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gayalienwilde · 11 months ago

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My secret fairy gift to @thomtrebond one of the longest analyses I've ever written until now (so much so that I'm still working on this). Truthfully, I was afraid that The Whole Shebang podcast had already said all there was about the Oscar Wilde references in Velvet Goldmine, and it has been a while since I've read The Picture of Dorian Gray, but while writing and doing research for this (I've studied more for this analysis than I ever have for school lmao) I realised things that I hadn't thought of before so this was a surprise for me as well! Also, since this analysis is gonna be split into different parts I'll link them all once I'm done with them. I hope you enjoy your gift <3

Part one: The importance of being Jack Fairy

When thinking about Velvet Goldmine and Oscar Wilde I'm reminded of the first episode of the miniseries "Queers" (2017), although I can't stand Mark Gatiss (Sherlock trauma) this episode is well written and just thinking about it makes me cry. There will be spoilers for the episode in this analysis, so be warned.

For the people that don't care about spoilers here's a small summary of what you need to know to understand this analysis: in the episode, titled "The Man On The Platform", the protagonist, a WWI soldier, gets asked about how gay men recognise each other, and he answers saying:"A certain liquidity of the eye." Later in the episode, he recalls a story from his teen years, while waiting for a train with his family he sees a prisoner getting taken away, he meets the gaze of the prisoner for a second and he feels seen by him and thinks "He knows me for what I am", after that he learns that the prisoner is Oscar Wilde.

In Velvet Goldmine, it's the pin that creates this connection between the characters and Oscar Wilde, Jack is able to find himself and others quite like him after finding the pin, and later we have all the young queer fans relating to Curt and Brian. The movie shows that self recognition through the other is an important aspect of queer communities, having an example of queerness to relate to or be inspired by makes it possible for people to find each other and learn about themselves.

In Jack's case, Oscar Wilde is not only a connection to queerness but also an inspiration for his art. Jack Fairy is the personification of art, specifically born from aestheticism's idea of "art for art's sake" Jack's persona is just that, beauty that exists simply to be beautiful and reveal nothing, the movie adds to this by never making Jack Fairy speak, even during the Death of Glitter concert he's either reciting a poem or singing, the little we know of Jack's inner thoughts is shown in the flashback of him as a child, adult Jack Fairy is a complete mistery to us.

What's interesting about this is that, unlike Brian, we never feel that Jack's persona is a manifactured one, even if we know nothing of him, and his looks and aesthetics are obviously thought out, he still appears much more genuine than Brian. Following Wilde's idea of art as an amoral creation that never expresses anything other than itself (in true wildean paradox fashion Wilde himself doesn't always respect this rule), it then becomes obvious why it doesn't matter if we know nothing about Jack, the way he presents himself is enough to express everything he wants other people to see, he's being truthfull to himself never trying to justify or moralise his art or himself but simply being, any possible reading or interpretation about his persona becomes then nothing more than the viewer's own thoughts or ideas projected onto him and do not necessarily reflect the truth, adding to the allure of his persona and making it a perfectly malleable art medium, free of bounds or expectations (apart from beauty, which is of course what all art, according to Wilde, should strive for).

On the other hand, Brian constantly trying to add a message to his aesthetic ended up being to his detriment since what he was saying was being fed to him through the record company to attract press, not leaving then any room for interpretation and putting strict barriers around his art, and of course to define is to limit causing his entire act and persona to never be as authentic feeling as Jack's. It's clearly artificial but not in a camp way, even if it might have started off that way, the alien and uncanny later becomes fake the same way advertisement is, planned and trying to get your attention for money, reaching the peak of uncanny valley with Tommy's way too pristine looks and character.

But even after having roasted him I have to admit that Brian's character has a much bigger connection to Wilde's work than Jack does, since Jack's story is more inspired by Divine from Genet's "Notre-Dame-des-fleurs", even having a scene from the book remade almost exactly in the movie, with Jack it makes more sense to compare him to Wilde himself since, just as Wilde became one of the major exponents of aestheticism and homosexuality in England, in the movie Jack is one of the original inspirations of the Glam Rock movement and an iconic figure in the queer community of the 60s and 70s, so of course he'd be the one to find the pin and carry the legacy of Oscar Wilde.

Tune in next whenever I post it to see me roasting Brian more in part two

#VGsecretfairy2023 #velvet goldmine #pointed epigram #movie analysis #ending this analysis by saying Jack Fairy is an icon and no one will be able to reach his levels of cuntyness #Also if anyone wants a link to the Queers episode feel free to ask me (it's a 🏴‍☠️ link so I hope you have a good adblocker lol)#"Peak of uncanny valley” new favorite oxymoron btw

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vinxwatches · 1 year ago

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(re)watching Transformers: Prime season 1

this was a series that was on during a time, but i don't think i ever saw the end or even a lot of it, though i do remember the motorcycle robot well and thought she was really cool (may have been lesbianism or gender envy), and Red from OSP mentioned is with some regularity which has kept it in my mind. also it was what i was watching when i got picked up to see my sibling for the first time after they were born and i remember being quite annoyed i had to stop watching the show, which clearly has stuck with me for way too long.

ep1 darkness rising, p1

well, it almost looks good. almost, but the lighting engine is just too weak to pull most things off. the graphic quality just doesn't seem to be able to pull of what they want it to. the terrain is extremely low in quality. i expect that to get a lot better, not just with seasons but even though the first season as they build up more assets.

damn that wasn't long for the first death. might also explain why he didn't look great. how much time do you put into a character that exists for 5 minutes?

it's interesting to see an enemy with a plan we know at least in part will fail as they don't truly have the element of surprise. for protagonists it's common, classic tragedy stuff. but never for antagonists.

wow, real subtle guys. two dark purple spiky cars driving like assholes. no one will ever notice anything up. also pausing really reveals how bad things blend. the entire scene has motion blur Except the characters. even still the action is surprisingly good. i just hope the human cast won't be unbearable.

small dextrous fighter dodging around strikes for larger opponents that she can take down? well if that isn't my favourite. no seriously that's always what i try to play in games. i'm no good at hit but it's my fucking jam.

oh she has way too much detail to be a background character. i don't remember this goth girl at all for some reason though. she does have the best personality so far though (yes i like enthusiastic characters)

good way to make him intimidating: give his every footstep a screen shake.

i thought they were going to go somewhat light on combat. NOPE. the bad guys will cut people in half. the good guys will do a fancy kick move of someone's neck and take their head off.

and sometimes it's Very ps2.

damn, it didn't take long at all for the villain to make a turn for the monstrous. i thought that would be season finally or at least mid finally shit. oh shit i think i remember that tiny robot very well, may well have inspired a lot of things i've come up with over the years.

man they really use a lot of plotpoints in the opening multi parter. my fear is that that'll result in a very status quo no progress middle of the season.

i'm getting the feeling that they either don't have the ability or time to fully render some scenes which is why some turn out way worse then others.

and of course the military can't be shown as truly bad.

seriously that the undead army is already a thing is worrying to me. where do you get to go beyond that? "if your opponents are already dead how can we defeat them?" you stop them from being able to move.

ah, they are trying to give the humans a purpose... good luck.

blades extended straight out of the forearm. seems rather impractical. severely limits the amount of cuts you can make as you can't edge align, and these blades seem really short.

the boy walks away... i'm sure i'm supposed to be sad about it, but i'm really not. he added nothing other then being whiny. he'd obvious return. got to have a "default" guy, lets hope he find a bloody use. because responsible isn't interesting.

ok, pretty good threat for what to avoid in the future.

i repeat again: a LOT of big plot point early. i'm afraid for the rest of the series.

transformers is pretty big on defending the home you didn't choose. there's a really harmful message in that. patriotism is incredibly dangerous, which is part of why america is so dangerous, to others and too itself. it's also big on them choosing to defending the home they didn't choose. there's a much less harmful message in that.

Masters and Students

oh, Starscream has a goa to work towards. will it be one episode or a seasonal thing?

"you are a motorcycle, shouldn't you know how to put one together?" "you are a human, can you build me a small intestine". there are some significant differences (motorcycles are designed and lack most useless parts while humans are not and our internals are a bloody mess design wise). but also fair point and fucking funny.

also neat choice to make soundwave, who acts the most like a robot, a drone in plane form.

oh i think i remember this episode. at least the science project subplot i hated.

Con Job

oh yea, he has the high villain shoulders.

Convoy

i was going to say that there were less and less ps2 moments. then they introduced a new setting and yea it's not looking great.

pretty good ending speech and pretty interesting concept for future plots.

Speed Metal

fucking hell don't say "that's my girl" it's fucking weird and gross.

at least they aren't (currently) pairing up the main human male and female character because i don't trust this show to do that well.

Predatory

oh shit we're diving into some heavy shit here. i'm afraid spider lady will be an obvious bad guy.

damn there's serious PTSD going on here. and how RC seems perfectly equipped to fight her could be extremely deep story telling if you read it that the made herself perfect to fight exactly her again.

Sick Mind

ok, they found the hidden enemy ship. so things are maybe moving forward. also really telling that they'll try a rescue of someone they don't know over hitting the enemy they know they have.

a plague ship. such a cool idea. so sad that it's currently probably a bit bad taste to use for things like ttrpgs. though if it's like a necrotic disease. zombies that turn you into zombies by biting you it's probably fine to use.

oh, inside someone's brain episode? really liked those in the owl house, lets see how they visualize it and what they do with it.

"i have thoroughly researched the theoretical literature" and today in least confidence boosting sentences.

interesting it's bumblebee and nor rc. i wonder why.

damn, smart play by bumbles, smart counterplay by megatron. not smart enough. really cool.

not to inventive with the visuals, but probably the coolest episode so far, maybe with predatory. and damn that cliffhanger.

Out of His Head

powerplays between the two people conspiring together. very interesting dynamic.

ok, megatron is back, things do move... and no one seems to be too bothered about it atm. i'm guessing that's what the next episode starts with.

Shadowzone

oh damn, starstream going to use the dark energon in desperation to be level the playingfield.

oh hey, people being out of phase, i recently saw this startreck episode. damn, and they left most of a zombie in the other phase. that'll be interesting for the future.

Operation: Breakdown

damn, how much transformer gore will we see in this one? just one lose eye and where it was supposed to go, kind of a letdown

Crisscross

fucking hell this episode is going brutal. more brutal then the breakdown episode.

Metal Attraction

damn, first instance of damage being permanent.

so they try to make the mom look bad by being over protective. but we don't get any sense that most recon missions go perfectly smoothly and safely. now i'm sure that's like characters in stories going to the toilet, but it does make it feel like they are very often dangerous making the mom seem more then reasonable. they also try to make RC seem over protective even though she takes them on missions she believes are safe and sends them back when dangers shows. i don't think they'll make the conclusion stick well.

i wonder how permanent they'll make those very neat retributive cuts. she seems like the type who'd keep them until she killed the one that gave them.

oh, his dad left... i though he might have died... that's either a much stronger stance, or his father will be revealed later making it much less interesting because we've seen that dozens of times. and they didn't make them worrying the bad thing they did, but instead not accepting change. surprisingly well handled.

Rock Bottom

not like this (be burried under a metric fuckton of rock and then drilled to death)... why not? a swift, easy end to one of the biggest threats. boring for the series? sure. but they could have made it saving before attacking and it would have made total sense.

Partners

i just realized the autobots make for a pretty standard 5 man band... sort of. some are easy. like bulkhead is the obvious big buy, ratchet is the obvious smart guy. now arcee and optimus are obvious leader and lancer. but you could question who's who. for the leader optimus is rather rarely the focus... but yea no he's the leader. and arcee is a neat lancer being the smallest compared to the largest, nimble and dodging instead of standing his grown and tanking. which would make bumblebee the heart which makes total sense.

if anyone would turn coat starscream would make some sense... but also not as he'd want to tripplecross. however he thinks he'll get more.

T.M.I.

damn this episode felt like one of the writers was struggling trough a family member suffering dementia.

Stronger, Faster

i think i remember this episode. unless the energy problem keeps coming up.

i mean... is what he's saying not true though? he's saying it like an asshole, sure, but what did he say that was wrong?

are you really giving the decepticons two corrupted forms of energon? seems redundant.

One Shall Rise, Part 1.

the only vagally reasonable natural threat to europe is something weird that kills power. sorry, it's just bizarre how safe Europe is compared to the rest of the world. this is not a flex, Europe is life on easy mod.

on the one side that's some cool lore. on the other i'd love it if for once something was called "the blood of X" and it's just myth, nothing more. not the plot twist of "the blood of X was Actually the blood of X and not just a fancy name".

One Shall Rise, Part 3.

damn, that's one hell of a cliffhanger for season 2. sure, the threat is defeated, but now the decepticons have optimus.

#Transformers: Prime season 1 #Transformers: Prime

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getmemymicroscope · 2 years ago

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Initially, I was really afraid this would just a high-budget version of Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi! or Fatso! - neither are bad movies, but neither really call for a high budget remake either. Luckily, it's not really that.

The idea is interesting enough, with the game show and everything. The bigger issue, really, is the message that seems to come from the movie.

After the 3rd round - all failed attempts, CG mentions that "no contestant has ever gotten this many black balls this quickly." Which implies that people aren't failing all 3 rounds - and therefore suggests that a fair number of people are "winning". Which it seems to imply, as is the case for our protagonist, that it doesn't matter how much of an ass you are in life, because you'll be able to win the game anyways. Not sure that's a message you really want to be sending.

Then there's the whole "lifeline" thing - implying that even if you're doing poorly, you can still use lifelines to turn things around. Again, another idea of "do whatever you want in life, because you can totally win this game and avoid hell." Which... um, hm. You'd think CG would have a better strategy than this to find who deserves another shot and who doesn't.

In one instance, he sends Sidharth's character - I think the jealousy round- back to earth to prove he can be better at a job than his wife. But the comparison they make is his fully-trained wife versus a completely untrained him. Like, clearly if he's saying "I can be better," it implies he's passed the test and actually been trained. So it's like comparing apples and oranges. Which, I mean, sure - clearly they were playing his scene as utterly for comedy and hers as overly dramatic and with some sort of social message.

Unrelated - Rakul Preet Singh is absolutely gorgeous. And her character here is pretty cool, even when stuff around her is sorta messy.

Then you have the scene/song with Nora Fatehi ... another unrelated note: the songs are really good. Manike is soothing and already a repeated listen, even if I don't understand half the lyrics; Dil De Diya Hai was great in Masti and remains great; and Sidharth/Rakul song is also nice ... which is a bit odd, but hey, they needed an item song. What's crazy, though, is that CG 'helps' him (I think that's what they're showing by having him make her notice Sidharth?) while also being the lifeline to avoid any mistakes - and then, later, he takes it as a 'betrayal' that Nora gave her number to Sidharth? Like, that's not even his doing - it's hers! So calling that a 'betrayal' and changing the results is very ... well, it almost makes CG the bad guy. Which, I'm not sure that was the point of the movie. Like, if someone of CG's position is cheating to win a game, well - yeah, that's another message you probably don't want to send.

That 'twist,' when it happens, is a bit shocking only because you haven't really given it much thought (until, maybe, CG brings it up just passively and makes you think about it). More frustrating, and going back to the first point - well, I know this is sort of a feel-good/comedy movie, so they're not going to go all Sanam Re on you - but you walk away with this general feeling of "you can be shitty in life, because you can fix it later without issue," which is a dreadful message to be putting out into the world. In reality, the ending should've been with his second visit to CG being the completion of his story.

I did enjoy this movie, for the most part, messages and unnecessarily over-dramatic scene aside, but if you think too much about what this movie is saying, it really can ruin things.

Oh, and one more thing: after everything that happens, when he revisits CG's game show-land, he gets a rousing applause from everyone and a hug from his dad. They're celebrating him - after he just tried to attempt suicide. That's what they're celebrating. Sure, he's doing it "for a good reason" (again, the messages this movie gives are absolutely horrific!), but still, it's suicide.

I mean, maybe it's not 'as bad' after 2 hours of 'be an ass to everyone, it's fine,' but still, it's not a good message to be sending.

Maybe I'll just stick with Manike - it's harder to overthink the message when you don't even understand half the lyrics. Plus, it's soothing and peaceful.

#movies #gmmm does bollywood #movieblr #gmmm does movies

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mayybirds · 2 years ago

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The thing about Ethan is that I can barely believe this man knows how to use a pistol, let alone all the other shit he pulls in RE7. RE8, fine, he's had some training and probably googled how to make ammo to assuage his PTSD-sourced paranoia just in case he ends up back in that sort of situation.

But RE7, this man looks like he's never held a gun in his life and it's not like he came prepared for a fight. Does he even know where the safety is? I know the US is a pretty gun-centric place but I don't think Ethan is the type of guy to be part of it. Maybe he went out to the shooting range with some buddies but... does Ethan look like the guy who has friends who go shooting for fun? This man is from California and works as a systems engineer.

Leon at least was a police rookie, he had training. Scientists working in high-security and high-risk fields of research, especially in the RE universe, they also probably know how to use a gun at least theoretically. I don't have to explain the soldiers or spies. Having family in the military can also explain at least a basic proficiency with firearms, or coming from an area where hunting was at least semi-common or your dad might keep a gun in a locked box for emergencies. But Ethan is so painfully average in a very specific middle-class suburban California way that I can't imagine him having any sort of weapons training, let alone the ability to use a grenade launcher. He went out to the middle of bumfuck Louisiana looking for his missing wife in a dress shirt and apparently he's worldy enough to know how to use a revolver? Mia had her secret identity as an evil scientist for the military industrial complex but where tf does Ethan's weapons background come from because I bet it's buckwild.

(Of course then you came in with your Raccoon City Survivor Ethan desperately trying to paper over the trauma with the illusion of normalcy even though the knowledge and habits remain just beneath the surface, which is fantastic. But still I wonder what the people at Capcom were thinking when they made Mr. Whitebread build explosives out of scraps in a shack)

Yeah when you get away from like…the kind of patchwork cover me and other fanfic writers do to excuse Ethan’s knowledge of weapons… Canon Ethan’s abilities with firearms get that much more ridiculous and hilarious. Like…I’m someone who plays survival horror games regularly but if you put me in front of a real gun I’d have very limited knowledge of how to use it. So how tf did Ethan know what he was doing.

It’s him being from Cali that’s really the icing on top for me. TtVtL Ethan is from around the L.A. area but canon Ethan in my head is from the greater San Fran area because…systems engineer in chinos. Tech people in San Fran do not fuckin have guns lol. Literally they could have made him from Texas like Mia and I’d have at least bought into it a little more because… Texas.

#this is why I’m on secret backstory Ethan team tho bc it literally makes no sense #and he seems so resigned but ready to go from the minute he picks up a gun and I’m like boy what #it’s not like RE has been afraid to have protagonists not be able to use guns before #(hello Ashley Graham even if as the Presidents Daughter you could have conceivably had weapon training)#so in some ways as much as I don’t want an Outlast vibe in an RE game like…they could have gone that direction a bit with Ethan #but alas. grenade launcher #asks #resident evil 7

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sugarcubetikki · 4 years ago

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Marinette Isn’t A Mary Sue.

At least a half of her salters constantly complain about how Marinette’s a Mary Sue and use this as a reason to justify their hate of her character (Ironically, the other half keeps complaining about how her flaws are really really bad). There are a number of so-called “justifiable reasons” on why she’s a Mary Sue. And I’ll just say that I don’t agree with any of them. These reasons can range from “absolute nonsense. are you even watching the show?” to “I can see why you’d think that but you’re ignoring this aspect.” I’ll be breaking down each and every claim that I know of to tell you why exactly I disagree.

Marinette never faces the consequences of her mistakes

This is one of the reasons I downright disagree with and think is absolute nonsense. Marinette is very fallible. The show has portrayed that on multiple occasions. When she makes a mistake, she always faces the consequences and she tries to fix it. That element to her character is what makes her a great role model and it builds up majority of her character arc. I’m not sure what the salters who say this are exactly thinking, but it looks like they really need to re-watch the show.

I’ll give you a fine example. Ikari Gozen is one of my favourite exhibits of her fixing her mistake. She judged Kagami too quick. Based on some presumptions she had on her personality, her feelings towards Adrien and her own jealousy, she judged her intentions too quick and made some really bad choices that episode by trying to sabotage her. In the first half of the episode, a lot of us were quite irritated by Marinette’s behaviour, we genuinely felt bad for Kagami. Which is quite surprising as Kagami is an over-hated character and Marinette is the popular protagonist. But no. The show painted the first half in such a manner that we’d feel sorry for Kagami and reprimand Marinette’s actions. The show itself acknowledged that Marinette was on the wrong side in that moment. That she wasn’t perfect, she was in the wrong. Until Marinette finds out that Kagami had genuine intentions, that she only wanted to be friends with her, she feels bad. She feels really bad with the way she treated her previously. And she realises that her unfriendly treatment could potentially lead to Kagami getting hurt, and yes, it did happen. Kagami did get hurt. And Marinette almost lost the chance of becoming friends with Kagami in that moment. And she would have to live with that guilt for some time if her mother hadn’t called. When her mother called, Marinette stepped up and took the opportunity to prove to Kagami that she was a good friend. That she was sorry. And did want to be friends with her. She made a mistake, faces the consequences and steps up to fix them. The way her relationship with Kagami changes in the course of episodes is a really good example that tells us Marinette is fallible.

Marinette has way too many talents and achievements

Okay. This one is somewhat reasonable and I can see where people are coming from here. However, I still don’t think it accounts for her being a Mary Sue. Here’s why. In Miraculous World, not going to lie, everyone is pretty talented, they’ve all made crazy achievements. Do I need to list now?

Alya runs a famous blog: The Ladyblog. She even earned an interview with Nadia Chamack. Nino is a DJ. He appeared on a show and won! Marc and Nathaniel write/illustrate and publish comics! Ivan, Luka, Juleka and Rose are in a band: Kitty Section. They played live on TV! Adrien’s a teen model, multilingual, pianist, has great physical skills due to fencing and basketball. Even Lila has decent modelling skills, she works for Gabriel now. Kagami is an excellent fencer. That comes from the idea that she’s from a prestigious family world-renowned for fencing. Marinette is pretty close with Jagged because she designed his #1 album for him. Also, she won the contest for Gabriel and was recognised by Audrey Bourgeois. Max literally built a super-intelligent robot with emotions and everything.

So, what does that mean? They’re all Mary Sues and Gary Stu’s. No! We need to remind ourselves that this a kids show and there’s the aspect of encouraging kids to believe in working on their own talents, so they’re encouraged to do anything and push ahead for their dreams. Plus, it doesn’t portray that their talents come naturally, it shows that they work for them and developed these talents through practice.

Clumsiness and stuttering are Mary Sue traits

First of all, not every character that has these traits is a Mary Sue. It always depends on how these traits are represented. Her stuttering isn’t just there for no reason. It’s meant to display her difficulty with expressing her own feelings. We’ve had episodes with Marinette saying how it’s difficult for her to say what she feels. Episodes! And it isn’t just a meaningless detail. It represents her fear. Her fear of rejection. Her fear of being in a relationship and things going wrong. Her fear of many things. Her fear is the reason why she hesitates. Why she stutters. And it tells us that fear is completely natural. Fear in love is something that’s natural.

I'm so tired of not being able to just tell him how I feel! But I'm so scared, Tikki, always so scared he'll reject me.

What if he tells me that he loves me? Or that he doesn't love me? Or that he likes me, but not in that way -

Yeah. Don’t you dare tell me that this fear isn’t depicted in the show. It’s blatantly obvious.

As for her clumsiness, it represents her nervousness. It comes in the form of her fear to mess up. She’s clumsy when she’s nervous. And thus she’s afraid she can mess up due to that clumsiness and nervousness. In the Origins, her insecurity, her nervousness was all displayed in the form of her clumsiness, and she knows she displays her nervousness through clumsiness And she was afraid that her clumsiness could mess things up. That’s why she believed she was disaster-prone. And incapable of being a superhero. Because she was nervous and scared.

She gets too much screen-time

This one I really don’t get. How is having more screen time making her a Mary Sue? She’s the main protagonist. Of course, she’s going to get a lot of screen-time. Her endearing personality and active lifestyle molds the storyline of the show. She’s easy to follow along. If you’re comparing her to Adrien, I’ll say that...Adrien’s a mysterious and sheltered character. Giving him too much screen-time can get boring because he’s stuck at home all the time. We can focus on his family mystery but if the show does it too much, it ruins the mystery aspect of it. I adore Adrien getting screen-time with episodes focused around him too but I’m not going to expect him to get as much as screen-time as Marinette because his character is different, and him getting as much screen-time as her doesn’t work for the style and demographic. And claiming that she’s Mary Sue because of more screen-time is stupidity.

Encouraged jealousy and despising other girls around her crush is a Mary Sue quality

Firstly, the show never encourages Marinette’s jealousy. It doesn’t encourage it. Plus, she’s not jealous in every situation. Only in specific situation when she thinks there’s something off about the person like Chloe and Lila. In Volpina, Marinette had realised she had gone overboard with calling out Lila. And she did face consequences for it. Her akumatization. And she did try to fix her mistake in the end by apologising for overreacting. Lila was the one who turned her away that time. As for Kagami, her jealousy arc changed based on her attitudes about Kagami. During Frozer, she wasn’t jealous per say, upset but not jealous. Frozer made Marinette and Kagami misunderstand each other, that’s why they’re quite petty towards one and other for the next few episodes. In Animaestro, I don’t think Marinette would’ve been that petty if it weren’t for Chloe. But yeah, that episode isn’t one of her best moments. I’m not a fan of it either. In Ikari Gozen, these misunderstandings were cleared and so were the issues from Animaestro, and it’s fine now. On a overall, I don’t believe Marinette would get jealous around everyone. At least, not in a way where she would try to stop them from getting close to Adrien all the time. It depends on the person and situation.

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In conclusion, Marinette isn’t a Mary Sue. She’s fallible, has flaws, fears and works for her achievements. And that’s on point.

#sugar analyses #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #marinette dupain cheng #ml fandom salt #ml meta #ml analysis #character analysis #anti marinette salt #marinette is not a mary sue

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low-budget-korra · 4 years ago

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Lets talk about Korra (again)

i already made this analysis, and it was well received but i dont know, i wanna do it again. Why not right? My english is better now than was when i made that analysis so i think this one will be better written

What a way to introduce a protagonist. This line and this scene tell us everything we need to know about Korra at that time and everything she knew about herself.

In book one Korra is a 17′s old teenager who have no idea how the world, how life is outside the training center she grew up in and had been locked up since ever. So she is not only naive but have lack of social skills

Oh, and not everyone who lack’s social skills will act like Zuko and Azula okay? Korra can be confident, expressive and outgoing and still have problems when it comes to social skills.One thing dont exclude the other.

“I’m the Avatar and you gotta deal with it” did you guys notice that only for that line we can see the entire opposite on how she treat her role as avatar in comparisson with Aang? And im not here to judge because is two very different contexts.

As far as we know, Korra grew up without friends or romantic partners. Of course, she had her training partners but i believe that they are just that.

So her entarely perception of herself was around her duty as Avatar, she didnt have personal life, she barely was Korra...She was The avatar and thats that.

So she came to Republic City, it was a mess.

Its funny to see that she have no touch when it comes to simply talk to people, i guess when you grew up away from society, this happens. And yes, she is cocky and had to learn that people arent there to somewhat please her, and she learned that quicky.

Thats why the Pro Bending was important for her character, not only for training but also as means of socilization.

Now lets talk about the villains: Amon and Tarrlok

The two of them represents two differents threats to Korra. Amon represents a threat to her duty as Avatar while Tarrlok represents a threat to Korra as a person.

In episode 4 we have what i still thinks is the darker episode from TLOK. In this episode Amon ambushes Korra in the final moments... Even knowing that they did their best to make Amon’s power and control be non-sexualized as possible still...He have her down on her knews, totally helpless and he even invades Korra’s personal space by touching in her face forcing her to look at him. He didn't have to sexually touch her to violate her.

And right after, the fear in Tenzin voice when asking what happened after seeing her laying in the ground like that, and how Korra is sobing in his arms teeling him how powerless and helpless she felt. I mean...Oh, and she keeps terryfied by him until he takes her bending.

Tarrlok in the other hand doesnt do much different from his brother and started to harass Korra because he cant take ‘no’ as a answer when Korra didnt wanted to join his task force.

Whats interesting is that if it wasnt for Tarrlok harassement and maniputation, Korra wouldnt have joined his task force and wouldnt have confronted Amon and wouldn't have gone through that terrible encounter.

The thing is that Korra is caught right in the middle of a politcal power dispute over the city, something that she for sure wasnt prepare for it. And both Amon and Tarrlok woud hurt or kill her without think twice about it if that means gain power. And that was exacly what happened

Tarrlok tried to manipulate her and keep her on leash where he could, and when his tatics didnt worked anymore he alreay had a plan B. Yes that whole metal box in that cabin in the middle of nowhere was made especifically for her and maybe Tenzin if he also get in his way.

In the end Korra lost the physical battle against both but won the ethical battle also against both. She was the responsable for expose both of them as corrupted and hypocrites. But at what price? Amon was able to remove the bends of the Avatar. And without them, how could she be the Avatar?

Remember that her entirely conception of herself was built around her duty as Avatar, be the avatar. After all, everything she was, everything she'd trained so hard for, had been destroyed in minutes. Thats why i still strongly believe that she was thinking about killing herself at the end, nobodys goes all sad and crying to in front of a clifft without thinking about jumping from it.

But she, i think given up the idea and just sit and started to crying when Aang appeared and help her, giving her bendings back in one of the best scenes of the show. So after have everything solve and still managed to get the boy she was in love with, things where great and she “move on”

In that first half, Korra is unbearable. Everything she learned in Book 1 how to be more mature, less spoiled and all, was thrown in the trash and she was the same "child" of the book one only worse.

Until I stopped and realized that I was also unbearable and childish like this when I had my bad phases of anxiety and depression, as defense mechanism and keep people away. Returning to Korra, and if this way of acting of her was nothing more than this defense mechanism?

Because guess what, i dont think she “move on” from all that happened in Book One that fast, and for add more drama she discovered that was her father idea of keeping her locked up training in that training center we saw in book one and not traveling like avatars before her. No wonder she felt betrayed. And for adding even more drama, people still keep treating her like child, so she was despered for some validation. Something that she found in her uncles arms but she was betrayed by him after.

In the end, Korra again goes through a traumatic experience when she has her connection with past lives destroyed. We see how it affected her when she apologizes to Tenzin, through tears. And Tenzin, as the excellent master he is, tries to motivate her to face Vaatu again (now merged with Unalaq, her uncle) and again she saves the day even after go throught a traumatic event

In the final moments, we see the innocent decision to reconnect the world of spirits and the world of men. And we also see Korra and Mako permanently end their turbulent relationship.

Book 3 begins in a more mature, we see all the characters being presented in a more mature way and it seems that Korra now has overcome everything that has passed. We have the relationship between Korra and Asami deepening as well

In Book 3, called "Change" we have a great sacrifice from Korra. Her life goes down a notch when she decides to save the new airbenders from Zaheer and the Red Lotus, the only villain until now that really threat her life since their sole goal was to kill the avatar.

Korra won again but this time victory costed way too much. Yes she save the day again but now she was physically and psychologically defeated. It was too much, she broke.

Book 4 begins and we only saw Korra in the final minutes and she is unrecognizable. We see that, once proud and courageous avatar, in someone depressed and cowerd. We never have saw Korra like that, even when she was afraid of Amon she wasnt like that.

Korra is afraid of being the Avatar again and her fight against PTSD is still one of the most sensitive, responsable and honest representation of Mentall Issues that i saw, and it was before this subject gain more space on media. It was before people started to give attention to this

I also think that she was having flashs from her other fights and not only the one against Zaheer.

Another thing I think is worth mention is that Korra took 3 years to feel safer and re-embrace her duties as Avatar. It was not 3 weeks or 3 months, it was 3 years. And anyone who suffers from some mental illness knows very well the stigma that is, the fight that is, because everyone wants you to be well faster as possible when the truth is that many times you spend years fighting against this. And this is a pressure that falls on you.Imagine, seeing all your friends moving forward while you continue "stock in the same place"?

Only after Korra confronts Zaheer, I think that was a way to show her coping with the trauma, she improves to the point of returning to be the great Avatar we know. I personally still struggles with this scene because put the victim in front of her agressor may not be the best idea but i understand that she needed to see that he was just a man and not the invencible monster her mind was telling her

One of the lines that stuck with me the most was in the TLOK version of the ember island players, the one that made a recap of the show before the finale. When Korra said “I was so naive” just before we watch her narration of her journey, we can feel pain, sadness and strenght. Janet was amazing in the way the delivered this line.

And this fucking quote i saw here on tumblr still is the goat: “The Last Airbender is a story of a boy who becomes a god. The Legend of Korra is the story of a goddess who becomes a girl "

And I still get really pissed when someone comes to talk shit about Korra because she is such an incredible heroine and her journey is also so incredible.

The story of how life can be hard and unfair, how it can hurt and paralyze, but there is always a reason to move on. We should always move on.

Korra is definitely not weak, quite the opposite, she is one of the if not the strongest heroine I have ever seen. Korra inspires overcoming

#korrasami #avatar korra #asami sato #mako #tenzin #bolin #lin beifong #su beifong #kuvira #zaheer #amon #unalaq #tarrlok #the legendd of korra #legend of korra #tlok #lets talk about #avatar

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thequietmanno1 · 2 years ago

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Thelreads, Vigilantes 70, Replies Part 2

(Vigilantes ch 57) 1) “The result we already know, Knuckles will win, we’re just curious to see how it will go down, and I’m interested in seeing how Knuckles will integrate bringing the building down to achieve victory next chapter.”- Nope, fight’s over, and so is Knuckle’s life it seems. Fitting for the vigilante who shuns the spotlight, he passed away unseen by anyone but his mortal enemies…

(Vigilantes ch 66) 2) “My, it`s been a while, but before that we had Captain Vanilla Ice fucking off back to America, his wife spawning a gremlin, Makoto being kicked out of the story, and there was the confront between McBee and Knuckleduster, which ended in an ~ambiguous way~ as if we don`t know that Knuckle won and possibly captured the proto nomu… “-Cough. Nope, sadly this is one fight that Koichi won’t be able to pass onto his master. It’s all up to him to be the illegal hero for once.

(Vigilantes ch 66) 3) “YEAH IT WAS HIM, AND THE OTHER JO-MEN, NOW IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYBODY IS HERE, BESIDES KNUCKLE AND MAKOTO”- Knuckle’s absence over the two-year time skip bodes poorly for his well-being, especially since we now know he lost the fight in the end.

(Vigilantes ch 66) 4) “YOU NEVER KNOW, YOU LEAVE YOUR HOUSE TO BUY CIGARETTES AND THEN TWENTY YEARS PASS BY, THAT`S THE EXCUSE KNUCKLES IS USING”- Guess we can add 2 more years to his ‘absent dad’ status.

(Vigilantes ch 67) 5) “YOU CAN`T ESCAPE FATE POP

TIME IS COMING FOR YOU, YOU BETTER DIG IN YOUR HEELS AND FACE IT HEAD ON, FOR IT SHALL BE A LOT WORSE IF YOU TRY TO RUN FROM IT”- Time, Fate, and Number 6 as well…

(Vigilantes ch 67) 6) “Ah, right, the Manager. You know, the manager? The one that manages? Glad you remember the manager, because the manager was such an integral part of the story so far, managing all the manageable things. Like managers do when they manage. Glad we`re not throwing good characters in the trash in the favor of new ones when the story is close to ending, right Furuhashi?”- Well, as it turns out, he’s not so much a ‘new’ character, as an old one with a reskinned model, one that has been pretty integral to the narrative so far actually- more so than the protagonists even. (Vigilantes ch 67) 7) “Glad we gave Pop enough time to process everything and start struggling against the inevitability of the end, I was afraid we would just hit her with a fucking truck after truck with no time for breathing, right Furuhashi?”- Helps push her into the unfortunate decision of trusting somebody she really, really shouldn’t...

(Vigilantes ch 67)

8) “Don`t worry Manager, I`m sure that you fought in manageable way against them, like you`re well established to be ever since the beginning- Oh shit, Pop did say he just got here recently. Crap, there goes my joke.”-Well, we saw he held a semi-managerial position in the Villain Factory, overseeing their laboratories and the products they created and taking them out on test runs, ‘terminating’ any employees or branches that had served their uses to the boss. Managing a band like that was a nice little down time for number 6, and a hint as to who he actually was underneath the nice-guy façade he put on.

(Vigilantes ch 67) 9) “What, you have a few tons of explosives for them to borrow? The first Narufest had fricking Captain Celebrity, you can only be considered as “going out with a bang” if All might himself shows up and kiss phelps on stage.”- As it turns out, he’s got access to all the explosives we could ever need. J (Vigilantes ch 67) 10) “Yeah, sorry Manny the manager, but the topic of this week was “learning to let go and moving on” so, they are all determined to follow this line of thought. you really was introduced in a bad moment of their lives.”- It therefore makes fitting sense that he’s getting directly involved in Koichi and Pop’s lives by this point, as Number 6’s obsession with becoming a ‘second O’clock’ and being unwilling to accept his ‘master’ could have moved on from that part of his life shows that he tends to obsess over the past, which makes him the thematic counter to both vigilantes who are preparing to ‘move on’ to the next stage and become their best selves, painful as it is to leave behind the people they were as vigilantes. Obsessing over what once used to be rather than what else he could become with O’Clock’s power shows how Number 6 is ultimately the inferior inheritor of Knuckleduster’s legacy, as opposed to Koichi, who is more ‘free’ and unburdened by his master’s past. (Vigilantes ch 67) 11) “AND EVEN BETTER, SHE DECIDED TO DO THE EXACT DISH POP WAS THINKING ABOUT. CHRIST, WE REALLY ARE GOING DOWN THE “HAVE POP HAVE A TERRIBLE TIME” ROAD, AREN`T WE”- And it’s not gonna get better anytime soon! J (Vigilantes ch 68) 12) “Okay, and not only she said with all the words, but HE actually understood she meant to ask how things were between the both of them romantically, and he answered that there`s nothing romantic going on. Outstanding. What the fuck am I reading, why all the misunderstanding are being avoided so directly? It`s the lowest hanging fruit possible, its so low that is basically a peanut, and even so, Furuhashi isn`t taking it…

something fishy is going on… I`m deeply afraid.”- Sometimes, fear is the appropriate response. (Vigilantes ch 69) 13) “Huh… Why was I excited about this chapter again? no idea. Anyway, let`s get started on Chapter 6- Oh I see it now, funny internet number go brrr. “- Well, there’s another Number 6 who came into focus this chapter, and he’s got some very funny plans in mind for Pop… (Vigilantes ch 69) 14) “And back to the store of justice we go, where Pizza Manager tells the kids about the approaching end and- well, for some reason he looks like he has a fucking lenny face”- If he’s Koichi’s evil counterpart in disguise, he’s got to look like his equal but opposite number, and that includes as bland an appearance as possible (Vigilantes ch 69) 15) “But back to the manga, what the fuck you doing here, Pizza Manager? Are you following Pop or something?”- As it happens, yes. And has been for a lot longer than when he first ‘met’ her as ‘Rokuro Nomura’ (Vigilantes ch 69) 16) “…

Wait, are you going to be her agent? That would actually be pretty cool, you`ve dealt with her long enough to know she has talent, you can certainly help her from now on”- This is true, but Pop is absolutely not going to enjoy whatever showpiece he’s got in mind for her… (Vigilantes ch 69) 17) “Oh and we`re out, right on time. What a shame, but Mizza Panager didn`t deserve to get a beating anyway, we`ll have to wait for koichi to show up so I can satiate my bloodthrist.”- Nnnno, I’d say Rokuro has more than earned his beating- the real question is if Koichi’s up to the task of giving him one in a real life-or-death fight. Guess he’d better have been practicing with those Knuckles over those 2 years… (Vigilantes ch 69) 18) “ …

Yeah, I don`t know if I trust ya, that one felt a bit… weird… Why do I think you`re stalking Pop or something? Don`t tell me Koichi will do a rescue-romance from her newest stalker…”- Well, lets not split hairs, he’s been stalking Koichi equally as well in his off time, keeping an eye on Knuckle’s ‘true’ apprentice to gauge how things are with him. Probably took the managerial gig in the first place for an easy way to approach them both at once, and since Koichi doesn’t really have a similar social venue he can approach him in, taking the side-entrance that is Pop was the easiest way he could intrude into their lives without arousing suspicion. (Vigilantes ch 69) 19) “Wait I just noticed the fucking name, nomura? Nomu? God, don`t tell me this is another undercover proto-nomu bullshit, I thought we had enough from this from McBee. Also, why would another one show up and just- go to work as a manager of a department store? And stalk pop, by the looks of it, but that one I`m still on the fence about.”- Yes, why would another one show up? Much easier if it’s the same guy, taking on a new identity with his demonstrated ability to alter his facial features and blend in with the way of the nondescript. (Vigilantes ch 69) 20) “Must… resist… the urge… from drawing one his face… Must… continue… my straw theory…”- Oh, I don’t know, I think he could do with a little doodling. Say, something like a lighting-shaped scar on his face? (Vigilantes ch 69) 21) “and we shall continue the rest of this tomorrow, where I`ll have a new batch of bizarre straw theories, beyond “the guy named nomu is actually a nomu” that is.”- I am curious as to whether one of those theories was ‘he’s really number 6 in disguise’, because if so, you won the prize!... of tension and high anxiety, as we now fear for Pop’s well-being, unaware of how close danger lurks to her… (Vigilantes ch 69) 22) “…

He so is pretending,

there`s no way, absolutely no way this was a legit reaction, if it was we would`ve seen at least one person actually stopping to listen to her song at the street.”- Well, he admitted to Knuckle that he doesn’t really have a defined ‘self’, being an artificial humanoid and all, and that makes it harder for him to gauge how convincingly he’s faking at giving stuff like deep, emotional responses. It’s harder for him to know what’s honestly something of ‘his’, and not what’s been implanted in him by his creators, so when he needs to act like he’s been emotionally moved to tears, he over-corrects, and acts like he’s seeing ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ or “Titanic” for the first time.

(Vigilantes ch 69) 23) “But alright, the guy might be secretly a nomu, but at least he has an incredibly analytical mind for songs, seems like in two years AfO did some improvements, as we can see on number 7 here.”- Number 6 patterns himself after Knuckle, a guy who built an entire fighting style about being analytical and leveraging his advantages to overcome his quirkless weakness, so it makes sense for him to similarly have patterned his mentality over analysing things for minute details to paint a whole picture, both for work and pleasure. With Knuckle it was part of the overall shout-out to Batman being the ‘world’s greatest detective’, but with Number 6 it’s a means of accurately identifying what Pop’s mindset is like right now and what the best things to say to her are to better worm his way into her life without her suspecting.

(Vigilantes ch 69) 24) “That much we knew Mr. Nomu man, but she definitely needed to hear about it, now, can you tell me why you wanted to work specifically at that place? Sure it isn`t to stalk Pop or koichi, is it? You`re not continuing the work of your older brother, are you?”- Can’t continue what you never stopped in the first palce….

(Vigilantes ch 69) 25) “Now, although I`ve been joking about it I don`t actually believe you are stalking either of them, but one thing is for sure, besides the fact you`re a proto nomu, you`re far too interested in the potential amount of money you can make out of pop without telling her about it, and I`m getting worried about this situation.”- You should know by now. The more you joke, the more likely it is that the joke will come true, as per the curse of Apollo. @thelreads

#bnha vigilantes #bnha #thelreads #chapter replies #my hero academia #vigilantes 70

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ganymedesclock · 3 years ago

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I'm terrible with remembering names, so what I'm gonna do is choose a couple questions, and YOU decide which of your OCs/FCs would provide the most interesting answer. Bonus points for choosing OCs from a variety of your stories/fanworks. 3, 23, 34, 63

3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?

I'm gonna pick Taylor for this because I need to brag about the fact that while yes, they are a really transparent pun- a character who uses thread and a 'needle' to fight, and opposes a scissor-themed antagonist, and their name is a homonym for 'tailor'... but I actually thought about it further than that!

Because a tailor often does one of two tasks. They aren't necessarily the person making clothes originally, but they can be- generally when we talk about tailoring, we talk about one of two concepts:

- to adjust the lines and shaping of an object to fit a specific wearer's body, basically personalizing it (or passively, "the tailoring", the fit of clothes)

- mending or repairing the gaps in something.

A huge amount of Taylor's personality, besides generically "nice and earnest" came together out of this pun and line of thinking. It's not a coincidence that one of the earliest drawings I did of Taylor was them being the one to sew up Diana's sleeve while also asking her if she has a name, or wants to have one. Earnestness became not just a deliberate contrast to how a lot of rpg protagonists are often passive or being towed along by a sense of destiny, Taylor is someone who- as they come increasingly into their own, becomes increasingly personally motivated.

They have a keen attention to detail and a stubborn sense that things should be fixed, that nothing's so broken you just leave it there, even if you have to cut it to scraps and mix it in with other things, somehow, somehow it lives again- reborn, reshaped, pluck out the seams and do them over but never give up on it. For better and for worse! They are very stubborn, in a way their agreeable nature hides. A part of them is naturally aligned to sitting up awake in the darkest hours of night, working by candlelight alone, stitching and re-stitching and pulling out the seams because you deserved more than this, this is not the end, you are no tragedy to linger alone- you are something more, little piece of wedding-lace brought up from the south, treasure of pearl beads whose glitter lies under a working man's filth- burnt fragment of blanket wrapped around a child as a goodbye they weren't awake to hear- you are something more and you won't die in vain, as long as someone still fights to see you as you are-

so this silly pun name kind of ended up having massive character significance to who Taylor is as a person!

23. Do they get lonely easily?

For this, I'm picking Aeon, and Aeon's... interesting. They can come off very interpersonally needy, so it may be surprising to say that their relationship with loneliness is actually kind of a hit or miss affair. They're less likely to feel like they need "someone, anyone, RIGHT NOW" as much as they're inclined to missing specific people once they get used to them.

Aeon does miss something from people, but it's specifically not just companionship- it's more the constancy of a stable relationship. They've always been able to reach people or animals relatively easily- finding just someone or something to entertain you for a while comes very easily to them. So they get lonely in the sense that they miss very specific people, rather than more they're afraid of isolation.

Honestly, if they don't feel like they've lost someone, Aeon's just as happy to be alone as they are to be with others; for a lot of their life they've just... kinda... hung out in the woods. Collected masks. Played in rainstorms. that sort of thing. They're great at self-entertaining. Would make an astonishingly little amount of trouble if you were stuck in the car with them on a road trip, as long as they had enough stuff to play with they don't decide one of their fellow passengers is their entertainment.

34. How easily do they trust others with their secrets? With their lives?

I answered this one with Maenad earlier, so I'm going to use her husband for it.

Hero, if anything, is a little bit trusting to a fault by virtue of not having tremendous confidence in his ability to problem-solve; unless strong evidence to the contrary or something seems obviously wrong to him, he rarely rocks the boat and tends to count on others to handle most disputes.

This doesn't give him the greatest sense of secrecy, but, well, if he only has a limited pool of people he really tries to talk to these days, and those people are all either dead or in careers that take them away from him more often than not, he has accidentally become great at lying by omission a long time ago.

Incidentally, this doesn't make him nearly as much of a pushover as imagined- he'll fold on a lot of situations, but you really don't want to be on the wrong side of him when you've imposed too far.

After all, a lot of his uncertainty is that he struggles on how to handle friends or allies- there's no uncertainty in him whatsoever about how to handle enemies. He's got that down pat.

63. What is always guaranteed to make them smile?

this is very silly but for mysterious reasons my brain completely shut down on this one and I don’t want to let the post perish in my drafts so here it is.

#oc ask meme #rpg tomfoolery #The Lornwood #Taylor the Friend Of Darkness #Aeon the Changeling #King Hero the Hero King #readmore

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thegeminisage · 4 years ago

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Here's something I'd love your take on: I read a meta recently (would link it but I can't remember where, ack) that suggested that Sam is able to forgive John in later seasons because a) he's had the whole "family making unilateral decisions for your own good" thing repeatedly shoved down his throat, and b) whatever John did under this umbrella in their childhoods, Dean has done far worse by that point, and Sam HAS to forgive him so by extension he can't really be mad at John anymore (1/2)

(2/2) As someone who has admittedly only seen bits and pieces of the later seasons, this seems to jive with Sam losing a lot of his characteristic early-seasons anger, letting Dean call the shots almost all the time even when he thinks it's the wrong move, and moments of sympathy for John (contrasted w/Dean's growing resentment, which is so interesting!). But! I got some big ol' gaps in my spn comprehension, so was curious if you had any thoughts on this dynamic

wow okay long answer warning! i got carried away and forgot how to use punctuation. nobody is obligated to read all of this lol and the biggest part of the answer is behind a cut. anyway!!

first things first: i think a big thing to remember with sam’s characterization in later seasons is that it’s like...not there, and when it is there, it’s sometimes flat and inconsistent. because dean became sole the main protagonist after the first 8 (arguably the first 5 or even first 2) seasons, sam sort of got demoted to “side character we don’t know what to do with” along with cas and crowley. they all had good arcs pop up now and then (sam had some fun stuff going on with lucifer in s11 and s13) but most of the time the writers either don’t know how to give him a meaningful characterization or don’t care (or both). so we have to do a lot of that work ourselves.

so, for example, when we talk about sam losing his anger, i like to read it as him OVERCOMING that anger to avoid becoming his father (which may even be where some of the seemingly sympathetic comments come from, because he’s trying to be forgiving instead of angry), but really...it’s that the writers forgot he had anger issues. in-universe explanation vs irl explanation, yk? and i think pretty much all meta about sam in late seasons is written through that lens, whether the writer of that meta knows it or not. including this one! i can’t prove any of this shit, it’s my personal reading, i’m making it up. like there were just SO many different people involved in the production of supernatural that there was a lot of conflict and contradictions in things like continuity and characterization. (most of the writers room hadn’t even seen every episode!) so there’s not one definitive way to go about it. in many ways it makes the characters more nuanced and in many other ways it makes me fucking insane.

as for sam and john and whether or not sam forgives him, i’m actually glad you asked because this has been driving me nuts for a long time and it took me SO LONG to pin it down - sam’s relationship with john is very different to dean’s, and i couldn’t figure out WHY. it’s not that he was “abused less,” it’s not that he loved john less or was less hurt by his actions, so why doesn’t he seem as INVESTED in everything that happened to them as kids? like he says in season 14 he had to learn to let it go and that it was all a lifetime ago for him. meanwhile i think dean still deals with it every day. he’s still stewing in it to some degree 24/7. so like what’s the difference??

i think it comes down to two things. firstly, that while dean didn’t have anybody parenting him except john (and mary, but only for a very short time that he could actually remember), SAM’S parents were john AND DEAN. most of the time dean was the one raising sam, and in fact he arguably did way more parenting of sam than john did. so the person that made dean feel safe and like he could fight back against monsters, the person he was grateful to, was john. but the person who made SAM feel safest was dean. he doesn’t have that same gratitude towards john that dean does and he never will, because of how john made him feel alienated and excluded from their family growing up. dean’s resentment of john is so tangled up in this very deep and unconditional love and gratitude for him that sam just doesn’t have.

secondly, i think dean has a serious case of “i can fix him” re: john that sam doesn’t have and possibly never had. john just never showed sam the same kind of inclusion and warmth and trust that he showed dean (however rarely he showed it, and however fucked up it was). i think sam figured out very very early on that their quest for yellow eyes was either a long shot or straight up impossible, and that they couldn’t waste their entire lives doing it, and that even if the demon died, john was never going to change. dean 100% drank the koolaid - he really truly believed in a world where someday they’d kill the demon and all retire from the life and be normal and be a family again, because that’s what john said and dean took his father’s word as gospel. sam knew better.

so i think what sam did was just disengage. partially because he felt he couldn’t afford to nurse that kind of anger and not become either his father or lucifer, and partially because even though sam loved john, still loves john, he never needed him the way dean did, because sam had dean. so it doesn’t hurt him as much to just “gray rock” it. i think if sam stopped and really dug into it he’d find that he’s still quite angry (probably more angry on dean’s behalf than his own, at least at first, because in his mind he was able to move past it and dean was not, dean had it worse, HIS OWN trauma isn’t real etc etc), but he doesn’t do that because he doesn’t want to be that angry, and possibly even thinks that if he brought it up dean would jump to john’s defense and it would cause a fight, which the opposite of what a gray rock does.

as for being forced to forgive john because if he didn’t he would also have to condemn dean...i don’t think i buy that at all. sam is fine making dean his exception and he allows dean to get away with a lot of deeply horrible shit he would condemn other people for. partially because he’s dean and sam loves him, but in my ~personal reading~ of sam, this is also because once sam became an adult the weight of everything dean did and had to give up to raise him really sank in, and part of him felt guilty (even though sam arguably didn’t have a childhood either). you know how kids take care of their parents in old age to repay them for raising them? that’s sort of how sam is with dean in later seasons - he implies multiple times that he would leave the hunting life forever and not look back if it weren’t for dean.

and as a side note - sorry, this is only tangentially related - dean implies several times in later seasons that the job is where he finds his sense of accomplishment and self-esteem and meaning - he believes the world is a better place because of what he and sam do, and even though he doesn’t always like DOING the job, he likes the outcome. it’s weird because this is as close as we see dean get to even HAVING self esteem. sam, emotionally intelligent, would have picked up on that - and since he and dean have both tried to leave the life multiple times and have always come to regret it, i also think part of sam believes you CAN’T escape - certainly SAM could never escape so long as dean was still in it, because whether he meant to or not dean would always pull him back in. and part of dean doesn’t really want to escape because he’s made his peace with it. so sam stays, and i think even if he can’t find the same meaning in the job that dean does, he finds a lot of meaning in being there for dean. (this, like gray rocking, is also consistent with the seasons where sam’s sole character trait is caring about dean lol. but i’m happy enough to read it in a kinder and less bitter/resentful way.)

it IS worth noting i think that the most forgiving sam ever was about john was in the adam episode, where he said he understood why he was the way he was and why he did what he did, and when dean said they were alike sam decided to take it as a compliment. sam in season 4 is arguably at one of his lowest points - struggling with addiction, consumed by anger and hatred and the need for revenge. he WAS like john in many ways, and i think he justified what john was doing because it also justified what HE was doing. but what he was doing led to breaking lucifer out of hell and the apocalypse that followed, which is why i like to think sam worked so hard to reign in his anger afterward - both to avoid his fate and avoid becoming his father.

in short: i don’t think sam has actually forgiven john so much as disengaged from him and moved past it. because if he DID engage with it, it’d bring up a whole lot of stuff he didn’t feel prepared to deal with. one of the risks of gray rocking things is doing it to the point that you lose touch with your own wants and needs and personality, so i think by late seasons sam’s repression, which is much more sneaky and quiet than dean’s, has settled in to the point where he’s like “yeah whatever” about dad out of sheer self preservation - because otherwise, he’d end up going crazy about it like dean does. i think it’d do him a hell of a lot of good to be able to get to shout at john and finally say his piece/ he’s really afraid of his own anger, but i think it’d be healthy for him to get back in touch with some of it.

[spn masterpost]

#liz answers asks #bimbonaparte #sam winchester #john winchester #liz makes stuff #liz's spn stuff #liz's meta #whew this was a long one sorry.#i am so glad you have the same icon on tumblr and ao3 i was replying TO YOUR COMMENT when i got this ask <3 #fun cool coincidences!!!!!#anyway i didn't want to mention my fic but like this is why i had him yell in my fic. it's good for him #for himself and for dean he deserves to feel angry

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translations-by-aiimee · 4 years ago

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Mistakenly Saving the Villain - Chapter 5

Original Title: 论救错反派的下场

Genres: Drama, Romance, Xianxia, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 5 - Wrong Answer

Readers who have read novels such as transmigration, quick transmigration, and system plotlines, know that if the fate of the character in the story must be changed, it should be prevented before the character's tragic fate has occurred. However, Song Qingshi interpreted this as the event having already occurred, and was meant to save the character who had already suffered a tragic fate. This train of thought meant that his decision was a thousand miles off.

In the original book, Yue Wuhuan only appeared three times:

The first time was when the shou protagonist had just been sold to Golden Phoenix Manor. When he saw the unbearable scene of Yue Wuhuan being played with by the guests, his three views shattered.

The second time was when the protagonist's naive illusion of the future was destroyed and he was forced to accept his identity because of the ridicule and humiliating remarks of Yue Wuhuan.

The third time, Yue Wuhuan was taken out by Jin FeiRen on the Langgan stage to treat the guests and was accidentally torn to pieces by the demon tiger. Jin FeiRen concealed the actual explanation of the demon tiger's madness and treated it as a deliberately arranged game for the banquet. With this extreme fear, he shattered the last trace of the protagonist's dignity, making him completely surrender and become a plaything.

In short, Yue Wuhuan was a small supporting role with little substance, leaving the plot early, using his degeneracy to offset the beauty of the protagonist. His beauty was only like that of a beautiful flower that was about to wither. How can it be compared with the pure and clean flower bud that had not yet bloomed in the dawn?

This was a super simple multiple-choice question that every reader could figure out!

If the system was a living thing and watching over the exam being taken, it would be so angry that it would have come out and beaten that foolish Song Qingshi to death.

Scholar-Tyrant Song didn't know that he had drifted so far from the original goal, but he was still eagerly confident, trying to do his best and vowing to get a perfect score!

On the way back to the Valley of the Medicine King, Song Qingshi had recalled all the memories of his original body and integrated it with its massive knowledge of medicine and alchemy. There were rare and exotic herbs and miraculous medicines in the cultivation world. However, similar to traditional Chinese medicine, even if the medicine worked wonders, the science behind the effects of these medicines was still a mystery.

Modern medicine conducts systematic research on traditional Chinese medicine to find out the monarch-minister-auxiliary relationship within its components, extracted the useful ingredients in each concoction, and then developed medicine that was easier to take and had even better results.

A female scientist won the Nobel Prize for this, benefiting the world. Song Qingshi focused on modern medicine, leaped away from the traditional path of immortality, and quickly found new ideas for solving problems for many areas that the original body had failed to properly study. He used the Tiangong Pavilion to make modern scientific instrument substitutes, and then analyze the effective ingredients in the immortal medicines, purify them, research them, and even artificially synthesize them. . .

In Song Qingshi's mind, there were countless experimental schemes in an endless stream, and there were tens of thousands of books and inexhaustible medicinal materials in the Medicine King's Valley, as well as abundant research funds.

He was overjoyed, like a mouse that fell into a vat of rice. He wanted to kiss the system if he could.

Song Qingshi fully understood why the original body lived here, staying in such a cultivation paradise. He could live here for the rest of his life!

He could immerse himself in the ocean of intense studying and research every day. He could dedicate his life and soul to his favourite medical god. No one could send him back!

Song Qingshi looked at Yue Wuhuan in his arms. The more he looked at him, the more he loved him.

This was the big treasure that had given him everything! He would do everything he could to save him, just like his parents used to treat him before; indulged, spoiled, loved, and giving him all the good things he needed so that he can live a happy life like a prince in a fairy tale!

Song 'a father's love is like a mountain' Qingshi was full of ambition. He suppressed his excitement and immediately placed Yue Wuhuan in the side hall of his bedroom. He did everything by himself. First, he poured the elixir carefully with the crane-mouthed pot to re-invigorate the breath of life. Then he changed into white clothes, put on a homemade mask, and found a pair of extremely thin animal leather gloves. After he finished disinfecting the wounds, gently cut off the blood-soaked gauze and feather skirt on Yue Wuhuan's body with scissors, rinsed the wounds, and then sutured them with very fine silkworm thread. Then, he cut off the shackles and treated his ankle wounds.

Song Qingshi's movements were extremely gentle and quick, barely touching any skin, but Yue Wuhuan's body was extremely sensitive. He twitched slightly and groaned a few times before falling asleep again. Song Qingshi took the opportunity to take some blood samples for analysis, and also performed a full-body scan of him with his mental probe. He was a good-tempered person, but after seeing the disastrously ruined dantian and meridians in Yue Wuhuan's body, he couldn't help but curse darkly at those beasts. He scolded them repeatedly, thinking about how he was going to explain this situation to him once he woke up.

Song Qingshi was not good at communicating with strangers. He was able to make do when discussing his interests, but his thoughts often went blank when forced into small talk. For example, when everyone watched the popular men's group selection variety show together and argued over who was the male god?

He answered sincerely that it was Asclepius, the god of medicine. . .

Song Qing hasn't understood why everyone said he killed the conversation.

He thought hard for a long time and remembered that when his Lou Gerhig's hadn't been as advanced, he worked in a hospital for an internship. His senior brother knew that Song Qinshi was afraid of social interaction and would end up a stuttering mess when he tried to have conversations with his patients. He taught Song Qingshi: "Push down all of your feelings and act like a medical machine. First write down their case in detail and their treatment plan, recite it with a smile, and then end with a comforting sentence." Song Qingshi took this secret technique, practiced many times in front of the teacher, and, finally, he could talk to patients without fear.

A hospital is a place for treatment, just like how the Medicine King's Valley is a place for treatment. What's the difference?

After Song Qingshi had this epiphany, he replaced Yue Wuhuan’s bed sheets and bedding with the white ones commonly used in hospitals. He ordered the valley servant to make several sets of patient clothes, put them on by himself, and then tied roots on his wrist to represent the hospital information band. With a red wristband and a sign on the bed with "Special Care" and the instructions for how to care for him, Song Qingshi instantly felt calm in this makeshift hospital environment.

He wasn't comfortable with the type of care that the valley servantswere giving and took on nursing himself. He was careful and not afraid of getting tired. He wiped down Yue Wuhuan's body and washed his face, fed him medicine and water, and even replaced the bedding to deal with all kinds of filth.

When Yue Wuhuan woke up three days later, he was confused. He didn't know where he was. He stared at the white veil on the top of the bed in a daze for a long time. He finally realized that he was still alive and he hadn't been this relaxed in a long time.

He closed his eyes, faintly recalling the slight fragrance of medicine lingering from his dream and the hands that had gently released all the restraints for him. He took a deep breath. He didn't want to wake up and face the never-ending nightmare.

After who know's how long, Yue Wuhuan threw his eyes open, remembering where he had smelled the fragrance of the medicine. He slowly turned his head and looked at the round table next to him, but saw that Medicine Master Xianzun was attentively making changes to the cursive writings on the table. He was frowning, his expression serious, as if thinking about something bad. There was also a familiar spirit bead in the silver plate next to him, and it became obvious that he had been given to another guest to be played with.

Yue Wuhuan’s phoenix eyes shrank. The rumors of the perverse and evil deeds of the Medicine Master Xianzun appeared in his mind, but he was not afraid. Whether he was willing or unwilling meant nothing under the control of the spirit bead. Besides, his broken body was no longer worthy of being cherished. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and struggled to get out of bed, but a sharp pain came from his shoulder, which made him dizzy and he fell right back down. Song Qingshi never had any distractions when he was researching. He heard the movement and found that the patient was awake. He was afraid that Yue Wuhuan might have moved his body and reopened the wound. He quickly reprimanded him with a stern tone: "You, go to bed right away! You are not allowed to get off for ten days!"

This stern technique was a secret taught by the head nurse of the hospital. It had a good effect on treating patients who didn't follow the doctor's advice.

"Ten days?" Yue Wuhuan was stunned. He couldn't help but look at Song Qingshi up and down. The more he looked, the more he felt that his appearance was deceiving. He had been with guests for many years, and he was used to seeing many lustful scenes, but he never would've guessed that this person had such prowess in the bed. . .

Seeing that he hadn't gotten back on the bed, Song Qingshi put down his pen, walked over and picked him up with his own hands.

Yue Wuhuan remained unmoved, stretched out his hand and gently hugged his neck. Hot fingertips touched his cool skin, as smooth as cool jade, and the clear and clean scent of medicine wrapped around him gently like if he was in a dream. Yue Wuhuan couldn't help but shake for a moment. He chasticized his heart for still not knowing how to behave, then resumed his usual posture, and breathed out ambiguously: "I hope that Xianxun will take pity. . ."

"Don't worry, I will." Song Qingshi put him back on the bed carefully, then pulled the blanket up. He wrapped him up tightly, and solemnly told him, "The valley is wet and cold. You have a mortal body so be careful of the cold and stay under the blanket. Keep your hands and feet tucked in and don’t kick off the sheets."

Yue Wuhuan had never seen this trick in bed before and was at a bit of a loss.

"You;re a patient now. Let me tell you about your situation." Song Qingshi turned back to the table, picked up a stack of paper covered with words. He nervously pushed the non-existent glasses on the bridge of his nose, and read with a smile, formulating his tone. "The patient is Yue Wuhuan. There are three lacerations from the right shoulder to the chest, which are 18 cm, 14 cm and 12 cm long. The right shoulder bone is fractured, and the suprascapular artery has been ruptured. The right elbow has a skin contusion. The left and right wrists have skin tissue bruises, the left and right knees are bruised along with the left and right ankle tissue. The buttocks skin has soft tissue lacerations. There are signs of drug abuse in the body and potentially drug addiction. Do you understand?"

Yue Wuhuan only felt that his stiff smile must look increasingly forced. The more he thought about it, the crazier everything seemed. All he could do was nod his head and pretendto understand.

"Very good." Song Qingshi felt that what he said was both detailed and easy to understand, and began to recite the preliminary treatment plan. "Your dantian and meridians have been destroyed, and your body is seriously damaged. Your body is too fragile right now to use stronger medicine, so you cannot take Rejuvenation Pill, Gather Breathe and Disperse Pill, All Creation Pill or the Bone Growth Pill. You need to be treated with mortal medicine first, and then treated with the Six Meridian Rejuvanation medicated bath. Then you'll take the Rising Dragon Pill and Nine Revolution Blood Lotus Pill."

Yue Wuhuan finally understood what he was saying. These pills were common immortal medicines, and he had also taken it when he was seriously injured.

The All Creation Pill and Rising Dragon Pill were worth thousands, and he had heard that the poster of Jape Pearl Tower's Lord had used it for his own treasure.

He didn't know what the Six Meridian Rejuvanation medicated bath was, but the Nine Revolution Blood Lotus Pill was the treasure of the immortal world. It is made of ten thousand year-old blood lotuses. There were only nine in the world and only few know where their locations. He only knew that the master of Xuanji Palace had used it and ascended to Fen Shen; the lord of Fluttering Snow Fortress turned against his Daoist companion and killed him and his wife to win the treasure; one appeared in the Qizhen Pavilion auction, and it was won by the owner of the East Sea Langya Pavilion with hundreds of thousands of high-grade spirit stones. For some reason, Jin FeiRen wasn't able to participate in the auction. He always brought it up as one of the greatest regrets in his life.

If it were described in mortal terms, it would be like saving a beggar on the side of the road and saying that you would give him precious delicacies, golden houses, jade horses, and billions in wealth. FInally, you tell him you'll give him the fade seal of the country and all lands under the heavens. Only an idiot would believe these claims.

Yue Wuhuan laughed but his heart was cold. He basically confirmed that Song Qingshi was just toying with him.

He had also encountered many such sweet talkers, pretending to show compassion for some and pity for others. All he wanted, though, was to coax his slaves to play this game with him. He only lusted after his dirty body, in the end.

Song Qingshi finished off with some final closing words: "Don't worry, as long as you follow the doctor's advice and cooperate with the treatment, you'll be cured."

"Okay," Yue Wuhuan's phoenix eyes showed a bit of flattery, and he replied in a sultry voice: "This slave depend on Xianzun for everything. . ."

"I almost forgot." Song Qingshi looked into his eyes and suddenly remembered something. He put on the animal skin gloves again, picked up a luminous bead the size of a goose egg and placed it in a strange, long, tube-shape lampshade. Then he sat on the side of the bed, leaned over and looked at Yue Wuhuan. He gave him a serious warning: "This may be a little uncomfortable, please bear with me."

Yue Wuhuan smiled self-deprecatingly. He let the phoenix eyes show waves of desire, and he relaxed his body, waiting to be played with.

Song Qingshi stretched out his hand and opened his eyes, illuminating the inside of the eyes with the luminous bead. He carefully observed for a while, then whispered: "The problem of the lacrimal secretion system is not visible on the outside, so I still have to do a colored dye inspection..."

Yue Wuhuan: "???"

#mistakenly saving the villain #mistakenly saving the villain translation #chinese bl #chinese novel #english translation #yaoi novel #song qinshi #yue wuhuan

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ooc-but-stylish · 3 years ago

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freezedive:

I think I said it in one of your other beautiful posts, but I thought I’d mention it again. All of the ridiculous cutscenes did give us a golden nugget of information on Luna that most of us who are brutally critical of her (like you and me), suspected all along: Luna openly admits to Gentiana that she doesn’t think she has anything to offer Noctis outside of being an oracle. And Gentiana makes it worse by speaking in fancy words by saying some bullshit about her being the oracle is her being human or something and that she is fulfilling her true calling and that is what Noctis needs? Idk but it reeked of emotional manipulation.

I hold little to no regard for Ravus because there’s evidence Luna was being brutally beaten right under his own nose while he was busy being the Emperor’s lapdog thinking it could maybe give him the power to save his sister? The man should have opened his eyes and defended her against the men that kept them jailed

I happened on this reply to roxainn’s post while trying to recapitulate all my other FFXV critical posts and reblogs on the way to making new ones.

Crawling back to find anything about this point, I find that it was posted 3 years ago. But at least I reblogged the reply to it.... and missed that it was literally @ ME. Goddamn did I slack.

But here’s my reply, 3 years late, which should elaborate on where I stand on this.

Yes, the flashback that gets triggered by a random creepy little girl in Tenebrae is about Luna and Gentiana. Somehow the little girl knew about that conversation even though she wasn’t there to witness it first-hand? Or maybe Noctis was imagining what the conversation would be like between Gentiana and Luna off of the vague suggestion from the girl, and it’s just him telling on himself that his imagination of Luna says all that? Otherwise the not-altogether-tinfoil-hat theory says it’s Gentiana in the form of a little girl, telling Noctis something that IMO should piss him off but just makes him sad and guilty because Luna loved him so much, don’t you see. She loved him so much that after wrapping her entire life around him, she’d just want to keep that going for the rest of their lives!

Gentiana opens the conversation with, “At first, the father had mourned the fate of his chosen son. Yet in Tenebrae, the two found solace. It was not the Oracle who assuaged their fears. But the girl…she holds…the true power.”

Then Luna replies, “I have little to offer a king, other than the voice afforded the Oracle. Nevertheless…” She turns to look at the wedding dress. “And—I’m afraid he might find this foolish… But…to be together with Noctis again, even if only for a short while… It…would mean the world to me. I do not seek to guide him, merely to stand beside him.”

The exchange is all types of fucky.

First off, she was twelve. What comfort could she have offered Regis and Noctis? What comfort was she capable of when Sylva was right there, an adult with experience of an Oracle and a personality thanks to a presumable full life not hampered by grooming of the gods?

Second, every other scene of Luna as a child is of her telling Noctis his duty, and that it was her duty to see it through. Did that assuage his fears-- the fears he didn’t have at the time since he never knew the entire meaning of his fate and was being told a saccharine, embellished version of it by Luna right there? Did that comfort Regis, knowing a little girl would also die to protect his son if the gods wanted it, but that she wouldn’t have the will to avert their fates whatsoever?

Third, even she thinks Noctis would think her desire to be with him is foolish. So... was she expecting that Noctis himself didn’t have feelings for her or want to spend time with her of his own volition for reasons outside of her job? She was looking forward to a marriage with no emotional security, where her desires are one-sided and unreciprocated, and the man she cares for think she’s worthless outside of her powers? She would’ve been willing to put herself through that, given a choice?

We know what we know and think what we think, but the fact that this was placed right in the vanilla game and no one thought that was wrong, and instead they doubled down on it in patches, is pathetic on their part.

Moreover, what does The Girl have, that was separate from The Princess and The Oracle? Every facet of her being wrapped around Noctis since age 4. She was nothing but her duty by the time Noctis met her; they had no scenes where they acted as children would. Even supplemental/promotional art for other XV media and related locales cement that. Little Luna serves Little Noctis pastries, she’s not seen eating with him. Luna teaches Noctis how to play piano, she’s not playing with him. Dawn of the Future came out with its own art, and Noctis is afforded the liberty to sit in a chair, and his son(?) sits on his lap, while Luna and her spitting image child(?) are both on their knees, looking up at the dudes.

In most of their art together, Luna and Noctis are either not meeting each other's gazes, she's bending or kneeling to him, or he's supposed to be holding her close but he hover-hands her, or there’s that one time where they took a selfie and the picture was of their Pocket Edition versions. They’re still not looking at each other in that one. And it’s not canon.

Anyway yeah, any conversation Gentiana has with Luna about Noctis is emotional manipulation on Gentiana’s part, but the writers manage just enough to make everyone involved seem creepy and reprehensible in their own way.

In DOTF, Luna has a death soliloquy that confirms she sunk into the water at the end of the game’s Chapter 9, but the soliloquy is about how she was prepared to die even at the age of 12, and she put on a smile and resolved to be strong for Noctis’s sake, so that he wouldn’t remember her having a look of despair. There’s a line there about how she would cry herself to sleep but Gentiana would wipe her tears. Gentiana does nothing else except allow her to cry and wipe her tears afterward, and makes no effort to save her from her fate or at least take her out of terrible situations so that she would cry fewer tears. But there is cut dialogue from the game, and used in the novel, where Gentiana revealed herself as Shiva when Luna was <16 (probably still 12 at the time), when she thought she was being held back from forming the covenants, so there’s that. And Luna still somehow ignored that this meant Shiva allowed Sylva to die, and thanked this useless goddess for her nonexistent generosity.

For whatever reason they had to add a passage where Luna superimposes the image of an eight-year-old Noctis onto the adult version-- quote, "the image of him as a child, burned into my eyelids, overlaps with his now-grown face"-- even though Noctis has canonically sent her photos of him as a teenager (15-16, around the time he met Prompto in high school, see: Brotherhood). Granted, that's a translation from Luna's voice actress reading an excerpt as if it were first person POV. The English version says she sees the child image first, then the adult version is superimposed. Then not much after that there's a passage where Noctis smiles as his child self and it was "that smile she loved that had been in her heart all these years, giving her strength, always and forever".

So she was groomed and turned into a shell since age 4, believes she has no value outside of her job and turned her grooming on a similarly vulnerable child, and her strongest image of him, the one she fell in love with and kept in her heart, is of the helpless boy that promised her the world without knowing the cost. The smile of the carefree boy that didn't know his journey would end with his soul annihilated. It couldn’t have been that hard to have her see an image of him as the 30 year old True King of Light that he would become. At least she'd sound a little less like a weirdo who continually places herself (and is placed by the narrative) as below him, unworthy of him, etc. but also has strong feelings and memories toward a goddamn child.

Re: Ravus: you already got a reply to that, but for real? Ravus was also shafted by the plot and beaten down by terrible, amateur writing. The narrative shits on him as if it’s written by a high schooler or otherwise emotionally arrested adult trying to push a Mary Sue Protagonist. The modus operandi for those stories is that everyone who disagrees with the protagonist in any way has to suffer tremendous humiliation including but not limited to death, because the Protagonist Is Just So Good And Perfect And Always Right.

Nothing Ravus does justifies his treatment in-game or in-fandom like he’s a one-note out-and-out villain who wanted nothing but to kill Noctis and disrespect his sister, to the point where his corpse is defiled multiple times in Chapter 13 and he’s twisted into a perversion of himself that begs to die.

Chapter 13 has Noctis land next to Ravus’s corpse and all his letters to Luna, and Noctis has piss all to say about it, either out loud or to anyone. He looks at the Sword of the Father, glances at Ravus, and without a word takes the Royal Arm and lets the Magitek arm-- still dripping, still gross-- fall onto Ravus’s body and doesn’t even move it.

He had no way of knowing beforehand that Ignis and Gladio knew of Ravus being killed. WE didn't even know they saw security footage until Ch13V2 was added in. Noctis happening on his late fiancée's dead bro sounds, I don’t fucking know, like something you’d want to tell everyone else about later. Along with the letters he wrote evidencing that he intended to return the Sword of the Father to Noctis!

An aside: The Letters from Ravus are just weird to behold; it isn't 100% clear whether Luna ever received all of those letters. She had to have received the first one, at least. But the idea that Ardyn intercepted even one other letter so that Luna never heard from her brother between Tenebrae and Altissia is farfetched. He shouldn’t be able to intercept those messages as if they were delivered conventionally. Luna has a pair of magic space-bending Shiba Inu that send letters instantly across continents. If she’s sparing their use to send Noctis one-liners and stickers but can’t afford that for Ravus to send her discrete updates on Noctis’s status, she’s a piece of shit.

They do meet in Tenebrae as Ravus wanted her to, and they have the conversation where he gets on her case about her “throwing [her] life away” for Noctis. So chances are higher that Ardyn only got a hold of all three letters after Luna received them and no sooner, but then he shouldn’t be tossing letters from Ravus at the dude’s body when it makes more sense for him to toss down letters to Ravus, since the writers wanted to make a point of Ardyn having a vicious streak. It makes way more sense for Ardyn to deprive Ravus of Luna’s writing, then insult him with them post-mortem, unless Ravus’s notes were really all he could acquire, meaning Luna never once wrote back to her brother.

The Doylist explanation is that the writing team sucks and couldn't be assed to think of anything for Luna to say because they didn't think of her at all. The Watsonian explanation is that Luna’s a piece of shit and that tracks with her in Kingsglaive watching her brother burn alive in response to the Ring, but ignoring him and running to Regis’s aid instead, but then the rest of the plot presents her as morally pure through her white clothing and “unconditional, self-abnegating love” for Noctis.

Back to the topic: I don’t know, maybe I’m being old fashioned, but Noctis should’ve given more of a shit that his dropping the Magitek Arm on Ravus’s body was probably what turned him into a mutated abomination begging to die, and he thought so little of Ravus that the dude isn’t even in the glimpse of "people who helped me get this far" in the Beyond. Ravus doesn’t even get a spot to wish Noctis and Luna well on their afterlife wedding, not that it makes any sense for any of them to have words to say since Noctis is already dead, no one was there with them, and none of the bros expressed any sign that they knew that Noctis was bound to get married after his sacrifice (he sure doesn’t mention it in the final campfire scene and that’d be a better place than any). But anyway, Regis is in the Beyond at Noctis’s side even though he never told Noctis a damn thing and still never spoke to him from within the Ring, but Ravus? Nah, he’s the real asshole somehow and doesn’t deserve any recognition whatsoever.

The only other characters I know of that have a remotely similar dynamic to Noctis, Luna, and Ravus (lovers, but the girl has a straight-edge protective brother working for the bad guys) is Nero, Kyrie, and Credo (see: Devil May Cry), but as much as I think the writing in that series is hokey as fuck, at least the writer(s) for DMCs 4 and 5 had enough sense to make the love story simple and based it from a line from Amagasaki City-- “I love you, so I love the city that you love.”-- and opted against portraying Credo as an outright villain because if Nero killed him, Kyrie would resent him for it even though she knew Credo was working for the same Order that threatened her life.

Shouldn’t Noctis care about the shit Luna cares about even if he has no personal investment in it or it’s inconvenient to him? Shouldn’t he care about Tenebrae and its prosperity? or about Ravus? Nah, it’s okay, Noctis doesn’t have to respect Luna’s love for her brother or her kingdom because for all intents and purposes, she doesn’t care for Ravus or for Tenebrae as much as she loves Noctis. Her love for Noctis and her looking forward to the wedding is what matters here.

The yaaaas queen vicious clapback from Kingsglaive!Luna about how Ravus is the Empire’s dog is especially rich coming from her when she’s fellating the gods all through the game even though Eos’s equivalent of The Holy Bible says the Hexatheon’s Revelations destroy cities and that undoubtedly means people are killed by the gods, and their summoner is complicit, because there’s no such thing as a perfect evacuation. See: "Revelations left great devastation in their wake, with entire cities being laid to ruin," noted in the Cosmogony long before the True King even exists.

Luna herself didn’t see a problem with this and helped in the effort, with no regard to the collateral damage she would cause with the summoning: bonus points for the part where Leviathan is hostile to humanity and threatens to eat every living being if Noctis fails! She had even less regard to the damage Niflheim would cause in their attempt to kill the gods even though she was first-hand witness to them sacking Insomnia. Waking and defeating Titan deprived Lestallum of the meteor they derived power from. Waking Leviathan destroyed Altissia. Luna’s refusal to leave Insomnia when told to by Regis led to her being used as bait and taking the whole of the Kingsglaive out of Insomnia in time for their Face Heel Turn and Insomnia being destroyed. Everything else leads to the eventual World of Ruin where people also die.

All because she killed herself prematurely from the covenants and didn’t hold back the longer nights as she promised to the public’s face and on her honor as Oracle she would do. Her dying words in Chapter 9 were her being completely satisfied with her fate because “[her] prayers were answered, [her] calling fulfilled”, even though the calling requires that she dies and she should’ve known better than anyone that her death, even if it was for Noctis’s ascension, would endanger the rest of the world for 10 years and helped the Starscourge spread. But instead of fighting for her own life to stem the plague for as long as possible, she let herself die under the belief that "Noct can handle this" to give him the chance to be the revered King of Light. She also didn’t make a single appearance on the world of the living in her spirit form during those ten years until Noctis needed help with a piddly imitation of the Magic Wall, only then does she come down in her ghost form with seemingly all of her power intact, and summons five of The Six as if Noctis can’t easily do it himself.

But Ravus is the lapdog? Luna’s the one with her “ends justify the means” behavior and what looks like general neglect for actual human beings.

Anyway, Ravus stabs Caligo in the back and kills him, and that move only makes sense in light of the idea that Caligo was manhandling Luna as seen in the Dawn trailer. Ravus was 16 when Tenebrae was overrun, and there’s no reason to believe he was magically immune to institutional abuse, so there’s a high chance that he was abused by the Empire too, held resentment of that, and waited for the time he’d be able to retaliate with no repercussions. Gentiana as a goddess is 1000000% more on the hook about letting Luna be beaten than Ravus is, since he saw his mother die in front of him while Regis ran away. Regis had the power of the Ring and could have used elemancy to put out that fire, or void magic to banish Glauca and his MT army, didn’t do that, but he totally spares enough magic during the treaty signing to toss around Thunder spells straight from his hand, cast barriers, and summon some Royal Arms straight at Iedolas, and that’s bad enough. Gentiana who’s been the Fleuret family attendant since Luna was born and also is Shiva who can freeze people with her fingertip had even less excuse to let that fire rage, to let Sylva die protecting her son, and to stand by and allow her ward(s) to get thrown around by some random Imperial soldier.

#freezedive #ffxv critical #ffxv criticism #lunafreya critical #gentiana critical #regis critical #lunafreya nox fleuret #ravus nox fleuret #regis lucis caelum #ravus deserved better #long read

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scope-dogg · 3 years ago

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Mobile Suit Victory Gundam: Final Thoughts

Victory Gundam’s a series I’ve long been interested in watching before its return from its long SRW absence finally gave me the reason to go ahead and actually do it. Prior to watching it, the word-of-mouth I’d got from it was mixed. Apparently its reception at the time it was new in Japan was less than enthusiastic to the point that it effectively killed off UC Gundam as the mainstay of the franchise until relatively recently. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator, famously hates it and has even supposedly asked people to avoid watching it. Yet on the other hand I’ve seen fans praise it as one of the best Gundam series.

Ultimately I think it was a messy show - it was subject to budget issues and executive meddling and at points it really shows. Yet despite that there’s some really good stuff in here - enough that at least for me the time I spend with it didn’t feel wasted by the time I was through.

The plot setup is that in UC 0153, the Earth Federation is weaker and less effectual than its ever been, and a new militant spacenoid faction calling itself the Zanscare Empire seeks to take advantage of their vulnerability. They follow their queen, the newtype healer Maria Harmonia, and advocate to throw down the old order hitherto dominated by men and start a new matrilineal system bealt on motherly virtues. However, their methods aren’t in keeping with these values, as they make liberal use of the guillotine to execute dissidents and those who oppose their armed forces. While the Federation stands by idly, it falls to a civilian-led paramilitary force called the League Militaire to oppose the Zanscare Empire. One day, a skirmish between Zanscare forces and the League in Europe pulls a young man living in an illegal settlement named Uso Ewin into the fight, and he ends up piloting the League’s new mobile suit, the Victory Gundam, into battle.

As soon as you start the series you already see the beginning of executive meddling interfering with the plot. It starts in media res in the most confusing way possible - initially the Victory Gundam wasn’t meant to debut until after 4 episodes, but that wouldn’t do for the gunpla merchants at Sunrise, so the show begins with Uso getting into the Gundam and then spending the next three episodes walking it back and explaining how he got there. It’s the kind of opening that has you questioning if you’re watching the episodes in the right order.

Thankfully it does eventually get on track and it starts to get fairly good, although most viewers will likely be curious about what exactly the state of the world is - in particular, who the Zanscare empire actually are and what their plans are. Anyone with even a slight understanding of UC Gundam will be able to figure out that they’re similar to Zeon just from their aesthetics and MO, but the show doesn’t really open up with more detail for a fair while. There are other portions where the plot can’t seem to decide which way it wants to go and keeps walking back on itself, and as such there are times when there’s a serious lack of focus. As such, the overall plot isn’t especially compelling apart from those moments where it does sit down and focus for important flashpoints, most notable at the end and the segment at roughly the half-way point.

That said, it’s not like there’s no reason to watch even during the segments in between those. Victory’s got a large and fairly colourful cast of characters who are fun to watch interacting with one another. Uso, the protagonist, and much of the primary supporting cast are very young even by the standards of the franchise - Uso is 13, a record that wouldn’t equalled until Gundam Age aired. Despite this, the show doesn’t pull any punches, but the way he and his young comrades handle it makes him an easy character to root for. Much of the adulting supporting cast and characters amongst Zanscare are interesting as well, with a bunch of little dramas playing out at any one time, even though sometimes it can descend into melodrama, and sometimes characters exhibit odd behaviour.

The overall tone is one of the things this series is most notorious for, with it being considered the darkest, most brutal and depressing entry in the franchise. Honestly, I wasn’t really feeling that. Yes, there are a lot of character deaths in this show. Some of them are cruel and senseless, and they’re spread out fairly evenly across the series, meaning that it’s not afraid of delivering a gut punch to the viewer early on. But on the whole I’ve seen a lot worse. I felt like Iron-Blooded Orphans had a lot more senseless character death, and while it’s not hard to find tragedy in Victory there was nothing that felt as brutal as, say, Kamille’s cruel fate at the end of Zeta or the aftermath of colony gassings. If you look at some of Tomino’s other works outside of Gundam you can find far worse - look no further than the endings of Dunbine or Zambot 3, or the cosmic nightmare ride that’s Ideon: Be Invoked. I won’t deny that there is an air of cynicism and despair to Victory at times, apparently because Tomino was suffering especially badly with depression while he was making it, but I’ve seen a lot worse and I think its reputation has been exaggerated a bit. In fact, sometimes I’d say it goes to far in the opposite direction, with strange humour and a lighthearted tone in spots that doesn’t really fit the series’ narrative as a whole.

Still, ultimately I found more that I enjoyed than I didn’t in terms of the plot and tone, even if there was plenty that could have been done without. As for the presentation, the level of quality wavers but on the whole it’s pretty good, at least compared to its predecessors. Things do occasionally get rough when the budget clearly got tight, and you could probably find some better looking shows from the early 90s, but on the whole it’s quite good looking. Sound and music are pretty middle of the road, with nothing really standing out but nothing offensively bad either. There’s some excellent mechanical designs in here, especially the Victory and V2 Gundams that are in the starring roles - the V2 in particular is one of my favourite Gundams, and is probably the design that established Hajime Katoki as one of the masters of the mechanical design arts. On the other hand, Zanscare’s mobile suit design is often very eccentric with mixed results - it’s another thing this series is pretty infamous for. Some designs are genuinely brilliant, but others are just strange, like the serpentine Doggorla, and the overall strange obsession with putting giant tires on everything, including mobile suits meant primarily for use in space. Overall Zanscare design is a bit of an acquired taste.

Ultimately this show was somewhat of a mixed bag but was still watchable. It was the same kind of up-and-down viewing experience as ZZ Gundam was for me, just more towards the other end of the tone scale. It’s hardly mandatory viewing, as it’s not really all that connected to anything that’s come out either before or after, and it’s definitely not a good first-time entry for new Gundam viewers, but it’s probably worth checking out once you’ve got the main UC entries under your belt.

#victory gundam #mecha #respect the robot

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tossawary · 4 years ago

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Chapter 19: “Weddings and Funerals” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” random favorite lines with commentary because I’m doing a re-read. Not a full list or full commentary.

When Shang Qinghua told Mobei-Jun that he didn’t need Shen Qingqiu assassinated, it wasn’t because he thought everything would somehow work out if he just sat back and didn’t do anything. It definitely wasn’t because he was planning a so-called “perfect murder” and didn’t want the demon lord messing up his plans. The Problem of Shen Qingqiu has always been a lot more complicated than “just get rid of the guy potentially making my nephew’s life a living hell”. That’s why it’s a real problem!

AN: Shang Qinghua’s thought process: “Can this problem be solved by:

A) Waiting for the problem to go away?

B) Murder?

C) None of the above?

If the answer is C...

Fuck, it’s a real problem.”

Shang Qinghua thinks that might actually be possible, though he’d have to do some research and smack his head until his Author God memories hopped into line. He thinks that the youth-restoration procedure would probably do the job, but he also thinks that Shen Qingqiu would probably rather be dead than be physically sixteen again or something (super fucking understandable) and have to start the cultivation process over from scratch (ah, that would be so annoying and embarrassing).

AN: Given that I actually invented a de-aging potion for this fic (if one that’s difficult to put together), the AU of “Original Shen Qingqiu is physically 16 again” has been rattling around inside my head ever since I wrote these lines. Shen Qingqiu was like, “Wait, let me picture how unbearably overprotective Yue Qingyuan would be... hmm... no, I’ll just stay like this.”

Luo Jiahui seems a little anxious about the empty spaces at the table, but she fills the space as best she can by chattering about assorted restaurant business. At least until she abruptly takes a deep breath and says, “Hua-Ge, I have something to tell you.”

Shang Qinghua freezes in the middle of taking a drink. His unhelpful brain immediately races to guess the worst possible conversational subjects. His sister-in-law has somehow figured out that he’s a transmigrator?! His sister-in-law has decided that her son is not going to the Demon Realm under any circumstances?! His sister-in-law knows Binghe better than he does and has realized that the young protagonist is being abused after all?! Oh, fuck, what is it?

“I’m getting married!” Luo Jiahui announces, breathlessly.

“Oh,” Shang Qinghua says, heart rate going at the speed of sound. “Wait, what?”

AN: This chapter is why I didn’t go into the details of LJH/LQG in the last chapter, immediately post-timeskip. I wanted to blindside everyone with an “Oh, it’s THAT serious?!” moment. The last chapter established that “SQH is handling things”, then this chapter establishes that, as the plot goes on, “SQH is only barely handling things”. Which helps prep the following breakdown with the System World Update in chapters 20-22.

“You didn’t have any time for yourself,” Shang Qinghua agrees, following this conversation of very obvious things that he already knew so far. He didn’t have any time for himself back then either, between organizing a conference and finding a cure on top of the usual day-in-day-out of the sect. “You did a really good job looking after them all by yourself!”

“They don’t always agree with that,” Luo Jiahui says, smiling but self-deprecating.

“Aha, well, they’re young.”

The disagreements of what was best for the children is why Shang Qinghua really had to get Fanli (who didn’t see herself as a child) out of the house by any means necessary. He was at a bit of a loss at how else to help. She was never part of Proud Immortal Demon Way! Not even as a fragment of backstory mentioned in passing! Shang Qinghua struggles to compensate for these extra people who were never characters sometimes.

“Qingge was very understanding,” Luo Jiahui says. “But… well… then Fanli was gone and I had the restaurant keeping me busy, but that was all my own choice… and what good was waiting really doing us? It didn’t have to be everything or nothing. So… we talked… about what we wanted and what- what we were afraid of… and we decided to go forward slowly.”

AN: I said in the Author’s Notes on AO3 that I was going to use Jiage to shame Moshang and Qijiu, and I meant it. TALK TO EACH OTHER!!! Shang Qinghua, you need to talk to Mobei-Jun about what you want! Shang Qinghua, you can’t keep putting things on hold because of the plot!

No offense to either his sister-in-law or his junior martial brother, but aren’t love stories supposed to be a little more… fiery?

“When I was younger, I thought that falling in love was supposed to be all excitement and passion and not being able to live without someone even for a second,” Luo Jiahui admits, a little wistfully. “I thought that it was supposed to be thinking about them all the time, not being able to stay away from each other, and needing to know what they’d been doing every second they were away. It was like becoming a completely different person. I thought that being in love was about one of us getting horribly jealous every time we even talked to someone else, doing things I didn’t really understand and changing myself just to keep him happy, and keeping secrets and sneaking around just to keep things from exploding. Because love is not being able to help yourself like that, right?”

Shang Qinghua can’t really manage to speak right now.

It’s like someone has cut his fucking throat.

Which is fine!

“But that ended really badly for me,” Luo Jiahui says, with a nervous huff at her own understatement. “It was very exciting, but looking back, being in that kind of love was also very frightening sometimes… and it was a little lonely too… being in love with someone I couldn’t really talk to or trust.”

AN: This is more specifically vagueing SVSSS Bingqiu than Moshang, but it’s also shaming Moshang too. Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky wrote some extremely messed-up romances and he would have said, “Yes! It’s all super messed-up! That’s kind of the point!” But it also means that the man can’t really conceptualize (at least at first) or articulate the kind of relationship he would actually be happy to have with Mobei-Jun, especially when his relationship with Mobei-Jun had such violent beginnings

The first person he tells himself is, weirdly enough, Qi Qingqi. Liu Qingge apparently already told both Liu Mingyan and Luo Fanli before he left, so Shang Qinghua heads over to see how the girls are handling it. (Also, he wants to pump Liu Mingyan for information on her mother’s opinions on weddings and marriage, in a really pathetic attempt to ready himself for the rumble.) He makes her agree to keep the information to herself before telling and she does, like a bro!

And then he tells and she laughs in his fucking face! Eventually, she realizes that he’s looking for sympathy, he’s not just here to let her enjoy his suffering, as a form of payment after everything he and Liu Qingge have inflicted on her. Then she laughs at him again, even louder.

Sure, he’d laugh too if he was in her shoes! But not to her face! Rude!

AN: Qi Qingqi also pointed while laughing, I think. It’s funny because it’s not her dealing with Liu Family shit this time.

Shang Qinghua expected, this time last year, to be laser-focused on the plot! His attention was not going to stray even a little bit, he promised himself; he was going to be 110% dedicated to making sure that everyone he tripped into caring about made it through the least shitty version of Proud Immortal Demon Way possible. He was going to be a machine of a transmigrator! No distractions! All he wanted was for his family to make it through the quickest, least shitty bare bones of a plot! And he was going to achieve, damn it!

Instead, he finds himself planning his sister-in-law’s wedding and it eats up time he didn’t fucking know he had to give. Immortal Alliance Conference, eat your fucking heart out! Cang Qiong Mountain Sect? Did he work there? Nope, he’s never heard of the place! He’s the Peak Lord of wedding planning now!

AN: This is me telling myself I’m going to get my life 100% together and then getting into a new video game and baking cookies instead. Or ditching my housecleaning plans to hang out with friends at a moment’s notice.

At the wedding itself, Fanli tells her sister’s father-in-law that Binghe is also very into birds and Shang Qinghua’s nephew spends a good chunk of the rest of the celebrations (and his precious time away from Qing Jing Peak) held hostage by his own politeness, listening to his new grandfather earnestly tell him about the various migration habits of demonic birds.

Well! Better him than Shang Qinghua, honestly!

AN: Inspired by that time we went on vacation and one of my brothers got mistaken by one of our travelling companions for a budding serious birdwatcher instead of someone who just thinks they’re neat - and also likes to point at them and intentionally call them by the wrong name.

Also, LQG’s Dad in this fic and SY would probably get along super well.

LQG and his dad in this universe have gone out on month-long camping trips to in which they pretty much don’t talk the entire time. They stalk monsters through the wilderness and have a great time.

Shang Qinghua is too busy keeping an eye on Luo Fanli and being not talked to by Liu Mingyan, who is eighteen-ish years old now he thinks and still deeply embarrassed by the fact that he told her off for her real person fiction. (He doesn’t want to discourage her passion for writing! She’s pretty good for a kid! It’s pretty cute! Everyone needs their escapist hobbies! He just doesn’t want identifying information about his family being spread around freely, even if the characterizations of the couple are… uh… wildly reimagined, and he doesn't want to have to spend his very valuable time keeping a lookout for more illicit fiction.) It’s difficult to read her expression through the ever-present veil, but… yeah, she’s still pissed off at him.

Ugh, teenagers.

Binghe is not allowed to bring several hundred nieces-in-law into Shang Qinghua's life. Just... no. Fuck, no.

He doesn’t even get a date to commiserate about this with.

It’s a very small wedding, family only (Luo Jiahui’s shitty parents don’t count and her older brother was forced to decline the invitation), so that Luo Jiahui and Liu Qingge can keep their privacy. Madam Liu huffed about it - the battles in talking her down were both great and terrible - but her son stood his ground! Sure, people might whine someday about not being invited, but the great thing about Liu Qingge is that they can more or less just say, “Well, we couldn’t stop him from doing whatever he wanted!” And people just have to take that unless they want to claim they could take on the Bai Zhan Peak War God!

AN: Trying to imagine the AU in which SQH brought MBJ as his date to this wedding. SQH would’ve liked to be able to bring MBJ as a date, but alas, they are not dating and the groom would probably try to kill the man.

Shang Qinghua is not expecting, soon after returning from his sister-in-law’s happy and long-awaited wedding, to be solemnly informed that Shen Qingqiu’s health has only really deteriorated these past months. Wow, that’s a huge downer.

Also, he already knew that? He’s been getting Mu Qingfang all the right supplies to treat their shixiong. He didn’t actually abandon his duties to the sect for a family wedding. He knew that Shen Qingqiu had fallen sufficiently ill to need tending on Qian Cao Peak in the past month and he considered it, well, convenient timing in regards to Binghe’s permission to attend his mother’s wedding not being randomly revoked. Cold-hearted, maybe! But he had lots of other things to worry about at the time, like informing Mobei-Jun that his sister-in-law was getting married and so he’d be regrettably absent to attend the wedding.

Then he’s told that Shen Qingqiu is not expected to improve this time.

“Oh, shit, they really think he’s dying,” Shang Qinghua realizes.

This really wasn’t in Proud Immortal Demon Way.

AN: I seriously contemplated cutting this chapter in half because of this mood switch. Like, I went in intending on writing a serious mood switch, but in practice, wow. It felt like a lot more in practice.

“Our sect leader asks about the boy and his progress,” Shen Qingqiu rasps, his voice turning more and more accusing. “He’s so very concerned about the boy. We can’t have such a beloved child crying to his devoted family that he’s been mistreated or neglected, can we? How flattering these assumptions are. It makes a man wonder what exactly people think he’s going to do to the boy.”

Shang Qinghua might have an itemized list somewhere, honestly.

“Ah, I can’t speak for anyone else,” Shang Qinghua says finally. “But please don’t take it personally, Shen-Shixiong. I don’t really trust anyone. Anything can happen behind a locked door, you know?”

Some honest cynicism can go over well with the man.

Shen Qingqiu laughs bitterly now.

AN: It can be fun in media where Character A is like, “Ahhh, I hope no one discovers my secret!” And Character B is like, “So, about this extremely obvious thing that you’re doing...!”

Shen Qingqiu is as honest and open as he is throughout this scene because he honestly thinks that he’s dying. He’s determined to be blithe about it.

Shang Qinghua at least gets to see Mu Qingfang’s face journey as Shen Qingqiu accuses their sect leader of letting him think that he’d left him to die. As Shen Qingqiu yells about being treated like an unwanted ghost, as a potential blackmailer, as an embarrassing disappointment, as a petty troublemaker, as a spoiled child, as a problem to be solved, and as the last blemish on Yue Qingyuan’s reputation - anything but as someone worthy of being trusted with Yue Qingyuan’s problems and of being treated like an equal friend.

Yue Qingyuan tries to explain that he didn’t think Shen Qingqiu wanted to hear his excuses, and Shen Qingqiu shoots back that he would rather fucking die than beg the man he’d thought had forgotten about him to explain when exactly he became not worth rescuing as soon as possible.

Yue Qingyuan tries to explain that he didn’t want Shen Qingqiu’s pity or to force the man to be grateful that he’d tried.

Shen Qingqiu tells the man to go fuck himself. How could it not hurt for someone he loved to hurt him and then just… move past the hurt like the pain wasn’t who they were?

“All the world could revile me… reject me… leave me to die… and I would pay their hatred no heed! What do they truly know of what I am? Of who I am?” Shen Qingqiu demands. “But if Qi-Ge could throw me away… decide that I just wasn’t worth the trouble anymore now that he’d had a taste of a better life… then I really must be wretched beyond all things at the root! If he believed it, then… then it had to be true.”

AN: Because I just wrote a Qijiu confrontation over this exact thing, like, a few days before, I thought that I could get away with writing out this entire confrontation in full. I think it works better if the audience has to imagine some of it. And because SQH is the POV character, it felt right that he not be in the room and not be a full witness to this scene. He doesn’t get to see everything.

#tossawary svsss #pride is not the word #tossawary commentary

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littlewritersposts · 3 years ago

Text

Here is one of the fanfics that I wrote. It's short and contains many typos cause English is not my first language, to begin with. But anyways I hope you will like it and let me know your opinion about it.

HAPPY READING Y'ALL!

Tonight

Pair : Sherlock x William (SherLiam)

That night I had committed my biggest sin, no, I had indeed sinned all this time, but this time it was different. I have made the angel fall. The purest angel that should have remained in Heaven has now descended into the Underwold, a place for demons like me. His wings are now broken, cannot be grown again. His pure white fur had now been replaced with hard skin without any softness at all.

I, the evil demon, have turned the guardian angel into a murderous demon. I tried to knock him out, but without a second thought he knocked himself down before showtime.

And I'm the trigger.

Why should you jump in first? Why not wait for me to push you down? Why must you sacrifice your beautiful wings for this sinful demon like me?

Too many unanswered questions. The night is still long but I don't think I want this to end like that.

I'm too afraid of tomorrow's sunlight. I will not be able to endure if I see and feel it. Not because I'm the kind of creature who rules the night who likes to choose his victims every full moon. But because I was too afraid of the heat and heat that would hit me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not afraid of the consequences. I'm not afraid if suddenly the black creature knocks on the door of my soul and takes me away. I am not afraid.

I'm just not ready to see the angel, not supposed to be the former angel again. Even I would not be able to imagine his figure alone. Too many black stains that I inscribed for him. Too many red ink strokes that I made on the white pages. So many that I didn't even think I'd create a scribble that impressed too deeply, for me or him.

Now he is no longer the one writing in his diary. However, I was the one who filled it out. I'm the one writing the story now. I control it. Me, me and me!

Laugh you guys. Laugh at my pathetic self. Laugh until you spit out your guts and your jaws fall out of place. fill this air with carbon from your dirty lungs. Whisper this space with your snake-like hiss. Fill this place with your dirty presence. And spread the stinging mist with your crippled hearts.

Because above all I will make you feel it. I will let you harvest the fruit from the tree you planted. Trees have run rampant in various places to see it tight. Let you feel the tightness they feel.

Now it's my turn to laugh. Laugh at the sobs and lamentations of your black mind. Now the angel has fallen and cannot save you. I have chained him in the same sin like me. I hope he will be willing to cut back his wings and re-scratch the existing pages with more concentrated ink than what I had given him.

Now all that was left was an endless curse with no healing potion.

The forbidden fruit has been picked, fallen, and eaten by Adam. San Snake laughed. The Eve could only watch in silence. His face was bright and cheerful, but his heart was gripped by regret and the torture of endless crying.

Somebody help me.

Let me go.

Let me leave everything and mourn my sin in eternal silence. Without anyone. With no compassion.

Forever.

The night was long and gripping for the figure. The true figure of the terror that London is feeling lately. The figure, the Lord of Crime himself is now washing his face in the bathroom in his private room.

A shabby and tired face was depicted in the mirror in front of him. The eyes that used to shine were now replaced with emptiness. His body was injured and his mind was locked in deep sorrow. Tears even refused to come out of his ruby red diamond. He had made a big mistake today.

Everything went smoothly according to the plan he had carefully drawn up, but unfortunately, he still made mistakes, even fatal ones. He didn't expect the detective to release the trigger so quickly.

Now he had to tidy up his plans again. Now he, inevitably, had to drag the detective directly into the stage of his play.

Now no more cat mouse games. Now is the time for him to move on, to the next scene. He will finish everything now. It's about time he closed the curtain on this bloody show. A little bit of adding a red flaming effect will help in the dramatization of this final show.

“I'll end it right now. All the actors have got their roles. All the backgrounds have been neatly made. Now is the time for the antagonist to meet the protagonist and finish this story.”

Welcome ladies and gentlemen. The curtain on the final story is about to open. Will the devil get his wish this time? Or the angel who will pull the demon into the world above with him? No one knows, not even the actors themselves know.

Now, what will you do? Pushing the devil or pulling the angel? And will this red saga end?

Nobody knows.

-END-

#anime #william james moriarty #yuukoku no moriarty #sherlock x moriarty #sherlock holmes #sherliam #moriarty the patriot #yuumori #fanfic #fanfiction #boys love

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goneseriesanalysis · 4 years ago

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Caine Soren

Hiya guys, so here are my thoughts and opinions on Caine from my re-read of the first book. I was planning on writing this quicker but my ADHD told me no. I’m prolly gonna write up a bunch now though because I’m ✨in the zone✨ Also, apologies but this is another long one because I am physically incapable of being concise

Spoilers for Gone down below

Original Opinion: Most of my criticism on him as a character came as a result of later development so I’m not quite sure whether that will change as of yet. But as far as his role as a villain, I really enjoyed his character and what he brought to the story.

New Opinion: I still maintain that Caine is a good main villain for this book. I found him to be waaaaay different and way less competent than I remember, but boy is he interesting. I have so many thoughts on Caine and it was a real struggle getting them all down.

1.) CAINE’S APPEARANCE:

Ok so we are first introduced to Caine in chapter 14 through Sam’s POV. We see him standing apart from the other Coates kids “wearing a bright yellow V-necked sweater instead of a blazer.” This is obviously done to set him apart from the other Coates kids, and (forgive me for going all English teacher on you) the colour yellow has connotations of corruption and deceit, which fit in pretty nicely with Caine as a character. Sam then goes on to give us a more detailed description:

“He was handsome, even Sam noticed that. He had dark hair and dark eyes, not much different from Sam himself. But this boy’s face seemed to glow with an inner light. He radiated confidence, but without arrogance or condescension. In fact, he managed to seem genuinely humble even while standing alone, looking out over everyone else.”

This is one of my least favourite descriptions in the whole book because it simultaneously manages to tell us almost nothing about Caine’s appearance whilst making me cringe so hard that my muscles start to atrophy. Seen as we get very little description of Sam, telling us that Caine looks like Sam is pretty much useless – although it nicely sets up the brother twist – and dark hair and dark eyes could mean anything. Are his eyes blue, brown, black?? Is his hair black or brown?? Who knows?? Not me. And don’t even get me started on his face glowing with an inner light. Because no. I hate this line so much it actually hurts. I thought at first it may be in reference to his connection with the gaiaphage. But that makes no sense. It reminds me of the scene in The Great Gatsby where Nick describes Gatsby’s smile for about half a page and he just sounds ridiculous. I will admit the last two sentences give a good example of Caine’s ability to charm and manipulate those around him but the rest is just aaa

We also learn that he is handsome, which is then followed by what I consider to be a writer’s greatest sin. “He was handsome, even Sam noticed that” – Every. Single. Time a male character describes another male character who just so happens to be attractive in any given book from any author, we get this line. It is the writer’s equivalent of saying no homo and I’m going to make it my personal mission to call them all out on it.

Ok moving on – sorry about that. Rant over.

Sam then says that “His voice was clear and just a little higher, maybe, than Sam’s, but strong and determined. He had a way of looking at the crowed before him that made it seem he was meeting every person’s eye, seeing every person as an individual.” This is good at further establishing Caine as a leader, and shows his relationship with crowds, it gives the reader some indication of his ability to control. He is able to easily win over those of Perdido Beach with his charm.

Caine gets referred to as being attractive by a few other characters throughout the book, but the last main description we get of him is from Drake’s POV in chapter 20:

“Caine sat in his over-large leather chair, the one that had previously belonged to the mayor of Perdido Beach. It made him look small. It made him look very young. And to make matters worse, he was chewing on his thumbnail, which made it almost look like he was sucking his thumb.”

This description is kind of reminiscent of the scene with Sam and the shirt that I talked about in my Sam Temple post. He has taken over the mayor’s chair but he is not fit to take on the position of mayor. Whereas Sam’s weakness in leadership stems from his insecurities and doubts, it is Caine’s narcissism and over-confidence that make him unfit to lead. Michael gives Caine the compulsion of biting his thumbnail when he is nervous. This is a habit that people often pick up to deal with challenging emotions is a less destructive way (as opposed to having a meltdown or getting angry) and works nicely for Caine’s character. It shows that while he does have his moments where he loses control, he is capable of controlling himself to a certain degree, making it seem more likely that someone like Diana might align herself with him. This also helps to further the idea that despite his narcissism and delusions of grandeur, he is still just a kid. And of course sets up the idea that Drake is somewhat resentful towards Caine.

2.) CAINE’S PERSONALITY:

Caine’s personality is a difficult one to analyse as there are two main aspects to it – the personality he projects in order to manipulate people and his actual personality – and sometimes the line between these blurs to the point where it becomes unclear which one we are seeing. One thing that I did notice is that in this book we don’t actually get a Caine POV until the Thanksgiving battle, so we mostly see him through the eyes of Sam, Jack, Drake and Diana, who all have very different relationships with him.

As I mentioned before, we first see Caine through Sam’s POV, where we are introduced to what I’m gonna call his fake personality. Michael uses phrases such as “Caine appeared interested” alongside Astrid’s commentary, which lets the reader know that Caine is not what he appears to be, but of course the general population of Perdido Beach are not aware of this. One criticism I had towards the way that Caine’s character is portrayed is that it is initially hinted that the reason he is able to gain such control over people is because of his proficiency in manipulation and his superficial kindness (such as when he comforts the kid who asks for his mum). And yet he manages to fool almost no-one?? Astrid, Sam, Edilio, Albert, Mary and Howard all immediately see through his façade, which makes it hard to believe that this is how he gained such influence over people. (And of course all the kids at Coates who were cemented saw through it too). In fact I found myself to be kind of confused as to why anyone follows him at all?? Is it just a fear of his power?? That’s… a little disappointing. He doesn’t become mayor because he charms the population. He becomes mayor because no-one else wants to do it, and no-one can be bothered to oppose him. And even when people start to become more afraid, they aren’t afraid of Caine. It’s Drake. Although, you of course have to take into account the fact that these are just children who want someone they can look towards for help and guidance. Perhaps Caine’s persuasive abilities are less about using his charm to completely win people over and more about him being able to take advantage of situations that are presented to him. He has just enough superficial charm and makes just enough beneficial changes (such as laying down rules and protecting the food) that people are willing to overlook some of the more sinister things that he does.

That being said, I think my main issue with so many characters being able to see through Caine so quickly, is what it says about or “hero.” Sam doing nothing to stop Caine, despite him clearly knowing that Caine is bad news makes him seem a little selfish?? His insecurities stop him from doing what is right, and while it is good to have a flawed hero, his willingness to allow Caine to terrorise Perdido Beach up until he threatens Sam personally seems less like a small character flaw and more like a pretty big lapse in morality and compassion. Would Sam have ever taken control if Caine hadn’t kidnapped him?? If Sam had been fooled by Caine’s manipulation that would imo have made both of their characters better fit their respective roles of protagonist and antagonist.

That being said one of my absolute favourite lines regarding Caine is “Then let’s go in together,’ Caine said. He turned and marched purposefully up the church steps. The rest of the chosen fell in behind him.” in chapter 14. I think this perfectly captures the contrast between what Caine says and what he does, and I really love it. One of Michael’s strengths is adding little throw away lines that can perfectly sum up a character and their intentions. And this idea of Caine saying something but meaning something else is pretty central to his character – the biggest pay-off we get from this in book 1 is him promising to protect the little’s and then (horrifyingly) feeding them to the coyotes in the final battle. This was a scene that I did not previously remember and man did I feel some emotions when reading it. There wasn’t even a second thought, absolutely no indication of remorse. I know a few times it’s mentioned throughout the books that the difference between Caine and Drake is that Caine only does what is necessary – but the scene with the coyotes really contradicts that idea.

Caine’s ‘real personality’ imo is shown in little moments throughout the books. By Caine’s real personality, I’m referring to the part of him that we don’t really see at all in this book, the part of him that is only really hinted at by Diana, and occasionally Drake. Even when Caine is around Diana and Drake, he still tries to keep up a persona – this time that of a cold and detached boy with little to no emotions. But this isn’t really who he is. I think the ‘real’ Caine is an extremely emotional person (although I would like to clarify that by emotional I mainly mean angry and sometimes scared) and there are a couple of moments where this does shine through. There are a few times where Caine loses his temper with both Drake and Diana, using his powers to injure them and to reiterate the power he has over them. I think this shows how insecure Caine truly is, despite what he would have others believe. He only ever breaks character when his authority is mocked or threatened, even if the threat holds no real intention (such as Diana’s jibe after he kisses her). I do find it interesting that, at the core, Sam and Caine are quite similar. It is how these insecurities manifest and project themselves that really define them as different. Caine’s insecurities also shine through in these quotes from Diana:

“Yes. Sam is a four bar. And Caine would freak.” – Chapter 29

“Caine, despite his over-sized ego, his looks, his charm, was terribly awkward with girls.” – Chapter 39

Caine needs to be in control. He needs to be the most powerful person in the room at all times, and the only two people who can really be considered a threat to him in this way are Diana and Sam. Sam is his main threat and Diana, of course, holds a certain amount of power over him due to his feelings towards her. However, any time that Diana seems to be gaining or trying to gain more power (most notably when she makes fun of him for kissing her and when she tries to make him call off the coyotes) he reacts with violence. But I’ll go into that more when I make a post about their relationship.

Another thing that I noticed about Caine that I hadn’t previously remembered is that, he’s a bit of a coward. We first see this in chapter 34 when Little Pete frees the Coates kids “Caine was quick. He backed away, turned, and ran for the building.” The one thing that really got me about this is that he didn’t wait for Diana. He just turned and saved himself. Which kind of brings into question why Diana stays with him. Does he offer protection?? He certainly didn’t here. He literally abandoned her and ran for the hills. The other time we really see this side of him when he uses Astrid as a human shield in chapter 45. Diana even comments on this, telling him to “be a man for once.” I don’t have much else to say about this, but I think it’s an interesting aspect of his personality that certainly makes it easier to dislike him.

Now the last thing I want to talk about in regards to his personality is chapter 36 (the chapter where Drake gets his arm cut off). Caine gets in three good moments during this scene, the first one being:

“It’s not Diana or Chunk or even me,’ Caine said. ‘It’s none of us, Drake. It’s Sam. It’s Sam who did this to you, Drake. You want him to get away with it? Or do you want to live long enough to make him suffer?”

This is one of my favourite Caine moments in the book, and it’s really one of the only times that we see his manipulation actually work on someone. He knows exactly what to say to Drake in order to shift the blame in the direction he wants. Forget that I left you behind to deal with Sam and the escaped kids yourself. Forget that Diana is sawing your arm off. Just focus on Sam. And I think this line had such an effect on Drake’s psyche (which I will explore more in my Drake post) and really excellently shows off Caine’s ability to take advantage of a pre-existing situation in order to benefit himself.

The next two moments are where I really think the lines between Caine’s persona and the ‘real’ Caine blur to the point where it’s unclear which side of him we are seeing – and I think there is an argument for both although imo I feel like it’s his persona that we are seeing.

“It’s the only way to stop the pain,’ Caine said, almost showing some emotion, some pity. ‘The arm is done for Drake-man.”

“Don’t cut off my arm,’ Drake cried. ‘Let me die. Just let me die. Shoot me. ‘Sorry,’ Caine said. ‘But I still need you, Drake. Even one-handed.”

So, we first get the idea that Caine, at least somewhat, feels sorry for Drake. Drake’s injury is horrific and it’s clear that other characters, such as Jack and Diana, who are usually nothing but hostile to Drake (and rightfully so) feel some sympathy towards the situation. Now it’s also important to note that this scene is from Drake’s POV so we don’t actually know if the sympathy Caine is showing is real, is part of his attempt to manipulate Drake, or isn’t there at all and is just something that Drake wants. (I think the last option is entirely plausible as Drake often seeks praise from Caine, so in a situation like this it makes sense that he would seek some empathy). However, Caine then goes on to refuse Drake’s plea for death… because he needs him. Not because he’s a friend – or even just an ally. Not because he doesn’t want him to die. But because he needs him. That’s cold. And it’s really cold to tell him that – which leads me to believe that the almost sympathy Drake sees earlier on was never there, or at the very least was just a manipulation tactic. Caine cares so little for the people around him and I find it quite funny that it was his treatment of Drake (the person probably most deserving of it) in this scene that really showed me how much of a villain Caine can be.

3.) CAINE’S MOTIVATIONS:

Why does Caine do the things he does?? Why does he need to be in control?? And while we don’t really get much insight into Caine’s head in this book, there are a few good moments which allowed a reader to speculate as to what his motivations are. The first moment that really stood out to me was in chapter 39, where Caine tries to open up to Diana about his parents:

“I always had the feeling, you know? That my family wasn’t my real family. They never said I was adopted, but my mother – well, the woman I thought was my mother, I don’t know what to call her now. Anyway, her, she never talked about having me. You know, you hear moms talking about going into labour and all. She never talked about that.”

From this, we can see that Caine always felt like an outsider within his own family, he always felt like he didn’t belong. And this seems to be a pretty big motivator when it comes to Caine’s need to take over, to have power over everyone else. If he has control, then he will always have a place. He will always belong because the world will be his. Caine never fit in in the real world, his narcissism (and probably psychopathy) distanced him from other people right from the get go. But in this new world, in the FAYZ, Caine has a chance to be important, to be a ruler and he’s willing to do pretty much anything to get that. I think this idea, of his need for power and control stemming from the lack of acceptance and belonging he felt with his family, is emphasised in chapter 46, during the poof:

“Caine seemed spellbound, unable to tear his gaze away from the gentle, smiling face, the piercing blue eyes. ‘Why?’ Caine asked in a small child’s voice. […] ‘Why him and not me?’ Caine asked.”

This is the only time I felt the slightest bit of sympathy for Caine during my re-read of this book. He is 14. A kid. He spent his whole life feeling like and outsider and now he knows that a woman he knew, a woman that he saw almost every night is his actual mother. That she also knew this and yet never tried to talk to him, to explain, to do anything. And now he’s looking at ‘her’ and all he wants to know is why. Why did she give him up?? He lacks empathy and many other emotions that allow healthy relationships with others, yet he still wants people to have that connection with him. He needs him and rely on him. So his solution is to gain enough power, enough authority and control so that people have to listen to him and have to rely on him. He doesn’t care how many people he hurts or pisses off, because in the end, if he gets what he wants, that won’t matter. He’ll be too powerful for it to matter because they’ll still need him anyway. And that’s why “All that matters is winning. So save it.” – Chapter 45

4.) CAINE’S INTENTIONS/ HIS ROLE AS A VILLAIN:

Caine’s intentions are pretty obvious from the very first time we meet him in chapter 14. And, of course, it is these intentions that really define his role as a villain. Now, in chapter 14, it never outright says that Caine’s intentions are to take complete control over Perdido Beach. In fact, Caine tries to make it seem like he wants to make a collaborative effort to help them all move forward. But once again, his actions contradict his words, most notably in these lines:

“Orc grunted, shifted the bat from right hand to left, and stuck out his thick paw. Caine grabbed it with both his hands and solemnly looked Orc in the eye as they shook hands.”

“But Caine grabbed his elbow and manoeuvred him into a handshake.” [Referring to Sam]

“Caine had moved confidently towards the altar.”

These lines subtly show that, whilst Caine talks about working together, he is really the one in charge. He is the one dictating what is happening and when it is happening, forcing Sam and Orc to shake his hand. Giving them jobs so that he can keep an eye on them (Orc) or keep them out of the way (Sam). And of course, he won’t stand with them in the church. They don’t sit around a table and talk as equals. Caine has to be up at the front. He also gets extremely angry when other people make demands, or give an idea that he can’t take credit for. The most obvious example of this being in response to Howard telling him that they wouldn’t be working for Drake. “Sam saw a coldly furious expression appear on Caine’s handsome face, then disappear as swiftly as it had come.” This is then followed up by Caine ripping a 12ft cross off of a wall and launching it at them, so it’s safe to say that he doesn’t appreciate his authority being challenged.

Later in the book we then get more obvious examples of his intentions, as his role as the villain is fully unveiled:

“Caine, to the surprise of no-one who knew him, had taken over the mayor’s office.” – Chapter 15

“Number one says Caine is the mayor of Perdido Beach and the whole area known as the FAYZ.” – Chapter 16

After Caine basically walks into Perdido Beach, tells everyone what to do, and gets away with it, he begins to be more outright with his intentions. He immediately takes over the mayor’s office, and makes his new title of mayor the very first rule to be enforced. He isn’t really all that secretive about his intentions, at least not after the initial meeting. I think this is a measure of his confidence – he doesn’t feel at all threatened by the people of Perdido Beach. I think one of the reasons that Caine is such a good villain, is that when he is in control, he isn’t that bad?? I mean sure, having Drake as sheriff is less than ideal, but Caine himself is not a bad leader. He comes up with rules that both make sense and do actively increase the quality of life of those in Perdido Beach (minus the no magic tricks rule). It’s only what Caine is willing to do in order to get that power that actually makes him the villain. Once he has it, he’s not really a threat?? And then of course, we get Caine’s fantastic little speech in chapter 42 that really just sums up all these ideas in much less words:

“What was I supposed to do? Coates? That’s it? How do you not see what an opportunity this is? We’re in a whole new world. I’m the most powerful person in that whole new world. No adults. No parents or teachers or cops. It’s perfect. Perfect for me. All I have to do is take care of Sam and a few others, and I’ll have complete control.”

Because if it wasn’t for his ego, if he hadn’t attacked Sam, if he hadn’t used Drake to cause fear and enmity, he would have had it. He would have gotten his complete control, because no-one else really wanted to be in charge. The fool is his own worst enemy.

5.) CAINE’S POWERS:

So, the last thing I wanted to discuss about Caine, is his powers. To me, it seemed whilst reading that his powers are almost an extension of his personality. Caine is naturally a very domineering person, and so it makes sense that his power is the ability to control things with his mind. The first time we see Caine’s powers (also the first time we see anyone purposefully use their powers) is in the church:

“Caine sighed, raised his hands, and used both palms to smooth back his hair. There came a rumble, up through the floor and pews. A small earthquake… […] But then came a rending sound, steel and wood twisting, and the crucifix separated from the wall. It ripped free of the bolts holding it in place, like an invisible giant had yanked it away. […] The crucifix toppled forwards. It fell like a chain sawed tree. As it fell, Caine dropped his hands to his sides. His face was grim, hard, and angry. The crucifix, at least a dozen feet tall, slammed with shocking force down onto the front-row pew. The impact was as loud and sudden as a car wreck.” – Chapter 14

I like how, similarly to the way he talks, the first time we see a display of his power, he is hiding it – his body language is suggesting one action whilst he is actually doing something else entirely. This again makes me feel like the powers are an extension of personalities (and I will give other examples of this is later posts). I also noticed that the use of his powers is almost always as a response to his anger, something that Sam also learns to do thanks to Astrid’s guidance. These two scenes are great examples of this:

“Caine’s smile was cold. He raised his hand, palm out. An invisible fist hit Sam in the face. He staggered back. He barely stopped himself from falling, but his head was reeling. Blood leaked from his nose.” – Chapter 21

“Caine reached back over his shoulder with one hand, not even looking back. He spread his fingers, bared his palms. The fallen portion of the wall came apart, brick by brick. One by one, as though each brick had sprouted wings, they lifted off and flew. The bricks hurtled past Caine’s head and through the open door as fast as machine-gun bullets.” – Chapter 31

Unlike Sam, who often uses his powers as a defence strategy, Caine always uses them as a method of attack. He attacks Orc’s gang, Drake, Sam and Andrew – not as a last resort, but as a warning. He likes to make a big display of his power in order to deter people from actually engaging in a fight. Although when it does come down to an actual fight, he tends to be a little less confrontational and a little bit more of a coward. I mean come one. Hiding behind Astrid was low. At least this is the case in book 1.

Next, is the development of his powers. Unlike Sam, we know that Caine did not discover his powers alone:

“Several of us developed strange powers, starting a few months ago,’ Caine said conversationally. ‘We were like a secret club. Frederico, Andrew, Dekka, Brianna, some others. We worked together to develop them. Encouraged each other. See, that’s the difference between Coates people and you townies. In boarding school it’s hard to keep secrets. But soon it became clear that my powers were of a whole different order. What I just did to you? No one else could do that.”

The Coates kids formed a sort of support group for each other, which is why they have such a good understanding of their powers, as opposed to Lana and the Perdido Beach kids, who either hid their powers or else didn’t discover them until the FAYZ began. One thing that I do find interesting about this, is that the Coates kids all seemed to develop their powers pretty late. Caine says that the powers started a few months ago, and yet Sam first used his 14 months before the FAYZ began. I think that goes to show how the Coates environment really gave Caine the ability to experiment with and foster his powers, which is why he has such control. He achieved in a few months what is took Sam over a year to do. (One thing that I think would have been nice to have is perhaps in a later book some flashbacks on the Coates kids working together to do this. But oh well)

Thank you so much again for reading, and please feel free to add your thoughts. Next up is Diana and I have a lot to say about her. :)

#the gone series #caine soren #Gone

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