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joys-of-everyday · 1 year ago

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MXTX's women

Let's do ✨discourse™✨

Addendum: I checked out twitter (x now?) for the first time in ages and... um... maybe this isn't a good time for discourse. But hey, I love mxtx so I'm just going to do a Shen Yuan and pretend absolutely everything is fine.

I feel like a lot of the discourse around MXTX and sexism don't hit the mark? Things like 'there are few female characters', 'the female characters die', 'the female characters don't hold positions of power' are not indications as to whether a piece of work standing on its own is sexist. For example, you could write an entire novel about a sexless robot (which miserably fails the Bechdel test because there is only one character) and that says nothing about whether the work itself is sexist. This is an caricature of an example and of course, overall trends give a very different picture to individual works, so its not to take such works off the hook either. Similarly, including sexist troupes isn't inherently sexist, but equally arguing something is a 'critique' isn't a shield against criticism. Critique can be done badly, critique can become outdated, critique itself can be critiqued.

But equally the counterargument to this can't entirely be 'but look at x, y, and z - aren't they great female characters?'. Look, I love mxtx's women. I can write essays (plural) about mxtx's women. Many people already have. Then again, Eowyn from lotr is arguably a pretty deep character, but I would have problems if lotr was the best example of female representation we could come up with. The point being, the existence (or lack thereof) of strong female characters isn't (entirely) the point, even though it's often made out to be. Don't get me wrong, good female representation without strong female characters is... erm... hard. But if it was the crux of the argument, the discourse could be killed in three tumblr posts.

The bigger question(s) (possibly) is: What is its intent? How is that intent received?

SVSSS, MDZS, and TGCF are all extremely different pieces of work. SVSSS in particular stands out, because at its heart, it is satire. While debates around what kind of comedy is and isn't good exist independently of SVSSS, needless to say, judging satire in the same way you would say a murder mystery or a romantic fantasy is not advisable. Sha Hualing is a sexy demon lady whose clothes rip off in the middle of a battle. Why? Because that's saying something about a particular trope of a particular genre.

(Side note: I have opinions on how we shove different BLs together when they really shouldn't be under the same umbrella and how this muddies the discourse unnecessarily. I'm talking about Killing Stalking btw)

For SVSSS, if you get it, you get it (it's impossible to read without understanding this). While some loose threads exist about how female characters could have been more developed... man, do you know how much development my boy Mu Qingfang got? You're not sexist if you punch everyone (only half ironic here). (In terms of character development I also think this might be a fandom thing as well as a SVSSS thing.) But I think more relevantly, SVSSS tells you something about the way MXTX writes critique.

If you didn't notice, SVSSS is critique on two levels. First is the blatant critique of the harem genre, and the second is more subtle critique on BL, on fandoms, on webnovels, on literature. But while we get Shen Qingqiu's commentary guiding us through the first bit, this drops during the second bit. It takes Shen Qingqiu so long to realise that what he's living through is a crazy mishmash of BL tropes that the only narration you get on this is Pure Confusion. To realise Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu's early interactions is commentary on the 'dark and obsessive love' trope, you need to immediately realise that Shen Qingqiu telling you Luo Binghe is trying to kill him is just... Wrong. So (possibly, ofc I've no idea what's going on in the author's head) the intent is critique. But intent is meaningless without it being conveyed to the reader. So how are we meant to 'realise' what is going on?

Firstly, MXTX tells you. Shen Qingqiu goes: 'damn Luo Binghe isn't acting like in those weird danmei novels' and you're meant to go 'oh weird danmei novels I know about those'. Second is her very obvious use of tropes (even flagged!). 'Clothes rip/disappear in the middle of a serious situation, isn't this weird? Where have we seen that before?'. And thirdly, by introducing a sense of absurdity. Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu's relationship is presented in such an unconventional way (the master-disciple pair which generated a famous porno!) that it forces you to engage with it critically.

Okay, so what does that have to do with sexism? Take MDZS. We have a set of very tropey characters - 'the older sister', 'the scary mother', 'the strong independent woman', 'the damsel in distress'. We have explorations and subversions that go beyond tropes: Jiang Yanli's character shaped by her experiences in an abuse household, Yu Ziyuan's pride and loyalty, Wen Qing's well... everything, and Mianmian needs no explanation. We have flags to tell us we are meant to care about these issues: most obviously Mianmian experiencing gendered harassment for speaking up. All the women die! Yeah, isn't that a problem. Because it's the women sacrificing themselves, women silently taking on burdens, women chained by the circumstances of the world around them and still making choices about what is important to them (and it's often not themselves). The women aren't in positions of power/aren't shown to be as competent as the men! They're literally put down when they speak up, and don't the wives have a great time with their husbands. MDZS is critique of society. MDZS's women too are a critique of the society they (we) live in.

But not all critique is good critique! The first way that critique can fail is if it just isn't registered as critique by the reader. And this isn't always on the reader. If the author isn't clear enough on this, then they have failed to execute the intent of their work. And to this extent, I've heard enough people say that MDZS is maybe sexist as a first reaction (myself included) to think that yeah, maybe this wasn't well done. The flags are scarce. The subversions of tropes are subtle enough to be missed in it's entirety. Then again, MDZS often ends up as people's gateway piece into danmei, when it is probably better understood with more context - for me, coming back to MDZS after a big BL reading spree was exceptionally enlightening. As to whether it could have been better done in the bounds of the genre, without detracting from the banging story it was... I honestly don't know.

One way to go about it is, well... TGCF. Here everything is laid out to you to an almost bizarre degree. 'Look, isn't this a Hard Question' the narrative stops to tell you at multiple points, from Bai Wuxiang and Xie Lian's back and forths, to 'I don't know if what I did was right' speeches on a regular basis (maybe not regular but it was enough to notice). The troupes are still there but their twists are far more obvious. Xuan Ji is the 'deranged woman' who is (we are told multiple times) surprisingly normal and competent when she isn't around Pei Ming. Yushi Huang and Banyue are just obviously strong, competent, and in positions of power. Shi Qingxuan shines in all of her wonder, kindness, and unfortune. The flags are more glaring as well: Just Pei Ming's Existence, Ling Wen's whole backstory, Jian Lan's tragedy... And it probably worked? Since people seem to complain significantly less about any supposed sexism of TGCF.

Do I like it? I like elements of it. Ling Wen is honestly great.

But I love the subtlety with which MDZS weaves its themes and tbh I think some of the magic was lost there. (I love TGCF to bits for different reasons but yeah)

Does MXTX's writing of women merit discussion? Of course, everything merits discussion. Particularly MXTX's works which rely so heavily on genre tropes to craft themes. Is MXTX's work sexist? Idk, I would say no, but these things are Hard Questions.

But my feeling? My true feeling? At the very least, it is So. Much. Better. than a huge amount of work that tries to be feminist and pitifully fails.

My current pet peeve is the 'strong independent woman'. Depicting a sexist society then including a 'strong independent women' with no true appreciation of the realistic struggles she would face, as if the only barriers that we face within these societies is to stop being a loser... is worse in my books than not including any women at all. Or 'strong independent women' who turn out to be utterly pathetic and in constant need of saving. Or 'strong independent women' who have no other personality than being the 'strong independent woman'. The intent here is to come across as feminist and progressive without critically engaging in anything. It's paper thin.

Ultimately, the core theme of MDZS and TGCF isn't about women's experiences (whereas SVSSS is, I would argue, right into the nooks and crannies). Do these works explore such themes to the extent it explore privilege, conflict, and oppression? Not really. But you can't do everything - the role of an author is inherently about choosing what to prioritise. And given what it does do, I think it does some pretty neat things.

#mxtx meta #svsss #mdzs #tgcf

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the-invisible-queer · 9 months ago

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Stream of consciousness highlights from my notes app:

Death of Watcher:

Are Steven, Shane, and Ryan really leaving YouTube??

"I hope you follow us one last time." WHERE WE GOING BESTIE?!?!?!? I'M POOR BUT I'LL SUPPORT ON SOCIALS

Nevermind 😔

AT LEAST if it was on another streaming service I'd be more supportive. But at this point just turn memberships on. Patreon. Something like Mythical Society.

ANYTHING would have been better than this choice

The fact that I can't go on Tumblr and mourn Watcher is TRAGIC

So I'll mourn alone 😭

Random:

The amount of times I've opened Tumblr but I'm logged out so I can't do shit

I miss y'all and it's only been like 4hrs

Me, watching a TikTok of a very pretty man with dark curly hair and pretty eyes who sings nice: wow Joe really fucked me up for life, huh?

The biggest plot twist is if I end up having more photos of Nick than Joe. DOUBTFUL. But not impossible.

Looking forward to logging into Tumblr and seeing if I got any notifs on my main blog. Unlikely. I do hope for a Joe fit elimination update. Hope dickgate 2033 won.

Joe Rambling:

The fact that Joe posted those selfies but I can't be horny on the main because the main is IG which has become a puritan society

BUT I AM FERAL AS FUCK

JOE WITH THE BANDANA PLEASE FUCK ME

We're gonna get a full cowboy Joe era. I am predicting it at 4:08am on April 20th, 2024

"Man, he do got a big ass forehead. BUT I LOVE IT. My man and his five-head. 🥰" - ME about Joe

Can't wait to scream about Joe's fruity little bandana moment

The struggle of so badly wanting to both fuck him and make fun of him over the bandana is STRONG

Decided to make a Joe edit to be somewhat productive. Spent an hour on it. Left the app to respond to a message. Came back. The app deleted the fucking work. 😐

Gotta go spend another hour staring at Joe's chest hair again I guess which is like not the worst thing ya know 👀

I literally don't understand why his chest hair makes me feral but I find it actually disgusting on anyone else

Making fun of Nick:

The fact that I've yet to make fun of Nick for the way his head moves when he sings is a missed opportunity

Okay, Mr. Bobblehead

Me and Josh having an important discussion:

Rest in RIP to Josh's best friend who had to listen to me and Josh argue about Joe having a big dick or not

It's been 20min and Josh brought up Joe's dick again. What is going on? His best friend is still on the call.

Why did Josh out me as "having a picture of Nick Jonas' dick" on my phone 😭 ITS NOT A DICK PIC ITS AN UNDERWEAR PIC THAT LEAVES NOTHING TO THE IMAGINATION

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boopeth · 6 months ago

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I was tagged by @sebfreak . Thank youuu.

nine albums or songs I've been listening to lately x nine people I’d like to get to know better x tag game with no name

1. why did you choose your url? it's a long story that i've shared before, but basically video games and brainrot.

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them. lewdeth, its a nsfw blog so that this one doesn't ever lose the avatar like my old blog did in 2018 purge.

3. how long have you been on tumblr? 2012

4. do you have a queue tag? uhh yeah i think i used to have like a special tag, but right now i just do q

5. why did you start your blog in the first place? i honestly cannot remember at all. i was bored, facebook sucked, myspace was gone, reddit was boring, twitter was annoying, i think it was just the only place left.

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp? looked cool, planning on changing it again soon

7. why did you choose your header? looks cool, if part of my header is the like title it's an elden ring reference from the best guy in the dlc.

8. what’s your post with the most notes? had to check cause i didn't know but it seems to be an anime cap from tsukimichi that says cats are great.

9. how many mutuals do you have? idk lots im not gonna count . i generally check out all the people who follow me. if i like their blog i follow back,

10. how many followers do you have? 1835

11. how many people do you follow? 1091

12. have you ever made a shitpost? yes, frequently.

13. how often do you use tumblr each day? really depends on the day. lots of days i don't even get on, and other times im on every few minutes in between doing stuff.

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? not really, at least not for the purpose of tumblr. there has been people that i've gotten close to that we argued about random stuff but had nothing to do with tumblr.

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts? i really don't care for it. im nihilistic as fuck me reblogging that shit isn't gonna fix anything. it's not what im here for, and it's why i don't like twitter. i just wanna see cool pics, anime tiddies, and horror aesthetic stuff.

16. do you like tag games? i like the fact that people tag me in stuff cause it makes it seem like they're either interested in getting to know me more, or that they think im a cool mutual who they wish to tag.

17. do you like ask games? yeah, it's fun to have people interested in you by asking stuff about you, i feed on the validation.

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? i don't think anyone. tumblr seems to be this weird place where even if you're a 10k+ followers blog, you're still the same kind of internet degen that a smaller blog is. like people are mostly here to see your reblogs which most blogs don't create.

19. do you have a crush on a mutual? not particularly. but all my moots are hot af so all of them.

20. what is the last song you listened to? Baddadan(feat. IRAH, Flowdan, Trigga & Takura) by Chase & Status.

21. what are you currently watching? oshi no ko s2, nokotan brainrot, TOG s2, slime S3, and other anime from this season.

22. sweet/ savoury/ spicy? i like all. major sweet tooth but i have an obsession with hot cheetos so spicy?

23. what is your current relationship status? dead inside

24. what is your current obsession? uhh nothing in particular? still do gacha games, league swarm has been fun. always obsessed with music. energy drinks lately.

25. what are nine albums/ songs you’ve been listening to lately?

songs cause albums would be too hard, gonna hit shuffle on my liked song and put them on here, indecision. prepare for the roller coaster

Ew - Joji

Man on the run - Dash Berlin

Drowning - A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie.

The hand that feeds - Nine Inch Nails

Magnetic - ILLIT

HP - Maluma

Shame - 2Chainz, Lil Wayne

Dead Talk - Wind Walkers

it's my fault - Willow if you actually listen to these 9 songs my bad

i tag : @dreamweazel (got it right this time), @grimmscythe , @ghvsts, @creepingkyofu,

nine albums or songs I've been listening to lately x nine people I’d like to get to know better x tag game with no name

(thank you for the tag @lianhuajing !!)

1. why did you choose your url? uh. it was a play on "rose tinted glasses"

2. any sideblogs? if you have them name them and why you have them. nope!

3. how long have you been on tumblr? I think 2022? i knew about it before, just never bothered to make a blog

4. do you have a queue tag? don't kill me, what's a queue tag?

5. why did you start your blog in the first place? I had some Thoughts about Blue Lock and wanted to post meta for it

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp? uhh Flora.

7. why did you choose your header? Reo is one of my Blorbos and I just really liked that panel of him

8. what’s your post with the most notes? probably the "do you download fics" poll

9. how many mutuals do you have? about 20? i don't remember

10. how many followers do you have? 120?

11. how many people do you follow? 91

12. have you ever made a shitpost? yes. i think.

13. how often do you use tumblr each day? an hour?

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? nope

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts meh. some of them are funny i guess

16. do you like tag games? yep! it's nice interaction

17. do you like ask games? i do! but uh. it's a silent empty void here. an echo chamber, if you will.

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? i have no idea but i see @kingsandbastardz a lot in the mlc community

19. do you have a crush on a mutual? nope

20. what is the last song you listened to? 若梦 by 周深

21. what are you currently watching? i just finished The Double! probably starting on Dashing Youth next

22. sweet/ savoury/ spicy? savoury!

23. what is your current relationship status? single

24. what is your current obsession? The Double,,,,

25. what are nine albums/ songs you've been listening to lately?

若梦 by 周深

如故 by 张碧晨

如初 by 张碧晨

借过一下 by 周深

万物不如你 by 张杰

Our dawn is hotter than day by Seventeen

Hitorijana by Seventeen

my music taste is kinda...i tend to stick to a few artists...

26. tagging (no obligation to do this!) @randomingoftherandomness @good-vs-evo @chrysofightme @bbcphile

#no participation required #tag game

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wolf-queer-discourse · 3 years ago

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Adventures in Aphobia #1

So I was scrolling through Tumblr the other day (a regrettable mistake as always), and I had the great pleasure of seeing this joyous post.

*deep breath*

Not gonna lie, posts like this make me real pissed. Pissed because the person who posted this exists in a space where they feel comfortable enough to post this online. Pissed because these posts are so common and often face little backlash. And pissed because there’s nothing better than allosexuals condescendingly explaining to asexual people why they’re dirty attention whores who invent their own oppression. Ace people deserve to be defended against this horseshit. Young people see these posts, and it’s extremely damaging to have your identity be nothing more than fuel for people in discourse to mock you and demand you bled in order for them to notice your pain.

Anger aside, many people do not see why this post is wrong, so why is it? Let’s unpack this clusterfuck of bigotry:

“would love to see substantive evidence of systematic “aphobia” that isn’t actually just misogyny, toxic masculinity, or rpe culture.”

God damn, we are not mincing our words here XD. A few things: systematic in bold, which tells you if you do not make a blood sacrifice on the altar of queer pain you will not be taken seriously. Potential nitpick, but systemic and systematic are not the same thing. I believe systemic is the word they’re looking for. Systematic implies a lot more intentionality that can be hard to prove. Systemic merely means that systems, in their current state, do aphobic things, which they absolutely do.

“Aphobia” in quotes is absolutely rich. Not only will this person refuse to acknowledge systemic aphobia, which is only one type, but this poster casts clear doubt upon the mere concept of aphobia in and of itself. We love to see it.

There’s a lot to unpack here. The statement, as clearly condescending as intended, is sort of correct, though it doesn’t mean a whole lot. Systemic oppression is about the systems in a society (government, healthcare, etc) discriminating against people. Systemic oppression is not bigotry faced on a person-to-person level. In short, systematic oppression is something a person experiences in their overall life, while personal discrimination is experienced on a personal level by people who are not singularly in control of the systems. This post boils down the negative comments ace people face into being called “weird”, which is an understatement for sure, but calling a gay person weird isn’t systemic oppression either.

It’s still bad and discriminatory.

This is such a snotty way to dismiss aphobia as some mere, insignificant comment with no meaning as if it doesn’t reinforce society’s painful aphobic views in the same way casual homophobic comments reinforce heteronormativity and society’s hostility toward gay people.

Ace people face discrimination in healthcare, most notably, which is systemic discrimination, but the systemic discrimination of asexuals really ought to be its own post if I’m to nosedive into it. Even if ace people faced no systemic discrimination, it wouldn’t make this point anymore correct. Discrimination is a perfectly valid reason to feel disregarded by society, and often only ace people are denied the right to feel this way and are instead gaslit into admitting what they face is no big deal and they’re just making it up for attention.

The experience of being pressured to have sex when you’re allo vs ace is very different. The vast majority of allo people do not plan to be celibate their whole lives. Many ace people do not want to have sex, ever. “Waiting for sex” in much of western society and in Christianity is seen as pure and honorable. Yet being asexual and never wanting sex is seen as a deviant disorder and people are accused of robbing their partner of sex forever.

There’s really a specific flavor of sexual pressure that is unique to ace people. Sex being to “fix” someone or because they “just need to try it”.

In this respect, aphobic sexual pressure is better compared to that faced by gay people and lesbians. Lesbians especially often can face this same struggle, men pressuring them to have sex because they think lesbians just need to “try it” or to “fix them”. I can imagine this poster would have no issue acknowledging lesbophobia being the root of lesbians coerced into sex with men, yet she does not give ace people the same.

Imagine if someone said (and knowing our fucked world, someone probably has): “Lesbophobia doesn’t exist. It’s just misogyny. Straight women are coerced into sex too!”

It’d be pathetic bullshit. Toxic masculinity, misogyny and many other issues can all tangle into combined messes with other forms of bigotry. Lesbophobia is an experience that deserves to be recognized apart from misogyny, even if the two are linked. Please stop erasing ace people’s experiences with this when it’s not the same thing.

Honestly, though, this post, as trashy as it is, if anything, is perhaps, really asking: Is there any type of aphobic experience that’s inherently exclusive to ace people?

I still wager to go say, yes, yes there is, but I must make an important point first:

Most experiences of queer discrimination are not limited to queer people.

Homophobia and transphobia are both experienced by cishets in certain instances. Feminine straight men can be victims of homophobic harassment. This does not disprove the fact that it’s homophobia just because a straight man is the victim of it. A tall cis woman with broad shoulders and a lower voice may be the victim of transphobic remarks or comments. The basis of these comments is rooted in transphobia, however, so the fact that the victim is cis does not erase the transphobia.

People who argue that experiences ace people complain about can be experienced by allosexuals are not poking a legitimate hole in doing this. Certain experiences related to aphobia can and are experienced by allosexuals. If you do not acknowledge this, then homophobia and transphobia aren’t real because cishet people have sometimes experienced them.

Despite cishets sometimes experiencing queerphobia, most of us acknowledge that their experience of that bigotry, however unfortunate, is not the same as that experienced by actual queer people. It’d be quite homophobic for a feminine straight man to claim he knew just as much about the gay experience as an actual gay man. Similarly, when allosexual people relate experiences that were rooted in aphobia, it’s overstepping a line when they claim asexual discrimination isn’t real because they experienced elements of it too.

Cishet (cishet including allosexuals) people do not experience their doctors telling them their sexuality might be a disorder or caused by trauma. Allo queer people can experience this with their sexualities too.

“using sex appeal to sell products is misogyny, it is not engineered to gross sex-repulsed people, it is meant to objectify women.”

This is a strawman thinner than my last nerve. Uh, what? What ace people are you seeing that literally think sex appeal was engineered to gross-out sex-repulsed people?? I don’t think this is a core argument??

Yes, sex-repulsed ace people sometimes complain about sex appeal in media being uncomfortable. But that’s it. Every time an ace person shares a discomfort of theirs doesn’t mean it’s the entire basis of their oppression. For the love of God, let ace people discuss their experiences without being blow-torched over not being oppressed enough with an individual discomfort.

BONUS ROUND

(This was in the tags)

“Completely vilifies celibate individuals”

...no…? What…? Huh…?

The most charitable interpretation of this vague accusation is that the poster means celibate people face aphobia as well, due to not wanting to have sex. I have no idea how this “vilifies” anyone, but that aside, as said before: people who are not queer can face aphobia. Also worth noting that society treats celibate people way better than ace people, which is really another example of aphobia. Celibate people can be told they’re missing out (which could be at very least related to aphobic ideals), but they’re rarely called broken. Celibacy is seen more as a respected, controlled ideal in allo people, but when ace people want to do it, they’re just mentally ill.

Anyway, the post was aphobic trash, and it needs to be debunked more often. Mocking ace people online is not a good look anymore, guys. Don't be ugly.

#discourse #queer discourse #LGBT discourse #Adventures in Aphobia #ace discourse #asexual discourse #aphobia #ace discrimination #asexual #asexuality #LGBT #queer #ace #rant #aphobes have no shame but they should #imagine having a brain smoother than a banana peel

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newlyy · 2 years ago

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I posted 6,530 times in 2022

That's 2,959 more posts than 2021!

2,222 posts created (34%)

4,308 posts reblogged (66%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@newlyy

@viindiicta

@coolgirlepicblog

@sportsbianism

@taurusmoon420

I tagged 2,516 of my posts in 2022

#prev - 17 posts

#prev tags - 7 posts

#aw - 5 posts

#ty 💕 - 5 posts

#thank you 💜 - 5 posts

#thank you :) - 4 posts

#:) - 4 posts

#period - 4 posts

#idk - 4 posts

#thank you 😌 - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#obviously there’s a difference between transracialism and trans genderism we al know that it’s a huge difference they’re not at all the same

My Top Posts in 2022:

There are two steps in the thought process about male and female sport performance. The first is “men and women are physically different.” The second is “physical difference doesn’t suggest male superiority or necessitate female subordination.” Feminism happens in the second thought. It doesn’t happen in the first, in trying to argue men and women are biologically identical. If your arguments for female equality hinge on that, you’re fighting a losing battle. Hope that helps for the genderists who can’t understand why saying that a man shouldn’t compete in women’s sports isn’t the same as saying women are inferior.

1,110 notes - Posted March 20, 2022

Anyway, these brainwashed, lip filler-having, Botox-at-22, pornsick, “bimbo,” misogynistic gen z girls need to develop some feminist consciousness pretty fucking quick, cause I’m not being taken down with them just because they grew up taking for granted the things that past generations of women fought for and feel the need now to rebel against them.

1,207 notes - Posted May 8, 2022

i hating that “aging gracefully” has been co-opted by tiktok plastic surgeons to mean “hiding signs of aging” instead of what it actually means, which is “not digging your teeth and nails into the ground trying to fight the inevitable”

1,488 notes - Posted September 7, 2022

I hate when choice feminists try to do body positivity and plastic surgery positivity at the same time. Like “this feature has been my biggest insecurity since birth, but girls who have this feature, there’s nothing wrong with you and you’re gorgeous! Just for me, it made me want to kill myself 💜” like, queen, you can’t do both.

1,546 notes - Posted January 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

like you need to stop sleeping with men. every woman needs to stop fucking sleeping with men. its ridiculous

1,892 notes - Posted June 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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masterwords · 3 years ago

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Without Substance

Summary: Post-Scratch, Hotch deals with what he thinks is an intruder in the middle of the night. (Whumptober 2021 prompt: blood-matted hair)

Warnings: dementia, memory loss, violence, concussion, blood, hospital, gun, paranoia, drug withdrawals

Words: 3k

Notes: Lost on Tumblr forever, pulled out of my AO3 graveyard.

Read on AO3: Without Substance

“Rossi, back off man,” Derek growls as Dave presses Aaron for information he simply cannot access. Not now. Maybe not ever. “He just experienced trauma, you know as well as I do that he's not in the right head space to sort out the details...” He's sitting in the back of an ambulance, starched white shirt splattered with blood, rumpled and damp, pressing his hands together to quiet the deep vibration shivering its way through his muscles.

“We don't know how these drugs work, Morgan,” Dave counters, and now they're arguing in front of Aaron who isn't even trying to catch up. They take a step away, try to lower their voices, to hash it out between just the two of them. The sounds of the scene swirl around him, nothing holds his attention long enough to put a name to it. “We may never know what happened if he doesn't give us something, anything, right now.” Red and white lights flash, blue lights up the trees, everything is either out of focus or too sharp, too much for his eyes. He can feel the tears pooling, ready to spill and he isn't really sure why. His head hurts, but that's not it. At least he doesn't think so.

“Dave,” he says in a voice that hardly breaks through their disagreement. “It doesn't make sense.” He's trying to cooperate, he knows Dave is right and he knows Derek is just trying to protect him, floating between them is uncomfortable. Blinking hard, he tries to be the Unit Chief, tries to get his mind in order there just isn't anything he can do. Pieces float around his head in a sticky jumbled mess, images that don't make sense and how can he be expected to form words around them when they look like nothing he recognizes? Alien lifeforms, holograms without substance, his fingertips graze them and they turn to dust. How does he say “He shot Reid, and then you, and then Derek, right in front of me, I felt his blood on my face...” if two of them are standing right before him? He reaches one finger up, touches the sticky blood on his face, the broken skin and closes his eyes. Not eager to sound like he's gone mad, to put himself in a holding cell while they try and sort out everything that happened (Would they suspect that he might have killed Dr. Ragan? Peter Lewis had convinced people to do far worse.) he keeps silent, chooses Derek's side with tears brimming his eyes.

Jessica stays the night, she's offering before Derek has a chance to ask. Once she hears the panic in his voice, she throws it out and won't take no for an answer. She knows this drill. “I have to bring my dad here, he can't be on his own all night. Do you mind?”

��Do what you gotta do,” Derek says, only half listening as Aaron hugs his arms around bruised ribs and folds himself and his long legs into the vehicle. “We'll be back late. The ER's gonna be a long wait...he doesn't want to ride in the ambulance.” He means don't wait up and she hears him loud and clear. He means if he doesn't ride in the ambulance from the crime scene then he can get away with not including this in his report. He means he just wants to take care of things on his own. It isn't blind trust that makes him agree, it's love. He'll sit in an uncomfortable emergency room chair all night if that's what Aaron needs.

It's a chilly lobby and bright white lights, people screaming and panicking over blood and nurses who have heard it all before containing situation after situation. Aaron is curled around himself, hunched over in the chair with his face in his hands – he's still not sure what's worse, the throbbing in his head or the way his chest feels constricted, bound too tight to pull in a real breath. He's exhausted and electric, buzzing bees beneath clammy skin. He's frayed nerves and burning eyes, it hurts to have them open, it hurts to blink, but when they're closed they water uncontrollably and it stings. “I can't breathe,” he whispers, and Derek rubs his back, notices that he's breathing just fine. He's heard this for the last hour, it's the only thing Aaron says and he knows, he gets it but the nurses have already run him through triage and they're on a waiting list a mile long. He just rubs, up and down, fingers playing so soft along his spine trying to draw one long, deep breath after another.

“Nothing we can do but try to make him comfortable,” they say and they put in a prescription for some pain medication that may or may not help. Derek sees the arguments in their future dancing in the loops and lines of the doctor's signature. “He should feel significantly better in 24 to 48 hours. Bring him back if it gets worse, if he's not sleeping, if he starts vomiting.” They list off concussion protocol, as if he's never heard it before. He played football, he knows it all but he listens intently hoping they'll give him something new, some insight into the drugs or anything, no luck. It isn't what Derek wants to hear, but Aaron feels content. To Derek it sounds like he's on his own, but to Aaron it sounds like there isn't anything to make him feel guilty glossing over this bit in his final report. Rest, that's what they're saying and Derek knows that his version of rest and Aaron's are very different – another thing to argue about.

The arguments pile up and topple over on the trip home. Aaron's forehead is pressed to the cold window, eyes blurry and wet with ointments and drops. Contacts in the trash can, nowhere near his glasses he's floating in a cloudy haze made sharp by the stabbing that runs up and down his neck when the car bumps.

“How far?” he asks, as if it matters. Derek rolls his eyes and smiles. He's worse than Jack on road trips, his are we there yet? more pointed than Jack's. The boy just wants out of the car, he wants to be free to enjoy wherever it is they've gone and Aaron is simply convinced Derek has taken the wrong way, should have consulted a map, GPS, maybe just let him drive. The medication they've given him quiets the carsick feeling he gets, he's not grouchy he just wants to go to bed.

“We'll get there when we get there,” is his forever reply to Aaron's petulant toddler behavior. “Don't make me take a wrong turn. I'll land us somewhere deep in the mountains if you keep pushing,” Aaron sighs and shifts in the seat, feels Derek's warm hand settle heavily on his thigh and he considers it a challenge. Two hands on the wheel, he would normally say but he just smirks and says nothing. Derek gives his thigh a squeeze, upping the ante and Aaron lets his hand settle right on top, fingers twitching into their rightful place. He wouldn't mind the mountains with Derek, he supposed. He wouldn't mind anything with Derek.

The apartment is dark when they walk in, the light above the stove illuminating just enough to maneuver. It feels so warm and inviting after Jessica has been there, everything is clean and smells like jasmine and vanilla. A note on the counter tells them there are leftovers in the fridge, Derek digs in and Aaron declines, he's suffering enough just trying to remain upright. Chewing might do him in entirely.

“I'm going to bed,” he mumbles, kissing Derek on the temple while he gnaws on a hot wing. Derek grins, wipes the sauce from his face and watches him walk away.

“I'll be there in a few,” he calls after him, digging further into the tupperware for his favorite pieces.

His lips burn with hot sauce when he kisses Aaron goodnight, when he pulls him in close. Aaron is restless, glad to be in bed but knows he won't really sleep. His muscles feel twitchy, anxious. It doesn't take long before Derek is sleeping, deep snoring breaths, slow rhythmic thump thump thump of his heart against Aaron's cheek.

Every time he drifts off he feels Derek's blood hot on his face and his eyes fly open, he reaches out for Derek's warmth beside him, reminds himself it's just a trick. His mind thinks it's real, tries desperately to convince him of its solid force, the crush of grief instant and all encompassing but he knows it can't be true. Knows Derek is beside him. Fingers dig into flesh, fly to the pounding of his pulse beneath his jaw, breath against his cheek. He pushes in close and feels the expanding of his rib cage around full lungs.

Derek is alive, he tells himself as he settles back into sleep for the third, fourth, fifth time.

A clatter in the kitchen startles him awake, Derek shifts but doesn't open his eyes, turns away as Aaron makes a move to sit upright. His ribs creak and groan at the action, he sucks in a painful breath and slides toward the edge of the bed, fingers punching in the code to his gun safe blindly – he knows it without seeing it, is able to open and close the door without a sound. He looks at Derek sleeping, wonders if he should wake him too but he's worried it's another trick of his mind and if Derek sees it in action, he might be inclined to take him back to the hospital, call Dave, do something drastic. He can't take the chance, not yet. If it turns out to be nothing, maybe he'll say something. The sounds in the kitchen continue as he slips out into the darkened hallway, he can see a shadow but his mind is playing tricks on him, eyes blurry, watering as he tries to will them to focus. Silverware clattering, dishes crashing, they're not exactly trying to hide and his heart thunders wildly against his rib cage. Noiseless he slips down the carpeted hall, shoulder sliding along the wall and he blinks a few times. Nearly blind by the time he reaches the break, steps out and aims his gun at the sound; he opens his mouth to alert the intruder of his presence, he doesn't want to shoot anyone, heaven knows he's had more than enough time in the recesses of his own mind tonight and the gun feels too heavy a burden. This isn't the first time he's aimed his gun at an apparition.

There is a shout and he feels something heavy connect with the side of his head that sends him sprawling backward, slamming against the wall behind him. Never saw it coming, truthfully couldn't see much of anything at that exact moment and now there was only bright sprays of white hot pain and something sticky dripping into his ear. His gun flies out of his hand and slides across the linoleum floor as he collapses backward into the carpeted hallway. More blood on the carpet, he thinks while the searing pain courses from one concentrated spot on his skull and emanates down his neck, into his shoulders. The hits keep coming, he stops feeling them after awhile, he's scrambling to get his bearings, to pull himself upright and stop the attack, he's trying to use his voice and there isn't any sound, even he knows that. His head swims and his fight of flight instinct is too quiet, dulled by medication he hadn't even wanted to take. If this is a dream, it's really fucked up.

The voice he hears is loud, angry, growling. He recognizes it and it steadies him as he pulls himself up just enough, uses his arms to cover his head. Like stepping back in time, he's transported and the voice sounds oddly like comfort, like safety.

Like hope and then a flash of clarity when he realizes it is none of those things. He blinks himself into the present and squints as Jessica rushes down the hall, eyes lighting on Aaron for just a moment before she pulls her father backward, knocking the cane from his hand. Derek is on his knees beside Aaron, pulling him into his lap, looking him over carefully for any real damage and finds none – red cane marks, blood in his hair from a gushing wound above his ear, and he realizes its the second time that night he'll be cleaning blood from Aaron's hair.

“Dad! Dad stop!”

Derek watches as Jessica shoves Roy into a chair, puts herself in his line of sight and huffs a sigh of frustration. Her hair is wild, eyes still filled with sleep and she pulls her robe tight around herself because she doesn't know what to do with her hands.

“You could have killed him!”

“He had a gun!” Roy grunts, slamming his meaty fist down on the table. “Aimed it right at me! That sonofabitch was going to shoot me.” She looks horrified, Aaron is sobbing and gasping on the floor, Derek can't believe what he's seeing but out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of the gun beneath the fridge and it's a crushing blow, he knows that Roy isn't lying.

“Jess,” he says, pointing toward the gun. She picks it up, glances between Aaron and her father briefly before setting it on the counter. A silent accusation.

“I heard noises,” Aaron mumbles through blood slicked lips. His tongue feels thick and dry, the words don't sound right. “Thought there was an intruder...” He lets out a sob from somewhere deep in his ribs, tries to choke it down with no luck. He's not really crying, he's just overwhelmed and his body is coursing with adrenaline and pain and confusion. “Didn't know...”

“Come out to the kitchen for a snack and have a gun pointed at my damn face, that's some hospitality,” Roy's snarling and Aaron struggles upright, tries to pull out of Derek's embrace, to sit on his own but he can't focus, his vision is swimming. Already fighting a head injury, the last vestiges of Scratch's cocktail still in his system he's sobbing uncontrollably and he can't really figure out why.

“Go ahead, Jessie, take his side like always.”

“Dad, there are no sides...it was a misunderstanding.”

“He tried to kill me! Misunderstanding...PAH!”

It's becoming clear to her that Roy has nearly forgotten what actually happened, soon he'll start filling in the gaps with fabricated attempts at memories while the blank look settles into his features again and she feels cold. Tomorrow the story will sound different, maybe a week from now he was holding the gun. The nature of his disease was haunting. His anger is still there but the details are getting fuzzier by the minute, and there's an odd sense of sad camaraderie between the two men as their minds struggle to come to terms with the details or let them go entirely.

“C'mon, Dad, let's go back to bed.” She's utterly defeated, on the verge of tears herself and with a sideways glance at Derek who just nods his approval of her decision, she helps her father to his feet and takes the cane from Derek's outstretched hand. Nothing she can say will make it better, will make Roy apologize, will fix another blood stain on Aaron's carpet. By the time he's back in bed, he's forgotten why he was up in the first place. It's over so quickly for him, but in the front room she knows it's really only beginning. She stays with her father until he's asleep, afraid to see the damage she's caused by having Roy stay over, even if she knows none of them had a choice.

Derek holds Aaron between his legs, hugs his arms around his shoulders and tries to control the sobbing. It's almost hysterical, wild, his whole body shakes with the effort. It reminds him of Haley, that moment, pulling him off of Foyet, his body electric and painful. He's in panic mode, his lungs are fire, he can't suck enough air in to catch his breath. Derek just holds him tight, slicks the bloody hair back from his forehead and tries to influence his breath. He's bleeding badly enough that Jessica brings out a rag and presses it to his head, brings him to her lap now so Derek can get up, can put the gun away and find him a change of clothes, figure out what to do. The cut isn't deep, it's just bleeding a lot, they can manage it at home, it's the rest that is frightening. In the morning his arms will be black and blue, and it's possible neither he nor Roy will really be able to answer why.

“It's okay Aaron,” she breathes, and his lungs fill with air. The sparks come slower and soon its only smoldering embers. Something about her soothes his turmoil. He's seventeen and sitting on her bedroom floor with a bag of frozen peas going mushy on his swollen wrist while she stitches up his favorite shirt the best she can. Haley's at cheer-leading practice and he's just had another run in with his father, he's more upset about the shirt than his arm though. He doesn't have many favorite things. “Aaron, you didn't know...”

“It's more than that, Jess,” Derek says, entering the room again, ready to admit that Dave may have been right, they needed to know what Aaron went through in that house. But now he can't talk, he's just sitting there bleeding, lost in his mind and neither of them know quite where he is, what he's thinking, what to do next. Roy is sleeping, the apartment has gone quiet. Derek found Jack hiding behind his bedroom door, listening without looking and soothed him back to sleep with the promise that everything was fine. Just a misunderstanding, he says, but the haunted look in Aaron's eyes as he washes the blood from his hair for the second time that night leaves him with more questions than answers.

#aaron hotchner #derek morgan #jessica brooks #roy brooks #jack hotchner #criminal minds #hotchgan #fanfiction

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alarawriting · 4 years ago

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52 Project #24: The Princesses and the Peas

(Inspired by a post on Tumblr and if I can ever find it again I will link it here.)

(Not proofread, beta’ed, or even read through a second time because this is massively late and if I don’t post within the next hour it will officially be next week everywhere in the United States and I will have failed in my mission. I’ll try to re-read and proofread and edit next week. Also this note is highly unprofessional, but I learned my relationship to my audience through fanfic, so this is how I roll.)

***

Surely you have heard a similar tale before, almost but not entirely like this one, of the queen who sought the perfect wife for her son, the crown prince.

The queen had ruled the land alone since the death of her husband. She was praised for her wisdom and her benevolence toward her people. But she was no longer young, and it was time to make sure her son made a politically beneficial marriage, to strengthen his position when it came time for him to take the crown. Many in the land whispered that the young man would make a terrible king, and wanted him to abdicate in favor of his younger sister, who was beautiful and bright and smiling. Celia, the young sister, could look anyone in the eye and make them believe that in that moment, they were the most important person in her world. Arien, the prince… could not do that.

The prince had a talent for mathematics, and it had expressed itself very young. Some said he should be the chancellor of the exchequer rather than the king. But Queen Leyta knew her son would make a compassionate and wise ruler as well as a prudent one. He also had a gift for seeing the humanity behind the numbers he calculated, of being able to think of the impact they would have on the people he would one day rule.

Once, when he was a child of six, his nursemaid lost him. Leyta found him behind the kitchens, picking through the garbage bins to find table scraps. She would have punished the kitchen staff for allowing such a thing, but Arien insisted that she should not. “It’s not their fault, Mother. I ordered them to let me, and I’m the prince, so they had to obey me. I told them that if you became angry at them I would tell you that they were only obeying my orders. They can’t get in trouble for obeying their liege.”

Leyta sighed. She could punish them for obeying their liege, when their liege was 6 and the thing he wanted to do was eat garbage, but she wouldn’t, because she knew why they obeyed. When the prince was thwarted, he would ask why. And if he received an answer, he would argue with it and present his position. Sometimes, this debate would lead to him accepting the necessity, and calmly going about his business, seeming to forget all about what he’d asked. More often, if he didn’t get an answer to “why”, or he didn’t like the answer and thought it didn’t make sense, and he was still thwarted, he would start to scream and hide under tables, or scream and run around and break things, or scream and slam his head into the wall, and he wouldn’t stop even when offered the thing he wanted. It was very, very hard to calm him once he started shrieking. So instead of punishing the kitchen staff, she asked Arien, “Why were you eating garbage?”

“Our food is bought with the taxes we take from the people,” he said seriously. “If we wasted less food, we wouldn’t have to tax the people as sorely as we do, and they would have more money to buy things for themselves.”

So she took him aside and told him that the scraps were fed to the dogs, who helped the palace huntsmen bring down game, or the goats and fowl, who gave the palace milk, meat and eggs, or they were tilled into the ground to make the fields around the palace more fruitful. They did not, in fact, go to waste; food that wasn’t wholesome for humans to eat could still feed animals, who would turn it back into wholesome food.

Then she had a lengthy discussion with him about tax policy, and listened gravely to his suggestions as to how they could ease the burdens on the people, and told him what the problems with his ideas were. And when some of his ideas didn’t have significant problems, she told him so, and discussed them with him, and even implemented a few as policy.

Arien also had a great love for bugs. He spent much of his days wandering the grounds, sketching every insect he saw, capturing some to study them and figure out what they ate. When Leyta learned of this, she found a learned scholar of insects, and hired him to be Arien’s tutor in the matter of insects, only. The man was at first openly resentful of being required to work with a small child, assuming that Arien would be a spoiled princeling with no real interest in learning, but when he discovered Arien’s love for the tiny creatures, he embraced the boy wholeheartedly and tutored him as well as he could.

The prince had few friends. He was open and innocent, happy to make friends with any child close to his own age, but the honest children who truly wanted a playmate were put off by Arien’s tendency to talk about bugs and math almost constantly. The children who put up with Arien’s chatter were, to Leyta’s eyes, obviously coached by ambitious mothers, pretending to friendship with the strange young prince to improve their position at court. She arranged for most of these children to be sent away – either their mothers dismissed, or the family sent to one of the crown’s holdings with some duty to perform or another. Arien was saddened by the disappearance of his playmates, since he didn’t realize they saw him as mere stepping stones to power. Celia knew, and would comfort her brother as well as she could… but she didn’t have a lot of patience for math, tax policy, and insects either.

As he grew up, Arien continued to display a strange mixture of wisdom and childishness. He would run around the palace grounds, playing with children far younger than he was, and they were not old enough to try to manipulate him, so Queen Leyta left them alone. He enjoyed riding his horse and taking care of it, and was often found at the stables, for he believed his horse needed to cared for in just the exact way he did it, and he didn’t trust the stablehands to follow his instructions exactly. He would spend hours discussing the politics of the land and the problems facing various groups of his subjects with Leyta and her own advisors, and then he would scream and throw himself on the floor at dinner because a chef had put visible onions in his soup, and he would need to be put to bed with his favorite blanket and a knitted doll of a dog that he’d had when he was four.

People said that the boy was touched in the head, that he was slightly mad, and also, that a future king who threw temper tantrums over onions was not to be trusted. But they weren’t, exactly, tantrums, as Leyta saw them. They didn’t stop when the problem was solved, they usually didn’t include demands – in fact, usually it was hard to get the prince to explain what was wrong, because he seemed to lose much of his ability to speak when these fits came on him. And she could see in his eyes that he was terrified and overwhelmed, not angry and demanding. Arien needed the world to work a certain way, and when it did not, it left him adrift, frightened and lost in a world that seemed to make no sense to him anymore.

Some of these ways that the world needed to work involved food, and the importance of not being able to see onions, for an onion large enough to see was large enough to crunch in his mouth in a way that apparently was so disgusting it would make him lose his ability to eat all day. There were similar rules regarding peppers, and certain cream dishes. Other ways the world needed to work regarded his mother’s advisors treating him like their future king, not in terms of obsequious deference but in terms of actually listening to his ideas and explaining things to him – even when he was merely eight. And then there was the care of animals – his own animals needed to be cared for in an exact way, and if he saw anyone being cruel to an animal, he might actually become violent to that person. The same was true of stronger people being cruel to weaker ones. When he was fourteen, he heard a maid crying, and asked a kitchen maid to find out for him what had happened. And then, when he learned that a nobleman under his roof had ill used her and cast her aside, he went to his mother and demanded the man be whipped for his crimes. The political explanations she gave for why that couldn’t be done fell on deaf ears; he was a cruel man and he’d harmed someone he had power over, and that was all Arien cared about. Leyta only managed to satisfy him by sending the man on a probably futile sea expedition to try to find a cheaper source of rice.

This was the boy that Queen Leyta had to find a proper bride for.

Her mother-in-law, the Dowager Queen, had ideas, but it had been many years since the Dowager Queen had actually held any power; she was one of Leyta’s advisors now, nothing more. So the idea would have to be one that Leyta agreed with, herself.

A ball to introduce eligible young women with powerful families to the prince? No. The prince didn’t handle crowds or parties well, or meeting a lot of new people in one evening.

A series of daytime salons, where a small group of eligible women would converse over luncheon with the prince? No. That was still too many people and the prince was self-conscious about people watching him eat.

Individual visits from each eligible young lady and her chaperones, to the palace, to meet with Arien, and also to be approved by Leyta? Yes! An excellent idea. Leyta had her secretary write up the invitations, to all the young women whose parents had written to her or the Dowager to express an interest.

In the palace was a suite of rooms that had been Leyta’s, once, when she’d lived in this palace to learn its ways before marrying the then-prince. She had that suite cleaned and prepared for the guests. Sleeping quarters to either side for the princess’s guards. Ladies-in-waiting to sleep in the antechamber outside the princess’s bedroom. And inside the princess’s bedroom, a bed heaped with several thick eiderdown duvets and pillows, incredibly soft, with sheets made from the finest linens.

And under the second eiderdown duvet, dried peas.

Queen Leyta tested the peas. When she sat on the bed, she couldn’t feel them. If she laid in the bed, she could barely tell they were there. But when she had Arien try it, he said, “You’re going to take them out before the guests come, right? The peas make the bed much too uncomfortable.”

“The peas,” Leyta said, “are to test whether a girl is right for you or not. It’s magic.”

Arien looked at her skeptically, unsure whether he believed in magic or not. “How are dried peas supposed to find me the right wife?”

“Magic,” Leyta said. “I can’t tell you exactly how it works. But it’s very important that you not tell them about the peas, or the magic won’t work.”

“Mother, I’m sixteen. I’m not a child. This whole story sounds ridiculous.”

“All right,” Leyta admitted. “It’s not magic, but I won’t be able to explain it to you until after it’s proven that it works, or doesn’t. But it is very important that you not tell any of your guests about it.”

Arien looked like he wanted to argue some more about it. Leyta said, “Trust me,” and he sighed, plainly remembering the number of times his mother had stood up for him or had come up with some scheme to help him.

“All right, Mother, but I’ll want that explanation afterwards.”

The Dowager Queen had her own theories. “You want to see if they can tell the peas are there?”

“To a certain extent,” Leyta said.

“You know that old wives’ tale about princesses being true and refined if they’re extremely sensitive is just a myth. I wasn’t a fragile flower who’d lose petals if you looked at her hard, and neither were you. And neither will Celia be.”

“I know that, Mother,” Leyta said – it was custom to address your mother-in-law as Mother, and Leyta’s own mother had died shortly after her wedding. The Dowager Queen had been the closest thing to a mother she’d had the entire time she was Queen. “I’m not testing for extreme skin sensitivity. Trust me.”

“It’d be hard for him to get an heir on a princess that fragile, don’t you think?” The Dowager chortled.

Leyta sighed. “No need to be crude about it. I have my reasons, and I’ll explain them to you, eventually. Let’s see if it works, first.”

***

The first princess was from the west. She had long straight hair and delicate-looking eyes with folded lids that left them shaped like almonds, rather than the eggs that the people of this realm wore in their face. She had pale creamy skin with a golden undertone, and she was demure and very polite, her etiquette perfect. She sat with Arien for hours, smiling at him with a face that expressed great interest, as he explained to her the complexities of life in a beehive.

In the morning, Leyta asked her, “How did you sleep?”

“Oh, wonderfully,” the princess said. “The bed was perfect! So soft! Your hospitality is wonderful.” She bowed her head.

Leyta saw her and her entourage off. When she returned, she asked Arien, “What did you think of her?”

“She was nice,” Arien said. “She listened to me. I’ve only had a few friends who listened to me, and they all moved away.”

Privately, without Arien present, the Dowager asked, “So what’s your verdict?”

“Unless none of them pass the test, she’s a no.”

***

The second princess was from the land immediately to the north. Her skin was tree- brown but as smooth as a tranquil lake, her hair floating around her head in a soft, curly cloud. Arien talked to her about beetles. She made excuses of not feeling well about half an hour into the beetle discussion.

When Leyta asked her how she slept, she said, “Your rooms are very nice. And the food last night was excellent, I’m so sorry I had to cut the evening short. But I feel fully rejuvenated today.”

Arien said, “She seemed okay, but she kept looking around while I was talking to her, so much that I think she gave herself motion sickness. I think that’s why she got sick.”

Leyta said to the Dowager, “A definite no.”

***

The third princess was from the far south. She had beautiful straight golden hair, cut short and asymmetrically, where it was shorter in the back than front and where it was parted on one side rather than in the middle.

She complained about her soup being cold. She complained about her roast beef being too bloody. She complained that the dessert course had small portions and also that it was too sweet. She screamed at servants for not bringing her wet towels for wiping her hands quickly enough and for refilling her wine glass too quickly. She insisted on talking to the seneschal about the servants who had served her, demanding that they be banished from the castle for incompetence. When Arien tried to talk to her, her demeanor was sweet, but every time he tried to talk to her about something he liked, she insisted that he show her another part of the castle. She made plans for room redecoration as if she had already become Arien’s queen.

In the morning, she was sickly sweet with Leyta, saying it was only a minor thing, really, but surely more competent servants could be found to make the bed? It was extremely lumpy. Leyta found out that she’d woken the chambermaids at 1 in the morning to demand an additional five featherbeds piled on top of hers.

Arien didn’t look at his mother. “Um… I don’t want to be impolite, but… I didn’t like her very much.”

The Dowager Queen said, “Please don’t tell me you’re considering that young harridan just because she could tell there were peas in the bed.”

“Oh, no. Not even for a moment,” said Leyta, and drew her quill through the name “Princess Carinna” on the list.

***

The fourth princess was actually the daughter of a powerful merchant, not an actual princess at all. She had deeply tanned skin and thick black hair, and beautiful dark eyes. She and Arien talked for hours about tax policy and accounting techniques, and she seemed genuinely interested.

She said the bed had been wonderful, and there was nothing wrong with it. Arien liked her. But Queen Leyta marked her as a provisional choice, the first on the list if no one passed her test.

***

And so it went with princess after princess. Most of them showed at least some slight sign of impatience when Arien monopolized the conversation, but none of them admitted to it, and few even tried to change the topic. No others were as rude as Carinna. No others admitted to detecting the peas, either. Leyta was on the verge of contacting the merchant to make an offer for his daughter to wed Arien. And then Princess Inaya arrived.

Princess Inaya was from further north than the second princess had been, her skin darker and her hair in braids that lay directly against her head, with ribbons and beads woven into them at the bottom. She didn’t look Leyta in the eye – or anyone else, really, keeping her head bowed demurely. She picked at her food, more or less eating only the potatoes, and she barely spoke… until she met with Arien.

He offered, diffidently, to show her the garden, and she accepted. He started to point out interesting bugs that he saw in the garden… and she began to point out interesting rocks. They soon began an animated conversation that sounded to Leyta more like two separate threads, where Arien would say a sentence or two about insects, then yield to Inaya, who would say a sentence or two about rocks. Sometimes they had a genuine back-and-forth when they talked about the habitats of pillbugs, who lived under rocks, or other areas where rocks and insects somehow intersected. Arien showed Inaya the notebook where he drew bugs and made his observations, and Inaya seemed to be thrilled with his artistic skill. She showed him her own notebook, with no art at all, where she wrote down the properties of rocks she had discovered and outlined the tests she did on stones to see what they were made of. Arien was fascinated with the efforts she’d gone to and how thoroughly she’d documented her findings; he’d never thought of doing anything to research the insects aside from looking them up in his tutor’s books.

At no point did she ever look Arien in the eye. At no point did he seem to care. He relaxed enough with Inaya to flap his hands when he grew excited; Inaya had a chain of polished stones that, instead of wearing around her neck, she tossed in the air as she paced.

In the morning, when Leyta asked Inaya how she slept, she squirmed.

“I, um. The bed was mostly very nice. Very good linens, nice soft down. But, uh. It felt like maybe there were… tiny pebbles in there somewhere? I’m not sure, I didn’t want to be rude and strip down the bed to look, but, uh. It was kind of uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Leyta said.

She made arrangements to ask Arien his opinion before Inaya’s entourage left, this time. He spoke very simply. “I love her. Pick her, she’s the one.”

“I thought you would say that,” Leyta said, and she finished drafting the offer to Inaya’s parents, and signed it. “Take this to her lady-in-waiting before they leave, to give to Inaya’s parents.”

“I can’t!” Arien said, looking all around. “I can’t be the one to do it because I have to give her a parting gift if I see her and I don’t have any nice rocks!”

So Leyta gave him a bracelet with a large inset opal, and smaller jades all around it. “Take this to her and tell her which kinds of stones are in it, and tell her she can wear it as a bracelet if she wants, or take it apart for the stones, whichever she prefers.”

Later she heard that Inaya collapsed on the ground crying when he made the offer, but that her lady-in-waiting reassured Arien that this wasn’t abnormal – that she did this whenever her emotions were too strong to control, even if they were happy emotions. Inaya confirmed that she was crying from relief and joy, because she had always thought that no man would ever want to marry her and if one did, he would hate her rocks and want her to do normal womanly things like embroidery or something, which she wasn’t good at in the slightest because her coordination was bad and she was always poking the needle into the wrong place, and she had never imagined that she would ever find a man who understood her and didn’t demand that she look in his eyes and liked to listen to her talk about what she loved. Then Arien asked her very gravely if she liked hugs, because most of the time he didn’t like hugs, especially when they were a surprise, but if she would like a hug he really wanted to give her one. They hugged, and declared mutual love (“as far as I can define the feeling of love, anyway,” Inaya said, “because I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before, so how can I know for sure that that’s what this is?” Arien had agreed with her, but said “I think that even if what we’re feeling isn’t the same kind of thing as other people feel when they’re in love, it’s close enough that we can use the same word, because who wants to have to make up a new word?” And then they spent several minutes amusing each other to the point of hysterical laughter in making up new words that sounded ridiculous, sometimes repeating them to each other ten or a dozen times.) When Inaya finally had to leave, Arien cried.

Leyta wasn’t there for any of that, but her spies were everywhere in the castle.

***

When the Dowager demanded that she explain her test, Leyta summoned Arien, who had washed his face so it looked more as if he had had a terrible runny nose and sneezes than that he’d been crying.

“You asked me about what it would prove, to put peas in the bed,” Leyta said, “and I was looking for two things, but one was more important than the other.”

“What were you looking for?” Arien asked.

“Arien… you know that you’re a special young man, and different in some ways than other people your age. I’ve consulted with many scholars. Children like you are often strangely sensitive to things that other people don’t notice… often to the point where it’s unpleasant. Such as your feelings about onions.”

He shuddered. “Please do not remind me of the existence of those devil vegetables.”

Leyta laughed. The Dowager scowled. Leyta knew she preferred that a king, or a crown prince who’d just been betrothed, have a serious demeanor. She also knew that Arien would be who he was, no matter what anyone asked him to be.

“So I thought, the peas might be noticeable to some of the girls, but they would be especially notable to a girl who was like Arien. More importantly, if a girl noticed it but claimed she didn’t… Arien, I know you are often taken off guard by lies, and you’re a very honest man yourself. I know you would prefer a wife who will tell you when something makes her unhappy, rather than her trying to guess how you feel about it and then telling you what she thinks you want to hear.”

Arien nodded. “Nobody can see inside someone else’s mind, so why would anyone even do that?”

“I wanted a girl who would be honest about something she found unpleasant, even if she had to offend her host to admit it. But, obviously, kindness and compassion and a lack of malice about it were necessary as well… we don’t want a Carinna anywhere near the rulership of the kingdom.”

“You can say that again,” Arien said. Leyta suspected he was setting her up so she could tell a joke.

“But I won’t, because I know you heard it the first time,” she said, smiling.

The Dowager frowned. “So you picked a girl who has the same kinds of problems as Arien? Was that wise? The kingdom may need rulers who understand the idea of telling lies when they must, who can be charming and adept with politics. I thought you’d pick a girl who would cover Arien’s weaknesses, not one with the same issues.”

“Your son understood me,” Leyta said simply. “It was an arranged marriage, but we quickly grew to love each other, because we respected and we understood each other. I don’t want the kingdom to have a queen who resents her husband because she thinks he’s strange… who may play politics behind the scenes to have him killed so she can take power. Or who takes lovers, so we don’t know if the royal blood is even in the heirs. It’s more important to me that Arien’s wife respects him and understands him, and that he understands and respects her, than to have rulers who can detect all the subterranean undercurrents of a conversation. That’s what spymasters are for… and Dowager mothers and grandmothers, and perhaps even younger sisters.”

“Mother,” Arien said, “thank you. I know the people think I’m strange, and maybe I am, but you’ve always watched out for me. I didn’t even know I needed to find a wife who wouldn’t lie to protect my feelings until you pointed it out, and now it’s obvious.” He looked at the Dowager. “And Grandmother, Inaya does complement me. I understand mathematics, and finance, and things like that. She was trained by her parents to understand logistics, so she could run the castle, but she went deeper with it; she understands things about what kind of weather will do things to the crops and what will happen to the farmers when that occurs, things I never even thought about asking. Together I think she and I can make our country one of the most prosperous and happy nations in the world.”

***

And so it came to be. Prince Arien and Princess Inaya were wed in a lovely ceremony that they immediately fled to go on their honeymoon as soon as the marriage vows were taken. They understood the economics of the nation, and other nations, as few kings and queens ever did, and when they needed someone to tell them that someone else was lying, they had the Dowager Leyta and Princess Celia. The country prospered as it never had before, with no beggars on the streets of the cities, because the King and Queen gave homes to those who had none, and living expenses to those too sick or weak or lacking in some ability so that they couldn’t work.

It would be a lie to say they lived happily ever after, because no human can be happy all the time, and they had arguments and problems in their relationship from time to time. But even Arien the Honest and his Queen would agree that we can say they lived mostly happily for the rest of their lives.

#52 project #i'm late! i'm late!#fairy tales #autism #altered tales #the writer is autistic

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createandconstruct · 3 years ago

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Wait, Garland

So. I started this reply, worked on it for two hours, and then moved my window and tumblr eviscerated most of it. Safe to say after that I had to mourn what I lost for a bit. I hope I can channel my original thoughts and words! Maybe it’ll be even better? We’ll see!

Anyway let’s talk about the wrinkly genome himself. Buckle up this one’s a doozy (enjoy some required reading music that fits the man of the hour).

favorite thing about them:

His design. This all knowing watchful eye of Terra is as lifeless as he is old. His eyes are blank and empty. His face is withered. His body, without the imposing cape, is like an emancipated black skeleton, where at its center lies the only light and color of Garland’s entire form. He is entirely black and white, except for the red glowing sphere at his center. At first look when I saw it I felt that it’s very much a metaphor for the role designated to him by the Terrans. In Garland’s chest lies the red glow of Terra, the exposed ribs of his black, armorlike chest, keep it within - protecting and hiding it from the outside world of Gaia. Until the time is right. Garland is nothing more than what the Terrans made him to be. An eternal servant that takes every breath for the protection of Terra as that is the reason he was given for living. Every inch of his body was designed for such purpose. Its only right he was designed to aware like a living cage, protecting that last flickers of Terra and its souls that lie within.

On that note let’s look at his design another way. Terra’s revival is Garland’s only reason for living. Zidane questions Garland’s own wants and desires to which he can only claim they are the restoration of Terra and its souls. He has nothing except the words he was fed by the Terrans millennia ago. Garland is the true hollow shell of a man you find in the remains of Terra. He is worn, withered, and ancient. He has lived so long for one reason only, a reason that was never even his own. The light of Terra - the light of the selfish, arrogant, and greedy souls of Terra - are stuck within his opened chest, powering him like an exposed heart or soul. Terra is his power source. Garland cannot rest. He was not created to rest. He was created to follow the reasons the Terrans gave him for his existence. (I exist only to kill) Garland exists and has existed unable to find his own reason for living - Terra’s forever trapped within him. A constant reminder. On the outside, Garland has withered away through his taste of eternity, while Terra’s light has remained strong within him, still forcing, powering, and pulling him forward to the ultimate goal. Perhaps that’s why Garland is only able to voice his own thoughts in death (even calling their failures towards their planet arrogant, and reflecting positively on his chance at existence despite his purpose), after the light of Terra inside him has finally gone out and he is beyond his creators’ reach.

Though, my final, and favorite, interpretation of his design begs a question… are there truly even any Terrans left? Memories and experiences make the soul, FFIX tells us. Garland cannot take Zidane’s soul from him as his soul is no longer the power source Garland gifted him. It is the laughter, tears, and memories Zidane shared with his loved ones on Gaia. Zidane is of Gaia. He is Gaian. So then who is Terran? The genomes, even Kuja, are not of Terra. Not the true Terra, anyway. The Terra the sleeping souls tried to preserve in the face of mortality and the wasting away that comes with time. The people we see are from the planet’s remains. The true Terrans are those who know the history, who know the culture, who lived and walked and experienced the planet when it was its own, and not a parasite latched inside another. The genomes know nothing of these things. If we call them “Terrans” it’s only because they were created on the fragments that were left inside of Gaia. In reality the Genomes were finally born on Gaia, once they began to experience - began to create memories of their own. There’s a reason Terra’s water does no flow. The world we visit within Gaia is just a frozen memory of a long dead planet.

And when those sleeping souls of Terra... when they finally arise will they even be Terran? They will have no memories of the planet or crystal where they originally cycled. Even if Gaia was assimilated, they will have bodies born on the planet of Gaia, where only remains of Terra lie, from the failed merging of the crystals. Even if the crystal of Gaia turns red the memories of these new “Terrans” will be of their new planet. They will essentially be Gaian and will likely consider themselves so as there is no plan to pass down memories to these new people from Garland. Garland is restoring the Terran souls into a new cycle, as if trying to return things to how they were before Terra’s death. It’s like a child trying to get a deceased loved one to play or react to them like they always do, not understanding things will never be like that again. Garland can never truly restore Terra or the Terrans to the they were. Those people, the original Terrans, even if their souls remain, have been lost to death and time. Perhaps their memories could have been passed on much like Vivi’s at the end of the game but because they were so desperate to ensure that their “superior” life, history, culture, and race endured forever, they lost the chance to truly persevere such things by passing it down to others in the present for the future. Instead such things were lost when they tried to allow themselves to endure by erasing the life from another planet.

All this is to say that, the only true Terrans are those who hold one of their souls, who know the history, and the culture and the only such person who exists, is Garland. He is the last true Terran. The remains of Terra have been cast with the blue of Gaia’s light. The Terra we see, that we visit? That’s not Terra. Terra is gone. Only one of its people remains. And the tragedy is that while Garland says his goal is to restore Terra, he’s going about it in the wrong way. In reality, Garland, an almost immortal being, who carries the last true light of Terra within himself, always had the means to truly preserve Terra and its people’s memories: by simply sharing them with the future. Instead, the Terrans doomed Garland and their planet with their plans of grandeur and eternity. A doomed fate that follows all who attempt to escape death. Which is why it is perhaps so appropriate that when Kuja destroys the remains of Terra within Gaia it is only fitting that Garland has died along with them too.

least favorite thing about them:

Like Kuja, as an antagonist, there’s a lot to dislike about Garland, but that’s intentional. He’s a good villain, I like him. I rather mention something that kinda annoys me writing wise? Not even annoying, just something that gave me a raised brow the first time I played the game and now gives me a headache the more I think about it: Omnipresent Garland voice.

Now Garland speaking to Zidane in Memoria I can deal with. It can make sense, even though it’s not explained. He’s a timeless being who existed before the current civilization on Gaia began. You could argue through his soul experimentation and millennia existence he has found a way to keep a level of consciousness as his own soul travels to the crystal. We know the cycle of souls is slower due to the manipulation of the crystal by Garland so it makes sense his souls is traveling slowly in the cycle towards the crystal after his death, allowing him to find Zidane and chat. Its also an interesting parallel of Zidane and co. traveling through Memoria, deeper into the crystal, while Garland’s souls travels too. Memoria is almost like Garland’s 5000 year life flashing before his eyes. Until he eventually reaches the end. The void of space. Perhaps the void of death. It’s the place his voice finally leaves Zidane. Is Garland’s voice disappearing into that void an indication of him stuck in a purgatory like state? Never return to a crystal? Or perhaps that void is the end of himself (of his consciousness), as we know him, but his soul continues on like Zidane and the others do as he is accepted into the cycle of Gaia’s Crystal? Whatever the case I can deal with Garland’s bodiless voice in the end game. I like it honestly.

What bothers me a bit is Garland’s voice appearing right after Kuja kicks him off the cliff. I get it. Kuja has to feel on top of the world before he spirals and crashes. He finishes off Garland and gets to dance about in victorious glee only before Garland’s voice resounds in everyone’s heads. His presence still lingering even after death to inform Kuja of his own impending fate. But it’s still a little jarring when it happens the first time you play it. Garland falls to his death and then he’s telepathing through the force. There’s a moment of “wait he’s alive?” then “wait he’s not” and then “how’s he doing this?” It can take you out of the scene which should very much be about Kuja. This is very much a nitpick and something that can be explained away because of Garland’s character and capabilities but whenever I play I’m like oh here comes ghost Garland. Though maybe it’s better to think that Garland actually did survive the fall and as he lies dying in the abyss beneath Pandemonium, with his remaining strength, he speaks to Kuja and others in the same way Kuja speaks to Mikoto and Zidane at the end of the game. Yeah I like that. Seems I fixed my own gripe. And now the essays are over and we can get to the fun stuff.

favorite line: I have some favorite villain lines of Garland and some favorite sentimental post-Mufasa’d-Garland lines. We’ll start with villain: "Forget all that. You are destined to live among the stars for all eternity.” I love this line, it’s kinda haunting that this is not just Garland’s motive but the motive of the Terrans. I then love Zidane’s retort. Their whole back and forth is just William Shatner Shakespeare drama father vs very angry teenage theater kid son. Number 2: "Don't you know what it means to meet your maker?" Something about this line real hits home the clashing between Zidane and Garland in Pandemonium. It always stood out to me, especially the first time I played. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Garland. He is Zidane’s creator who was so ready to erase him with barely a snap of his fingers. As for sentimental lines, I’m predictable: “Zidane… take care of Kuja.” and “Even if I were created to serve one purpose alone, I do not regret being born to this world." Shout out to - despite my earlier ravings - Garland’s narration over the scenes in Memoria. When you encounter each memory and then get the fade to black with his objective description, it’s like the souls who have experienced each memory I talking through him. Both Terran and Gaian.

brOTP: Garland has no bros. He has no friends. Though I would have liked to see Mikoto and Garland interact. I wonder what her feelings were towards him as she was his third project, a last resort, who would easily be replaced if she went wrong in the same way Zidane replaced Kuja, and she replaced Zidane.

OTP: Garland x the eternal sleep

nOTP: Do people even ship Garland with anyone

random headcanon: I always thought that after Garland attempted to steal Zidane's soul he carried him in his arms to inside of Pandemonium and placed him in that chair. It felt disturbing and poetic to me. This idea that when Zidane is at his most vulnerable - his soul literally being pulled from his flesh - Garland, his creator, carries him away like a father would a son. Yet Garland brings Zidane to the deepest part of Pandemonium to place him on a throne where he’ll sit alone, as everything that makes Zidane, Zidane, slowly slips away. A creator - a father in some sense - drops his son into solitude never expecting Zidane’s true family to come through, reigniting Zidane’s very soul. Perhaps at that point when they come to face him, Garland already had an inclination he’d lose.

unpopular opinion: Not sure I have an unpopular one? Something I realized though is Kuja’s purple/silver/white hair may very well be his natural color as it matches Garland’s hair. I’d like to think that Kuja, as Garland’s first unique, soul-filled genome, was created in Garland’s image. Garlands also a great villain who is built up well by the entire game and he does not come out of nowhere. That may be a hot take for the non-ffix appreciators

song i associate with them: Copied City by Keigo Hoashi and of course, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (though this piece also has a distinctly dramatic Kuja vibe as well). If Garland got his own unique boss theme I’d imagine it being something dramatically played on the organ. Though nothing fits Garland like and Mourning by Keiichi Okabe. This piece is just incredible in general but it's insanely powerful and well, mournful. (And you KNOW WHAT I just found the ARRANGED piece of mourning and hOLY ORGAN: Mourning Arranged by Sachiko Miyano. I am now adding it as required reading music for this post.)

favorite picture of them: This piece by @spoonybart is haunting. The colors and lighting form the center glow of Garland’s chest really give him the other worldly and imposing presence he has in game.

Also this art by @oeilvert Literally so incredible. It is ingrained in my experience of playing FFIX for the first time. When I got to Terra and experienced Pandemonium for the first time I went searching for art that captured my feelings and found this piece. It is perfect.

And then there’s this piece by もりもり on pixiv. I found it and can’t stop thinking about it. Absolutely incredible. It makes me wheeze whenever I see it. Garterbelt Garland. Amazing 100/10 everyone else go home.

#asks #werareallkujaandkadajstans #ffix #final fantasy ix #garland #garland ffix #final fantasy 9 #kuja #zidane tribal #feel free to send me whatever characters ya'll i will continue my essay writing #you're also now legally obligated to go give love to all that art and the artists #if you don't your soul won't cycle

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garrothromeave · 4 years ago

Text

the hell is mystreet season 6??

(warning, long post ahead)

ok so before i start this

1) ive never posted shiiiit on tumblr before so watch me suffer, im just here to talk about stuff that my friends who dont know anything about aphmau have to listen to me rant about for hours on end

2) i havent seen mystreet in like years (except season 3, i watch that frequently since im laurance and shadow knight deprived) so please bear with me because i might be completely wrong on this lol. it’s just like, pointing out things i remember

3) im sure someones already talked about this but who cares

4) im gonna do this stupid thing where i just explain myself a bit at first, if you dont want to read that just skip to the part where you see “the actual thingy:” in bold and italics

5) mild disclaimer; i am completely aware that jessica is not a professional writer. i know that she did her best to appeal to her fans, and honestly, respect for that. while this post will come off as aggressive and probably look like hate, that’s not my intention in the slightest. it’s just... intense criticism. im sure y’all probably already know that, but yeah, just stating that anyways. i do believe that jess is doing her best, and in no way do i want to dismiss any hard work she’s done. that being said; prepare for a very strongly opinionated post.

haha watch there be 10000+ typos in this making me look like a complete dumbass

ok here we go

one of the main reasons i stopped watching aphmau back in 2017 was the mess that was season 4. like, in the first few episodes of the emerald secret, i thought “woah!! this is kinda cool, im a sucker for mystery!” because of course i was, it was something new and something exciting. the only problem i had with it at the time was kim, but that’s just because i always found her annoying and out of place. i just didn’t understand why garroth dragged her along and honestly i still don’t to this day BUT, moving on.

anyways, as the season progressed, 13 year old me was of course just “:0!!” the entire time--that is, up until the reveal of the main villain. i remember watching the episode, seeing the reveal of ein, and then stopping. like, just for a quick break, but i was still just overwhelmingly disappointed. like, and this was the time when pdh was airing and ein just got made alpha (i think?) and i had really really liked eins character in pdh. either way, that really sucked and actually opened my eyes to a lot of things.

one of the main things bein’ the fact that this was supposed to be a slice of life kinda series that decided to take a turn to a more edgy kinda approach. which, i guess i regularly wouldnt mind? but seeing as mcd was kinda bein neglected at the time it just didnt sit right with me. BUT WHATEVER, point is i stopped watching mystreet all together at the end of season 4.

like, a whole year later my brother tells me that shit’s getting intense in season 5 + 6 of mystreet, and my brilliant self decided to give it a shot--but i refused to watch all of season 5, so i only stepped in when ein made an appearance. so whenever that was, that’s where i picked up because i didnt care enough to see

and y’know--i honestly didn’t hate it at first. in fact, i found it oddly cool. it wasn’t enough to get me into aphmau again, but it was enough to where i was intrigued. i dont know why, but i never watched the finale, so i didnt see the ending until just a few weeks ago--but back then, i thought it was neat. looking back on it however... im just so confused.

side note: only got back into aphmau this time around because of mcd. mainly because like, i adore the first season and the first half of the second season. and being nearly 18 now, im a lot more appreciative of plot and well-written characters n junk.

the actual thingy:

ok back on track. imma stop spilling out my story of how i got back into aphmau, and lets just skip to what rewatching mcd made me realize of season 6′s plot and shit:

-emmalyn. how the fuck does ghost even remotely exist? if she’s emmalyn as claimed, then why have we already seen emmalyn in the mystreet universe alive? look i get that creators can do whatever they want with their stories but at the same time please provide some sort of explanation good god. and maybe they did and i just havent seen it, so if there is one--let me know. but until that day imma just sit here confused as fuck

-ok so imma just be real, the whole ‘ultima’ thing is just... not great. in my opinion, anyways. like... i saw someone mention this in another post, but if this ultima stuff was like, a really big deal, why isnt it mentioned in mcd? though i suppose since its a curse of sorts, it could be later on past the time period in which mcd takes place--but even then, how did it manage to make its way into aaron’s family bloodline?

-WHY IS EVERYONE AT STARLIGHT ITS JUST SO CONVINIENT like what happened to this place being the most expensive shit on the planet or whatever, and how the gang happens to run into like, the werewolf trio and blaze and kai and guy and nate all of these people like god damn life doesnt WORK LIKE THAT

-im sorry but turning people into relics? thats... thats the best you could come up with? plus, like, how does that even work? in mcd it’s established that relics are separate entitles that choose their wielder, based on a ‘personal’ connection (being a descendent of a previous wielder) or if they’re a good match personality and (i think?) moral wise. so the whole turning-people-into-relics doesnt make much sense to be honest.

-irene really over here using her god powers to only keep her friends alive like god damn not a great god if you ask me

-can i talk about how incredibly predictable aphmaus death was? like i just kinda sat there waiting for it to happen and when it did i literally went “haha! wonder when she’ll be revived” because god forbid we actually kill off characters

-when aphmau + demon warlock fought in the irene dimension there was no passage of time whatsoever in the real world whiiiiiiiiich really bothers me because they fought in there for at least a few minutes

-speaking of aphmau and the demon warlocks fight does it bother anyone else that it had to be aaron who took over the fight?? like we get it hes the big protector blah blah blah but god damn it wouldve been cooler if aphmau had fought this battle as her. aaron fighting this battle was so underwhelming

-...love. like, thats the only thing thats needed to break out of a forever potion? love? LIKE YEAH, GOOD GUYS GOTTA WIN SOMEHOW, but its just so cliche and overdoneeee

-oh yeah and also when travis went bonkers and became the demon warlock or whatever, why’d he only take over katelyn and garroth?? like, zane had been influenced by the potions in the past as well? DONT GET ME WRONG--i do love some good brother edge, but uh, the demon warlock was just bein kinda a dumbass by not possessing zane too just sayin’

-can aaron please go to fucking jail for mass murder now like holy shit, he just got sent home on a fuckin boat. also why did blaze forgive him for killing him thats not even remotely realistic. then again, nothing in mystreet has ever been realistic when it comes to characters and motives and personalities, (cough katelyn being actually abusive and travis being an actual pervert) but yknow whatever

-katelyn and kawaii chan literally added nothing to the plot whatsoever. like lets be real, katelyn lost her personality the moment season 5 started and kawaii chan just kinda sits there :I

-ok im sorry this was bound to come up but cmon guys imagine laurances potential if he was in season 6 like god damn this is beyond maddening. AND YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A REALLY REALLY COOL PARRALLEL?? IF IT WAS LAURANCE WHO SNAPPED GARROTH OUT OF HIS MIND CONTROL THING, because it would mimic laurance’s speech to get garroth to snap out of his rage in season 1, episode 100 of minecraft diaries. like how fuckin rad would that have been? missed opportunity

-also?? why does kim/ghost know magicks?? like, if i remember correctly, emmalyn is a scholar--not someone who knew magicks. i mean, i guess research? study?? but its been established that knowing how magicks works =/= being able to use magicks. i dunno, just doesnt seem right i guess. maybe its explained, i wouldnt know (yes i know that makes me look like a dick leave me alone)

-melissa should have stayed dead. LIKE, NO, ITS NOT AS SIMPLE AS “haha it takes more than a few bullets to kill me”??? look ive got nothing wrong with melissa (cough lie cough) but yknow it would have just been cool a character... stay dead? for once? its just too fuckin cliche that shes alive god damn

-can i also just say the only good thing that came out of season 6 was travis’ dads sacrifice like damn that made me actually sad

-howww was lucinda turned into a relic. or yknow, anyone else? like im sure they explain it better in the actual show i just dont remember, but its just that easy? turning anyone into a relic? granted, a normal person wouldnt be able to produce a good relic, but idk man. IM JUST SAYING; that the only really powerful relics that aphmau should have been able to wield is the one that aaron + zane produced because shad relic and esmund relic moment. lucinda isnt even like, connected to a divine warrior. ALSO, another point, if its seriously that powerful of a relic getting one from just a magic user like lucinda, why go through the trouble? i mean i guess ofc youd want the “all powerful” one that the ultima produces but i mean damn whats the point

-ok this is just going to bother me but in one of the episodes (i think might have been in season 5 actually) where that like, guardian dude was chasing aphmau and zane and at one point they split up and the dude just chuckles at zane diverting paths and goes under his breath “youre not the important one here”, suggesting that aphmau somehow is? first of all, id argue that any ro’meave is significantly more important than aphmau was, especially not knowing much about her other than that shes with aaron. i might be missing some bits an pieces, but if i was that dude id forget about aphmau and go after zane

-killing off derek for shock factor sucked, and i know the moment was supposed to be really sad because like “oh :( aarons dad is sacrificing himself for his son” but lets be real dereks still was a shitty father and i dont think his reasons for doing what he did was very good at all

-less about plot or more like: why the absolute fuck did the gang bring kim along instead of, oh i dont know, a life-long friend? like, laurance or dante maybe?? im sure its explained, i never saw aphmaus year or most of season 5, but god DAMN id hate to be apart of this friend group AND GOD LIKE, imagine reconnecting with an old friend who ends up getting closer to your best friends and taking priority in their lives over you (cough laurance) like god damn lol

-im just going to preface this one with: i dont remember everything that’s happened, so if im wrong i apologize in advance--but (you actually can correct me if im wrong and please do) didnt like, irene reincarnate her friends in order to give them better lives? I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE, ITS JUST WHAT I REMEMBER--however, if im correct, then:

a. why the hell would she bring back someone like zane, or gene, or ivy, etc.

b. why the hell do they all have the same exact names? first and last? again, im aware that the whole mystreet+mcd tie wasn’t originally supposed to be there, but i dont think that means such a coincidence can be excused? its just a bit much if you ask me.

c. why the hell is the fact that (as much as i literally hate this) aaron is a decedent of shad being ignored? like, you’d think that something like this would be something thats actually important, or something the demon warlock couldve taken advantage of. or are we completely erasing every other connections to divine warriors besides aphmau + irene? because even if irene did reincarnate them or do whatever it is she did, does she even have the power to sever the connections between them and their ancestors? my guess is, no.

d. speaking of irene why on earth was aphmau able to talk to/see irene, they’re literally the same person are they not? did she like, fuckin reincarnate herself without actually doing it?? BUT--i will give it to them, the demon warlock did refer to aphmau as something along the lines of being “one of the 3 parts of her broken soul” or something like that. however, my point still remains. also what are the other two did i miss that or is it never explained

now; if irene in fact did not ‘reincarnate’ her friends then please ignore that little bit right there :)

but yes, those are a few of the problems i have with season 6 off the top of my head. i would go into like, season 4 and 5 more as well, but i honestly didnt feel like it. at some point i might go into other things, like how important laurance could have been to the plot of these later seasons, or HELL, even dante. i might also go into what could have made season 4, 5, and 6 actually good--maybe... a rewrite? perhaps? but im getting too far ahead of myself, so i just leave you with this for now.

and i know that as soon as i post this 15 more things are just going to pop into my head BUT im going to try and not edit this post because why stress myself with that even more

anyways thank you for coming to my tedtalk

#in conclusion i hate it here #lets go back to mystreet bein slice of life pls #anyways tune in next week for 'the hell is pdh??'#aphmau #mcd #mystreet #minecraft diaries #please ignore these next tags im just promoting relentlessly #garroth ro'meave #zane ro'meave #aaron lycan #kawaii chan #kim mystreet #laurance zvhal #pls i have no idea how to tag posts #rant

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florrickandassociates · 4 years ago

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TGF Thoughts: 5x02-- Once there was a court...

Season five is off to a great start. I’m feeling more energized about TGF than I have in ages, maybe since the beginning of season three. After the mostly standalone premiere, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the rest of the season. Episode two introduced a lot of new elements that I’m intrigued by and excited about, so here’s hoping the rest of the season can sustain that energy. (Many) more thoughts under the cut.

And, again, since the most consistent thing about Tumblr is its inability to roll out new features that are actually helpful, here is a link to view the post so you don’t have to read it all on your dash. (Omg, Tumblr, not only do you force people to keep reading on their dashes but you also jump down to the middle of the post when the full version opens? Do you have ANYONE beta test these features?)

Reddick/Lockhart is bustling when the episode opens. The fact they’re calling it Reddick/Lockhart seems like an indication that Liz chose to partner with Diane—it's not. The firm just needs a name, and it can’t have Boseman in it. (The signage still says RBL... for now.)

Everyone in reception is talking animatedly, except for Carmen Moyo, who’s just taking it all in. You might be tempted to read her as nervous. You would be very, very wrong. But we don’t know that now. Right now, it wouldn’t be wrong to assume she’s Maia 2.0. This scene strongly parallels Maia’s first day at the firm (opening with the reception saying “Good morning” and the firm name, then showing new associates waiting for an orientation by David Lee). And in that scene, Maia is absolutely nervous, like you’d expect a new hire might be.

Carmen focuses on another associate’s hand. I assume this is meant to be a parallel to how Maia fidgets with her rosary ring in that initial scene. Carmen then peels a price tag off her portfolio—possibly another Maia parallel, since the portfolio Diane gives Maia is such an important symbol in Maia’s arc.

I also see shades of Alicia and her first scene here—Alicia's silent and focuses on small details (the thread on Peter’s jacket) too.

I don’t say any of this in hopes of comparing Carmen directly to either of those characters. Carmen is not like any other character this show has had before. But these parallels are quite good at establishing character, building intrigue, and showing contrast (even if you don’t see them as parallels, we’re still getting a lot about Carmen just from watching her reactions, even if we don’t yet have the context to understand how to read Carmen). Since I’m now thinking about Maia and Alicia, I’m also now thinking about how Carmen is different from them and triangulating her spot in this universe—that's a good thing. She’s not a copy of either character, but I understand a little more about what the writers are telling me about her from the parallels.

The RBL sign in the background is being taken off the wall. It falls and adds even more chaos to reception.

David Lee walks in and screams, “Stand up! Those seats are for clients.” This is the exact same language he uses in the 1x01 scene; this is definitely an intentional parallel.

Btw Carmen already has more personality than Maia and she’s been in one episode so far! I didn’t hate 1x01 Maia, but I will say that nearly everything that intrigued me about early Maia was that I could project more about Alicia (whom I, obviously, care a lot about) onto her. I can and will compare Carmen to Alicia, but when I do, it won’t be because Carmen is an interesting lens through which to analyze Alicia... it will be because Alicia is interesting precedent to use to understand Carmen.

I still hate Maia, yep.

David Lee accidentally instructs a client to stand and then has to save face, heh.

In David’s tour of the office, we see the partners squabbling. Sounds about right. And STR Laurie is still a thing, which explains why David is there (though not why he is giving a tour).

Throughout the tour, we get a lot of shots of Carmen. Again, she’s silent and looks like she could be nervous. (Spoiler: this is a fakeout and when you rewatch this scene, you can see what new cast member Charmaine Bingwa is doing here—expertly putting on a face that looks like anxiety in one context, but is actually just Carmen calmly sizing things up.)

Marissa eagerly joins the tour. “That’s right. They’re letting you play lawyer, Marissa. How nice,” David says. Carmen takes this in, too. “Fucking prick,” Marissa mutters. Carmen hears.

David Lee introduces “someone from HR” which is a great sign that HR is very effective at this firm.

In the conference room, the partners are still arguing about who should replace Adrian. Diane tries the “all options are open to us and we plan to decide in the next 48 hours” strategy, but this audience is too smart for that. Madeline asks about the new leadership structure. (I am kind of hoping that one nice side effect of having to kind of shoot the season in a COVID bubble will be that we’ll get more small recurring characters. Madeline’s been around for a little while but we’re already seeing her get to do more this year.)

“Diane and I are going to run the firm together. For now,” Liz says. Oh, no, Liz, do not open the door to change. Letting the partners know you’re not sure is probably the worst strategy. You’ve gotta decide or they’ll sense weakness.

“Just the two of you? A black firm being run by a white woman?” a partner asks. “Well, I’m not running it alone. I’m here to assist Liz,” Diane says, trying to deflect. “Really? Because she needs assistance?” he counters. Diane doesn’t know what to say, but she and Liz both know these questions aren’t going to go away.

HR is running an orientation for the new hires and it involves having them all take pieces of toilet paper. Man, I hate ice breakers. Carmen takes a moderate amount and then passes it to Marissa, who takes only one square. Carmen notes this and makes eye contact with Marissa. And this is where it starts to become obvious that Carmen is not nervous—just observant and not chatty. Carmen knows Marissa is one to watch from how David reacted to her presence. She gives Marissa a look that’s meant to be noticed and start a conversation. It works, and Marissa explains that for each square you take, you have to share a fact about yourself. Carmen hates this and hides the rest of the toilet paper so she only has one square.

Liz tries to say there will be a discussion about the partnership, and Daniel (that’s what the captions call him, though they do reference him as “Barry” at one point but I'm like 99% sure I know which actor is Barry and it’s not him) says it feels like they’re just being told what the new state of things is. Liz says she hears him but right now they need a senior associate to backfill Lucca.

Daniel doesn’t think they need one. I don’t get why, unless it has to do with the budget cuts.

“We need someone with real experience to take on her caseload,” Liz notes. Hell yeah you do!

Liz asks if any of the partners want to take over family law. None do.

After the meeting, Liz asks Diane if she can call a head hunter. Diane approves. David Lee pops up to ask which one of them is taking Boseman’s office and they haven’t discussed it yet. I love that they managed to order a sign with their names on it before they’ve talked about how being partners will actually work.

(Also, Adrian’s office is quite obviously going to end up with Liz. And it would be weird if it were Diane, anyway, because it’s Diane’s old office from Lockhart/Gardner and it would look it if she sat there again lol)

David notes that an empty corner office looks like failure. He is correct. He gives them until Friday to decide.

Marissa does not like the ice breaker at all and pointedly notes she only has one secret, and it is that she used to be married to a mime. She makes a whole bit out of it and then whispers to Carmen, “I usually just make things up.”

Carmen’s next and she finally gets to speak her first words of the series. You know who else didn’t speak at all in her first scene? Alicia Florrick. Very different scenes, but I can’t help but think this is intentional. From what I’ve seen of Carmen, both she and Alicia use silence strategically and are comfortable with quiet. Alicia’s first scene is silent because she doesn’t need to use words to be expressive, but it does establish that she’s going to be a character with a lot of internal thoughts she won’t vocalize and that she’s observant and tries to maintain composure. Sure, you can watch the first scene of Pilot and just see a woman who’s stunned into silence, but when you watch it knowing Alicia and realize how much of the essential parts of her character are in her totally silent intro sequence that kicks off the show... it’s kind of amazing.

So comparing Carmen’s introduction to that? I mean this as a huge compliment. Carmen deploys silence for reasons both similar and different to Alicia. While Alicia uses silence to maintain some kind of boundary between her inner thoughts and the outside world, Carmen uses it to get a chance to observe and take things in without showing her cards. (We do see Alicia do that as well, especially at work, but I would call this a side-effect of Alicia being a quiet person rather than her intention; Carmen seems to be more conscious of how she uses her silence.)

Carmen is from Victorville, California. That means nothing to me but I’m sure there’s some significance. Carmen mimics Marissa’s response when asked for her secrets—she also responds with, “secret,” emphasizing she only has one. But what she says next also shows her in contrast to Marissa. She says her secret is she hates games. We already know so much about her and she’s said like ten words!

I think it’s smart to set Carmen up as a contrast to other characters. I know who Carmen is not because of how she differs from more familiar presences like Alicia, Maia, and Marissa. Marissa hates ice breakers, but her reaction to them is to use them as an opportunity to say something funny and over the top. Many others (including probably both Alicia and Maia) would likely resent the activity but play along and say something unremarkable (I could see Alicia overthinking it and sharing something surprisingly quirky though!). Carmen just does not give a fuck, and in a different way than Marissa doesn’t give a fuck. Marissa insinuates that she thinks the whole activity is stupid... Carmen just flat out says it. I would not pull this move on my first day of a new job! And that is the point—who is this person who is so self-assured she’s willing to insult HR on her very first day of her very first job as a lawyer?

ALL OF THIS FROM A FEW WORDS AND SOME WELL-ACTED GLANCES! As I said, I’m very intrigued by Carmen. I have some questions about the logistics of this plot, her endgame, and how she’ll function when brought into the firm drama/debate plots, but for now, I only have good things to say.

Liz interrupts the ice breaker to announce that everyone will be assigned a mentor. She then pauses to greet Marissa, which Carmen, again, notices. Liz is really there to say that they’ll be working on client maintenance that day, and each new hire will get to help with one of their clients. When she reads off their top clients, all the hands shoot up—except Carmen’s.

Madeline’s last name is Gilford. Noted. John’s last name is Wilson.

No one raises their hand to assist with Oscar Rivi, who is in a maximum-security prison. Carmen confidently raises her hand.

Barry’s last name is Poe. Noted.

Marissa and Carmen exchange glances. Super curious to see how this evolves. There are too many Marissa/Carmen exchanges in this episode for the writers to not plan to have them interact more in the future.

I’m kind of loving that it seems like the show’s leads are now Diane, Liz, Marissa, and Carmen. Diane’s obviously great, Liz is someone who’s been deserving of leading material for ages, Carmen seems interesting, and I’m so impressed they have managed to make Marissa, usually good in small doses, into a character who can handle larger plots without wearing on my patience (like that awful Elsbeth centric episode of Wife).

Diane has a client who received a summons directly, which Diane finds strange. But, since she is already working with this client on the same case (teaching kids during COVID) in another court, Diane is optimistic about this second suit. She thinks it could set a good precedent.

Diane introduces Phoebe, an associate who will help out on the case. Diane says she’s not personally going because it’s a formality and Diane needs to work on the brief. I’m like 99% sure Diane isn’t personally going because Diane’s role here is to convince the client she’s getting senior-level attention while having junior people do the work, but nice story!

Diane asks Marissa to go along with Phoebe. Marissa thinks she’s going to get to argue in court... Diane says no, Marissa gets to hand hold a client.

Oscar Rivi is basically Lemond Bishop, which is the only explanation I have for why RL would represent him. And, you’ll recall, I didn’t understand why RL would represent Bishop either. But we’ll just have to go with it.

(I think representing multiple drug lords is probably a bigger PR issue for RL than having a white partner! How come no one ever talks about this! Actually, new complaint: wasn’t Liz, who now has more power than before, the one who was most against representing Bishop?)

(I guess it may make sense that she’d be more okay with this Rivi dude than Bishop. Whatever Rivi’s done, I don’t think he’s threatened Liz’s kid like Bishop did!)

(Also, I’m fine with them switching it up and suddenly having this new drug kingpin. Mike Colter is obviously unavailable since he’s a lead on Evil, and I was tired of Bishop anyway. If the writers stop using Bishop and Sweeney as shorthands for corruption I will be very happy; I don’t think there’s much more mileage left there. Speaking of, Dylan Baker popped up in 2x02 of Evil!)

“I don’t want you to be intimidated,” Barry tells Carmen as they arrive at Rivi’s prison. Carmen reads articles about Rivi on her phone, saying she’s taking notes. Barry tells Carmen to “sit, listen, leave.” But then he discovers his ID is expired (he didn’t get it renewed during the pandemic) and he can’t go visit Rivi as a result. Carmen says she’s fine alone—she'll sit, listen, leave. She’s calm and not at all cocky as she says it, and it really takes until she’s actually talking with Rivi to realize that she’s not (just?) a hypercompetent law school grad trying to impress. She doesn’t seem to care at all what people, no matter how powerful, think of her, as long as she’s able to find security of any sort. (Tbh, it is kind of amazing she doesn’t get fired in this episode.)

(I’m getting ahead of myself but in Alicia’s first ep, she also changes up strategies on the partners. Alicia does it almost without realizing she’s gone against their wishes—she's just sure of the right strategy—and Carmen does it much more intentionally.)

Marissa and Phoebe can’t locate Judge Wackner’s court. Marissa asks a security guard she’s friendly with (of course she is) for help. He says there’s no Judge Wackner there, and the security guard notices that it’s a summon for a “9 ¾ Circuit.” The guard laughs at the Harry Potter reference; Marissa is not amused. They leave the courthouse when Marissa spots a sign for “9 ¾". She follows the sighs down an alley. Phoebe wants nothing to do with this; Marissa and the client are intrigued. They end up in a store called Copy Coop and are directed to a warehouse.

In the warehouse, an argument is resolved through Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then it’s Marissa’s turn. She asks for a continuance just like she was supposed to, but she uses the wrong phrasing. Judge Wackner notices. That’s when Marissa notes she’s not a lawyer, and Wackner responds that he’s not a licensed judge. So it’s fine that Marissa isn’t a lawyer.

Marissa tries to protest again that she’s not a lawyer, and Wackner basically tells her to proceed anyway. The client wants to stay, weird as this fake court seems.

Carmen reads with Rivi. She stares at him, getting him to speak first. His translator asks if there’s another lawyer with her; she just introduces herself. The translator does a terrible job of translating Rivi’s complaints, sharing very little of what Rivi said with Carmen.

Unsurprisingly (to me at least, because scenes like this ALWAYS have the twist where a character doesn’t let on that they speak the language until the exact right moment), Carmen speaks Spanish.

She lets Rivi know she speaks Spanish AND insults the translator in one go. Pretty big move. That gets Rivi’s attention and he kicks out the translator. He asks who she is and she repeats her name again (characters reacting like this will never not remind me of “Who are you?” “Kalinda.”).

Carmen notes that she’s just out of law school, explaining that’s why she’s eager to help. She doesn’t reveal that by mistake—she's using it to her advantage.

Credits! As I predicted, things are blowing up again this week like normal. No more kittens and puppies. There’s a new couch that blows up in the credits. Wackner’s desk also makes it in. I can’t remember if the purses were in this position before; they might be new. All the exploding TVs show footage of January 6th (which I hear is going to be a major theme of the season, though it’s not heavily featured in this episode). And the zoomed in shot of the closet (that I’ve never really liked) is gone, as is the falling curtain!

I still hate the font of the logo for this show. I also don’t understand why the show seems to have three logos—the one that’s the TGW logo but with “fight”, the one in the credits, and whatever the one they’ve come up with for this season’s marketing materials is. I like that they’re trying with the marketing of this season but I don’t get why the show has three logos.

While I’m talking about the marketing, can we just talk about the “Goodbye Lucca” graphic the official social media account posted? It had a fucking crown drawn over her head like this is a 2013 Tumblr shitpost!!! Who are they targeting with this?! WHO ARE THEY MARKETING TO? DOES THIS WORK ON ANYONE??? It literally says, “Chi-Town” on it. I cringed so hard. Sometimes I feel like the marketing of this show is meant to cater to the people who would, like, watch the credits of last week’s episode and be like, “Yes! It IS all now puppies and kittens! Everything bad in the world has been resolved!”

But hey, at least it’s better than the absolute trash they used to post for TGW. Remember when there’d be episodes about Alicia making career moves and they’d be like, “#TeamPeter or #TeamWill????”

OR, OR OR OR, the fucking time they tried to crosspromote TGW and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show (yes) with a tweet that read, “All ‘Saint Alicia’ needs is a pair of wings&she practically turns into an Angel.” I... have no words.

Hey, Caleb is back! I was not expecting them to actually wrap up his arc with Liz. I think I’m actually pretty thankful it’s ending like this—he comes back for what I assume is one last episode and I don’t actually have to deal with the Liz/Caleb plot. Apparently the writers were setting that up so they could do some plots about power dynamics and interracial couples and who is seen as having power. Caleb and Liz were going to have an encounter with the police, who were going to listen to Caleb instead of Liz even though this encounter would’ve taken place in Liz’s house and Liz is the name partner and Caleb the employee. Interesting enough, but anything boss/employee just squicks me out and I don’t need it around and Liz deserves better.

But I did like Caleb as a character, so I’m glad he gets an exit, unlike past characters who have just disappeared. (Remember Robyn Burdine? Or that time Taye Diggs was a major character for two seconds?)

Liz was NOT expecting to see Caleb as a candidate for Lucca’s old role. Things are instantly awkward. I guess Caleb left STR Laurie?

Diane immediately senses that things are awkward with Liz and Caleb. Caleb is very professional throughout all this. Diane gets an important call and leaves the room, so Caleb and Liz can chat privately.

Caleb says he thought Liz was reaching out; Liz says she should’ve reached out but things ended abruptly. Love that Caleb checks that no one else is in the room with Liz before getting even more personal. He says they should just act like nothing ever happened between them and Liz asks if he can do that. “I’m the employee. Of course I can,” he says. This is why you don’t sleep with employees.

He says he really does want the job and he liked the firm. Liz says she’ll talk to Diane. Caleb says if it doesn’t work out he’ll be fine.

Phoebe tells Diane about 9 ¾ and Diane does not understand... at all. “If it has no power, and it doesn’t have jurisdiction, what does it have?” Diane wonders.

A little more on the case: RL is representing a woman who taught a small group of students during the pandemic, and some parents are suing her for preaching socialism at the children.

The woman suing did NOT like being called a Karen by her daughter or being compared to the family from Parasite. She wants a refund.

Marissa objects and makes up her own grounds, realizing that since it’s not a real court, she can object for any reasons she wants—as long as they follow common sense.

These scenes could so easily feel ridiculous, like a gag that goes on for too long. They do not. There’s just enough zany humor and theatrics to make the 9 ¾ court feel surreal. And, most helpfully, Wackner is a GREAT judge. He is engaged with the work and only concerned with the facts and arguments rather than politics. He’s tough but fair. He’s direct and he maintains control over his court. He’d be one of the best judges in a normal court. His sincerity is enough to make you wonder why courts DON’T operate like this. It’s easy to see why the characters are sold on this BS-free, rational, and effective system, even if it makes no sense that it would exist and it has no power. It’s simultaneously idealistic (if only things were resolved fairly) and threatening (how can something like this exist?! What does it mean that the real courts are so ineffective that there’s a need for something like this?! What happens if this goes beyond what are basically mediations for simple issues?).

This type of thought experiment is where TGF excels. I think they were going for something like this with Memo 618 (which hasn’t gone away!), but that arc always felt like it was on the verge of going off the rails. Mandy Patinkin’s performance and the writing for the 9 ¾ court already have me more invested in this than I was in Memo 618.

Marissa tries yet again to wait for help to arrive, but Wackner insists that they keep things moving. She tries to stall and ends up referencing George Clooney. Wackner cuts through that, too—he hates speeches “unless I'm giving them, and even then I’m just trying to stall.” Then he holds up a sign that reads, “CUT THE SHIT” and the audience laughs. He says this isn’t the kind of court where you can just run out the clock. Kind of ridiculous that real court IS that kind of court, no? (And that’s why this is an effective device so far.) (I say so far because I have watched content from these writers for long enough to know that things that work in small doses or initially can go wildly off the rails.)

Marissa changes strategies and does what she does best: she goes on instinct and adjusts her strategy as she goes. She eventually catches the woman accusing her client of teaching socialism in a lie about Parasite. It’s very Legally Blonde and very smart of Marissa. And I’m rather proud of myself for seeing what Marissa was doing (getting the woman to commit to a time frame and then baiting her to talk about a moment that proved the time frame fake) before she revealed what she was doing.

Sarah Steele is so good in this scene. I love her smile when she realizes the woman took the bait, and that she reacts with “AHA!” instead of something more proper. This is pretty much the perfect court for Marissa.

Diane and Jay arrive; are confused.

Carmen leaves Rivi after quite a bit of time has passed, making Barry nervous. Carmen tells him very little and repeats that she sat, listened, and left. She told the translator to go fuck himself (almost in those words) so she’s gotta know that Barry will hear what happened from someone. She does not care. She lies to Barry like it’s nothing.

Diane does not understand the 9 ¾ court, nor does she understand why a non-lawyer like Marissa is arguing. She does not understand why losing in this venue would matter or why a lawyer she knows (ha, I looked him up to see if he’d been on Wife or Fight before, and he has... as a totally different character!) is there.

“Okay, I’m losing my mind. Look, this is not legal. We have got to get out of here,” Diane says. Toni, the client, wants to stay.

I don’t actually know the answer to this—would there be repercussions to someone who is a member of the bar participating in something like this? Everyone knows it’s not real or binding, so nothing is being misrepresented, but this FEELS illegal?

Toni notes that a lot of people suing her are there watching, so walking out or losing would look bad. She also likes Judge Wackner because he is “better than the judges in real court.”

“Diane, what is real?” the client asks when Diane points out again that this court is fake. The client’s spent 8 months on this case in limbo, so this feels like reality to her. Fair point.

Diane chats with the other lawyer and asks what he’s doing here. He says he’s getting paid—with business down and court dockets backlogged (how much would that affect a large firm that settles most cases out of court? I’m actually curious about this), it’s a good source of money.

Diane realizes it’s basically arbitration. Then says she doesn’t understand anything anymore. The other lawyer replies, “Sure you do. That’s why this is throwing you. Welcome to 2021.” Yup.

Diane goes with it. A former teacher is on the stand. He’s got a grudge and wants money, so he’s helping out. He tries to say something that is the most obvious hearsay ever... and Wackner has no problem with it. Marissa likes that.

Wackner basically says he’s fine with hearsay because he can use his brain to figure out what’s real and what’s fake, just like we all do every day. Crosstalk is also allowed.

Wackner also doesn’t allow for bullshit breaks where lawyers tell clients what to say, because he “likes the truths found in sudden utterances.” All his rules make a lot of sense. They are all also counter to every single sneaky legal strategy these characters tend to use.

Toni made a comment that she “couldn’t fall in love with anyone who voted for Trump.” That gives a point to the plaintiff. Diane notes that this belief is shared with most of the country, and Wackner asks her if she shares it. “I’m not the question,” Diane replies, because she definitely doesn’t want to talk about her husband who worked in the Trump administration.

Wackner flat out tells Diane that Marissa should argue instead of her. “Marissa is not a lawyer,” Diane tries to say. “Well, I’m not a judge!” Wackner responds. And that’s it for the day.

Diane asks Jay for intel, and then we get one of the most effective Jay scenes in a while—he bonds with the Copy Coop security guard, who only has good things to say about Wackner. I like how the writers use COVID in this episode—they treat it like it’s recent past (fingers crossed) and reference it when it makes sense, like how the courts are backlogged, or this guard was laid off.

The security guard notes that he thinks Wackner is building something good in his spare time. He also notes that Wackner is a big Grateful Dead fan.

Carmen takes it upon herself to visit someone else in prison to help Rivi. She points out they’re under surveillance and convinces this other dude to take the fall for Rivi so he can go free. It’s very smart. I assume this is all her own strategy, as we see her look up this other dude before she’s even met with Rivi, though it’s possible Rivi came up with some of it.

There is something about Carmen’s demeanor when she deals with clients that is very Alicia-like in interesting ways. She’s very direct and unflappable in a way that people seem to take to (remember how all the creeps loved Alicia?), and she only shows emotion when she decides to. The similarities stop there. Carmen doesn’t seem remorseful or conflicted (Alicia always did). Sociopathic definitely isn’t the right word for her, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it didn’t cross my mind. Carmen knows that her clients are bad guys. That doesn’t trouble her. And she doesn’t try to take the easy way out—she does more than she needs to. I don’t know what she’s really trying to do here, but I suspect she does.

Carmen is 28, just fyi.

Liz gets a call from Charles Lester. Obviously, Lester now works for Rivi, because Rivi is New Bishop. (Usually I’m a bit against saying any character is the new version of an old one, like how Lucca was not the new Kalinda (even if she was brought in to bring new energy to the space Kalidna occupied) or how Carmen is not the new Lucca (same), but I’m pretty comfortable saying Rivi is New Bishop. He’s not the same personality, but he... is New Bishop.)

Lester notes that Rivi only wants to meet with Carmen from now on. Liz does not understand this and she’s not thrilled with it. She notes that Carmen is a first year who has been there for two days, but she doesn’t want to lose Rivi’s business so she goes along with it. Was that Carmen’s endgame? Job security? Does she not care about the RL job and see a good opportunity to... just represent Rivi without a firm behind her? I can’t tell.

(This is where I could see this arc faltering. I get why Liz keeps Carmen on—she doesn’t want to lose the client—but I don’t really understand why Liz wants Rivi as a client. Losing Carmen who’s been there for two days and Rivi who she probably doesn’t want to represent seems like a fine outcome to me. And, beyond that, if Carmen doesn’t care about the firm and also doesn’t need them, what’s in it for her to stay? I don’t think she really cares that the firm would have more resources to use in defending Rivi. Like, why isn’t the outcome here just that Carmen teams up with Lester and leaves RL behind?)

Diane listens to the Grateful Dead and writes down lyrics she can use in court. Kurt gets home from work. Diane asks him if he thinks she should give up her name partnership since it’s a black firm. Kurt asks if she’s the best lawyer there. She says no, but she’s one of the best, and besides, it’s a bad look and she wants to do what’s right for the firm. “You and I disagree on so much. You obviously ask my opinion because you know that I will argue something you know you won’t,” Kurt says. This is a very good, and very accurate, response.

Diane keeps going, though. Kurt plays along and starts talking about identity politics. Diane starts debating back, ignoring that Kurt is not really wanting to play devil’s advocate. Kurt doesn’t give Diane an easy out and tells her she’s right—she should step aside. That’s not what she wanted to hear. Kurt laughs and then goes to take a shower.

Liz is eyeing Adrian’s office when Carmen walks up. She’s invited Carmen to talk to her. She asks her how things are going. Carmen just wants to know if she did something wrong. Carmen says she likes the firm and it’s great to be out of the legal clinics.

Liz shares the news that Rivi only wants Carmen going forward. Carmen is pleased and says that’s surprising... though she looks more pleased than surprised.

Liz suggests maintaining a professional distance, to which Carmen replies “I’m very professional.” “Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Liz tries to backtrack. “Is the firm dissatisfied with my work?” Carmen asks bluntly. Liz says no. “It’s my intention to treat all my clients like humans. Even the ones who might be murderers, or definitely are murderers. And I think Mr. Rivi might be responding to that because it’s something that he hasn’t received at this firm previously,” Carmen notes. This is QUITE the tone to take with your boss.

One question I have—and this is mostly inspired by the recap at I think Vulture?-- is to what extent Carmen knows what she’s doing. It seems like a lot. I can’t tell how much Carmen knows vs how much Carmen THINKS she knows. She’s definitely smart, and I don’t think she is an idealist (when she says her intention is to treat her clients like humans, she means that’s her strategy), but she is young and new to the law and only out for herself, which makes her vulnerable.

Liz does not take well to Carmen’s talk and notes she’s talking about her personal safety. Carmen thanks her and says she’d understand if Liz doesn’t want her on the case.

There is something a little unnerving about Carmen. She keeps saying things that are boldly inappropriate but masked by how professional and correct her arguments sound (like the line about treating clients like humans). And she has a way of gaining power over a conversation. Liz squirms way too much in that conversation and loses some of her control as a result.

I just need to know more about her!!! The fact that I can’t understand her makes her immediately interesting.

Diane and Liz interview Julius for Lucca’s position. They all know it would be a demotion for him, but they’re seriously considering it. I feel like this would look awful for the firm and they are going to handwave it anyway after a few lines about how bad it would look.

Diane quotes the Grateful Dead in court and it works. The other lawyer tries to quote songs too... it does not work.

Carmen gets Rivi a bunch of candy bars from the court vending machine so he can have a snack he enjoys. The security guard doesn’t want to let Rivi eat them, but Carmen is right that this is permissible. The guard smashes the bars in defeat. Carmen opens one for Rivi.

It is a little distracting to see the main characters pretend that COVID is in the past when the extras have masks, but honestly, that’s kind of what life is like right now?

Carmen zones out a little in court—not sure if she just does that or if she is trying to look unfamiliar with the rules so people will go easy on her/have low expectations. I think it’s a combination of both, considering that we’ve seen her laser-focus on things elsewhere in the episode AND she tells the judge it is her first day in court.

Court stuff happens; Carmen’s strategy works.

The judge tries to give Carmen advice and a warning. Liz is also there, watching, which is good because I was shocked anyone would let Carmen do this unsupervised.

Carmen is also kind of like if you removed all of Maia’s worst traits (her selfishness, her spoiled brat attitude, her sense of entitlement) and skipped right to her willingness to partner with Blum.

Liz and Carmen talk again, this time about the reputation of the firm. Liz notes that Carmen is clearly capable and reminds her sternly that she needs to conduct herself in a manner that does not put the firm at risk and that’s the only reminder she’s going to get. Carmen twirls a pen and stares at it instead of listening to Liz. She says she’s just listening like she’s perfectly innocent. It’s the right thing to say and, again, it’s SUPER UNNERVING.

“Wow. You really don’t give a shit what people think about you, do you?” Liz says in frustration. “I’m here to do a good job for my clients,” Carmen notes. Is she??? Does she just not care who she’s representing and want to do a good job, and that’s her whole motivation?? I would find that interesting but I need more to believe it. She’s so perplexing.

(Again, I don’t really get why Liz hasn’t fired her, because if she and Carmen keep having these interactions, Liz IS going to end up ceding all of her power and looking weak. But maybe Liz is as intrigued as I am.)

Liz also tells Carmen she’s going to be her mentor. Carmen says thanks and that she respected Liz’s father. Liz does NOT take that well. Audra’s reaction—a mix of shock, irritation, and confusion—is perfect here. I think Carmen is trying to say that she respected Carl Reddick—but she has no such respect for Liz. (It could also be about the sexual harassment, but I don’t think that’s public knowledge.)

I noticed earlier that the courtroom was #305 and was wondering why they chose that number (it’s similar to Courtroom 302, the book that inspired the bond court arc, which is why 305 stuck in my mind). I see now that the Copy Coop’s address is 305. Heh.

Turns out that the woman suing Toni is someone who would break COVID protocol and be generally terrible. I’m shocked.

Wackner decides to skip closing arguments and rule. He sides with Toni.

See, this is where this kind of thing is dangerous. Wackner is great and fair. But you can’t really replicate a system like this (though I also think this system would fail if replicated on too large of a scale; the reason it works is that everyone involved is buying into it and if it were to be corrupted no one would buy into it unless forced to—and if people are forced to buy into an extrajudicial system then that’s its own problem). What if some other judge were to just decide to skip closing arguments or decide suddenly a trial was over? That could be unfair in so many different ways.

After the resolution of the case there’s clapping and even Diane is surprised at how reasonable the verdict was.

Wackner then insists that everyone shake hands because “the thing we all crave most is respect and acknowledgement.” They also have to say, “I respect and I love you.” And they do! And no one even seems that unhappy with it Marissa and Toni are super into it.

And, someone in the gallery wants to get Marissa’s number because she did such a good job. Yep, sounds about right.

Diane fills Liz in, and Liz can’t believe it. Liz wants to hire Wackner (jokingly). Then she says she wants Julius since they know and trust him. Diane’s good with that, but she also chooses this moment to playfully let on that she knows Liz slept with Caleb. We’ve seen Diane observe Liz’s reaction to Caleb/mentions of Caleb all episode, and I don’t think it’s coincidental that Diane brings this up now, and in a friendly way. Diane doesn’t need to bring it up. I don’t think Diane needs the answer. I think she just wants to throw Liz off without making it obvious that’s what she’s doing.

I really, really hate to say it, because my whole thing about this season is wanting to see Liz be a great manager, but I don’t... actually think... Liz is a great manager? She’s second-guessing herself far too much. She’s more thrown in this scene than Carmen, who has like two days of experience, is by anything she encounters. And worse, she doesn’t hide it when she’s thrown. I think Liz is very smart and capable, but this episode is a pretty good case for why she might not be able to manage alone.

I know I’ve said that I want to see Liz manage and think she’d be good at it. I still think she could be. But I’ve also tended to think that Liz is a good manager and Adrian talks down at her, and I’ve dismissed some of her less strategic ideas as the fault of the Adrian/Liz dynamic. But nothing in this episode seems out of character, so now I’m less sure. (And to be clear, Liz not being a great manager isn’t a problem with the show, it’s actually pretty interesting to me.)

(Here are some of the things Liz has done in this episode alone that she needs to stop doing to be more effective: 1) Everything about her reaction to Caleb (and the fact she slept with him-- and yes I would, and did, say this about Will too so this is not a double standard!) 2) Not having a clear plan when meeting with the partners, even though she—and not Diane—is the one who is seen as having power. 3) Not being able to hold her own nearly as well as she should be able to with Carmen. I’m curious to see how the other partners hold up, and in fairness to Liz, I may be able to make this criticism of any character who doesn’t just immediately fire Carmen.)

And, I say all of this now because Diane in this scene is SO smart and SO strategic. She mentions Caleb to disarm Liz, then casually notes that she thinks Liz should take the corner office since it’s a black firm.

Liz isn’t sure if she should thank Diane for that (it is a little patronizing) but she does anyway.

Diane has another “last thing” to say, and it’s that she wants to bring on another partner, a black one. She wants to be in the discussion and to retain a name partner position. Liz says yes, as long as she has any power over the decision. This is a very smart move for Diane. It’s a compromise that’s to her benefit, and she makes the request of Liz at exactly the right time. I think Diane likes Liz as a person and wants to work with her, but she’s definitely buttering her up. This is kind of like an audition to show Liz that she should stick with Diane—Diane will be friendly with her! Diane won’t judge (but definitely knows about!) her indiscretions. Diane is reasonable and not power-hungry! Diane is understanding!

(And again, to be clear, I don’t think Liz is falling for Diane’s trap or anything. If Diane is smart enough to plan all this out, Diane is absolutely someone you’d want to keep on as a name partner. It’s just that Diane showing how smart she is, is a pretty stark contrast to Liz getting disrespected by a first-year associate.)

(And, because I feel like I'm being quite harsh on Liz, I don’t think Liz has handled the Carmen situation badly... yet. I just see signs that Carmen is able to shift the balance of power in her favor without really trying, and that Liz is getting flustered. I think Liz mentioning the mentorship is a way of Liz asserting power, and I think/hope that now that Liz knows the situation, she will try to regain control. And, I could very easily see this same plot happening but with Diane—it's just that there are a few other plots where Liz seems flustered in this episode alone, so it feels like a pattern. I’ll be looking out for more of this.)

Marissa and Carmen, both with large folders of casework, get in an elevator together. “So. I guess it begins,” Marissa says as the episode ends. I very much want to see more of Marissa and Carmen interacting. Mostly, I just want to see what Carmen does when she’s in situations that aren’t about representing a client or defending her work. I know what type of lawyer and employee she is, but who is she as a person?

Wow, this might be the most I’ve written about characters on TGF—as opposed to plots—in quite a while. I think that’s what has me so excited about this season. Carmen is interesting as a character because she’s so unique (or, perhaps, because she feels so much like a part of this universe yet so little like any other character—that's why I keep trying to compare her to others and find out where to place her). The 9 ¾ court is interesting because Wackner is so grounded, because it challenges Diane’s sense of reality in a way that’s new and interesting (this whole series is about making reality seem like it’s shifting under your feet; this is a new take on a familiar theme), and because it is a great match for Marissa’s personality and will give her a lot of opportunities for growth. It seems like we’re heading for some interesting material with Diane and Kurt, and there’s been a little bit of a tense undercurrent in their interactions in these first two episodes—I truly can’t tell if it’s supposed to be part of their banter or if there are mounting frustrations; I think the former but could see it being the latter. And, as I’d hoped, Liz is getting a lot more material.

#tgf thoughts #the good fight

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monkberries · 4 years ago

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So here goes: Personally I find Paul to be hot with a beard. But it annoys me because there’s always some Paul stan who’s like “he was super depressed during that time you know” anytime someone says how hot he looks with a beard. Like first of all, I don’t think we should go around diagnosing people and assuming how he felt 24/7 just based on a couple of quotes when we don’t know him, and second of all I was just saying he looks good. Also idk why Paul stans want to pretend like Paul is STILL a victim when he’s definitely not. He’s a super successful billionaire musician. He’s fine.

I'm going to assume all four of these were from the same anon; I received another along these same lines that seems to be from someone else:

OKAY. There's a lot here.

As I've said before, I think the concept you are both talking about - that Paul is the favourite, that people will attack you if you criticize him, that people are vilifying John more now - is true, but is also a matter of perspective. I think sometimes we perceive the whole fandom as just the people we're surrounded by; that can be true in smaller fandoms, like for obscure shows or whatever, but for the Beatles, the fandom is so much bigger and more spread out across generations, social media platforms, and works of literature than almost any other fandom. There are literally thousands upon thousands of books either about or tangentially about the Beatles; there are pockets on every platform from tumblr to twitter to podcasts to instagram to facebook etc., and it branches off even more niche within those to like, facebook groups specifically for podcasts about the Beatles, or discord servers, or livejournal threads, or music forums, or fics on ao3. There are fansites with thoughtful speculative articles like heydullblog and blogs specifically reviewing Beatle books like beatlebioreview and sites cataloging every bit of minutiae like the Beatles Bible, all with their own flavor of comment sections. And not only that, the Beatles fandom spans generations and cultures in a way that almost nothing else ever has or ever will.

And this is not even going into the shifting narratives that have been in play over the years surrounding Paul specifically, and the huge, huge difference between the perceptions of him by the authors and the Counterculture People, the perceptions of him by regular ass Wings fans who have only idly flipped through Rolling Stone while waiting in line at the local bodega, and the perceptions of him by everyone in between, who may or may not have been unconsciously influenced by the wider narratives about him.

All that is to make the case that the fandom that you are experiencing on tumblr/twitter is an extremely small fraction of The Fandom at large. For every Paul stan on twitter that yells at people for not believing that Paul literally invented music, there is a John stan in a facebook group going on about John's supposedly tireless peace efforts. For every nuanced, well sourced post on amoralto's blog, there is someone in the Beatles Bible comment section saying that John and Paul hated each other. For every fan who's read the major Beatles bios with a critical eye towards bias, there are plenty more fans who just absorbed them as straight fact. This is not to say that your experiences are not real or valid! They absolutely are! What I am saying is that there are infinite permutations of infinite Beatles fandoms out there, and the people you see who insist that Paul is still treated worse than John, I would imagine, are occupying various permutations of the fandom where that is more true, alongside the one they share with you. It's not for me to say whether the Paul or John people have the upper hand on the whole - truly, I don't think anyone has enough perspective on the whole fandom to make any judgment on that, no matter what general Grand Pronouncements anyone may make about The Fandom.

As I've said before, any overly defensive "stan" behavior, whether it's for John or Paul or George or anyone, is exhausting to me, so I definitely understand where you're coming from re: him being supposedly underrated. He is literally one of the most successful musicians of all time; as of the beginning of this year, he is worth 1.2 billion dollars; and, thanks to his own efforts and the efforts of quite a few fans and writers out there over the decades, he now enjoys an incredibly positive "granddude" reputation. There are ways in which it can be exasperating to read yet another indignant refutation of music reviews for RAM that came out fifty years ago, when his last three albums have hit the top 3 in the charts in both the US and the UK and have gotten great reviews. I have seen people wonder, honestly wonder, how much more money Paul could have made, how much more respected he could have been, if the rock press had been inclined to give RAM good reviews. When I see that, it does start to feel like fans of Paul, at least the defensive ones in the fandom permutations I occupy, are arguing with the author photo of Philip Norman in the book jacket for Shout!. It's not that I think those arguments and discussions are not worth having; I do think they're worth having because I believe that the only way we can continue to grow is if we grapple with the mistakes made in the past. But there is a strange kind of disconnect that happens when you read about someone indignantly defending Wild Life as though the members of Wings are currently, actively having eggs and rotten fruit thrown at them, and then you remember that Paul is currently, and has been for many years now, one of the richest men in the entire world.

As for the misogyny thing, I'll copy and paste a quote from Erin Weber which may explain a little better than I can:

"Where it starts entering into serious discussion for me is when you have professional grown men (Schaffner would be the most glaring example of this, but not the only one) repeatedly using the term “pretty” or “pretty-faced” to refer to another grown man. (Norman does the same). Schaffner doesn’t only do that once or twice, he uses one of those exact words at least fifteen times in his references to McCartney. “Pretty-boy” is also a term that at least one journalist has used to describe Paul, and that’s not a stealth insult: that’s an overt one. (My husband, who hates the Yankees, routinely used the term “pretty-boy” to insult Alex Rodriguez. And it wasn’t meant as a compliment).

My reaction to this is based both on studies that I’m aware of (I’d have to hunt them up, but I’ve seen them referenced before) which argue that the use of feminized language can be a method of stealth insult/diminishment when used by men to describe other men, and my own personal experience. It is difficult to see a situation where a grown man using the term “pretty” or any variation of the word “pretty” to describe another grown man means it as a compliment. Even if its purely meant as a descriptive term, it is a descriptive term that is weighted with significant meaning and is feminizing. And given the rock press’s obsession with masculinity and its insistence, as noted in other studies, of using masculine terms to portray a song as good and feminizing terms to describe them as weak or inferior, I don’t think its a coincidence that a rock press that knew well the power of masculine and feminine language commonly used feminized language, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, to describe McCartney."

I personally see this more as pseudo-homophobic than pseudo-misogynistic (like, when I see a man called "pretty" by another man in an insulting way, I immediately think "oh, that author wanted to say a gay slur but he's too Professional"), but the two things can get muddled together, I suppose.

Anyway, actionable items:

Diversify Your Fan Experience. More perspectives can really help gain a fuller understanding of not just the fandom but the Beatles themselves. Don't be afraid to be wrong, and don't be afraid to be right; always be open to learning new things and hearing new insights.

If All Else Fails, Block 'Em.

#macca #anonymous #i guess this is #hot take tuesday #?#even though its thursday night #about the blogger #for reference

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masterthespianduchovny · 4 years ago

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I never wished for Gillian’s relationship to fail, but I was largely indifferent to it and it has nothing to do with Gillovny. Funny enough, I do actively dislike David’s relationship for obvious reasons.

I wasn’t super involved in the tumblr fandom during 2015-2016, but I do remember all of the fuckery that went down with David and gillian. Their behavior was what ignited dormant and new shippers. It added flames for those who never let that flame die.

So, you had all of G and D’s antics and shit, which many were going crazy over. Some notable people as well who have since distanced themselves from that era. Like most people were for this shit because whatever was going on between them was too hard to dismiss as being friendly or professional behavior. Or even harmless flirting.

Now, there are those who always insisted that G and D were acting and putting this show on for the fans. I guess to drive ratings, but this argument has always been nonsensical to me. For starters, people who are interested in Gillovny are going to watch regardless. Almost everyone else don’t give a shit and was going to watch the revival for Mulder and Scully. The things fans went crazy over wasn’t enough to even get anyone interested in the show who wasn’t already interested.

Like, the kimmel interview is mostly only interesting to someone who follows Gillovny or knows of their history. Other people would find their behavior interesting, but would they really make them watch the show??? And it’s barely even a headline.

So, what they were doing back then was enough to get philes excited, but not enough to drive ratings. Which cancels out the idea that they behaved the way they did to garner attention.

But, the naysayers kept insisting that this was all a PR ploy.

After (???) season 10 premiered, Gillian was spotted with Peter I suppose. And she kept being spotted with him. Don’t know the true timeline. But, when this happened, suddenly, these same naysayers were Gorgan. They were all in on Peter and Gillian and throwing shots at Gillovny fans and how we were “played.”

(It must be noted that just because Gillian ended up dating Peter doesn’t mean she didn’t have a thing with David. Lol)

Over time, they were gassing up this relationship and talking about Peter’s greatness and how he and Gillian balanced each other.

For me, my bullshit meter was going on.

Yes, some fans just wanted Gillian to be happy and shit, which I’m all for, but the loud gorgan supporters used this relationship to “get back” at the Gillovny crowd. I honestly don’t know how hostile it became between the two groups, but from what I did see, this support was superficial, which was proven years later.

Because, imo, how can you be for a relationship that just started and you barely know anything about it? How can you know all of this about two people you have no insight on? Gillian keeps her relationships largely private and we know even less about Peter’s relationships (read: marriage), yet there are posts about how these two are a good fit? Lol

What solidified my indifference was Gillian’s behavior. Pre like 2013, Gillian wasn’t really featured in the media all that much because she wasn’t doing any noteworthy projects. Then, she did the fall and was featured more. She was very vocal about being a feminist and shit. “Future is female”, talking about her same sex relationships, didn’t want to be in relationships unless she was in control. Isn’t this the woman who famously ended a relationship by going home and leaving her then boyfriend on the beach to find his way home? Lol.

Gillian’s image was very independent, assertive, I’m the boss, blah blah blah.

Then, she gets with Peter and it’s “he’s responsible for my success.” Peter this, Peter that, blah blah blah blah.

Gillian’s image is now submissive, insecure, handing the reigns over to her man.

That was something that made me look at her differently and not care for her relationship. It felt like whiplash from her previous image.

That image she cultivated with Peter was so contradictory in what she presented herself as while they were together. So, although I still supported her professionally, I just wasn’t here for the relationship.

Ironically enough, Gillian and Peter are the ones who come off as having the PR relationship compared to whatever David and Gillian were doing. Maybe not on the red carpet, but Gillian has (always) been silly and sexual with David. There are x files outtakes that proves this. She jokes/“jokes” with David about wanting to suck his “cock” and David has said shit to her like “did you just cum?” In many of their interviews, Gillian is the the giggly and silly.

Even when Gillian was with Mark and David was still with Tea, that dynamic was there, but a muted. 2015/16 was more pronounced, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. So, the idea that this was PR doesn’t track.

But, Gillian gets with peter and, suddenly, she has a personality change and is singing the praises of her boyfriend who she later works with.

Do I believe this was a PR relationship? Tbh, I don’t give a shit either way. But, PR relationships exist and have always existed in Hollywood. They function many ways: to bring attention to one or both parties, to deflect from (potential) rumors, to build hype for a project, etc.

Peter and Gillian were gassing each other up and shit, selling one another and their relationship. Many famous married couples don’t even talk about their spouses like them (and, yes, I believe these married couples love one another).

The thing about David and Gillian is that, even tho some thought something may have been going on around 2015, some people have always thought they were fucking at one point in time. Others think they just have massive chemistry. But, why would they need to fake a thing between them that they won’t admit to to manufacture interest in the show that people were excited to see come back? It sounds contrived, doesn’t it?

Compare that to: a well loved and acclaimed actress who hasn’t had meaty work in a while getting together with the creator and writer of a show that’s an Emmy darling. They’re always singing each other’s praise, which is noteworthy for a person who doesn’t talk about her relationship much. Who she then later works with on said show.

Which one sounds more like PR?

The actors who’ve had mad chemistry since they’ve auditioned together? Who’s chemistry never wavered even when they couldn’t stand each other and now are in a better place?

Or...

The actress and writer who talk about how wonderful their partner is and that this relationship is so mature, and then later work on his show together before breaking up a month later?

I honestly don’t think it’s absurd to have skepticism towards gorgan. Many of those adamant that gorgan was real and others are delusional are invested in gorgan because their anti Gillovny. And some did truly want to see her happy, but most weren’t invested in that way.

Whether someone thinks gorgan was real or not, I found it embarrassing on Gillian’s part. It’s probably more embarrassing if it was PR and sad if it was real.

And I know ppl will disagree with that because they found the relationship mature and supportive, but again, crediting Peter with the success of her career??? You can’t even argue, “she means now” because Gillian was getting a career resurgence and rave reviews for Stella Gibson and bedelia de murier (???). She had her role in American gods (I know it was one episode).

And in each of these roles, it was “omg! Gillian Anderson!!!”

She was so loved in Hannibal, they fucking expanded her role. And this was all pre Peter (American gods may have had some overlap).

Gillian isnt “struggling” for roles because people don’t want to hire her, she’s “struggling” because she’s trying to find roles that balances being a working actor with being a hands on mom.

And that’s why I was always “meh” about the relationship. I don’t think Peter’s a bad guy and he’s good at his job, but the way Gillian’s persona changed during this relationship was off putting and I didn’t care to get invested in them for that reason. But, as I mentioned on other occasions, the vocal support of the relationship and notable silence when they ended will always be fascinating to me. I honestly believe that gorgan support was fueled by the anti Gillovny crowd and backlash to David’s relationship (its a 🤮 for me too) and behavior towards Gillian regarding the x files’ potential continuance.

#gillian anderson #Peter Morgan #PMs tag only shows up when you type it all of the way #lol #yet I’m supposed to believe y’all talk about him a lot???#or at all?#gorgan

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gallavictorious · 4 years ago

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Once again the fandom coming together to daydream about Mickey helping Ian out and seeing him back on track to become an emt again but why is that on Mickey? Why does he always have to do things to make Ian happy when Ian's usually nothing but annoyed by Mickey and does nothing to make Mickey happy? Truly shows which character y'all care about more.

This got absurdly long, because I am who I am and did take the opportunity to go off on a tangent about valid conclusions and what not, so I put it under a cut. Read at your own risk! Oh, and I also do address the actual question about whether or not Ian's career is on Mickey, and whether or not Ian never does anything to make Mickey happy. ;)

For the sake of clarity, I got this ask in response to this post.

And I gotta say, nonnie, getting this ask perplexed me to the point of running off to Trusted Fandom Friends, demanding to know how my undying love and loyalty for Mickey could ever be doubted. Had to laugh at myself a little, actually, and the strenght of my befuddlement. It reminded me of the time I went on a trip with people from the 501st (cosplayers dedicated to the bad guys in Star Wars) and Rebel Legion (cosplayers dedicated to the good guys in Star Wars) and a lot of people assumed I was a Rebel sympathizer simply because I had friends in that group and those were the people who had invited me. Excuse me, I didn't yell, I have like 30 Darth Vaders in my damned home, how dare you question my allegiance? I was so used to always being known as a diehard Vaderkin fangirl that the mer fact of strangers failing to recognize me as such genuinely fucked a little with my sense of identity. My love of Mickey isn't anywhere near as deeply ingrained into my sense of self, since he's only been an occasional presence in my life since 2016 while Darth Vader's been my main man since 1994, but it was still a little jarring to suddenly find myself (mis)identified as an Ian stan.

Being a fangirl is strange.

And I want to make it clear that I do love Ian. He's a fascinating character and, to me, he's a character that's often much harder to understand than Mickey. He rewards careful analysis and discussion, though, so I guess I tend to talk a lot about him? I don't need to spend as much time considering Mickey's feelings and motivations because they are (almost) always pretty obvious; I don't need to tease them out. But at the end of the day, Mickey is my favourite. (Though I'll always love Ian and Mickey together more than I love either of them on their own. It's like fresh cilantro and mint – each perfectly lovely in their own right, but the combination of them creates a flavour that's just out of this world.)

Now, you might argue that you don't follow me and so have no idea who I am and what I like to post about, and that going only by that single post (which, in fairness, was tagged with 'i just want ian to be happy okay?') I give off the general impression of an Ian stan. And that's fair enough; I'm an obscure blog in a decently big fandom and you're not required to keep track of anyone. However, if you want to throw around passive aggressive accusations of caring more about one character than the other, I will ask you to do your research first. Reacting to one single piece of data without considering the context is a common but highly unfortunate practice that needlessly complicates meaningful conversations, and we'd all do well to abstain from it.

Oh, you don't want to spend a lot of time and energy on consdering every single thing a specific Tumblr blog has ever said on a specific topic just so you can draw a valid conclusion about their stance? That's perfectly understandable, nonnie, and easily sorted: refrain from making unsubstantiated claims about what other people think or don't think and you won't have to. Ask them, if you wonder. If you see a tendency in fandom to put the responsibility for Ian's wellbeing and career or Mickey's shoulders and want to discuss that, that's totally cool! I am game (and will address that question below)! But it's very possible to do that without somewhat rudely ascribing perferences and opinions to other people, and you'll get better answers for it (for instance, you won't have to wade through me rambling on about valid conclusions and my memories from other fandoms... ).

It seems to me, though, that this touches upon a long-held frustration of yours. If I interpret your ask correctly, you think the show gives us an Ian who is mostly annoyed with Mickey and doesn't do anything to make him happy, and you think that the fandom responds to this by relegating Mickey to the role of Ian's caretaker, whose sole purpose is to serve Ian's needs without any regard for what might Mickey himself happy. Have I got that right?

If so, it should be noted that I don't agree with either of these takes: I don't think that's the Ian the show gives us (a point I will return to below), and I don't think that fandom at large only cares about Ian's happiness, and I particularly don't think that my post can be used a evidence of the latter.

For instance, when you sent me this ask the post in question had all of 40 notes. As I write this, it has just over 70. ”The fandom coming together” seems to be slightly overstating the case, don't you think? There are certainly fans who care more about Ian and only see Mickey as valuable as long as he contributes to Ian's happiness, just as there are fans who care more about Mickey and only see Ian as valuable as long as he contributes to Mickey's happiness - but this single post with less than a hundred notes does not support that either of these stances would be predominant within the fandom. (And, while on the topic, I'd like to state that I don't actually see a problem with either of those stances; these are fictional characters that exists for our entertainment and we don't have any moral obligations to treat them equally and fairly. Don't ruin other fans' fun by dumping on either of them in the character or shipping tags or on character and shipping posts and this is not a problem. It might be a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I don't think you have to love or even like all characters in a ship to ship it: I refuse to drink plain tea because it's nasty but put a splash of milk in it and its my favourite thing ever. You can love a combination without loving all the seperate pieces on their own. And yeah, I do revert to food metaphors a lot. I like food.)

Secondly, whether or not the post can be said to represent the feeling of the fandom at large (it cannot), I think that reading a post specifically about ”Mickey helping Ian out and seeing him back on track to become an emt again” and then extrapolating from that that Mickey ”always have to do things to make Ian happy” is a little wild. The very first thing I wrote for this fandom was a vision of Ian offering Mickey comfort, goddammit. (Ian giving Mickey a hug is so high on my list of desires, you can't even imagine)

As for your actual question (and, ah, imagine how much shorter this post would be if you had just left it at that) – of course that's not on Mickey. That much, incidentally, I've actually explicitly stated in another post. Ian might have his issues but he's still an adult and responsible for himself. That being said, I don't see it as particularly strange that someone would go out of their way to help their partner when they see them struggling? If I realize that someone I care about is unhappy and there's a way for me to help, I would want to help because I love them and want them to be happy, even if it's – ethically speaking – not my responsibility to do so. Pretty sure Mickey, who is action-oriented and so very protective of the people he loves, feels the same way.

Of course, if it's a one-sided thing – if one partner is always the one to do stuff for the other and never receives any support in return – that's not a healthy relationship, and I assume that this is what you're seeing in the show and taking exception to?

Only... I can't help but wonder who this Ian is, this uncaring, selfish version you see – because I don't quite get how it can be the Ian who emptied his bank account for Mickey, or the Ian who was ready to throw his parole and stay in prison for Mickey even when they were in the middle of a fight specifically because Mickey said it would make him happy, or the one who kept trying to talk to Mickey and win him back after Mickey punched him in the face, accidentally broke his leg, and took off with a new lover (I'm not taking sides in this one, btw – I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for both of them and their actions throughout this whole sorry affair), or the Ian who immediately wanted to marry Mickey protect him from the consequences of a murder Ian thought he had actually comitted, or the Ian who went along with arranging a real wedding even though he initially didn't at all understand why this was important to Mickey and who had someone come serenade him once he did, or the Ian who chose At last for Mickey to walk up to the aisle to, or the Ian who keeps trying to reach out to Mickey and to touch him and discuss their issues in a mature way even when he's (justifiably) upset about Mickey using all their wedding money without telling Ian. (Though Ian deciding for both of them that they're saving the money isn't great either.)

I mean, Ian's absolutely done shitty things, as has Mickey. They're human, and they're the products of a chaotic and often hostile enviroment. They do mess up a lot; they've hurt each other rather badly over the years. Depending on your perspective and preferences, you may think one or the other have behaved worse, but as far as I can see, the claim that Ian never does anything to make Mickey happy is simply not supported.

Ian has seemed unusually annoyed with Mickey this season, I'll give you that, but while that's not always the most fun thing to watch and I strongly sympathize with the wish to just see Ian look at Mickey with that fond look again, I don't find him being frustrated right now all that weird, given the circumstances. I'd argue it has less to do with Mickey and more to do with a general frustration over thwarted ambitions and not being able to hold on even to a really shitty job, though Mickey's attitude doesn’t exactly help (which is not to say that I think that Ian's the one in the right here, becasue Ian's way of handling things hasn't always been been stellar either). However, I do have faith in them sorting this out – because even though they fight and bicker and get annoyed with each other, there's never any indication that they're not both committed to making this marriage thing work. They certainly stumble, they misunderstand each other and lash out, but they calm down and go to sleep in the same bed and compromise and keep trying. Every day, they – both of them – choose each other.

I'd like to finish this off by noting, even though it's not entirely relevant to my argument, that that the number one thing that does make Mickey happy is being together with Ian, and even when Ian is pissed at Mickey and withholding sex (which was very ill-advised but says a lot of interesting things about his character, I think!) no one's sleeping on the couch, there are no nights away from the house and each other, and even in the middle of an argument they sit and stand next to each other. I think that's pretty telling of Ian's dedication, especially given his propensity for running away from his problems.

Phew. Okay, nonnie – though we don't agree and I doubt you'll find this answer satisfactory, I hope you see that I have done my best to understand your point of view and treat your arguments fairly and give you a thoughtful response. If you'd like to get back to me and elaborate on your stance, I'd ask that you show me the same courtesy. :)

#asks #i don't even know what to tag this i spent five hours writing it and my brain is mush #meta #i guess?

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argylemnwrites · 4 years ago

Text

Fight or Flight - Chapter 14: Help

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Heir (canon divergent from the end of book 2)

Word Count: ~4100

Rating: R (language, 30 diamond scene)

Summary: About three weeks since The Walker Absconding

Author’s Note: With my state surging so badly that the CDC had to come up with a new category for coronavirus monitoring, and my hospital group changing policy constantly, even the illusion of an update schedule is pretty much out the window at this point, so thank you to all of you who are still sticking with this series! I saw that in canon, our crew just now decided to go on the run, but my MC and Drake have been on the lam for a while at this point, hahaha, so thanks for going on this wild ride with them!

This series follows the Walkers, their friends, and Cordonia as a whole after they flee the country with their daughter during Barthelemy Beaumont’s attempted coup. To catch up on this series, check out it’s masterlist. (link can be found via my bio - sorry, Tumblr is once again not putting my posts with links in tag searches)

Olivia let out a sigh as the privacy divider in her town car finally finished closing, tipping her head back and tugging the pins out of her hair. “God, what a nightmare.”

Liam hummed in agreement. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at the palace tonight? It might be good optics, keeping you in the thick of things since the social season just started.”

He shook his head as he shifted slightly next to her. “After Hana’s conversation with Kiara and all its revelations, we need to be able to discuss things openly. With everything that has already happened, I don’t trust my assigned quarters at the palace to not be bugged.”

All Olivia could do was let out a little shrug. She knew he had a point, but she was worried about his overall approach here. All the strategizing and discussing in the world wouldn’t matter if he didn’t maintain an image of strength and dependability. Trotting back to the seclusion of Lythikos consistently would absolutely weaken the perception others had of him.

“So, I think we can safely assume that Amalas knows about this alliance between Barthelemy and Auvernal. It would explain why she was so eager to strike a deal with us,” Liam continued, reaching up and loosening his tie as he stretched his neck.

“But why would Aurvernal agree to work with Barthelemy? He wasn’t exactly supportive of them when they were trying to force Drake and Riley to solidify the betrothal. Hell, he used that mess to argue against their suitability to raise Bridget.”

Liam frowned, his eyes dropping to his lap for just a moment. “The latter part of your statement I can see him spinning over the coming months. He can argue that he has met with neighboring leaders and struck more beneficial alliance terms than I was ever able to foster, making him better suited for the role of monarch. With the delay in the start of the social season, he’ll have plenty of time to sell it as believable.”

“We had to push Rashad to delay. Hana told us that we need to make sure-”

“-Kiara represents House Theron, I know. It’s just unfortunate the delay may also be desirable for Barthelemy’s camp as well as ours. It would be nice to catch a break for once.”

“Liam…”

He ignored her attempt at sympathy. “Oh well, that’s just the reality isn’t it? We need to figure out how Auvernal played into Landon’s decision. Have you been able to buy off any of their staff?”

Olivia shook her head. “Not yet. I have a couple of leads on a maid and a driver who might be loyal to you, though.”

“That’s something, I suppose. I guess we should probably try and gain some intelligence about the motives of Bradshaw and Isabella as well, shouldn’t we?” He sounded tired, his hands working to remove his cufflinks.

“Yeah, we definitely need to hit this from multiple angles, find out their goal and what they might have done to sway not only Landon, but Hakim and Adelaide. Barthelemy is absolutely going to challenge Bertrand for control of House Beaumont, so we need to gain at least two of those votes. Counting on keeping the Beaumont vote in our camp is just too… dicey at this point, don’t you think?”

Liam nodded, but didn’t seem to want to say anything, so Olivia just kept going. “Now, I think since it’ll be Kiara voting, and she’s been very willing to divulge things to Hana, that is probably our best bet. And I know I’ve been focusing on getting some dirt on Landon and Emmeline, but maybe Adelaide would be the easier pick up? She’s never had much interest in actual politics, so maybe if we had Maxwell just socialize with her repeatedly at the upcoming events, that might be enough? For whatever reason she’s always loved him.”

She glanced over, surprised to find Liam with his eyes closed, his head tipped back. Had he fallen asleep that quickly?

“Liam?” she hissed out.

“I’m still listening; I promise you I’m not asleep.”

“Do you have anything to add?”

He shook his head against the back of the seat without opening his eyes. “No, you seem to have things under control.”

“But, I was-”

“-I trust you, Olivia.”

His words should have been affirming and confidence boosting, but instead all she felt was fear. He should be more invested than this. He needed to be more invested than this. And honestly, she was sure he knew that fact. He would go through the motions of strategizing with her on a regular basis. But he always faded quickly, becoming distracted or introspective. He was ruminating instead of focusing and channeling that hurt and pain into something productive.

But that wasn’t going to stop tonight. It was very late, and the drive back to Lythikos was a long one. So, Olivia just let him rest, pulling out her burner phone and scanning for any news bulletins about the Walkers being found in Athens, letting out a small sigh of relief when she found none. It looked like Leo and Riley had managed to pull it off. Combine that with Hana’s intel, and she knew the night had been more successful than not. She just needed Liam to start to see things that way. Otherwise, the upcoming months were going to be even bleaker than anticipated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Riley kept her head down as she shuffled past a man in the hallway. With two large duffels, it was a bit awkward, and she didn't want the man to remember anything about her other than the fact that it was a bit of a tight fit with all her luggage.

Once he was out of sight, she unlocked the door to their hotel room, opening it as narrowly as possible to slide into the room. She had barely closed and locked the door when she felt a pair of familiar strong arms engulfing her. She dropped the duffel bags to the ground and spun in his embrace, wrapping her arms around his back.

"You're back," Drake murmured into her hair. She could feel his chest rising and falling rapidly, his whole body practically trembling. "You were late, and I thought…"

"Leo was almost an hour late," she said, her voice somewhat muffled by his chest because of how closely he was holding her. "I wanted to text you, but-"

"No, you made the right call." They had decided early on to avoid using their new phones to contact each other if at all possible. That way, if one of them got picked up and taken into custody, the other wouldn't be instantly traceable. It meant a lot of anxiety and fear when they weren't together, though. "I just… I… I was worried that…" Drake kept trailing off, almost as if he was unable to say his fears out loud.

"I know, Drake. I know. But it's okay. It all went okay." She slid her hands up, tracing between his shoulder blades, running her fingers through his hair, trying to soothe both him and herself. To call tonight stressful was a mad understatement.

“Leo had our stuff?”

She nodded against his chest. “In his hotel room. I obviously didn’t take the time to dig through it all, but I saw toys, clothing, documents, money.”

Drake ran his hands through her hair, then loosened his hold on her enough to lean back and look her in the eyes. “Did anyone… were you...”

“I don’t think anyone noticed me, Drake.”

He let out a shuddering breath, and then he was kissing her. Not some gentle, tender peck, but hard and deep. Like he used to kiss her when they were alone. Before she turned their lives upside down.

She missed this. She knew it was stupid. They were wanted fugitives and barely getting by in a foreign country. They were hungry and stressed and sleep-deprived. On top of that, they shared one room with their soon-to-be 11 month old daughter, so they had no privacy. Their sex life was far from their most pressing concern.

But… she still missed it, that sense of shared connection and intimacy, and that encompassed more than just the sex. She honestly felt like his teammate or coworker more than his wife far too often. They just spent so much time on the practical, discussing next steps, trying to arrange logistics. Moments of shared laughter and warmth were few and far between these days. And sure, they didn't really have much to laugh about, but it was still a loss.

When she’d sat on his lap yesterday after dyeing her hair, it almost felt like a sliver of their old life and dynamic was back. She’d teased him, he’d held her close. But moments like that were just not the norm for them anymore. Most of the time, even any physical affection was more focused on comfort in light of something negative. Holding hands, hugs, that sort of thing seemed to only happen when their world felt like it was crumbling around them. It’s like they shared nothing but worry and fear most of the time.

There was also the fact that Drake hadn't opened up to her about his own emotions. She knew him. She knew that his fractured relationship with Liam must be weighing on him, that he must feel mad guilty about so many things. But he wasn't telling her anything. He hadn't kept things from her like this in years, and it honestly scared the shit out of her. At first, she thought he was just trying to shield her from his own pain. She knew that her initial panic had probably sent him into hyper-protective mode. But that was weeks ago. She was pretty sure she was holding it together better now. At the very least, she didn't think she was a walking mess anymore.

But Drake was definitely still keeping everything bottled up, and she had to wonder if that was in part because he didn't trust her. Whether it was because her initial panic had meant that she had not considered him enough or because he resented her decision to take Bridget out of Cordonia and away from their entire support system or because he couldn't help but see her as the reason he was named a traitor she had no idea. And maybe he was still just trying to shield her from his own worries and anxieties, but the fear was there that in her efforts to protect her kid, she was slowly losing her husband.

While Drake was off busting his ass to keep their family afloat, she'd had a lot of time to think, and she knew that wasn't helpful. When Bridget was awake, playing with her kept her mind off of those awful thoughts, but they kept creeping back in when she napped and slept. There was only so long that playing Dopey Cat could provide a distraction, after all. So instead she wondered endlessly if she had only been able to keep Bridget by her side at the cost of the foundation of her marriage.

For so many years, those fears of never mattering enough to someone else, of always ending up alone in the end had led her to keep relationships superficial. She’d avoided vulnerability, and therefore pain, at all costs. But then she came to Cordonia, and she had Drake, Hana, Maxwell, and Liam. She’d come to trust and feel and it was beyond anything younger her could have ever dreamed up. But now she’d ruined things with Liam, was disconnected from Hana and Maxwell, and it seemed all too likely she’d damaged things with Drake, too. All those people, who actually cared about her. She’d made a mess of the best parts of her life.

And maybe she was overreacting. Drake still clearly loved and cared about her. Worried about her constantly, in all honesty. But she also worried that he was gradually pulling away from her, that some day would creep up on them where all they would share would be concern for Bridget. But tonight, after all the stress and anxiety and fears of the evening, he was kissing her like he wanted her, like he loved her, and she couldn’t get enough of it.

She let out a pathetically needy moan, the sort of noise that would usually draw a smirk and some teasing from Drake. But tonight, he didn’t. Instead, he just surged forward with a groan of his own, driving her back into the wall and hooking his hands around her thighs, hoisting her up onto his waist before she could even process what was going on.

Riley clawed her fingers into his shoulders, dropping her head back against the wall as he moved his lips across her jaw. She began rocking her hips against him, tilting her head to the side as he worked his way down her neck, biting down lightly as he went. She tugged at his t-shirt, and after a few moments, he finally got the hint, sliding his hands out from under her thighs, letting her drop to the floor as he pulled off his shirt.

Deep down, Riley knew they had a lot they still needed to talk about and that doing this wasn’t going to fix the ache that had been growing in her heart, day by day. But she also knew that after weeks of stress and the horrible possibilities about tonight that had been running through both their minds, maybe this was just something they really needed. So she scrambled to tug off her shirt and jeans, kicking her sandals somewhere towards the door as Drake unbuckled his pants, and in almost no time they were both adding their underwear to the pile of clothing on the floor.

They were back on each other in an instant, hands grabbing and stroking, mouths everywhere. Riley felt her feet leaving the floor, so she wrapped her legs around Drake’s waist as he held her under her thighs, slamming her back against the wall. And then he was sinking into her, dropping his head to her shoulder to muffle the groan he let out as he did so.

It was all quick and frantic, both of them thrusting against each other wildly. She could sense that Drake was just as desperate as her. Desperate to feel something besides anxiety and guilt and pain. She knew she was going to have bruises from his fingers with how tightly he was clutching her thighs, but she didn’t care. Hell, she wondered how badly she was scratching his back. None of that mattered.

She hissed out his name as his lips latched back onto her neck. She knew this was going to be quick, so as she slid one hand up to his neck, tugging on his hair, she also dropped her other hand down between them, letting her fingers trace circles right above where they were joined. It didn't take long before she felt a warmth spreading out, down her legs and up her back, and then she was gone. Drake must have felt her climax, because he muttered "Fuck" into the skin of her neck, only driving into her a couple more times before she felt him spilling inside her. He slumped against the wall, his weight the only thing keeping her from sliding to the floor.

After a few moments, Drake let out a sigh, placing his hands back on her thighs and easing her down as he took a step back. “You okay?” he asked, his head slightly downturned.

Riley closed the newly-created gap between them, stepping forward and sliding a hand up to his cheek. “Drake, I’m fine. Are… are you okay?”

He nodded, tugging her into a gentle hug. “I just… I think I…”

“It’s okay, Drake. I get it.” She didn’t like that he still apparently couldn’t talk to her, but if he’d needed a minute of physical comfort and reprieve, well that was pretty fucking understandable. So she didn’t push him, just joined him in getting cleaned up and dressed in a t-shirt and underwear. While Drake washed the day’s clothes in the bathroom, she checked on Bridget, passed out in the travel crib Drake had picked up a few weeks back. They hadn’t used it to this point, and Riley wondered why Drake had dug it out of the car tonight. It had been safely tucked away with the tent, sleeping bags, and ground pad since he bought it.

“I thought we should probably start trying to get her used to it.” Drake’s voice cut through the room, startling Riley and answering the question she never got a chance to ask. “We are looking at months of being on the run. We need to start… I don’t know, making things… stable for her, I guess.”

“Makes sense,” said Riley, giving her daughter one last look before turning around to face Drake. “How did she handle bedtime?”

He grimaced and shook his head. “I think she was scared or upset because you weren’t here. She was basically inconsolable. I contemplated taking her on a drive just to calm her down. I kind of figured the night couldn’t get any worse, so I might as well try the crib. She screamed for about an hour before she wore herself out.”

Riley walked over and wrapped her arms around Drake. He struggled more with the sleep training than she did, even if he talked a way bigger game about letting Bridget “cry it out” in the light of day. “Well, she’s asleep now at least.”

Drake nodded, running a hand up and down her back. “You ready to go through the bags?”

She nodded and gave him a little smile, sitting down on the end of the bed as Drake grabbed the duffels and brought them over. They slowly worked their way through them, item by item. Hana had included so many useful things, from the practical, like clothes appropriate for a variety of types of weather and spare contact lenses and Riley’s glasses, to the unessential but truly missed, like Bridget’s stuffed corgi and Riley’s good hair brush. There was a lot of money in there, too. Thousands of Euros, which probably wouldn’t be enough to get them all the way until January, but at least made their situation a lot less dire. Their passports and birth certificates were tucked in there as well. For the first time, it felt like they might have some options when it came to their next steps.

After twenty minutes or so of sorting and unpacking, they reached the bottom of the bags. There were a handful of framed photos. Riley hadn’t mentioned any pictures as being something they wanted, so this must have been Hana’s idea. There were a couple that had been displayed in their bedroom and den. A candid Maxwell took on their wedding reception, Drake sitting down as Riley stood behind him, her arms looped over his shoulders, both of them looking at each other with stupid, cheesy grins on their faces. The two of them with Savannah, Bertrand, and Bartie taken down in Texas, the day before the wedding. A photo of the three of them that Hana had taken in the privacy of their home the day after the anointing with them in casual clothing, just curled up on the couch holding Bridget, a stark contrast from the pomp of the formal portrait for the history books and press release the day before. There were a couple of new ones, too. The corgis snuggled together on their massive cushion in the den. Hana and Maxwell grinning with arms thrown over each other's shoulders, clearly a selfie taken by Maxwell at a formal event. Liam and Olivia sitting on a couch at what appeared to be the Lythikos keep, Olivia with an eyebrow raised, Liam with a hollow-looking smile.

Riley glanced over at Drake, unsure how these photos would affect him. He just swallowed roughly before placing the stack of photos he was holding on the bed next to him. Riley leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. They were both silent for a few moments until Drake finally spoke.

“Was that everything?”

Riley shook her head. “No, there’s a letter. At least I assume that’s what it is. It’s an envelope with Hana’s writing.”

Drake didn’t say anything, so after a few seconds, Riley leaned forward, grabbing the envelope with “Riley & Drake” looped in beautiful cursive sitting at the bottom of one of the duffels. She slid her finger under the flap and pulled out a sheet of stationary with delicate pink and cream flowers in the corners. She held it between them so that Drake could read it at the same time.

Riley and Drake,

I hope that you and Bridget are all doing well and in as good of spirits as the circumstances will allow. I can only imagine how incredibly difficult this must be for you.

In these bags, I’ve included the items you mentioned as well as a few more toys for Bridget and pieces of clothing that I thought would be suitable for when the weather gets colder. I know it isn’t much, but hopefully this will make your lives just a little more comfortable.

I also sent some pictures I thought you might like to have, both old and new. Whenever things get tough, just remember that you have people who love you and want the best for you and your family.

While this is probably the furthest thing from your mind, I want to assure you that I am not taking my position as Duchess of Valtoria lightly. I am setting up citizen meetings for the upcoming weeks. Judging by the protests outside of the estate, you have a lot of support still here, and when this is all resolved, I will step down if you would like to rightfully reclaim your titles.

I love and miss you both, and tell Bridget that Aunt Hana misses her, too. Maxwell said I should include paw prints from Anderson, Vera, Ellis, and Ilsa, but for the sake of the staff who would need to clean up that mess, I will just settle on saying they clearly miss you as well.

Keep safe, Hana

Riley twisted to look at Drake. She knew he would already be done since he was a faster reader than her. His face was very still as he stared over at Bridget’s crib.

“Drake?”

He jerked his head over to look at her, giving her a very empty smile as he did so. “Your best friend is really something, huh?”

She frowned, trying to suss out how much she should read into that statement, but he kept his expression blank. When it became clear he wasn’t going to elaborate more, she settled on a light response, knowing he probably didn’t want to delve into things too deeply at this point. “She really is. But her assumption that we would be at all worried about our former titles is adorably naive.”

Drake let out a little snort of a chuckle, so Riley kept going. “Can you imagine us just rolling back to Valtoria after all of this and challenging Hana for the title?”

His smile became a little more genuine at that. “Well, being out of touch with reality is a common trait amongst the nobility. Maybe it would just be us finally catching up with the rest of them.”

She nudged him with her elbow. “Come on, let’s pack this stuff up and get some sleep.”

“Sounds like a plan, Walker.”

Riley stood up and offered a hand to Drake, tugging him to his feet as well. There was still a lot they needed to sort through and take care of, both practically and emotionally. She knew that. Even with everything given to them tonight, the months ahead were hardly going to be a cake walk, and she knew she would have to get Drake talking at some point. But for the first time in weeks, she felt true hope. Hope that they could make this work, that they weren’t two seconds away from failing their daughter and each other, that they were moving forward. And for tonight, that felt like enough.

Perma: @walkerswhiskeygirl @octobereighth @kimmiedoo5 @mom2000aggie

TRR/TRH: @iaminlovewithtrr @mskaneko @axwalker @jovialyouthmusic @marshmallowsandfire @kingliam2019 @sirbeepsalot @texaskitten30 @princessleac1 @ladyangel70 @debramcg1106 @masterofbluff @sarahx206

Drake/MC: @no-one-u-know @iplaydrake

FoF: @burnsoslow @bobasheebaby

#drake walker #drake x mc #trh au #trh fanfic #trh au fanfic #choices fanfiction #trh #the royal heir #king liam #olivia nevrakis #n*fw #30 diamonds

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