nearly went breathless at the picture perfect miniature statues of both Leylas and Quana together. They were both dressed in the outfits that they would wear to the Vow Renewal, on Jester’s tome-pad was the references and pictures she had been given. The amount of detail that had gone into the recreation was stunning, from the diamond drops of the earrings Leylas would be wearing, to Quana’s wedding band on her tiny little finger.

“Jester, this is absolutely beautiful,” Essek said, in awe.

“I was working on it before everything went to shit so mini-L and mini-Q were safe from the Shelves of Doom,” Jester explained. “They are actually made of modeling chocolate, so they are completely edible.”

“That’s incredible,” Essek said, continuing to look on with longing. He didn’t understand how a person discovered such a talent for art and gave it such an interesting application.

“Thank you,” Jester said, nearly glowing with praise. Essek felt his mouth attempting to twist up into a smile...and he wondered if he was actually doing it right. Jester didn’t correct him, so he assumed he was doing it alright. It was then that he noticed that Caleb wasn’t in the kitchen proper, he was sitting by the door with Frumpkin nearly spilling out of his lap.

The cake itself was on the stand, yet to be decorated besides a base of white frosting. It was sitting in the walk in fridge, which Fjord closed before accepting his own cup of tea from Caduceus. Essek felt a sense of relief, that at least the cake itself was done, though he knew the decorating would be just as tiring and time-consuming as the making.

“Caleb?” Essek asked, walking over to where he was leaned against the wall. When Essek approached, Caleb immediately startled and then nearly fell off his stool. He looked around for a moment, like he had lost track of where he was, before his gaze settled on Essek. Frumpkin stood up and nudged his head beneath Caleb’s chin, purring so loudly that even Essek heard him. Caleb spent a moment or two stroking along Frumpkin’s flank. For a moment Caleb met Frumpkin’s eyes, and then with a pleased soft meow Frumpkin jumped down dutifully. He immediately trotted over to Essek and rubbed his body against his legs, his tail flicking with pleasure. Essek scooped up the cat, its wide eyes looking into Essek’s with a force that just Essek want to squeeze this cute little creature and never let it go. For a moment Essek stared at the cat before he came to a sudden realization.

“Your cat’s a familiar!” Essek said, feeling a bit betrayed. He settled Frumpkin down carefully, and then propped his hands on his hips.

“Guilty as charged,” Caleb said apologetically.

“And here I thought you liked me,” Essek said to the cat, who had sat and gave Essek a plaintive meow, like Frumpkin expected Essek to bend over backwards to pick him up again.

“He does like you,” Caleb laughed. “He also perhaps did get some direction to be extra cute in your company.”

“A scoundrel, just like his owner,” Essek said with a haughty sniff. Caleb got up from his stool stiffly and stretched, raising his arms above his head. His shirt came up with it, and Essek felt the burning need to look away. It was too late though. Happy trail. Caleb had a happy trail, and Essek was probably emitting a scream that only dogs could hear as his brains nearly boiled over.

He had never thought like this in whole life, not even when he had been in mutually beneficial relationships. Essek had never felt the whip-crack of desire smack him across the face and do funny things to his heart before. Was this what normal people felt about strangers and celebrities and people they liked all the time? What a totally disconcerting sensation but more importantly...oh Gods, he needed to get laid.

“We have some more work to get done tonight,” Caleb explained, forcing Essek to refocus. He hoped Caleb didn’t think he had been staring at him like he was a piece of meat. “I would like to at least get the buttercream frosting done so that way we can just focus on the decorating tomorrow.”

“You’re going to want to see him do that,” Fjord said. “Caleb’s really good at that.”

“Don’t talk me up too much,” Caleb said as he grabbed the cup of tea that Caduceus had set down on the workbench for him. Essek finally took a sip of his own tea. It was a fragrant blend, blueberry and blackcurrant and elderberry came on the tongue first but with the steam came the smooth notes of bold black tea and the sweet floral notes of hibiscus and some kind of flower.

“This tea is lovely,” Essek told Caduceus.

“Thank you, I get most of the ingredients from my family back home,” Caduceus said.

“Here,” Caleb said, sliding Essek a plate full of cookies that Veth and Fjord were skimping from in turn. “That should go nicely with that.”

“Have you ever had a macaron, Essek?” Jester asked excitedly, motioning to a certain kind of cookie on the plate. When Essek shook his head, she smiled even broader. “You’ve got to try one.”

Essek picked up the small cookie. It looked like a sandwich, and was much lighter than he had expected. He popped it into his mouth. The crust, if Essek could even call it a crust, shattered and melted away as if it had never existed to begin with. The cookie itself was soft and utterly toothsome with just a little bit of chew, while flavors of vanilla, almond, and pistachio perfectly melted together and leaving Essek sighing with pleasure. Essek looked up to see Jester looking at him intently from where she was basically laying on the table.

“Essek, did you realize that you are pretty sexy when you eat?” Jester asked very seriously.

“What does that even mean?” Essek asked, feeling his ear twitch with annoyance.

“Oh nothing man, you look like you are really enjoying putting that in your mouth,” Beau snickered.

“I don’t appreciate that innuendo,” Essek said with a roll of his eyes. He did his absolute best to sneak a glimpse at Caleb, who had half-sunk into the seat he was in and was looking very flushed. Weirdly, Essek wanted to shake Jester’s hand for this unexpected gift. Well then. He grabbed another cookie. This one was much plainer and Essek took a bite. Who knew that a shortbread cookie could become a revelation. It was light, buttery and crumbling and deceptively simple enough that it made Essek wonder if even he could make something like that. But also dipped into Caduceus’s tea? A perfect match, Essek could imagine eating these cookies every day for the rest of his life. “This might be up there with the Radler cupcake, Caleb.”

“I could add lemon zest to them,” Caleb offered.

“Don’t you dare,” Essek warned. “I’ll force you to make them all the time.”

“I wouldn’t mind, if it made you happy,” Caleb said with a shy smile. Essek caught his smile and met it with a smile of his own...an actual smile, that felt a little strange blossoming on his face. He wasn’t sure he had the muscles developed to actually smile genuinely, but if Caleb kept looking at him like he had just hung the moon from the sky he was sure he would get into practice.

“You two are flirting again,” Beauregard groaned. Fjord flicked some crumbs at Beau, and her annoyance immediately evaporated and she flicked it back. Essek realized that she was most likely joking.

“They are cute,” Yasha said, chiding Beau with a soft almost-smile that looked somewhat bittersweet.

“I’m not cute, I’m devastatingly attractive,” Essek noted.

“Do you always have to be patronizing?” Beau asked.

“Yes, I do,” Essek said with a smug smile.

“I’m going to do some frosting,” Caleb said, patting Essek’s shoulder. He didn’t move closer to kiss him or hug him...as much as he might have liked that in theory, Essek wasn’t sure yet how he felt about overt displays of affection. But Essek did catch his fingers for just a moment, and met Caleb’s gaze. He felt it warm him all the way from the tips of his ears to his toes, settling comfortably in his belly like the cookies and the warm tea.

“Alright, back to work folks!” Veth said, clapping her hands.

“I’ll help you put away the utensils,” Fjord offered to Essek. “I’ll show you where everything goes.”

“Ah, thank you,” Essek said as he went to join Fjord. He opened the drawers and cabinets and demonstrated where everything went and in what order, and Essek did his best to commit those things to memory. Not that he assumed he would ever have to help in the back of the bakery ever again, but it was always good to be prepared for the unexpected. Essek quite liked organizing anyways, it was the reason that all of his clothing was organized by color in his closet. He spent a while doing that, before going over to help Yasha and Beauregard clean up the floors and counters. He got the sense that the frantic energy of the hours before was winding down, and the Mighty Nein seems to feel relieved that they would make it for the Vow Renewal. Essek had just finished when he looked over at what Caleb was up to.

He was spinning the cake, which was terrifying to Essek but apparently no one else found it unusual. With practiced flicks of wrists and inhumanly steady hands, ivory buttercream became drapes and flowers and embellishments. All of them perfectly spaced apart and nearly sewed together with militaristic accuracy. The similarity between this and the precarious act of copying spells into a spellbook was almost eerie. He was on the second tier of the cake out of the tower of six, and then just as easily transitioned up to the third tier.

“Caleb’s in the zone right now,” Fjord translated, and Essek realized that most of the others were gathering their bags. They all looked absolutely exhausted, and Essek checked his watch. Two in the morning...he was used to being awake at odd hours, after all, he only needed to trance for four hours a day. But for all of them? This must be torture. “I hate to ask, but Veth called Yeza and he’s going to help me get everyone home. I know Caleb will refuse until he’s done so do you think…?”

“I’ll get Caleb home, don’t worry,” Essek promised. Fjord gave Essek a clap on the shoulder and a grateful smile, before herding the obviously extremely sleepy Mighty Nein out the door, sans Caleb. Essek perched himself on a stool and watched Caleb work, steady and sure for at least another hour. Essek committed to memorizing the way his wrists flicked and his hands moved and the delicious profile he cut, and though he really should have felt bad ogling at Caleb like that he didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. Caleb finished up the third tier of the basic frosting decorations before pulling back and taking stock of his work. It was at that time, he looked around and realized that they were alone.

“Oh…” Caleb said, obviously putting things together.

“Put the cake away, I’ll get you home now,” Essek said, not necessarily an order but not not an order either. “You’ll do well with fresh eyes tomorrow.”

“I don’t know if I can get it done,” Caleb said, voice weighted with stress. “Sheisse, this is such a big opportunity and-”

“You’ll get it done,” Essek said calmly. “I have absolute faith in your ability.”

“I wish I could be as certain as you, my friend,” Caleb said with a fragile smile that filled Essek’s heart up with sweetness he never thought he could feel. Gods, he loved him.

“Essek Theylss never fails, it’s my personal policy,” Essek said firmly. “Now come along.”

Essek helped Caleb wheel the cake into the walk-in freezer, pointedly away from the remaining shelves. Essek waited as Caleb locked up his shop and started his car, making sure the heat was on and the car warmed up for Caleb as he slid into the passenger seat. He was carrying Frumpkin, who was now curled up in his lap and probably getting cat fur all over Essek’s car...did familiars shed? Essek, strangely, found he didn’t care as he watched Caleb so tenderly stroking his familiar back to soothe them both.

“We’ll still have to close the bakery tomorrow most likely,” Caleb said, expression dark with worry. “We didn’t do any of our usual preparations and we don’t have any stock...it’s not that sort of business.”

“If you have a daily profit average, I can see your business is compensated,” Essek offered as he put the car in drive.

“No, no. It’s not necessary. One day does not a failed business make,” Caleb said as he ran his fingers through his hair, and then pulled his hair out of the tie and began to redo it. “I don’t think I really and truly expressed...how much you being here means to me.”

“I have to admit, I imagined our second date going a bit differently,” Essek jokes, pulling out of the parking lot.

“Ah…” Caleb said, sounding lost for words.

“I’m sorry,” Essek apologized, feeling the prick of panic at the back of his neck. He turned left, and calculated how long this would take. Only five minutes, it seemed so minute...just five minutes with Caleb when Essek wanted to fill his time with Caleb unabashedly. Though he supposed he was grateful for the opportunity afforded to him...and he shouldn’t ask for more. He couldn’t get too greedy after all, he didn’t even know what Caleb wanted. Almost-boyfriend or not, that was really the issue here. It was something he felt he couldn’t breach...he couldn’t pick it without bruising it. What if he went too fast and ruined it completely? His worries caught in his throat and stayed there, slowly screaming away.

“No, no,” Caleb said with a weak laugh. “I was about to agree with you...but let me just say? I’m grateful for it. I...”

“Your job is important to you,” Essek said, trying to focus on what he could actually work with and salvage in this situation. “And I respect that, I hope you know that. I want you and your friends to succeed.”

“...I hope you understand that I appreciate everything you’ve done for us,” Caleb said, voice deep with feeling.

“I hope you understand that I’m certainly not a white knight,” Essek laughed bitterly. “I’m just a little bit selfish is all.”

“Selfish?”

“I want you to be happy,” Essek admitted, the admission feeling oddly intimate. He cautiously glanced at Caleb, only to see him smiling at him in return. “Regardless of anything else. I...I want you to feel like you are able to rely on me, just a little bit. I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous about how you are with your friends...so it makes me happy for you to depend on me and that you called me to help you. Even with circumstances being what they are...I was happy. I am sorry it came at your expense however...”

I would do just about anything as long as I got to spend time with you, Essek didn’t say. He would wear stupid pink rubber gloves and clean a kitchen and go to the gym and do things outside of eat, sleep and work, and weirdly enjoy all of it. He felt useful and appreciated, and just that was enough to satisfy him when he had never been satisfied with anything before in his whole life. That was the magic of love, he supposed. It made even the most boring and normal things into something significant.

“I’m not as perfect as you seem to think I am,” Caleb admitted suddenly. “As you can see...I’m obsessive. I get anxious and I just escalate situations that don’t need to be escalated because I can’t let things go.”

“Ha, you are talking to the king of obsessive behavior over here,” Essek snorted very unattractively. He was horrified with himself but Caleb didn’t seem to mind, in fact he looked at Essek clearly...like he was really seeing him. How did he just do that? No one else had ever seen him and liked him before in his whole life, and yet Caleb acted like knowing Essek was as easy as breathing.

“I should have just called you just to update you but...I wanted to see you too,” Caleb admitted with a wry grin. “You have no idea how happy it made me...for you to be there. I hope we can have something less dramatic...for our third date.”

“Oh,” Essek said dumbly, mostly because he felt like his brain was now operating at 25% capacity. The rest of it was screaming at him to pull the car over and just kiss this man silly. Thankfully he didn’t need to drive much further because he was just pulling into Caleb’s driveway and not putting them in any danger for a car accident.

“Unless you are opposed?” Caleb asked cautiously, propping open the door so Frumpkin could hop out. And yet, Caleb made no move to leave.

“No!” Essek said forcefully. “No, I mean yes, a third date. Yes. I want to have a third date.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Caleb asked. “Something that you want to do, since our second date was for my benefit mostly.”

“There is an event coming up,” Essek said slyly. “How would you like to be my date?”

“I would be honored,” Caleb said looking at Essek for a moment before leaning over the seat. Essek met him with momentum, and finally they kissed again. Caleb’s lips earnest and gentle, and Essek nearly sighed with comfort against him. Essek felt more real than he had ever had in his whole life, grounded instead of just floating through. How odd it was, to become a protagonist in your own life. How strange, that everything could feel new with a kiss. Unfortunately, his lungs were his own enemy. He pulled away to catch his breath, and to his surprise Caleb pressed another kiss to Essek’s forehead. “Thank you, Essek. Guten nacht.”

“...good night,” Essek said when he remembered how to speak. Caleb slipped out of his car and went into the house. Essek’s face was burning, his forehead was suddenly the epicenter of his heartbeat. Essek pressed his hand to his mouth, to cover his own smile but then decided against it.

If the stars saw him be happy, what should he care?

#critical role fanfic #shadowgast #essek theylss #caleb widogast

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dukeofriven · 5 years

Text

Guns or Children: The Only Choice Left, America

[Note: this post was originally a response to this thread.

Trigger warnings: guns, gun deaths, murder, violence, death, child death, school shootings, racism, anti-semitism, mass shootings, Orlando Pulse Shooting, sports injuries, cursing, swear words, statistics, sourced facts, responsibility, collective responsibility, the necessity of change, moral imperatives]

______________________________________________

There is always a justification for why it’s okay for Americans to own guns.

Tradition. The Cultural Importance of Firearms. Farmers Vs Wild Beasts. The Scary Non-White People Who Are Moving Into The Neighbourhood. The Need For An Unsubtle Penis Metaphor To Show-Off To Your Fellow Men.

And, of course, the worst of them all:

“I Like Them.”

I don’t care.

It has become parodic at this point to try and argue against these points because the people who make them aren’t arguing in good faith anyways: they like guns and they know that you don’t like guns so how can there be any kind of accord when you won’t even meet them on their own turf? You can’t argue with people who don’t like guns because secretly - or not-so-secretly - they just want to take you guns away. We can’t have a real argument about gun control against such an extremist position.

Which is fine because I’m not here to argue. There’s no argument to be made anymore. The time for argument was seventy years ago when America’s culture wasn’t so toxic that the sane, reasonable positions on gun ownership that other countries ended-up with could still be enforced.

That was seventy years ago. That opportunity is gone. There’s no longer any argument to be made.

The Onion makes a habit of running a variation of an article every time a big shooting happens:

The fact that America is irresponsible with guns, cannot be trusted with guns, has lost all ability to live with guns, is fundamentally true, and not in dispute anywhere other than in America itself. America’s mind-boggling gun-death rate is a direct, indivisible result of: [Note: most numbers here are from the last major survey from 2017] 1) The sheer volume of guns. America has about 120 civilian-owned guns for every hundred people in the country. There are more guns than people. If everyone in America had to start killing one-another in a grand old game of nation-wide paintball-with-bullets no one would have to share a gun and there would be spares before the first shot was fired. The next region with an entry on the guns per-people per-region list? The Falkland Islands with 60 guns for every 100 people. The Falkland Islands has a total population of some 3000 people. Its murder rate? Does’t seem to have one. Leaving aside the Falklands War I don’t think anyone’s been murdered there since 1981. Next country down? Yemen. Population: 28 million, with 50-odd guns per 100 people. Yemen a region that hasn’t known peace since... ever. Yemen has existed in some form since 1918 and not once has it ever had what you’d call a lasting and nation-wide peace.

The farthest down the list you have to go to find a country that comes close to America in terms of population size is Pakistan - population 200 million, and only 22 guns for every hundred people. Should they start that nation one -kill-paintball game most people would have to share until they’d wiped-out some eighty percent of the country.

So the three biggest gun-owning regions in the world by guns per person is a tiny British tourist trap where nobody but governments commit crimes, and civil-war ravaged Yemen. And America. Neither of those first places comes close to America in terms of either size or number of guns. America has more guns for civilian use than anywhere else on Earth. This number is not in dispute. America has more than twice the number of guns per citizen than anywhere else on Earth. This number is also not in dispute. America has a death-by-firearm rate far and beyond any other nation of its size, population, wealth, and stability. Of the six countries that make up half the world’s gun deaths, America is one of them - the other five are Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Guatemala, all nations with significantly more serious gang-related and stability-related issues than America. This number is also not is dispute.

2) Easy access to guns. 390 million guns don’t get distributed by accident. American gun laws are known for their laxity and their ease of use: in America the courts have decided that 1791′s Second Amendment of the US Constitution, by-and-large, grants Americans the largely unrestricted right to own guns, and indeed have something of a moral obligation to do so as a guarantor against tyranny. American law thus goes out of its way to make the process of purchasing a gun as inconvenient as possible. It is easier to buy a guy in many places in America than it is to purchase alcohol. 3) A culture that worships guns. America has a culture that loves guns. A culture that lauds guns. A culture that worships guns. America has a culture that that stands around and not only says ‘shit guns are cool’ but takes the next step and says ‘and people should be able to own cool things.’ This is somewhat odd given the awesome destructive power of a gun and the average citizen’s need to posses destructive power. Tanks are cool, but nobody is handing those out to civilians. Fighter jets are awesome, but we don’t make those for sale to anything other than repressive governments. “But DukeofRiven swords are cool and we let people buy those,” you say. Well, many countries don’t, first of all, or allow much sword-freedom - in my country it is legal to own a sword, but not to wield it or carry it. Secondly, you know how many people were murdered with a sword in 2017? No, you don’t. Nobody does - no one seems to be keeping track as far as I can tell. It’s so few people that the number is statistically insignificant. I can tell you that in 2017 some 1,591 people were murdered with all “knives and other cutting instruments” compared to a full 10,982 gun homicides. This is a list that notes all defenestration murders (4), and all murders via explosion (0) - it doesn’t take a lot to get on the FBI’s “common murder weapon” radar. Swords don’t qualify. “But DukeofRiven” - I hear you cry (’Your Grace’ will do) - “That’s a lot of knife deaths. Knives are a useful tool that would be silly to ban. Guns are an important tool too - farmers who live in dangerous areas find guns useful for warding off wild animals.” Well that’s true, fictional question asker - farmers do find guns useful. There’s about 3.2 million farmers in American - slightly less than 1% of the population - so let’s do the American thing and give them a heaping, generous portion of 10 guns each. That still leaves... uh... about 360 million guns not owned by farmers. Well what if we take all rural-dwelling Americans, who hunt and shoot and kill as part of their very important rural hunting/shooting/killing culture and make sure they all have at least one gun. 57 million rural non-farmer Americans - about 17% of the population - but damn, we’ve still got 303 million guns lying around. Most American gun owners own at least three guns? Can’t deprive the rural folk of their just due so will give them each an extra two guns. That still leaves us with 181 million guns to hand out to civilian urbanites who cannot possible have a good day-to-day use for them - and that’s counting the extra seven guns we gave to each farmer. If those guns were to secede and form an independent nation they’d bump Ethiopia’s spot to become the 12th largest country by-population in the world. That’s more guns than the population of the world’s 109 smallest countries combined. “Guns are still tools used by hunters” - oh sweet boy howdy do I not give a shit about hunters. 7000 of those 2017 deaths were by handguns, a gun that literally has no other purpose other than to shoot people. Handgun deaths top all other gun deaths in America by a significant margin. A handgun is not a tool. It is a weapon. That’s all it is - and Americans own a lot of weapons. You’re drowning in them. You are overrun by guns. Right-wingers should forget curbing immigration to save white people as the dominant ethnic group - the primary demographic of the United States is gun! Y’all lost already! I don’t care that you think guns are cool, because I also think guns are cool - and I own none. I can be impressed by guns without having to own guns, without making sure my friends own guns, and my family owns guns, and that there are enough guns in my country for every single person to personally shoot another person in the head in a suicidal conga line stretching round the entire country and still have spare guns left over. Culture? Tradition? Heritage? Don’t give a flying fuck. Slavery was part of your tradition too, and no that’s not a disingenuous comparison because both practices created death, pain, misery, and suffering for profit. Both practices were morally indefensible. You’ve been a responsible gun owner all your life? Don’t give a fuck. How many gun owners need to be un-responsible before the tipping point is crossed and you would agree that there is culturally a gun problem, that no amount of responsibility by one group os making up for the irresponsibility of the other half? Why is this ‘one good man in ‘Sodom’ argument framed this way? 10000+ people died in 2017 because of a culture that glorifies an item with no functional utility to improve society. Let me be clear about this: given the number of gun deaths compared to that of gun owners that 10000 deaths is statistically insignificant it terms of responsible proportionality. Most gun owners are responsible gun owners. There’s only 118 million gun-owning households in the US - only a third of the population actually owns a gun - so if we fudge the number a bit and just say that there are 118 million individual guns owners the numbers work out to about 0.009% of all gun owners being irresponsible. Guess what: that doesn’t matter. You want to know all the stuff America bans that hasn’t ever killed anybody but someday might? Kinder Eggs. Haggis. Imported brie. Think of all the chemicals banned since the 70s because of fears that they might do something. Think of every product recall that happened because one person was simply injured. Think of the products you’ve banned for nothing more than their dangerous ideology like Cuban cigars. You banned Amy Winehouse and Margaret Thatcher’s son from entering America but you won’t ban the sale of guns? Guns aren’t nearly as dangerous as the late Amy Winehouse? Gun culture and tradition glorifies nothing but instruments of slaughter. Arthur Hoppe killed your stupid arguments about tradition stone-dead 49 year ago:

(Hoppe, Arthur. "Legislation Attempts to Ban the Bomb." Sidelines (Murfreesboro), October 27, 1970. Page 4. For the original source see Hoppe, Arthur. "Ban The Bomb Banners." The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco), October 25, 1970. Page 103. For print, see Hoppe, Arthur. Mr. Nixon and My Other Problems. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 1971. Page 78. )

The moral bankruptcy of the tradition argument was demonstrated half a century ago, when a lot less Americans were dying by the gun. When whole classrooms of children and concert goers on the Vegas Strip and students at their lectures and devoted church-goers [and hey, synagogue shooting after I first started writing this: all house-of-worship goers] all have to fear the omnipresent threat of death when does your right to admire the gun cease to be a relevant point of consideration? When does living every day with the constant gnawing fear that it could happen to you finally suffocate ‘most of us are responsible’ in its cradle? When do ‘a few bad apples’ become ‘too many bad apples’? If I’m making apple sauce you’re not going to care that 99% of my apples were perfect - because that 1% of rotten apples I tossed in was enough to ruin the batch. When does ‘most of us are not rotten’ stop sounding quite so reassuring? I’ve been listening a lot lately to Still Buffering, a McElroy extended universe podcast where - in its first year - the-then 15 year-old Rileigh Smirl shared her life with her 15-years-plus older siblings. In the episode recorded immediately after the Orlando shooting, where the adults are literally shaking and you can hear it in their voices, the 15 year-old very blandly describes life in a world where the idea of being shot in her school has been so utterly normalized for her that she has a hard time generating the same level of fear about it as the adults do. It is genuinely nauseating. Her sisters are practically crying into their microphones, sick with horror that their little sister goes to school entirely accepting that another member of her school not only might wander in with a gun and shoot-up the place, but would not be culturally abnormal for having done so. The young Ms. Smirl is already used to being evacuated: kids at her school have brought guns, brought bombs, and while nothing fatal has yet happened, she would be unsurprised if it did. resigned to the fact. If the shooter only murdered a handful of people the story wouldn’t still be in the news after a couple days (did you even remember there was a synagogue shooting a week ago?) - and if they’d killed dozens they’d be superseded by another shooting within a few weeks. (As of writing - April 26 2019 - there have been six school shootings in the US since the start of the year Eight. There were two more school shootings between me first writing this down on April 26 and coming back to finish it on May 11/12th. There were 20 mass shootings in total in just those fifteen days. 21 fatalities. Jesus Fucking Christ, America.) You know, I wouldn’t care if guns hadn’t killed a soul in 2017. If the simple spectre of their presence - the easy access, the sheer volume, the cultural identity - created a fraction of that level of fear and fatalism you hear in Rileigh Smirl’s voice in school children across America I would happily rip every single gun from the living hands of every American gun owner and melt them in a pyre the size of Delaware rather than let such a state of affairs continue. A mere 10000 gun owners were murderers in 2017? A mere 10000 gun owners a year have been murderers for the last 20 years? A mere 2,000,000 gun murderers in two decades? Damn you all. Keep in mind we haven’t touched on anything other than homicides. 10000-plus gun owners made the decision to murder others with their gun in 2017. People often bring up car deaths as a rebuttal to the gun stats - 40000 car deaths in 2017 to 10000 gun deaths should we therefore ban cars, you idiot? What a disingenuous question. That’s 40000 car deaths of all kinds - I’m talking about homicide alone, where the so-called ‘responsible person’ is proven to use their ‘responsibly’-owned item for irresponsible ends. The ‘bad-eggs.’ You know how many bad-egg car owners murdered people in 2017 as an act of willful homicide? No. And neither do I. It’s another stat so low it is presumably lumped-in with an aggregate - the 976 deaths in 2017 known only as “miscellaneous.” This, again, on a chart that notes that 13 people were murdered by poison, 4 people were murdered by being pushed, and zero people were murdered with explosions. The number of cars used to murder people? Presumably less than three. Could be as low as zero. [Note: the number is actually 50. See the Addendum and this follow-up article for expanded stats.] There are a little over 270 million car owners in the US, and from that we can conclude that while 0.009% of gun owners a year can’t stop themselves from murdering people with their guns, less than 0.000001% of car owners can’t stop themselves from being a first-degree car murderer. On the face of it those are pretty tiny numbers - infinitesimal, really. Less than one percent. Insignificant. Why get worked up? 10,000 lives ended by guns fired with a purpose to kill. By civilians, only, mind - I haven’t even touched on gun deaths by police officers, or the even broader question of gun deaths by US soldiers looking to shoot people. We’re still just focussed on civilian gun owners who felt the need to kill other human beings. ~10,000 American gun murders in 2017 alone. Three times the entire population of the Falklands, your closet neighbours in terms of guns-to-population ratio. I’m Canadian - 36 million people, a disturbing 36 guns per 100 people. If I go to Windsor and drive across the bridge I instantly become 10 time more likely to be shot to death - not specifically because I am now in Detroit, not specifically because I’m a Canadian in the United States, but simply because I went from any developed nation that wasn’t America into America. Taking Detroit specifics account, if you drive back and forth across the Ambassador bridge your odds of getting shot jump some 50 times every time you cross an invisible line on the Detroit River. Detroit and Windsor have very different crime rates: 2017 saw 267 murders in Detroit. Windsor saw 3. The Detroit Murder Rate is 45 per 100,000 people - Windsor is 0.89. These cities are less than 2000 feet apart. About 600 metres. 0.6 kilometres. 0.4 of a mile. Statistically speaking most of those crimes in Detroit were firearm deaths. I can stand in Windsor (having had an excellent meal at Smoke & Spice Southern Barbecue), walk some 300 yards, and my life-expectancy from being slain by a passing bullet balloons 50 times. People just die more in America. That’s - to be fair - partially a matter of volume. Contrasted against Canada, say, and you’re looking at nine times the number of people: of course you’ve got more deaths. But the homicide numbers don’t scale that way. Canada had 266 firearm homicides in 2017. If you made the population of Canada nine times larger, so that we had population parity with the US, we would have had about 2394 gun homicides - still only a quarter of the USA’s 10,982. You’d have to make Canada 41 times larger than it is now, creating a billion and a half Canadians, which amounts to a full 20% of the existing world population. You’d need there to be 1.2 billion more Canadians than there are Americans now to have the same number of gun homicides. Homicides alone! Because we’re still - still - not talking about suicides. Or home ‘defence.’ Or police shootings. Or killings by US troops. Just civilians with guns and the capacity to use them on fellow citizens out of a need to murder. If this getting through? Tell me this is getting through. Americans - your family, friends, colleagues, comrades, acquaintances, lovers, crushes, vaguely-recognized strangers are dying at rates from causes that are not present elsewhere in the stable places of the world. You are dying from solved problems. If ~10,000 Americans were dying yearly from the black plague you’d be upset. You’d be doing something. America has a disease, and that disease is a willingness to let friends, family, lovers, even children die rather than change. Six eight school shootings in four five months. “It’s lucky that fatalities were low,” you might say if you were a lunatic. That’s not lucky. Gut-wrenchingly relieving, all things being equal: six eight schools threatened and only one family four families had to lose a child. It didn’t happen to us think the thousands of parents whose children walked out of those six eight shootings alive. A school bus company that had six eight crashes in four five months wouldn’t count itself lucky that only one child four children died. It would be defunct as a company, drowning in litigation, its corporate officers hounded in the streets by mobs of furious parents horrified that this company had proven so incapable of a simple act like protecting their children. But six eight schools across the nation experienced an event with armed gunman and its not even notable. America, you’re broken. You’re just broken. And your problem is the guns. So I don’t care that you’re a responsible gun owner with a gun cabinet who memorized the rifleman’s credo. I absolutely don’t give a damn that you have fond memories of you and your grandfather stalking deer and bonding as family. If I weigh the cost of you sharing that bonding experience with your own grandchild someday against the ~10000 people shot dead in 2017, and the ~100000 people shot dead over the decade your warm fuzzies don’t amount to shit. Teach your grandkid to bake cookies. Go camping. Introduce him to the love of baseball. If you cannot imagine formative bonding without killing something go take a butchery course at the community college and learn how to barbecue a pig - hey, look, valuable life lessons, a trade skill, and I just made you a must-get for cool parties. Yes, I am talking about taking your guns away. All of your guns. All of them. This is a future I want - because you, America, collectively, have proven that you are not socially responsible enough to be a country that owns guns. If you can ban Kinder Eggs for 50 years because you thought it would take that much time to train your children not to swallow a massive plastic capsule that the rest of the world’s children have no problem surviving, I think at the very least a 50-year moratorium on firearms is the bare fucking minimum. There were 23 school shootings in America in 2018. There have been 20 school shootings in Canada in the entire 152 years of our existence. Over 10000 American civilians decide every year to shoot people to death. That doesn’t happen in other stable places. The difference is THE GUNS. IT’S ALL THE GUNS! IT’S ALL THE FUCKING GUNS! You can’t just talk about tightening guns laws. You can’t just talk about making gun owners more responsible - statistically speaking American gun owners are individually responsible! It doesn’t matter, because collectively you’re all irresponsible. Responsible people don’t prioritize their interests and hobbies over bi-monthly school shootings. Responsible people don’t ‘Good German’ themselves when children’s are under threat at least once a month nation-wide.

Real talk for you people out there who own guns, love guns, would never think or murdering anybody, and are genuinely angry that I keep acting like 10000-a-year bad apples reflects badly on your interests as a whole. How high does the number have to be before your association with your hobby would begin to make you feel uncomfortable with sharing an interest? Let me put it another way: enrolment in youth football teams is dropping nation-wide as parents aren’t comfortable putting their children at risk. Football has given America exciting games to watch, stories of victory and defeat, bonding with friends and family, and one of television’s true masterpieces, Friday Night Lights (#neededmoredevin #justiceforwaverly #justiceforsantiago). But all that good warm fuzzy feeling is running up against a problem: kids are getting hurt. In some cases kids are dying. 2017 saw 13 football-related deaths among the under-18 crowd: 4 direct fatalities, 9 indirect fatalities. (Direct fatalities are causes like head injuries and organ trauma. Indirect fatalities are causes like heat stroke.) That’s a death rate of 0.095/100,000 direct and 0.21/100,000 indirect - still lower than the murder rate in Windsor. And yet football enrolment declines. Because it’s more than just those thirteen deaths: it’s the up-front injuries like broken bones and sprains, it’s the long-term brain injuries that might not emerge for years, it’s the trauma of watching friends and teammates get seriously hurt, die, or simply find the sport a source of stress rather than joy. Right now football is experiencing white flight as predatory football pipelines double-down on players-of-colour to feed their football mills, but that too will decline as a generation that grows up not experiencing a close intimacy with football loses interest in the sport. (Another demographic timebomb lurking in America’s wings.) 13 child deaths by football in 2018. 44 students shot-dead the same year. High schools are shutting down their football programs - taking football completely away - because they can’t stomach all that death, injury, and trauma. The seriousness of this has proven that America is not a nation that can handle its football, and does not want to keep its kids playing football in the same numbers as it once did. (Anyone who wants to come in here and say “would you say the same about hockey, Canadian?” Yes. Absolutely. Instantly. Ditch the whole thing. It’s just a sport, a hobby. It is not more important than lives.) So what will it take to get you to admit that if America can’t handle football it can’t handle guns? A half-dozen kids got their hair chewed in the 90s and America decided that responsibility didn’t matter, that nobody should own a Snacktime Kid Cabbage Patch Doll. One kid died from a non-blunt lawn dart in 1987 and you’ve banned them since 1988. 44 kids got shot to death last year and America thought it unnecessarily restrictive of freedom to take away a single gun. Give me numbers. Please. How many kids would have to die in America this year before you felt uncomfortable owning a gun simply by transference of shame or guilt or association? What if every gun owner but you shot a kid at a school next year? Would you still say your responsibility kept your conscience clear? An absurd, hyperbolic question, fair enough. So let’s start counting down from those 117999999 gun-owning households who aren’t you: what’s the magic number when your responsible ownership of your thing-that-just-kills no longer sits comfortably against the annual number of gun-owning, school-child murderer-producing households? Not accidents, not mistakes, not once-in-a-generation horrors by an statistically aberrant psychopath - I’m talking about systemic patterns of yearly school-child homicide via gunshot. Because last year that was about 44 child murders from about 15 households. That’s currently a number that doesn’t shame you. Start counting up. I’m asking, genuinely, because I need to know. Is there a number? 440 kids murdered by 150 household? 4400 from 1500? 44000 from 15000? Or will others actions never affect you? Is what the rest of society does is of no import, no responsibility of yours? If you were the only responsible gun owner in America, ask yourself if you’d still be comfortable owning a gun. And think - real hard - at what the ratio of responsible-to-not-responsible gun murderers and death tolls are right now, and why you’re okay with that. Then ask yourself what other hobby has that kind of real-life school-kid homicide count that needs to be updated on a monthly basis. Not a lot of gunpla hobbyists struggling with the weight of rogue members murdering kids. Knitters can be vicious, but only socially. Mountain climbers and fast car enthusiasts see plenty of tragedy in their hobby - but they’re tragedies of accidents and mistakes. Not a lot of malicious intent going around. Not a lot of cut ropes and slashed brakes. Not to the tune of 10000+ homicides a year. Ask yourself if maybe - just maybe - America has a problem when it comes to guns. Maybe, just maybe, so many of you being responsible isn’t working. Maybe, just maybe, your hobby, your tradition, your culture, your warm family memories, your constitutional guarantees of ownership, are not worth the death of children in their schools, concert goers at their venues, worshipers at their altars, families in their homes year, after year, after year, after year, after year, after year, after year in numbers that simply, truthfully, are not present elsewhere in the world in places similar to America. Maybe, just maybe, being responsible isn’t enough. Maybe, at some point, the number of dead kids will be too many. And if it isn’t, you need to come clean and admit that every child in America could be shot to death tomorrow and you’d still love owning a gun. You can get rid of the guns, America, or you can start wearing shirts that say “kill all the kids you like - I’m proud to be a gun owner.” Because there’s no other choices left to you. The time for incremental change is long over. The time for saner, less drastic measures died decades ago. There is no moderate position left. It’s the guns, or it’s the children. There are no other choices.

________________________ Addendum: there is now a second part to this article, which expands upon some of the points made here with the more comprehensive fatality statistics from the CDC, including numbers I did not have when originally writing this article.

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kob131 · 5 years

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https://izetarion.tumblr.com/post/189410998186/theres-two-versions-of-adam-taurus?is_liked_post=1

Monty!Adam: Created by Monty Oum, a minority. Focused on the Faunus, while wanting to get back at the humans for their mistreatment of his kind, a man of revolution who was focused on the safety of his people - seen as how he was strong-armed into working with Cinder Fall after getting her maiden powers, wasn’t so psychopathic that he would turn on his own kind and kill humans out of sheer glee (seen with Cinder and her lot, as he gave them a chance to leave), prioritizes the cause over a cat girl, who was his student - sharing a “student-mentor” relationship as established by the show’s creator as well as said cat girl (“Forget it! It’s time I headed back to Mistral!”), has a legitimate reason to hate humans - especially those affiliated with the Schnee Dust Company, very charismatic, somewhat of a fallen mentor figure given the way the catgirl described him, his cause steadily consuming him (“I had someone I care for, who changed…”), is one of the most popular male characters in the series in the first half of RWBY - despite having little screentime, has an aesthetically-pleasing look to him, compared to DMC!Vergil and Jetstream Sam - two of the most iconic video game characters, in terms of looks and fighting style, Adam Taurus fans signs his adoption papers so that Miles and Kerry would never touch him. People use this version in their fanfics and RPs, turning him into a redeemable person while still keeping his morally grey aspects. Tauradonna is more mutual than lovey-dovey.

Okay so let’s break this down and show this is bullshit.

“Focused on the Fanaus-”

He is never shown to actually help any Fanaus and all White Fang activity, ESPECIALLY in Volumes 1 and 2, revolves around fucking over human. In fact, considering Tuskon, the fact that Vale does not have discrimination against Fanaus and V1 E1 openly says a peaceful protest of Fanaus was interrupted by the WF (” In other news, this Saturday's Faunus Civil Rights protest turned dark when members of the White Fang disrupted the ceremony. The once peaceful organization has now disrupted...”): Adam has acted AGAINST the Fanaus since LITERALLY the first episode.

“A man of revolution who was focused on the safety of his people-”

Which is why, in an EARLIER episode than the one you cite (Volume 2 Episode 12 meaning MONTY was in charge here as we know since he was cited with putting in the Raven scene in the SAME EPISODE against Miles and Kerry’s wishes): Adam gave no shits about his men DYING when he openly said he’d convince them to work with Cinder without so much as a glare at her. BTW, Adam specifically cited Cinder being HUMAN for the reason why he didn’t want to kill his men (’I won’t sacrifice my men for a human cause’). If the human part wasn’t the reason why he wasn’t agreeing with Cinder, why would his dialogue not be ‘I won’t sacrifice my men, no matter what.”?

“ wasn’t so psychopathic that he would turn on his own kind and kill humans out of sheer glee (seen with Cinder and her lot, as he gave them a chance to leave)-”

Nuh uh, in the same Volume Adam out right STABS Blake and says he wants to destroy everything she loves, in the previous Volume he didn’t care about his men dying and said nothing about trying to DESTROY VALE killing THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS of people (including FANAUS) and at the VERY beginning, he tried to blow up a train car full of people who hadn’t even raised a finger against him even though, as Blake shows, he could have detached the train.

“ prioritizes the cause over a cat girl, who was his student - sharing a “student-mentor” relationship as established by the show’s creator as well as said cat girl (“Forget it! It’s time I headed back to Mistral!”),”

Except that, again. Adam STABS Blake and outright shows malice towards her in the SAME VOLUME, Arkos shows mentorship and romance are NOT exclusive and even THAT line is delivered with Adam looking furious clearly showing he’s hung up about Blake.

“ has a legitimate reason to hate humans - especially those affiliated with the Schnee Dust Company-”

Not really, especially since Adam was shown to be selfish in previous Volumes so why would he care about other people? In fact, the ‘fuckboi’ Adam you’ll bitch about later has the reason to hate humans, especially those with the SDC. This version, since he’s apparently completely seperate, is just racist.

“very charismatic”

Never shown OR said. Just projecting.

“ somewhat of a fallen mentor figure given the way the catgirl described him,”

Notice how here they don’t actually say WHAT the description is despite KNOWING about quotes? That’s because there’s nothing actually said in the show that is ambiguously about a mentorship.

“ his cause steadily consuming him (“I had someone I care for, who changed…”)”

Doesn’t prove anything AND it coinsides with ‘fuckboi’ Adam.

“ is one of the most popular male characters in the series in the first half of RWBY - despite having little screentime,”

So is Kirito, wanna guess what V1-2 Adam and Kirito have in common? They don’t have defined personality and their popularity came from people projecting onto them.

“ has an aesthetically-pleasing look to him, compared to DMC!Vergil and Jetstream Sam - two of the most iconic video game characters, in terms of looks and fighting style”

Both of which are incredibly common in anime.

“ Adam Taurus fans signs his adoption papers so that Miles and Kerry would never touch him”

Too bad according to you, they weren’t the ones who ruined Adam. No no, your issues, as I have shown, existed with MONTY. So you better start smack talking him... what’s that, if you did that you couldn’t profit off his name and his fanboys would rip you to shreds? Maybe you shouldn’t be a disingenuous fuck.

‘ People use this version in their fanfics and RPs,’

And people turn Jaune into a generic self insert and Ruby into an edgy angsty psuedo anti hero- that means nothing.

“ turning him into a redeemable person while still keeping his morally grey aspects.”

So basically making him a generic anti villian instead of a tragic case of someone not being able to get over their past tramua.

“ Tauradonna is more mutual than lovey-dovey.”

And it’s more ‘abusive’ than mutual.

Fuckboi!Adam: Created by Miles and Kerry, two amateurish white guys noted for writing sub-par comedy segments and part of the upper echelons of Rooster Teeth. Born out of the criticism of “show, don’t tell aspect” of the show - barely having any visible evidence of Faunus racism, born out of the two admitting they couldn’t write a racism sub-plot - despite having the money and resources to do so, established as an abuser by CRWBY and demonized heavily by them and the fanbase despite little evidence of such prior to because of catgirl’s various descriptions of him pointing towards someone “dear” (“More of a mentor, actually…”), “hElLo, My LoVe!” “tHe bElLaDoNnAs HaVe CaUsEd Me NoThInG bUt GrIeF!”, “sO i JuSt wAsN’t GoOd EnOuGh FoR yOu.”, A fedora wearing crazed nazi ex-boyfriend, DMC-Reboot!Vergil but with the edgelord turned to 11, “Tauradonna? More like Tauradon’t!”, How many zippers does your dumbass outfit need? lol, Why did your voice crack?, Even his own VA hate him, Is an incel-ass bitch, Gaston apparently, Lol he’s attempting the birdbox challenge, That stupid ass face reveal did nothing as the damage was done, The fandom - primarily BMBLB, and CRWBY sing of his death (“Ding-dong the bitch is dead!”) - with the BMBLB fandom using his death as major evidence of their ship becoming canon. Also, his death caused such dissonance in the fandom that shit hit the fan in all kinds of ways, not to mention his death started the slow deterioration of RT - embodying the spite element that Blake attributed him, probably because he was pissed at CRWBY to the point where his hatred manifested as a curse - causing their various injustices against their employees to come out and be heavily criticized as a result (No, seriously, RT is visibly crumbling shortly after his demise).

“ Created by Miles and Kerry-”

And yet will somehow completely overlap with the Volumes Monty had the most control over.

“ two amateurish white guys”

Miles is part Mexician.

“ noted for writing sub-par comedy segments”

While Monty is noted for never writing whatsoever so i guess that means you think Miles and Kerry are better.

“ Born out of the criticism of “show, don’t tell aspect” of the show - barely having any visible evidence of Faunus racism, born out of the two admitting they couldn’t write a racism sub-plot - despite having the money and resources to do so,”

The criticism being located SOLELY in Volumes 1 and 2 Aka MONTY.

“ established as an abuser by CRWBY and demonized heavily by them and the fanbase despite little evidence of such prior to because of catgirl’s various descriptions of him pointing towards someone “dear” (“More of a mentor, actually…”)’“

You know...despite the fact that every single aspect of Adam’s character has been shown WITH MONTY, as I showed above.

“ “hElLo, My LoVe!” “

Located in Volume 3, which you cite as a Volume where ‘Monty!’ Adam existed.

“ “tHe bElLaDoNnAs HaVe CaUsEd Me NoThInG bUt GrIeF!” “

Huh, if you spelled “Belladonna” as “Miles and Kerry”, that sounds an awful lot like you...oh

“ “sO i JuSt wAsN’t GoOd EnOuGh FoR yOu.” “

They scream as Rooster Teeth ignores them.

“ A fedora wearing crazed nazi ex-boyfriend”

Never actually shown wearing a fedora or ever showing any personbality traits associated with it...but then again, you know what they say about mirrors...

Also at least it’s better than ‘blank edgy emo teen’ he was in Volume 3 which you loved apparently.

“ DMC-Reboot!Vergil but with the edgelord turned to 11″

Uh oh, Op’s brain rotted so he can’t actually make arguments....oh wait, he was always like that.

“ “Tauradonna? More like Tauradon’t!” “

So basically ‘wah wah wah. my otp is not canon’.

“ How many zippers does your dumbass outfit need?”

Dunno, why is wearing a tux as a freedom fighter and sticks out like a sore thumb?

“ Why did your voice crack?”

Why did he sound fourteen in Volume 3?

“ Even his own VA hate him,”

Ever since Volume 3 which you cite as “Monty!Adam”

“ Is an incel-ass bitch, Gaston apparently”

Or you know, a Beats who never grew up and never became a better person. But who needs insight?

“ Lol he’s attempting the birdbox challenge”

*insert Family Guy skit here*

“ hat stupid ass face reveal did nothing as the damage was done”

They say as most of the fandom did a 180 on how they view his character and gave him more justification for his actions than “Monty” Adam ever had.

“ he fandom - primarily BMBLB, and CRWBY sing of his death (“Ding-dong the bitch is dead!”)”

Which considering he was meant to be hated is a GOOD thing.

“ with the BMBLB fandom using his death as major evidence of their ship becoming canon”

Basically ‘wah wah wah make MY otp canon”

“ Also, his death caused such dissonance in the fandom that shit hit the fan in all kinds of ways”

all kinds being two ways: accepting it and throwing a fit because you didn’t get your way. Also inadvertently justifying wasps being assholes because they did the same thing during Volumes 4 and 5.

“ t to mention his death started the slow deterioration of RT - embodying the spite element that Blake attributed him, probably because he was pissed at CRWBY to the point where his hatred manifested as a curse - causing their various injustices against their employees to come out and be heavily criticized as a result (No, seriously, RT is visibly crumbling shortly after his demise).”

And said curse infected many of his fans where they all became monsters after his death like say, using the suffering of others AND THE DEAD *cough* MONTY *cough* all over a fictional character that didn’t even exist because as I have shown Adam is completely consistent with his characterization from the Black Trailer to his death. Something I am certain OP knows deep down because half way through this point they completely abandon any attempt at actually proving what they are saying to instead spout a bunch of memes in a vain attempt to appeal to people’s confirmation bias because they can’t actually make an argument to prove Adam had changed AT ALL, especially since their obsessive behavior, attempt at creating an abusive/parasitic relationship with RT and their own childishness has all but prove Adam is in no way unrealistic as they act like him except with NO justification whatsoever.

But sure, scream loud enough and people will think you’re right. That hasn’t BACKFIRED before.

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littleeyesofpallas · 5 years

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Kabuki-mono

So there’s this thing Japan does a lot in their history where, because they utilize an ideographic written language in which some characters can be read and pronounced different ways, when certain words kind of become obsolete or taboo subcultures will make up a kind of homonym that retains the spoken word but changes the written characters and thus the meaning while sort of carrying on the spirit of the thing. One of these is the word Kabuki[歌舞伎] which is written with the characters for “Song”+”Dance”+”Skill.” But is derived in part from Kabuki-mono[傾奇者] written as “Strange”+”Trend/Inclined/Leaning”+”Person.”

The Kabuki-mono are often described as a “gang” but that is a somewhat disingenuous phrase as it carries with it a lot of implications that I don’t think reflect accurately what they really were... Even a popular Japanese-English online dictionary defines the term as:

dandy;

peacock;

early-17th-century equivalent of present-day yakuza;

Edo-period eccentric who attracted public attention with their eye-catching clothes, peculiar hairstyle, and weird behavior

And while these are all fairly accurate in their own ways, I don’t think it paints a particularly complete picture. So, allow me to try and add some context...

The Kabuki-mono have been recorded as a trend during the mid-late 1500s (the tail end of the period of Japan’s first major unification under Nobunaga Oda and his direct successor, Hideyoshi Toyotomi; of note is that the unification had ended the preceding Sengoku Jidai/Warring States era) into the turn of the 1600s.(Around which time the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate brought with it strict social rules that quashed a number of different social customs and trends, the Kabuki-mono among them.)

What this means is that for nearly 200 years Japan had been in a state of constant war; this same time period is where the romantic images of the cultural myths of the samurai were cultivated. For nearly 200 years Japanese society had built itself around the inevitability of war: profit and loss came from raiding and conquering of territory, the warrior caste earned its social value according to its very real measures of worth in battle, and the dynamic of courtly politics was sustained by the privileged ruling class propped up on their military power and holdings. For 200 years and all the generations that were born raised and died in it amassing soldiers, training for war, and winning social status and wealth in battle were a way of life. And then peace came.

(So jarring in fact was the shift towards peace that the need to justify a bloated military force even pushed Japan to try and invade the Asian mainland, just to give their restless and disenfranchised soldiers something to do.)

But the awkward shift in life styles meant that while the highest echelons of Japanese society adapted to more peaceful politics, the middling ranks of aristocracy found themselves without wars to fight, without real political influence, and without roles in society: Many families found their heirs provided for, spoiled even, but aimless. Herein came the ronin and wandering samurai that would become the beloved trope of samurai fiction for centuries to follow.

But among these disenfranchised yet financially well off (and very frequently well educated and cultured) soldiers were some who took to posturing their status, very probably as a direct result of their losing real power in courtly affairs as practices skewed toward the nuance of peacetime politics. So, as if to announce their wealth and culture they would being to dress lavishly to show off their money, both to one another and to the peasantry. Their tastes leaned into the gaudy, favoring bright colors, elaborate patterns, and exotic fabrics like leathers, animal furs, and light catching materials. They also adorned themselves in beaded charms, metals, and even decorated their swords and sword sheathes. Also popular became the almost comically large swords, again commissioned as a matter of social posturing; often depictions of Kabuki-mono will show them leaning on their swords while standing upright, using them as walking sticks, or slung over their shoulder to bare the heavy load.

From this M.O. there came a fairly logical development in style; many of these fashionable ex-samurai began to collect women’s clothing, because of the available clothes women’s possessed all the traits they found desirable. For some this amounted to cross dressing, but because women’s clothes were often too small for the men to wear properly, they would drape them as capes, or fashion them into sashes. This in turn lead to layering many articles of clothing over one another, as it allowed for a maximum of patterns and fabrics to be incorporated into a single ensemble. But for those who were able to wear women’s clothes comfortably, or who had women’s styles fashioned in their own sizes, the fuller feminine aesthetic carried over with, and accessories also came into vogue for the Kabuki-mono. Moreover, many would also wear their hair down (but not cut, as the length was still indicative of status, but the topknot itself being explicitly masculine) rather than in the traditional topknot, which had the effect of also evoking a more feminine style.

In practice these boastful and again financially frivolous groups of eccentric fashionistas would spend their time wandering lively urban areas to show off their visible wealth, or spending their time smoking* and drinking together in taverns where they were frequently known to skip bills. (it’s entirely likely many of them didn’t even have real money left to their name after the benefits of the war economy subsided)

Keeping in mind that this was an era in which their samurai status, however impractical in courtly politics, did still technically afford them a kind of diplomatic immunity and power over peasantry. So when I say they “skip their bills” it wasn’t so much a tricky dine and dash as it was a bold and arrogant saunter out the door with the utmost confidence that if a pub owner were to try and stop them, they could beat the commoner even to death with relative impunity.

In this same vein they were known to get quite readily into drunken brawls and wrestle in the streets with other “gangs.” But of course “wrestling” here is actually the jujutsu that had commonly been part of a samurai’s military training.

And in this way common hang outs for different groups of displaced soldiers would become centers of what were basically gang turf, and these casually belligerent interactions and retaliations to them would begin to carry with them larger consequences.

A small aside that doesn’t quite fit anywhere else here: Another accessory to their aesthetic were large custom made Kiseru (a kind of Japanese smoking pipe with metal mouth piece and bowl) like their swords, crafted comically large as to make a loud statement. Some accounts of fights between gangs actually describe pipes so large and with such prominent metal components that they could be used as weapons to fend off an unexpected attack, even from a sword or dagger. (ironically this trope has developed in one of two ways over the years, either exaggerating the size of the pipe further, or downplaying its size to that of a regular pipe to create a kind of dissonance where a skilled fighter can wield even a small inconspicuous object as a weapon.)

As these kinds of gangs grew in size, activity, and influence they did eventually attract the attention and ire of their superiors. By the time the Tokugawa shogunate took over, they were on a short list of black listed groups targeted by legal reforms that outlawed, not the groups themselves, but much of their behavior and practices, affording the shongunate the impetus to act on arrests, that would do away with key leaders, until the gangs eventually dissipated on their own.

But there was another set of eyes that had been following the kabuki-mono activity, even in its waning years: one Izumo no Ikuni. The woman who would go on to found Kabuki theatre while the memory of the Kabuki-mono was still in the public mind even as they vanished from the bars and streets. It is from the kabuki-mono that Kabuki theatre would develop its audacious costume and distinctly pronounced mannerisms and even characterization of samurai. It is also the alluring androgyny of the Kabuki-mono’s fashionable men that led Izumo no Ikuni and her all female troupe to so readily and confidently assume the masculine roles. (Ikuni herself was known to address her audiences directly, with no formal traditions of a 4th wall, and flirt with women while in character to great if often notorious effect.)

A curious side effect of this passing of the torch is that the strong associations with theatre fashion actually caused a lot of other media to distance themselves from various associations with theatre by effectively relegating the kabuki-mono fashion to the domain of theatre almost exclusively. So stories about poor and disenfranchised samurai in the years following the Warring States period adopted a kind of universal trope of the plain clothes samurai, in rough and worn kimonos, or else distinguished formal wear befitting the status of the higher rungs, but nearly eradicating the image of the Kabuki-mono from any fiction that didn’t specifically feature them.

I guess my point is just that it's super cool to me that there was this whole brief era where a bunch of war hardened, genderbending, fashionista thugs were just kicking around Kyoto picking fights and showing off. And its a damn shame that circumstances as they are have kind of erased them. Also they so very much embody and legit pioneered the spirit of Bad Suit Energy that sustains me.

#kabuki-mono #samurai #bad suit energy

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derangedhyena-delphinidae · 6 years

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Hey! I think this is a prime opportunity to grab some knowledge off you as someone who wants to learn more about the anti-captivity argument and why killer whales are unsuitable for captivity. Everything you know would be ideal with studies and links and stuff (you’re super smart. I can only hope to know as much as you one day). I understand that’s kind of impossible though!

Sure thing. Must preface with - I’m not really that smart, nor do I specifically have defined expertise at this or anything, I just really like to read. I also enjoy learning from the experts, which I’ve taken to doing around here via attending/filming many of the available talks. So that’s what I’d recommend to anyone, really. Firstoff as a resource, I would like to offer my Youtube channel, which features a variety of speakers covering many topics. Only a few are captivity-issue centric; available are not just videos I’ve recorded, but a handful of other videos I’ve found informative in playlists. Of those I’d recommend these two:

https://youtu.be/L00CfGpVnUAhttps://youtu.be/OmMv9t_hW8k

Here are a few links/documents/books I’d recommend as overviews as well.

https://awionline.org/content/confinement-marine-life AWI has an entire section of its website that explores various facets of these issues.

https://www.scribd.com/document/265647897/Killer-Whales-Theme-Parks-Controversy-An-Exploration-of-the-Evidence This is a chapter in the book Animals in Tourism: Understanding Diverse Relationships

https://www.scribd.com/document/312800031/Orca-White-Paper This is a paper authored by Dr. Rose while she was working at HSUS. She no longer works there, she works at AWI.

https://www.scribd.com/document/118447693/Captive-Orcas-Dying-to-Entertain-You-by-Vanessa-Williams An older WDC document, but still a decent (when not outdated) overview.

I know some folks may contend that this material majority-features a handful of folks (like Dr. Rose), but it is what it is - because there’s only a handful of folks writing about these things in general (positive or negative). References are available and presented in their documentation: I will always encourage people to look, really look, into those as well, so it becomes very clear that information is simply being gathered and presented as a unit. Not misrepresented in some fashion just because xyz person pulled it together.The other big “sections” of this for me personally are neurobiology, ethics, and ‘the industry’/Seaworld.The neurobiology section of this is a bit more vast than I’m prepared to cover in one sitting, but the tl;dr is delphinid brains exhibit incredible complexity and have a number of unique properties that very likely indicate a lot of intelligence/perceptual/emotional abilities. Here is a 2009 overview by Dr. Marino. There is substantial disagreement about the function/structure of delphinid brains (particularly lodged by one scientist’s “dumb dolphin” theory), as detailed here. A transcript making this somewhat easier to approach can be found here. The information is all worth considering. I personally find myself deferring to my own reading into affective neuroscience/related research (wiki link, overview), as well as general observations/research on cetacean behavior - which prompts me to find Dr. Marino’s assertions more compelling. I’ve noticed that captivity proponents tend to stick to the ‘dumb dolphin’ bit and ignore the other side of the discussion.Ethics! This is discussed in bits in most of the above, but there’s certainly an ethical side to all this that often goes ignored. I’m personally not in the boat that it’s unethical/wrong/improper to keep any/all animals captive. Just the ones that show evidence of having their lives highly negatively impacted as a result. There’s a world of difference between a cetacean and a fish. This isn’t saying fish aren’t smart - most animals have to be pretty smart in their own way or they wouldn’t have done well as a species! But I do doubt fish have the complex cognition necessary to understand confinement as a negative, and be insulted (physically) by it. (Unless the conditions are completely inadequate (temperate, size, surroundings, companions) and the fish can’t express its usual behavior, in which case it still likely can’t understand ‘confinement’ but it does understand it can’t function or behave normally and may be distressed as a result.)

Large predatory animals in particular tend to exhibit higher intelligence (more problem-solving typically needed to hunt) and have larger ranges - removing their ability to hunt, traverse area and meaningfully engage their environment as the species evolved to can cause problems (eg the incessant pacing seen in captive big cats, bears, etc.) They’re also more or less stuck in captivity once there - captive-raised predators do poorly in the wild. This significantly undermines the claim that captive animals of that stripe have a lot of conservation value. Directly? They really don’t.

(Captive-raised cetaceans haven’t really ever been considered for wild release/conservation initiatives of that type, so the direct conservation value argument, while still made, has no basis. The link above discusses needed improvements and design for terrestrial predator programs. I’m all for it if they can figure it out, but as noted in the link, animals constantly subjected to people obviously won’t fare well when released - any eligible animal would need to be raised in relative human-seclusion in something more closely resembling its natural habitat. The same argument could easily be made for anything like this re: cetaceans - with the additional difficulty level that much of their learning seems to be culturally transmitted and rely on social structure heavily. How do you teach what you don’t know, in a framework you don’t have?)

One of the biggest problems this is the overall lack of research done on captive cetacean issues. Much critical material is forced to fill in blanks and operate from a basis of comparison, ex-trainer materials, and observation/documentation. Because direct information is largely unavailable, thanks to things like what’s noted here. And only very recently have cetacean-holding facilities even begun research on the topic of welfare in earnest, which is confusing and a little disturbing considering how long the practice has been going on and how vehemently it’s claimed that all is well and that captives contribute to research.Which, for research in general, they do. I have no doubts that they do. The concerns come in regarding how useful that research is for much besides perpetuating captives’ situations (breeding/husbandry materials) and very basic physiological stuff. There has been a lot learned about cetacean physiology in captivity, certainly. And I’m sure there’s more to be learned. But when one starts to bring in the ethics side of things, and what is being gained vs. what is being impacted (and for what - animals at a dedicated research facility and animals being used every day to mindlessly entertain audiences are different discussions, especially with all collateral considerations)...

A NOAA scientist called captive orca “sacrificial animals”. Even broader acknowledgment to the public by these facilities, that there are downsides, would be a great start, so people could be making better-informed decisions about whether or not they wanted to participate. Disguising the problems, dismissing criticisms and forcing a pleasant facade when big issues exist (and have, for a long time) does not point to wholesome ethics.Which leads me to Seaworld/industry representation. Why haven’t they done much/any research on the problems their animals have faced for years? Why are they constantly working to misinform the public and near-comically villainizing even reasonable criticisms? I can go into this further, separately, if desired, but there’s just a distressing amount of material supporting how “fake” and disingenuous they are. If they had these animals’ best interests in mind, instead of their company’s, this kind of behavior… really shouldn’t exist? Problems like this exist to a lesser degree in other facilities, depending on the facility. Unless it’s MSQ, which has problems connecting with reality at all.I do apologise if this doesn’t seem like “a lot”; reading, observing, talking to folks, listening to folks over several years (6+ now?) isn’t simple to condense. It is easier to address individual points/questions obviously, but I get that it’s useful to have an overview. Hopefully this is of use to that end.

#Anonymous

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did-somebody-say-exorcism · 6 years

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Headcanons: The Children of E Class

I wanted to keep all of my online presences as separate as possible, but the cat’s out of the bag now. I’m Professional Magical Girl on Fanfiction dot net, author of Great Teacher Nagisa, Fake Smiles, and some other miscellaneous AssClass fics. If you are here because of those fics, don’t ask about the url, it’s an inside joke between me and some old high school friends that just stuck. You can follow me if you want, but be warned that my posts are sporadic and generally about Evangelion.

Ah-hem. Anyway, I’m writing a long fic that involves my headcanons about the children of, you guessed it, E Class characters. So here is a master post of all of them. This is subject to be edited at any given time (I will inform my readers in an AN if any major changes have been made). If I don’t list a character here, I probably don’t headcanon them as having children. Or maybe I couldn’t come up with names for the kids yet. But ask away if you have questions about that. I’d prefer to be PM’d on FFN because I get emails for those, but using the ask/message feature on tumblr works too. You can call me Samantha, Professional Magical Girl, did-somebody-say-exorcism, or any variation of any of those.

And yes, I did get this idea from what TheRoseShadow21/Aki-chan2014 did with her headcanons for Ending the End Class. Yes, I did ask for her permission to do the same. Professional Magical Girl is many things, but disingenuous is not one of them.

The premise for Teenage Wasteland (read here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12856407/1/Teenage-Wasteland ) is: Some of the children of former E Class end up in the assassination classroom as a result of time travel. In some cases they will replace their parents, in others they coexist beside them. Not all of these characters will time travel, I’m still debating where to cut the fat. The characters whose names are bolded will definitely be major characters.

Nagisa and Kayano

Backstory: All of Kayano/Akari’s pregnancies were unintentional and back-to-back, leaving her and Nagisa rather unprepared. In spite of their jobs, they were also the first of E Class to have children. Akari managed to hide the children’s existences for many years, often by portraying pregnant characters or by hiding behind countertops. Kayano/Akari, after retiring from show business, now only leaves the house in disguises. All three of the girls are very short and tiny.

Aguri Shiota- Nagisa and Kayano/Akari’s first child, and the viewpoint character and protagonist of Teenage Wasteland. She is very quiet and observant, and as such others seem to see her as dependable, even Kaito (see below) notes her admiringly. While normally an even-tempered person, she is prone to episodes of moodiness, especially after the time travel event. It was rumored that she was born in her mother’s dressing room between shooting scenes for a movie that would later win an Academy Award, but she herself doubts this. She is named after her late aunt (obviously). Very, very much a daddy’s girl. Birthday: June 26, 2024

Hotaru Shiota- Nagisa and Kayano’s middle daughter. She is sweet and bubbly and often plays the comic relief. Her sister describes her as ‘getting calmer the angrier she gets.’ This mood of hers is invoked in the event that she is lied too, which she cannot stand above all else. She also has the ability to hear what people are saying from a distance away, a talent that is made useful many times. Birthday: July 12, 2025

Fujiko Shiota- The youngest of the three girls. She has a severe illness that I will not yet identify (this is a plot point). All of her family is very protective of her. She has a room full of stuffed animals and aggressively sings showtunes at karaoke. She doesn’t feature prominently until the end of the fic. Birthday: June 16, 2026

Karma and Okuda

Madoka Tachibana (Akabane)- Okuda’s daughter from her first marriage, though Karma adopted her when they married and she calls him ‘Dad’. She has very little contact with her biological father and sees him twice a year at most. She is easily flustered and is usually the last one to get the joke. She is very close to her half-brother. Birthday: September 16, 2031

Hikaru Akabane- Prankster and musical theatre geek. He is usually the one to hatch some hairbrained scheme to get E Class to their goals at the moment, however mundane those goals may be. Birthday: March 1, 2034

Isogai

Koyo and Chiyo Isogai- Twins. They both have very jovial attitudes and are excellent students. Koyo is rumored to be the most attractive guy in the whole school. They have no enemies… That we know of. Birthday: February 14, 2031

Maehara

Backstory: Maehara, predictably, continued to be… himself throughout his young adult life. He was married to the mother of his oldest child, but after they divorced he went back to dating lots of different people, and was on again and off again with the mother of his two younger kids for years. He seems to still want to impress Okano, but suspects that she wants nothing to do with him.

Fumihiko Maehara- Athletic, popular, funny, but is seriously clueless when it comes to girls. Birthday: October 5, 2028

Hatsune Nakano- She gets on well with her older half-brother, not so much her younger full brother. She doesn’t seem to have the best opinion of her father either. Birthday: May 30, 2031

Shiori Nakano- Does not feature as a prominent character. I’m only listing him for posterity’s sake. Birthday: January 7, 2034

Kataoka

Takahiro Aruta- He is usually the one to take charge in any leadership role, and the rest of the class seems to trust him and feel at peace around him. Aguri describes him as ‘the protective type’. It is a running gag that cats love him and always flock towards him. Birthday: September 3, 2029

Kinoko Aruta- She is very sneaky and loves to eavesdrop and spy in places where she isn’t allowed to be. Aguri speculates that she “Has dirt on all of them”. She knows all the ins and outs of the main campus, some of which she claims she only knows because she bribed one of the five virtuosos (though this may be a joke). Birthday: October 12, 2031

Sugino

Kintaro Sugino- He and Nobuhiko’s mother left them, in the middle of the night to run away to Fukuoka. It was later uncovered that she was running from the law. Kintaro was five, just old enough to know he was abandoned, and according to Aguri, ‘never really got over that hurt’. They have not seen their mother since, and were raised by their father and stepmother. He is shown to be rather sensitive and gets saddened very easily, he will deadass steal the remote out of someone else’s hands to change the channel if that sad abused pet commercial comes on the tv. He has a crush on Fujiko. Birthday: September 28, 2028

Nobuhiko Sugino- Aguri describes him as being ‘very pure’, he seems to always have an optimistic outlook and doesn’t even remember his biological mother or feel any resentment towards her. He is a terrible judge of character, and is easily influenced by those around him. He seems to look up to Satoru (see below). Birthday: November 2, 2030

Minoru Sugino- Sugino’s son with his second wife. Freaking adorable, but probably will not time travel. Birthday: March 21, 2037

Kanzaki

Satsuki Kanou- The ‘straightforward’ one, usually playing the straight man to the shenanigans of the others. It is a running gag that she is very stingy with money and will attempt to cut corners wherever possible (for example, she suggests that the giant pudding be made with soymilk instead of regular milk, because soymilk was on sale). Birthday: May 15, 2029

Sayaka Kanou- Kanzaki’s younger daughter. Her sister fusses over her endlessly. Birthday: July 7, 2031

Chiba and Hayami

Satoru Chiba- Along with Satsuki, he is seen as the most level headed of the children, thought he is much less straightlaced than her. Kaguya (see below) has said of him that ‘he could be multiplied by 10 and I wouldn’t mind or notice’. By nature, he is very helpful and is especially kind to children and animals. Unfortunately for him, this is excessive to the point that he acts like a doormat and allows people to take advantage of him. Birthday: June 6, 2027

Midori Chiba- She's the sassy and sarcastic one, and gets in trouble frequently for dressing out of code. She always wears the same pink scarf, no matter what time of year it is. She cannot get along with Satsuki, who calls her ’difficult and argumentative’, while she accuses Satsuki of being ‘stuck-up’. Also a massive Daddy's girl. Birthday: August 2, 2029

Nakamura

Backstory here: Nakamura moved to Los Angeles after studying abroad in London, and just wound up never leaving. She married a well-to-do golf course manager, who is 100% behind her prank war on the local Home Owner’s Association. After 19 years of marriage and two kids, he left her for the girl across the street. She eventually marries Gakushuu Asano. When Karma heard of this, he literally almost died laughing because he thought it was a joke. (That does not happen yet during Teenage Wasteland, it’s just sort of an aside.)

Her kids were dropped into this timeline and location, with little skills in Japanese. This is a plot point on several occasions.

Liam Carmichael- Athlete. He is shown to be somewhat reserved and keeps the secrets of others well. He also has a good relationship with his mother, taking her advice to heart. He has a bromance with Satoru. Birthday: December 19, 2027

Jeffery Carmichael- Think of the Weasely twins, but one person. Aguri refers to him as having ‘corrupted’ Nobuhiko by teaching him dirty jokes. He has a crush on Midori. Birthday: October 26, 2029

Hazama

Minami Minnaoka- Her mother is stuck in a loveless marriage to a benefactor of the library she worked at. Minami observes this, and openly wishes that they would divorce. She mostly sticks to herself, but is shown to be friends with Kaguya. Kaito (see below) has described her as a ‘complicated wreck’. Birthday: November 1, 2030

Yoshida

Kaguya Yoshida- She is considerably droll and witty, which makes her admired by some and feared by others. Midori has affectionately dubbed her ‘The Queen’. Birthday: July 5, 2030

Hara

Tadaharu Konoda- Has severe chuunibyou. His current dream is to move to America and become an NFL star. Birthday: April 9, 2028

Fumiya Konoda- For reasons unknown, he has earned the nickname “barrel of monkeys”. Birthday: February 26, 2030

Okano

Kaito Suzuki- He frequently bickers with others (namely Minami), and is generally a bit of an asshole. Aguri speculates that this is because of his parents’ bitter divorce. Whatever the reason, he immediately drops his act around Aguri, as if he respects her. Is shockingly good at math, but not many other subjects. Birthday: November 28, 2029

Kurahashi

Chitose Mizushima- Her father is the mailman, and describes himself as ‘the best damn mailman in history’ (he also moonlights as an amateur musician). She is described as being breathtakingly beautiful, and has several admirers, including Satoru, Masahiro, and Nobuhiko. She is also tone-deaf (this is played for comedy). Birthday: August 6, 2028

Tarou Mizushima- Her beloved younger brother. It is a running gag that he will always try to help with something, but will usually end up unintentionally ruining it or screwing it up even more. A bit bumbling, but well meaning. Birthday: July 27, 2030

Kimura

I don’t have any headcanons for these two yet, just names and birthdays. It’s a work in progress.

Masahiro Kimura- Birthday: April 25, 2028

Haruki Kimura- Birthday: April 30, 2032

Fuwa

Kaworu Miyazawa- He was born through IVF, as his parents had been trying unsuccessfully for a child of many years. As such, he is treated as if he were very fragile, ‘as if he might break’ (according to Aguri’s description), which could not be further from the truth. Birthday: January 3, 2035

#assassination classroom #assclass #fanfiction #my fanfiction #assclass fanfiction #it's so late #i should be in bed but here I am doing this #headcanon #assclass headcanons

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oveliagirlhaditright · 4 years

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I don’t get why so many people hate the Death Note drama.

I guess I can get it if people only saw the first few episodes, and thought it was going to be a normal Light vs. genius L--because that really isn’t Death Note--but it isn’t.

This Light is/was a genius too, but just didn’t apply himself after his mom died--and wanted a normal life--so it takes him a little bit to become the Light we know from the anime, but he does become that. And everything anime Light does, drama Light does do. They also take a longer time to corrupt him... but I kind of prefer it that way? Because this version of the character made me sympathize with Light in a way I never had before.

...I haven’t seen the Netflix movie (and probably never will. Thank God), but the general consensus seems to be that it also tried to make Light more sympathetic. But it went about it the wrong way, in making Ryuk the master manipulator and Misa--err, Mia--the more evil one, so that it really wasn’t even Light at that point. I feel like the drama is sympathetic Light done right.

What are other issues people have with this drama? Oh. Light being “ugly”, which he’s not, and L being “hot”. And I guess if this bothers you that much, that’s your choice. But IDK. Adaptations making someone more or less attractive than they were in the source material has never really upset me. All I care about is if I think they’re good for the characters. And for the most part, I think these two are (Light especially. Seriously. He plays Kira so well).

And then people don’t like that they changed L’s mannerisms... which I guess is fair. But for me, L’s mannerisms don’t make L. And they seemed to trade them for similar things (for instance, L’s new weird sitting thing is him jumping into a chair and having his legs dangle over the armrest. And instead of him picking things up with two fingers--and holding them far from his face, because he’s a germaphobe?--now everyone has to be sprayed with disinfectant(?) when they come in to see L now). I guess I’m okay with this, because this is an adaptation where they’re making things slightly different, so people won’t be bored. As I definitely think this is an adaptation that assumes you know the original well, and is trying to find some new ways to surprise you... which I actually appreciated. I guess if I have to mourn one thing of L’s that was lost, it’s probably the social awkwardness. Though it’s still somewhat there, like in L thinking nothing of having Lind L. Tailor die to prove his point, and Soichiro having to chew him out for it.

This adaptation also does more with the Light and L friendship... which I’m personally here for; and I think that’s a good thing to highlight if you want to make some changes, but still stay close to the source material. Because I won’t say it was my favorite thing from the original... but the fact that Light and L probably could have been friends, if things were different, was something I hadn’t expected but enjoyed. And it added a nice bit of tragedy to the whole thing.

I think that about covers everything I’ve heard complaints about? At the end of the day, it’s not my favorite version of Death Note. And I don’t think it should be anyone’s entry point into the series. But if you know the original story well, and are looking for another adaptation to enjoy the story through, I think the drama serves its purpose well. Especially since, as said, I think the drama assumes you know the original, so the few changes that are there can take you by surprise. There are a few changes, but it’s still the same story.

Like, I remember when Shadowhunters came out (The The Mortal Instruments adaptation), and the director, writers, or whoever said that they get to the same points differently, but they still get to them in the end... But I think that statement became disingenuous, and it did eventually feel like an entirely different story from the source material. I feel like it’s true about this drama, however.

Also... remember, guys, that they had a budget and stuff. I’m sure they did well with what they had.

Edit: I’ll even mention that I think it makes sense for this L to be more sympathetic towards this Light. Because this Light wanted to be a cop when he was a kid... but then his mother was dying, and his dad chose a case over seeing his wife in her dying moments (and I mean, to be fair, a very dangerous escaped murderer was on the loose. And I didn’t think Soichiro realized he was squandering away his last chance to see her). And Light is furious about this, because he called his dad so many times and he didn't come. So after this, Light has a bad view of the police and never wants to be one. But deep down, he did--or would have--if this hadn’t happened. So when he gets his hand on the Death Note, the sense of justice he’d always had sadly came out in a twisted way and L realizes this.

#I could for days write how I think this light was actually handled really well #maybe I will some time #also I guess here in the tags I'll mention something I had issues with at first #I didn't like that they combined near and Mello. or that to do that they made Mello near's split personality #I'm familiar with characters being combined in adaptations. like in twilight Jessica was Jessica and Lauren and Eric was Eric and ben #and I get why a lot of times that probably needs to happen and can most of the time even agree with the choice #but I just thought that was a weird way to go about it here. but in the end I became way more okay with it than I thought I was going to be #also... I can get it if some people don't like it because of the acting. because I feel light is the only one who really stands out #even though people who have never seen the drama sadly always hate on the guy because he's not as 'hot' as anime light #when to me he was the best part of the show #but I mean. I could still watch it. I didn't think it was terrible #...okay if I'm being honest I don't know if l was the greatest actor in the world--which is part of the reason I'm sad when people who #haven't seen the drama watch amvs and praise him and tear down light's actor #but I still think he did a fine job. since he's a model and was maybe new to acting at the time?#everyone else was decent too. even though they're not in it that much so probably only decent for that reason

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doggodysk-blog · 7 years

Text

I seriously underrated The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

**Some minor spoilers contained in this review**

I won’t beat around the bush, BOTW isn’t just the best game I’ve played this year, it’s the best game I’ve played in a long, long time. Maybe ever. This is coming from someone who was skeptical of an open-world Zelda game, as Ocarina of Time was my favorite Zelda game before this, I really enjoyed the traditional dungeon and progression.

I don’t say “potentially the best game I’ve ever played” lightly. I went into this game critically, looking for things it didn’t do well. And, of course, there are some things it doesn’t do quite as well as others. However, overall, the game is a true masterpiece and a testament to everything Nintendo’s creative minds are capable of. I truly think that nearly everything implemented in this game is implemented nearly perfectly.

The Not So Good

This is all I can think of for negatives. While this seems like a long list, a lot of critical thinking about the game went into this, and, for the most part, these are all very minor. I cannot stress this enough, these negatives DO NOT even come close to detracting from the overall experience of the game. I am only listing these to try to be as objective and honest as I can, as I believe calling it a “perfect” game would be disingenuous.

Graphics and Art

The game can drop in FPS pretty significantly, particularly when there are a lot of particles or in large fights.

Some character models aren’t very visually appealing. Compared to the beauty of the world, character models are somewhat lackluster, particularly their faces.

Enemies

Enemy difficulty can be a little low. The first time or two, Major Tests of Strength or Hinoxes or Lynels were tricky. However, after those times, I never really struggled to fight them and win. I’m sure my thoughts on this will change once I start my Master playthrough.

There isn’t an enormous amount of enemy variations.

Puzzles

Some puzzles can be a bit finicky, especially motion control puzzles. Usually it’s not too bad and just requires a few tries, but it can be bothersome at times.

While they were fun and well designed, the Divine Beasts really didn’t take much time to get through compared to the rest of the game. I would have liked to see them take a tad bit longer.

Considering how there is no way (that I know of) to locate Korok Seed puzzles via the map/Shiekah Locator, it can be somewhat tedious to expand your inventory. Perhaps it would be better if you needed an extra seed every two upgrades instead of one, or implement a way to find the seeds.

*Further reading has shown that this problem is solved by one of the DLC’s which I have not read yet.

Weapons and Items

While the weapon durability system is a lot better than I expected it to be, and I actually think the system as a whole adds to the game, I think weapons should all have a bit more durability.

Special arrows are a bit expensive, and hard to find from chests and enemy bases. I would like to see them show up in chests a bit more often, especially considering the amount of basic swords and bows I find. This affected me more than it may affect other people, because I have been going for a stealth-archer style character.

Mechanics and Systems

Link is weirdly bad at swimming, considering how good he is at climbing. There have been times where I was feet from shore and drowned. This can be pretty frustrating.

The Shrine locator is a bit noisy.

In some areas, it rains just a tad bit too much.

Personal Complaints

This is a personal preference and not objective nor does it really detract from the game, but I don’t like the fact that there is voice acting. I prefer Zelda games to only have the unintelligible noise when you interact with someone and background music.

This is a complaint of mine personally but also a testament to the scope of the game: there’s a bit too much to do. I’m a completionist and really like to complete games I play 100%, especially if they are games I really enjoy. There is just so much. The most tedious is the astounding 700 Korok seeds. I plan on completing everything but the Korok seeds, but the fact that there are so many of them is a bit annoying to me as a completionist.

The Good

As I’ve already said, this game is astounding. One could write a book about how incredible the game design of BoTW is. It’s simultaneously intricate yet simple, easy yet with an infinite skill ceiling. This game will be studied by developers for years to come.

The World of BoTW

The world is gorgeous, and huge. Everywhere I go, I am struck by the beauty and the atmosphere. Every ridge I climb up, I come across a beautiful landscape view. I personally don’t enjoy exploring open-world games that much in general, but BOTW has completely changed that. Everywhere I explore is fun and exciting.

Continuing off of the last point in the last paragraph, the world is dense. I’m very rarely bored while roaming through the world. Whether it’s needing to go quickly so that my Fire Resistance Potion doesn’t wear off, needing to stealthily navigate a field to avoid Guardians, coming across a large Bokoblin camp, seeing old chests hidden in lakes, finding interesting NPC’s and doing missions for them, or simply coming across shrines and towers, there is always something to do.

The world is fully open, but you’re never lost. In a lot of open-world games, I find myself going in a direction where I shouldn’t be and either be turned back because I shouldn’t go that way or getting lost. In BoTW, they deter exploration into later areas by putting you up against enemies that are difficult. You could push your way through, but it will be challenging, and you are usually naturally and intuitively led on a path of enemies that of an appropriate difficulty. Before going into the game, I felt I would feel overloaded with options, but I usually am able to intuitively do what seems right to me. This fully open-world also makes the game excellent for speed running, as you are only limited by how good you are.

The Beauty in the Details

The Towns and Villages are all thought out with incredible amounts of detail. They each have distinct cultures and histories that are reflected through the architecture, lifestyle, and personalities of the NPC’s. Whether it’s a laid-back beach village or a prosperous, modern town that was mostly unaffected by the Calamity, each town and village is fun and engaging to explore.

Speaking of NPC’s, they’re very well-written. Even basic NPC’s in towns and on paths all have personality quirks that make them entertaining to talk to. BoTW has perhaps the most well-written NPC’s in any game I’ve played. Every one has a witty anecdote or hints at a treasure or shrine.

The world is full of small bits of history that paint a large picture of the history of the world of Hyrule. Each book you read or slate you find tells a story, and when you put them together, you get a fully fleshed out history of not just Hyrule, but each area and each Village.

Puzzles and Quests

The quests are abundant and fun. There are few “filler” quests that I have come across, almost all of them are either genuinely fun or very short. My favorite of these quests are Shrine quests, which offer puzzles in the forms of riddles. These are very creative and often times quite tricky to decipher.

The puzzle system is well-thought and a refreshing shift from traditional puzzles. The tutorial section does a good job of introducing the basic concepts of the Sheikah Slate’s abilities as well as showing that puzzles often have more to them than meets the eye. The player quickly learns that most puzzles have a relatively basic main path following a certain theme, and side paths which offer secret rewards for taking the themes learned from the main puzzle, and making them more complex.

Mechanics and Systems

The stealth system is, surprisingly, extremely well done. I went into the game knowing stealth was a possibility, but thinking it wouldn’t be a fully-fleshed system. Regardless of that, I knew I wanted to attempt a stealth playthrough, and wow. After honing my skills for the first few hours of the game, such as landing headshots, target selection, and use of my environment, I could easily clear most camps without being detected with some thought. As someone who loves stealth games, I really appreciate this system.

Outside of perhaps Dark Souls, the sword fighting system is the best of any game I’ve played. It does an excellent job of being interactive, rewarding good timing, giving you options, and allowing for personal skill progression. At first, I was slightly concerned that the controls weren’t very intuitive and that I would struggle to implement it in fights, however, with just minutes of practice, I was able to get a solid grasp of it. The sword combat system is an excellent example of “Easy to Learn, Hard to Master.”

The physics and weather systems make the world feel alive. I haven’t played a game that has put this much attention to science details. The biology of the animals matches their terrain. Things that you think should work, work. If you have a metal weapon out in a thunderstorm, you’ll get struck by lightning. Hot air will rise, so if you set something on fire, you are able to use that to your advantage. Rain makes things slippery, but usually not impassable (if you have enough stamina).

Additional Aspects

There are a lot of fun things to do on the side of the game, such as experimenting with cooking and potions, or filling out your Hyrule Compendium. There is always something to keep you from getting bored.

I’m a sucker for games with multiple playstyles, and the armor system in the game does that very well. For instance, I played mostly with the stealth armor, but you could also use armor that helps you climb better, swim faster, or be protected from certain elements. Another thing the armor system does very well is give you collecting options. You can buy pieces of armor from stores around the land, or you can earn them from various missions.

While the game doesn’t require exploration, it encourages it in a very natural way. If you want to upgrade your health or stamina, or want to get more inventory, or want better food and potions, or want more powerful weapons, then you’ll have to explore. None of these are required to finish the game whatsoever, but are accessible and fun to look for. I believe that the natural and flawless way that they encourage you to explore the beautiful open world they have created is the pinnacle of all of the excellent game design that BoTW exhibits, and future open-world games will look to BoTW for inspiration for how to create their own worlds.

Summary

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the best thing the gaming community has scene in quite some time. It marks a positive shift not only for the Legend of Zelda franchise, but for open-world games as a whole. Despite its few minor flaws, this game is a masterpiece from the largest of scales down to the tiniest of details.

#zelda #legend of zelda #zelda breath of the wild #zelda botw #botw #breath of the wild #nintendo #nintendo switch #gaming #games #video games #review #game review

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cmbynreviews · 7 years

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The empty, sanitized intimacy of "Call Me by Your Name"

Luca Guadagnino's new film, Call Me by Your Name, may be progressive in its appropriately admiring depiction of a loving and erotic relationship between two young men, but its storytelling is backward. It is well known, and therefore no spoiler to say, that it's a story, set in 1983, about a summer fling between a graduate student named Oliver (Armie Hammer), who's in his mid-twenties, and Elio (Timothée Chalamet), the seventeen-year-old son of the professor with whom Oliver is working and at whose lavish estate in northern Italy he's staying. Half a year after their brief relationship, Oliver and Elio speak, seemingly for the first time in many months. Elio affirms that his parents were aware of the relationship and offered their approval, to which Oliver responds, "You're so lucky; my father would have carted me off to a correctional facility". And that's the premise of the film: in order to have anything like a happy adolescence and avoid the sexual repression and frustration that seem to be the common lot, it's essential to pick the right parents. The movie is about, to put it plainly, being raised right.

If Guadagnino had any real interest in his characters, what Elio and Oliver say about their parents near the end of the movie would have been among the many confidences that they share throughout. Long before the two become lovers, they're friends – somewhat wary friends, who try to express their desire but, in the meantime, spend lots of time together eating meals and taking strolls, on bike rides and errands – and the story is inconceivable without the conversation that they'd have had as their relationship developed. And yet, as the movie is made, what they actually say to each other is hardly seen or heard.

They're both intellectuals. Oliver is an archeologist and a classicist with formidable philological skills and philosophical training; he reads Stendhal for fun, Heraclitus for work, and writes about Heidegger. Elio, who's trilingual (in English, French, and Italian), is a music prodigy who transcribes by ear music by Schoenberg and improvises, at the piano, a Liszt-like arrangement of a piece by Bach and a Busoni-like arrangement of the Liszt-like arrangement, and he's literature-smitten as well. But for Guadagnino it's enough for both of them to post their intellectual bona fides on the screen like diplomas. The script (written by James Ivory) treats their intelligence like a club membership, their learning like membership cards, their intellectualism like a password – and, above all, their experience like baggage that's checked at the door.

What their romantic lives have been like prior to their meeting, they never say. Is Oliver the first man with whom Elio has had an intimate relationship? Has Elio been able to acknowledge, even to himself, his attraction to other men, or is the awakening of desire for a male a new experience for him? What about for Oliver? Though Elio and Oliver are also involved with women in the course of the summer, they don't ever discuss their erotic histories, their desires, their inhibitions, their hesitations, their joys, their heartbreaks. They're the most tacit of friends and the most silent of lovers – or, rather, in all likelihood they're voluble and free-spoken, as intellectually and personally and verbally intimate as they are physically intimate, as passionate about their love lives as about the intellectual fires that drive them onward – but the movie doesn't show them sharing these things. Guadagnino can't be bothered to imagine (or to urge Ivory to imagine) what they might actually talk about while sitting together alone. Scenes deliver some useful information to push the plot ahead and then cut out just as they get rolling, because Guadagnino displays no interest in the characters, only in the story.

For that matter, Guadagnino offers almost nothing of Elio's parents' talk about whatever might be going on with their son and Oliver. Not that the parents (played by Michael Stuhlbarg and Amira Casar) are absentee – they're present throughout, and there are even scenes featuring them apart from both Elio and Oliver, talking politics and movies with friends, but there isn't a scene of them discussing their son's relationship. They don't express anything about it at all, whether approval or fear or even practical concern regarding the reactions of the neighbors. The characters of Call Me by Your Name are reduced to animated ciphers, as if Guadagnino feared that detailed practical discussions, or displays of freedom of thought and action, might dispel the air of romantic mystery and silent passion that he conjures in lieu of relationships. The elision of the characters' mental lives renders Call Me by Your Name thin and empty, renders it sluggish; the languid pace of physical action is matched by the languid pace of ideas, and the result is an enervating emptiness.

There are two other characters whose near-total silence and self-effacement is a mark of Guadagnino's blinkered and sanitized point of view – two domestic employees, the middle-aged cook and maid Mafalda (Vanda Capriolo) and the elderly groundskeeper and handyman Anchise (Antonio Rimoldi), who work for Elio's family, the Perlmans. What do they think, and what do they say? They're working for a Jewish family – the Perlmans, Elio tells Oliver (who's also Jewish), are the only Jewish family in the region, even the only Jewish family ever to have set foot in the village – and they observe a brewing bond between Elio and Oliver. Do they care at all? Does the acceptance of this homosexual relationship exist in a bubble within the realm of intellectuals, and does that tolerance depend upon the silencing of the working class? Is there any prejudice anywhere in the area where the story takes place?

The one hint that there might be any at all comes in a brief scene of Elio and Oliver sharing a furtive caress in a shadowed arcade, when they brush hands and Oliver says, "I would kiss you if I could." (That pregnant line, typically, ends the scene.) Even there, where the setting – the sight lines between the town at large and the character's standpoint – is of dramatic significance, Guadagnino has no interest in showing a broad view of the location, because of his bland sensibility and flimsy directorial strategy, because of his relentless delivery of images that have the superficial charm of picture postcards. Adding a reverse angle or a broad pan shot on a setting is something that Guadagnino can't be bothered with, because it would subordinate the scene's narrow evocations to complexities that risk puncturing the mood just as surely as any substantive discussion might do.

To be sure, there's much that a good movie can offer beside smart talk and deep confidences; for that matter, the development of characters is a grossly overrated quality in movies, and some of the best directors often do little of it. There's also a realm of symbol, of gesture, of ideas, of emotions that arise from careful attention to images or a brusque gestural energy; that's where Guadagnino plants the movie, and that's where the superficiality of his artistry emerges all the more clearly. He has no sense of positioning, of composition, of rhythm, but he's not free with his camera, either; his actors are more or less in a constant proscenium of a frame that displays their action without offering a point of view.

The intimacy of Elio and Oliver is matched by very little cinematic intimacy. There are a few brief images of bodies intertwined, some just-offscreen or cannily framed sex, but no real proximity, almost no closeups, no tactile sense, no point of view of either character toward the other. Guadagnino rarely lets himself get close to the characters, because he seems to wish never to lose sight of the expensive architecture, the lavish furnishings, the travelogue locations, the manicured lighting, the accoutrements that fabricate the sense of "order and beauty, luxury, calm, and sensuality." All that's missing is the Web site offering Elio-and-Oliver tours through the Italian countryside, with a stopover at the Perlman villa. Instead of gestural or pictorial evocations of intimacy, the performers act out the script's emotions with a bland literalness that – due to the mechanistic yet vague direction – is often laughable, as in the case of the pseudo-James Dean-like grimacing that Guadagnino coaxes from Chalamet. Even the celebrated awkward dance that Oliver performs at an outdoor night spot was more exhilarating when performed to a Romanian song by an anonymous young man at a computer screen. Hammer is game, playful, and openhearted, but the scene as filmed is calculatedly cute and disingenuous. (Such faults in performance fall upon directors, not because they pull puppet strings but because they create the environment and offer the guidance from which the performances result, and then they choose what stays in the movie.)

There are moments of tenderness – telegraphed from miles away but nonetheless moving, as when Oliver grasps Elio's bare shoulder and then makes light of it, when he reaches out to touch Elio's hand, when Elio slides his bare foot over Oliver's – that are simply and bittersweetly affecting. They're in keeping with the story of a love affair of mutual discovery that is sheltered from social circumstances, from prejudice, from hostility, from side-eyes or religious dogma—and that nevertheless involves heartbreak. It's a story about romantic melancholy and a sense of loss as a crucial element of maturation and self-discovery, alongside erotic exploration, fulfillment, and first love. The idea of the film is earnest, substantial, moving, and quite beautiful – in its idea, its motivation, its motivating principle. It offers, in theory, a sort of melancholy romantic realism. But, as rendered by Guadagnino, it remains at the level of a premise, a pitch, an index card.

Near the end of the film, Professor Perlman delivers a monologue to Elio that concentrates the movie's sap of intellectualized understanding and empathy into a rich and potent Oscar syrup. The speech is moving and wise; Stuhlbarg's delivery of it, in inflection and gesture, is finely burnished. Here, Guadagnino's direction is momentarily incisive, in a way that it has not been throughout the film, perhaps because the professor's academicized liberalism toward matters of sex is the one thing that truly excites the director. The entire film is backloaded – and it's nearly emptied out in order for him to lay his cards, finally, on the table.

RICHARD BRODY | THE NEW YORKER | 28 Nov 2017

#Call Me by Your Name #Guadagnino #timothee chalamet #armie hammer #andre aciman #james ivory #reviews #CMBYN #Elio #Oliver #Perlman #Chiamami col tuo nome

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things2mustdo · 5 years

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Poor Bret Easton Ellis. For someone I imagine to be rather fastidious – years ago, a friend of mine visited his New York apartment, where he was a little surprised to be told not to touch any of its owner’s CDs – this can hardly be the easiest of Monday mornings. For one thing, Virgin Atlantic has lost his luggage. Ahead of my arrival at his pristine London hotel, he had to dash out to buy deodorant; his black tracksuit bottoms are faintly marked with a stain that may (or may not) be airline toothpaste. For another, I have an absolutely stinking cold. In the bar where we’re to talk – it’s called the Punch Room, which is appropriate, given the territory covered by his new book – he sits down, not at my table, but at the one next to it, which makes us both laugh. Is he really going to stay all the way over there? “Well,” he says, faux sheepish. “I’m so susceptible to these things, and I am on a book tour.” Reluctantly, he inches towards me.

Still, he is such a good sport. His manner is warm, and his face – pinker and heavier now than at the height of his literary fame, and topped with hair that is silver – bears a near-permanent smile. He talks and talks; he doesn’t watch his words; he is frequently very funny and sometimes a touch scabrous. All of which makes me wonder about the way he is treated both by some journalists and on social media. In the days before our meeting, I read a review of his new book that was so gratuitously spiteful, it fairly took the breath away. I also read an interview on the New Yorker website, one that had done brisk business on Twitter, causing indignation, outrage and glee wherever it appeared. People were saying that it dispatched the supposedly beyond-the-pale Ellis satisfyingly, and with utmost appropriateness. But it seemed to me to be mostly an exercise in baiting, interruption, disingenuousness and grandstanding on the part of its writer.

Ellis’s new book is his first for almost a decade, and his first work of nonfiction. It is called White, and is best described as a provocation, though it’s much more than that if you take the trouble to read it. Yes, there’s lots of goading about why he hates snowflakey millennials (“Generation Wuss”, as he has dubbed them). It attacks what he regards as the narcissism of the young, roundly dismisses the rush to offence and the cult of victimisation, and chases down the self-dramatising of those liberal Americans who must be passed the smelling salts at the mere mention of Donald Trump. Although he thinks the #MeToo movement had real meaning when it began, Ellis dislikes the way it has since extended to include, most recently, such supposed crimes as what some might call the overfriendliness of the former US vice-president Joe Biden. He is largely dismissive of identity politics, and despises the way that people can now be “cancelled” (erased from public life) over some relatively small but dumb thing they may have said in the past. Like I said, the book is a provocation – and it’s up to you, the reader, to choose to what degree you are prepared to allow yourself to be riled.

The first year of fame is always fun, then you spend the rest of your life trying not to be humiliated

But the essays in White also contain some pretty nifty film criticism; reading it, I felt for the first time in ages interested in Richard Gere again (and even, momentarily, in Charlie Sheen). There are interesting sections on Joan Didion and David Foster Wallace, and on what our cultural lives were like – more precious? More intensely felt? – before the internet. Ellis is good on his 1991 novel, American Psycho, and its strange prescience (we’ll come back to this). Above all, there are some neat flashes of memoir: in particular, an account of his 70s childhood in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, where he grew up the son of a wealthy property developer, and the friend of kids whose parents were directors and movie stars. As he notes, the world then was built for adults rather than children – something he experienced as freedom, and on which he looks back with gratitude. And here, perhaps, he places his finger firmly on one of the primary causes at the heart of the war of words that rages between his generation and that of his boyfriend of 10 years, the musician Todd Michael Schultz, who is 22 years his junior (yes, he lives with a millennial). What it comes down to is a question of timing, and of upbringing.

“I thought it was rather exciting,” he says, of a childhood that enabled him to see the films he wanted to see, and to read the books he wanted to read, unbridled by anxiety on the part of his carers (thanks to this, he developed as a teenager a passion for the films of Brian de Palma, the director of Carrie, Scarface and The Untouchables).

“This is not a blanket statement, but…” He guffaws, knowing full well that it absolutely is a blanket statement. “What I’ve noticed is a kind of helplessness in millennials. I didn’t realise this until lately, but I was on my own. My parents were narcissistic baby boomers, more interested in themselves than us [they would later divorce]. Not that they didn’t love us, but they were very wrapped up in their own lives.

“I do remember floating on my own. I had to grow up on my own. I had to figure things out for myself. I had some help. I’m not saying that I didn’t. But certainly, there wasn’t the overprotective bubble that so many of my friends raised their children in. Growing up, I didn’t know a single person on medication. None. On my boyfriend’s side of the aisle, though, there wasn’t anyone who wasn’t on something, including him. Growing up, I didn’t know anyone who wanted to victimised either; we wanted to be affected by stuff.” He emits a hammy sigh. “I don’t care if I sound old any more. I haven’t changed at all. I was the old man at 15.” He then launches into a brief and somewhat practised riff about the emotional support animals that people are now allowed to take on planes, should a medical professional have decreed such a creature beneficial to their mental health: “I can’t go anywhere without my chihuahua! Are you kidding me?”

White by Bret Easton Ellis review – sound, fury and insignificance

It is this mollycoddling, he believes, that accounts, in part, for what he regards as the total inability of his boyfriend’s generation to understand not only that others may have a different viewpoint to their own, but that it is entirely acceptable for them to do so. “It has disabled him in a lot of ways,” he says, of Schultz. White contains more than one account of his boyfriend’s liberal meltdowns in the face of Trump and his supporters. So how are things currently at their West Hollywood homestead? How did Schultz respond to the recent publication of the Mueller report? “He was very quiet for 24 hours,” says Ellis, not without satisfaction. “For two and a half years he had been praying for it: Mueller is going to save us. Then it came out, and it was: Mueller is a stooge. People have gotten so obsessed and so angry with Trump – you could say that they have been Trumped – and I have warned him about this. I have told him: you need cunning, you need a plan, you need to get someone good [as a candidate] and then you can get him out of there. But just screaming about the resistance and shouting that Russia is to blame for everything isn’t going to work.”

This makes me wonder: what’s the nature of their bond? (The two of them met at a dinner party.) “Mysterious!” whispers Ellis, loudly. Well, does Todd look to him for guidance? “Yes, he does. But I don’t know why it has lasted for 10 years. It is an intense friendship.” Does Todd make him laugh? “All the time, and I make him laugh, too. Also, what I’m talking about in the book takes up only about 10% of our time, though…” He can’t help himself. “Actually, he has become really anti-media, and against the Democratic party, too. He is a socialist, and he does believe in ‘tear it all the fuck down’, and I don’t believe that can ever happen in America. I think it’s a centrist country.” To be clear, however, Ellis also regards Trump as an “idiot” and “grotesque”. He did not vote for him, and thus is bewildered – or, at any rate, irritated – to be repeatedly described as an apologist for him. “Molly Jong-Fast, the daughter of Erica Jong, wrote this piece in the Daily Beast where she asked: How did he [Ellis] turn into this Maga cap-wearing ultra-conservative? These people have been raised to think their reactions to things are completely correct and that the other side is not only totally wrong but also therefore immoral, sexist, racist. All my book argues is: let’s have a conversation. But of course it has already been totalled in America. My ability to trigger millennials is insane.”

I have the impression that, unlike most writers, Ellis genuinely doesn’t care what people say in their reviews. On the page, he might sound pugnacious, even thin-skinned. But in person, he is cheerily blithe. Then again, for him it was ever thus. As he writes in White, to have a long-term career as a writer, it’s possible that you need to be hated as well as loved. When his first novel, Less Than Zero, made him famous at the age of just 21 – he was still a student at Bennington College when he completed this famously affectless account of the lives of a group of rich LA teenagers – it received as many bad reviews as good ones. “Simon & Schuster were taken to task for publishing the journals of a 21-year-old drug addict,” he says. “I remember newspaper op-eds about it, and it has been like that ever since. It’s just part of what my brand is.”

His third novel, American Psycho, starring the serial killer, investment banker and (yes!) Donald Trump worshipper, Patrick Bateman (later made into a faithful film starring Christian Bale and, more recently, a musical), was rejected by his publisher shortly before it was about to appear – when the decision was taken in November, 1990, its cover was already designed – after some at Simon & Schuster found themselves discomfited by what they saw as its misogynistic violence. In the end, Random House published it. Ellis sees the book now as something of a canary in the coal mine – and it’s hard not to disagree with him in a world where censorship, seen and unseen, is undoubtedly on the rise.

“That book wouldn’t be published now,” he says. “I mean, no one wanted to publish it then. Very few people came forward. I was just lucky. But what’s interesting is that I didn’t know until I was putting White together just how haunted I’d been by American Psycho. I can’t get away from Patrick Bateman. I mean, it was prescient, and not only because of Trump.” (Trump is mentioned 40 times in the novel, thanks to Bateman’s obsession with him; as Ellis writes in White, in the late 80s, Trump was, to some, an inspirational figure – and maybe this was why he felt more prepared than some on the left when he was elected president: “I once had known so many people who liked him.”)

At the time of American Psycho’s publication, he says, people conflated the crimes of Bateman with the attitudes of his creator – if Bateman was a woman-hater, then surely Ellis was, too – just as they’re now convinced that he supports Trump simply because he has had the temerity to criticise those who are opposed to the president. Thanks to this, he received death threats. Perhaps this is why it took him a while to admit that there were indeed things he and his most famous character had in common. The novel was born of the dislocation Ellis felt as he was writing it: if Bateman was living a double life, then so was he. In 1987, having moved to New York, he was still coming to terms with his sudden, glossy fame. It seemed to him that there were then two Brets: the party boy whose image appeared in newspapers and magazines alongside actors such as Robert Downey Jr and fellow members of the newly minted literary Brat Pack such as Jay McInerney (sometimes, Ellis barely knew he’d attended whichever opening was being reported), and the one whose anxiety and self-doubt were spiralling out of control, and who treated these conditions with a liberal use of cocaine and benzodiazepines.

Did fame screw him up? “A little bit, but it wasn’t something I was chasing, and it didn’t mean anything to me. The first year – ’85 to ’86 – it was fun. The first year of fame is always fun, then you spend the rest of your life trying not to be humiliated. People are suspicious of you for ever.” The Brat Pack was, he says, entirely a media construct. “I was never friends with Tama Janowitz[another of its members]. I barely knew her. There are these pictures of me and Jay with her that are reprinted all the time – and yet, those are the only three, and they were all taken at the same party. I wasn’t even hanging out with Jay that much. I got to know him much better after the Brat Pack thing went away.”

There is, he agrees, something almost inevitably disappointing about the career of a writer, particularly one who enjoys early success (at Bennington, he also knew Donna Tartt and Jonathan Lethem). “People would be shocked by how few books most writers sell. The writing career is not at all long.” Does this make him feel mournful? “No. I’ve never won a prize, there are advances I still haven’t made up: two of my books that were bestsellers still haven’t made their advances yet. My audience is… niche. But I’ve written the books I wanted to write, and I’m happy with them.”

These days, he spends his time writing film scripts and working on his podcast, which has a small but devoted audience of subscribers. Will he ever write another novel? “I can never say never. But the notion right now of using the novel as a form of artistic communication… I really don’t have that kind of story, or if I do, I want to tell them in movies or TV.” Does he believe it’s over for the novel generally? Though he agrees that novels are not such a big deal as they were when he was young, he still loves reading them. “I liked The Girls [Emma Cline’s 2016 novel about the Manson cult]. It had a consciousness, and I’m looking for that. But… The Woman at the Window [a bestselling thriller by AJ Finn]. Something like that is a style-free zone, and I can’t read it. The Girl on the Train [Paula Hawkins’s thriller]. That was a terrible book.” He slaps his thighs, delightedly. The internet, and the choice and speed it lends us, has led, he believes, to a reduction in what he calls “ardency” when it comes to books, films and TV. People don’t get passionate – we tend not to make a fetish of art – the way he did as a young man.

Is he happy? “I’m… mellow. Are you ever really happy? No. But I’m not miserable. There’s no point. I’m getting older. You realise: why am I so uptight about things? Why do I care? Everything matters a lot less. I was here in London in 2010, and then I was still in my absurd midlife crisis. I think there’s this notion that you’re being supplanted by younger men; you’re being aged out of the biological imperative that is the world. It happens to everyone, but it happens to women and gay men much earlier. You realise: oh, I’m not being looked at, and this person’s not interested in me, and I’m going to try and hold on to my youth, and colour my hair, and get a sports car. And then you realise: this is misery, and you think, fuck it, and you relax, and that’s freedom. The burdens of sex and having to be attractive and stay in shape are gone. It’s the pose. The pose is gone.”

He laughs loudly. “It gets to the point where even the notion of possible friskiness is oppressive.” What he says next is too filthy to print, but it makes me laugh, too – the mind that brought us what David Foster Wallace called Nieman Marcus nihilism (Patrick Bateman and his ultra-designer life, all labels and muscles) thinking only of elasticated waistbands, and sleep.

• White by Bret Easton Ellis is published by Picador (£16.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99

#bret easton ellis #essays #american psycho #books #culture

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entergamingxp · 5 years

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Temtem is the “Evolution” That Pokemon Sword and Shield Wasn’t

January 13, 2020 12:00 PM EST

Temtem might be heavily inspired by Pokemon, but it builds on the concept so strongly that it deserves merit in its own right.

Temtem is a lot like Pokemon. Let’s get that out in the open right away. Developer Crema has described Temtem as “a massively multiplayer creature-collection adventure inspired by Pokemon” on their Steam page. Their inspirations are open and unabashed. Many will look at this and simply dismiss it as a Pokemon clone, or an ascended fangame. But I feel that writing Temtem off so quickly is disingenuous; this is clearly a passion project that they have worked very hard on to differentiate it. The inspirations are worn openly on their sleeve, but Crema has done the legwork. It’s immensely rare that I’ve seen a game of such polished quality this early in the development phase.

So with that preamble out of the way, what is Temtem actually? What makes it stand out compared to Pokemon? Let’s dive in.

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What? Your Turn-Based Combat is Evolving!

You start your adventure in Temtem with a bit of light plot and backstory. You’re leaving your hometown to go attend school in the next town over, focused primarily on study and battle of Temtem. After a brief farewell with a selection of NPCs, you make a quick detour to the home of a local Temtem professor, who grants you one of three Temtem to begin your adventure with. You’ll have a quick introductory battle with your plucky rival, wherein you easily best h-

Wait. No. He actually one-shots you immediately using a rare and powerful type of Temtem that has type advantage on all three starters. Huh. That’s new! Either way, with this crushing defeat under your belt, the Professor grants you a second Temtem: a toucan-inspired bird named Tuwai.

Sidenote: I am contractually obligated by DualShocker’s EiC to insist that Tuwai should have been named Toucanslam.

With these two Temtem, you begin your journey proper. Though your immediate goal is to reach the next town and attend classes, there’s nonetheless an encounter with the first Dojo leader along the way. There’s eight of these, and besting the trainers at all of them would surely make you a master of Temtem. As you progress, you’ll encounter an evil organization named Clan Belsoto that you need to stop from achieving their unsavory aims. All the while, you explore the world, find new creatures to battle or capture, defeat all other Temtem tamers in your way… pretty standard stuff for the genre, and it probably sounds a lot like a Pokemon game by now.

But the details are what Temtem excels at. Almost immediately, trying to sink into the old habits of Pokemon will be rebuffed with mechanical alterations and twists. Even from the outset, battles will require strategy and careful consideration. Sure, the average wild Tateru or Pigepic is unlikely to be too threatening, but they’re not going to roll over and die for you either. Allow me to list a few critical systems that allow Temtem to stand out from genre conventions.

Double Battles. You’re granted a second Temtem immediately, and all battles allow you to field two creatures. You might find solo Temtem in the wild or on the occasional tamer, but you can always wield two. This immediately starts affecting strategy, and that’ll become more apparent very quickly.

Moves Require Stamina. Pokemon fans are used to using a set move until it runs out of PP and can’t be used. Temtem instead sees a general Stamina bar for each creature, which starts at full and replenishes a little each turn. As long as you have Stamina to use the move, there’s no problem. If you don’t have the Stamina, you can still use the move, but the excess Stamina will draw from your health and cause your creature to miss the next turn. You also have the option to wait a turn without using a move, if you so wish.

Some Moves Have Cooldowns. In addition to Stamina, some moves cannot be used until the Temtem has been active for a set amount of turns. They then go on cooldown after use for a similar set of turns. This is usually combined with Stamina in some way; stronger moves might have a cooldown for less stamina usage, or else they have a high stamina cost but can be used immediately.

Standardized and Stackable Status Effects. If you inflict Poison or Sleep on an enemy, it will always last a set amount of turns. Damage and debuffs are consistent. Also, you can inflict multiple status effects at once; a Temtem can be affected by two at once, and newer effects will overwrite the oldest one.

Synergy Effects. Certain moves will receive boosts or additional effects based on what kind of Temtem their partner is. My Mental starter Houchic has a move called Energy Manipulation that inflicts damage and the Exhaust status. If the partner Temtem is of a nature type, that damage and status duration is increased. Once again, planning and team composition become more important.

No RNG. Every move has perfect accuracy! Every status effect will land! There are no critical hits! When you use a move or engage in a turn, you can guarantee that it’s going to impact, unless otherwise canceled out by an enemy effect (or your Temtem is defeated before it’s used).

This is only a selection of adjustments and considerations that Temtem employs to spice up the somewhat old turn-based, menu-driven combat of the genre. And this is only a few of the critical differences because there are definitely more; Temtem traits, stat training, individual stat values amongst the species, breeding, and so on. There’s a wealth of combat options under the hood for the clever tamer to employ.

None of this would count for anything if there was no way to utilize it, though. Pokemon has a wealth of options with movesets, but it adequately doesn’t factor into the game until you start playing competitively. Picking a single Pokemon and sweeping your way to the endgame isn’t just a viable strategy… it’s the ideal one. Temtem bucks that trend by offering more of a challenge even in the basic tamer battle.

Attempting to blast your way through with strong moves? Health pools tend to be larger in Temtem, so you’ll get a significant advantage but then drain your stamina and be left vulnerable for a time. Otherwise, your moves might be locked by cooldowns, so it’s best to utilize status effects or soften them with lighter attacks. Type advantages and disadvantages remain — there are 12 different types in Temtem, reminiscent of Pokemon but condensed somewhat — and can stack up to 4x. Still, I’ve found even these don’t guarantee a one-shot at similar levels. Enemy tamers and wild Temtem have some semblance of strategy that they employ, and are leveled up in a way that kept them a fair challenge without stopping to explore or grind.

Even with all these changes, many long-accepted systems remain in place. Using a move that’s the same type as your Temtem grants it a damage bonus. Moves are split into physical and special categories, with a different defense stat tied to each. Temtem with higher speeds will move first, though moves have a priority system that can interrupt that if they’re fast/slow enough. Temtem will evolve into stronger forms after a time; evolution is based on the levels they’ve gained since joining you, however, rather than always at a specific threshold. It goes on and on.

Stats Aplenty

Uncertain of what to expect when going into the game, I quickly found myself given a wealth of options and considerations for battles that immediately enticed my tactical mind. I had to weigh my choices, make good use of items, plan my moves… I was engaged with the system from the outset. The new creatures, moves, evolved forms, types, synergies… all of it made for a far more compelling battle system than I had expected. Persona 5 is a stand out example of how to make actions matter in a turn-based RPG, and now Temtem is promising to do similarly for monster collecting games.

Now, it’d be reasonably easy to get absolutely flooded by information given all the elements at play here. Thankfully, Temtem takes a few commendable steps in how it presents the details you need. First, it provides clear and well-designed tutorials as the game unfolds. They’re paced well instead of dumping exposition on you all at once, plus they’re also completely optional if you already are familiar with the systems. Further information is just a mouseover away (or hover if you’re using a controller), so it need not bog down the screen unless you need it.

Once you’ve gotten past the initial steps and are actively seeking out the information, though, Temtem has you covered. Much of the advanced or esoteric information that is unclear in a lot of games are readily accessible here. Beyond just your levels and stats, you can see every move your Temtem has learned (and you can swap them out between battles). You can see the individual stats that your Temtem has, how much stat training points it has accrued, the cooldown and synergies of moves, and so on. Accessing the Tempedia, you can also quickly cycle through some of the Temtem’s animations, as well as read the traits they can get and the stat Training Value it gives on defeat. It’s all just a click or two away when you need it.

Perhaps the only piece of information I couldn’t find at the drop of a hat was a type matchup chart, but hopefully Crema will include that in later versions.

“It’s incredible to consider just how well polished and presentable Temtem is.”

Speaking of type matchups, the target will be marked as gold or red for effective or ineffective type matches in battles… but only if you’ve got a member of that evolutionary line in your party. It’s a decent balance between providing unknown information in combat and encouraging the player to learn and remember.

It’s incredible to consider just how well polished and presentable Temtem is. Playing for about a dozen hours, I didn’t even come close to exhausting the content on offer. I took my time exploring and tend to be quite methodical, but there’s a tremendous amount of content already good to go. The art style and graphical design is strong, consistent, and pleasant to look at. Under the hood, the systems are functional and sophisticated, yet I rarely ran into any kind of performance issue or a bug. Temtem’s quality would stand out compared to some full-priced triple-A releases at launch, and yet it’s only in a closed technical alpha.

This is all the more impressive when you consider something I’ve yet to speak about: this is a massively multiplayer online game.

From the very outset, I was seeing other players present in the world. There was a functional chat that I could jump into. A slew of multiplayer functionality including full co-op play, casual or competitive battling, trading… that’s all present and correct, even at this early state. Shout-outs to JoCat and Skill Up, who I saw running around in-game. Temtem is still built with the notion that you can play solo just fine and not have to interact with anyone else, but the fact that it all just worked so seamlessly means anyone encouraged to interact won’t have to try too hard.

Aged Up For the Pokemon Veteran

I honestly wasn’t sure how I felt about Temtem when going into the alpha. I’ve had my eye on it for long enough that I quickly raised my hand at the opportunity to preview it. Nonetheless, I had really been struggling to find the spark in Pokemon style games for a while and wasn’t sure that this would resonate any better with me. Not only did Temtem exceed my expectations in pretty much every regard, but it also helped me realize what I failed to feel in Pokemon for some time now: respect for the series veteran.

I’m an old hand among the video game playing crowd by now. Pokemon Red was far from the first game I ever played, but it was one of the first I ever specifically sought out. I played it until I was broke from spending so much on AA batteries for my Game Boy. It’s a cherished memory and one of the major stepping stones that set me on my games player/writer path. From then on, I would usually pick up and play any new mainline Pokemon releases.

And yet… with every passing generation of Pokemon, I approached it with increasingly less enthusiasm.

I was 10-years-old when I played Gen 1. I’m now in my 30s, and I have played through this song and dance so many times. I know what to expect, I know the strategies, I know the formula. But rather than accept that this might be a possibility and provide difficulty options or challenge, Pokemon simply stays the course. Sure, there’s a universal appeal to Pokemon at its heart, but it really struggles to grasp me beyond this. Every new game feels like it’s aimed at 10-year-old Kris, never reaching beyond. Tentative steps towards something more meaningful or improved are occasionally taken, but they’re rarely committed to and often are accompanied by multiple steps backward.

“Not only did Temtem exceed my expectations in pretty much every regard, but it also helped me realize what I failed to feel in Pokemon for some time now: respect for the series veteran.”

It’s easier than ever to power level your team to the point of devastating all opponents. Trainers rarely have a full lineup of six Pokemon. The enemy levels always feel lower than necessary to be a threat. There’s little that amounts to strategy or careful planning beyond “spam type effective move to easy victory.” Hell, sometimes even choosing type effective moves is overkill. All of this could be assuaged by a more exciting plot, but they remain incredibly basic and child-friendly. Instead, I just gather my team of favorite designs and power on through.

I held out hope that Sword and Shield would take steps to address this, but quite frankly? They didn’t. The overall negativity surrounding Dexit didn’t help matters, either. So after careful consideration, I didn’t buy them. Instead, I went back and did a Nuzlocke run of Heart Gold, having a very merry time in the process. That is very likely where my experience with the mainline Pokemon will end. Despite my love for these cute creatures, and my multiple decade connection to them, I just find nothing to draw me in anymore that I cannot get with the games I already own. It’s Mystery Dungeon or nothing for me, most likely.

Or maybe it’s just me.

Nonetheless, this was the state of mind that I approached Temtem with. Coupled with my background and the robust mechanical systems on display, I walked away with a smile on my face. Temtem is a game made by people who clearly respect Pokemon, but more than that: they respect the long-time Pokemon veteran who wants to see the series grow into something more. In this one closed alpha of an indie developer, I have experienced more development of the Pokemon formula than I have in the better part of 20 years of Game Freak’s games.

“Temtem has enough options and complexity to appeal even to those who have Caught ‘Em All before.”

Crema has their finger firmly on the pulse of the jaded Pokemon fan. Temtem has enough options and complexity to appeal even to those who have Caught ‘Em All before. But even with that in mind, it’s far from unapproachable to newcomers or younger audiences. I genuinely think there is something for everyone here, and I cannot wait to see how it develops from this point forward.

Temtem will be available on Steam Early Access from January 21st, with console releases planned once the Early Access period ends. There will be a handful of server stress tests before this; you can find a full list of dates and times on the Steam page. I’ve gone from a curious bystander to an eager follower in just a dozen hours of playtime, so there’s little doubt I’ll be in-game somewhere.

January 13, 2020 12:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/01/temtem-is-the-evolution-that-pokemon-sword-and-shield-wasnt/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=temtem-is-the-evolution-that-pokemon-sword-and-shield-wasnt

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citizentruth-blog · 6 years

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I Didn't Vote or Campaign for Hillary. Please Don't Use the Separation of Immigrant Families to Try to Shame Me for It. - PEER NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/i-didnt-vote-or-campaign-for-hillary-please-dont-use-the-separation-of-immigrant-families-to-try-to-shame-me-for-it/

I Didn't Vote or Campaign for Hillary. Please Don't Use the Separation of Immigrant Families to Try to Shame Me for It.

If you want to talk about my white privilege, fine. If you want to talk about what I could have done for vulnerable immigrant groups and can do going forward, I’m genuinely sorry, and with you. If you want to shame me for my vote for a third-party candidate, however, I reject your ignorance of electoral realities and your political bigotry. (Image Source: CBS News via YouTube)

I don’t often share personal experiences in my political writing, mostly because I feel like I’d be sharing stories that no one wants to hear. That still may very well be the case, but seeing as this situation was made relevant to the ongoing crisis facing the separation of immigrant families, I figured I would highlight my experience as a way of talking about the related issues.

A now-former friend on Facebook, who is a leader/organizer on behalf of a nonprofit organization, recently took to social media to ask whether any Jill Stein voters would like to apologize for their choice in the wake of said crisis. I, as someone who voted for Stein, took umbrage to this comment, if for no other reason than it seemed particularly haughty of him to begin the conversation on these terms. Granted, I could’ve (and probably should’ve) not engaged at all, but I did, and so here we are.

First, a note about my vote for Jill Stein: I am neither an ardent supporter of Stein nor am I am a Green Party fanatic. I also don’t fully know what the heck the point was of the recount she spearheaded or ultimately what exactly became of the money raised to fund recount efforts. For some of you, I suppose that just makes it worse: that I would just up and support a third-party nominee of whom I am not a follower despite being a registered Democrat. In this sense, my vote can be seen as somewhat of a betrayal.

I also should note that I supported Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, and voted for him in my state’s Democratic primary. By this point, I had no illusions that Bernie would capture the nomination; my home state, New Jersey, was one of the last handfuls of primaries to be held in the 2016 election season, and several media outlets were already calling the nomination in Hillary’s favor before the polls could open. Accordingly, you might see my refusal to cast my ballot for Clinton, too, as a manifestation of the “Bernie or Bust” mantra. Although technically I did vote, just not for a representative of either major political party. Nor did I write in Sanders’s name as a protest vote. Or Harambe’s, even though I’m told he would’ve loved to see the election results.

When it came down to it, though, I didn’t feel like Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party did enough to try to win my vote—simply put. To me, Clinton’s campaign was emblematic of a larger strategic flaw that characterizes the Dems: too much capitulation to centrists, too dismissive of concerns about reliance on corporate and wealthy donors, too little regard for the concerns of working-class Americans and grass-roots organizers until it comes time to donate or vote. To me, Hillary’s pitch seemed largely tone-deaf if not disingenuous, plagued by secrecy about E-mail servers and Goldman Sachs speeches as well as ill-advised comments about “deplorables,” among other things. And for those of you already raising a finger to wag about the deleterious aspects of the Republican Party and its nominee, I never even remotely considered Donald Trump or another GOP candidate for my vote. At present, that’s a line I won’t cross, in jest or otherwise.

Thus, despite her evident misunderstanding of quantitative easing, I voted for Jill Stein—not because I thought she could win or because I feared Trump could—but because I felt the values she and her campaign expressed most closely matched mine. That’s it. I imagine many Trump voters felt the same way re values—that is, they supported his economic or social platform more than him or his antics, though if that’s the case, I don’t know how much that says about their values. I’m just trying to get the idea across that people’s “support” for particular candidates can be more nuanced than today’s political discourse might otherwise suggest.

My voting mindset, therefore, was not “strategic” in the sense that I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton specifically to block Donald Trump. In light of my state’s final tally, it would seem my vote was unnecessary in this regard, though I could not know that for sure at the time I cast my ballot. Clinton came out ahead in New Jersey by more than 13 percentage points and close to 500,000 more votes, and thanks to the Electoral College and our winner-takes-all style of deciding these matters, all 14 of the Garden State’s electoral votes went to her. Stein did not even manage a third-place showing, being bested by the likes of Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s candidate.

This was the crux of my initial rebuttal about the need to apologize for my vote. While on a state-by-state basis, the notion of Johnson and Stein being “spoilers” may or may not have more validity (more on that in a bit), in my state, it did not. Regardless, to point fingers at lowly third parties deflects a lot of blame, and to borrow a term from Ralph Nader, who faced similar finger-pointing following the 2000 election, is to succumb to a high degree of “political bigotry.” In other words, it’s scapegoating perpetrated by members of major parties to distract from their need for substantive reform.

In addition to the culpable parties oft-cited by Clinton’s supporters and defenders—namely Russia, James Comey, and sexism (this last one may or may not be so true depending on the context or individual voter’s mindset, but that’s a whole different kit and caboodle)—there’s ample room to consider what role other groups played or, in theory, could have played. After all, what about the people who could vote and didn’t? What about the people who couldn’t vote but perhaps should be afforded the privilege, such as convicted felons? And what about the folks who actually voted for Donald Trump? Are they to be absolved of responsibility because they didn’t know better? If so, where is this written?

Additionally, what does it say that someone like Clinton, vastly more qualified than her opponent and, from the look and sound of things, quantifiably more capable, lost to someone in Trump to whom she had no business losing? For all the justifications for Hillary Clinton failing to capture an electoral majority—let’s not forget the fact she won the popular vote, an issue in it of itself when considering it’s not the deciding factor in presidential victories—we shouldn’t overlook some questionable decisions made by the Clinton campaign, including, perhaps most notably, how she and her campaign paid relatively low attention to important battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Of course, even in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania where Clinton campaigned heavily, she still lost, so maybe any establishment Democrat the party trotted out might’ve met with the same resistance fed by blue-collar whites flocking to Trump. Still, one can’t shake the sense Hillary approached the final throes of the campaign with a certain sense of arrogance.

To my ex-FB-friend, however, my reasoning was insufficient, and at this point, one of his colleagues, who happens to be a person of color, interceded to agree with his sentiments. As far as they were concerned, my support for Jill Stein may have influenced people in states more susceptible to a Trump win to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton. I guess, for the sake of an analogy, my thoughts could’ve “infected” those of otherwise discerning voters to make them vote the “wrong” way. My assignment of blame to Hillary despite the forces working against her was panned as well, as was my diminishment of Stein as a spoiler. All in all, they contended, my position was one that exhibited my white privilege and made me sound—quote unquote—morally reprehensible.

As far as I am concerned, if I’m morally reprehensible—fine. You can call me a serpent demon, for all I care. The legitimacy of the arguments within is what interests me. On the subject of my potential game-changing pro-Stein influence, though it’s possible, it’s highly unlikely. In my immediate circle, I told few people unless specifically asked who I planned to vote for. I also wrote a post back in 2016 about why I planned to vote for Jill Stein and posted to Facebook, but—let’s be clear—hardly anyone reads my writing. My own mother doesn’t even read it most of the time. From her standpoint, my entries are of the TL;DR ilk, and what’s more, they tend to be devoid of pictures of cute animals or how-to makeup videos. Fair enough, Mom.

On the subject of Jill Stein as the spoiler, while it’s true that Stein’s numbers may have been larger than Trump’s margin of victory in key states, to say that all those votes would have gone to Hillary instead makes an assumption which may be accurate, or it may not. Again, however, it doesn’t change the contention that the race shouldn’t have been this close in the first place. Weeks after the 2016 election, as vote counts were yet being finalized in too-close-to-call contests, Jim Newell wrote as much in a piece for Slate. He argued:

The lesson of the Comey letter should not be that everything was just going fine until this singular event happened. Obviously Democratic candidates can pick up some tips for the future, such as a) always be sure to follow email protocol and b) keep your electronic devices as far as possible from Anthony Weiner. But they can never rule out some other Comey-equivalent October surprise. The question to ask is: Why was the Clinton campaign so susceptible to a slight shock in the first place? A campaign is resting on a very weak foundation if one vague letter from the FBI causes it to lose a huckster who sells crappy steaks at the Sharper Image.

The “Jill Stein or James Comey cost Hillary the election” narrative is akin to the narrative that Bernie Sanders did irreparable harm to the Democratic Party. You’re telling me that one man not even officially affiliated with the Democrats as a U.S. senator permanently damaged the entire party apparatus? To me, charging Sanders with potentially bringing ruin to the Dems says more about party’s infrastructural integrity (or lack thereof) than it does the intensity of his so-called “attacks” on Hillary Clinton as her primary challenger.

On the subject of my white privilege, meanwhile, well, they’re right. Let me say I don’t dispute this. I enjoy a certain amount of privilege on a daily basis and have almost certainly benefited from it over the course of my educational career and my professional life. Going back to the state-by-state basis of variation in election results, though, the biggest issue would appear to be my geographic privilege. If I lived in a state projected to be much closer based on polling data, might I have chosen differently?

Perhaps. It’s a decision I’m weighing on a smaller scale as we speak with Sen. Bob Menendez seeking re-election in New Jersey after a poor showing in the Democratic Party primary. Sure, Menendez is still the likely winner come November, but with doubts raised about the ethics of his behavior still fresh in voters’ minds, can I take his win for granted? On the other hand, if I do vote for him, what does this say about my values as a voter? Is choosing the “lesser of two evils” sufficient, considering we’ve been doing it for some time now and the state of democracy in this country doesn’t seem to be all that much better for it? These are the kinds of questions I don’t take likely.

Another issue invoked at around the same point in this discussion was whether I had done as much as I could to prevent Trump from winning. For what it’s worth, I wrote a piece separate from my pro-Jill Stein confessional right before the election about why you shouldn’t, under any circumstances, vote for Trump, but as I already acknowledged, my readership is very limited. At any rate, and as my online detractors insisted, I didn’t vote for Hillary, and what’s more, I didn’t campaign on her behalf. I could’ve “easily” made calls or knocked on doors or what-have-you for her sake at “no cost” to me, but I didn’t. As a result, according to them, I was complicit in her electoral defeat.

Could I have told people to vote for Hillary Clinton? Sure. I don’t consider myself any great person-to-person salesman, but I could’ve made an effort. Although this would present a weird sort of dissonance between my advocacy and my personal choice. Why am I instructing people not to vote for Trump and choose Clinton instead when I myself am choosing neither? Then again, I could’ve chosen to vote for Hillary, or simply lied about my choice, assuming anyone ever asked. I also could’ve tried to lobotomize myself with a fork to forget anything that happened leading up to the election. That’s the thing with hypotheticals—you can go any number of ways with them, no matter how unlikely or painful.

Eventually, it became evident that these two gentlemen were demanding that I apologize, but in a way that could make them feel better about accepting me as one of them—a liberal, a progressive, a member of the “Resistance, etc.—rather than simply apologizing to immigrant populations and people of color for “putting my white privilege above” their more immediate worries. My original critic was unequivocal in his demands: “You need to apologize.” His colleague and my second critic, reacting to my expressed feeling that relitigating the 2016 election only to quarrel among various factions on the left was of limited use and that we need to be more forward-thinking in our approach to 2018, 2020, and beyond, was likewise stern in his disapproval. As he stressed, you can’t just do something shitty, say “let’s move on,” and be done with it. I would have to admit my wrongdoing, or he and others would reserve the right to judge me negatively. Such was my “choice.”

Ultimately, my parting remarks were to reiterate my positions as stated above and to insist that people not be shamed for their vote as part of some scapegoating exercise against third-party/independent voters. I also closed by telling my second critic in particular—someone very critical of me on a personal level despite barely knowing me—that I hope his recruitment efforts as an organizer are handled with more aplomb. End of discussion, at least on my end, and click on that Unfriend button. Now you guys don’t have to fret about having to work with me—because I won’t work with you unless I have to.

The unfortunate thing about this conversation—other than that I let it happen—was that it grew so contentious despite the idea we seemed to agree on a lot of points. For one, I conceded my privilege in voting the way I did, something I have characterized as not merely being about race, but of geographical privilege as well. I would submit that admitting privilege is only a small part of the solution, however.

A more constructive recognition of inequality between people of different ethnicities, I would argue, involves advocacy for those who can’t vote, those who should be able to vote, or those who can vote, but otherwise ,find obstacles in access to the polls. On the latter note, there are numerous reforms that can be enacted or more widely used to expand the voter pool in a legitimate way. These include automatic voter registration, increased availability of the absentee ballot and early voting options, making Election Day a national holiday, and opening and staffing additional polling places in areas where election officials are unable to meet the demand of voting constituents.

Moreover, these issues can be addressed concomitantly with issues that affect all voters, including the electoral vote vs. the popular vote, ensuring the integrity of machine-based voting with paper records, gerrymandering designed purely for one party’s political advantage, the influence of Citizens United on campaign finance laws, and ranked-choice voting as an alternative to a winner-takes-all format. American elections have a lot of avenues for potential improvement, and particularly salient are those that disproportionately affect people of color.

I also conceded that I could have done more and can still do more on behalf of undocumented immigrant families, especially as it regards the separation of children from their parents, and this recognition more than anything merits an apology on my part, so to those negatively impacted by the policies of this administration, I am sorry. By this token, many of us could probably do more. Hearing of so many horror stories of young children being traumatized and parents being deliberately deceived by Border Patrol agents is disheartening, to say the least, and as powerless as many of us may feel in times like these, there are ways to contribute, even if it seems like something fairly small.

There seems to be no shortage of marches and protests designed to elevate awareness of the severity of the crisis facing immigrants and asylum seekers, notably from Mexico and Central America, as well as groups devoted to advocating for and defending the most vulnerable among us that can use your contributions. RAICES (the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) jump to mind, but there are numerous possible recipients of much-needed donations. As always, be sure to do your homework regarding the reputation of any charity you seek out.

Though it may go without saying, you can also contact the office of your senators and the representative of your district to express your desire that they support any legislation which puts an end (hint: not the House GOP bill) to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance policy” on illegal immigration, and to thank them for signing on in the event they do. If they don’t accede to or even acknowledge your request, keep trying. As it must be remembered, these lawmakers serve us—not the other way around.

The point I refuse to concede, however, is that I should apologize for my vote for Jill Stein in a state won by Hillary Clinton when I neither voted for nor supported Donald Trump, when both major parties have contributed to destructive immigration policies over the years, when Democrats lost an election they most likely shouldn’t have lost, and when this same losing party refuses to own its shortcomings and open the door to real reform, instead only becoming more calcified. That is, I certainly won’t apologize merely to assuage the concerns of fellow Democrats and liberals. Now is the time for a dialog, not a lecture, and certainly not the time for endless dissection of the 2016 presidential election and guilting conscientious objectors. At a point when we should be working together, I reject this means of tearing one another apart.

With Allies Like Trump, Who Needs Enemies?

#2016 Election #Bernie Sanders #donald trump #Hillary Clinton #immigrant children #immigrant families separation #Jill Stein #Ralph Nader

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