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hiraethserein · 2 years ago

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A South African's Review of the Forgiven (2017)

This was rough.

[Spoiler Alert]

My credentials?

So, I'm a South African born and raised, I have lived and breathed South African culture for twenty-one years. I did five years of History in High School, I got a distinction (80% or above) for History on my final matric marks... I am also currently studying Linguistics in college, which is at the time of writing this a year and a half of studying.

Right, so those are the reasons I give for being an expert on South Africa.

Let me begin this review by saying, obviously I'm not a film critic, and I'm not really an expert on South African history, I am writing this review from the point of view of an actual South African who has been involved in and submerged in South African culture for 21 years.

Let's Begin

Let's start with the premise of this film. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I had to study this in detail in high school and write several essays on it in which I received high marks. We went in depth with learning about the TRC and so, I know that there are several cases that the TRC investigated and brought forward for amnesty that were high profile and involved hit squad members. So, my first question is: why make up this fictious Piet Blomfeld character and storyline? Was the truth not good enough? Is that not what the TRC exactly there for? The truth? It's in the name...

Directors and Writers

So, the director Roland Joffé is also one of the writers (the other being Michael Ashton), he is British. That's all I'm going to say. They are not South African. They are British, and if you remember any African history lesson then you'll remember the literal and very bloody war that the British and Dutch waged for the right to become the overlords of the native people.

Character Analysis:

Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

I have watched Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu since I was a toddler on TV, watched his speeches, his appearances for charity, watched him dance and laugh and be a real good person with people in need.

I was not very impressed with the portrayal of the Archbishop, now I wasn't his best friend, I didn't know him personally but I, like many many South Africans, felt very close to him because he was a man of the people in every way, that's why President Nelson Mandela asked him to be the chairperson for the TRC.

Now, I like Forest Whitaker as an actor, but I think he was mislead by the directors and writers. Firstly, the Archbishop's hairline was farther back (that's a very easy thing to get right), he stuttered a lot more than in the film and his voice was higher with a more apparent accent.

At one point Whitaker mispronounces the click in Xhosa, now I'm not a fluent Xhosa or Zulu speaker. However, I did learn Xhosa up until grade 8 and I learnt how to pronounce the clicks and basic words and phrases. I know very little Xhosa now, but I hear it almost on a daily basis, and I can distinguish between the clicks as there is a range. I'm also learning about it for linguistics in some detail.

Oh and I've never heard anyone call Tutu 'Bish'. He was pretty relaxed but I think any South African would find that slightly offensive as he was a high respected and almost familial figure in our culture and heritage.

Later in the movie Whitaker does speak Xhosa fairly well which confuses me as to why he couldn't pronounce it earlier. But, we'll get onto linguistics later.

Piet Blomfeld

This is a fictional character, and I ask myself why? There were several high priority former police members that sought amnesty from the TRC. Instead we are given Piet, who is clearly still deeply racist and prejudiced against any person of colour and believes there will be a civil war between white and black people for the soul and rule of the nation. He wants no amnesty, and doesn't believe in the TRC nor in Tutu himself.

I ended up counting 19 k-words (I will not be writing that word out because it is extremely offensive and deeply ingrained in the racism of apartheid, I don't even hear people using this word anymore except in movies of the past) these were entirely unnecessary at many times and just used for shock value. I understand that it shows how racist the character is, but there are far more sophisticated ways of showing that, not with these ham-fisted monologues quoting Milton from Paradise Lost as if that is the end all be all of intelligence.

There is no reason Tutu, in this film, would be interested in this man and his racist nonsense. There is nothing special about quoting Milton and his ramblings of a civil war would barely occupy a half percentage of my thoughts let alone drive me to go visit the idiot in Pollsmoor.

So, this character is shown to be sympathetic (if not empathetic) towards a village of black folks, becoming best friends with a black girl. However, he goes from this to a hit squad member who murders two children, stringing a girl up naked while on her period and then shooting her head off and then burning her and her boyfriend's bodies while having a braai (barbeque) some meters away. How then should I feel sympathy for this character? Because his bigoted racist abusive father broke his arm and gunned down the family of black people Young Piet was friends with?

How did he go from sympathiser to an assassin that not only killed for political reasons but enjoyed killing black people and went out of his way to do so? That is never really explained, nor why we should care about his childhood. It reminds me of a Wattpad story where the bad boy is excused for being a dick because his dad hit him as a child. He also says to the Archbishop "once a slave, always a slave"... no this man does not want redemption.

He also seems to 'adopt' a 17 year old boy (Benjamin) in the prison that is deemed weak by the 28 gang, and is in turn called the leader's wife. However, when a failed assassination attempt on Piet's life ends with him adopting the boy who attempted it and tries to save him from his fate in the gang by 'speaking for him' now why would he do this? He has only ever (since being in prison) shown disgust for any person of colour and the only thing that would have been consistent with his character would be if he had killed the boy himself and not spoken for him at all.

In the end he decides to snitch to help Mrs. Morobe and Tutu find out what happened to her child... this, again, seems to make no sense with his character and what they had set up for him. He is beaten to death because of this by an old friend turned prison guard that doesn't want to be outed for his crimes. So, he had recorded his testimony for the TRC beforehand, he get his story in the end anyway.

However, they play African singing as he's beaten with memories of his young black friend who his father murdered as if we're supposed to feel sorry for him, as if we are supposed to sympathise with him or even root for him. Instead, I felt he got what he deserved.

Moving on swiftly.

Mrs. Morobe

The one character and actor I will sing praises for. I adored this character not only because of the terrific acting, but because her character was very much set in reality. There were very, very many family members who were desperate to find out what happened to their lost loved ones, including where they were buried and how they died. This was what the TRC was designed for, to help grieving families primarily and then to foster peace and reconciliation between those left over from the former regime looking for forgiveness and disrupted, hurt families seeking the truth.

Her end speech directed at one of the men in the hit squad that was responsible for her daughter's death, Hansie Coetzee, delivering a beautiful and tragic speech about a mother's love and hate, the anger and resentment she feels which has bled into her adoration for her child and the beautiful life she lived. Her breakdown at the mention of her daughter being shot was very realistic as to what happened during the TRC, grieving family members were allowed to speak, and allowed to cry and mourn during the commission, they wailed and screamed at times because the horrors of the truth were, well, horrible and evil.

Her persistence, her courage and her beauty in the face of true evil acts, will be the only shining star in this movie so hold onto it tight. To be honest, this movie should have revolved around her and her fight for finding the truth.

Tertiary Characters

Most of the tertiary characters were South African and so their accents were perfect, that I will give credit for. However it's very little credit because there are many good South African actors who could have acted all the parts but we move on.

Linguistics

Now, as I've said I've been a South African born and raised for 21 years, I speak Afrikaans fluently, I understand it and it's dialects like Kaapse Afrikaans (originating from the Cape Flats, an impoverished area of Cape Town where linguistics mixed in a melting pot of cultures) which is used in the Pollsmoor scenes with the gang the 28's.

We are provided subtitles for the non-South Africans who find it difficult to understand a Kaapse accent and phrases. Now, that I do understand. However, I don't understand why the subtitles are incorrect. This often happens however when it comes to translating South African languages and dialects, phrases and terms. This is deeply unfortunate, it is also unfortunate that this can be easily fixed with a consultant that was born and raised South African. It's very easily fixed. So much so that I am always very disappointed.

There were several instances where the American actors pronounced "can't" incorrectly for a South African accent, using the American /a/ as in "ant" rather than the South African /ah/ as in "ark" which is bizarre.

The American acted Afrikaans characters stress the r far too much. Yes, many Afrikaners do over pronounce the rolling r but many don't and having that linguistic difference would have been nice, especially with Piet's character who takes that r and really runs with it, often accenting words strangely or with a far too hard take on the accent entirely.

Eric Bana speaking Afrikaans was certainly a choice, it wouldn't have been a choice I would have made but clearly someone did and it's too late now. I'm not going to go into the strictest detail on his pronunciations and lack of general language understanding (if that's something you want then you can ask).

Now, there is also a scene I'd like to highlight. This is when Tutu is speaking to Mrs. Morobe, they are both native Xhosa speakers but are speaking to each other in English? Mrs. Morobe speaks English well for a second language but it can be seen she still struggles with sentence structure and vocabulary, so, wouldn't it have been easier to speak in Xhosa? This is where a Xhosa South African citizen would have been a good choice for Tutu's actor where a far more natural interaction could have taken place.

Whitaker does say two sentences in Xhosa far later in the movie and as I'm not a native or even second-language Xhosa speaker I can't really say whether he did well or not.

Whitaker's accent in general seems to come and go, like the highness of his voice seems to wax and wane. Other than that I think, overall, his relationship with his wife is shown to be very sweet and supportive, and as I said before, I did not know these people personally, I certainly did watch them interact in the media and so on and it seems pretty true to life.

Sentence Structure and Translation

Right, let's get into the rough stuff.

There are several scenes in Pollsmoor (a maximum security prison that I actually live fairly close to although I have no relationship with the prison or anyone inside), which follow not only our Piet but the gang called the 28s. Now majority of this gang are made up of black men who speak Xhosa and Zulu as their first language, one of the leaders however is a Cape Coloured man who speaks a mixture of Kaapse Afrikaans and English which comes and goes. As I mentioned above however, their subtitles for his speech is very broken and incorrect most times.

Most Egregious Examples

When trying to gauge a younger character's worth whether to be initiated or not, he asked the boy a question relating to an umbrella and rain (whatever) and he says "Now answer the 28 another question" in a mix of English and Kaapse Afrikaans, however the subtitle says "Now you answer another question for the 28" it's just plain wrong and I don't understand how that could get confused.

When he says to answer the question again he says "What do you wys me?" Now as a South African (which I've said for the 200th time now) I now and use the term 'wys' and it's very difficult to translate. In a very, very rough sense 'wys' means to share info, tell someone something or describe something or someone. Roughly that sentence means "What do you say to me?" or "What do you show to me?" while the subtitle says "What do you do?" this is completely something else though. It's a question directed towards the person who asked it, not necessarily directed only toward the person being asked.

The gang members also call the gang a "camp" and yet the subtitles replace that with "gang" even though it's very clear English that they are saying "camp".

A small note on Pollsmoor: From what I have heard and seen on the news, the violence portrayed in Pollsmoor in the movie is fairly accurate as well as the gang behaviour and attitude. It is a maximum security prison after all.

The TRC Opposition

Of course, with any recently destabilized regime, when Apartheid was disassembled there were still many, many supporters of the old government that were in absolute opposition of the TRC and its message, thou shalt seek forgiveness and thou shalt receive amnesty. To begin with, many of these former hit squad members didn't believe they needed to seek forgiveness for their crimes to begin with, they believed that the atrocities they had committed was for the good of the country and the superiority of the "superior" white race. Obviously this was stupid and bullshit, but it was still deeply felt in many white South Africans (of course not all). Therefore the displeased, distasteful, and offended sentiment expressed by the former "secret police" or hit squad members is accurate to the time, place and circumstance.

Weird Things

There is a bizarre scene towards the end, where Hansie Coetzee's wife seeks Tutu out to apologise for being ignorant and racist, she cries and asks for forgiveness although she says it is doesn't mean much. When Tutu asks her why she thinks it doesn't mean anything, she says because they are white tears. Tutu, for his part, says that luckily tears have no colour and all he sees is someone who needs a hug and hugs her. This confused me because she was barely even a tertiary character... she had no bearing on the story whatsoever and it seems they only included this to show white guilt which has been and still is very apparent in the country, especially by younger people who were born after the fall of Apartheid.

Final Thoughts

This wasn't a good movie, neither in its overall story or portrayal. I did not like this movie. I don't like it when foreigners take South African stories into movies and use foreign actors when they could have used South Africans who have bled for and felt the changes of democracy. I was not a freedom fighter, I was not alive during Apartheid so I have no first hand knowledge. But I have studied South African history in detail going back to before colonisation.

If you made it this far, congratulations, and thank you. If you want to see more of this, whatever this is, please let me know. And anyone who leaves a ghost emoji in the replies gets a follow?

#film critique #south african #the forgiven #movie critique #movie review #film review #apartheid #history #south african history

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sirendeepity · 3 years ago

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Books I've read in 2021

Because why not + comments

36/21 (updated to: /30)

The Cruel Prince ★★★★ (I read this just a year ago? Damn, a reread is definitely needed)

The Lost Sisters ★★★ (Still trying to understand the point of this)

The Wicked King ★★★★ (That time I understood TikTok fed me lies about the romance in this series)

The Queen of Nothing ★★★★ (I didn't understand a thing back then and I still don't do it now)

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories ★★★★ (Cardan. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk)

A Court of Silver Flames ★★★★★ (Rating based on the main characters and the headcanons, not the plot because I can't rate what doesn't exist)

Six of Crows ★★★★ (Do I really need to elaborate?)

Shadow and Bone ★★★ (I still can't remember how the book actually ended because I watched the tv adaptation before finishing it so now I have no idea which is which. And btw Archie Renaux thank you for existing, my life and Mal's is better because of you <3 )

Realm Breaker ★★★.5 (Why the 15 pages per chapter, V? Just tell me why. Sorasa Sarn made up pretty well for it, bUT STILL-)

Kingdom of the Wicked ★★★★★ (We could've been so good together)

The Atlas Six ★★★★ (Flexing hard having read this before it became TikTok famous, but flexing harder having Olivie Blake commenting on my live-reading thread)

Red, White & Royal Blue ★★★★ (I wanted the gays and this gave me the gays, that's all I have to say)

The Sea of Monsters ★★★ (How it started kind of, I read the first one in summer 2020)

The Titan's Curse ★★★

The Battle of the Labyrinth ★★★★

The Last Olympian ★★★★★ (How it ended, and it hit harder than I expected)

These Violent Delight ★★★★★ (tHE LOVE THE PAIn)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo ★★★★ (No fruit love felt in here, but that ending? Can we talk about it? A full star more just for that)

Gild ★★★.5 (It's the journey trope for me)

Kingdom of the Cursed ★★★★ (The ending saved a lot but Kerri? What happened? I was confused, but you were confused even more than me apparently)

Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood ★★★★★ (Go kiss Bryce Quinlan's ass. Now. Also can I just flex the fact and Bryce and I share the same middle name? I MEAN that's queen material, I won't be embarrassed by it ever again)

To Kill A Kingdom ★★★★ (Started in May; it's definitely the journey trope for me)

The Shadow Between Us ★★ (Slytherin romance mY ASS)

The Raven Boys ★★★★★ (THIS BOOK GODDAMNIT I still dream of it at night)

Dream Thieves ★★★★ (Umh... Kerah?)

Blue Lily, Lily Blue ★★★★.5 (The Beginnings, if you know what I mean)

The Raven King ★★★★★ (Fucked up my brain real bad ngl)

Opal ★★★ (Basically useless but the few Pynch scenes were just *chef's kiss*)

Call Down the Hawk ★★★ (I didn't read TRC in a week only to waste a full month on this damn book)

Our Violent Ends ★★★★★ (it was a one-way ticket to (S)pain, no refund)

Mister Impossible ★★★ (I wish I could hate this book but I don't but I hate that I can't love it either I'm like aocjsox)

The math doesn't add up because I also read three boring books for school and the first two manga volumes of My Hero Academia, hopefully one day I'll catch up with the rest as well or I'll just buy all the volumes and start from where the anime ended

#dee reads #2021 reads #i refuse to tag all of the books #it's too much effort and i'm lazy enjoy

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megahologram · 4 years ago

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Creature of the Night | Steve Harrington

A/N: this one’s been on hold for a LONG time, I got writes block.

Warning(s): strong language, (that’s it I think)

°•○●○•°

y/n pressed the gas pedal harder with her foot, speeding her car out of Starcort. It had been a long tiring day at work and all she was looking forward to, was going home, sitting in front of the tv and stuffing her face in popcorn. She was driving through the empty roads, blasting her music loudly, when suddenly she heard a faint static sound from a distance. As if from an empty tv channel or radio or…Dustin’s, “code red, I repeat, this is a code red.”

Furrowing her eyebrows, she pulled her car over to the side of the road, pressing on the brakes and pulling her car to park. She was looking around, staring in the front seats of the car to find where the noise was coming from. Ripping her car apart, her eyes finally landed on the big walkie talkie thing her brother’s nerd friend would use to communicate. Remembering Dustin’s specific words, “they aren’t walkie talkies okay, they are one of a kind, Realistic TRC 219 radio” to which she’d always continue to mock her brother of how nerdy he was. Picking up the item from the back corner of her car, ‘probably Dustin’s’ she thought to herself, placing it on the passenger’s seat and continuing to make her way home.

After a few seconds of driving once again, the radio went off, “I repeat, this is a god damn code red, will someone answer the freaking call.” And with that last message, y/n could recognize the voice too well, once again pulling her car to park, she picked up the radio, “Dustin…is that you?” she asked as soon as she pressed the black button on the side of the radio.

“yes it’s me, how are you talking to me?” he replied with confusion.

“I think one of your nerd friends left their walkie talkies in my car”

“how many times do I have to tell you, it’s not a walkie talkie, it’s a one of a kind Realistic T-you know what, it doesn’t even matter, can you just get Lucas, Mike or Will on the line.”

“why the hell would you think I’m with them. I just got off work and I’m on my way home”

“NO DON’T COME HOME” Dustin practically screams through the radio,

“Dustin, what did you do?”

y/n pulled her car through her driveway, running to the back shed where Dustin was standing and waiting for her. Looking at her brother up and down, “you look ridiculous” she says, chuckling.

“yeah well so do you. Can we do some work now” he says, grabbing the bat in this hands before making his way to the root cellar

Walking behind him, she grabbed the bat from his hands, “I swear to god Dustin, if this is a joke, your riding you bike to school for a month”

“it ate our mom’s cat, I am not joking y/n.”

Signing loudly, walking slowly to the closed-door Dustin locked. “keys?” asking the boy, holding out her hands to which Dustin places them. Opening the lock, she slowly and quietly took it out, letting out a deep breath before holding onto the bat tightly, opening the door quickly. Placing the bat in front of her to see nothing. Walking down the dark steps, opening the light of the cellar, looking around to see it was empty. Shaking her head, annoyed and ready to shout at her brother, she started to walk upstairs when her eyes fell on something. “um Dustin” screaming loudly, calling for him.

“what” hearing him screaming from outside.

“get your ass down here right now” she screams, this caused the boy to quickly make his way down. Looking around and seeing no sign of Dart, he huffs in annoyance.

“is this your pet” y/n asked, holding up the shredded piece of skin with the bat, the hole in the wall visible to both of them now. “shit” Dustin whispers looking at the hole.

“okay so what the hell is a Demogorgon?”

“were you not listening at all, I just told you. God I don’t have time for this, can you please just drive faster.” Dustin screams, annoyed at her for asking too many questions.

“okay so what do we tell mom about Mews?” she asked her brother, unable to process the fact that their beloved cat was gone.

“uh we don’t tell her anything. Just say she ran away and never came back”

“okay first of all, that’s horrible. Second of all, don’t roll your eyes at me. I literally just get off work, starving and tired and now I’m here driving you to your dumb nerd friends house cause apparently, you fought a giant creature last year called the Demogorgon and never told me”

Dustin rolls his eyes once again, “your starvation is the least of our problems right now and stop acting like you care about me”

Shocked at his words, she turns her head to face the boy. He sat on the passenger’s side looking out the window. Signing loudly, thinking back to when she moved to her father’s house. She had a huge fight with her mom that evening and the next thing she knew, she was on the bus, on her way to her fathers. y/n were there for nearly a year until her father kicked her out, forcing her to move back to her moms. Though her relationship with her mom improved and they both forgave each other for everything that happened that day, Dustin still didn’t forgive her. She knew how much he had the fear of someone he loves leaving him, he was the one who told her. After their dad left, he made her promise that she’d would never leave like their father did but then she disappeared for a year, coming back with a simple sorry. Dustin never forgave her, and she didn’t expect him to either. Just wished her relationship with her brother could go back like it used to.

“of course, I care about you Dusty” you said sadly.

“if you cared, you wouldn’t have left” he replies harshly as she pulled up at Mike’s house. He got out the car, slamming the door behind him as y/n watch the boy make his way to the front door talking to Mr. Wheeler. After a few minutes, she watched him walk back, only to stop once he started talking to Steve. They exchange a few words when Steve replies with a nod and goes back to his car. Dustin quickly makes his way in the car, closing the door beside him as he say “let’s go”

“where?”

“home”

“why hom-”

“y/n just drive the freaking car, will you?”

“alright alright” y/n says, holding up her hands in defense. Driving the car back their home, y/n noticed Steve’s car following them. “why’s Harrington following us?”

“he’s gonna help” Dustin says shortly, continuing to call his other friends with his radio.

“Lucas is coming, still don’t know where Mike and Will are” Dustin tells the two, who were collecting pieces of meat in a bucket.

“great” y/n and Steve both say sarcastically.

Steve and Dustin were walking together, while y/n was behind them. Walking on the train track, placing the pieces of meat on the tracks.

“whose Max?” y/n says, overhearing Steve and Dustin’s conversation.

“none of your business” Dustin says aggressively, walking quick on his feet.

y/n signs loudly, couldn’t deny begin hurt by her brother’s words.

“he’s still mad” Steve says, throwing a few pieces of meat on the ground.

y/n, Nancy and Barb were best friends, after Steve’s king phase was gone, they got along better. Before, when Steve was a dick, both y/n and Barb didn’t like him at all. Then y/n disappeared, when she got back, she came to a complete different Steve. They got along better after that, he knew everything about y/n, why she disappeared for a year and how Dustin was still angry at her.

“yeah, he never talks to me about anything anymore. I wish he’d knew how sorry I was”

“you should tell him that. Just try talking to him when the times right”

“I know. Why were you at Nancy’s today?” y/n asked curiously.

“went to say sorry, she wasn’t home I guess”

“um I think she’s with Jonathan” y/n says sadly, as Steve just nods his head in response.

“you guys really think this is gonna work” y/n says as everyone just looks at each other in response.

“it has to” Lucas says, looking at everyone else who nods their head.

“okay then, let’s do this” Dustin says, his grip on his hockey stick tightening.

And this was how y/n and Steve were stuck in this school bus with a bunch of kids, fighting a monster neither of them believed in…entirely.

y/n flinched as she heard something slam against side of the bus. Turning her head, she tried to peak outside the window, only to be interrupted by Steve, “it’s just wind, don’t worry…I won’t let anything happen to you” he winked.

“my hero” y/n replied, rolling her eyes.

y/n was sitting on the steps of the bus, by the front door, trying to be as cautious as she could. Though it was hard when her mind was all over the place. All she could think about was ways to get her brother to forgive her or at least talk to her again.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Max speaking, “okay seesh, someone’s cranky, past your bedtime” Watching the girl walk up to the roof of the bus, her eyes landed at her brother’s annoyed expression. Dustin walked back and forth as Steve spoke, “that’s great…just show her you don’t care”

y/n furrowed her eyebrows, unsure what Steve was talking about and why he was smiling like that. Again, her thoughts were interrupted by Dustin’s voice, “I don’t”

y/n noticed Steve wink at her brother at instantly understood. “Steve” she said rather loudly, causing the boy to flinch slightly, “you better not be giving my brother girl advice”

“well, where else is he gonna get it from, you?”

“obviously, you wouldn’t understand a thing about girls, or else Nancy would’ve been here right now with you. But she isn’t, huh!”

Before anyone got a chance to say anything else, everyone heard a loud roar, frightening everyone on that bus.

Lucas and Max were on the roof of the bus, Steve and Dustin shared a window while y/n used the front door of the bus. Everyone stared out in the dark, trying to find the source of the sound. It was difficult because there was smoke everywhere, making it next to impossible to see anything.

“alright, I’m going out” Steve says, picking up his bat that he had punched with nails.

“are you insane?” y/n implies, placing her hand on Steve’s chest, stopping him from moving any further. “you’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you go out there.”

y/n catches the three kids smirks, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, she questions what was so funny.

Somehow, y/n will never understand how, but the three kids convinced her to let Steve go. “alright kid, just lure him towards the food and we’ll take it from there, alright?”

Steve chuckles sarcastically, “never call me kid again” making his way outside.

“I may be younger than you but I’m a thousand times smarter” Dustin screams as y/n finally closed the door to the bus.

Admittedly, y/n’s heart was racing, and she never understood why. Maybe it was because she was scared if anything happened to Steve. He is her friend after all.

A few minutes had passed as everyone watched Steve trying his best to lure the creature towards the meat. It was difficult to see it through the fog, but y/n still noticed the change in Steve’s body language, he was nervous. She may not be able to see his face but she knew he was nervous, maybe even scared.

Suddenly, everyone heard Lucas shout, “Steve, 3 o’clock”

As if everyone’s head turned on cue, y/n’s eyes widened as she finally caught a glimpse of the creature for the first time. Not one, in fact, Two? Three?

Both y/n and Dustin screamed on cue, “Steve”

y/n pulled the leaver to let the door open, as Dustin screamed “mission abort.”

y/n watched in horror as a creature launched itself on Steve, him knocking it in the process, quickly turned his direction, running for the bus. “guys move out of the way.” y/n exclaims as she pushed the kids out of the way, making space for Steve to run in.

Instantly closing the door behind him, Steve quickly grabs a metal board for the side, covering it over the door, pushing it closed with his legs, trying his best to stop the creature for getting in.

“They can’t get in, they can’t” Lucas shouts, everyone’s screaming getting louder every time they heard it slam against the door.

As if something clicked, y/n’s eyes widened in horror, “guys the roof” she screams, running towards the ladder.

Everyone’s breathing got louder as they heard the creature launch itself on the roof. The footsteps could be heard as it got closer to the emergency exit at the top. y/n didn’t know what she was doing, she grabbed the metal rod she found beside her, holding it up in the air, ready for it to be used.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she came face to face with the creature. It screamed on her face, some of the slime falling on her face. Her hands were trembling, and her thoughts were racing. ‘what the fuck was she thinking?’

The next few seconds were a blur at the most. One moment, she was ready to be attacked and she was but not by what or who she was expecting. Steve tackled her to the ground, causing her back to slam hard on the cold, hard floor of the bus. A few seconds into realization, they both look over to the emergency exit, seeing as it was gone.

“they’re gone” Max whispers, confusion laced in her voice.

Completely ignoring the kids conversation, y/n realized the events that had unfolded. “what the fuck is wrong you?” she screams at Steve, slapping his chest in an attempt to get his body off hers. Failing miserably at that.

“What the heck were you thinking? What did you think you were going to do, just kick that thing in the balls and think it’s going to get away from you.”

Steve’s words brought rage in her, “no but I’m going to kick you in the balls if you don’t get off me in the next 5 seconds” to which she finally pushed him off her.

“That was so irresponsible, y/n” Steve says, finally lowering his voice as he gets on his feet.

y/n scoffs, shocked at his words, “and what you did there. Just going out there with your nail bat. That wasn’t irresponsible to you.”

“that’s different” Steve replies, walking closer to the girl.

“how’s it different? Cause I’m a girl, you think I can’t-“

“I never said that” Steve cuts you off. Both adults now dangerously close to one another.

“that’s what you meant”

“Guys knock it off okay.” Dustin screams, “goddamn, sometimes I feel like I’m the only mature one around here.”

y/n laughs bitterly at his words, “you wish” she mutters, not intending for him to hear, but he did.

“at least I don’t run away from my problems. I face them” and with that, Dustin walks out of the bus. Leaving y/n to let out a breath she never knew she was holding. Her head fell in her hands as a few tears dropped from her eyes at her brother’s cold choice of words.

“hey…hey” Steve whispers, holding onto her hands, causing the girl unable to hide her state.

“he hates me. He’s never going to forgive me.” y/n stifles out, tears threatening to fall down.

Steve places both his hands on the girls cheek, wiping her tears away. “I promise, he’s angry but he does not hate you. Look at me.”

y/n eyes fall on the man standing in front of her. Maybe she didn’t realize herself but his expression instantly calmed her down. “I don’t know how, but I promise I’ll help you get your brother back okay”

y/n nods her head, pulling Steve in for a hug.

The moment was interrupted by Max fake coughing. Both adults pulled away, facing the two kids that were still awkwardly standing there.

“you need an invitation to leave” Steve says sarcastically, causing y/n to laugh quietly.

“we should leave”

“so what now” Max asks, as everyone stood outside, unable to process what the hell was going on.

“I guess we should head back” y/n says, causing Dustin to turn at her words.

“no, we can’t. Those things are still out there, we gotta do something.”

“Dustin, who knows how many more are out there. And even if we try, do you really think we can just beat those things.”

“Eleven could” Lucas whispers.

Dustin finally hit an idea, “okay, maybe we can’t beat them. What if we find professionals”

“like the law enforcement?” Max questions.

Dustin scoffs, “if I knew they were even one percent helpful, wouldn’t I have called them in the first place.”

Max rolls her eyes at his words. “okay guys calm down. Dustin’s right. We need professionals. Or at least more people than three kids and two lame adults.” Steve exclaims, this time causing y/n to roll her eyes.

“one lame adult” y/n corrects, smiling wickedly at Steve as he just sticks his tongue out.

“real mature”

“guys” Dustin screamed, “y’all can flirt later, we gotta save the world right now”

#stranger things #steve harrington #dustin henderson #dustin #steve #steve x reader #steve harrington x reader #netflix #lucas #max #dustin x reader

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meimi-haneoka · 5 years ago

Text

Comments on Chapter 43 of Clear Card

What’s the most appropriate GIF for this chapter?

Let’s see...

Yes. Yes I think this is the most appropriate one!

Ohkawa last month must have drank something good, really good. Stay with me and you’ll find out why! Spoilers under the cut!

Momo’s backstory

The chapter starts with Momo’s backstory, told by Kaito while he’s taking her measures. We kinda anticipated who-knows-what kind of majestic true form for Momo, but actually, it seems pretty simple? She had longer and beautiful ears in the past, and....that’s about it ^__^” it’s so underwhelming that it makes me almost doubting this is her final form at all! XD

We find out that Momo was born together with the white book, and that book is capable of granting a special kind of time magic to those who make a contract with it...unfortunately, as we CLAMP fans well know, messing with time is NEVER a good idea (glaring furiously at TRC) and this book is no exception: whoever tried to use it before didn’t end up happily...and Momo, out of guilt and tiredness for seeing so many people ruin themselves, almost decided to shut everything down and not allowing the use of the book anymore. Until....a single asshole came into the picture and showed interest in using the book regardless of all the risks...We all know who I’m talking about, right? XD

It’s at that point that we go back to present time, and Momo bashes Kaito for telling her past story in such a sloppy way XDDD We switch to the girls at school, and apparently Akiho decided to challenge herself with a new hobby: starting with plushie clothes, she plans on making an handmade outfit for Kaito. ^___^ you really don’t deserve her, jackass... Tomoyo takes the chance to offer herself as a teacher for both Akiho and Sakura, who needs to do something for SYAORAN’S BIRTHDAY!! Yes it’s coming up and it’s the first time it’s mentioned in canon!!! I’m seriously excited for that....the least we can expect is some tragedy happening. LMAO.

Creepiness intensifies

However, Tomoyo wants to try something out. She takes Akiho’s measures, and she states that not only their height, but also all the other measures of Sakura and Akiho are exactly the same. Okay. Okay this is definitely getting TOO CREEPY to be considered cute anymore. And the girls realize this too, their realization face isn’t really excited in a positive way. Who's got the feeling that Tomoyo might have a theory or two about what is going on? Because it’s definitely not normal for two human beings to be this similar. But thanfully Naoko comes in to interrupt the disconcerting mood, as she’s got something to announce... We find out what that is from Syaoran and Sakura, walking back home: their school is going to participate to an exchanging event with all the other schools of the city (or at least that’s how I understood it), and Tomoeda Middle School will do a school play for the occasion.

No more Sleeping Beauty

Syaoran loses ABSOLUTELY NO TIME in clarifying that he will ONLY be a stagehand XDDDD Sakura lowkey tries to convince him, but he’s even more on fire XD more than 2 years later and he still didn’t overcome the embarrassment of playing as a princess in the Sleeping Beauty play, of which Sakura gently provides us with a memory...

But then...the unexpected happens...the scene that made me say, at the beginning of this long ass post, that Ohkawa got drunk...

Sakura and Syaoran pass by the Penguin Park, and when she sees the swings of the park, she suddenly remembers one of the most painful, heart-wrenching and yet romantic scenes of the whole Cardcaptor Sakura story: when Sakura confessed to Syaoran that she was turned down by Yukito. Sakura reminisces both what Yukito and Syaoran told her, on that day....and Syaoran doesn’t let himself be caught unprepared: he remembers every single word he told her. And, while he recites the same words, which back then were powerful like a magic charm, he’s so serious. I loved how Mokona decided to make him go suddenly serious and solemn in this part. Because his love for Sakura, and the mission he took on himself when he went back to Hong Kong, are like a sworn oath to him. He’s absolutely, without fail, serious about this.

Thank god I found you

Sakura happily states that yes, she finally found The One she loves the most, and who loves her the most in return. Syaoran was right, and the thing she was hoping for was in front of her the whole time. Sakura also sounds so “mature” in this scene, with that “I didn’t understand very well what Yukito-san meant, back then”. My kids have grown up so much, and they still will, from now on T___T

This scene of course caused a ruckus in the fandom, because it recalls all too much another infamous scene in Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicle...actually, more than one. Even the concept of not being able to touch eachother (this time not for a ritual but because Sakura risks to electrocute Syaoran on the spot) is the same, and I am particularly worried for what this will entail once the final showdown will be happening. Cause of course, at this point, it’s pretty apparent this won’t be resolved until the end of the manga... Still, the two lovebirds managed to turn the scene into one of the most beautiful ones, even without touching eachother. That’s the power of their relationship for you. That’s how evocative are CLAMP’s manga panels.

Scene changes to Yukito’s home, of course Nakuru is there, but Sakura came over and she brought Kero and Suppi too. There’s a HILARIOUS scene of Kero yelling all of his frustration for having to witness that sappy scene inside of Sakura’s bag...Nakuru is having the time of her life, but when Sakura comes in and sits down at the table to eat the snacks, she suddenly asks Yukito:

“Have you done something?”

aaaaand this is the moment when the whole fandom went...

I have to give credit, CLAMP are particularly GOOD at this. At throwing stuff from left field at the less expected moment. And it’s completely useless to even start theorizing, because the wording is so VAGUE and the timing is SO OUT OF THE BLUE, that one can’t really help but feeling confused. At first I thought (blaming the English translation for this) she was asking him to confess if he was the one casting the spell that is making SyaoSaku unable to touch. But no, the Japanese line is actually very vague and it could be relating to the thing that happens right after: Sakura feels “something”, runs outside, and finds out that it’s already night. Even though it should be, like, 3 pm? (saying that Touya would be back for 4 pm was done purposedly to tell the readers what time was at the moment).

And all we are left with is an intense cliffhanger in our faces, which are more or less like this:

I’ll have to say this, though: SAKURA IS A F*CKING QUEEN.

She’s the sweetest girl, she might seem naive and oblivious to stuff, BUT NO, DAMN SHE’S NOT, SHE’LL SHOW YOU RECEIPTS WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT. She did it with Syaoran before, and now with Yukito. And judging by his face, she definitely caught him red-handed. I will never, never get tired to praise her for this.

What else to say, I really enjoyed the lighter tone of this chapter, especially considering what is going on in the world right now, but I also expect next chapter to go back to creepy atmospheres and anxiety. I feel the finale might be near...we’ll see.

Thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts on this chapter!!!

#Card Captor Sakura #cardcaptor sakura #clear card arc #clamp #sakura card captor #ccsakura #ccs spoilers #chapter 43

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bluesrrgents · 5 years ago

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Can you elaborate on Gansey’s MI? I don’t really remember most of what happened in trc

Yeah, of course. I’m not an expert in the field but I’m also not an idiot so this is my perspective on the topic.

The way I have read the book, it’s become clear to me that Gansey struggles with PTSD most apparently, but also anxiety and depression. A big part of Gansey having mental health issues is that he…. Literally died. He exhibits symptoms of PTSD; flashbacks to when he died, the voice he heard, how much it hurt to be stung, the bees in his ears. Bees are clearly a trigger to him, you can see it when he finds one in Monmouth, when Henry puts one in his hand, when he’s in the cave and goes limp from the sound of hornets and has to cover his ears. He experiences negative alterations to his mood in the form of persistent fear, as seen with his reactions whenever even thinking about bees (and his obsessive drawings of them), his fear of Adam, of Noah, of Cabeswater, no matter how much he loves each of them. And guilt. There are so many times in the books where he makes himself feel guilty, both with reason and without. His guilt gets to the point where he won’t sleep, as shown in the third book when he says he lost hours of sleep “playing and replaying the events… trying to decide if he had been wrong or right or if it even mattered.” This also plays into his insomnia, which is brought up often in the books, and also happens to be comorbid with many mental disorders, including PTSD, anxiety, and depression. He experiences nightmares, Malory states this in the third book blatantly. Malory also states that they would be “toddling through some riding path in Leicestershire and next thing I knew he’d be on the ground clawing his face like a mental patient.“ These aren’t the only flashbacks he has, as he describes in BLLB that he can still feel the hornets crawling into his ears, a fact he describes to Blue about his death in the first book. Another symptom of PTSD is detachment from others, which I’m not sure you see it much in the books, but the way Malory states that when he was younger, he just left Malory without a single word and didn’t contact him until months later clues you into the idea that he may have dealt with detachment prior to the story. Malory also talks about how Gansey would never tell his family where he was or contact them, again another indication of detachment. I also want to point out that Gansey’s time with Malory wasn’t that far away from the beginning of the series, meaning the mask he puts up is more recent and he was dealing with sudden flashbacks and nightmares (if my memory of the timeline is correct) about 2 or 3 years before the books began.

He also doesn’t cope with it very well. When he sees the hornet he doesn’t do anything, in fact he gets closer to it as if putting himself in harm’s way where he knows that he can die instantly, while still having a panic attack about the bee right in front of him. Not only that, but he goes around the forests and empty fields searching for Glendower knowing full well there’s probably tons of bees all around him and he could die any instant. Speaking of Glendower!! Glendower talked to him when he was 9/10. Gansey is 16/17 in the beginning of the books, still completely obsessed with it. And it’s not just a special interest that he has in searching for him, it’s a well and true obsession. Everyone in the books jokes about it, but when it’s his POV and he starts thinking about the idea of not finding Glendower or even of him finding Glendower and what the hell he’s supposed to do after he does, he has panic attacks about it. His anxiety is incredibly apparent when faced with the quest that he’s put himself on. His obsession over Glendower is closely intertwined with his anxiety and trauma due to it stemming from the traumatic event of his death.

I think the fact that he has these “masks”, the different personalities that each character is aware of, indicates some repression towards the parts of him that aren’t as perfect as the Presidential version of himself. How he says to Blue, “Crushed and broken… Just the way women like ‘em.” It’s brushed off as a joke, but he does have issues and he views himself as broken in certain ways. He describes himself as someone “with a lot of stuff and a hole inside him that chewed away more of his heart every year” and Blue states at one point in TRB that reflecting on his death, his eyes were hollow, and later when in the cave his voice goes hollow when he hears hornets. The boy has gone through some serious trauma and he thinks that there’s close to nothing left inside of him. He has horrible self esteem and often degrades and reprimands himself. He thinks that all of his friends hate him and that he’ll continue to love them but they’ll never love him back despite that not being the truth. He hides his sorrow from everyone and doesn’t ever really deal with it himself either. To me, one of the most apparent moments is in TDT when, in addition to panicking over Cabeswater being gone and therefore he thinks Glendower is gone, he “thought about the day he’d been stung to death by hornets and lived anyway. Gansey ran over the memory until he no longer felt the thrill of hearing Glendower’s name whispered in his ear, and then instead gave himself over to feeling sorry for himself, that he should have so many friends and yet feel so very alone. He felt it fell to him to comfort them, but never the other way around.” Before this quote, he says he often sits in his car to think, showing that this isn’t the first time he’s gone over this moment in his head repeatedly and obsessively. In addition, the way he hides his own emotional turmoil and sacrifices his own mental wellbeing for his friends?? He doesn’t get help from anyone, not his friends, not his family, not a professional, not even himself. After this quote he becomes angry with himself, he berates himself, and insults himself to make himself angry and to further reduce his own self image. It’s an incredibly harmful practice for your mental health, and he does it more than once throughout the series.

Much of Gansey’s behavior indicates mental health issues, he’s just good at hiding and repressing this part of him. I think he has learned to keep that part of him in check, rather than it being very apparent, as it was in his days with Malory, but it’s definitely something that is still present during the books. From his perspective, you see him often feeling horrible and caught up in his own thoughts of guilt, anxiety, anger, etc. all mostly directed at himself and his own thoughts or actions. He also has flashbacks, gets triggered, and experiences panic attacks throughout the story. These moments aren’t disguised that much in the books, they just aren’t thoroughly addressed or explicitly stated and the fandom doesn’t talk about it much, so it’s easy to forget. This is probably a longer response than expected but I hope it was at least a little helpful and articulate.

#ask #anon #u asked i answered #this is so fucking long askfjlks #mental illness is so big in these books and usually not discussed in regards to gansey but he has it and its there and i always wished he #would get help from someone in the series :(#trc #gansey #richard gansey #the raven cycle #the raven king #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #trb #ptsd //#mental illness //#anxiety //#depression //

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ryujinrk · 5 years ago

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-.✦･｡ﾟMGA season 5: episode 6, outfit (lyrics + line distribution) performing nct 127 “whiplash” with @rkyeji, @rkmason, @rkchaeryeong, @rkkhg

Ryujin wasn’t at all surprised when she realised that the so called Golden Trio was deemed as one of the lower ranked performances, the trio was even last to be called out. The news came somewhat as expected but was just as defeating nonetheless, and honestly it made her angry when she know that two full days went to an unnecessary spectacle of a drama scene when it should have been spent on practices. At this point there is no way of knowing whether the two days would have mattered but one thing is for certain, the hiccup was unneeded and certainly avoidable if SUWOONG had only just came to her instead of speculating.

She gets it though, that’s not the case, when the source of the rumors was none other than a vicious snake who caused the end of the entire group Amarante. It’s just so annoying, and so incredibly unfair, when one isn’t allowed to fend for and explain themselves. Although they had managed to make amends and provided with a solid performance that they all had faith in, she can’t help but wonder whether the amazingly poor start of their week had something to do with this particular outcome. It was like a slap in the face really, she thought that after what they had been through and what they had pulled off, it had been a great stage in the end.

Apparently it wasn’t, and she was sad when they announced that JAEMIN had to leave. If the outcome had been different then in the end he could have joined them into the next week, but obviously with a new group, just like them. She felt so guilty knowing that, so inncredibly guilty, especially since it was him. The one person who believed in her during dark times, and he was ultimately the one and only reason why Ryujin managed to get to the bottom of the issues that she didn’t know she had with SUWOONG. It wasn’t fair that he had to go home but in the end, she is fully aware that talent shows like the MGAs are never fair. Ever.

-.✦･｡ﾟ

It feels like Ryujin wears weights on her shoulders when she meet the new week, even if there certainly are things to be excited about. For one, she is finally grouped with YEJI, who’s one of her best friends for some years already. It was never a goal of hers to step on stage with friends, not anyone but OLIVIA anyway, but she notice that she is eager to perform with the elder. Perhaps it’s because they have danced together multiple times before that she didn’t necessarily crave this scenario before, but now that the opportunity is here she can’t wait to actually perform with the other dancer. Secondly, she was picked to join the TRC group.

Anyone who knows her knows that she is in heaven right now as BigStar, Feeldog and TRC are the main reason that she wanted to step onto a stage in the first place. So to be trained by some of the idols and trainees of the very company she want to sign with, it’s a dream come true just that alone and she can’t even begin to express how much it means to her. She listen to their advices carefully, and want to prove to them that she deserves to be placed in a group with a concept fitting TRC. If she can say so herself, Ryujin does believe that she can fit their image with the skillsets that she provides. She is sure of it, she has to be.

The week starts off well, in spite of the guilt and vary steps that she thread. Since SUWOONG has been telling people false truths she wonder just how many he has told, and whether those have realised that it was all a misunderstanding, whether they believed that it was all simply a misunderstanding. Well... she wouldn’t necessarily call it so herself, because in her eyes it was straight up lies told by a coward who needed someone to blame. It’s what she has agreed to however, misunderstandings, because she couldn’t be bothered with making a scene out of something so small like that. She just wanted to be over with it.

MINHO invited them out on dinner so that the group could get to know each other better, and HYUNGGU suggested that they had an introductional game to break the ice. She appreciate that as it allowed her to relax sooner, to feel more comfortable around the current members of her group since ultimately she was still worried that someone believed the lies about her. That she was the cause of Amarante’s cancellation, when she was so close to debuting. In her eyes that doesn’t make sense but then again, it doesn’t make sense that Jimin would jeopardize such an opportunity either and in the end, that was precisely what she did.

She smiled when HYUNGGU chatted with her during the introduction where he explained that DOYEON is someone that he used to dance with back in the days, that he used to be her sunbae and that now it’s the other way around. “Really? That must be so weird,” she chuckles under her breath and wonder how that must feel like, “but it must also be nice to have a familiar face regardless. I know I’m glad to have YEJI unnie by my side, it makes me feel more at ease.” As the second youngest members of the group she feels a bit small, especially since she is grouped with MINHO, who is also an ex-idol. He isn’t at all how she expected him to be however, pleasantly surprised with how caring and thoughtful he is.

The coaches suggested some songs, and the group suggested some. When they landed on the choice of NCT 127′s Whiplash she truly understood CHAERYEONG’s worry, since the younger had already performed the group’s songs twice already. But with the others she assured her that the feeling would be completely different, that they will not perform exactly what is expected. As they make their own choreography, as well as write their own raps, it will be something new entirely, just with the original song in the background. The song fits their image well, and it provides a proper distribution of lines along with the fact that they all get to show what they do best, which is dancing. Five dancers in one group, trying to fit TRC’s image.

It was difficult, should she be honest, since TRC isn’t dance focused whatsoever, but they all managed well. YEJI and HYUNGGU was assigned to choreograph the new dance, with MINHO and Ryujin’s inputs. The latter two writing their own raps, and helping CHAERYEONG with hers. Ultimately, it would end up with a original take on the song with some small exceptions like the bridges. With the wound from last week still fresh Ryujin felt guilty for ending up in the infirmary and thus, worked even harder this week than previously. Now, she isn’t known to take breaks but she certainly worried YEJI to the point where she was told to relax, multiple times.

Drink water, sit down, rest a little.

And she did, eventually, because she know better than to say no to the other female in addition to the fact that she would definitely not be of any use if she’s sent to the infirmary again, just this time due to exhaustion instead of pure stress. During one of her breaks she decided to go out for a little walk, and to bring them all refreshments in the sorts of smoothies-- with the incredibly warm weather she found that they needed to keep themselves chilled, and energized. Bringing five different flavours she let the others pick first and though she know how to memorize lyrics, the ingredients of all five drinks went straight over her head.

-.✦･｡ﾟ

It’s strange being so close to a dream, yet so far away. The set up has changed and instead of sitting as an audience when not performing, they are now hidden behind the scenes as the audience has been replaced with an actual audience. Ryujin is thrilled, beyond excited because this will be the first time she actually perform in front of a live crowd of fans. Not necessarily hers, she is that realistic about it, but she hopes that at least some of them are there for her. She know that some people noticed her during the promotion times, when Starship released their dance practices and blogs, but she don’t know whether anyone kept their interest in her.

She squeezes YEJI’s hand back before they walk onto the stage, the crowd screaming loudly because of all the hype around them. Having been assigned to open their stage she look over towards the others before she speaks with a grin, “we are your,” and then they all speak in unison, “ANTIDOTE.” It was funny, cliché and something that Ryujin won’t ever let YEJI live down because she was the one to suggest the team name. They all get in position and she is ready. During the past few performances she has had no cue because she either rapped without the music, or she spoke just as it started, but this time she has a split second cue.

채찍질로 나를 깨워줘 My baby you are like (널 데려가) Palazzo Rocco, you are my antidote Lemon detox, right

The chorus comes up just after the intro, and it’s split between the two people in ANTIDOTE who can actually sing. She honestly envies them for their vocals, though she know that they are not by the best in the show, because she wish that she could sing as well. MINHO has the bigger rap verse almost for himself, Ryujin adlibs here and there but does not by any means try to take the spotlight as she know that she will get her own. He finishes off a self written rap verse strong as expected, having delivered his rap perfectly as expected. The chorus comes back up just like in the beginning before CHAERYEONG and Ryujin move into their parts, the former starting off with her own self written rap, Ryujin coming in every second line in the end to transition into her own verse that she has also written herself.

When they close up to YEJI’s big part of the stage she get anxious, Ryujin anticipates what the other has in store and she believe in the elder to pull off the high note because she has practiced so hard... and, she nails it, of course. She expected nothing less of her friend, and is satisfied not only for their performance but for YEJI as well as she know how much it means to her to master the art of singing. It leads straight into their dance break, which Ryujin suggested could be a sort of dance battle between the guys and the girls, excluding CHAERYEONG for only a short moment as her role becomes obvious soon enough, when she bring them all in to dance together again.

Ryujin feels good about the performance, like they have managed to complete it without flaws and that they could not have done anything differently. It’s how she has felt before however, so she doesn’t want to rely on such a feeling since she can’t possibly know what the judges look for in particular. But she is happy with their stage, more than happy actually, and the crowd seems to be satisfied as well because they roar in response, cheering loudly, and it only makes her want to step onto the stage again, again and again.

#rkmga5 #rkmga5groups #rkyeji #rkmason #rkchaeryeong #rkkhg #rksuwoong #rkjaemin #rkdoyexn #~*(wc: 1973;)

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danielxrk · 5 years ago

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✞ SELF WRITTEN RAP * HEAT

( * mentioned, some very briefly: @rkxsungwoon @rkminhyun @rkkenta @rkpwj @haknyeonrk @rkjeongin @rkeunji @joohyunrk @yuzurk @rkyuri @hyojinrk @rkpjy @jacksxnrk @rkjeonghxn @rkyeji @rksuwoong @rktaeyang @rkmason )

it’s like daniel doesn’t breathe from the moment the judges return from their deliberations. it’s not like last season, at least not yet-- no personal feedback and eliminations, and considering the sheer number of contestants, it makes sense, even if he didn’t consider how it would happen. he holds kenta and minhyun’s hands, and he doesn’t know if it’s to aid them or himself. he’s more nervous for them. daniel doesn’t know if he’ll make it, but he doesn’t really need this show-- doesn’t have the same talents to show as the others. he already got his experience from last season. this is what he tells himself to calm his nerves, anyway, and to quell that growing greed and hunger: i want this. this time i want to win.

sungwoon’s name comes first-- a given. daniel would probably leave the competition if he continued to the second round without him, but they don’t know if he’ll even get that far yet. minhyun’s name comes next, and daniel squeezes his hand in acknowledgement. next it’s woojin, and daniel lets himself get his hopes up. can they all continue on together? kenta is the one he worries for most. he doesn’t know how long kenta and woojin have both been dancing, but he doesn’t think it’s been long, and woojin’s dancing seems a little sharper-- a little more powerful, even to daniel’s untrained eye. his grip on kenta’s hand tightens, and he doesn’t know if it’s for his friend’s sake or his own. then his name comes, and daniel exhales, and it takes a moment for it to sink in. when it does, he throws is arms over both minhyun and kenta’s shoulders as best as he can and shakes them out of excitement.

they’re all going on together. he tells himself he won’t be greedy and hope for more than this; two rounds with all of them is more than enough-- a blessing, an honor, a privilege. he doesn’t know if they’ll get more than that, but he’ll enjoy it while they can.

it takes a moment to reel himself in and listen as they explain the next round, and there’s a pit in his stomach mixed with some intrinsic motivation. competing in your best skill. his mind flashes back to that room on audition day, of last year especially-- and the way his resolve shook more and more with each singer, undoubtedly more talented. the performances today only confirmed that fact. he knows he improved since last year, but he also knows it’s not enough. he looks from minhyun to sungwoon subtly-- both dear friends, and better singers than him. he doesn’t want to compete with that, not just because he knows he can’t, but because he doesn’t want to risk scraping by by the skin of his teeth and stealing a spot from one of them.

the singing category will be more competitive. he knows this, and among all of that talent, surely he’ll be below the cutoff. is there anywhere he won’t be below the cutoff? dancing is out, obviously, so his mind wanders to rap. it’s a new skill for him, and one he knows he has no right to believe he can win in, yet there’s a part of him that wonders. if he can put up a fight, does he have a better chance there than singing, among less contestants-- with more spots available to them? he was eliminated last year because in a team among singers, he was clearly the worst. he doesn’t know if his growth is enough to prevent that again, and the last thing he wants to do is go out the same way. he didn’t come back to repeat history. at the very least, he wants to go down swinging.

his thought process is broken by sungwoon getting up, and claiming he's going to switch to rap. daniel's brain short-circuits, expression going completely blank. can you even rap? he overhears from someone in front of them, inevitably one of the people cheering through the entire show, and sungwoon demands someone beatbox for him, and daniel is just caught in the crossfire of this. sungwoon then proceeds to drop an incredibly fire freestyle (see: horrible, even though daniel kind of thinks it's cute.) by the end, he knows he's just kidding, but daniel is also on his feet.

sungwoon makes it clear it's a joke, and daniel laughs but--

"no, but i'm actually switching to rap," daniel says, only to be met with blank faces all around.

sungwoon's why goes unspoken, so daniel's voice drops low, only for him to hear: "i got eliminated when all i had to do was sing." that's enough for sungwoon to understand.

daniel turns back to the others, smile on his face. "don't worry, guys. i've got this."

narrator: he does not got this (yet)

it's not that he regrets his decision upon beginning preparation for his performance, it's just that...he wishes he was better. he wishes he was better at everything-- that his singing was even remotely remarkable so he had a chance there, that he had more natural rapping talent that emerged when he picked it up for trc's triple threat challenge, just for fun. he wants more, and he can't help but feel where he's lacking will become abundantly clear next episode. but what can he do but try his best? it doesn't stop him from doubting, and there are more than a few times he wishes he stuck with singing, with all of the songs in his back pocket that would suit him singing with his trusty guitar. rap? he has nothing.

haknyeon proves a big help, not just in cleaning up his rapping itself, but in helping him find songs. he helps daniel narrow down the song choices he picked out among the "khiphop" playlist he found on spotify, trying desperately to latch onto anything relatable that he could regurgitate on stage. there were rap songs he heard when he lived in vancouver too-- english, but none of them stood out as something he'd like to perform. by saturday, he's narrowed it down significantly, and has an inkling of an idea.

his dad calls him after the episode airs; apparently mina convinced him to watch it with her, and daniel doesn't know whether to feel relieved or not that he and his sister's silent agreement to never speak of his time on the mgas last year is broken now. all of his family knows how much he loves music now, so it's fine, right? still, there's more pressure. to his surprise, he isn't met with harshness; it's more you did well and you wrote that song? and i wish they showed more of it and even if we wish you would've done different, i'll be supporting you and remember, glorifying god is the most important thing. it's better than daniel expected, and it's not like he's wrong. he wants to show a different side of himself than he did last round, and that's partially why he chose rap, but he doesn't know how to really display that and remain true to himself, too.

he showed different sides of himself last season too, from singing a worship song out of panic at his first audition to...whatever he did for troublemaker. even if he's distanced himself from his mother, and the kind of organized religion he couldn't untie from her, his faith is still strong-- an unshakable and undeniable part of daniel at his core, and it feels like if he didn't show that on this competition it...wouldn't be right. if he believes what the bible says is true, that's his primary purpose in life, so shining the light on god on stage feels like the least he can do.

it's what compels him to delve into the world of christian rap, even if the lyrics of it all is in english. that's an important side of himself too, so he isn't opposed to rapping in english this round, even if the meaning would be lost on much of the audience. katie lee at least knows english, right? would her name be katie lee if she didn't? he can probably get away with it. he settles on five different ideas, but he's not content with the songs alone. he knows if he wants to stand out, or have any chance against these rappers better and more experienced than him, he has to do what he does best: write lyrics.

he hasn't ventured into the realm of writing raps before, but now's the time.

his intention at first is to rap part of the original song of whatever he chooses in the end, and write his own verse to finish out the song, or maybe to start it out-- he isn't sure yet, but then he thinks...is that enough? he starts venturing out into the land of instrumental beats. he reminds himself that he doesn't have much experience with rapping-- that it's greedy to think he can write a full rap himself and stand a chance, and yet...what does he have to set him apart other than this? he doesn't have remarkable skill. if he writes one verse on his own, he has the sliver of a chance to stand out, but if he does more...

maybe everyone will wonder if he's capable of performing anyone else's songs after two weeks of original content in a row, if he truly goes down this path. but if he makes it further than this, won't he have the chance to prove it? he might not get the chance to share his own words again for the entirety of the competition. if he makes it further, he'll show that too. he has enough songs he wants to cover that aren't his own, he just needs to show everything he has to show, and in the end, all he really has to show are...his own words.

if he's going to rap, it needs to have impact. he needs to make up for anywhere he lacks with something hard-hitting, and it needs to be in the rap itself, but the instrumental is important, too. that sets the tone for the entire performance, and he can't even begin to work on the lyrics without settling on that. what he is settled on: this is what he's doing. he's going to write his own rap.

that train of thought is how he somehow ends up listening to girl groups-- entirely unfamiliar territory for daniel, outside of eclipse, whom he recently discovered and somewhat likes thanks to chase me. he knows luxe is that group sungwoon likes, or something, and k.arma is that group jeongin likes, but he hasn't listened to either of them before. he finds himself drifting to their instrumentals naturally, and he thinks...what better way to stand out than to rap over a girl group's instrumental? it'll be shocking in general, especially from someone like daniel, who seemed so trapped in the mold of singer-songwriter and guy in a metal band. i feel good is too fast, even for someone surprisingly capable of rapping at high speeds for how long he's been rapping. he can't wrap his head around how he would even begin to rap over news. every night is way more in the realm of possibility, but he isn't really sure if it suits what he wants. what does he want? a mystery. he ventures further into girl groups-- more obscure ones, ones he's never heard of, and he finds a song with a good instrumental, and luckily, when he searches for the instrumental itself, it appears.

next, his confidence wavers, and he bobbles back and forth on whether to use an existing rap song as his framework-- only writing a verse himself, or if he wants to go the full nine yards. he's painfully aware of the time he's wasting with each passing hour, so he enlists the help of empty enigma in deciding. kenta encourages him to rap over another beat, claiming daniel's good sense of rhythm will be able to make it sound cool, and if that wasn't enough, in asking, it becomes clear what daniel hopes they'll say. maybe he just needed an extra confidence boost to actually do this.

he spends the next days with his time equally spent between his own home and the empty enigma apartment, scrawling lyrics into his notebook that holds countless songs, well-worn. there, he raps them quietly to himself, under his breath. it's mostly just him, sungwoon and minhyun here, woojin and kenta out practicing their dancing in more appropriate places, inevitably. it doesn't stop him from pestering them all over which version of his lyrics sound better. (if jealousy is just your fate i guess that might be fine too or if jealousy is how you're made i guess that might be fine too?) but he doesn't rap much of it out loud, preferring to leave it as a surprise for the day of his performance, but they probably hear enough bits and pieces to add it all up into the whole song, anyway. in his own apartment, rapping his written lines over and over again as he goes about his daily routine until they're seared into his memory and flow off of his tongue as close to second nature as possible.

he needs all the help standing out this round that he can get. now he just needs to make sure it's good.

he trails into the venue after the rest of his bandmates, just like before, and something about the reduced number of chairs makes his stomach feel sick. it's a reminder that even if they all survived to this round, their chances of doing so again grow slimmer and slimmer, as that number of chairs lessens. their group hesitates, searching for somewhere to sit, and daniel and sungwoon make eye contact in a silent understanding that they don't want to sit near the people they sat with last episode. "hey, let's go sit over here!" daniel suggests good naturedly, leading them to the other side of the stage, and they take a seat in the same row as they did before, in a completely different area than previously.

sungwoon sits down first. "i'm sitting next to you this time," daniel says, no room for argument, and sits down right beside him. kenta sits in the seat next to him again, woojin next to him, minhyun on the end beside sungwoon, and that puts daniel right in the middle. it's what he deserves, for how much emotional support he's going to need for this round. much to daniel's relief, eunji's group sits where they sat last time, well away from daniel and the rest of empty enigma, and he feels some of the tension in his shoulders fade. as close as he is to joohyun, it's probably better they don't sit together too, if only for sungwoon's sake (and so daniel can hold his hand as long as he wants, guilt-free.)

he watches as more contestants fill in, the seats growing full quickly, but the ones in front of them remain open. that doesn't last for long. daniel watches in sheer and utter horror as the people he recognizes from the loud and overwhelming row in front of them from last round and kenta, of all things, motions them over. daniel and sungwoon turn, a staring-into-the-camera-like-they're-on-the-office moment, but staring at each other instead, and daniel sees the moment where sungwoon really considers getting up and leaving the rest of them by themselves to deal with this. really, valid reaction. maybe daniel could follow him, and sungwoon alone would be all the support he needs for this; he acknowledges that as a very likely reality, but it doesn't mean he wants to leave the others. "don't leave me with them," he whispers, eyes pleading, hand on his arm to make sure he can't so easily get away, and that seems to do the trick.

as if that wasn't bad enough, a girl he recognizes as yena comes over and starts talking to kenta, and-- actually, this part isn't so bad. he says hi to her with a smile, otherwise observing their conversation quietly, always the better listener than conversationalist. he knows yena, though-- met her at a festival a while ago and maybe...met her as cameo. that part, he doesn't entirely remember. she takes her leave soon enough.

the performances start up more quickly this time, and he supposes that makes sense with half the contestants. they'll start with the singers. that gives daniel some time to prepare-- or to sit through countless people better than him and psych himself out, depending on your perspective. he tries to distract himself with the performances to calm his nerves, but he reaches for sungwoon's hand almost as soon as they begin, and he doesn't let go. in it he finds comfort-- leverage, stability, something a little grounding that brings his head and flying thoughts back down to earth.

yena performs first, and she's charming, as he remembers her being. her voice isn't the best, and he can relate, but she still makes a nice performance, and he hopes he'll be able to do the same for the rap category. there's another performer he doesn't recognize, and then it's sungwoon's turn before he knows it. he squeezes his hand in encouragement, and smiles up at him as he stands. this time feels different than last round; he's less dazed and distant, and thinks he won't be as caught off guard, unless sungwoon decides to serenade him without him knowing again-- can he call it that? is that what it was? when sungwoon takes to the stage, daniel feels like those walls that they've been chipping away at since the end of march might finally be coming down. as always, sungwoon does well-- voice always prevailing above everything, powerful over any background noise, commanding all attention. if it's not that, it's his presence, and both go together to create an incredible performer. he doesn't even have to be doing anything, he can just stand there and sing. daniel wishes he could do that. it's just one of the many things daniel admires him for, and he always has, from the moment he met him. sungwoon's two minutes pass too quickly, and the brief respite daniel found suspended in his voice ends with it.

sungwoon returns, and when he does, daniel narrows his eyes. what the hell is he carrying? kenta catches on before daniel does-- ah, yes, shoelifts. daniel can't relate. "what...happened?" daniel asks. how did his shoelifts get from...his shoes to his hands? he just looks back and forth from hi to kenta wildly as the ensuing argument happens, eyes ever widening, countless words he could say on the tip of his tongue but never coming out as the conversation barrels on. "you're both--" not that short, he wants to say, but as a certified tall person, he has no right, and he also realizes he doesn't know how often he's seen them without insoles. he feels oddly betrayed by this realization suddenly, and sungwoon is hollering about seeing kenta's feet and kenta is talking about makeup on feet and daniel blinks in utter despaired confusion. "can we stop talking about feet.." he mutters sadly, and thank god, they do.

once they finally settle down, daniel utters a quiet "you did well," to sungwoon, and squeezes his hand one more time. he retracts it quickly though, out of fear of overdoing it, or making his attachment too obvious, or annoying him, or something else he probably has no reason to worry about but will anyway, as always. his hand is sweaty anyway. he rubs it on his pants, as subtly as he can.

a girl sings next, and daniel vaguely recognizes her-- maybe these performers stuck in his head more than he thought after all. minhyun is up next though; he knows this because he's been keeping track in alphabetical order as best as he can. if he's not up next it's soon, and he's just as quickly proven right. he leans forward far enough just to look at him and say, "good luck minhyun hyung!" somehow, he's surprised by minhyun's talent again, as he is each time. maybe he keeps getting better, or maybe he can't dissociate minhyun as manager of the band, always someone behind the scenes instead of someone deserving of the stage, and capable of filling one all by himself. he likes watching him, though, and he wonders if minhyun feels the same as he did last year: like the mgas are showing him he really does have a place on stage.

they need to get through several singers after that, and daniel zones in and out-- in for yuri, who stood out to him last round, and to hyojin, his unexpected collaboration partner, and in for jinyoung, whose performance he liked last time and who seems...vaguely familiar? he tries to pay attention to jackson too, if only for rockstar solidarity, and by then, the singers are already finished. somehow, it simultaneously went faster and slower than he expected, like some kind of time warp. he almost says something like you already performed, so now you get to be bored instead of nervous, to sungwoon, but becomes keenly aware of the cameras and dangling microphones and how unkindly that might paint him, so quickly decides against it.

besides, now that dancers are up, he has a new stake in this. joohyun starts off, so it's with a bang, naturally, and daniel finds himself far more nervous watching her now than last round, knowing she's dancing with an injury. he's on the edge of his seat the entire time, expression probably set in something close to a grimace, but when he realizes, he tries to control it, because that won't show well on camera either. then it happens: she stumbles, and his heart drops, and that grimace is back on his face, justifiably so, and he prays she makes it through safely from now on. he should've prayed for her from the start. he should've prayed for all of them.

she makes it through-- finishes as strong as she can, but daniel knows joohyun, and knows she'll be devastated. part of him thinks this is his fault; he didn't shut down her idea of joining the show again. he wanted her here with him, even if it wasn't the best for her, and now she's suffering for it. when she steps off stage, he stands up on instinct, without much thought, craning his neck to see her on the other side of the stage-- to make sure she's okay. he wants to do something. in his heart, he wants to run over to her to check for himself, to see if he can do anything to help. he doesn't even know if mnet will let him leave his seat, or if he'll only make things worse, but sungwoon says, "go check to see if she's okay," from beside him, and it's like that releases him to. he nods, and lets his feet carry him to her side, where he pulls her into a hug as soon as he can, suddenly immune to eunji's presence and everything else. "you did the best you could," he whispers, still lingering in the hug. "you're really brave and i wish i could be more like you." he knows he can't stay too long, so he pulls away, ruffles her hair, and just watches her for a moment. he nods at her, slowly, some silent message exchanged between them: i know you. you're strong and you can get through this. she nods back.

he heads back to his seat, and his eyes still drift back to joohyun across the stage from him once he's seated. he accidentally meets the gaze of the man beside her-- one of the people he saw comforting joohyun before he could. daniel doesn't remember his name, but his eyes bore into him so fiercely that something about it brings a chill to his blood, so he looks away.

daniel expects to dissociate through the dancers, if only because he couldn't tell the difference between dancers' talent if it smacked him in the face, but his cousin, yeji, performs early, and eunji after that. he feels too guilty to even watch eunji, even if he wants to, so he stares, unfocused, through the chair in front of him, painstakingly, through her full performance. he pays a little more attention to the others, but it all blurs together until he hears suwoong's name called, and he perks up, if only because he expects this to be interesting after trot ring ding dong. he isn't disappointed.

woojin is next up, and he does a silent "fighting" gesture to his friend as he stands up, even if he doesn't even know if woojin saw it. when woojin takes to the stage, daniel still can't believe he didn't even know woojin could dance. he's this good and daniel didn't even know. what did daniel miss? did woojin keep it that under wraps or is he just stupid? a mystery. when in doubt, assume both. he claps for him enthusiastically when he steps off stage, and makes sure to tell him he did a good job, too. kenta's performance is up next, and daniel somewhat roughly pats his back to send him off, big smile on his face, and daniel watches him just as intently. it's a performance that really suits kenta, more than he thought his last one did, truthfully, and he's so thankful he gets to show this side of him on the competition at least once. it's so sincerely kenta that it's only appropriate.

he pays attention to taeyang's performance after too, a little shocked by how many contestants in this show he actually knows-- a little worried about how painful eliminations will be from here on out. sometime-- maybe at the end of the dancers, or the beginning of the rappers --daniel's hand finds sungwoon again with the resurgence of his nerves. mason is in rap, of all things, and daniel didn't anticipate that much, for some reason. he's so good. daniel both has goosebumps because of the impactfulness of the performance and because he's suddenly terrified. when it ends, he looks over at sungwoon pointedly-- meaningfully, but eyes completely devoid of life. how do i follow that? still, he finds something comforting in sungwoon's gaze, and when he looks away, he lets out a long exhale and tries to recenter himself, still clutching sungwoon's hand like a lifeline.

he spends the rest of the rappers preceding him doing deep breathing exercises and detaching from this current plane of existence, making the executive decision that scoping out the competition before he performs will only cause his confidence to plummet. he hears their instrumentals start and stop in the background-- becomes distinctly aware of performances passing by --and he knows he should be about in the middle, realistically. he doesn't know the names of all of these rappers, but k is in the middle of the alphabet, and it seems like there are a lot of choi's. he spends much of his time leaning just a little bit forward, head hanging so he can stare at the ground instead of the stage, but he still holds on to sungwoon's hand. his gaze starts to drift toward sungwoon even more, like he's waiting for him to say something. he wants this to feel the way it does before empty enigma shows-- that confidence and adrenaline, that certainty that he was born to do this, that...not being alone. he half wants sungwoon to flirt with him, that trademark of squall and cameo that anchored him to the moment and who he needed to be before stepping on stage more than he realized, like that'll awaken something stronger in him. he looks at him again, like maybe he'll get the hint, slip him something small and unassuming, but his name is up too quickly.

yes, he needs something bigger than himself: an alter ego or divine intervention, so as he walks toward the stage, he prays. please give me confidence. remind me of all my words, help me stay on beat, calm my nerves. help me to do what you want me to do. let's do this.

they hand him the microphone once he steps on stage, and he bows, grin stretching across his face on instinct. he bows first to the crowd, then to the judges. "i'm kang daniel," he introduces himself on this stage for the second time. "and i'll be rapping for you. ah-- you already know that," he realizes, and laughs at himself, which also appears to be a common theme. "this is an original rap, and i...apologize in advance." smile fades to something a little more cheeky. he'll just leave it at that.

he turns around, back to the audience and the cameras, and pulls up his hood. his beat begins, and he has no time to waste.

i’m here with a new skill since the last time

i know i’m not the best; for now i’ve got a few rhymes

i only have two minutes but won’t start out with my best lines

i saved the best for last the way this beat climbs

he didn't actually write this portion of his lyrics first-- he wrote them all out of order, based on whatever popped into his head, then revised and rearranged. this part in particular is meant to be a buildup to the rest, as stated, but also as a build up for his confidence: a sign of things to come and a chance to be underestimated by the audience so his later lyrics pack the punch he wants them to. shades of season four's daniel: timid, unassuming, in over his head. he's not that daniel anymore, and he's about to prove it.

god told me to be strong for he is with me

so with your eyes on me i’ll pretend i don’t feel scrutiny

this battle isn’t mine, he’ll defeat every enemy

and i’ll still love you anyway, proverbs 24:17

if you want to live through this you better be holy

and be prepared to bow down, every knee

so go ahead and tear me up

i’ve already heard enough

every criticism is like my heart’s handcuff

the buildup of the beat kicks in halfway through this part, and the words roll off of his tongue quickly, like he practiced time after time, over and over until his tongue felt strange in his mouth. he makes use of the stage now, gestures along with the rap, nerves ebbing and dissipating entirely. he means all of this more than any rap he could've covered. this: a reference to his faith, still intrinsic to his nature, but more obvious last season given the song he performed for his first audition in a panic. maybe he added this because of what his dad said: make sure to glorify god. he knows he can't step on this stage within his own power, so this is a shout out to the one that really makes it all possible-- plus a little self-righteousness, of course, because who wants to hear a rap without confidence? when he says bow down he makes the gesture with his free hand: vertical to horizontal, but this is still the build up of his confidence. in this is still the admission that the criticism-- not just from the mgas, but from his entire life --still gets to him. it's a part of him now.

the drum kicks in, the beat builds up and up, and leads him into what may be his favorite set of lines:

i can be your idol rapper

i can be your firecracker

i can just stay quiet because my opinion never matters

i can work myself to death

i can give up my success

but i can never be enough

an ode to his willingness to be whatever anyone else wants him to be-- to the fire in him, from cameo or otherwise, to his mother's if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all, to sacrifice upon sacrifice upon sacrifice, and the end result: that unshakable feeling of unworthiness.

then the beat drops.

i have less experience

but i can already spit

heat, heat

competition has departed

i’m only just getting started

heat, heat

is my talent now surprising?

temperature is always rising

heat, heat

this year i have passion

i’m ready to cash in

heat, heat

heat, said in english. in the end, it's all about that fire. he said it in his thanks to for between fear and faith: thank you to my parents for raising me well and not supporting me doing music so i would know how much this really meant to me, and so i could take the fire that lit in me and put it into this album. there's so much that lit a fire in him that he couldn't put into this rap, but it fuels him. as much as he brags, however, there's something a little subdued about heat, like it's not quite a fire yet-- the feeling it gives off, but not the flame-- something with room to grow into something greater, just like him. he makes use of the stage, refusing to just stand in the middle, but playing to the crowd, and now that he begun, it feels natural, and it feels the same: that exchange of energy, between cameo and fans in an underground club, between daniel and his fellow contestants in the mga venue. he waves his free hand up and down, encouraging the audience to do the same like any decent performer at a concert-- reaches out like he's about to touch one of the contestant's hands, but they're too far out of reach, so he turns and half-skips across the stage.

the beat stays strong and ushers in the second verse, and when his bragging truly begins, and by this point in the song, he's sufficiently grown into it.

i’m not supposed to do this so my mom won’t even watch me

music isn’t good enough, disappointment to the family

but you’ll still catch me on the stage, bass riffs every weekend

i deserve a world tour, self-made songs, best friends

it's all true, all self explanatory, and when he gets to the best friends part, he intentionally points to empty enigma on their side of the stage and smiles, though there's a bite to it. he embraces it-- lets cameo leak into this performance, because with all secrets exposed, there's no need to keep anything separate anymore. despite their differences, they're the same, and this performance requires more attitude than daniel was ever capable of on his own.

our god is greater, shaky voice, season four

now i’m back on every site, certified uproar

you’re tired of my face, right?

i’m too weak, i’m too bad, won’t put up a fight, right?

four fingers held up four season four, and a reference to his first abysmal, pathetic audition that still got him into the competition somehow, and he bounces across the stage, not unlike the way he does at empty enigma's shows. when he asks his questions, he smirks-- pauses in his movements briefly to put a hand on his hips, then nods toward tiger jk at the end before he picks up where he left off, still animated. (maybe he's out of breath-- maybe just a little. he didn't account for how active he'd be on stage during his practice, but he hopes his energy and commitment to the performance makes up for anywhere he lacks.)

he circles around the stage, searching for somewhere to land-- ends up right back in front of empty enigma, so he crouches down and raps to the row in front of them. who's loud now? you better cheer for me too.

you don’t even know that cameo is in my back pocket

bring the best of both and watch my album sales skyrocket

you wish fans would scream your name and buy your merch like mine do

if jealousy is just your fate, i guess that might be fine too

this goes out to cameo; he deserves his own lines. without him-- the lie he was crafted out of, the character and beast of his own he grew into, the spirit he carries with him on stage --none of this would've been possible. without cameo, there would be no daniel in empty enigma, none of his best friends, none of this newfound passion, none of this joy, and even if his identity is revealed now, and he puts cameo to a certain kind of death, he'll always be thankful for him and what he represented. (not yet, he thinks. he'll keep him around for a little bit longer.)

he points to empty enigma again, then stands up and works his way toward the other side of the stage. oh yeah, those increased album sales would be nice too. stream between fear and faith on melon.

i wrote 40 songs this year; it’s fine if you can’t beat me

write bad comments, feel like how i’ll win this-- free

you can hate me but i’m still right here on your tv

and i’ll still get more screentime than your faves, so watch me

they're the final lines, and the ones meant to pack the biggest punch, hence their position at the end: perpetual build up in his confidence so he can finally say through rap what he'd never be bold enough to in person. he doesn't really mean it, but what's a rap if not delivered with confidence, even when you don't mean it, or it's unwarranted? he hopes now, his audience is at least a little impressed with his lyrics, even if they aren't with his rap itself: tone nothing special, only good for rapping fast and little else. he doesn't think about it now. instead, he uses the signature crazy hand gesture near his head and turns in a circle to face away from the audience again, only to spin out for the return of the final chorus.

i have less experience

but i can already spit

heat, heat

competition has departed

i’m only just getting started

heat, heat

is my talent now surprising?

temperature is always rising

heat, heat

this year i have passion

i’m ready to cash in

heat, heat

he soaks in the final moments: this energy, this electricity, and doesn't let himself think about how this hit, or what people think. the daniel in this moment doesn't care about that. all he focuses on is ending strong, and making sure he puts on a good show until the very end, because now, that's more important to him than showing off his skills-- more important than anything. heat, heat, and then it's over.

he bursts into a smile as soon as it is, and bows, twice once more, before handing his mic off. he practically bounds off stage, back to his seat, giving high fives to anyone that will accept one on his way back, and maybe, just maybe, it's fire after all.

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serenity-the-firefly · 6 years ago

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Tell me all about your blue turns into a tree rant!!! I'm so interested to read it.

anon i have been waiting my WHOLE LIFE to be asked this question. This is a tale of PERSONAL GRIEVANCE that spans SEVERAL YEARS and THREE different fictional universes. Before i get into it, here is the reason i have such strong feelings about this: as previously mentioned in this post, female heroes (especially in YA novels) get much more brutal arcs than male heroes. They often start as outsiders to society, but unlike male heroes they end as outsiders as well. One way this happens is that the female character is literally transformed into something non-human because apparently the concept of a successful woman becoming a part of society without giving up some intrinsic part of herself is just so completely abhorrent. Instead it’s preferable to have her become Something Else. Basically, female characters don’t get to live out happy, normal lives, and this is a manifestation of that.

Okay, actual reasoning over, RANT TIME GO:

1. A Bad Beginning.

A long time ago, circa 2016, when The Raven King was released, a younger & more innocent me was tentatively excited to read the conclusion to this series that she enjoyed a lot, and to get see how everything was wrapped up. Now, there were….a lot of things that i really disliked about this book and in fact that i have largely blocked out of my memory. But the thing that i will NEVER FORGET/STOP BEING BITTER ABOUT was that blue’s arc was literally concluded by it turning out that she was PART TREE. First off, I love Blue, and I love what her character explores, and I specifically identify heavily with the whole “wanting something more” deal- that Blue doesn’t just want to be magic-adjacent, she wants something more. And the fact that Stiefvater chose to resolve that issue with “ the real magic was the friends we made along the way, and also ur part tree. have fun backpacking around the world without addressing any of your actual issues.” made me FURIOUS. On a less personal level- look at the other main characters of trc. Ronan is this dreamer with untapped raw potential who created an entire magical forest, Adam is a powerful magician in service to said forest, Gansey is somehow…the forest itself?? (still not clear on that one), and Blue is….a tree. She is a tree, singular, with barely any power in her own right, while the three boys are entire orders of magnitude above her both in terms of power. The guys get an entire world of magic and her consolation prize is that she is a tree.

2. Twice is a Coincidence?

Then, last year I mainlined all of the Shannara Chronicles, which is SO BAD AND STUPID but also i enjoy it a lot. (It checks a lot of boxes for me and is in general a fun time!) And my favorite character was Amberle, the cool elf princess (who was absolutely into Eritrea, fight me) with a heart of gold and ironclad sense of duty. Now, Amberle was sent on a mission to find a cure for the dying Elcrys (a magical tree that, like, kept 1,000,000 demons at bay or something), because for some reason the Elcrys kept sending her visions. She was the only one the Elcrys talked to, which, cool, I’m down for a fun mystical quest involving trees. I didn’t mention this earlier, but Amberle is basically the main character of season 1. Austin Butler is nominally the protag but Amberle gets the hero arc, drives the plot, and is also just way cooler. So you spend this entire season getting to know & love Amberle and at the end of the season when they finally get to the place with the cure or whatever for the Elcrys, Amberle goes into some mystical vision only to discover that the reason she could hear the Elcrys was because……sHE WAS THE ELCRYS THE WHOLE TIME!!! LITERALLY ANOTHER VERSION OF HERSELF COMES TO HER AND IS LIKE…AMBERLE THE ACTUAL CURE IS THAT YOU HAVE TO SACRIFICE YOURSELF FOR THE GREATER GOOD AND BECOME THIS TREE TO ONCE MORE BANISH THE DEMONS. AND SHE DOES. SHE REALLY GOES THROUGH WITH IT AND BECOMES A TREE AND IS NOT IN THE SECOND SEASON!!!! like i was so mad about this that when i put this and the Blue thing together i texted my poor friend at like 4 in the morning on a wednesday. like JESUS was your big season finale idea really that AMBERLE WAS A TREE THE WHOLE FUCKIGN TIME? you put this character through the RINGER just to set her up to SACRIFICE her life and BECOME A TREE.

3. JEsus Christ…I am so tired.

Going even farther back, to like junior year of high school, i stumbled upon The Magicians books and read them all in quick succession. Then, this year I got into the TV show and remembered a crucial fact about Julia’s arc in the books: she ends up turning into a dryad. Julia, who is horribly assaulted and put through absolute hell by Lev Grossman, finally gets her shiny prize at the end of the race, and it’s that she. turns into. a fUCKINg TREE. She is traumatized and changed irrevocably and loses her humanity, but hey. she gets to be a tree goddess now, so thats cool i guess?

4. Conclusion.

In two of these cases, becoming a tree was the conclusion of a character arc where the male protagonists get to become happy, well adjusted members of society. In the third case, a female sacrifices her life and becomes a tree to save others (and give austin butler some good man angst). Separately, these could all be perfectly good and satisfying arcs! (Well, most of them) Being a tree isn’t inherently bad; but man, what does it say that this is a pattern with female characters?

At the end of the day, this is a manifestation of society’s discomfort with women who are fully people and not just objects, and honestly i think there’s a case to be made that this is a form of violence against characters who dare to defy that. It’s misogny, plain and simple.

tl;dr: Stop turning your girls into fucking trees.

#I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ON THIS SUBJECT!!!!!#the magicians #the raven cycle #shannara #trc #the magicians meta

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rkheejin · 5 years ago

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‧ ₊ ˚ ♡ the callback performance! • • • an acoustic cover of dear no one by tori kelly // 0:40 — 2:30!

despite the way her heart threatened to leap from her chest hours after she'd returned home from her audition, her palms moist in a way unfamiliar to one who was normally so calm and in control of herself, heejin had no doubts that she'd pass on to whatever the next stage had in store. in her mind, she was nothing to pass over, her own pride and need for approval taking root deeply within her heart as a way of protective assurance— in her eyes, it'd be idiotic not to put her through.

the morning she'd gotten the email, eyes scanning frantically in search of undisputable words for confirmation, the brunette felt nothing short of gratification and unacknowledged relief.

they had seen. they had seen.

( of course they had seen, she tells herself, those words acting as a silent mantra as she stares at her phone's screen. she doesn't register how her hand shakes slightly, knuckles slowly losing color with the force she uses to clutch onto the device like it's a lifeline— it's only when she feels her older sisters hand rest firmly on her shoulder, a squeeze being given, that she breaks from whatever trance she'd fallen into and a delighted grin ).

she knows that it's silly, ridiculous even, the way she wants to practically squeal over the phone to anyone and everyone who'll listen once she's read and reread the email ten times over— in her own ways, despite the underlying embarrassment she does well to keep deep down ( save for the way it colors her cheeks pink and leaves her short of breath ), she does just that. it's easy to lose herself in the excitement, cheeks almost painfully numb from the smile that'd yet to leave her lips, but as the day progress' and night falls, it all truly begins to sink in for her.

the first episode.

she was confirmed to have screentime for the first episode— the first episode in which, similarly to how she'd had to for her initial audition, she would have to perform and play up her strengths to solidify her own significance and appeal. this time, however, her presentation had an incredibly high chance of actually reaching the public eye. where the auditions were simply a teaser, a preview of what could possibly come later on for contestants if let through, this was different. this was the start— where the season would truly begin.

the moment the cameras turned on, ready and waiting to catch it all ( the good, the bad, the pretty, and most definitely the ugly ), there would be no turning back— that only meant heejin needed to prepare her very best.

she wouldn't fail here— not when this, like the show in itself, was only her beginning.

undeterred by the sense of intimidation threatening to bubble in the pit of her stomach with each day that passed, bringing her closer and closer to the first day of filming, heejin finds it easy to drown herself in constant preparation. she's holed up in her room, jaehyuns apartment, spending more time with her vocal coach, practicing and perfecting with the intent to impress, to earn recognition from the plethora of awaiting peers she knows are all doing the same.

heejin wouldn't let herself fall behind ( wouldn't let herself lack presence and charm ), not when she sees the way jungeun works herself to exhaustion while perfecting her own dance routine, the blondes determination and fire only inspiring and enhancing the brunettes own drive for success— not when she has jei's encouragements to live up to.

with each night spent going over pronunciations, calloused fingertips committing chords to memory, heejins confidence only grows stronger. her heart no longer threatens to burst through her chest, hands steady and strong where they'd once shaken with slight tremors of uncertainty, and she no longer allows thoughts of intimidation and failure to take hold.

no, heejin is strong, ready and sure— the morning of filming, as she's getting ready to meet jungeun and head out together, she knows there's nothing to worry about.

walking into the performance space for the first time, taking in the chairs surrounding a stage ( there's no need to question whether that's where they'll all be performing today, not when the email they'd received specified so ), and for a moment, she allows herself to survey the space. they hadn't been the first ones to arrive, despite heejins insistence on making sure they got to the location a little earlier than the allotted time, giving her the chance to scope out the competition before everything began— it's surprising, really, how many familiar faces she can pick out amongst the ever-growing crowd, all going about their own business in ways of last minute preparations and warm-ups.

one face, in particular, causes her to raise her brows, and without much thought, she finds herself walking to where the other girl is sat. yewon— the name comes to mind clear as day, even after all these months of distance. a nice girl, one heejin hadn't ever thought she'd see in a place like this, reaching for stardom so publicly, but heejin figured her own surprise was natural ( she and yewon weren't close friends, simply becoming friendly through occasional tutoring sessions, but yewon had always been cool and calm. of all the people to reappear in her life, heejin was glad it had been the other girl ).

she snags the two free seats next to the other girl, sat securely between yewon and jungeun, and it's easy to fall into eager conversation as they wait for everyone to arrive— yet, heejins eyes are sharp with curiosity, keeping tabs silently on every person that comes in and passes by, cataloging and making guess' as to who would be doing what.

she knows her own performance would be rather easy to predict if the guitar case resting securely at her feet was anything for others to go off of.

at this point, as the last contestant comes and takes a seat, the staff running around to make last minute adjustments before things begin, heejin doesn't think anything could throw her for a loop.

that's when the ceos walk in.

well damn.

she doesn't even try to hide her surprise, eyes widening even larger than they already naturally were, her jaw dropping open slightly, looking between the two girls on either side of her because holy shit— they were going to be the judges of their performances for the very first episode. nerves she had sworn she'd gotten rid of in the days leading up to now threaten to rise up her throat, leaving her without any air, but she does her best to swallow them back down. now was not the time to let things get to her head, even with a surprise like this being thrown her way. no, she couldn't let herself lose focus.

she's grateful for the time it takes to get to her name, letting herself regain attention as people perform one by one, her guitar unpacked and ready to go for when it’s her turn. it's almost calming, surprisingly, and she even finds herself enjoying some of what others have to offer.

there were certainly some talented individuals in the bunch, that was for sure.

heejin would need to work even harder.

it's tiger jk who calls her to the stage, his voice cutting anticipated silence, and heejin rises from her seat with determined grace ( she’s not forgotten of her rejection from his company, from trc, but that hardly means anything here— she can easily face him without fear or resentment ). her head is held high as she walks, a pretty grin on her lips. her acoustic guitar hangs off of her securely, and she makes sure to keep it from flopping around as she reaches center stage and bows to the judges. "hello, my name is jeon heejin. i'm 18 years old and i'm in my first year of university. thank you for having me— i'll be singing for you today, i hope you enjoy."

she's given the ok, confirmation to begin whenever she was ready, and it only takes a moment for her to right herself— she holds her guitar with firm care, tucking hair behind an ear and throwing it behind her so the strings are free to play without disruption, and as she takes a final breath, she plays.

her voice is clear, her lower register stable and solid despite the natural breathy way she sings, fingers easily strumming as they had with every practice she'd done. without thought, she finds herself swaying along to a nonexistent beat, time signatures only made known by her playing, but she knows it's correct— heejin knows it isn't rushed. years of experience playing has taught her how to keep time without tapping her foot the whole time or counting beats in her head, and the more she sings, the more power grows with each word and chord played.

she's never had much of a grasp on the english language, only really teetering on a beginners level, but that does little to hold her back— she sings with physical familiarity, lips forming words she's only vaguely come to understand the meaning of in her time of learning, but knows enough to pronounce with clarity and enough feeling.

as she transitions nicely into her head voice, her higher register coming into play, she lets her eyes close, her breathy tone still apparent but hardly taking away from the strength she still has. the point she can really feel herself dodging notes, not using full power as she'd been doing up until that point for fear of overdoing it and possibly straining herself too early, are the higher notes during the chorus. instead, she lets her airiness take hold, drawing them out in that way for her own appeal. falling back into the next verse, however, her strength returns with her chest voice and vibrato. opening her eyes, she lets her gaze travel around the room lightly, taking in faces and reactions ( mainly, hoping to take in the judges reactions ), but she doesn't let what she sees ( or doesn't see ) distract her. her fingers continue to move with ease, and as the chorus comes again, she gives it her all for this final stretch.

unlike before, where she'd kept her voice lighter, withholding strength during the first chorus, she pushes herself more, projecting with slight runs and cadence. she's grinning now, brows furrowed, and she's immersed in the experience. for a moment, it's easy to forget how high the stakes are, how one hundred and four pairs of eyes are watching her, analyzing her, for any triumphs and faults. for a moment, it's just jeon heejin, her voice, and a guitar.

her high falls, however, as she sings her final line, a run ending it all nicely, and her voice fades out with an echoing of a final strum. she's warm, eyes closed still as she inhales deeply away from the mic. slightly panting, she smiles once more, eyes crinkling at the corners, and she bows a final time before she makes to return to her seat.

sinking down beside jungeun again, she almost gives in to the urge she has to slouch and rest her head on the blonde's shoulder— she resists, however, and simply opts for a sigh and quirk of her brow. "now you have to make sure you wow this crowd— i can't advance without you."

#˚ ♡ ‧₊˚✧ › THE SOLOS.#˚ ♡ ‧₊˚✧ › MGA5.#˚ ♡ ‧₊˚✧ › WC: 1933.#rkmga5 #rkmga5callback #( bc mentioned uwu #rkljhyun #jungeunxrk #rkjei #rkumji #( she has....a lot of feelings she wont readily admit to ok

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badacts · 6 years ago

Text

whither shall i follow

this is the complete piece i wrote for @thezinezone ‘s STRANGE CONSTELLATIONS, a trc zine all about the gangsey. i loved writing for it - keeping under the max word count was the hardest part! the final zine is beautiful so consider getting a copy and supporting a great cause

It’s Gansey’s yearning for ostensibly normal post-graduation rites of passage that’s to blame. Well, that, and Henry’s need to encourage every bad idea any of them have ever had.

“You’re already going on a road trip,” Ronan bitches, slinging an oddly malformed duffle bag into the trunk of his car. “This is a waste of time.”

“Your oh-so-valuable time,” Blue says, with slightly less bite than she might have used a year previous. So, no actual hate, but a decent seeming of it. She is wearing knee-length khaki shorts, like a spectacularly unsexy version of Indiana Jones, and an oversized ACDC t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

Gansey is currently unloading a bargain box of twelve white candles into the Pig. Watching this, Adam says, “Isn’t the point of camping having a campfire?”

“The point of camping is pissing in the woods,” Henry chirps from the front seat of the BMW. He claimed it upon arrival, with a grand cry of ‘shotgun!’ despite that none of them cared to compete with him for it, and has been doing something with his phone ever since. Selfies, Adam suspects.

“These aren’t intended to replace a campfire,” Gansey explains. “They’re for the seance.”

There’s a brief moment of silence. Even Henry looks up, expression shifting from ‘smize’.

“You lived with a dead guy once,” Ronan says eventually. He doesn’t continue, but he doesn’t really need to.

Gansey looks perturbed by their reactions, almost affronted. “It’s a thing.”

“Ineloquent,” Henry comments. Whether it’s a criticism is debatable, considering the growing delight on his face.

“Camping in the woods, marshmallows, figuring out which tent Henry is going to sleep in, amateurish communication with spirits - they’re all part of the experience.”

“Obviously, I’ll be sleeping in your tent,” Henry says. He’s not wrong - it is obvious. “Blue requires my body heat, and Ronan might dream a murderer or attempt to hold my hand in his sleep.”

“In your dreams,” Ronan replies from where he’s retreated to the driver’s seat of the BMW. There’s the distinct sound of someone being hit, and a squawk.

“Yes, it is a thing. From Cabin in the Woods,” Blue tells Gansey.

“Wrong Turn,” Ronan contributes.

“Blair Witch Project.”

“Cabin Fever.”

“Do all those movies contain seances?” Adam interjects.

“Don’t ask me,” Ronan replies. Adam can’t hear the shrug, but he knows it happens anyway. “I haven’t seen any of them.”

“My point is that you should not base your ideas of typical teenage experiences on films where most of the teenagers involved end up brutally murdered,” Blue continues. “Plus, you know. Our lives thus far.”

“This is not like that,” Gansey says. “That was magic. This is teenage incompetence, and the worst that will come of it is irresponsible fire management involving the candles.”

Even Adam makes a disgusted sound at that. There’s rustling from the front of the BMW, and then Gansey is at once attacked with a still-laced sneaker and a hat last seen perched on Henry’s hair. The hat falls short, but the shoe bounces off Gansey’s left thigh when he moves into its path trying to evade it.

“When we get murdered in the woods, it’s your fault,” Blue intones, for a moment sounding just like Maura.

The fact of the matter is that most of the area within a few hours drive of Henrietta has felt the imprint of, at the very least, Gansey’s feet in his previous explorations. Instead of putting him off of his idea of camping, this has just imbued him with the impression that he knows of all the best camping areas, even if he has never personally stayed at one.

Adam sleeps most of the drive once he’s tuned out the sound of Henry and Ronan’s bickering, stretched awkwardly across the back seat of the BMW, and only wakes when the engine turns off.

“C’mon Parrish,” Ronan chides, twisted around so that he can shake Adam’s ankle. Like most things about him, it’s a study in contrasts - brisk voice, soft expression. “Wakey wakey.”

“I am awake,” Adam replies, which is at least seventy percent true. “We here?”

“No, we’re on the side of the road, I just had to make a quick stop to bury Cheng’s body. Yeah, we’re here.”

“You can’t kill him. Can you imagine how much Blue and Gansey would bitch about it?” Adam peels his face off of the interior of the car. He might have drooled on it, but if so it’s not the first time.

“It truly hurts me that that is your only concern,” Henry says from somewhere outside the car.

“Yeah, I bet your heart is breaking, you annoying fucker,” Ronan replies, which means that his irritation has crossed over from his normal levels to whichever Henry seems capable of inciting. Adam deals with this by pushing himself out of the car and into the great outdoors, ignoring it entirely.

Blue is allowing Gansey to help her into her backpack over by the Pig. The gracious nature of it is new, but when he watches it Adam can just about imagine Blue in her thirties acting just the same way. Occasionally, anyway. He doubts she’ll ever change that much.

“Cute,” Ronan commentates, seemingly oblivious to the fact he is putting Adam’s pack over one of his shoulders even as he says it. “We walking, or what?”

“It’s an hour hike,” Gansey says, shouldering his own pack, as though he hasn’t already told them it’s an hour hike multiple times. They’ve walked far further without half as much organisation, which Adam assumes is ‘part of the experience’ also. Gansey is, as ever, a gleaming example to hikers everywhere, down to his well-broken-in boots and his precise understanding of hike planning. “Is everyone ready?”

“Yes mother,” Blue replies, elbowing him in the ribs and ignoring that Henry is still fighting with his own pack over by the BMW. “Lead the way.”

The area Gansey has selected for them to camp in is, admittedly, quite lovely. It’s not Cabeswater - nothing else is - but the grass is long and rich-smelling, and there’s a tiny stream curving around the edge of the clearing on three sides, murmuring sweetly to itself.

The tents are quickly raised side-by-side and then abandoned in favour of establishing a fire pit. By the time they’ve collectively gathered stones, wood and Ronan’s obviously-dreamed lighter, the shadows are stretching long. Blue is allowed the honour of lighting the fire, though Adam is the one who nurses it into something other than a pathetic smoke trail.

“Dinner,” Gansey announces with obvious relish once they’re seated, and produces five packages of freeze-dried meals. “Would you like beef stroganoff or beef stroganoff?”

“Were they having a sale?” Henry asks, accepting his gingerly.

“I thought it would be the one least likely to look edible,” Gansey replies. “I was curious.��

“Not curious enough to investigate the multitude of other options, I suppose.”

“Mostly I thought it would be easier to prepare them together,” Gansey admits. “Blue?”

Blue was apparently in charge of carrying the cooker, and Henry the metal pot. True to Gansey’s prediction, the resultant brown sludge they cook looks utterly disgusting, though the smell is surprisingly inviting. It’s only when they go to serve it that they find that, while Adam brought the tin bowls, Ronan didn’t bring the cutlery. They eat with their fingers instead, Adam’s turning pink with the heat of it and his mouth.

Gansey also has all the necessary ingredients for s’mores, which they blacken in the fire a few times before Adam gives up and uses the cooker instead. Gansey eschews that in favour of sugar-charcoal, even when Henry Googles and recites statistics of charcoal as a carcinogen. Blue puts him in a chocolate-smeared headlock to stop him, and his phone nearly falls into the fire.

It’s full dark when Gansey, his contacts exchanged for glasses glinting in the light, starts to drift a bit. There’s a quietude in him now that isn’t emptiness, but instead something bigger. Like Cabeswater is living inside of him, a complicated and immense kind of peace, and even as that calls to the like in each of them, the rest of them have to act as the anchors to hold Gansey here.

It’s not so bad, really. All it takes is Henry elbowing him and passing him a candle to bring him back.

“It’s time,” he says, all delight, as Henry gives the rest of them candles too. “Should I refer to the WikiHow page for seances, do you think?”

“Please do,” Henry replies, passing Adam his candle. It’s a chunky, inelegant thing with a crooked wick, and it smells like a caricature of vanilla.

Blue squints at Adam for a moment, and then snatches the candle from his hands. “Not you.”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s right,” Gansey mutters after a moment, brow furrowing. “We don’t any of your actual magic involved in our pseudo-magical ritual. Scram.”

“By that logic, Ronan shouldn’t be involved either,” Adam points out, though he does scram.

“He’s awake, it’s fine,” Henry replies. “Lynch, no magic for the next ten minutes.”

“No problem,” Ronan says lazily, still lying beside the fire. “I’m not holding any candles.”

“They go at the cardinal points,” Gansey says, and then produces a compass so he can place them correctly. Then he extracts a large bag of salt from his bag, holding it aloft. “Henry, pour this in a circle around us, if you will. Be careful not to leave any gaps.”

“This is beginning to sound suspiciously like one of movies you mentioned earlier,” Henry says to Ronan, though he does as bid anyway.

Once the salt is poured in a vague oval shape, the candles are placed and lit, and the others sit in their Gansey-assigned places, the ceremony can apparently begin. Adam settles in the mouth of one of the tents, watching them thrown into relief by the campfire in the centre of the circle, Blue’s face painted gold and the line of Ronan’s spine a silhouette.

“Oh! We need an offering,” Gansey says. “I hope you all brought something suitable?”

Thus begins a ten minute debate on what can be classified as suitable. In the end, they have a handful of wildflowers (Gansey), a collection of pennies (Henry), a tin cup of water from the stream (Blue), and a stick of gum as well as an empty wrapper (Ronan, obviously). His assertion that Noah would have loved it is the only thing that stops Gansey from sending him out of the circle to hunt for something ghosts would like better.

They deposits the offerings in the stream-washed pot, and then resettle, reaching out to join hands. Gansey prompts, “Henry?”

Henry takes over without pause, all ringmaster-grandeur. “Welcome, kind spirits, inside our circle. We’ve gathered here to commune with you in the hope that you’ll show us a sign of your presence. Please, speak with us.”

In the following silence, there’s an unmistakable sense of actual expectancy from the four of them in their flesh-and-salt circle. Even when you’re performing a WikiHow seance, it’s hard to remove the idea that it really might work when you’ve seen real magic.

There’s nothing. Adam listens, hears nothing, and then looks into the fire to the things he can always see if he looks long enough.

“Is anyone with us?” Blue asks. The shapes in the flames brighten in response to her voice, but Adam blinks them away.

“That was boring,” Ronan says after approximately two minutes of absolutely nothing happening.

“That was perfect,” Gansey crows.

“We really should have brought an Ouija board,” Henry muses. “For maximum effect.”

“The maximum effect of nothing fucking happening?”

“Let’s end the ritual,” Blue says sternly. “In case.”

“Thank you for your presence,” Gansey says. “Go in peace.”

It’s probably Adam’s imagination that the fire ripples just a little bit with Gansey’s words, like someone has just moved past it. No one else notices it, anyway.

Adam jerks awake because Ronan does, because it’s impossible not to pressed this close and because by now it’s habit.

“It’s okay,” Adam is already mumbling, and then jerks again when Ronan, sounding much more alert than he does, demands, “Did you hear that?”

Adam listens. There’s a rustling outside of the suddenly-very-flimsy tent walls, and for a moment he enters the pleasant fantasy that it might just be the wind before he realises that there is no wind. Instead, it’s the sound of something moving nearby - something large.

“It’s probably just a bear,” he says, though quietly.

There’s not much light in the tent, but he can see that Ronan’s eyes are wide as he hisses, “I can’t believe you can say ‘just a bear’.”

Instead of continuing that...potential argument, Adam pushes himself up, rustling free of the sleeping back and groping for the flashlight by the tent door.

“Adam.”

It’s said in his ear, breathless and half-whispered. Literally breathless - there’s no warmth of exhaled air.

Also, it’s his deaf ear.

The strangeness of it is compounded when Gansey says from outside the tent, the kind of calm that just barely covers for alarm, “Ronan, Adam. Get up. Slowly.”

Adam unzips the tent door and slides free, feeling the intensity of Ronan’s movement behind him as he follows. It’s black outside besides the very faint glow of a few embers and the stars overhead, and Adam can only tell where Gansey is because of the sound of his quickened breath.

“Look,” Gansey whispers, and Adam nearly says at what when he sees what Gansey means.

It’s dark. There’s no explanation behind the two matching pinpricks of red-orange light at a edge of the clearing just beyond the edge of the trees. Eyes, set higher that they would be on any normal-height human.

Ronan mutters a curse, clearly seeing it too. Henry, despite having seen Cabeswater bleed to death, says, “Mothman?” in a voice that trembles but still has a tracery of humour in it, because that’s just who he is.

“What do we do?” Blue asks. Adam can’t tell where she is in the dark.

“Running water,” the voice in his ear whispers again. There’s a echo of command there, and also sudden and welcome familiarity.

“Across the stream,” Adam tells the others. “Backwards. No sudden movements.”

It’s only the star-shine that means they can find the stream at all, nevermind backwards and too frightened to look away from the eyes. There’s no doubting that’s what they are, despite the fact they don’t blink - behind them, there’s intent, alien and only barely readable as that at all. Adam’s bare feet slip in carefully, the water surprisingly deep but the bottom firm enough to hold his weight. The other four do the same, hissing at the cold of it.

“Now what?” Ronan asks, his hand finding Adam’s.

“Cross it. Get to the other side,” Adam says, with sudden surety. “I don’t think it can follow-”

It happens very quickly. Blue, off to Adam’s left, draws in a quick breath and stumbles over something on the streambed, falling backwards in the stream with a splash and a sharp, “Fuck!” There’s a soundless moment where nothing happens, and then there’s a long lowing noise like a big animal dying.

“Fuck,” Ronan echoes, and jerks in Blue’s direction to pull her free of the water even as he shoves Gansey up onto the bank.

Adam, torch in hand, flips the switch. The beam of it falls directly on the - thing as it bounds across the clearing, strides too long and shambling, like the body can’t quite keep up with the intent of whatever is inside of it. It’s all fur and stench, the awful smell of death. Henry makes a low, sick sound, dragging Adam back over the stones along with him. They fall back onto the bank together, scrabbling up onto the grass.

For a moment, Adam doubts. The thing is so tall it looks like it could simply step across the water. There’s no explanation for the way it halts at the far edge of the stream and looks down at the water, close enough they can see every falling-apart inch of its hide. It looks like it crawled from a grave. Maybe it did.

It makes that noise again, a gentle and carrying threat. Adam’s heart is beating so hard he thinks he could drop dead, half-tangled in Henry and aware there’s no outrunning the thing if the voice is wrong.

His flashlight goes out. Blue shrieks, and there’s a flash of bright white like lightning from their side of the stream to the other, illuminating the thing for a split second before it makes impact. There’s a rush of noise and movement, retreating, and then the flashlight comes back to life. There’s nothing there.

“...is it gone?” Henry hisses, pushing himself up from his elbows. “What did you do, Parrish?”

“Nothing,” Adam replies, distracted by covering each inch of darkness with the beam of his flashlight looking for movement. There’s nothing, besides what looks like a few gobbets of meat on the ground and impressions of distorted footprints. “It wasn’t me.”

“Christ fucking alive,” Ronan says. “Was that…?”

“Noah?” Blue whispers.

There’s no wind, no voice murmuring in either of Adam’s ears. But on the other side of the stream, the fire, just embers, flickers back to life.

#trc #gangsey #whither shall i follow #strange constellations #my fic #horror themes #the raven cycle

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sunnyupsidedown · 6 years ago

Text

Thoughts On: The Raven Cycle

(Or more appropriately named, Me screaming about my feelings into the void known as the Internet.)

Note: I never actually finished writing this out and editing it so it would be readable. It’s been in my drafts for years and I’m spring cleaning. Here’s me uncensored and with no direction.

Let’s get this out of the way. So if you haven’t read The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater, this is the part where I tell you to put aside all your misgivings and just read it. That is, if you’re like me and the summary didn’t do it for you. If you’re like me and thought that it’s going to be four books about Blue and her harem of boys crying about the fact that she can’t kiss any of them. Let me tell you, you’re wrong. You’re so far from right, you’re in a different galaxy. The summary does the books zero justice. I tried to summarize it better to my roommate and I couldn’t. These books are books you just have to read.

That aside, the rest is below the cut because it’s basically me ranting about anything and everything from the series because I have a lot of feelings.

Spoilers Below

Individual Books - Romance - Characters - Miscellaneous

The Raven Boys

This book here was basically me asking myself why I didn't read the series sooner. Like the prologue was eh, but the moment Blue implied that she was an amp, I was in. I love shit like that. And then there was chapter two with Gansey being Gansey and then finding out Adam and Ronan do dumb shit together. Yeah. Well. I was doomed. Yes yes the usual, plot was a little slow paced. I kept wondering "man, when are Gansey and Blue gonna meet?" Or "when are they gonna go King hunting?" When they finally did stuff it was great! But I think it was great because the characters are so well established. But I'll rant on that later.

Anyway, actually yeah, getting to know the characters in this book was wow. God damn it's not a fucking competition on who has the worst backstory. My heart cannot take it. I really want to read a prequel about how they all came together. I need details. Everything is so vague (like mentioned in offhand lines) (i.e. Ronan hating Adam at first or how Adam helped Gansey's car (which is pretty solid but give me more conversation)).

Speaking of vague...NOAH! God. Let me be smug for a bit. I figured out the mystery as soon as Barry mentioned being in his mid-20s.

Hints:

"I've been dead for 7 years."

Noah having a first name when everyone calls each other by their last.

Barry's friend only having a last name.

Boom yeah. Anyway. Noah, my boy. The true mvp, but that rant will come later. "Don't throw this away.” Gosh. End me.

Again speaking of vague. I love and hate Ms. Maggie's style. I love how pretty it is.

Favorite character in this book kept switching between Gansey, Blue, and Adam. Me while reading was basically, Who’s Ronan?

The Dream Thieves

I love that Ronan’s POV was included in this. I stereotype book characters all the time. It’s natural since it helps establish a certain character without having to spell out every single detail. So yeah. I stereotyped Ronan as a punk (true) that was crude (true), rough (half true), and didn’t care about anything (not true). Getting to know Ronan more in this book killed me.

Kavinski was meh. He was a cool kid. Idk why ppl love him so much? Like he was def a cool character. Maybe I read the books too fast to really appreciate him.

Bragging again, I figured out Ronan’s mom was a dream thing from the prologue (though it wasn’t that hard? idk. Matthew was a surprise).

Adam was winning the favorite character battle but now Ronan’s a strong contestant.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

RONAN HAS WON. HE IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER. Why? The EpiPens! That sealed it. Nothing will be able to trump that. I seriously had to stop reading at that part. It was too much.

I really don’t know what happened in this book. That’s one of the things about the writing (or maybe it was just me reading things too fast) but it was kinda hard to keep track of time. Things that I though happened weeks apart happened on the same day, or things that I thought happened on the same day actually happened weeks away. So it was kinda hard to keep track of events.

TRC & Romance

Before we get to the last book, I just want to put this rant that I started about two chapters into the 4th book because I just love this series so much and I was wondering why.

So typically I’m like “Fuck Romance! Get out of my books and tv shows!” (well, unless I’m specifically looking for it…) but the romance (or relationships in general) in the raven cycle is SO. GOOD.

And here I was wondering why and why and why and I figured it out.

The thing about Romance in YA novels (I say YA because I mainly read YA), is that it feel like it’s a prize for the Main Character to achieve at the end of the book. Like, you battled a bunch of crazy zombies alongside this hot babe you met maybe a week ago, now make out and live happily ever after! Like the Love Interest is only there for the MC to end up dating in the end. Sure they can be important to the plot too but there’s always a focus on “These two will be together in the end. Period.” And I hate it. I guess it’s because I love slow burns and I find it so unrealistic because Love typically doesn’t happen like that.

Like typically, a guy or girl will not walk up to someone and say “You’re hot go out with me.” Well, not unless they want maybe a drink dumped on them. I don’t like how when the MC meets their LI, they stop knowing how to communicate with other human beings. Like haven’t they ever had a normal conversation with another human? Don’t they have friends.

And that’s where I figured it out. Gansey & Blue and Ronan & Adam, they were FRIENDS first.

Well, Adam did ask Blue out kinda…. I’ll get to that later.

But they became friends! It wasn’t all about mantic pixie dream girls/boys. Or the most popular girl/boy in school. Or some rival from an enemy territory. It was a just a bunch of kids looking for a king together.

(Adam and Blue something about including her with the boys, how when the began to know each other it doesn’t work out. and that’s normal. But they still end up friends because they do like each other. And it’s not all suddenly, we’re dating so we now have no other friends/I can no longer think rationally [cough Graceling cough]) Gansey eyeing their hand holding less because “Omg im in love with this chick” and more like “who is this girl invading our group.”

The way the small love triangle between Blue, Adam, and Gansey was so well handled. Like the friendship between Gansey and Adam didn’t suffer (too much…) because they weren’t gonna let something like that ruin it because it was strong.

And then Gansey’s all like “I gotta think of something clever to tell Blue later” and it’s so fucking dumb and sweet and that’s kinda what I do to my friends and they don’t really like like each other but it slowly grows with the night calls and the driving to nowhere and they still fight with each other and it’s all so normal and real that it hurts and I actually look forward to their interactions, not necessarily romantically, but just hanging out. Like I could read chapters of all of them just playing cards or something, doing mundane shit.

Ronan and Adam. Idk because I haven’t gotten that far but apparently in the beginning god sai- in the beginning Ronan hated Adam because Ronan loved Gansey and not really in the romantic way but in the we are friends and I will now DIE FOR YOU, type of love and he was fucking jealous. But now they’re cool and they go do random shit together (like framing a crazy dude). And it’s not all, I like you and now you will magically start liking me back. There was build up to this, like Ronan going back for Adam from his dad, and Ronan paying for Adam’s rent secretly, like Adam actually saying thank you.

Even Blue and Ronan. Like how he doesn’t even think about saving her from falling down a hole. How he cries on here shoulder because he can do it and not be judged. Because they are friends. Even if they do not interact often.

And then there’s Maura and the Gray Man. idk where this one is going.

tl;dr: The complex relationships and romance between the characters in the Raven Cycle are hella good.

The Raven King

Oh my god. I am dead. My soul has been carved from my body. Gansey. My boy. Fucking Noah. God damn.

Let me just say that Adam’s analogy(? metaphor?) of the summer storm and the kiss was so fucking good. I will remember that forever. Like that is probs my favorite passage from the book.

Ronan is so sweet and pure and needs lots of love.

Writing in General

Weird how it skips around. Like there’s a little view in the scene and then suddenly it jumps to a vague conclusion. I like knowing what happens between. I like the clean up shit. But then again if it happened the pacing of the book would have been very weird.

Characters

Gansey: it’s like watching someone slowly learn negative emotions. He started out all innocent and full of ideals and happiness, he just wanted to find his King, and then he learns fear and anger and worry and death. Real life. He’s definitely very grounding. How he steps back occasionally and thinks “God this is so fucked up. This is not okay. I want everybody to be safe.”

Ronan: God. Ronan. This boy. I like how you don’t really think of him as I guess nice. But he’s probably the most human of all. Like his outward appearance is some tough boy who’ll fuck you up, but he’s actually really soft? His words are crude but his actions are caring.

Adam: 😫

Blue: I love her. She’s so fierce and strong and human. How she just rolls with it. Kinda.

#the raven cycle #trc #thoughts on #m #this is literally me crying into a puddle about how much i love trc

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