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somnianus · 3 years ago

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On Chinese and Eastern Dramatic Acting vs Western

Part 1 Part 2

Mostly in ref to the Untamed/Word of Honor, but applies to a lot of East Asian works-

I’ve been getting the sense that people I know from the west (also being Asian-American myself) often interpret Chinese/Japanese/Korean drama and theatre to be too corny/cheesy/over-acted. A quick search on some internet forums confirms this. Maybe it’s because I used to watch a lot of C-dramas when I was a kid (Legend of the Condor Heroes/Return of C Heroes/Journey to the West/The Reincarnated Princess/etc), I personally did not notice that the acting was over the top.

I don’t really speak for the quality of acting of these actors because I barely follow them in their careers, but I do know that some of them are immature actors or don’t have much formal training (which may cause the cheesiness above). However, Eastern dramatic acting in general does seem like a common complaint, so I decided to look into it - this is all coming from someone who JUST recently got back into watching C-dramas btw, doing my own research so don’t mind me if there’s some incorrect things down here, I am by NO means at all an expert in drama and theater (lol):

^Villains are often depicted with very exaggerated facial expressions (Above, Xue Yang, The Untamed)

Part 1

1. Chinese concept of mo vs western equivalent of “mimesis” or “imitation”

From this, an excellent chapter on Chinese theatrical concepts vs Western concepts.

Mo plays a significant part in traditional Chinese theatre, usually held to be antithetical to the realism of Western theatre because of its emphasis on theatricality.

Mo means mimesis or imitation, but in a very different sense from the Western concept. One of the first Chinese scholars to use this term, Fu Sinian, used it to compare Western theatre to Chinese theatre:

Presenting a real event and performing an entertaining show are not compatible. The former emphasizes imitation (yige zhong mofang^b); the latter stresses spontaneity and entertainment. The former performance produces a lifelike image; the latter has nothing to produce. The former puts emphasis on the plot; the latter puts emphasis on theatricality. Therefore they are completely contradictory to one another.

This guy actually goes onto critique Chinese theater, saying it should be more like Western realism, so that there will “be no singing, and the acting will imitate people’s real gestures.” However! Other Chinese critics tried to approach Western vs traditional Chinese drama as two DIFFERENT but still valid forms of art. For example, Yu Shangyuan (1927) said western performance is “writing realistically” (xie shi) and chinese performance as “writing suggestively” (xie yi). Western dramas really rely on an accurate/semi-accurate representation of life and realism. Traditional Chinese drama and acting relied on the “symbolic and imaginative.”

Then what is mo? It is the emotional display, the emotional revelation, that is shown on stage. Starting from the Yuan dynasty, the Chinese drama was thought to be a continuation of poetry rather than its own independent stage art.

Poetry is where the intent of the heart goes. Lying in the heart, it is “intent”; when uttered in words, it is “poetry.” When an emotion stirs inside, one expresses it in words; finding this inadequate, one sighs over it; not content with this, one sings it in poetry; still not satisfied, one unconsciously dances with one’s hands and feet. [anonymous, 1975, from Shi Daxu 200 BCE]

Chinese drama with dancing and singing, was the most expressive product of poetry. The importance of mo cannot be stressed enough - it is the measure by which traditional Chinese drama was judged, how well this drama make you feel? Love, pain, loss, guilt, happiness? Plot becomes something that doesn’t matter as much (more on that later).

^Beijing/Peking Opera - highly stylized, emotive, “unrealistic” performances

To emphasize how central and important this concept is, it’s thought that a good Chinese playwright never fails to “seize a highly dramatic scene to stage an elaborate presentation of an emotional state.”

Love is of source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper. The living may die of it, by its power the dead live again. [Peony Pavilion, Mu dan ting]

This quote really shows how important it was to show these emotions on stage, to inspire the audience to feel deeply. Chinese critics believed that the best part about drama was how efficient it is to display emotion. Playwrights should “depict extreme bitterness, extreme happiness, extreme silliness, and extreme sobriety; imitate these feelings to the utmost (miao mo jin xing^p).”

Such performances are not necessarily accurately mimicking reality, but they are obtained through the “revelation” of a character’s internal emotional world.

2. Mo vs the depiction of reality or theatrical truth

The Chinese concept of aesthetic truth relates a lot to theatrical truth. In a lot of traditional Chinese art, painting, poetry, etc, aesthetic truth is not empirical, and doesn’t have to be accurate to life, or realistic. It’s a “truth that lies beyond mere superficial likeness.”

To the Chinese artist, an accurate resemblance between art and reality is not only superficial but often distorting. Chinese artists hold a dialectical view on the “form” (xing) and the “spirit” or “content” (shen) of an artistic object. According to them, xing and shen are not always complementary. On the contrary, they often stand in opposition to one another. (referenced in the chapter above)

Traditional Chinese artists would rather represent the object with the wish that their representation matches its spirit, or abstract identity, than its actual form because a “photographic image is a shallow image.” It’s easy to draw a picture of something realistically, but it’s much harder and more satisfying to depict its nature, its feeling, its spirit.

This also naturally affects theater and dramatic performances.

Dramatic writing can be divided into two types: “a painting-like work” or a “transformed work,” in which the latter has higher artistic value because it reaches more towards the essence of dramatic object. Realistic imitations are fine, but they’re not really enough to reveal the mo or true feelings of something.

In addition, traditional Chinese dramatists believe that “all dramas are nothing but allegories. One need not ask about their origins in actual life.” You might be able to see, then, that these older playwrights and critics really fancied the overdramatic depictions of emotions.

a. The Chinese notion of theatrical truth/aesthetic truth vs European

Onto what we, as part of the Western audience, are more used to:

For Italian neoclassical critics, the pleasure of a drama hinges on how accurate, how realistic, the depiction is. Castelvetro, the leading Italian Neo-Classical critic and creator of the concept of “the three unities,” claims thus:

We cannot imagine a king who did not exist, nor attribute any action to him.

Another Italian critic, Robortellus, said that a creative/imaginative story with no “verisimilitude” (truthfulness, in this context, realism) is less appealing than one that imitates a real-life event:

Thus if a tragic plot contained an action which did not really take place and was not true, but was represented by the poet himself in accordance with verisimiltude, it would perhaps move the souls of the auditors, but certainly less.

So basically, it’s fundamentally the opposite of Chinese theater. Italian dramatic works prized being realistic, being properly adapted from reality and real events. Chinese dramatic works, however, enjoyed the emphasis on heartfelt emotional demonstrations, or mo. Even in critical writings, the word “truth” is used, but it is usually used to modify the word “heart” or “emotion.” It is very concerned with the internal, the truthfulness of heartfelt emotional expression.

Taken these contexts, you can see why the Chinese stage/dramas are wholly “unreal” as Tao-Ching Hsu puts it. Everything, the makeup, the costumes, the props, is expressive and suggestive rather than imitative.

b. Bejing/Peking Opera, jingju

A famous example is the Beijing/Peking Opera, jingju. The makeup and costumes themselves are fantastical representations. The colors and patterns suggest different moods, temperaments, characters, and even changes in emotions. Actors would make distinct movements to depict distinct emotions with varying levels of energy. The stage itself may be sparse, because it is not as important as the expression of emotion and drama.

The stage is sparse not because of the lack of technology or funding, but because it leaves room for the actor themselves to fully express their internal thinking/feeling/emotions. Characters can cross hundreds of miles in a few steps or may take the whole stage to cross a supposed road. This representation looks “unreal” to a realistic-minded audience, but it is very genuine to a Chinese audience.

Summary (so far)

This crucial understanding of the concept of mo (the emotional revelation), and the way traditional Chinese drama depicts life and stories, informs how their modern works are also portrayed. Coming from a Western dramatic background, where realism and plot are the most important aspects of a work, it can be very confusing, right? Even Chinese scholars began to judge their own dramatic works through a Western lens.

How does this traditional background affect modern Chinese dramas and works? I think it still has a very large effect, even though much of Western ideals about dramatic works have been heavily integrated into modern Chinese dramas.

Part 2: On Theatricality and how it transfers into Chinese Cinema

#cdramas #theater #acting style #beijing opera #the untamed #word of honor #kdramas #jdramas #theatricality #east asian cinema

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i-dreamed-i-had-a-son · 5 years ago

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Can I just say Bones does not get nearly enough credit for how well he reads people?? Like, we all forget that he is not only a doctor, he's a psychiatrist as well. And not only is he insanely good at reading Jim, we also see him read and understand Spock (who is his opposite and with whom he frequently disagrees) and push him when it's necessary. It's Bones' words that make some of the most powerful exchanges out of all the 79 original episodes. Here is proof (and there's a lot of it):

Balance of Terror

Jim's doubting himself and is dealing with a lot of stress because of all his responsibilities and the burden of making decisions, and asks Bones, "What if I'm wrong?" This is an incredibly vulnerable moment for Jim, who always has to be strong, and when Bones starts to answer, Jim gets up and says "I wasn't really expecting an answer."

Bones immediately puts his hand on his shoulder, stops him, and says, "Well, I've got one." Completely unexpected by Jim. Bones starts off by saying "This isn't something I'd usually tell a customer," then gives the speech we all probably know, about how there are millions of possible earth-like planets, "but in all of that, and possibly more, only one of each of us. Don't destroy the one named Kirk."

Let's break down why this is so good. First, Bones lets Jim know that he sees how vulnerable Jim is being and that he's talking to Jim as a friend. He recognizes that Jim's identity is fundamentally tied to his role as a captain, and also acknowledges how deep Jim's doubts are going, and at the same time reminds Jim that he is the one in control of himself (something very grounding for Jim) and he is not alone (because Bones is supporting him). Most of all, he doesn't dwell on the vulnerability Jim's expressing, but encourages him to take action, which is Jim's natural bent. He perfectly adapts to how Jim functions and knows what to say to get him back into a place where he can do what he does best: lead.

The Ultimate Computer

Jim has been been feeling insecure and threatened this entire episode, because a computer may take away his role as captain. Twice he seeks out Bones for comfort. First, he tells him that he has concerns about the computer, but worries about his motives. "You have my psychological profiles; am I afraid? Of losing my job? ...Daystrom's right, I could do a lot of other things. Am I afraid of losing the power, the prestige? Am I that petty?"

Bones replies, "Jim, if you're self-aware enough to ask that question, you don't need me to answer it for you. Why don't you ask James T. Kirk? He's a pretty honest guy."

Breakdown: Bones responds beautifully by once again reminding Jim that he knows himself and is in control. That sense of confidence is all Jim is after. He also establishes earlier in the conversation that what Jim is feeling is not unusual and can be understood. Brilliant.

The second time Jim reaches out to Bones (this episode is my favorite for a reason), he's doubting his role even more intensely, having just been blatantly insulted and called useless (affirming his insecurities). He left the bridge, silently, by himself, and even Spock didn't follow him out. Bones knew he needed help and went to him, with some drinks (Jim initially responds that he's not interested in eating--coping by losing interest in food) and a joke and light-hearted attitude, so that Jim can feel comfortable expressing himself. Jim puts on an air of not caring (shutting himself off from his emotions) and says he's never felt so useless, and makes a cynical joke as a toast, "To Captain Dunsel" (the insult from earlier, meaning "unnecessary").

Bones stops him, looks him in the eye, and says "To James Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise." Jim says softly, "Thank you, Doctor," and when he downs his glass, Bones follows suit.

There's just so much good about this. Bones seeks him out even when he was trying to isolate himself because he knew Jim tends to distract himself and unhealthily repress things. And he doesn't let Jim get away with being blasé about how he's been hurt, but he doesn't force him to be honest either; instead, he lets Jim know he sees how he's feeling and how deeply he's hurt, and also reaffirms that Bones still cares about, respects, and most of all, believes in him. When Jim starts talking after the drink, Bones just listens and lets him talk, and when Jim responds to the call to the bridge, he follows him out. Back in action, and another job well done.

The Trouble With Tribbles

Just a brief point with this: Spock is just being silent here, which is typical for him. But Bones asks him "What's the matter, Spock?" seemingly out of the blue. Spock responds with, "There's something disquieting about these creatures," which means that he was feeling off, and Bones picked up on it. Bones then makes a joke ("Don't tell me you've got a feeling!") which lets Spock know that Bones sees what he's saying but isn't treating it as unusual (since the joking between them is their normal behavior). And when Spock continues talking, he hears him out (although it eventually degenerates into their typical spat).

All Our Yesterdays

Spock has begun degenerating into a pre-reformed-Vulcan version of himself. He gives up on trying to get back to their proper time and becomes irritable. Bones notices that something's wrong almost immediately.

He starts by asking about Jim (because he knows how deeply Spock cares for him), and Spock responds apathetically. This clearly shocks Bones, who then says "I don't believe it, Spock. It's just not like you to give up trying." When Spock doesn't acknowledge something's off, Bones presses him: "I understand. I never thought I'd see it, but I understand. You want to stay here. In fact, you're highly motivated to stay in this forsaken waste!" Spock deflects again, and Bones keeps pressing, which leads to Spock grabbing him by the neck and saying angrily, "I don't like that. I don't think I ever did, and now I'm sure." Bones simply looks him in the eye and asks calmly, "What's happening to you, Spock?"

Instead of hassling Spock about why he isn't doing more, he focuses on what's wrong with Spock himself, and he clearly has a deep understanding of who Spock really is. He starts by trying to get a feel for Spock's emotional state by going to ground 0: Jim. And he doesn't back down when Spock tries to blow him off.

Seeing that he's getting nowhere, Bones bides his time, and then starts something with Zarabeth, knowing Spock will jump to her defense.

When Spock pins him against the wall, Bones calmly says, "Are you trying to kill me, Spock? Is that what you really want? Think! What are you feeling? Rage, jealousy--have you ever had those feelings before?" Spock is clearly affected by this, and says it's impossible, since he's a Vulcan. Bones sees his opening, saying "The Vulcan you knew won't exist for another 5000 years! Think, man! What's happening on your planet right now, at this very moment?" Spock answers with the facts, and Bones tells him flat-out what's going on: he's reverting. Spock falls quiet, and says, "I've lost myself. I do not know who I am."

Bones is specifically structuring his responses (both here and earlier) to cause Spock to evaluate himself--to think, which has always has grounded Spock. Bones indirectly (so that Spock doesn't feel as threatened by the accusation) indicates that Spock's being too emotional. He wants Spock to see for himself that something's wrong, so Bones asks questions or makes open-ended statements so that Spock will have to respond. He also provides enough evidence (pointing out the emotions Spock is feeling) to prove he has a point and guide Spock towards a conclusion. He's talking Spock through it, using reason and logic, which Spock has always responded to. Bones' questions are also phrased so that the answers are objective facts--he's bringing Spock back to the verifiable, Spock's comfort zone. Finally, he does the analysis for Spock, telling him what's undeniably happening, but leaves the course of action open to Spock, so that he can regain control of himself by deciding how to proceed. Bones smoothly and logically guided Spock to the delicate realization he needed to have.

Of Bread and Circuses

Then of course we have this iconic exchange. Jim's been separated from the both of them and they are all in danger. Spock is pulling at the bars although he knows it will be futile.

Bones calls him out on this, and then thanks him for saving his life. When Spock brushes him off and keeps his walls up, Bones says, "I know why you're not afraid to die, Spock. You're more afraid of living. Every day you stay alive is just one more day you might slip--and let your human half peek out." Spock is silent and looks away, and Bones continues, now smiling slightly: "That's it, isn't it? Insecurity. Why, you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling." His face makes it clear he's gently baiting Spock, who then looks back at Bones and says, "Really, Doctor?" Bones replies softly, "I know. I'm worried about Jim, too."

First thing: Spock's theme starts playing when Bones corners him. So we're supposed to get that Bones is really laying him bare. But starting from the beginning of the scene, Bones recognizes Spock's anxiety through his illogical behavior. He takes the time to thank Spock for saving his life, in an effort to remind Spock that he is competent and in control--basically, trying to calm Spock down and reassure him. When Spock refuses to deal with his emotions productively, Bones is having none of it, and shows Spock just how much he knows. He can tell Spock isn't worried for himself ("you're not afraid to die") but also is well aware of Spock's actual fears (which are coloring his current behavior towards Bones). Basically, Bones is saying, "this facade of yours can't keep me out. You're understood. You're not alone." Saying it in those terms, though, would just make Spock feel weak for unsuccessfully trying to mask his behavior, so Bones frames it as a gentle challenge. When Spock looks away, he can tell he's hit the nail on the head, and he smiles because he's getting through to him. His face as he says "you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling" telegraphs to the audience that he's not actually serious, but is looking for a response. And he gets it--Spock acknowledges, as Bones had intended, that he is currently dealing with emotions. And that's where Bones wanted to get him, because now that he's admitted it, he can move forward; but Bones doesn't want this admission to go unrewarded, and definitely doesn't want Spock to go on believing that Bones meant what he'd said about not knowing what to do with feelings, so he again tells Spock that he understands what's really going on, but without challenge this time. He just accepts it and reassures Spock that he's not alone: "I know. I'm worried about Jim too." They're in it together, and now that Spock is a little more vulnerable, he's able to see that Bones is right beside him.

So that was a lot, but there is definitely even more. Basically, give Bones the appreciation he deserves, because his emotional intuition is off the charts. (After all, as he is so fond of reminding us, he is a doctor!)

#star trek #star trek tos #spock #jim kirk #bones mccoy #bones #meta #my meta posts #quality meta seal of approval #photoset #kay can i just catch my breath for a second #kay watches tos #1k #this post will be quiet for a while and then suddenly pick up like 200 notes at a time and it makes me really happy to see 😂😂

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peachy-panic · 4 years ago

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Only Temporary: Sebastian Tate

Hello. I was completely blown away by the positive response I got on the first piece of Jaime’s story (title under construction). Thank you to everyone who had a kind word to say about it! You made me really happy I made the mildly frightening choice to post.

In the interest of acclimating to the no-rules, freedom-to-post-out-of-order structure of this community, I wanted to introduce a new piece of the puzzle this time, with a new character that will come into play later.

Also, this piece goes into a little bit of the details, but for frame of reference on the BBU-adjacent thing: this story takes place in a not-so-distant future of the BBU, where WRU has undergone some changes. I look forward to exploring this world building more as I go.

Anyway, I’m rambling again. Thanks for reading. Here it is:

WARNINGS: General BBU warnings, talk of institutionalized slavery, classism, and general terribleness of large corporations. Referenced past homophobia and rough parental relationships, briefly implied/referenced non-con.

When Sebastian reflects on the day he graduated from med school, a sort of emptiness is the memory that first bobs to the surface. Among the cheers and camera flashes in the crowd, white coats and proud smiles, what Sebastian recalls most vividly from that day is looking out into the sea of parents and families and people there to support their loved ones on one of the biggest days of their lives, and not seeing a single person that had come for him.

What should have been one of the happiest moments of his life had been quickly overshadowed by the sinking feeling that none of it mattered as much as it would have if he had someone to share it with. Like there was something so fundamentally wrong with his life, that even something as objectively good and right and decent as becoming a doctor could be dulled over into a feeling of nothingness.

Perhaps, he thinks in hindsight, that moment had been foreshadowing for the following months ahead of him.

Watching rejection after rejection pour in from his top residency programs had felt like nothing short of his own personalized nightmare. He had spent several nights in a row on the phone with Alex, his undergrad roommate and only friend, clamoring back from the edge of many a panic attack, spiraling into all-out existential dread about the future and the past and what all of it meant for him if he couldn’t land an internship, let alone a real job out of school. To his credit, Alex never gave up hope in his friend. Or at least, he did a decent job hiding it if he did. Which was probably exactly what Sebastian needed to get through that particularly dark time in his life, and a good reminder of what a solid friend he had. Even if it was a party of two.

Unfortunately, Sebastian did not have the same faith in himself.

He was able to keep up some facade of optimism as his top five were picked off one by one. Telling himself, despite his devastation, that they were a pretty far reach, anyway. Even with good academic standing, it was famously no walk in the park to land yourself at John Hopkins or Mayo as a first-year. He even maintained a brave face as his first few safety programs reached capacity and moved forward without his name on the roster.

It wasn’t until he received his final rejection letter from some internal medicine place in Bumfuck, Idaho that he felt himself slip into dangerous territory. Sebastian knew himself well enough to know his own depressive patterns by then, and he knew it was only exponential decay from there.

Rock bottom came, as it did, in the wee hours of the night, after a full bottle of wine. Alone in his small apartment, surrounded by half-packed boxes with no destination, Sebastian found himself sprawled out on the floor with his laptop hot against his thighs. He couldn’t have explained why he opted for a privacy browser, but something about it allowed him to justify the words that he typed into the search bar.

It was a new low, and one he had sworn to himself he would never stoop to. Yet there he was.

He gave himself a moment to reconsider, to back out of what was undoubtedly a morally-gray train wreck waiting to happen as his thumb hovered over the enter key. And then the alcohol decided to override his moral compass.

Facility Care is the open secret of the medical profession. It comes with its fair share of stigma, and rightfully so, but it is notoriously easy to break into and pays a decent wage.

There are two types of people who end up stooping to that kind of employment. More often than not, it consists of doctors and nurses who had their licenses revoked or suspended somewhere along the line and needed a way back in. As far as Sebastian understood, they aren’t terribly ridgid about the particulars of each circumstance. After all, in the eyes of the law, the patients they would be treating are a price tag away from being entirely expendable.

The other percentage of Facility Care workers, and the reason Sebastian found himself staring at his too-bright computer screen with a sinking feeling of dread that night, are young medical graduates who find themselves in a tough spot. It isn’t difficult to spell out the logic behind that one when you open the WRU CAREERS tab on the home page and see the bright white words printed across the top of the screen:

LOAN FORGIVENESS.

It is shamelessly predatory and aggressively capitalistic, but Sebastian supposes that particular exploitation is pretty far down on the list of transgressions for an institution of legalized slavery. A few broke and hopeless medical students were hardly going to keep the Powers That Be up at night when they were able to rest easy under the weight of hundreds of thousands of stolen lives.

The whole thing is part of the massive PR overhaul the company did a few years back. In a world that was slowly inching toward civil activism and with the accessibility of platforms like social media to hold them accountable, WRU had to adapt to survive. Adaptation, in this case, took the form of changing the barest of minimums in order to keep themselves above board — to the public eye, anyway. Anyone who dares to take a closer look at the policy changes can see that it’s bullshit.

Changing ownership conditions to a rent-by-contract basis isn’t the humanitarian move they try to paint it as. In the end, it probably just equals out to more money in the company’s pocket when they can get more return on their “investments,” and a larger chance of exploitation for the people being moved around.

Getting rid of the Romantic division is an entirely meaningless gesture when they are still loaning out human beings with no legal rights and the inability to say “no.”

And offering an open job market with good wages and healthcare options to lower class individuals is a pretty convenient way to mute the backlash.

Essentially, you can tie a system of slavery and abuse up in a bow and make it pretty on the outside, but at the end of the day, it’s still fucking slavery.

Not that he has any room to criticize now. Now that he’s one of them.

In the end, Seb tries to justify his decision a few different ways. He is, after all, more or less a young man alone in the world. The odds are stacked against him and have been for a while. With only his own two legs to stand on, the only force stronger than his internal ambition is his instinct for survival, and he’s been running on those fumes for longer than he can count.

He had lasted less than two months under his parents’ roof after he came out of the closet at eighteen. It wasn’t exactly a surprise for anyone involved; Sebastian’s parents had known about (and subsequently bottled) his… urges… since he was in high school. Probably before that, if he is being honest with himself. And Sebastian, for his part, had spent the better part of his teenage years mentally preparing for the inevitable. He can recall long, late nights he had spent crying into his pillow and the perfectly-scripted ‘coming out’ speeches he recited to his mirror when he was one-hundred percent sure his parents were asleep.

Of course, none of the preparation had been anywhere near adequate when he actually found himself wilting beneath the heat of his father’s glare, the weight of his mother’s grief.

But. He had recovered. That is the point he tries to remember when the memories sting fresh beneath his skin, even all these years later. He has more-than proven himself to be a survivor. He has worked harder than anyone he knows for every scholarship, every grant, every dollar to put himself through school. Sacrificed nights out and real relationships for night shifts at shitty diners and long weekends cramming for exams. It hadn’t been easy, but he considers it the price he had to pay for his independence. For freedom, to live the life as the person he is meant to be, despite his unfortunate odds. He spent years telling himself it would be worth it. That one day, his hard work would pay off.

He can’t stop now.

Sebastian doesn’t have the luxury of taking time off to reroute when his navigation has gone amiss. He is walking the precarious line of rapidly accruing interest and student loans and a dwindling savings account, and there is no safety net below him.

Beggars can’t be choosers, and as it turns out, beggars sometimes have to compromise their moral integrity in order to survive.

It’s only temporary.

That is the mantra that gets him through the (half-drunken) application process and the (disturbingly lax) interview process. It is a job. One job. In the medical field, though the details are up for debate, and it is real-life money for rent and food and a savings that will hopefully be sizable enough to get him where he really wanted to be. Which is… really, anywhere else.

He can do ‘temporary.’ And perhaps, some misguided part of him thinks he can do some genuine good from the inside, too. ‘Be the change you want to see’ and all that.

It is a far jump from the floor of his apartment, sloshed and exhausted and desperate, to the cold, sharp reality of walking into his place of employment on his first day of work. Ironically, it feels a lot like an echo of the emptiness from his graduation day.

‘Sterile’ doesn’t quite cover it. ‘Sterile’ is the expectation of any well-respected medical establishment, but the inside of the facility walls has been wiped clean of far more than bacteria and germs. It is completely devoid of humanity. The long corridors that connect the medical wing to the general ward are windowless and dimly lit by flickering fluorescent panels that had make his head pound for the entirety of his first week.

He is given an office, though it is a term he, himself, might use loosely, as it is more akin to what was probably a storage closet before the old prison had been converted into the state’s training headquarters. It leaves him just enough space for a small desk and two chairs. On his first day, he asks if it is okay to bring in some personal items to spruce the place up. The older, balding doctor who had been assigned to show him around merely shrugs, and Sebastian decides to take that as a yes.

The small, pink-framed photo of a six-year-old Sebastian Tate in his grandfather’s white coat and an old-school stethoscope around his neck is hardly enough to make the place cozy from the corner of his desk, but it’s a good enough reminder of why he has to make this work.

‘It’s only temporary.’

‘Be the change you want to see.’

He will do his best.

#Sebastian Tate #bbu #like bbu adjacent?#tw: human trafficking #tw: slavery #implied noncon #whump #Do No Harm: Jaime & Sebastian

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kinktae · 5 years ago

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beyond the story: bitchin’

Hi friends! I hope you are all staying safe and healthy during these tough times! I really wanted to put something out there as a thank you to just how much support Bitchin’ got. You guys really are incredible. So, although this story has come to an end, I wanted to properly close the Bitchin’ chapter by giving you all a behind the scenes look at Bitchin’ and everything that went into writing it. This includes hidden easter eggs, backstories, alternative plot-lines, and a short drabble of the Bitchin’ cast 10 years after the story’s end.

Without further ado, please enjoy and thank you again for all your love. You have all of mine.

CHAPTER ONE – PARTNERS

Ah, yes, the start of this whole wild ride. I’ve always loved the whole nerd/popular person trope in fanfics, so it was only a matter of time before I tried my hand at it too. One thing I was adamant about was not making this a “popular person turns nerd hot/confident/better” fic as its kind of one of my least favorite cliches. With that in mind, and knowing that I was going to allude to TATBILB’s contract, I decided that I wanted Y/N to gain as much from the deal as Jungkook did. No blackmail, no just agreeing for the hell of it – Y/N was going to further herself and her dreams given the opportunity.

The beginning of the chapter is where the two are most separated and dissimilar throughout the whole story. It wasn’t that they were fundamentally different, it was that they approached life differently. Y/N was frustrated at how superficial Jungkook seemed, because she believes there is much more to life than just kicking your feet up and cracking jokes.

On the other hand, Jungkook didn’t understand why Y/N was so tense and on guard. To him, life was meant to enjoy and not take so seriously. Which makes sense, given that he grew up with minimal rules and minimal worries (bare minimum partners wassup !)

“So, do we have a deal? Partners?” There was mischievous timber to his words, the kind that made you feel as if this would all later come back to bite you in the ass.

Pushing that pestering thought away, you took his hand into yours, holding his eyes as you gave it a firm shake.

“Partners.”

God, this bit. I knew from the minute I wrote it that I was writing the ending of bitchin’ along with it. I knew this was exactly how I was going to end this story, bc the word partners has multiple means right? In chapter 1, this meant business partners, but in the final chapter… it means life partners. Idk, I’m just still really happy with this writing decision :D

CHAPTER TWO – THE CONTRACT

Dearest Yara. We meet her in chapter two don’t we? Yara is completely based off of my irl best friend Yara who is a writer and who helped me A LOT with this story. She was my biggest supporter throughout figuring out this crazy plot. It was initially only about seven parts, but with her help I managed to bump it up to 10! Everybody say thank you Yaraaaa.

You were angry, that much was evident to her. Yara was sat in your shared dorm’s living room, a thick blanket engulfing her small frame. You briefly glanced towards the TV, it was tuned into MTV, the familiar music video of Every Breath You Take by The Police playing, before directing your glare back onto the copper-haired girl.

The song reference is a direct allusion to writer Yara’s fic, which is one of my favorite fics by her. She was actively writing it around the start of our friendship so it only felt right to pay respects to her. The introduction of her character felt necessary imo bc I wanted to make sure Y/N had a life outside Jungkook. Plus, I got to use the scenes between the two girls as a way to reference the music and culture scene. Yara is especially a fan of the powerful women in the music industry at the time, i.e., Madonna, Annie Lennox, Cyndi Laupner, etc.) Yara is a raging feminist and believer in sexual freedom and libery for women, we do in fact have to stan.

“How old do you think your sister is?”

“Hey, don’t sass me. For your information, Lyanna still has all her Care Bear tapes. She threw a hissy fit when my mom tried to give them away last Christmas.” Yara recalled.

Lyanna is one of writer Yara’s past pseudonyms. She always used to joke about how whenever she read it, it was confusing because there was Y/N, Yara and Lyanna, which were technically all her lolol.

FUNNY STORY ABOUT THE CONTRACT I INSERTED INTO THIS PICTURE… Twitter found it and made it into somewhat of a meme because no one knew it came from a fic rip. I was actually rly embarrassed and even wrote some posts about how much twitter scared me on my blog LMAO. but THEN weirdly enough, I actually stumbled upon a small community on twitter who actually found my fic and would TWEET ABOUT IT!!! LIKE REACTIONS TO EACH UPDATE!!! I wish I could go back in time and remember how giddy I was the first time I found a tweet about my fic. The fanfic community on twitter gave me a new love for the site (which I had previously had removed myself from because of its toxicity) and I have met so many wonderful people because of it. People even made themselves a little twitter group chat to talk about my fics, and now we are all friends! I miss posting a chapter of bitchin’ and refreshing my twitter feed as all my mutuals would post memes and live tweet their reactions. God that made me so fucking happy.

CHAPTER THREE – THE ROLLERSKATING DATE

I love the bickering in this chapter, because unlike the bickering in the first chapter, it’s actually less hostile and more playful. Y/N is slowly letting her guard down to the very persistently charming Jungkook.

“Woah. Family of six, huh? So you have siblings then.” He noted.

“Yep. Three.”

“Tell me about them.”

Looking up from where you were slipping on your second skate, you met Jungkook’s eyes, surprised to see genuine interest in them.

I actually originally had Y/N brush him off here. I was going to wait until the drunk party scene for Y/N to open up about her family and relationship with her sisters. But then I kind of thought to myself… Why? Y/N made peace with it and doesn’t hold onto those insecurities anymore. And objectively, Jungkook hasn’t proven himself to be a bad person so… I let Y/N open herself up to him.

“Then there’s the twins, Rosa and Lia.”

“Hold on. Twins? Wait… did they go to our high school?” Jungkook asked, his interest in this conversation doubled.

“Yep. They were two grades above us.” You confirmed.

“Oh shit, yeah, I remember your sisters, they were mad hot.” Jungkook let out a low whistle, before stiffening, flashing you an apologetic look. “Uh, in a totally non-meathead way.”

You offered the scared-looking boy a small smile, shaking your head.

Some of y’all notice but, Rosa and Lia are a blatant homage to my name: Roselia. ACTUALLY some form of my name can be found in every one of the rewind series fics, including upcoming ones. I’ll give a cookie to whoever can find every single mention hehe.

“I told you it was dumb.” You laughed nervously.

It wasn’t that you cared much about what Jungkook thought but you had a feeling a guy like him, who was popular and carefree, wouldn’t be able to sympathize in the way you would like him to.

“No, I’m just… surprised, that’s all.”

Jungkook certainly was surprised. You had built up quite the impression on him from the very moment you two met. It was hard to imagine that the girl who was so unapologetically herself was ever unsure or insecure.

Somehow, the idea tugged at his heart, as if he understood you more if only just a little.

From the get go, Jungkook was extremely drawn to just how confident and secure Y/N was in herself. I knew I wanted Y/N to be unapologetically sure of herself and in her abilities. Something I didn’t want, however, was for frat boy!jungkook’s only personality traits to be liking sex and being a cocky bastard (although I am a big consumer of that trope heh). Jungkook is actually canonly incredibly insecure. He lacks a real sense of self, which is why he is so desperate for Kiri back. His relationship with Kiri at that time was a big part of what he thought was himself. He has somewhat of low self esteem tbh which is why he’ll go back to a woman who treated him unfairly. That’s why he comes off the way he does in the first chapter and why Y/N thinks he has a big ego... he’s overcompensating. He finds it so endlessly fascinating that Y/N, in all her confident glory, was actually once super insecure. He admires her all the more once she opens up about her past.

“Oh, Rosa is an intern for our hometown’s newspaper but between you and me those assholes don’t even let her write. She does coffee and burger runs for men in charge. And Lia sells ice cream at the mall.”

“What about your brother?” Jungkook asked.

“He’s training to be a cop just like my dad.”

“And your mom?”

“She works at a convenience store.”

All their careers resemble people in the latest Stranger Things season (Nancy, Steve, Hopper, and Joyce). Fun Cameo there.

“What’s wrong?” You wondered, following his eyes.

“October 16th, 1985. 6:48PM.”

“Yes. That’s today’s date and time. What about it?” You pressed, growing confused.

“Remember it.” He warned.

“Why?”

“It’s when I fell in love with you.”

This iconic line I actually got from the real Jeon Jungkook himself. While Jungkook wasn’t actually in love with Y/N here, it certainly was a cute way for him to express his admiration for her.

OH HERE’S A FUN FACT: the hickey scene at the end of this chapter where JK and Y/N kiss for the first time was actually supposed to be Yara giving Y/N the hickey like the best friend she is. Ultimately I went with JK giving it for... smut purposes... ≖‿≖

CHAPTER FOUR – THE HALLOWEEN PARTY

The decision for Y/N to be Freddie Krueger came from me planning to be him for Halloween. And I was! JK as Glen Lantz just followed naturally. I’ve seen some great edits of him as the character. Truly chef’s kiss.

I really liked that Jungkook came over to the girl’s dorm to get ready. I didn’t want a scene where Y/N was thrown into a situation she was uncomfortable with which is how much Nerd At A Party Scene go so made sure Jungkook stayed by her side throughout the part, going out of his way to introducing her to the people he cared about.

Tae’s character came in when I realized I needed a way to actually put Y/N’s event in motion. He was the missing link and BOY did you guys eat his character right up huh. Love that for me.

Another thing, the confrontation with Kiri was so hard to write guys, I reeaaaally struggle with girl conflict. GIRLS SHOULD SUPPORT GIRLS. However, not everyone gets along in real life so I went with Kiri being more along the lines of petty rather than outwardly a cunt to Y/N. Realistically, Kiri is popular and well liked among the greek life so being unkind to someone she hardly knows wouldn’t make sense. There’s definitely tension between these two but I tried my best to steer away from the typical cat fight/revenge porn/public humiliation trope most movies seem to follow.

CHAPTER FIVE – THE FIRST TIME

Introduction to Erik!!!! It was really important to me that Y/N had a life before Jungkook. That's why I wrote in Y/N having a fiancé. She’s not opposed to love, she just has reshifted her focus. She knows what she wants and is choosing to focus on that, which why when she realizes she’s falling for Kookie she’s so hesitant to admit it because she’s fallen down that road before. Even though Jungkook treats her with respect and acknowledges the parts of her she’s most proud of, she just isn’t willing to possibly give up her passions for love. Which is why she doesn’t immediately confess to him, even once she’s sure she loves him.

“I’m serious, nerd. You’re like… um… the sun!” Jungkook marveled, eyes growing full as the realization dawned on him.

“The sun?” You laughed.

“Yeah, like… you’re this bright, beautiful thing that seems like it’s here in front of me but is really light-years away.”

Jungkook was drunk, and although you were sure he was making more sense in his head, you couldn’t help but feel your face grow hot, unsure of how to react to his drunk analogy.

“You’re the sun, Y/N. You make the world turn for you. Never orbit for anyone else.”

And suddenly, you were kissing him, for no other reason other than you wanted to and that it felt like the right thing to do.

No real commentary here. Just love this bit. It’s probably my favorite interaction between them two ‧⁺◟( ᵒ̴̶̷̥́ ·̫ ᵒ̴̶̷̣̥̀ )

“Also… She’s, uh, currently dating Eunwoo.” You told Yara.

Your best friend blinked, silence falling over her.

“Yara?”

“Good for her.” She perked up almost forcibly. “Let her put up with his annoying ass.”

Yara could see the way your expression had turned dubious as if you didn’t believe her nonchalant act.

Yara turned up her nose defensively, “What?”

Ugh yes, some character development from Yara.... the flavor ! Yara (much like Y/N and JK) also struggles with love. She has a real fear of commitment and if far more comfortable with casual sex than relationships. She did develop actual feelings for Eunwoo, she just wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment so she cut him off. Fleed the scene if you will. Typical gemini smh my head.

"I don’t think the contract mentioned orgasms.” Jungkook smirked as you released his thumb.

“I say we let it slide.” You shrugged, leaning into him casually.

“You think?”

“Totally. Think of it as… a bonding activity.” You joked, resting your chin on his shoulder, peering up through your lashes.

“Damn, we’re really committed to this fake dating thing, huh.”

You laughed in the way that you hated, but Jungkook loved; it was loud and abrupt, but it genuine, and it was you.

“What can I say, I’m a method actor.” You sighed dramatically, causing Jungkook to grin before pressing a kiss to your nose, simply because he liked the way it always seemed to make you smile.

GOD THEY’RE SO WHIPPED FOR EACH OTHER ITS DISGUSTING!!!!!! I’m really happy I decided not to make sleeping together a big deal and I got a lot of feedback from you guys agreeing! I had a lot of fun with these two’s sex scenes knowing they could do it whenever they wanted.

CHAPTER SIX – THE STEM EVENT

I started the scene with smut BUT I wanted to point out that much of their time spent together is at Y/N dorm, Jungkook either napping, hanging out or doing work as Y/N would study like she always did. I liked the idea that Jungkook would get bored and would want attention from Y/N because she was so focused. Idk, I just wanted to write a love story about two people spending time together and figuring out how they fit in each other’s lives as opposed to some dramatic I mEeT HiM aNd mY LiFe bEcAmE cRaZy. There’s nothing wrong with that plot line, I just didn’t want that for these two dorks. I wanted Y/N to interact with JK’s scene and crowd but not give up her own which is why most days JK and her just lounged around in her dorm studying.

Also, I don’t know how the teacher/student roleplay made it into the smut, it just did, no further questions (ʃ⌣́_⌣́ƪ).

Then the event scene.

“You’re whipped, dude! Seriously.”

Jungkook felt his face go red, “Shut up, no, I’m not.”

“Hey, I’m not judging. I get it. That’s your girl.” Taehyung shrugged. Jungkook placed a hand on the fold up table in front of him, staring down at the information pamphlet you had worked so hard on.

“She’s just… so fucking driven and passionate about everything she does. Sometimes I look at her, and I’m just like… holy shit, what am I doing with a girl like her? I feel like she’s totally out of my league and being with me is holding her back but— I dunno, man. I just… really like her.” Jungkook revealed, voice growing small.

An unexpected wave of tenderness fell over the two boys, Taehyung throwing an arm over his little brother’s shoulder.

“I’m happy for you, bro.”

Jungkook didn’t know it just yet but dude was talking from the heart and, is in fact, totally whipped :’c

I loved the confrontation scene between the boys and Eunwoo because the boys standing up for Yara really did make everyone feel like a friend group, not just some character who happen to exist at the same time. It wasn’t just Y/N and Yara and one side and the boys on the other. They would all become friends, which is ideal to me. A boyfriend who likes your best friend and considers her a friend so you can all hang out??? Yes please.

Initially, irl Yara and I had noooo clue if Yara would end up with Eunwoo or not. That was actually the original goal actually. But after this chapter four, you guys made it ABUNDANTLY clear that you guys wanted to see Taeyara, despite the two never even meeting! Honestly, it wasn’t until this chapter was written that we decided for sure that Eunwoo was out of the picture for Yara. Part of me really wanted to keep Yara single, but irl Yara insisted on dick and frankly, she’s right. Bitchin’ Yara deserved a shot at love. She definitely has her own story outside of Bitchin’ and will experience a lot of growth in the future.

“God, I know. I do not miss that temper of his.” She chuckled, her words piquing your interest.

“Temper?”

“Oh, yeah. Have you seriously not experienced it yet? He’s got some gnarly anger issues. Not to mention all the lying…” Kiri paused suddenly, straightening up as she flashed you an apologetic look. “Yikes, I’m sorry. I totally should not be telling you this. I’m not trying to be that gross girl that shit talks her ex to his current girlfriend.”

Miss Kiri, Miss Kiri. She really acted up this chapter didn’t she. There was a lot of discussion about whether or not those things she said about Jungkook were true. Which was exactly what I wanted hehe. We come to find out that Kiri had definitely stretched the truth. She really is good at manipulation and understanding how people think and it’s why she is in the role that she is in. Messy queen.

CHAPTER SEVEN – THE ROOFTOP DATE

This entire chapter was inspired by High School Musical with Troy and Gabriella’s rooftop garden scenes. This was my shortest chapter and honestly, probably not my strongest. I definitely went into writing this with zero concept of what I actually wanted to happen. Usually when I write my chapters I have a 4k long outline of it beforehand that I go off of. Not this one though. I really just winged it and I tried my best to write a chapter that really showed off (dialogue wise) just how this couple bounces off each other. I do really like some of the banter they have in this chapter.

You had taken note a little wooden popsicle stick poking up from the soil of the yellow flowers. Acacias, they were marked. Pulling your knees up to your chest, you considered his words.

Yellow acacias stands the value of true friendship and can indicate a secret love! I thought that was very appropriate given these dummies' relationship.

“So, you probably know why I brought you here.”

You nodded.

“You’re proposing, right?”

“Yeah, I– oh, shut up.” He laughed, the serious mood shattering as you joined him.

Even though I knew they were going to have a semi serious talk, what with Y/N asking about what Kiri had told her, these two dufuses realistically are just too comfortable with each other to stay serious for too long.

“Hey, I said that out of frustration, I didn’t really mean it. I’m sure she’ll come crawling back soon.” You attempted to comfort him, hoping to sound sincere.

“Even if that’s true, I’m not entirely sure I want that anymore.”

“What?” You blinked. Jungkook shrugged.

“What about us?” He met your eyes, causing your breath to hitch.

“What about us?”

Jungkook stared at you for a moment, noting the way the timber in your voice had become higher pitched as if panicked.

MORE FUN FACTS LMFAO: I typically do this thing with unplanned chapters where I just go for it and write and usually it works out. But when I wrote this down I remember stopping and being like ??? WHY DID I JUST WRITE THAT ??? I don’t like deleting my writing so I had a serious think to myself about whether this was going to be the moment Jungkook confessed or not.

Canonly, I decided that Jungkook did in fact mean ‘us’ in a romantic sense, but because of the way you perceivably panicked at that possible meaning, he decided against taking the conversation in that direction, instead speaking about ‘us’ in a platonic sense. Poor kookie :(

“Stop. Listen to me, Jungkook, you’re a fucking great guy, okay? You’re charismatic and funny and care about your friends… sure, you almost ruined my event, but it was mostly to defend my best friend when Eunwoo got too pushy, right? You’re a good guy, meathead. I know I joke about your ego, but I really believe you’re capable of more than you think you are. Seriously, Kiri is so lucky to be the object of your affection.”

Jungkook watched the way the sun’s orange light kissed your face, a bittersweet feeling growing in his chest as he contemplated the object of his affection. Just a couple of months ago, he would have had no doubt about who held his heart, but as you held his stare, he found himself unsure and yet, entirely sure all the same.

“Jungkook? You okay?” You frowned, catching in the sadness in his eyes.

“Hm? Yeah, yeah. I just… realized something.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“…It doesn’t matter.” He smiled, the gesture hardly reaching his eyes.

It’s in this moment that Jungkook decides that there is no way you hold the same affection towards him that he does to you. He mistakes your words of comfort as you pushing him away. You are so kind and encouraging and Jungkook loves you so much that hearing you insist about him ending back up with Kiri hurts him so bad.

But you are still unsure about your feelings and genuinely believe that's still what Jungkook wants. You’re just being a supportive friend!! :( It isn’t until the end of this chapter when Y/N has her talk with Yara that she realizes, oh man, she’s in deep.

CHAPTER EIGHT – THE MISTAKE

BLAH. This chapter is so BLAH, you know? Having to write this chapter was SO HARD. I texted irl Yara complaining about how much I hated having to put my characters through this and that I wanted to just end the story on chapter 7 and keep them happy forever. BUT ALAS! I had planned for this to happen from the start.

You tasted like the mint of your favorite brand of toothpaste. He imagined if he had caught you any later then the mint would have been accompanied by the taste of coffee, knowing the way you rarely started a day without a cup.

God, he had missed the taste of you.

What you guys didn’t see is Jungkook spending the night with Kiri, and immediately kicking her out, freaking out as the weight of guilt washed over him. He knew he had done nothing wrong, that you weren’t his real girlfriend, and that getting back together with Kiri was exactly what he had signed up for. It was what he should’ve wanted. But it wasn't… because you were what he wanted. And that was exactly what he was going to tell you as he marched over to your apartment.

But he panicked. His mind already decided that your answer to him would be no– that you didn’t feel the same. So he kissed you. He had you in the only way he was allowed to. He was selfish and impulsive and so incredibly scared that he ended up hurting the person he loved the most.

Initially though, I had Jungkook get back together with Kiri, not that he slept with her right before sleeping with Y/N. But I decided TEEHEE let me just make everything erupt into flames. However, I didn’t realize just how angry with Jungkook you guys would get. I remember thinking DAMMIT WAS THAT TOO SCANDALOUS?? I knew I was going to have to work hard for Jungkook to redeem himself to my readers.

“She wants to get back together.” Jungkook swallowed dryly, eyes wavering between yours as if to gauge your reaction.

“…Oh.”

You shook your head.

“I mean, wow! That’s… That’s great!” You smiled, something tearing apart inside you as the words left your lips.

“Y/N–”

“Seriously! This means it worked, right? This is exactly what you wanted to happen.” You enthused, turning your head so that he couldn’t see the way your eyes had welled up.

Jungkook’s heart was pounding in his ears, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around you.

“Yeah… yeah, no, you’re right. We did it.” He replied monotonously.

GOD THIS PART IS SO UNBELIEVABLY FRUSTRATING! JUST ADMIT YOU LOVE EACH OTHER YOU MORONS! This entire situation is so convoluted because there's so much information missing and not being expressed, I seriously want to ring my own neck rereading this bit.

“Are you mad?” He called out cautiously, a heavy feeling falling onto his chest.

“Why would I be mad?” You quipped back sharply, causing Jungkook to flinch. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

“I just thought… I mean we’ve been fooling around a lot lately, so I didn’t know if—”

“If what? I had feelings for you?” You scoffed. “Please, as if I’d ever fall for you.”

And there it was— everything Jungkook already knew but had been so afraid to hear. Of course, you didn’t feel for him what he felt for you. How could he have expected anything different?

IDIOTS!!! THEY'RE BOTH IDIOTS!!! I don't know how y'all put up with this for so long. Forgive me.

CHAPTER NINE – THE BREAK

Okay I actually love this chapter. And for many reasons. Let me break down the three scenes for you guys.

Scene one: Kiri confrontation

Kiri is definitely an opposing antagonist. She is constantly working against Y/N because of their interests directly conflicting. BUT. I would argue that the biggest antagonist to this story is the inner ones – Y/N and Jungkook's lack of ability to admit their feelings constantly holding them both back from their happy ending. That being said, a confrontation scene between Y/N and Kiri was MUCH needed. While I suppose I can understand why Kiri doesn't like Y/N, that doesn't change the fact that she has been disrespectful and catty. So miss Y/N had to put Miss Kiri in her place (•̀ᴗ•́)

Scene two: Yara and Tae at the library

Fanservice. That is all. LMFAOOO y'all reallllyyy wanted it to happen and who am I to deny my people what they want. It was really fun getting to explore my side characters and develop them through interactions outside the two main characters. IRL Yara also mentioned giving bitchin’ Yara and Tae their own chapter as a joke and I was like LOL BET. I fully was going to but then I got the idea for the next scene and was like ahh ok maybe not the whole chapter.

Scene three: Meeting with Erik

So. This was a SUPER last minute decision. Like, it wasn’t until I was writing this chapter that I planned on Erik making an appearance. I saw a tweet with someone saying their bitchin theories and they mentioned Erik appearing out of nowhere and I was like,,, HOLD ON!!!! That could be kind of spicy ≖‿≖

I knew for a fact JK was NOT going to be forgiven in this chapter; I needed a way to lay the situation out between the two dorks without trying to seem like I was trying to sway my audience in a way that didn't make sense to the story. Y/N was rightfully angry. But she wasn't only angry about the timing of the sex. She was angry that Jungkook went back to Kiri at all and there was no way she was going to admit that. So who better to lay it all out than calculated, unbiased third party Erik. He deserved some character development after all.

I also liked the idea that Y/N had, in theory, “romantic options.” Losing Jungkook didn’t mean the end of her life. Having my female lead stand on her own was very important to me.

CHAPTER TEN – THE END

RIGHT OF THE BAT I needed Jungkook to suffer. So that whole scene where he tries to interact with his old group only for his presence to make everything awkward MMMM yes, sweet revenge on my part.

You were surprised. His hair was no longer shaggy and long like you remembered it. Instead, it had been freshly cut, looking healthy and neatly styled for the first time since you met Jungkook.

THE WAY SO MANY PEOPLE COMMENTED ON THIS LINE “but Y/N liked it long?!?” IS SO FUNNNYyyyy. So let me clarify a thing. Jungkook had always wanted to cut his hair right. The only reason he didn’t was because Y/N told him not to. With Y/N no longer in the picture to convince him out of it, he cut his hair. That’s really all there is to it skfjsjf.

You know, I had written this part around the time I had just finished up the third ch believe it or not. And it was COMPLETELY different. I had it planned that Yara and Y/N ignored him throughout class and Yara had gone back after the bell rang to go verbally assault JK. And as the two hashed it out, only then was that when Jungkook would realize that he liked Y/N after Yara literally spelled it out for him.

“You like her, dumbass!” Was what I had written Yara saying. I really had written him in denial for ten chapters, I was a whole sociopath (╥﹏╥). But ultimately, I decided that Jungkook came to that conclusion on his own and the decision to apologize to Y/N would have been made over winter break.

“You said Kiri came over asking for you back, yet you still came over and slept with me the next day. Even though the two of you had sex the night before. Do you understand how that makes me feel?”

“I’m—”

“Like garbage!" You emphasized, the white paint of the door somehow irritating you further. "I felt like I was something you threw away and picked back up whenever you felt like getting your dick wet.”

Your chest was rising and falling rapidly, and you tried your hardest to not let your emotions get the best of you.

“Not to mention to everyone else, it looks like you cheated on me. Which makes me look like a fucking idiot." You scoffed.

Jungkook said nothing in reply, which somehow made it easier to say all you should have said that day in your room.

“It just sucks to realize that someone you once cared about sees you as nothing more than a toy. It fucking sucks.”

Man :( writing this hurt my heart. I really, really, love bitchin!y/n and writing her hurting freaking stinks. But she had to speak her mind. She deserves the chance to get everything off her chest with the way Jungkook hurt her.

Your heart and mind were in constant paradox, torn between wanting him back and wanting him to know just how much he had hurt you. Your mind ultimately won the battle, of course, but as Jungkook stood just a few inches of drywood apart pouring his heart out, it was hard to say which major organ was responsible for your next words.

The creak of the door being pushed open sent Jungkook's eyes wide, revealing your hesitant form. You had your arms crossed over your chest as if to guard the contents inside of it.

You looked like an angel underneath the bathroom's blue fluorescent lights, beautiful and lovely, a stark contrast from your next crushing sentence.

“I slept with Erik.”

Hehe. Ofc my girl Y/N had to have a rebound!!! She knows that life goes on. However, as I wrote in, she definitely regretted it. It was kind of the same situation that Jungkook was in where he pursued something just because it was familiar and a distraction and not because he really wanted it. Both Y/N and Jungkook are flawed characters but that’s okay! If anything, Y/N’s mistake of sleeping with Erik is what allows her to forgive Jungkook. Knowing first hand how complicated their entire relationship really was.

“I don’t need you… but I don’t think I want a life without you.” You finished shyly.

Your eyes were locked with his when suddenly a small noise escaped him, eyes pulling away from yours as his head moved to attempt to hide the way his eyes had grown wet.

I got this line from one of my best friends after her ex broke up with her. It made me physically sad and really sympathize with her so I quickly wrote it down into my notes app to save for later LMAOOOO. Knowing that you are your own person and life will inevitably go on after losing someone, but that your heart still wants and is pleading for the one person you can’t have. SO SAD. I’m happy I got to use this line in one of my fics.

The note Jungkook wrote Y/N,,, imagine him not being able to sleep one night over winter break so he just writes down everything he should have told Y/N while he still had the chance…. I’ll for real cry dude, he’s so cute. Also, the line about him buying you fluffy Halloween socks for Christmas went over people’s heads I think but HECK I THOUGHT THAT WAS SO FUNNY AND SWEET (because Y/N bought Christmas socks when it was Halloween teehee).

"Are you two dorks done crying?" Yara’s voice rang out suddenly, causing both of you to jump apart.

"Yara, you creep! Privacy, dude! Ever try knocking?" You sniffed, wiping at your face hurriedly.

"What? Like you were peeing with Jungkook in the bathroom? Please." She waved you off, walking back into the living room to give you two some privacy. She did say Jungkook had 15 minutes before she’d have to come back in after all. "Anyway, Tae will be over in 10 minutes for the Saved By The Bell marathon that’s on so you guys are more than welcomed to join." She called out from her newly seated position on the couch.

I included this scene with Yara because things were getting too serious for my liking ngl. Plus the idea that the four of them would all come together at the end for a much needed reunion made my happy bitchin heart soar.

Jungkook let out a laugh, his palm finding your cheek, eyes locked on your lips. You were preening for his kiss, mouth parting slightly as you anticipated it.

“Partners?”

The question took you by surprise, eyes widening at your not so pretend lover.

Idiot.

“Partners.” You smiled softly, eyes shiny and brimming with tears as he kissed you for what must have been the millionth time, but still somehow felt like the first.

UGH I LOVE THEM I REALLY DO. I was so happy with how this final scene came out :( They’re partners, they really are I miss these boneheads.

AND NOW, I PRESENT THE CANON FUTURE OF THE BITCHIN UNIVERSE...

10 YEARS LATER

Let’s be honest, Jungkook popped the question the day of graduation, he can’t imagine a life in which you wouldn’t be beside him

You said yes (shocker)

Cue Jungkook being the most wonderful partner and respecting your wish to finish your residency program before having the wedding

You absolutely kick ass at being a neonatal surgeon

Also, Jungkook started a film company! It’s small but he loves what he does and works with colleges and helps out the film majors with resources and equipment <3

SO IT'S THE DAY OF YOUR WEDDING RIGHT

Yara and your sisters are helping you get ready, with your best friend as the ever so reassuring maid of honor

And by that I mean you’re as calm as a cucumber and Yara is one wrong move away from having a stroke

“Y/N… Don’t freak out....The catering company put in two orders of shrimp instead of chicken and steak.”

“Yara, it’s okay.”

“NO ITS NOT???? THIS IS YOUR WEDDING DAY AND YOU’RE GETTING CRUSTACEANS.”

Y/N making Yara take a seat and practice some breathing exercises so she doesn’t upset the baby

Oh yeah, Yara is 10 weeks pregnant

Taehyung is the dad lol

Yara and Taehyung have been together ever since that day at the library hehe <3

They moved in together and adopted a cat and everything (sweet boy Tae wanted a dog but Yara’s afraid of dogs and Tae would do anything for that woman so Yeontan the cat it is)

Yara refuses to put a label on their relationship even after all this time, and Tae doesn’t ask for one. They’re happy and dedicated to each other and don’t feel the need to put pressure on something that’s already so perfect

Yara is actually violently in love with Tae but still scoffs when Y/N tries to bring it up

“Oh my god, you’re so in love with him”

“Huh??? you must be sick or something. Get well soon, damn :/”

Yara likes to come up with different labels for Taehyung every time she has to introduce him. Among her favorites are roommate, rent sharer, baby daddy and penis lender

Speaking of Taehyung, he’d have a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder as he tries to calm down the panicking groom to be

“JK, breathe.”

“What if she doesn’t show up? What if she doesn’t want to marry me? What if I pressured her into this and— and I’ve freaked her out and now she hates me?”

“Dude, you guys have been engaged for eight years. She’s had her opportunity to run. She’ll show up.”

Taehyung scruffing up the younger man’s hair reassuringly, which only flusters him more because DAMMIT he wants to look perfect for you and now his hair is messed up >:(

(You like him no matter what his hair looks like though)

Jungkook literally swallowing down a sob as you walk down the aisle and he lays his eyes on you for the first time

You having a dumb smile on your face the entire walk over because your husband to be is crying and you haven’t even exchanged vows yet

The entire audience going all sobby when you finally do exchange vows because they’re so beautiful and real

The ten years together has not been easy— from financial struggles as you tried to support yourself through med school, to personal conflicts when Jungkook wanted to start a family already

But you guys figured it out

You always do

He’s your person. And you are his.

Y/N’s sisters Rosa and Lia are a WRECK— even your dad is tearing up

Your family loves Jungkook and have been counting down the days until you guys married, let’s be honest

“You may now kiss the bride.”

Jungkook punching the air with a “FINALLY!” before kissing the hell out of you

The cutting of the cake inevitably turning into a food fight

The shrimp entrees turning out to be pretty damn good

Yara catching the bouquet and wagging her brows at Taehyung suggestively

Jungkook pulling you aside to take photos of you outside the venue because you look so so pretty and he loves the way you smile when he’s the one behind the camera

The party is in full session, your siblings tearing up the dance floor like the extroverts they are

You and Jungkook are sat at the head of the room, hands intertwined underneath the table as you watch a tired and painfully sober Yara swing her bare feet onto Taehyung’s lap, requesting a foot rub

Watching your pregnant best friend and her lover together, you turned towards your own, smile impossibly wide

“What?”

“Let’s have a baby.” You’d grin, so stupid happy

Jungkook’s eyes going round and immediately jumping up from his seat because god that’s all he’s ever wanted

Being tugged out the room by a giddy Jungkook, one of your heels flinging off somewhere behind you.

“What’s happening? Where are we going?!”

The two of you find yourself in a storage room somewhere on the hotel floor

“Jeon Jungkook, what the hell—“

His mouth find yourself, kissing you in a way that couldn’t at the altar

You kissed him back without questions, arms wrapping around the man you now called your husband

“I love you.” He’d sigh into your neck, his hot breath causing you to shiver

“I love you too.”

“Let’s make a baby.”

“Yeah let’s— wait, right here? Right now?!”

Jungkook merely nodding as his mouth found the exposed skin of your chest

“Meathead, we can’t just ditch our wedding to have sex!”

“Why not? We did our marital duties. Now it’s our guests' job to get embarrassingly drunk and make a fool of themselves on the dance floor. No one will even miss us.”

“Isn’t baby making what our honeymoon is for?”

“Screw that. I’ve done my waiting. Let’s start our family, nerd.”

Jungkook kissing your protests silent before you inevitably give in and let him take you right there and then, your wedding dress hung around your hips

Husband and wife coming together with shaky breaths and hushed moans as they promise the rest of their lives to each other, making every argument, struggle or moment of uncertainty leading up to now totally worth it

Walk of shame back into the party with nervous hair fixing from you and a proud grin from Jungkook

Yara figuring out exactly why you two had sneaked off to, flashing the newly weds a knowing smirk

The night of your wedding, Jungkook surprises you with a present

You unwrap it in confusion, only to see that it’s a glass frame and inside of it is the wrinkled and worn out lined paper the two of you had scribbled on many many years ago

Jungkook hangs up the contract right above your bed as per your request, smiling as he does and jumping on him the moment he puts down the hammer bc dammit it you’re too heckin excited to make love with your sentimental loser of a husband

And yes, by the next month, you are pregnant and incredibly happy

And of course, your daughter and Yara’s son grow up to be best friends, not a family holiday passing by where they aren’t told the story of the totally bitchin’ way both set of their parents got together

#beyond the story #bts smut #Jungkook smut #bts jungkook #bts #bts imagines #bts preferences #Jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook

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fairfaxleasee · 4 years ago

Note

"Since when do you have a vendetta against vases?" + any DA2 cast

For @dadrunkwriting

Despite the best efforts of my cat who didn't think I needed to actually finish this.

Pairings: Alistair/Amelia, Fenris/Cass Hawke

Rated: T (horror references)

(The DA2 cast is involved so it counts, right?)

"Since when do you have a vendetta against vases, my friend?" Zevran Arainai turned the current fundamental threat to Ferelden's existence in his hands as though it were actually a vase.

"That's not a vase!" Alistair wasn't allowed to carry his shield in the palace (something about it being 'unkingly') so he was hiding behind the sturdiest-looking piece of furniture in the room. "Now can you assassinate it or not?"

"I am not sure what to tell you, but I am fairly certain this is a vase. However, if you are so insistent on paying my rather exorbitant fees, I could be persuaded to assassinate it for you." Zevran tossed the thing up in the air and caught it a few times.

"Be careful! Just because there may not be poison on it doesn't mean there's not poison in it!"

"Come, Alistair. I believe the stresses of your life are starting to get to you. What could you possibly have to fear from a vase."

"For the last time it's not a vase! I don't know what it is but nothing that woman's involved in is what it seems to be!"

"Ah, so a woman is involved, is she? Does your piccola gazzia know?"

"Amelia? Of course Amelia knows. She doesn't believe me about it not being a vase either but she didn't meet Cassia Hawke!"

The smug grin finally slid off Zevran's face and he set the not-vase thing down. "Cassia Hawke? The Ice Queen of Kirkwall? The most wanted woman in Thedas and infamous poisoner - and I am saying this as an Antivan."

"Yes! That Cassia Hawke!"

"And the vase..."

"Her 'gift.'"

"Did I say my fee would be 'exorbitant'? I am afraid I must revise it to 'ludicrous.' The Ice Queen is hardly a standard hazard, after all..."

"...You know, Zevran, I can't help but feel you're exploiting me."

"I am not the one with a gift from the Ice Queen in my house I would rather have gone. Now, before we discuss just how ludicrous my fee will be, tell me: on a scale of 'she wanted to stab you with a blunt object' to 'she wanted to lower you feet-first into a vat of acid' how angry was she with you when she gave you this?"

"Uhh..." Alistair tried to remember. He was fairly sure they had moved beyond 'stabbing' but he wasn't sure just how close to acid he'd gotten.

"Very well, did she give this to you before or after you told her to smile?"

"I did not tell her to smile!"

"So perhaps only a slightly ludicrous fee then."

"...I may have sort of implied she should be nice."

"Incredibly ludicrous it is."

"I... FINE! Now will you get rid of it."

Zevran sighed dramatically and gripped the thing by the lip. He pulled some sort of black bag out of his armor (Alistair didn't want to think about what the bag was intended to be used for) and placed it inside. Then he tied it shut and walked over to the door out of the room.

He motioned for Alistair to come over to the door. Alistair shook his head. He may be an idiot, but he wasn't that big an idiot.

"All you have to do is close the door! It will be quicker if you do it than I."

With how nervous he sounded, Alistair doubted it was really as simple as the assassin was making it out to be, but he did want the door shut as quickly as possible. He reluctantly got out from behind the chair and crept over to the door.

"On my signal!" Zevran started spinning the bag, then on the signal tossed it into the hallway as Alistair slammed the door.

They heard a muffled crash, then nothing.

"So... what now?" Alistair wasn't quite sure what to expect. He'd never watched an assassination before (well, unless you counted the time Zevran had failed to assassinate him).

Zevran had an ear to the door. "Well, I do not hear anything, and I do not smell anything, so now I think you pay me for solving your vase problem."

"Oh no!" Alistair wasn't getting fooled. "I've already smashed the thing to pieces. It keeps coming back! I'm not paying you until I'm sure it's gone!"

"...you did not think this was perhaps information that would have been useful before now?"

"You're the assassin! Why didn't you ask before now?"

"...very well. We shall just go and bury it then."

"Done that before too..." Alistair muttered mostly to himself as he and Zevran left the room to collect the bag.

He could hear the shattered pieces in the bag clank as they took it outside to the royal garden to bury it.

"There, my friend? Are you satisfied?"

"Not yet! We're going to check and make sure it's not back."

"How can it be back when it is dead and buried?"

"I don't know, if I knew that I'd have been able to kill it myself!"

"...you are lucky I am not charging you extra for this." Zevran shook his head but did follow Alistair back inside.

Where the vase-looking thing was sitting where it had been before Zevran had smashed it looking just like new.

"See?" Alistair threw his arms out just to make sure Zevran would.

"I... do not understand. I put it in the bag, we smashed it in the bag, we buried the pieces. How is it back?"

"I don't know, but I'm not paying you until it's not back anymore! I thought I left the blighted thing in Kirkwall in pieces, but that didn't stop it following me back here!"

"Have you considered it may be easier to beg the Ice Queen's forgiveness and throw yourself at her mercy? I believe at the very least she would kill you faster."

"I... look, how am I supposed to do that when no one knows where she is? Also I don't want to be killed faster, I want to not be killed at all, and if you want to be paid, you'd better get rid of that vase."

"I... very well. As an independent assassin competing with far more famous guilds, I suppose I must protect my reputation for dependability." Zevran grabbed the thing and stuck it into another black bag. "Let us see if drowning will fare any better than breaking."

They checked the bag just to make sure the thing hadn't escaped somehow before they threw it into Denerim harbor.

"There? Now may I please get paid?"

"No! I told you not until I'm sure it's gone."

"Again, you are lucky I am not charging you for two assassinations..."

"If you'd done it right the first time, we wouldn't have needed this second time!"

They kept bickering about who was getting the better end of the deal back to the palace. When they arrived, they ran into Amelia carrying the same vase they'd broken and just dumped in the harbor.

"Amelia! Don't touch that! It's dangerous!" Alistair snatched the thing away from his very surprised wife.

"...Alistair, it's a vase. They're not exactly known hazards."

"It's not a vase, you know where it's from and it won't die!"

"It won't..." Amelia started looking surprised and started glaring at Alistair in a way that reminded him of her father. "Alistair Theirin! Have you been breaking these on purpose? You're just lucky that I counted wrong when my father brought these extras with him after you visited Kirkwall and there are still some left to replace them. It's odd, I could have sworn that last one you just broke was the last one, but when I went back downstairs to look after you broke it I found more."

Alistair leaned away from his wife and back to Zevran. "...they're reproducing now!"

"Yes, and I have decided that in that case they are entirely your problem."

"I... you don't want to get paid?" Alistair looked at the assassin in disbelief.

"Not if it means having to investigate how the Ice Queen has managed to make vases suddenly appear in your palace when she is annoyed at you. No, my friend, you are entirely on your own in this."

"I... but..."

"Perhaps next time you will not tell the woman to smile?"

"I didn't tell her to smile, I told her to be nice!"

"Eh, either way."

Alistair wasn't prepared to let Zevran off the hook quite that easily, "What about not breaking a contract?"

"The Crows do not break a contract. I, however, am not a Crow. I am a man who enjoys the pleasures of living. And speaking of those, I am going to find Avalonne before she becomes as mad at me as your wife currently is with you."

"I'm not mad at him, Zevran!" Amelia looked mad enough to Alistair, "I'm annoyed he's been breaking these things on purpose!"

Zevran had already started wandering off down the hallway. Alistair was obviously not getting rid of whatever the thing was that way, but maybe if he could explain to Amelia just how dangerous Cassia Hawke was, he'd get her to figure out a way to be rid of the souvenir. "Now, Love, I can explain."

Judging by his wife's reaction, he'd overused that line.

-------------------------------------------

"You know, Cass," Fenris shook his head slightly. "This was not what I had in mind when I suggested you needed a hobby.

Cass reached up for his hands to help her out of the cistern she'd used to get into Denerim without being seen. She grinned at her husband, "What? Pottery's not a hobby?"

He shook his head again but she could see him smiling, "Pottery is a hobby. Using the pottery you've made to torture someone who annoyed you isn't."

"I mean, it sounds kinda 'hobbyish' to me. How are you defining 'hobby' that it doesn't meet the definition?"

"Well, 'semantics games' are a safer hobby, but I'm serious Cass - sneaking into Denerim just for that was... it was..." He looked away from her.

She knew it was a stupid risk, but if she had been seen, letting the Ferelden authorities chase their tails to find her in an assassination plot against their King in Denerim should mean no one would be looking for her to slip through the Frostbacks into Orlais.

"I didn't go just for that." She untied the coin purse from her belt and threw it to him.

"...Cass did you steal this from the palace?"

"I don't steal Fenris. I sold my daggers. Wade didn't care who I was or where I came from, he just wanted to study Sandal's runes. He literally opened his safe for me and told me to take whatever I wanted as long as I promised to leave him the daggers."

"Cass!"

"We need the money, Fenris."

"You need to have some protection!"

"I sold my daggers Fenris. I still have the knives, poisons, and acids." She walked over and clasped the front of his armor. "And I have you."

He brushed some hair away from her face. "Always, Cassia."

#dragon age #da drunk writing circle #fenris #fenhawke #fenris/f!hawke #fenris/hawke #fenris x femhawke #fenris x hawke #alistair theirin #king alistair #zevran arainai

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shini--chan · 4 years ago

Note

Okay, I've been wracking my brain to think of an ask for you because I know your writing is fire, and I don't want to waste it! If the mood strikes you, can you write a little yandere Levi in a universe of your choosing or constructing? I'm sort of interested to see how you imagine him as a yandere 😊

Thx, fam!

As I told you once before, this is the ask that almost made me forfeit my principal of answering asks chronologically. :P

So, this will be my usual mix of headcanons and Imagines if you don’t mind, since I have a lot of thoughts on this man and just don’t want to stumble into the snare of writing a full length story … yet.

I’ ll also keep this general, since the universe any Levi fic is set in just changes the nuances, and not fundamental character traits.

Also, I have to remark that it is already too late for me - I’m hip deep in academia.

Yandere Levi Ackerman

Captain Levi is a very orderly person, it is part of his lifestyle and how he interacts with others and himself. It is something he is really strict about and he wouldn’t tolerate anything less than perfect hygiene in a lover. To him, there is nothing less disgusting than poor body hygiene and should you start slacking off in anyway when it comes to taking care of yourself, a very fundamental aspect, then he won’t shy away from taking matters in his own hands.

You gasped as a bucket of water was frigidly emptied over head and you threw yourself out as your bed, expecting your assailant to have lunged onto you, should you have remained there.

Instead, he was standing right in front of you.

Somewhat shyly, you looked up into Levi’s pale face and sneered at the accursed object that he was holding in his hand. He sneered right back at you, the corners of his lips curled slightly upwards in disgust. A rather uncommon display of extreme emotion on his part, for being a commonly stoic man.

“Get up!”, he curtly barked to which you stiffly groaned. Sloppily, you got up, still groggy from being rudely awoken and not in the best mood because of it. The water running in rivulets down your body and made your sleep wear cling to your skin didn’t help either.

“What was that for?”, you whined, completely oblivious as to why he was being so imperious to you. What had you done to warrant such poor treatment?

“Don’t get cheeky now, little brat. You didn’t shower last night and went all sweaty to bed. You deserved what I did to you now.”

Him being orderly isn’t restricted to personal cleanliness, it is also about how disciplined a person is with themselves. Having had to live in harsh environments for his whole life, he is a firm believer in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. That also means that should you suffer from any mental disorder, trauma induction or not, he wouldn’t be very understanding. Not that he wouldn’t be concerned about your broken state of mind, rather he wouldn’t see how being kind and coddling you would fix it.

“You know brat, if you would stop sulking and feeling sorry for yourself, your life would start getting damn better”, he snarled at your cowered form.

Hunched over the table, you had elected to grab a beer to numb the pain that was ravaging your heart. Watching people die never became easy, especially when they were close to you.

“Just leave me alone”, you begged and raised the tankard to your mouth again. Yet before the wooden rim could touch your lips, it was shamelessly ripped away from you. Levi’s sharp grey eyes were honed on you, the fire of anger dancing in them. Just why did he have to play judge now of all times?

“No, you look like shit and you’re talking shit. Moping around wouldn’t make anything better you idiot. You need to your act together, not get piss drunk.”

Furthermore, he needs to be in control. As soon as he feels like his vice-like grasp over reality is slipping, he does what all people do that are losing their power – he scrambles to re-attain it. And he doesn’t hesitate to utilize violence. On top of that he sees respect given, as power given, so he demands the piety that his position ought to give him. It doesn’t matter that you’re his lover, if anything you ought to give him his due. Rows with him are literally the worst – be prepared to be swept of your feet!

Roughly, you were slammed against the wall in a manner that knocked the wind out of your lungs with a crude sound. It was followed by a gasp as your ears rang from your skull having banged against the stone and your muscles and bones ached.

“What did you just say?”, Levi snarled, a rare look of utter rage on his handsome face. You knew it was a rhetorical question, he had heard you the first time around. But you were too steep in your own anger to not push your luck.

“Don’t be like that, darling”, you spat the last word as if it were poison in your mouth. Warranted actually, since you had been coerced and tricked into this relationship. “I said that maybe you should take a leave out of your superior’s book because all your shortcomings make you unbearable to be a runt. Somehow, I doubt that would work, though – you’ll always remain a sewer rat at heart.”

A wrong move – those handsome features contorted to something utterly ghastly.

“You know we wouldn’t have such problems if you could control that attitude of yours. And if you would show me respect”, he hissed as he pressed you further against the wall, so that you were sandwiched between stone and muscles to a painful degree. The hands grasping you by the front of your clothing didn’t help either.

Lips twisting into a snarl of your own, you countered: “Respect is supposed to be earned, Captain. I will only respect you if you respect me.” You were really insistent on digging yourself your own grave, weren’t you?

“You’re much prettier if you keep that mouth of yours shut.

“Consider the feeling to be mutual, brat. Why should I give you any respect if you won’t give me any? And remember, I’m above you, so I don’t owe you anything. You owe me the world.”

Levi also has a strict set of rules that he expects you to follow to the dot. A fair warning, however, he may change the one or the other spontaneously and not inform you of it until you’re bent over his desk. Also, it is common knowledge that he endorses corporal punishment and celebrates pain as a prim method to install discipline. He really thinks that bad behaviour can be beat out of somebody. He is also exceptionally cruel with his punishments. This can be traced back to how he was desensitized to violence at a relatively early age and revels in have people submit to him.

You had barely set foot in his study when he looked up from his paperwork and ordered you: “Come over here, and bend over the desk.”

Shocked by his harsh words, you nevertheless complied. You knew that resistance would only make matters worse. Still, as you bend over and pressed your cheek against the cool oak you asked: “What did I do wrong this time?”

Briefly, he stopped rummaging through the chest that stood by the window and glanced over his shoulder.

“Are you serious? Don’t you already know? And I though you weren’t so goddamn stupid”, he snapped.

Finally, having found what he was searching for, he turned towards you again. There was a semi-bored expression gracing his visage as he drawled: “I told you a thousand times before, pet. When you are finished with your afternoon chores you are to come directly to me. No chit-chat with somebody else, no fooling about and yet you disobey me again and again. Your ears really are just for decoration.”

You opened your mouth to protest but he carelessly cut you off: “I don’t care if they are your friends, you don’t need them. You just need me.”

Upon that you fell silent and closed your eyes in hopelessness as you waited for your punishment to commence. When do pain came after a minute of silence you dared to open your eyes and glance back.

Seeing that you were focused on him, Levi cleared his throat as if to say “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Then you remember and with a great amount of shame you bared your bottom and meekly requested: “Please Levi, my love, spank me thoroughly.”

As usual, it sickened you that he made you ask to be punished. It was his way of normalizing and justifying his abuse. And conditioning you.

A dark chuckle rumbled in his throat as he grabbed you by the nap as he pressed you against his desk. “There is a good little pet”, he whispered as leather made contact with your supple flesh.

This man has a difficult time warming up to people. All the agony of losing those that meant the world to him repeatedly has caused him to become cold and reserved. That means that in his mind, you should view it as a privilege that you are the love of his life. Because of that, he won’t accept rejection. Also, since he hasn’t had somebody really close to him in ages, he will be very clingy and overprotective. The world has the habit of robbing him, so you won’t allow you to be stolen as well. Not to forget that he is a man of action – being passive or also relying on words to solve situations just isn’t his style.

Your skin was on fire due to his ministrations, or rather because of the disgust they evoked. The arm around your waist that pressed you against him made you want to claw at his skin and his lips against the tender skin of your neck made you want to throttle him.

Yet you knew that it was just wishful thinking. Engaging in such protest would be futile since he was stronger and quicker than you.

“Look here Levi, I told you…”, you tried to reason with him but he just silenced your objection:

“Shush, sweetheart. Don’t ruin the moment.”

Then he resumed kissing your neck and collar bone, sometimes tugging at your skin with teeth in order to cause bruises. You tensed as his free hand snaked down your leg and hooked itself under your knee.

The captain is a military man and fairly intelligent. He knows how to deal with an enemy, how to assess their strengths and weaknesses and how to keep them contained. And also, how to best combat them and capture them. He really is the worst opponent you could meet on the battlefield.

So how to evade him? You take him off the battlefield, place him in a situation where aggression can’t help him achieve his goals. He is a military man, as said before, so he is accustomed to low context communication – words must be direct, and you must mean what you say so that they are no muck-ups. Little conversation and more orders and demands. Levi doesn’t have a silver tongue to begin with, quite the contrary actually.

That means he cares a bit for codes, since they are of use to him in his branch of expertise. But he cares little for symbolism since he has categorised that as sappy nonsense reserved for romantics. So, you have an avenue to express yourself that he won’t catch up on unless somebody explicitly told him what it meant. Consider yourself lucky, it is exactly this that will prevent you from going insane.

“Flowers? Again?”, he gruffly asked.

It made you look up from the novel you were reading to see him eyeing the tansy and peonies that you had placed in a vase on the nightstand.

You had to suppress a smirk and work to keep the self-satisfaction out of your voice as you meekly inquired: “They are there to give a bit more colour to the room. I can always put them away if you want.”

You were being obedient to him for a change and that was why he decided to allow you a few luxuries. Besides, since you were so affectionate in the past two months, why shouldn't he return it with gestures of his own.

“Keep them. I’ll just never understand why you like them so much”, he answered and then stalked over to the bathroom. Of course he would never comprehend it, with his spartan and austere tastes, just like you would never understand that the small yellow flowers meant ‘I declare war on you!’ or that the orange lilies that had been there a few days ago actually proclaimed your hatred for him.

Hopefully, he would never find out.

Intelligence doesn’t automatically mean that he is omnipotent or that he is an all-powerful overlord. It just means that he is quick to comprehend tactics and strategies and devise his own. He isn’t immune to mistakes. So, when he ropes you in, in his games, you have to play a wholly different game of your own if you want to get out. Military, remember? There are many walks of life that he is unfamiliar with, many possibilities for you to escape his clutches that he wouldn’t even account for.

Giddily, you smiled at yourself in the mirror. You barely recognized yourself, with all the paint and heavy cloth that decorated your body. Levi didn’t either, just how it was supposed to be.

You had spotted him in the audience as you had pranced about the stage, looking very disgruntled at not having you by his side or locked up in his quarters. Even you had heard the rumours of how a few days ago he had flown into a frenzy, searching high and low for something.

You were one of the few that knew it was someone and that someone was you. Knowing him as well as you did, you made the fair guess that he also wasn’t here by his own volition, rather his comrades had dragged him here in an attempt to distract him.

And you also knew that had looked everywhere he presumed you to be – in the forest, somewhere tucked away in his estate, in the taverns and at the city borders and at the docks. Just not amongst the theatre troop.

That would probably stay that way, and you could use the opportunity to escape him.

Adding to the fact that he is bad at expressing himself like a normal human being, he is also very emotional underneath that stoic veneer. In combat situations, he has an outlet for all his pent-up emotions. Else you have to suffer his outbursts and mood swings. Nonetheless, the world isn’t a gigantic battlefield and if the right buttons are pushed, he could lose it at exactly the wrong time and place. Levi would lose badly at the game favoured in the royal courts of provoking-the-other-until-they-embarrass-themselves.

Levi was very close to unleashing his unholy rage and as a precaution, you had taken to stepping out of range. While you found the whole situation very amusing, you didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.

“…however, since you come short on some things, I don’t expect you to understand that. Should I repeat what I said, in bitesize chunks so that you don’t lag behind this time”, the nobleman prattled while he looked down on your “lover”.

Said man pressed through gritted teeth: “You filthy swine, go stuff all your pretty words up your ass.”

The noble emitted a fake gasp and murmured aghast: “You really are so crass. The rumours of you being a dwarf barbarian are true.”

That was the last straw for Levi. In the following minutes, a small crowd gathered to see what the commotion was all about and it ended in the guards having to restrain him. Really, it was hypocritical of the Ackerman to threaten you about causing a scene when he was the one prone to temper tantrums.

#yandere levi #yandere attack on titan #yandere aot #yandere snk #yandere x reader #x reader #yandere levi x reader #my writing #yandere levi ackerman

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katsidhe · 4 years ago

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How about Family Matters for the SPN reviews? I'd love your take on some SoullessSam.

I took a sabbatical from these for the end of s15, but now I’m Back. Here we go!

6.07 Final Thoughts

I love early season 6 as a meditation on the ways that Sam is present when he is absent, and absent when he is present. Making Sam objectively, provably Not Himself does some lovely and horrific things to drag the ways he has been forced and forces himself to fit certain molds into the light.

We open on Sam, whom Dean has beaten bloody and unconscious and tied to a chair, for the crime of—*checks notes*—saying he feels there’s something wrong with him, and that he needs help. Boy, I sure do wonder why Sam was reticent. A mystery.

Okay, but actually, those aren’t Dean’s reasons. Because he went way overboard. Sam was not a physical threat to him. Dean was certainly upset about the you-let-me-get-vamped thing, but he wasn’t overcome with rage over it. This was not 4.21, or 4.04, or any time that Dean has lashed out at Sam in anger or desperation or because Sam was fighting back. In fact, this wasn’t Dean lashing out at Sam at all: Dean is cold, Dean is putting down a threat. Dean beat Soulless!Sam unconscious precisely because he was not Sam enough. Dean is lashing out at the unbearable possibility that the Cage might have changed Sam, indelibly, forever, to be someone that Dean won’t recognize. And that implicit degree of judgment is utterly terrifying.

Lies and honesty in season 6... it’s a whole thing, webs within webs, really. Cas will later be excoriated for hiding his deal with Crowley from Dean and Sam. Both Samuel and Cas are lying to Sam for the whole season about who rescued Sam, and Crowley is lying to them both in turn. But the fact that Sam literally didn’t know what was wrong with him or how he escaped Hell but was expected to confess anyway, along with the way Cas and Dean stand there discussing Sam’s status and diagnosis over his head, is an excellent illustration of the way that lies to and lies about Sam are treated.

Also, Cas, entering the brunt of his woes post-s6: the way that Dean and Sam, and especially Dean, take his assistance and his involvement for granted. He’s been inducted into the family, and he’s glimpsed the utter loyalty demanded, but now those demands will really start to kick in. “Your problems always come first.” lmao

Soulless!Sam is remarkably cooperative! He relies on a tactic that mid-seasons Sam uses actually quite a lot to win over Dean: persuasion via self abasement. (I’m the least of any of you, I know I’m a freak, I know I messed up)… it’s appeasement, full-throttle. “I’m sorry, Dean, I won’t do it again,” he says, with admirably well-leashed insincerity.

It’s so obviously, delightfully performative. It makes me think about 15.17, and other times in late seasons, when Sam is relying on these tried-and-true tactics to talk Dean down. How much of that is performative? How much does Sam truly believe? How much does Sam believe in spirit but not in word? The potential for dishonesty and slant truth is fascinating.

Soul (or lack of soul) touching!!!! Cas didn’t even heal Sam’s face first, because he knew we wanted to see him all bloody :)

The treatment of Family also gets a good shake-over in season 6, with the introduction of the Campbells. Dean’s open hostility towards the Campbells is unsurprising; he’s threatened, he’s suspicious, and it reminds me of how Dean felt when he discovered Adam in 4.19.

And yet Dean uses a similar tactic on Samuel as Soulless Sam is using on him—offering trust in the hope that it’s returned. “You call the plays,” he says, apparently without any sense of irony.

Dean accuses Sam of having “no instincts.” And that’s--both true, and precisely untrue. Sam able to figure out every kind of cue this episode quickly and keenly, not by empathy, but through observation. Also ironically, Sam’s ease with following Samuel’s orders is so close to Dean’s sense of instinct, as he would have defined it pre-series! Do what Dad asks, because he’s family: you can really see Sam’s confusion when Dean isn’t on board with that.

I think we should appreciate how baffling the back and forth in Family (tm) is for Soulless!Sam. He set himself up to follow the Rules as he understood them: save people, hunt things, obey Dad Grandad, only for the goalposts to move.

What’s interesting here is, as Soulless says himself, he doesn’t actually need to stick around with Dean. He could have left. Reasonably, around the time that Dean gives him the “I drive the bus, I call the shots” speech, he should have been out of there. We are supposed to feel disappointment at the prospect that they broke up but I mean goddamn, who wouldn’t run from that ultimatum. The real twist is that he decides to stick it out.

I love the brief flash of genuine fear Soulless shows when Crowley threatens to throw him back into the Cage.

Soulless!Sam is still so fundamentally his own person, even when he’s allowing himself to be led around by the nose by Dean. And yet… he’s just as compromised as Sam is. He’s got that fear of being swallowed up, by Hell or by Dean. Being twisted into something he is not, being forced to fit a shape he can’t survive: that’s the point at which he’ll fight back. But up until then? He’ll stretch himself quite agreeably to meet expectations. He’ll fit himself into the imposed mold without complaint, whether it’s Samuel’s or Dean’s, and he’ll feel a real sense of relief to have that structure.

Unlike many other soulless people we’ve seen, Soulless!Sam doesn’t operate at all on id. Rather, he reads to me as the precise opposite: ego and superego run wild. He places too much weight on divining and acting according to what his tiny society thinks is acceptable. All his survival drive is bent towards consequence, towards the judgment of pragmatic outcomes, rather that what he’d like in the moment. He doesn’t mind hurting or subsuming himself temporarily to gain a later advantage. He feels safest when fulfilling expectations, both practical and moral. He’s built himself a scaffold to support whatever it is he knows he's become, and he uses it to defend himself against the guilt and failure and agony that he remembers, that he’s desperate not to return to.

“This family—this is it for me now,” says Soulless!Sam to Samuel, and even though he’s lying, I think he’s telling the truth.

#thanks for the ask!#6.07 #sam and soullessness #sam and dean #this is a really really good soulless episode #the number of compromises soulless sam is willing to make is staggering #denugis #4.19 #15.17 #final thoughts

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xiyao-feels · 4 years ago

Text

Part Three: Claims about JGY

Intro - Pt 1 - Pt 2 - Pt 3 - Pt 4

JGY

1) JGY has the authority to teach NHS the SoC

He does teach him, and there's no suggestion from anyone involved that he didn't.

In MDZS, the SoC is explicitly one of the Lan's exclusive teachings, and NMJ objects to LXC teaching it to JGY on those grounds; LXC's response to this includes the fact that it can't be leaking it since JGY is their sworn brother, a consideration which would not extend to NHS. I'm not saying that LXC would necessarily deny NHS the chance to learn it (if he were in fact capable of playing it; it's noted as very difficult), but there is no way that JGY has the authority to teach it to NHS without LXC's permission. Nor does NHS seem to be making any efforts to hide what he's playing (in front of both NMJ and some of the Nie men JGY was just playing in front of), so it doesn't seem as though JGY was playing on that to get NHS to keep in a secret. I grant you the plan is stupid enough as it is, but if he'd obtained permission from LXC to teach NHS that would elevate it to new heights of idiocy.

In CQL, the guqin conversation is missing a great deal of what we see in MDZS, and that includes the exchange about it being a Lan exclusive teaching. Nevertheless, we're not given any reason to suppose it's not—and all later discussion of it pretty much follows on MDZS, where it is.

2) JGY involves NHS in his killing of NMJ

He teaches him the corrupted SoC. Now, as in part one, I think MDZS canon suggests this would result in NHS actually helping NMJ, but that's clearly not what the movie is going for.

In MDZS, JGY consistently defends NHS from and to NMJ, as you've seen in some of the quotes in the previous sections. Moreover, after NHS burns his hands when NMJ burns NHS' things, he's the one who orders medicine prepared and comforts him, advises him to go back to his room and rest, and tries to keep him from provoking NMJ; and then, after NHS has run off and locked himself in his room, refusing to open it to anyone to allow them to deliver the medicine, and while NMJ is still furious about NHS' defiance, accepts the medicine and plans to take it to NHS' rooms after he's finished with NMJ (ch 49-50). He does not involve NHS in his plan to kill NMJ.

In CQL, again, we see rather fewer of JGY and NHS' interactions during this time period—which doesn't mean that they don't happen, just that we don't see it. Again, when CQL doesn't say something, I tend to assume it matches MDZS unless I have a specific reason to believe otherwise—CQL kind of relies on this, in fact, otherwise you have questions like "wait what the heck was JGY trying to dig up in the temple". Regardless of whether you agree with that argument, JGY does hold NHS back and prevent him from running towards a qi-deviating NMJ. Although I've seen it interpreted as cruel, he likely prevents NHS from getting himself killed or injured (as happens in MDZS, where NMJ wounds NHS (ch 50)). And this is of course not strictly part of the text, but I'll observe that ZZJ has said that he thinks JGY would regret allowing NHS to witness NMJ's qi-deviation. There is, regardless, no evidence in CQL that JGY used NHS in his plan to kill NMJ.

3) JGY can straightforwardly prevent NMJ's violence via the SoC

We see him do this when NMJ is about to punch NHS; he's obviously hurrying a little, but the SoC works clearly and quickly.

In both MDZS and CQL, he shows no sign of an ability to do this. Instead he just has to deal with NMJ attacking him. When he can prevent NMJ's violence towards him, it's literally just that he manages to talk him down; JGY is, in fact, incredibly vulnerable to NMJ's violence.

We see more of NMJ targeting JGY in MDZS (see next point), but in neither MDZS nor CQL does JGY show any sign of being able to stop NMJ's violence by playing a few quick measures.

Granted, this is mostly a replay about the SoC being able to stop NMJ's violence quickly even when used by someone with weak cultivation. But it's a very important point.

4) Someone other than JGY is the main target of NMJ's violence.

This isn't an explicit claim, but while NMJ is violent on more than one occasion, at no point is JGY his target, nor (from what I can tell) is it suggested he usually is. Rather, NHS and the Nie men are made to stand out as NMJ's victims.

In MDZS, JGY is absolutely the main target of NMJ's violence;* although he does burn NHS' things, leading to NHS' hands being burnt when he tries to save them, and later injures various people (including NHS!) when he qi-deviates, he does this latter /because he is hallucinating they are JGY/. He calls JGY out at the stairs and /publically/—in front of various Jin disciples!—and not only humiliates him but also kicks him down the stairs then draws his sabre on him with intent to kill him (all this after trying to hit him very first thing after they go outside). Earlier, of course, we see him try to kill MY after MY has just killed WRH and saved his life, and his final qi-deviation is immediately preceded by him kicking open a door to slaughter JGY on the spot for the crime of being upset to LXC about how NMJ treats him…ostensibly combined with him being polite and friendly to NMJ's face, but the last time JGY was anything but, NMJ tried to kill him, and indeed LXC is advising JGY against "provok[ing]" NMJ "again," presumably by talking back to him as he did at the stairs (ch 50).

In ch 118—before the stairs incident, and I think it must have been before the Chang clan are killed too—XY asks if JGY's bruise is from NMJ. Although in fact it is not (and observe JGY's response: “If he were the one who did it, do you think I could still be standing here and talking to you?”), the possibility of NMJ's violence towards JGY is clearly present. In ch 32, when WWX sees some kids playing, although we're told that LFZ is the most popular character and although the text is replete with indications that at this point in time he is both powerful and well-respected, there is /still/ the general knowledge that NMJ is going to threaten JGY and JGY is going to flee:

“Nie MingJue” raised swung his fist, “So what if you’re the Chief Cultivator. You’re still my youngest brother. You’ll have to run away whenever you see me anyways.”

“Jin GuangYao” did indeed cooperate and maintain his character. Flinching his shoulders, he quickly ran away.

See also WWX's comment in the first Empathy chapter, when he's surprised at watching NMJ and MY get along: 'Wei WuXian had heard too much of those jokes of how “LianFang-Zun fled whenever he heard that ChiFeng-Zun arrived”.'

We're even told that the brotherhood oath they swore was unusually violent!

NMJ's determination to kill JGY lasts even into his own death—that's /why/ JGY dismembers him and sets such strong seals on him, so that NMJ's fierce corpse won't kill him. NMJ's violence towards JGY is a central part of both of their narratives, and shows up all throughout the text.

*Well, NMJ is also very pro-Wen-killing, but on an individual level.

In CQL this is a little more complicated. NMJ seems perhaps generally less violent? Certainly we are shown less of his violence, and in e.g. the confrontation in Sun Palace he is not constantly attempting to get to JGY while LXC blocks his blows and explains things. In episode 36, although we still see the children playing, the exchange is a little modified; we're still told JGY is scared of NMJ, but the NMJ kid doesn't raise a fist or anything like that, and the JGY child doesn't run away. Nevertheless, NMJ is clearly hostile to JGY, and his violence at the stairs is the same: attempting to hit him the moment they arrive outside, kicking him down the stairs, and then drawing his sabre on him to try and kill him. The difference is that in CQL, JGY survives because NMJ qi-deviates, whereas in MDZS he would likely have died had LXC not intervened. The emphasis on NMJ's violence towards JGY is much less present in CQL; nevertheless, JGY is still the primary target of what violence we do see.

5) JGY is easily replaceable, indeed at all replaceable, as a subordinate

FJ does not explicitly say this, but NZH seems to be very well-integrated and to have been there a while, and there's no suggestion he is in any way less than a perfect subordinate, or that JGY was better. As though to emphasize this, we see him dive in front of NMJ to take a blow (as with MY in CQL)—and, of course, he has the good grace to die when NMJ tries to kill him. One of the rather underspecified Nie cultivators also flings himself in front of NMJ, taking a blow to save his life (although, to be entirely fair, willingness to take a blow for NMJ is probably the way in which MY /is/ most easily replaceable).

In MDZS, MY's competence as NMJ's subordinate, and indeed the extraordinary level of his competence, are fundamental to his and NMJ's relationship. Consider these quotes from ch. 49:

After he left, Nie MingJue switched to another deputy. Wei WuXian, however, felt that the new one was always a few beats slower. Meng Yao was an unusually clever talent. He could understand what wasn’t said, and perform to the best with the simplest orders. He was efficient and never slacked. Anyone used to him wouldn’t be able to refrain from comparing him with others.

and

Nie MingJue was never close to people. He rarely opened up to anyone. Though he finally managed to obtain a competent, trustworthy subordinate, whose character and capabilities he approved, he found that the subordinate’s true colors were nothing like what he had thought they were. It was only natural that his reaction was so extreme.

Moreover, it's WWX's conclusion in ch 49 that part of the reason NMJ agrees to swear brotherhood with JGY is JGY's extraordinary talent:

From [WWX's] observations, aside from how Lan XiChen brought it up, having always hoped that the two would reconcile, the most important factor was probably the gratitude of saving his life and writing the letters. To be precise, in his past battles, he had more-or-less depended on the information that Meng Yao sent over through Lan XiChen. He still thought that Jin GuangYao was a talented person whom one would rarely come upon, and intended on leading him back onto the right path. However, Jin GuangYao wasn’t his subordinate anymore. Only after they became sworn brothers would he have the status and the position to urge Jin GuangYao, like how he disciplined his younger brother, Nie HuaiSang.

This is also part of LXC's attempt to reassure JGY that NMJ has not entirely turned against him, in ch 50:

Lan XiChen, “He has always cherished your talent, hoping that you would choose the right path.

JGY's extraordinary competence is very much central to their relationship, and the /fact/ that he has to be so extraordinarily competent to achieve any recognition is central to the themes of the text.

In CQL, again, this is less explicit. However, in episode 10 NHS praises him and WWX and JC are impressed by his talent; the captain, the only other high-up Nie man we get an individual sense of, seems rather less impressive. Moreover, at the stairs, when confronting JGY about XY's imprisonment, NMJ says what did I tell you back in Qinghe (about wanting XY dead), i.e. when JGY was his servant, suggesting he still views JGY in the framework of that relationship and at least possibly suggesting that he still misses JGY in that position.

In the interests of justice I will also bring up the important claims about the characters I noticed that /do/ have significant textual support: first, that NMJ is very good at fighting; second, that NHS and NMJ are each other's most important people. (It technically also gets that NHS hates practicing the sabre, but given the way it contextualizes this I'm not giving them any points for that one.) FJ also claims that lying to someone to keep them from knowing something that would hurt them is an expression of love—although in MDZS this goes rather the other way around, with NMJ keeping things from NHS, considered in isolation it does fit in with similar expressions of love in CQL/MDZS.

Now, I want to be clear, I'm not actually being as thorough as I possibly could. To do that, I would have to watch it multiple times and think things over for at /least/ a month, and even aside from the poor anon who's waiting on the answer to the question "what do they erase about NHS and JGY," I have absolutely no desire to spend that kind of time with the film.

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#fj negativity #more than one tag could contain #anger burned in his heart #we can't change places #long meta

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sepublic · 4 years ago

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Musical Car!

What’s interesting is that the musical has a sign advertising Jesse’s name; Did he stop by the Musical Car at some point and inspire the denizens there with a speech about empathy, and how differences are okay? We know that had to have taken place prior to him, Lake, and Alan Dracula entering the Carnival Car, meeting The Cat, etc. Either way, I’m not at all surprised that someone as open and friendly as him would say such things, especially with an unconventional friend like Lake; And obviously he stuck by his words in the end, didn’t he?

Lemme tell you though… I was legit disturbed by that raid, as well as seeing those poor denizens get legitimately hurt and injured for no reason at all, and that ONE decapitated dude almost getting wheeled, only to be converted into Simon’s thing; Like, screw you Apex. That’s what makes Simon and Grace interesting; I’ve always imagined the concept of more problematic protagonists for this series, so it’s not much of a surprise to see Book 3 dive into this! Given how much more, well… WORSE Simon and Grace are, pehaps it’s not all-too surprise that their arc was confined to HBO Max, given the even more mature tone set by them and their actions!

Honestly, those two rapidly switch and range from terrible, nasty jerks I want to punch, to misfits with banter and chemistry, and plenty of comradery; Especially for people they DO care about! It really drives the point home that not every bad person is PURE evil, like they don’t spend every waking moment plotting how terrible they can be, and most don’t even consider themselves as bad! It’s disconcerting, but a good look into their mindset; With Grace genuinely trying to be nice and caring to the kids and not hurting their feelings, but also repeating Amelia’s lies about the train denizens being there for the passengers’ benefit, and… More on that later.

Also- Glad to see Grace make fun of Simon’s fashion sense and acknowledge it, but at the same time… Either he was ten when he began to wear socks with sandals, AND/OR he was ten when he first met Grace; Presumably on the Infinity Train, although the idea of two individuals knowing one another PRIOR to boarding it is also fascinating! Especially given how Book 2 discussed the idea of fate and pre-determination in one’s paths and all…

It’s interesting to see that not all Apex kids are against the denizens, like some DO want to make friends with them (albeit in a very invasive manner), but Grace and Simon just shut them down. I have to wonder if they themselves also had a similar moment with Amelia, only to be brutally shut down; And Amelia is objectively worse than those two considering how much higher her number is, and how SHE was the one who started this dumb ideology in the first place (instead of just being taught it at a vulnerable moment in her life like everybody else)!

What’s worth noting is that Simon has a device that can detect the presence of other passengers, which is both VERY cool and VERY useful; I have to wonder if it’ll detect Hazel in the Jungle Car however. Given the speculation of her being a train denizen, it’d serve as neat, subtle foreshadowing as to her true nature, and I can see the show touching upon this! Also, the aesthetics of that device reminds me of what The Cat would own; Given how she’ll make a return this Book and has had a run-in with at least Grace in the past, I can easily see it being something she’d own. She IS a collector of useful things, after all… And I have to wonder if maybe The Cat was even a companion of Simon or Grace; Or maybe even Amelia! Perhaps the Passenger-Detector was a ‘gift’ from Amelia…

(I mean, they HAVE to bring her back in Book 3, given how her ideology and actions are a direct consequence of everything that happens, and would fit nicely into her eventual redemption arc. Not to mention it’d give a fascinating insight as to what was going on in her mind when she indoctrinated the Apex.)

Neat detail seeing the Unfinished Car with those corgi diplomats, and nice joke with that one turtle talking to what’s later revealed to be a phone with a line that’s already cut anyway! Grace breaking her Harpoon Pack makes sense; She wasn’t seen with one in the trailer and posters, and I guess it’d help ‘balance’ things if only one protagonist had a Harpoon Pack; So they can’t just skip over cars on their way back!

Speaking of a way back; We have a set number of cars leading back to the Mall Car, so in other words we have a way of keeping track of the journey’s progress! It IS worth noting that the cars could always rearrange… It’s interesting to learn that cars apparently don’t move when passengers are inside; I always assumed that sometimes they might’ve and a passenger wouldn’t notice because all the cars look identical from the outside, and also being inside a pocket-dimension kind of skews around with the sensation of what’s going on outside. It’s possible that Simon and Grace actually felt the movement because of the Unfinished Car’s unusual nature…

Regardless, after that disturbing opening scene it makes sense that One-One is stepping in! Given how he values the passengers more than the denizens (as seen with his second and final interaction with Lake), it makes me wonder how much he actually CARES; Or if he can’t afford to have people ‘breaking equipment’, and/or is mostly doing this to lean the Apex towards becoming better people by confronting them over their actions! At this point, they may end up pushing One-One too much and he’ll have to send in his Steward…

Getting onto some existential crisis, the cruel thing about Simon and Grace saying that the denizens are made for them is… They’re actually kind of right? NOT that this justifies at all their wanton, senseless cruelty towards the train denizens… But it ties back to Lake’s existential crisis in Book 2, the realization and likelihood that she (and maybe even the Mirror World) was made purely for the character development of people like Tulip and Jesse! One-One himself outright says in the Book 2 Finale that, YEAH; Train Denizens are supposed to stay on the train because their entire purpose, their entire means of creation was just to fulfill what the passengers need!

…Obviously, using them for raids ISN’T what One-One (and/or whoever made the Infinity Train/the Infinity Train itself) intended… But the disturbing realization still stands that the denizens’ purpose and creation in life is for the betterment of passengers, to accompany them, aid them… In the past, I’ve speculated how some Cars and their inhabitants don’t seem to have much of a personality beyond being a basic caricature to fulfill the ‘theme’ of a car, as well as aiding in passengers’ journeys! And obviously they’re all PEOPLE, but again this ties back into just how real the pasts and worlds of denizens were, as discussed by Mace; The idea that entire histories and cultures have been fabricated, and pre-programmed into the memories of denizens.

Needless to say, it’s very disturbing… And if Simon and Grace ever change their stance on denizens and even start vouching for them, it’d be a brilliant reversal of their beginning attitudes to have them call out One-One for making sapient people for the sole purpose of serving others; Which could be a dilemma for him given how HE may have been made for the purpose of others! Given how Amelia taught the Apex her ideals, and she was Conductor for a time and thus had rather intimate knowledge of the Infinity Train… perhaps what she says about the denizens being just ‘toys’, made for the passengers, isn’t too far a stretch from the truth; Obviously a dark, twisted, and selfish distortion. But it’s emblematic, reflecting a deeper, underlying issue that could lie with the Infinity Train itself.

(Especially since Owen Dennis said that One-One and the Infinity Train can be wrong…)

Given how Amelia made cars with denizens that only ‘turned on’ once a car was considered ‘complete’ (or close to it), it suggests that she knows all about the artificial, pre-programmed nature of denizens because she’s made a few ones; Which when coupled with how she probably tried to make a Fake Alrick, and ultimately realized that a replica would never be the same… Eerily, it lends to the idea that part of what made Amelia realize this at the end of Book 1, was her mindset that denizens are just follow, fake copies of pre-existing things and aren’t even real to begin with.

THAT is a cruel twist; That the very ideas that founded the Apex and caused our issues in Book 3, were low-key what helped Amelia wake up from her fantasy and realize that she needed to confront her issues! Given how high her number is, it only makes sense that while she’s making progress, she STILL has some more fundamental problems to tackle; Specifically the idea that while denizens aren’t the same or ‘real’ as the original, they’re still people and whatnot!

All in all, a VERY fascinating watch! Just eleven minutes, but I’m hooked in; Sure this does tie a lot back to previously-established concepts, but what story-driven show doesn’t? It really recontextualizes and makes you think back about what WAS discussed already and how it changes with the more we learn and explore!

#infinity train #infinity train book 3 #infinity train cult of the conductor #infinity train season 3 #infinity train spoilers #infinity train season 3 spoilers #infinity train grace #infinity train simon #infinity train amelia #analysis #spoilers #it spoilers

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chibivesicle · 4 years ago

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Golden Kamuy chapter 259 & 260 - predictable events [shrugs]

Chapter 259 starts with a flashback to Abashiri Prison as Boutarou is released from solitary confinement. Shiraishi asks him what he did to land in solitary, specifically who he beat up - and we learn it was Ueji. This goes back to the story by Ueji about how he told Boutarou he saw his aunt, a woman that Boutarou has now confirmed never existed. Since Ueji was messing with Boutarou, he was upset/offended enough that he had no problem killing him.

This shows us that Boutarou seems to be sensitive to joking/teasing/bullying as Shiraishi chides him for his frequent trips to solitary.

This allows for us to see a contemplative/serious facial expression on Boutarou’s face before he continues the conversation with Shiraishi who is picking his nose with his toes?

This then allows for a wistful looking image of Shiraishi replying that he doesn’t have any family waiting for him outside of prison, and he was abandoned at a temple as a baby. This knowledge of abandonment is how Boutarou wants to connect with Shiraishi; that they are alone in this world at the present.

This allows Boutarou to ask him if he’d return to the temple, but Shiraishi could careless; he ran away in the first place and it likely doesn’t exist as it seemed to be on its way out. As expected, he just jokes if he had a lot of money he’d spent it on prostitutes (and implying that he’s filling his emptiness with transactional sex).

Nihei, reminds them the only thing that matters is to use the tattoo as a way to get out of prison and do whatever you want unrelated to the gold. This is expected for the man who returned to the mountain to hunt.

They return to Boutarou’s goal, to amass a small fortune e.g. the gold and create his own kingdom. The next page or so just focuses on how he came from a large family with 14 members and how he was the only one who didn’t die of smallpox. He isn’t just interested in having a large family to compensate for his lost family, he goes beyond that where by becoming the king, he’ll always be remembered and not forgotten as the founder. He is a man who wants to preserve himself not only genetically through having lots of kids but also through mythology and nation building concepts.

Shiraishi and Nihei tease him a little about his dreams which they find to be completely unrealistic which he is not amused with. Speaking very frankly with him, Shiraishi points out that Boutarou is a lonely guy and that his dream is a reflection of his loneliness.

This exchange is interesting to me for two reasons. 1.) This shows us that Shiraishi is an observant guy which we know but it is another instance of it in his past. 2.) He can be very blunt and forward with Boutarou. I find him to be very assertive with Boutarou, a man who just came out of solitary for beating up another prisoner. Yet, Shiraishi can speak like this with him and this also alludes to their current time line interactions where Boutarou respects Shiraishi and understands him well - as well as Shiraishi understands him.

This frank openness between them continues on the next page. Shiraishi jokes back that he’s been a king - and escape king. But Boutarou’s critique of him is a valid and honest one.

Breaking out of jail isn’t a long term plan. Having a dream like Boutarou’s is a viable plan, that since he is unwelcome in current society, he’s like ‘fuck this - I’ll just make my own society’ He lost his home and community support and it was clearly influential on him as a child both having a family and then the loss. So, for him creating his own special home is his driving force in his actions and reason to become involved in the hunt for the gold.

And not missing a beat, he tells Shiraishi he also needs to create his own home if he lacks one - just like him. The level of frankness between the two of them - they clearly have more than just a passing ‘professional’ relationship.

The manga returns to the current events and Boutarou is telling Asirpa to let go of the door so that she can return to her home with Sugimoto and that they can become a family. I get it, he knows she has a crush on him and all little girls dream of finding a man and getting married etc etc. I don’t doubt Asirpa’s crush on Sugimoto, but she is also not the type of young teen girl who would be so simple minded.

Sugimoto is struggling to breathe in a corridor of the brewery as he falls into his rather pathetic monologuing about how pathetic he is. Nice copy and paste of the rifle there Noda. We saw it a few chapters ago when Ogata was eyeing Usami’s which was also Ogata’s when Vasily sniped at them.

Why do I not take Sugimoto’s whole ‘boo hoo’ bit seriously? Because this shows us how he actually sees Asirpa and her relationship with him. He ‘finally got her back’ she ‘got stolen away again’. Even with the English translation, the intention is still clear, Asirpa is like an object to him.

Read these following sentences;

1. Kiro and Ogata stole Asirpa from Sugimoto.

2. Kiro and Ogata kidnapped Asirpa from Sugimoto.

3. Kiro, and Ogata took Asirpa to Karafuto.

As an objective reader of the manga which of these is the most factually correct? Number 3, at heart Kiro and Ogata had a plan to take Asirpa to Karafuto to learn the code and connect with Sofia. Yet, this is not the narrative that Sugimoto tells himself or others. He continues to go with number 1, that Kiro and Ogata stole Asirpa from him and now Boutarou stole Asirpa from him. Asirpa is something that he possesses. This is problematic as it shows how unequal their partnership is.

I’d argue a more equal partnership if he used number 2. That she was kidnapped which is a word we use to distinguish people from mere objects in English. Is my argument 100% based on this - not quite since we are working with the translation of the original text, but ever since Karafuto, Sugimoto has acted like Asirpa is something that he and only he has privy to and completely ignores the fact that she is her own person and will exercise free will.

Therefore, this also pokes holes in Boutarou’s reading that Asirpa will cave to the idea that if he tells her to go home and marry Sugimoto that will solve her problems. I’m pretty confident that Asirpa does not see her relationship with Sugimoto the same way that he sees her and Shiraishi already made a point about this back before they were to meet up with Tsurumi.

Anyways, back to the action. We don’t see if Asirpa let’s go of the door, we just see that Koito is aggressively approaching Boutarou with his sabre raised and notices that he has Asirpa.

With is luscious locks, Bouatrou is able to distract Koito and punch him with his long reach. He goes to shoot Koito, but a shot hits his hand with the revolver and it is Tsukishima close behind.

He orders Boutarou to withdraw, and he dashes out with Asirpa and heads to a lower level where the beer flood happened.

Asirpa is still resisting trying to hold onto the railings of a staircase, making his fast escape a bit of an issue. She also is able to raise a fundamental question - the gold was supposed to be used by the Ainu to create their own country. Therefore, if the gold is stolen by Boutarou, she will be unable to protect her own homeland - the one he keeps telling her to go back to.

We get an image of the clear cutting of the forest in Hokkaido that almost killed her and then she thinks of the kotan where Wilk was born that is now a fox farm. The traces of her Karafuto relatives is already gone, taken over by the Japanese for less sustainable practices.

Boutarou sweats nervously, he doesn’t have an answer for her since this is now an example of conflict with their own dreams and goals for the gold. However, this philosophical pause from him, allows for Koito the strike him with his sabre from behind. Koito prepares for his second strike as Boutarou falls back into the pool of beer.

Asirpa meanwhile still clings to the stair railing as Koito is ready to strike again.

Boutarou swims off and it is unclear where he’s gone to. Koito is impressed by Boutarou’s toughness as Asirpa coughs on the stairs. Only then do we hear Tsukishima’s voice asking Koito where he is. And with that I internally groan.

Me - goddammit Koito! Why did you go and do almost the exact same thing you did on the ice floe and with Sugimoto. Don’t rush ahead with no back up. You just realized he’s a tough guy. Well, at least this time he tells Tsukishima where he is and to come quickly.

He says that he secured Asirpa and doesn’t notice that Boutarou has emerged from the beer and is clearly going to attack him. He looks like a gross beer/swamp monster, his teeth visible and eyes covered by his long hair.

By time Tsukishima arrives with his rifle at ready he sees Asirpa and only Koito’s sabre.

[facepalms]

Come on Koito, I’m rooting for you buddy, but please stop running ahead. You are slowly getting better, but one aspect of being a leader of men is to have men to lead, not leave behind.

And the chapter ends with his heightened tension that Koito has been pulled back under the beer.

I have other deep thoughts (lol. terrible pun) about chapter 259 so lets move onto 260 which goes back a few seconds to show us what happened to Koito. Boutarou reaches out towards Koito and he’s able to overpower him.

Asirpa tries to crawl away as Koito drops his sabre and is drug under the surface of the beer. We all know that Boutarou is going to try to drown him as he can hold his breath longer than his victims.

Tsukishima finally reaches where Asirpa is and he flat out asks her were Koito is. She ignores him and tries to dash away, but he grabs onto her wolf pelt cloak. The last panel then shoes her as she draws her knife and swings at Tsukishima!

Yes! Asirpa is about to use her knife against him! There is so much desperation in her behavior. Koito then reaches his hand up as bubbles come to the surface, and we see Tsukishima holding Asirpa’s hand on her knife. Tsukishima calls out for Koito and Asirpa tells him that he was pulled into the beer.

He then uses his rifle to hold her against him and still holds her hand with the knife out of the way as he tells himself that Asirpa is more important than everything else.

Koito is held underwater as his boot sticks out and we see that Boutarou is trying to strangle him with his hair (he truly has impressive hair!) as Koito begins to weaken. We are left briefly wondering if Koito will be abandoned - but come on, we know what will happen.

Tsukishima kicks Boutarou in the head allowing Koito to sit up. Tsukishima then shoots Boutarou, and we see some blood diffuse out into the beer. Tsukishima is focused as he ejects the empty shell and Boutarou swims off.

He tells Koito to get out of the beer as he may return, and Koito angrily asks about Asirpa. She’s heading out on her own, as the smoke causes her to cough her knife out and ready. Koito is upset that Tsukishima[aaaa] let her go to save him. This is so interesting to me as it does show that Koito felt that he is less important than Asirpa. He was willing to potentially die which, despite his impulsive behaviors, this time he at least seems to be aware of it.

Tsukishima can’t look at him as he apologizes and Koito berates him that saving him is not a priority. This pretty much seals the deal for these two men. Tsukishima is Koito’s older brother and he has shown that he doesn’t have it in himself to hurt Koito for Tsurumi.

This is at least one instance where Koito does at least own up and state that he should have followed orders. So, kudos to more self-aware Koito, though I’m sure he’s still thankful that Tsukishima saved him.

Nikaido is randomly wandering around (clearly no longer wanting to kill Sugimoto) as he finds her.

She again aggressively goes to strike him with her knife. Asirpa is beyond desperate - is she trying to mirror Sugimoto by just forging ahead and attacking everyone with no thought about harming them?

But just like with Tsukishima, she is immediately overpowered. Without her poison tipped arrows, she’s at a huge disadvantage. Emulating your crush’s fighting style isn’t going to work.

Thankfully, karma intervenes and she doesn’t harm him. Instead, she activates his chopstick dispenser and she’s taken down by a chopstick to the forehead.

This is rather fitting since, she’s been stopped by an item she would find important, chopsticks which along with spoons facilitate one of her loves - food. And with that she is delivered to Tsurumi who praises Nikaido.

The next page is when things get really interesting. Nikaido is upset that Sugimoto is alive and Tsurumi blows him off. Very rough looking Tsukishima and Koito then make it to Tsurumi to see that Asirpa has been caught. Likely on autopilot, Tsukishima starts speaking . . . but Koito then continues and reports to him as the commanding officer of the two.

He then mid-explaination becomes incredibly uncomfortable unable to speak. We can’t see Tsurumi’s facial expression, it would be nice to know what Koito sees as he only awkwardly ends stating they were in the brewery.

Koito is sweating profusely, whatever Tsurumi looked like, he just realized that he should have let Tsukishima do the talking as he’s given away that his fear of speaking to Tsurumi is gone. The fact that Tsurumi hesitates before telling him that he understands, leaves Koito in shock as Tsukishima is likely trying to not lose it with him. Since he now knows that Koito has given away something about his changed status towards Tsurumi. Since Tsurumi is in the realm of super smart villain, I’d guess Tsukishima knows that Tsurumi knows about how Koito learned something about his kidnapping which was what lead to his in ability to speak to him in the first place. Recall, that when they were in Kagoshima, young Koito could speak to Tsurumi with little issue.

Tsurumi then calls for a retreat and avoid any more fights. Apparently, he now has enough information to crack the code. Okay Tsurumi - does this mean you can do so with Asirpa? Since, he still doesn’t know the Ainu name that is matches with. . . .

Nikaido pouts in the background as Koito looks like he wants to fade into the background. Tsukishima clearly doesn’t look happy either as he holds Asirpa. I guess being Tsurumi’s right hand man means he gets to hold onto her?

He likely feels uncomfortable about things since now that Koito has let the cat out of the bag, Tsurumi will likely ask him about what happened between them.

Boutarou exits, pissed off at how he lost Asirpa but seems to be alright overall. Of course, the next page reveals Sugimoto charging towards him to give Asirpa back. Yep, attack first, ask questions later/maybe Sugimoto.

Sugimoto pretty much has murder eyes as he thinks attacking Boutarou will solve his problem.

Now, the fact that Boutarou has survived this well, tells me that he likely has the same ‘luck’ that Sugimoto has. He was stabbed by Sugimoto, his ear cut off, slashed by Koito, and shot twice by Tsukishima. It is pretty damn obvious that Boutarou is to be both a foil and a twin to Sugimoto. The only difference between them is Boutarou became a criminal, while Sugimoto became a soldier a man with a license to kill under the laws of the government while enlisted in the army. Since leaving the army, he’s killed many people in the quest for the gold, but that doesn’t make him a ‘good guy’ because he’s a former soldier.

Sugimoto is always trying to tell others how he’s better than they are. He’s better than the convicts because he didn’t break the law. But, if we look at his own actions, he may have been worse than some of the convicts having killed more people than they did. Think of Shiraishi or Nihei. Nihei killed those hunters, but he refused to go off to war and lost his son in the Sino-Japanese war. Therefore, we could argue that based on the number of people killed, Sugimoto is far worse than Nihei as he was almost karmic in his revenge. Furthermore, Nihei even let himself be arrested, he killed the one man but didn’t even fight the police as his revenge was complete and he accepted his fate.

What I’m getting to is that Boutarou is the character who is going to disrupt Sugimoto and make him very uncomfortable and be unable to keep acting like he’s on the ‘right’ side of things. Sugimoto needs to stop othering the convicts and tell himself he’s better than all of them - his own decisions led him to this just like something drove Boutarou to become a pirate and criminal.

I predict that Shiraishi will rush in to stop Sugimoto from killing Boutarou. We still need to learn more about their past and what is the full connection between Shiraishi and Boutarou. There is much more to learn, Shiraishi is too open and frank with him and he lets Boutarou get close to him physically and emotionally.

Hijikata’s group then regroups and decides what to do. Of course Hijikata being the manly man that he is, states he’ll enter if required.

Kirawus then begins to panic that that no one has seen Kadokura. Apparently shooting off the firework was too distracting for him and he didn’t keep track of his drinking buddy. What were you doing man? Where were you? You aren’t very good at these sorts of things?

Kadokura apologizes to Hijikata for failing to stick with him to the end as he lie on the floor of the room with the mash pots. We see Kirawus at his most emotional as he cries out and Kantarou holds him back.

Is Kirawus a softy at heart? I was predicting that he’d have gone in to save him but no, we get a demonstration of Kadokura’s good bad luck as the collapsing building makes a bed for him, tucks him into the futon and even gives him a beer to enjoy.

I personally like this use of extremely unlikely events surrounding him. Sometimes, I find some of the more crass humor in GK to be not my cup of tea, but this sort of absurdist humor is good. For a very action and emotionally charged chapter this is a good resolution of the tension.

Kadokura is rewarded for trying his best by being rescued by the building. Yep, he’s certainly more competent than he appears. Is he the secret weapon of team Hijikata?

Conclusions on these chapters.

As I stated in the title, things are pretty predictable, but rewarding for the readers at least.

Asirpa has shown that when she loses her cool, she leads to her own capture. Separated from Sugimoto, she makes many poor decisions. She tries to leave Koito to be killed by Boutarou. She attacks Tsukishima and Nikaido. She tried to use the poison arrow on Kikuta. As a character who started out with a strong do no harm to other humans, she’s quickly sliding into grey. I think the worst part was almost ignoring Koito. She is hesitant to tell Tsukishima what happened and uses his pause to try to attack him.

Her capture is the worst outcome of events. She should have listened to Kikuta and found another solution. She could have just let Boutarou escape with her and bide her time. It seems that her reckless and aggressive behavior has backfired. Sure, some readers will be like ‘She was just defending herself!’ but without her arrows, she is at a huge disadvantage and should know when to give up. I’m pretty sure that this mindset comes from her being with Sugimoto.

Boutarou will team up with Sugimoto with Shiraishi as the mediator. ‘Cause it is obvious.

Koito is freaked out that he gave away his personal growth, Nikaido is stewing in the background and Tsukishma just looks guilty.

Hijikata’s group will likely retreat with Kadokura leaving Shiraishi, Boutarou, and Sugimoto behind. Since other than Shiraishi, the other two men are just annoyances to Hijikata.

Ogata is somewhere. Is he going to continue his sniper battle or will he retreat? He seemed pretty chill when he walked by Kikuta. The smoke and fire and chaos will really mess with things, but Vasily is likely losing his cool.

Vasily, the character who had potential but currently is lame may be waiting for Ogata? Or maybe he could pull back?

Lastly, where is Kikuta? Does he know that Ogata shot Usami? I can’t help but seeing him stroll into the headquarters of the 27th and be like “Hey everyone. What did I miss?” [as he strikes a sexy pose and lights a cigarette].

It would be neat to learn if they at least chatted about something.

Well that is all for now. Let’s see how the insanity continues to unfold.

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #asirpa #koito otonoshin #tsukishima hajime #tsurumi tokushirou #nikaido #sugimoto saichi #boutarou the pirate #Shiraishi Yoshitake #warrant officer kikuta #kadokura #kirawus #hijikata toshizo

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everyonewasabird · 4 years ago

Text

Brickclub 1.2.4 ‘Some account of the diaries [sic] of Pontarlier’ + 1.2.5 ‘Tranquility’

I think I’ve mentioned before how typo-ridden my copy of Wilbour is? The above is par for the course. It’s also got the old “Field of the Lake” (instead of “Lark”) chapter title, it misspells the first appearance of Grantaire’s name (”Grataire”), and I had to write a line about Prouvaire back in because it was missing. I have no idea how much it gets wrong on passages I haven’t basically memorized.

(This isn’t a Wilbour thing, I checked. It’s this edition.)

I tried to do FMA because of this, but it didn’t take

ANYWAY. Back to brickclub with some catchup!

1.2.4

The bishop’s cheese-lecture is very sweet. It’s one of the Character Decides To Ramble sections that have practical value and are thinking about the person listening, which is a very different feel from the rambles where someone just spills out everything in their head in a three-page paragraph.

And as Pilf said about this chapter, it’s fascinating that Valjean doesn’t follow his advice.

I suppose his errand in Pontarlier must have been official (rather than personal, because what is there personal that’s left to him?) and involved giving his name. After Myriel, he was done with his name, and as I’m thinking about it, he probably never goes to Pontarlier at all.

But also, why Montreuil-sur-Mer? It’s absurdly far. On modern highways (I just checked) it’s over 600 miles from Digne.

Possible thoughts:

He wanted to check Faverolles for his family, just in case, and when they weren’t there he just kept walking.

Paris would be a sensible place (the most sensible place!) to disappear in, and on the scale of distances we’re talking about, it’s not far from Faverolles. But the only big city of his life so far is Toulon, and maybe he couldn’t. Or maybe he thought his skills were more suited to more agricultural areas.

He’s also going to be less conspicuous in the north because of his accent.

But also... I wonder if he just wanted the farthest place from Toulon he could possibly get to. Montreuil really is about as far as he could have gotten, bar leaving France, for which he’d need a passport, or somewhere like Calais or other port cities, which--I would think--check passports more often. So instead he did a 600+ mile version of all his previous escapes from the Bagne.

1.2.5

It really struck me seeing Myriel actually use one of the candlesticks like it was a candlestick to light himself and Valjean to bed. This might be its last performance as a functional object rather than a Holy Symbol.

It feels like there’s something fundamental about Valjean’s character in this: of separating himself from Good Things that need to be held away from himself and worshiped. It’s fine when it’s a couple of candlestick or a trunk of clothes, I just wish he’d stop doing it to Cosette.

There’s also something about class here, I feel like: for Myriel and Baptistine, nice things are a pleasantly familiar indulgence that they’re running out of (like Baptistine’s note about the very nice goatskin from the Black Forest that ends with something like “pity it’s lost all its hair,” oh my heart.)

But for Valjean, these aren’t everyday objects, because he’s never handled anything like them. He’s alienated by these marks of wealth and always will be, even as he fills his houses with them for Cosette’s sake. I almost think it’s not just that he “doesn’t deserve” nice things--it’s that he’s uncomfortable and alienated around objects this expensive.

And goddammit, if he’d just accept that and raise his kid among furnishings that make him comfortable, everything would be better. But no, he’s just going to be Jean Valjean about it, see above about the unhealthy worship and placing Cosette on a pedestal.

Alas.

But it does begin to raise some of the ways he processes the bishop’s good deed in ways Myriel never intended, and that some of those were about class issues Myriel wasn’t fully cognizant of.

#brickclub #lm 1.2.4 #lm 1.2.5

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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 4 years ago

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Hello! I'm pretty sure I saw you mention a while ago that you were disappointed by confessions of the fox, would you mind explaining why? I've seen mostly good things about it myself. If I misremembered then I'm sorry and I hope you have a good day :))

I think this is one of my less popular opinions. And I understand - we so rarely get historical fiction with trans folk as the titular character (indeed, we rarely get any fiction what that). So I get people’s desire to laud it.

For me though? It fundamentally didn’t work as a book. As a story.

Let me count the ways. (Apologies in advance for the length of this.)

First: If you’re trans-ing someone who was historically cis instead of seeking to find a real, historical trans or gender-nonconforming person, I have questions.

Most of the questions can be summed up as: Why?

I struggle with historical fiction that takes a cis person and re-imagines them as trans as if there aren’t already literal historical, real trans people out there whose stories can be told. It smacks as (unintended, well meaning) erasure of lived experiences.

Jack Sheppard, to the best of our knowledge, was a cis dude. There were trans folk in London in the 1710s and ‘20s. You might have to dig a bit for them, but they’re there. Because trans folk have always been there.

Second: Characterisation

This is more personal taste, but I found Jack and his girlfriend Bess to be inexcusably boring. How a trans, thief and gaolbreaker in 1720s gin-soaked London can be written as boring is anyone’s guess. But he was.

Jack had no real personality and I found his story to be uninteresting. Oh, he’s the world’s best thief and gaolbreaker, that’s nice. But on its own it isn’t enough.

He had few to no faults. Childhood trauma isn’t a personality. Nor is being trans. And the author relies heavily on gender + occupation (thief-ness) to equal personality. So it falls very flat.

Bess, his girlfriend, is a mixed-race sex worker from the Fens (even though actual real-Bess was from Edgeware). She seems to only exist to demonstrate that Jack is good at sex. She also veers a little into the Mystical Woman of Colour Healer Who Aids The White Person on their Journey of Self Discovery trope.

Neither Bess nor Jack undergo any real change in the book. They exist in a weird stasis and experience no development, despite living through some harrowing things. They’re wooden dolls who move through the story without really engaging with, or being influenced by, the things around them.

The other “main” character is a modern Academic who “found” this supposed “manuscript” of Jack’s life and is annotating it. His story unfolds in the foot notes and it’s just so messy if not a bit contrived. It didn’t make sense. I think the author was trying to convey that the Academic was in a sort of dystopian future, but if that’s the case it didn’t work. And if that’s not the case, the entire inclusion of the Academic’s story served only to annoy and take me out of the reading experience.

E.g. There’s a scene where the Academic is being taken to task by the Dean for playing stupid games on his phone during office hours and like honey, lapsed-historian/academic here, trust me the Dean doesn’t give a fuck what you do during your office hours so long as you’re in your office and students can come bother you about their poor marks.

The manuscript is supposedly being sought after by this pharmaceutical company for nefarious reasons that never struck me as being entirely realistic/believable. Also, the university was spying on this non-tenured, slightly useless Academic as if he somehow mattered? Which made zero sense. Anyway, it was stupid and should have been ripped out of the final version. OR changed substantially.

Jonathan Wild, the thief taker (main antagonist to Jack), is probably the only interesting person.

Third: Lack of Follow Through, or, the Fabulism Was Not Used Well

The book tries to blend in some fabulism to the world by giving Jack the ability to “hear” the thoughts of inanimate objects. This could have been fun and gone to some interesting places, but it failed to deliver.

I personally found the shoe-horning in of “capitalism commodifies everything” to be sloppy and heavy handed. It was done with little grace and didn’t sit right given that we are dealing with the early modern period. Yes, you can use the past to critique our modern woes, but do it intelligently. Don’t slap modern points of view and understandings of things onto the past and expect them to make sense.

Anyway, Jack spends the book hearing inanimate objects talk to him, asking him to “free” them, or something. And uh .. .it doesn’t go anywhere interesting after that.

Also the correlation one can draw from these objects to, you know, slaves, is uncomfortable. Especially as it’s the cargo of the EIC ships that Jack hears. I don’t think it’s intended in any sort of malicious way, but the allusion is there and I always found it to be distinctly uncomfortable.

Fourth: Misuse of Marxist Theory, or, More Heavy Handed Moralizing that Annoyed the Dear Reader because it wasn’t subtle and, more importantly, it wasn’t done intelligently.

So, the author is an academic - studies 18th century lit. Which is readily apparent as his Academic (self-insert) character is, I believe, supposed to be a historian and uh ... you can tell that the author doesn’t know enough to wing that. E.g. How he interprets some of the laws and customs of the time. Instead of understanding the social, economic and, most importantly, environmental issues that gave birth to laws like “the corporation of the city of London owns the streets so you can’t muckrake” he chooses to understand them through a very 21st century lens (and a Marxist one at that. I know I’m perhaps a bit uncool for this, but I find the application of Marxist theory to the early modern period to be ... not useful).

Do you know why, mid/late 17th century London passed these municipal laws? Because of the god damn fucking plague you numb nut. You absolute buffoon. It had nothing to do with “oh the City/government is evil and wants to own you” it had to do with the fact that no one cleaned the goddamn street. So the city took over doing it.

Prior to this, in London, you were supposed to keep the street in front of your building clear of waste, debris, refuse etc. No one did this, of course. I live where it’s cold and snows a lot and people can barely shovel the 2 sq ft of sidewalk in front of their driveway in the winter. I dread the idea of an average homeowner being expected to keep the street clear and clean.

Anyway, guess what dirty streets attract? Vermin. Guess what comes with vermin? Plague. Guess what happened in 1665/66? The great plague of London!

17th century England might not have understood germ theory, but they did understand correlation. (Also, the population of London was doubling at the back half of the 17th century and streets needed to be reliably cleared for through-traffic reasons etc. etc.)

ugh, sorry, that one in particular drove me up the wall. Not everything is a capitalist conspiracy. Especially when we’re talking about municipal by-laws from the 17th century.

And I understand the temptation to read a lot of modern interpretation of words like “corporation” and “company” onto bodies that used these same words in 17th and 18th centuries. But the weight, meaning and connotation of “the worshipful company of merchant adventurers” is different from, I don’t know, “the tech company google” or whatever. The early 18th century is when we start seeing the birth of the stock market, of “venture companies” (i.e. merchant adventure companies), of a lot of the language and proto-iterations of what will grow to be economic institutions of our time. But it doesn’t mean they’re the same and that difference is important. Because Jack Sheppard is a man living in 1720 he’s not going to be having our modern 21st century critiques of capitalism because his engagement with the economic systems of his time would have been radically different to our own experiences.

Fifth: Unbelievable Top Surgery & Recovery

So, Jack gets top surgery. In 1720s fever-ridden London. While quarantining in a brothel.

And he lived! No infection! No tearing! He was up and about in a matter of days. I don’t remember if his nipples survived the operation or not but somehow Jack did. Without anesthetics! Or you know, any concept of hygiene.

His Mystical Girlfriend Who Exists to Show How Good Jack is at Sex is also somehow Magically Very Literate and also Magically a Surgeon? and performs this surgery on Jack in the middle of a plague.

The entire ordeal was so poorly handled in terms of believability that I literally set the book down and said “what the fucking fuck” to the empty room then drank wine before finishing the chapter.

An aside, it is funny thinking about the quarantine chapters at this point. I read COTF when it first came out a few years ago. Sweet summer children, we none of us had any idea how to write quarantine scenes.

That reminds me: the entire quarantine thing was presented as the government trying to control movement and take away people’s rights etc. instead of a very normal, typical response that cities had been enacting since 1350. Samuel Pepys, who lived through the 1665/66 epidemic, barely even notes the restrictions. He’s like just “hmmm I’d love to go to the pub but I also don’t want to die. so. *shrug*”

At the time of the author’s writing, most of us in the western world had no idea how normal and day-to-day disease was for our ancestors and yes, sometimes there would be crackdowns to try and curb it if an epidemic hit. That was part and parcel of life. So again, Jack and Bess wouldn’t be like “ooooh we’re 21st century slightly libertarian lefitsts who think the government is doing this to control us and for nefarious purposes”. Much more likely, they would have been like Pepys and viewed it as nuisance, albeit a necessary one.

Sixth: Overall Lack of Realism

I think I’ve noted the big moments where I was like “no one in the early 18th century would think that I’m pretty certain”. This isn’t to say people didn’t grouse, complain about London government (and the king etc.), critique or question the world they lived in. They absolutely did! Regularly. With great verve and gusto, if the broadsheets are anything to go by. But their critiques, their complaints, suggestions for bettering life, are not the same as ours. Because how could they be? They lived in a different world, were responding to specific things, grew up hearing and believing certain things etc.

Jack, aside from having minimal to no character, really did read like a modern slightly-libertarian leftist who was plunked into a novel that takes place three hundred years ago.

In addition to unrealistic political views, his understanding of body, gender, sexuality and identity also read as incredibly modern. Now this is harder, because we have so few extant sources from that time on those who lived non-gender conforming lives, and from their point of view, so yes creative imagining and interpretation is the rule of the day for writing that.

But, we do know how in general the average person engaged and understood gender and sexuality and that would, naturally, inform anyone whose experience was different. And that base line of “probably what a typical cis Englishman or woman felt about their body and identity” wasn’t present. At all.

Indeed, gender engagement at that time was interesting. The concept of the body, the role of the physical body, how it was interpreted is absolutely fascinating and the author could have done some really cool things with that. But he didn’t. He went for slapping a modern interpretation onto the past.

At this point, write a dystopian novel and make Jack a fictional character. That probably would have gone over better, for me at least. The conceit can remain the same: It’s the year 4056 and an Academic found a manuscript from the year 3045 when the Dystopia Was a Thing - and go from there.

---

I think part of what made this very popular and why people seem so taken with it is that it reads smart. It reads like someone who has immersed themselves in that world etc. because of the slang and language used.

Yet, for me, as someone who has studied this period extensively, especially queerness in London in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it read flat and unrealistic.

I was initially very enthused when I started it. There are some posts to that effect on my blog. But it very quickly went south. It tries very hard to be Radical and Smart and Subversive and Critiquing Everything and so I think it fails at the fundamental thing it should be doing: telling a good story.

(Note: The book does try and address racism in London at this time. It also felt a bit forced. And Jack seemed to have no prejudices or preconceived notions about Indian and Black folk which isn’t realistic. Like, it might make him #Problematic but my dude, you’re writing a man born in 1702. He’s going to have some iffy views. That can be challenged! Absolutely. But they still would have existed.)

---

Thank you for the ask! I again apologize for the length of the reply.

#reply #ask #anon #lit #books #writing #confessions of the fox

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braincoins · 4 years ago

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WIP... Friday

I was in the hospital on WIP Wednesday (I’m fine now, no worries! Cancer sucks, wear your sunscreen and reapply it properly, or at least get you a spiffy hat), here’s a WIP from the Dragon Age: Schism fic I’m working on.

I’m going to actually talk about this before we dive in though:

Alistair was in training to be a Templar. He expresses certain viewpoints throughout Origins. I think that spending time around mages would soften his views a bit, but he was still basically raised to be a Templar. He didn’t necessarily want to be one, but he enjoyed the discipline and training of it.

This version of Anders is not merged with Justice and is not quite as... angry as he is in DA2 (he still has his kitty, after all), but he still has fundamental ideas about the Circle and the Chantry and the way mages are treated.

Writing the two of them interacting with each other is... interesting, especially as they’re visiting the Circle together.

Also, I’ve tried to be as fair as I could be to Cullen, who is now Knight-Captain but still of the Ferelden Circle, not off in Kirkwall. I am not a fan of Cullen in any of the games, and that’s going to bleed through here somewhat. But... well, I tried.

And yes, as is my wont, I have named a random NPC after a voice actor.

“This way,” Templar Ellis said.

“I remember how to get there,” Alistair told him.

“I can still find the way there in my sleep,” Anders chimed in.

“I’m to take you there,” the templar insisted.

Alistair relented. “We’ll follow you then.” But he waited a bit before falling in behind the man, hoping Anders would hang back as well.

He didn’t, of course, falling immediately into step behind Ellis, and Alistair grabbed the mage’s arm to haul him back so he could hiss at him, “What do you think you were doing?”

“What I could never get away with before,” Anders shot back.

He sighed. “Antagonizing the templars just because you can doesn’t help us in any of our objectives here.”

Anders wrested his arm out of Alistair’s grip, or, rather, he let Anders free himself. “That one was particularly bad; you should have seen the way he’d look at some of the women here.”

“I’m not saying he’s a glowing example of morality. I’m not even particularly fond of him, but he went through a lot during Uldred’s rebellion, and…”

“Uldred’s rebellion was as successful as it was because of how we’re treated here,” Anders informed him. “Or did you not talk to anyone you ‘rescued’ aside from that arsehole?”

“We did, actually, as much as we could. We were in something of a rush, what with survivors being tortured and turned into abominations. I know it wasn’t great here. I was glad all over again I never took the oaths. But…”

“But nothing! The mages deserve…”

“Stairs here, gents,” Ellis’s voice informed them.

“Yes, thank you.” Alistair waited until they’d gone up a floor to resume his chat with Anders. “We aren’t here to free everyone from templar rule. We have specific objectives to this mission…”

“‘Mission,’” Anders snorted. “You make it sound so… so martial.”

“…and you aren’t helping!”

“If it helps, venting at Poor Widdle Cullykins means I’m more likely to behave with the Knight-Commander.”

“I notice you’re not giving me a promise of good behavior.”

“Have you met me?”

There was a meow just then, and Anders scooped out Ser Pounce-a-lot to coo at.

Alistair just let the matter drop. He’d never been a mage and he didn’t know what it was like. He was never going to understand. More than that, it seemed like Anders wasn’t going to feel at all sorry for unnecessarily antagonizing a templar.

Though, if one were going to do so, Alistair supposed he’d chosen a good target at least. He’d been sympathetic to the man when they’d first found him, trapped and tortured, the memory of his friends’ deaths still fresh in his mind. But it’d been hard to stay sympathetic to him when he’d suddenly started advocating the deaths of innocents. He’d wanted the deaths of all the mages in the Tower, including the First Enchanter, Wynne, and… and children, for Andraste’s sake!

At the time, Alistair had chalked it up to the extreme events the man had been through, but to hear him talk now, he wasn’t sure he liked Cullen Rutherford having a position of authority over innocent people. Still, it wasn’t as if the Chantry had a lot of templars left to choose from after Uldred’s uprising.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age: Schism

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the-trashy-phoenix · 4 years ago

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Supernatural season 4 review (part 2)

Link to part 1:

Irene and I have finished season 4, finally, and I was surprised I still liked it like the first time I've watched it. I couldn't wait to get there (who knows why?) and I was actually afraid I wouldn't get as excited as I thought I would; but fortunately it still gives me the idea that it is one of the best Supernatural seasons.

It all starts with Dean coming back from hell and being clueless about how he did it. He soon finds out the Angel Of The Lord Castiel held him tight and raised him from perdition and that he has a fundamental role in the intent to stop Lilith's plans to free Lucifer from his cage and unleash the Apocalypse.

Will this review (and probably the next 11 ones) most likely be a little bit biased for Destiel? Definitely. Will I try to stay as objective as I can? Yes, but this doesn't mean I'll be very objective, after all I'm writing this review knowing what is going to happen in the next seasons (and, more precisely, in the scene, you know which one I'm talking about).

I honestly don't even know where to start, so I'm going to comment on what I think is important as the season goes on.

I believe 04x01 is one of the best episodes of this season (and maybe even one of my favourite episodes ever) for several reasons. We have Dean coming back from hell and meeting again with Bobby and Sam (and both of these moments are very touching, especially Sam's one). Although the reunion might be heartwarming, Sam is already keeping secrets from Dean: he is collaborating with Ruby to defeat Lilith (and in the meantime he's using his powers, which are stronger than ever, cause he's drinking demon blood to increase them). He lies to Dean, telling him he stopped trying to use his abilities against the enemy, and that causes the biggest drama between the two brothers this season (that will continue on the next one). Dean (and the others) wants to find out who's trying to contact him and who brought him back from hell: I love the way Castiel is slowly introduced during this episode. At first with the ultrasounds and the handprint (which is definitely a fantastic touch, that kinda shows a little possessive side if you think about it, and it is inevitably funny if you know everything that happens later on), then through Pamela, showing already all his power, and at the end of the episode there's a "dramatic" moment where Dean (and Bobby) finally meets Castiel (in his vessel) for the first time, and this might be one of the most epic and iconic scenes in Supernatural. The dynamic between these two is fantastic from the beginning (am I saying this because I'm totally biased?) and the line "What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?" shows how Castiel has already understood Dean Winchester from just a look (and he's an angel who's not supposed to feel or understand feelings! Wow, the power of Destiel).

Moving on from this episode, in the second one we find out from Castiel that Lilith wants to break the 66 seals, foretelling the Apocalypse, in order to free Lucifer. On a side note, I like how bitchy Castiel is towards Dean at the beginning of their relationship ("Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier", "You should show me some respect, I dragged you out of hell, I can throw you back in").

I love episode 04x03 because I usually adore time travel (it often leads to some funny and very unusual situations) and I find this one extremely sad and touching, mostly because Dean has the opportunity to meet his parents when they are still young (and Mary and John's sides he didn't know about) and finds out how their family became cursed (and the worst thing is he can't change its destiny).

In episode 04x04 Dean finds out Sam has been working with Ruby this whole time and gets mad about it, which is pretty reasonable. As much as a part of me hates when Sam and Dean fight, another part of me loves it, especially in this season, and it's probably because I think both of them are right and wrong at the same time. Ruby seems reliable (for now much more than the angels) and Sam truly did some good with her, so it is logical for Sam to trust her, since she apparently hasn't done anything against him and she has also saved him (which Sam confesses to Dean on episode 04x09). On the other hand I understand why Dean wouldn't want his brother to continue his process of strengthening his powers: he's afraid Sam won't be the same. Plus his brother lied to him, so it becomes hard for Dean to trust him, and this episode marks a pretty sad change in their relationship that will only get worse later in the season.

I should also mention 04x07 in which two witches want to bring Samhain, a celtic god, back from the dead. By doing that another of the 66 seals would be broken so Dean and Sam, who were working on the case, are told by Castiel and Uriel (another angel) that Uriel has to destroy the city, since the two brothers can't stop the witches from bringing Samhain back. Dean wants to prevent Uriel from doing a massacre and convince Castiel to wait for a few hours and let them take care of the witches. They can't stop them and Sam confronts Samhain using his powers, although he promised Dean he wouldn't use them anymore. At the end of the episode Castiel confesses to Dean that his orders were to follow Dean's instructions and admits he has doubts towards God. I consider this conversation very important, since this is the first time Castiel lets Dean have a look at his inner thoughts, even if Castiel himself is afraid of them, which gets me thinking that he already trusts Dean.

I also wanted to point out that Dean starts calling Castiel "Cas" pretty soon, even if he doesn’t want to trust him yet (although I believe he already does unconsciously). And what's even funnier is that, by calling him "Cas", he removes from his name the part that means "of God", which kinda gives you already an idea of what it's going to happen to him.

In episode 04x09 we meet Anna, a fallen angel, who doesn't even remember she has ever been one, since now she's human and has lived a human life for years. Dean and Sam meet her because she seems to be capable of getting in contact with the angels and is suddenly wanted from both angels (who want her death because she rebelled from heaven) and demons (one of them is Alastair, who knows Dean from hell). Anna and Dean form a sort of bond and she tells him she fell from heaven because she fell in love with humanity (they also have sex in the Impala, but that's way less relevant, although I want to point out that she covers Castiel's mark on Dean's shoulder with her hand, which is a bit disturbing). They can't stop the angels from coming for her so when they arrive we see a beautiful totally not programmed and still hilarious scene of Dean and Anna kissing and Castiel looking at first intensively at them and then shamefully at the ground. I mean, what was that? I understand that Anna and Castiel are sort of parallels, because they are both two angels falling from humanity (they also talk about feelings and Castiel confesses he has already started having emotions), but isn't it the whole point of Destiel? An angel that falls in love with humanity because of one man (Dean, if that wasn't already obvious)? And we get this concept involuntarily since season four? That's… funny. Apart from all of that, Anna manages to get her grace back and hides from Castiel and Uriel.

Another important element in this episode, and in the whole season, is Dean's experience in hell, in which time works differently (four months equivalent to forty years). He finally tells Sam what it has been like and totally breaks down as he says he has spent thirty years being tortured and, since he couldn't resist anymore, the ten left torturing other souls. He also adds in the next episode, with shame, that in torturing souls he felt pleasure, because all the pain felt as a victim disappeared: this is what devastated him the most. I feel like Dean's time in hell inevitably shaped his personality a lot in this season, but it's a thing that changes him forever. He is more mature and somehow self-aware (and I love this aspect), but he's also way more desperate and hopeless (a trade I think characterises Dean way more than Sam in every season, but that's definitely more persistent in this one than it's ever been). I might be a bit sadistic, but I don't mind the bad parts Dean has kept from hell either: they show us a vulnerable side that Dean has always tried to hide. There's also the evident contraposition between Sam's physical power and apparent strong state of mind and Dean's unstable, weak and soft one (also relative to what Dean's big role is in this season and what Sam is actually capable of doing to prevent the apocalypse).

I'd talk about episode 04x14 just to mention the fact that the siren (who's supposed to turn into the person who should most sexually attract his victim) decides to show himself to Dean as a man. I get he was supposed to replace Sam's role as a brother, but the whole setting, the fact that sirens' attractiveness is usually sexual and the fact that even the actor who played the siren admitted the whole scene was a bit sensual should tell us something (it also seems funny that they had to precise multiple times he was trying to be his brother because otherwise that would have seemed too gay, it still seems gay, but whatever).

In episode 04x16 someone is killing the angels and Castiel asks Dean for help to find out who the killer is. The angels have the demon Alastair captured and Castiel tells Dean he's the only one who can torture him. The angel seems to be really upset about it, because he knows how this could hurt Dean, since this is what he has been doing for the past ten years in hell. Dean decides to do it anyway and he finds out from Alastair, during the torture, that he is the one who has broken the first seal (by deciding to torture souls) and made the first step to bring Lucifer back. This obviously breaks Dean even more, since he already hates what he has done in hell, and makes him believe he's not capable of doing what the angels want from him (and he admits it to Castiel, and in the next episode his superior Zacharia tries to convince Dean he's the right man by showing him that even in other realities he would end up killing monsters). We later find out that the one who killed the angels was Uriel that, hating humans, was on Lucifer's side. He asks Castiel to join him but he refuses and Anna, saving Castiel from a fight with Uriel, kills him. I don't have much thoughts on Uriel, I didn't like him even when he was supposedly on the good side. The only thing I like about him is that he had already acknowledged the fact that Castiel likes Dean (who would've thought?).

I have to mention episode 04x18 as I think is one of my favourites of the season and that starts a series of other fantastic episodes (and basically another reality). Sam and Dean find out their life has been written (and published) by Chuck, who's apparently a prophet of God (and turns out to be quite useful later on). This is one of my favourite things Supernatural likes to do: metanarrative. In my opinion it really brings out something new and extremely funny (especially since I know this won't be the last time the two brothers will have to deal with Supernatural).

Another important episode is 04x19, where Sam and Dean find out they have a stepbrother, Adam, who doesn't know about their dad's secret life of hunting. It's obvious the most hurt by the situation is Dean, who would have never thought John could lie about something like that and who's somehow jealous of Adam, since he had the opportunity to live a normal life that could have been possible for him and Sam as well. The one thing that surprised me was that he didn't want him to learn how to hunt (unlike Sam, who thought it could be a good idea for Adam to know how to protect himself). I think Dean shows how he has changed throughout the years and now believes that, since the kid had the opportunity to live a normal life, he doesn't want him to experience what they have. He's more mature and he has become way better than his father and it's funny how now Sam is the one who thinks more like John (although I think there is still a relevant difference between the two of them, fortunately). We eventually find out that it wasn't Adam, but the monster they were fighting, and that Adam is already dead: at first I was a little bit surprised because I remembered that Adam would be in the next season, but it's Supernatural, so I should be used to it by now.

The next episode is important especially for showing us sides of Castiel's life that were not entirely clear before: in this case we find out how the angel reached out his vessel, Jimmy Novak. As much as I can see why Castiel had to occupy Jimmy's body, it's totally understandable that the man wants to go back to his life and that he doesn't want anything more to do with Castiel and everything about him. I also understand that he doesn't want to be with the Winchesters, although objectively they are right to want to keep him away from his family. In general the situation is definitely complicated and, from Jimmy's point of view, quite tragic. We can also tell Castiel, as much as he is already more empathic than the other angels, is not human and can't quite think like one, even if he has Dean who shows him his perspective. Knowing everything that happens to him later on makes me understand how much he has changed throughout the seasons (and knowing who has made that change possible warms my heart). It was quite strange to see Castiel acting like this since at this point I'm used to the Castiel in the latest seasons, but overall I like him a lot in the earlier ones as well.

At this point of the season, drinking demon blood for Sam has become like a drug and Dean can't continue to let his brother ruin himself like that, so with Bobby he decides to lock him in Bobby's panic room. I understand Dean is scared of what Sam could become and is becoming, but at this point Sam is at a level so high that he can't make it without demon blood, and staying for a long time without it could really hurt him further. It also seems that Sam is the only solution to kill Lilith and end the arrival of the Apocalypse. Of course Dean continues to argue that it's best to exclude Sam from this matter given his status, but Sam runs away and tracks down Ruby, with whom he's been working all season trying to be as discreet as possible so as not to worry Dean.

Sam's series of lies, the concern that he might become a monster, and the close collaboration with Ruby increase Dean's anger and disappointment with his brother throughout the season. He no longer trusts him and this deeply saddens both Sam and Dean himself, because he realizes that something has broken between them by now. As much as Sam may have his good reasons for wanting to work with Ruby (and he has), I think he's handled this situation in the worst possible way and that Dean is right about not trusting him anymore (or maybe I'm just a little conditioned by my love for Dean).

I think another reason that has increased the anger towards Sam is the fact that he has repeatedly admitted that he has been decidedly stronger than Dean since he was in hell. It's probably something they both agree on, but Dean is used to considering himself weak and not strong enough to sustain a certain situation. The thing that saddens Dean the most is the fact that his brother thinks so too.

However, this conflict ends with a fight between the two after Dean is able to find his brother. As much as I'm on Dean's side, I hated it when he called Sam a monster, because he knows that's the biggest fear that haunts his brother and calling it like that must have really destroyed him. After the fight everyone goes for his path: Sam with Ruby and Dean, finally convinced by Castiel, with the angels.

Shortly after, however, he discovers that his real role is not to stop the Apocalypse but to stop Lucifer, because he will be Micheal's vessel, and that when Lilith is killed the last seal will be broken, giving way to the Apocalypse. Dean disagrees with the angels and tries to convince Castiel to side with him and abandon the angels to try to stop the Apocalypse.

The twist itself is well constructed, although in my opinion, to make it even better, they could have shown angels as decidedly more reliable creatures, and then break all our trust (and with it also Dean's hopes). During the end of the season, apart from Castiel, the most reliable one seems to be Ruby. And that's why I think this is a much better twist: Sam completely relied on the demon, who always proved to be there for him, and to kill Lilith seems like the most logical move to make to prevent Lucifer from resurrecting. Even when I knew Ruby was cheating Sam the dynamic seemed so unexpected to me that I didn't even remember how she would do it. On top of that Sam's willingness to kill Lilith (mostly for revenge) and to stop the rise of Lucifer is actually what permits Lucifer to rise. So I can only imagine how guilty Sam felt after he realized what he had done (and the worst but best thing at the same time is that it's not even his fault, not entirely at least). Eventually the two brothers open and close the circle of the Apocalypse's arrival, which adds a touch of perfection to the whole situation.

Dean, after convincing Castiel to side with him, goes to Chuck to find where Lilith, Ruby and Sam are. Castiel transports Dean to Sam and tries to stop the angels who want the Apocalypse to begin, losing his life. This is another great step Castiel takes for Dean against his own brothers, proving that he now considers himself at Dean's side more than any other person's side. Dean arrives too late to stop Sam, who has already killed Lilith, and the fourth season ends with a confused and desperate Sam, an angry and desperate Dean, and Lucifer returning.

In the end I believe that this is the best season of Supernatural so far for several reasons: the arrival of Castiel who adds new aspects both to the Supernatural universe (talking about angels) and to the character of Dean (and later also to that of Sam), the continuous struggle between the two brothers, Ruby's character (which I think has been made quite effectively and which has also improved this season, as well as her relationship with Sam), the plot twist and the change that hell caused in Dean.

Usually this is considered one of the best seasons of Supernatural, and I completely agree, but having seen the series with long time gaps I feel I'll be able to judge only at the end of the fifteenth if this (and the fifth) are actually the best seasons of Supernatural, at least for me.

- Carly 💚

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