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catty-words · 2 years ago

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i know you guys are excited for astoria (2015), but my heart says it’s time for

a non-exhaustive list of things i love about fix me (2006):

- i suppose here’s as good a place as any to mention that the reason i embarked on my decent into marianas trench ferality was this interview maitreyi ramakrishnan did about five spots in toronto that hold personal significance to her (shoutout to any of you who’ve perused my blog after reading one of the lists to find next to no music-related content but a staggering amount of netflix’s never have i ever instead). the way she spoke of being profoundly starstruck by josh ramsay and her shock that the interviewer hadn’t heard of canadian legends marianas trench got me curious, so i downloaded their first album and, well. you can infer where the story goes from there.

- it’s hard to articulate the lightening-in-a-bottle feeling i got as soon as i hit play on this album, but there was an immediate kinship, a sense that this music was made for me to find and fall in love with. i submitted to the mortifying ordeal of listening to new music and am still reaping the rewards of insanity ✌️, pop-punk music my beloved!! etc. etc. this album holds a special place in my heart, as part of the marianas trench discography as well as in the library of all albums i love

- anyway, this’ll be a familiar refrain for you at this point but, motifs!!! this album’s interest in the unglamorous and sickening work of rehabilitation of the self lives in the thread of clinical language woven throughout, and i think that’s neat!

- the way the deconstruction of the patient’s former identity as sick makes this album the perfect complement to masterpiece theatre (2009), where we explore of their newly constructed identity as performer

“say anything”

- maybe if i loved “say anything” less, i’d be able to talk about it more (she says, just before dedicating hundreds of words to unpacking everything she loves about “say anything”)

- if you haven’t noticed by this point, i’m not a musician. in fact, despite being a theater kid for many years in my youth, i can’t even read sheet music. so when i engage in music appreciation, it’s largely with an english major’s eye and sensibilities - which means reading depth and themes (themes!!!) into lyrics rather than being able to articulate what the music itself does to enhance the meaning of the song (despite the fact that it obviously does where josh ramsay et. al. are concerned - their work would hardly render me as crazed as it does if every component weren’t working in glorious tandem). the reason i’m bringing this up is to emphasize just how fucking hard marianas trench rammed into me as a band with i can take it if you need to take this / out on someone.

- like, part of the appeal was definitely because i went into my listening experience with ‘thinking about blorbo’ disease and this lyric offers a lot of mileage there, and part of my lingering fixation has to do with the irony of the patient offering this when he’s clearly hanging on to his own sense of self and well-being by the thinnest of fraying threads. but mostly? it’s the tenderly whispered promise of it - the invitation to pour myself into this music, it has the capacity and the inclination to hold me together - being fulfilled ad infinitum

- all that said, i obviously and absolutely count the intro of this song among the band’s captivating prologues, if more as a prologue for their entire catalogue than as one that’s album-specific

- when the guitar, drums, etc. crash into the song!!!

- the extreme extreme aughts pop-punk energy of the first verse

like, they truly bottled the Moment with this

- on the subject of the first verse, it also bottles the patient’s over-arching conflict for the album, namely how he feels the pressure to rehabilitate for his loved ones even though that isn’t enough on its own, because so much of his identity is tied up in the self-destruction

- that one stings a little for being one of the first lyrics to capture the clinical/hospital motif as applied to reconstruction of self image, evoking a doctor warning you before they stick you with a needle

- how much catharsis sing-shouting along to this is where i scream from affords me. who needs therapy, this song will fix me (😏)

- something about the way lines like i don’t expect but try me and you can take it all away and i’ll miss don’t have explicit objects yet still get their meaning across lights my brain up with good chemicals in a way to which no drug high could compare

- the line there’s a little bit of you in all this for so many reasons!! punchy (‘don’t you get off thinking you have no hand in my tendency toward self-harm’) and tender (we are comprised of bits of every person we’ve ever loved) and blorbo-related alike

- the way determination to rehabilitate the self lives in there’s a better bit of me to see yet / ‘cause you haven’t seen any of my best

- the lyrics everybody wants a piece of you, every- / one takes a piece of me for how they introduce the motif i brought up in the masterpiece theater (2009) list: the patient/performer’s tendency to see his identity as bite-size pieces, loosely connected and finite in number (and i love love love the way each album having a distinct speaker and identity while also clearly drawing on and feeding into a singular mythology also plays into this motif)

- the way this part of the bridge says consonant👏 rights👏

- the way this part of the bridge clues the audience into the fact that this is well-trod ground for the patient, this journey of rehabilitation. the difference this time is the pieces of self are dwindling in number

also, again with the phrases that have no stated object but prompt you to fill in the blanks like the bangingest mad-lib

- the guitar part that always takes us from the pre-chorus into the chorus getting it’s moment in the spotlight!!! the compulsion i have to headbang along every time!!!!

- the lil note variation in the final little bit of you in all this!!!!!!

- outro gives me shivers it’s not enough to listen to this song i need to burrow inside until i hit the lava-filled core

- just. fucking epic from start to finish sorry if you’re normal about this song couldn’t be me

+ bonus: the performance of “say anything” (and “ever after” let’s be real) from the ‘live from inside’ concert solidified the pink and black flying v as my favorite from the guitar vault iykyk

“decided to break it”

- dialogue from recording sessions making the final mix ❤️

- the inherent eroticism of i’m the bad seed, i think i swallowed it whole (why are you booing me, i’m right?)

- matt webb. period.

- the way the momentum of the song inspires shoulder wiggles to the point where i turn into that one gif of shaq every time. you know the one.

- the tambourine embellishments on the chorus!!

- how satisfying it is to sing along to the bridge 🎶dahh-owOWowyehhOWooowOWWWoooOOOOWN🎶

- the scream of the penultimate ignore

- how well this song evokes frustration and being at the end of your tether in general while also being a fuckin bop

- the way they all bite off the it of the outro

and also how this line reads as the patient breaking off connections with the things/people that frustrate his rehabilitation and the way the performance emphasizes that there’s nothing demure or easy about the decision

“september”

- i was born in early september and am a winter-lovin’ girlie and i’ve always felt like the world owes it to me to have moved onto chillier weather by the time my birthday rolls around even though it never does because my birthday takes place when it is undeniably summer so this song would obviously play over the opening credits in the movie about my life and i have to stan

- anyway, the way the title and the chorus evoke a shift in season, specifically from summer to autumn, a time of both bounty and decay, and how that symbolic dissonance emphasizes the nature of the patient’s journey ahead (can’t erase the way it pulls when seasons change, indeed)

- speaking of the journey ahead sucking in direct proportion to how essential it is to have gone on the journey, clap your hands if you feel the significance of another piece of me is gone again and how the patient’s identity being tied to his sickness means that committing himself to get better necessitates giving up an integral part of his personhood (👏👏👏)

- the way the line and you can leave it if it’s easier tastes

- how the pre-chorus

has the power to transform me into someone with 2008 emo bangs on the spot and like, legally, you have to wail this at the top of your lungs you have to be over-the-top embarrassing about it that’s just the law

- the way there’s something mildly unsettling about the break in the line this sun is melting my / skin that makes me itchy to escape from underneath my own skin and is therefore so, so unspeakably perfect

- anyway, just wanna sit with the season metaphor some more

and how the exhaustion of the blaring sun gives way to the promise of new life, what’s old being washed away by the rain

- the bite down hard, bite down being another prime example of the medical motif and how the screams that echo after this line make it especially cheeky and dark. none of the patient’s pain has actually been muffled.

- on that note, the way, sonically, the whole song feels like violent thrashing against the pain that necessarily comes with destroying a part of yourself, even a part you’re better off without

“alibis”

- in terms of the marianas trench albums’ first-act ballad hierarchy, “alibis” tops my chart most days, we respect a classic in this house

- just like “september” sounds exactly like the stage of the journey it’s meant to represent, “alibis” evokes thoughtful reflection as the patient contemplates what identity he wants to construct from here really effectively

- how gEnDeR the line wearing my best little girl pout is

- the way the refrain all my faces are alibis slots quite nicely in with the ‘identity as fractured pieces’ motif

- shoutout to this verse

because it’s my favorite, but also because it marks a shift in perspective for the patient. renouncing the sickness doesn’t mean it stops being a part of him, after all. those impulses live so deep within him as to be phantom sensations

- the way the bridge is like. fuck subtext, we ball

if the patient is not his old self, but also not not his old self...what does that make him?

“shake tramp”

disclaimer: this song didn’t age well. it’s a certified banger!!, and the obnoxiousness is definitely intentional in a way that shields the whole thing with irony, but i still think the language having a different cultural acceptability today than it did in 2006 means this song has a high barrier of entry for new listeners. speaking from experience, of course - once upon a time, this was my most skipped marianas trench song... and then i watched their performance of it for the ‘live from inside’ concert and i was like. oh. oh.

- the earworm of an intro!!! fun fact about me: i get drunk and my brain starts playing the “shake tramp” intro on loop forever and i absolutely make it everyone else’s problem

- BOP BOP BOP BUH-DAH-DOP BOP BOP BUH-DAH-DOP BOP BOP BUH-DAH-DA BAH-DAH-DA BOP

- the way the drums evoke getting relentlessly stomped upon

- the line and break my knees to get release for how succinctly it captures the patient’s relationship to self-destruction

- how you needed some just to take you from tastes. also, hello object-less lyrics, i am snorting you up i am transcending this plane of reality

- how galaxy-brained bleeding the lines between sore and sorry is because it doesn’t really give you the time to sit with the shock of and i hit you more, is your face still sore? before it’s apologizing for the abuse of it

- for as much as i feel like this track is a glaring detour in the context of the album as a whole, i like how this part of the pre-chorus

arguably ties us back to the fourth verse from “alibis”

- what a cheap perfume, i hate this room because i am once again sprouting my emo bangs and shouting this at the top of my lungs, throwing my whole pussy into the bitchy energy

- being called little handshake tramp like, this better not awaken anything in me........

- the backing i’m so sorrys

- anyway, wild how a track from masterpiece theatre (2009) ended up on fix me (2006), am i right?

“low”

- the way this part of the first verse

establishes where we are on the journey to rehabilitation. namely, that the patient’s reached a kind of plateau and is having trouble holding onto the desire to change when they miss the clarity of the self-destruction

- the way the chorus reinforces this

like, it should be easy to stay the course, but it’s depressing to feel like he’s stopped making much progress (dude’s definitely thinking about break[ing his] knees to get release)

- sometimes the bridge just fucking hits. i sure do get so tired, tired. i Sure Do.

- the resonating guitar transitioning us into “push” is something i like a normal amount!

“push”

- the weird cross between whimpering and moaning that happens during the intro 😳

- the way the music explodes outward for the pre-chorus, the way the hey explodes out of the patient (i DO feel it now, i DO)

- up against the wall, you say? 😳

- the post-chorus push 😳

- the gritted-teeth performance of using like it’s goin outta style

- woof.

- the switch from and you’re getting sick / and you’re feeling it to and you’re getting stuck / and you fucked it up (any time josh ramsay et. al. drop a ‘fuck’ into a song, really 😳)

- matt webb. period.

“far from here”

- hey, now that we’re flirting with relapse, let’s reckon with parental disappointment! i bet that’ll do wonders for the patient’s commitment to rehabilitation!

- god, but all the complicated emotions that exist on the spectrum from ‘it’s partially your fault i am this way’ to the unconditional love felt by the patient in verse two

how are the patient’s parents still able to believe he’ll get better when he’s kept them waiting for so long, when he’s still so far away from true rehabilitation, when the waiting only hurts them more the longer it goes on?

- the way we start the final rendition of the chorus quiet, introspective, until we get to the line i laughed aloud to drown it out when the music gets boisterous again, drowning out the thoughtfulness of before. what could it mean what could it all mean?

“vertigo”

- relapse, that’s what it means!

- always and forever obsessed with the snottiness of you got here just in time to see everything fall apart / i’m not upset at all. sure, champ!

- how the first pre-chorus

tells us once again that the external pressure from loved ones is not enough for - and is perhaps actively detrimental to - lasting change. with everyone’s eyes on him, the patient can’t muster more than the admission that maybe [he] could want [to change] more

- dizzied up in my never try because it makes my head spin!!! we’re getting caught in the destructive cycle!!! vertigo!!!!

- the way the distinct parts of the song (verse, pre-chorus, chorus, etc.) all bleed into each other and how that complements the sense of lost control with which the patient’s grappling

- speaking of, there’s this part

and how it makes the strongest case yet for the external pressure causing active harm to the patient’s rehabilitation. as long as he doesn’t grow too sensitive to the disappointment, he can always try

- not another piece of him......

- the switch from maybe i could want it more to maybe i could miss it more and how that communicates the way the starting point and the goal of the rehabilitation have become confused in the patient’s mind. lost in the vertigo, it all starts to blur together and look the same and you can’t stay on a path to recovery if you’ve fallen down a hole.

- the do do do do dos bop

- the way the song seems to flatline for a measure (heartbeat...) before coming back to life with one last rendition of the chorus

- the defeat that lives in so what’s a little vertigo? the patient has resigned himself to the downward pull of self-destruction

“alive again”

- the way the second verse

is the patient talking to himself, the fractured pieces of identity that want wildly different things yet can’t seem to find any satisfying way to stop life from hurting so much in conversation

- sometimes it hurts, but that’s no worse / than all those times i guess it works and how the patient is acknowledging that the self-destruction fails him as much as it provides clarity. the way that doesn’t get him anywhere new because the end result is the same: it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

- the way the patient walk[ing] around like [he’s] alive again while the sickness inside of him just won’t die plays with language, because his rehabilitation is actually what’s on its deathbed, his sickness is actually what’s thriving and alive. brb need to fling myself into the sun!

- i’m fading ending the song on a dreadful chill, on a dwindling sense of any self at all

“skin & bones”

- the way turn all the water on / and bury that sound is reminiscent of the “september” chorus, only here, the healing properties of the water have been turned on their head, enabling instead of revitalizing

- how, with all this talk of fractured identity, we don’t look into a mirror until here at the end

so naturally, this part is loaded with meaning. the tell me you can see feels like the patient pleading with his reflection to reinforce the idea that sickness is his truest self even though he knows it’s not (lie to me).

- thin / where the hell have you been? and how it’s the patient greeting an old friend with equal parts relief and anger in a way that catches me in the gut every freaking time, with every rendition

- fucking!! it all looks so big / never mind, i don’t feel anything and how evocative the one-two punch of this is!! numbness as an empty, hollow sanctuary from the horrors of being a person

- the way laughin’ like it works is reminiscent of “far from here” and now we’ve gone and admitted that the patient could never actually drown out the noise of everyone else’s concern, could never actually pretend like going on this way was a viable option

- the patient’s declaration that it’s too fucking easy (to turn to the self-destruction) bringing to mind how rehabilitation should have been easy in “low” and how the injustice in the truth of that hurts, hurts, hurts

- how all these echoed moments reinforce the cyclical nature of the patient’s journey to rehabilitate - commitment to change and relapse and hitting bottom and commitment to change and relapse and here he is now, once again hitting bottom

- the scorched-earth outro (i will burn all this, i will burn all this, i will burn all this) being at once dark and hopeful. maybe actively sacrificing the last piece of his identity instead of watching it get consumed by the cycle means he’s truly done with the old, sick self, but maybe it’s just another commitment to change that can’t and won’t pan out.

in conclusion: this album is conceptually tighter than i usually give it credit for - the irony being that, instead of fixing me, it repeatedly breaks my heart over the course of a listen. four out of five stars, would submit to being driven actively insane again (and again and again and again).

#marianas trench #fix me (2006)#writing this really really deepened my appreciation for 'low' 'far from here' and 'alive again'#'vertigo' too but i've also always been fond of that one where those other three deep cuts tended to blur together in my mind #but no longer!#anyway.#if you're thinking of rebloging this without tags quick! tell me your favorite josh ramsay guitar!

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dreamhot · 3 years ago

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hi lee dreamhot just wondering if you were cool with sharing your opinion on mr beast's recreation of squid game? i've seen people saying they're really excited to see it and i'm just confused because squid game was basically rich people exploiting poorer people for entertainment and they're recreating it? am i missing something or did the point of the show go right over their heads?

hello hello sorry this is late it turns out my boss being on vacation means i needed to do more work who knew !! anyway i wanted to come back to this when i had the time to formulate a proper response so here we go

so, in my opinion, you're gonna be hard pressed to see anything get HUGE without people seeking to capitalise on the popularity. and this isn't necessarily a bad thing! any media with games in particular are easy fodder for mimicry - think survivor, probably one of the longest running reality shows at this rate, and how often it gets emulated in some capacity. squid game is MASSIVE and it stands to reason that people would wanna hop on the bandwagon. i mean ... look at crab game and how beloved that is by . certain people . not naming any names of course <3

the trouble lies in exactly what you pointed out, and more. squid game is fundamentally an allegory for the exploitation of the destitute by the rich, additionally informed by history related to korea in particular (see: the impacts of american imperialism and the korean war). while it's primarily a dark satire on capitalism, it's also inherently tied to struggles specific to korean people - not to say its general message isn't applicable elsewhere, but the regional background is still very much important to the narrative. that's not necessarily the most notable problem with the copycats, but i do think it's something people tend to neglect even in acknowledging the themes of exploitation

when it comes to events like mr beast recreating squid game, either in mc or the upcoming irl project, you get the sense that the message has been lost in the glamour of the spotlight. the minecraft video was questionable enough given that there was a stark income - and skill level - disparity between the players, culminating in the victory of an already-rich pvp expert (not blaming sap, just stating facts). obviously it's not as though jimmy is gonna round up a bunch of desperate poor people to compete, but grouping smaller creators with big names still a) left the playing field unfair, and b) missed the point of the original series in another fashion. anyway -

with regard to the irl event, i know it's ostensibly just a fun project for jimmy. obviously there will be monetary gain for him, both through merch sales and ad revenue, but it's not as though he's setting out to make people miserable for his own enjoyment. however, that doesn't change the fact that he does stand to make money thanks to something that was originally a critique of the ultra rich. is jimmy the ultra rich? of course not! but you would think he'd have a moment of self reflection to realise the irony of making a grand spectacle of a piece of media that showcases how an extremely serious, real world horror within our society can be exploited for the enjoyment of the privileged

i have a problem with him selling his own merch with the IP of the show (especially if you read into how scant netflix was in paying the creators, but that's another kettle of fish). i have a problem with it not being extremely clear that you didn't need to have purchased the merch for a chance to enter. and i have a problem with the fact that this, ultimately, is going to benefit the well-off before it helps anyone else (opinion subject to change if revenue gets donated to charity, but even so). i don't think he's evil or malicious, but i do think this is a misinformed choice, and i wish this sort of event could have existed with any framework but the one that's literally about making poor people compete for money. like ... come on man. really?

#smile.ask #anon #discourse cw #long post #JESUS sorry that was longer than i expected

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overclockedroulette · 3 years ago

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this one’s for you squirrel xoxo ty for the writer’s block cure

not sure if I’ve ever talked about Tyrhzu on this blog? oh well, have this anyway.

mykie your space-themed naming conventions for pets has ruined me. also hope you don’t mind me using clover and indoril I NEEDED PET OWNERS ANd they run an animal sanctuary so. best option.

unnamed aubilon worker my beloved

~~~

Ten minutes. That’s all his incompetent coworker was supposed to take - and, since when was he assigned work with other people anyway? If he didn’t know any better, he’d assume Kirren was trying to get the kid killed (but if that were the case, he would have just been asked, like every other time). He sighed and checked his watch. Thirty minutes. Half a fucking hour he’d had to spend in the porch of this dumb animal shelter, waiting for this idiot to pick up… whatever they had been asked to pick up (honestly, he hadn’t been listening; he didn’t particularly care), and having to deal with this… dumb dog.

He wasn’t quite sure what breed it was (again, he didn’t care), or even what it was for, but the owners - these two elven women with matching tattoos, one of them clearly far more confident than the other - had assured him that it wasn’t dangerous. Which he had laughed about. Because the thing didn’t look dangerous: it looked stupid. It just kept… trying to be around him, no matter how much he shooed it away or ignored it, with a clear disregard for its personal safety. He muttered a few curses and shoved it away again, letting out a short laugh as it slumped down, dejected, at his feet.

“Fuck off, mutt,” he hissed, laughing internally about the familiar terminology coming from his end, this time. But the dog seemed to take this as an invitation rather than a curse, and perked up as if its name had been called, standing up and wagging its tail emphatically just in front of the bench he was sat on. He considered kicking it.

“Luna,” he murmured, grabbing the thing’s collar and reading the name aloud. And he laughed - audibly - at the irony of the whole thing. “Fucking Luna.”

The dog - Luna - perked up again, resting its head on his lap and staring up at him with wide, excited eyes while he considered the pros and cons of impromptu canicide.

“Piss off.”

It whined, nuzzling its head into his thighs. Avarice groaned.

“Really. Go do… whatever it is you do. Somewhere else.”

It didn’t move. Just kept staring at him.

“You’re annoying.”

Nothing.

“Move.”

Still nothing. Just a long, mute pause and heavy eye contact, until Avarice finally sighed and relented, irritably moving one hand to ruffle the fur on the top of its head - because maybe that’d make it go away - and pointedly avoiding eye contact when it got excited.

“Now will you leave me al-” and the dog was already in his lap. He gave up fairly easily after that.

He laughed quietly when Luna curled up on top of him, letting him absentmindedly stroke her fur as he spoke, with a soft kind of intonation that anybody who knew him would bolt at the first sound of.

“Persistent little darling, aren’t you?” he chuckled. “Well, I hope you’re happy. If you were a person, you’d probably have lost a limb by now.” He laughed again, and then paused. “But then, I suppose no person would have the guts to get close enough. I respect it.”

And he paused again, contemplating. And he laughed.

“It’s funny, actually. I could break your bones with my bare hands, if I tried hard enough. I probably wouldn’t hesitate,” and his voice started to waver, “I could cut you open and watch everything that keeps you alive spill onto the floor. There’s every chance I’ll murder at least one of your owners, in the future. I’d watch you bleed out and feel nothing.”

He was raking his nails across the skin of his left arm, now, bleeding from the mistaken incisions. His breath hitched. “I’d watch anyone bleed out and feel nothing. I have. And I do feel nothing, because I’m not a coward, I’m useful, I’m better, I’m not-”

And he suddenly started to realise how much his arm stung, and felt the blood dripping onto the poor dog’s coat, as Luna nuzzled the offending hand away from his bleeding arm and firmly back into her fur. He laughed. “Ah- my apologies for stopping, darling,” and continued running his hands smoothly down her back, letting her settle down again. He’d have to clean his arm later.

It was silent for a few more minutes, Avarice absently petting the excited ball of fur in his lap and trying not to think about his wounded upper arm, before he spoke again, more wondering aloud than anything else, not even bothering to look at the thing.

“Why aren’t you scared of me?”

Silence.

“I suppose it’s just stupidity. Although, animals are supposed to be able to sense danger, aren’t they? There’s no reason for you to be this close. Especially to… to someone like- ah-” he paused: took a deep breath. “To someone like me. Oh- don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean. I’m not exactly a good person, am I? Or… particularly safe. But I’ve gotten better!” he insisted. “In terms of being safe, I mean. I’m better than I was, aren’t I? I don’t- except, I never did, because I’m not- because I didn’t- because I’m not him, I’m not, I can’t be-”

His words were choked out of him in a strangled, dry sob. And everything was quiet while Avarice gathered his thoughts. Thoughts that were his. That came from him, and nobody else. Because he was himself. And never anything else. And he buried his head in that stupid dog’s fur and tried his hardest not to cry, because he refused to, because he didn’t need to, because-

Because the last time he cried, he wasn’t him. And he wouldn’t go back.

“Fuck, I miss Tyrhzu,” he whispered, barely audible, still buried in Luna’s coat. And it was the first time he’d said that name in well over eight years, and it felt unnatural, wholly wrong. And everything came back. The laughing, the fights, the chatter, the comfort; the screaming; the feeling of a blade deep, deep in flesh; the raw, unadulterated grief that had consumed him so wholly for years; the feeling of reaching in the dark, screaming until his throat was hoarse for someone (for him) and grasping only silent air. And he was sobbing, now: weeping into this dog’s fur, who just curled up closer to him and let him cry - or, rather, everything but, because he yelled and sobbed and the stinging in his throat became unbearable, and nothing came out but noise. He was screaming. Screaming eight years of repressed grief into the fur of a creature that hadn’t been scared of him. And when he got up, he breathed in deeper than he had in months. And he muttered a “thank you” to the dog as he continued stroking its silver-speckled fur.

When his coworker returned, along with the two elven women, he didn’t mention it. He just shooed the dog off his lap and claimed it had “insisted.” Which was true. And he had sorted the problem of his injured arm by simply glaring violently at anyone who looked like they were going to bring it up. The taller, red-haired elf seemed concerned about the dog’s condition - which was fair - although the smaller didn’t look worried at all. She just smiled, reached down to pet the dog’s neck, and looked up at Avarice.

“Say, did you know that dogs can tell when their owners are upset?”

“Excuse me?”

She laughed. “I didn’t mean it to be an accusation! Just a fact. Luna here-” she reached down to ruffle her fur again, “-has always been good at that. Very good with people, too.”

“Can you tell she plays favourites?” the taller elf murmured, nudging Avarice with her elbow and laughing at her partner’s affronted expression. He echoed that laughter.

“Quite. I… daresay I’d do the same.” And he reached down to stroke her again, leaving his coworker dumbstruck as they began to set up their belongings to leave. “Oh, and by the way?”

The coworker nodded tentatively in acknowledgement.

“You make me wait that long for anything, ever again, and you’re dead.”

#tyrhzu my beloved #AVARICE my beloved #luna. my. beloved.#i swear to god i almost choked when i asked for the name of their dog #kinda funny #unnamed aubilon worker my beloved<3 #avarice kiriatta #i'll make a post about tyrhzu later #just for context #in the meantime. just.#guess <3 #hurt/comfort #tw self harm #oc #oc writing #oc hurt/comfort #tw grief

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autumnblogs · 4 years ago

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Day 3: Vendetta against Bro

Welcome back to more Homestuck Liveblogging. Picking up with Nannasprite as she prepares to give John the Dirt.

https://homestuck.com/story/421

Sburb’s opening move is to take John’s Dad away from him. If @mmmmalo‘s theory about psychological storytelling is to be believed, Sburb provokes fear and then manifests it in the form of a character’s antagonists. If you wonder why I bring them up so much, it’s probably because I’ve been reading their blog lately. I am almost always game for more Homestuck theorization, and would love to be able to reference more people and engage with their thoughts in my theoryposts and liveblogging, so if you know somebody with good takes, please pass them along my way.

The Incipisphere, like John’s name, was invoked into existence by player/character action, but paradoxically, has always been that way. By engaging with Sburb, John authenticates its retroactive existence, like a mailman taking a signature of receipt for a package.

When we engage with the fixtures of our cultures and material realities, we too, authenticate them. This can be good or bad - when we communicate with each other, recognize each other, we authenticate each other too. Observing and being observed is a mutual act of validation for everyone involved. I see you seeing me seeing you.

I’m full of horseshit again. Read some more horseshit after the break.

Content Warning for this one: Pedophilia Mentions.

https://homestuck.com/story/422

There’s a lot to unpack in this sequence of pages, and I’m almost certainly going to miss a lot of it, but I’ll come back to stuff that I miss as it comes back up in later pages.

As a Crucible of Unlimited Potential, Skaia can become absolutely anything, and the shape that it will take on will be influenced by the actions of the players. But it isn’t anything yet.

This is the second time in two pages that Nanna has brought up the light-darkness dichotomy of the forces at play in the Medium, and after just talking about the act of mutual authentication through mutual observation, my brain is screaming the words Hegelian Lens at me. Might go somewhere with that too.

I also wanna call attention to the name of the Medium. As a story about stories, it only makes sense that the name of Homestuck’s main otherworld should evoke the field used to propagate mass communication.

https://homestuck.com/story/423

I’ve always thought that it’s interesting that of the two forces in the Medium, the players have natural allies in the form of Prospit. The choice here is not to act on behalf of one or the other, the choice is between Action and Inaction. Not doing something is itself, doing something.

https://homestuck.com/story/427

You Can (Not) Redo.

Sburb relentlessly drives its players forward. If you attempt to go back, or stay where you are, you will be punished. No getting your parents back, no getting your planet back.

What’ll it be John? Advance or Advance?

https://homestuck.com/story/431

John is extremely resistant to being made to do things that he doesn’t want to do anyway, even by Narrators.

More thoughts about Cake and Baked Goods in Homestuck and in relation to John. The other main characters baking is associated with in Homestuck are all women - The Condesce, Meenah, Jane, Nanna - and baking in general is pretty strongly associated with women, moms, etc. I’ve always thought it was a little out of place amongst Dad’s other character traits, which are definitively masculine. Maybe it’s for exactly that reason - baking is culturally feminine.

Maybe John’s resistance to baked goods is because he’s uncomfortable receiving feminine affection (especially, but not only from his Dad). It’s like getting kisses from your Mom in public or other public displays of affection between men and the women in their lives, or even men and other men in their lives. John is certainly pretty clueless about affection from women when he receives it later in the story. On the other hand, he responds very well to masculine displays of affection, like the aloof but ebullient cards he gets from his Dad, or the one-upsmanship between him and Dave.

(I’ll have to think some more about the capitalism thing from my other post.)

https://homestuck.com/story/433

More of Rose seeing enemies in every shadow. Then again, could it be Jasper’s fault that they’re in this mess?

https://homestuck.com/story/442

I think the fact that we jump to this point in the past suggests that Rose is probably reminiscing about this spot, going along with my theory that when the Narration is focusing on a character, it’s also giving us that character’s stream of consciousness - we’re experience what Rose is experiencing.

That probably goes a long way to excusing the kind of puzzling, irritating experience we have of our first minutes with John. Due to his tendency to get distracted by things and forget how things work, we have to suffer through his own inability to navigate his disorderly environment exactly the same way he does.

Oh, so that’s why this story gets compared to Ulysses.

It is Jaspers’ fault that they’re in this mess. My hypothesis gathers more data.

https://homestuck.com/story/444

The third of the prose poems. Drat. Got to Dave’s Poem before I even had the chance to write about Rose’s Poem. Guess we’ll come back to this one later later.

https://homestuck.com/story/445

I’ve almost certainly missed a few of these gags by now but “Left him hanging long enough” is one of the jokes that Homestuck reproduces over and over again. Homestuck reproduces itself frequently, like variations on a theme. Its self-referential nature could be called incestuous, as it turns one-off gags into recurring gags.

https://homestuck.com/story/448

While Bro and Dirk are both definitely irony ninjas where Dave is just performing irony to get his Bro’s approval, I think all the irony is an effort to distance themselves from the fact that they really do sincerely enjoy the things they’re “ironically” into. That too, is probably ironic.

Unfortunately, the actual subject matter of Bro’s interests, while innocuous in a vacuum, are still extremely inappropriate to leave out where a thirteen year old can have access to them. Bro probably isn’t a pedophile, but between the martial education, and the uncomfortable degree to which he involves Dave in his sex life, his relationship with Dave recalls pederasty which is one of many, many links between Dirk, Bro, and the Classical Hellenes, and Monastic Shudo, a similar practice historically attested from their beloved Japan. (The term Platonic Relationship is called that because Plato is one of the first Greek Philosophers to argue that maybe it would be better for students’ education if they weren’t also sexually involved with their mentors? Or so the story goes.)

I may have a bit of a vendetta against Bro Strider, which probably has at least a little to do with the fact that, when I first read Homestuck, I got fooled into thinking he was kind of awesome, and it wasn’t until I was able to deal with my own childhood abuse and the fact that I had been indoctrinated with a lot of the very same toxic ideas bro inculcated in Dave that I was able to realize that Bro Strider is kind of a horrible guardian, so I have a sort of special ire directed at this character. Maybe I’m afraid in another life, I could have grown up to be that kind of creep. I’m glad I didn’t.

https://homestuck.com/story/449

All throughout this section, the narration suggests that Dave is both subconsciously aware that his Bro’s pasttimes make him uncomfortable, but trying to soothe himself by affirming them. So, in spite of my sharing some youthful confusion with Dave, the Narrative at least communicates to us from the very beginning that something is off about Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/452

To interrupt my dark and brooding reverie, please enjoy some Skate 3 Glitches.

I guess here’s a good place to note that I am going to be using the #personal stuff hashtag to denote when a post contains me alluding to my own dark and troubled past.

https://homestuck.com/story/457

The password is six letters long, and based on the fact that it’s the most awesome thing that it could be, I have no doubt that it’s Strider.

https://homestuck.com/story/465

Yup.

https://homestuck.com/story/466

It warms the cockles of me heart that Dave’s first inclination when he starts to flip the fuck out is to reach out to John Egbert.

https://homestuck.com/story/484

8^y

https://homestuck.com/story/485

Remember that one-upsmanship I was talking about? Any chance Dave and John get around each other, they talk each other down. I’m not sure if Andrew was saying anything about Toxic Masculinity at the time. I expect, like a lot of us, he didn’t have those words on his mind in 2009, but that’s textbook toxic masculinity, and I think when viewed as a complete work, Dave and John’s growth out of it is a sign of healthy maturation. Build each other up, boys, don’t tear each other down. In this life, we’re all we’ve got, and you owe it to each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/503

Leveling up is one of those weird things about Roleplaying Games that I didn’t realize until some point in the last two years is kind of an integral fixture of them. Overcoming hardships permanently makes you stronger in games that have an experience-level feature in them, and once you’re strong enough to beat a challenge once, you’re almost always strong enough to overcome that challenge in the future.

It’s a kind of storytelling that on closer examination is weirdly propagandistic, but it’s actually all over media. It’s pretty rare for a story to say “When you overcome a challenge, good job. You will have to overcome that same challenge again and again - maybe every day of your life.” The interesting thing, and I might come back to this, is that I think Homestuck actually takes this latter approach. Exactly the same emotional struggles they begin the story with are the ones they spend all 8000 pages of Homestuck agonizing over, and these characters will probably spend their entire lives wrestling with the baggage of their youth.

Suffering and toil is the fate of humankind, I suppose.

https://homestuck.com/story/518

Surrounded by Idiots.

https://homestuck.com/story/538

Saw is a story about a serial killer who subjects his victims to gruelling trials catered to make them face their own fatal flaws and emerge changed into better people, which is a lot like authorial scorn, which Andrew describes thusly in the commentary for Vriska’s introduction: “It's not as ill-willed as it might sound, but more of a universal principle of storytelling that for things to be interesting, harsh outcomes must befall those you create, in response to which they may thrive or fail. Which to the casual observer may read as hate.“. Lord English and Caliborn bear visual similarity to Jigsaw’s creepy puppet avatars, and serve as instruments of Andrew’s Authorial Scorn. Bro reproduces the same kind of creator’s hatred that Lord English bears toward all of Paradox Space, and reproduces it for the dubious benefit of his ward - Dave is to overcome the challenges thrust upon him in order to become strong.

https://homestuck.com/story/571

Dave does not care for being watched.

https://homestuck.com/story/588

If Dave’s first instinct for when he’s uncomfortable is to go talk to his friends, his second instinct is to attack.

https://homestuck.com/story/625

I don’t remember where I read it originally, it’s too far away in the past, but each of the items in the Rocket Pack is representative of one of John’s friends. The Cinderblock Dave, the Flower Pot Jade, the Violin Rose. John’s friends, his connections and bonds (Blood) tie him down and prevent him from indulging his most impulsive behaviors (Breath).

https://homestuck.com/story/631

In addition to Mad Science (or perhaps as an aspect thereof) John demonstrates remarkable lateral thinking.

https://homestuck.com/story/635

Alchemy has helped me get my thoughts in gear on a subject I glossed over the other day - the way the characters’ personality traits and objects fill the background radiation of the comic. In a way, the same thing is going on when the characters produce all kinds of neat shit from the odds and ends around their house as is going on when Sburb populates itself with symbols from the characters domestic lives.

Clowns become a threatening symbol throughout all of Homestuck, basically because there are a bunch in John’s house from a Doylist perspective. From a Watsonian perspective, Sburb seems, through the vehicle of destiny, to deliberately latch onto things from the players’ lives that will help them to contend with their anxiety and trauma. John has bad dreams about clowns, and seems to conceptualize himself as a clown in his self-critical estimation of himself. Maybe even as a Dark Mirror of his aspirations to be an entertainer? Is a Circus Clown a funhouse mirror version of a stage magician? I don’t have a follow up to that question, but it makes me think. If you checked out the essay from Malo I linked earlier, you might recognize some other things that John is afraid of which characterize his session, like his alleged fear of heights, and his anxiety about confronting his Dad.

I think that’s all for this evening. Another 200 pages down.

Cam signing off, alive and not alone.

#homestuck #liveblogging #commentary #authentication #validation #irony #personal stuff #authorial scorn

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thisisthepartwhereyou · 5 years ago

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BEASTARS SPECULATION #3: What’s in a name?*May contain spoilers*

I have always liked coming up with names; whether they be for characters in a story, pets or giving suggestions to my siblings what to name their kids. A lot of the time, the choice of names have inherent meanings to the givers themselves. I myself was named after a character in a beloved Astrid Lindgren-story, which in itself could say something about my parents (either as big Astrid Lindgren-fans or just seeing a quality in the character they found intriguing).

As Shakespeare himself once wrote: “What’s in a name?”

In fictional works, characters more than often receive names that hint at their nature or some aspect of their personality, either ironically or poetically. Among others, several of these examples exist in the works of J.K. Rowling, such as with Albus Dumbledore, whose name is a linguistic conundrum. As detailed and lifted from https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Albus_Dumbledore:

“Albus could refer to bright, or white.

Albus may be the masculine form of "Alba", the Gaelic name for Scotland or an Italian word meaning "sunrise", possibly alluding to the rebirth symbols associated with him. It is also a Latin word for white, and thus could be meant to invoke Good as traditionally associated with white, or merely to refer to his long white hair and beard.

Dumbledore is an old 18th century English word for 'bumblebee'. It is still used in Newfoundland, Canada, to refer to a bumblebee. Rowling stated she imagined him flitting about the castle humming to himself”

Other examples would be in American superhero comics, where several characters, both heroes and villains, possess names that are practically puns waiting to be used for their costumed identities. Dr. Otto Octavius anyone?

Anyway, I bet you’re wondering at this point, what does all of this have to do with Beastars? Well, besides using this method itself with several of the characters in it, though quite sparingly and subtle (which one could argue emphasizes the characters for their personalites as a driving point in the plot as opposed to specific themes that they’re supposed to convey), I feel there’s a special case with Legosi.

As fellow cinephiles may recognize, Legosi’s name is a reference to Bela Lugosi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_Lugosi), probably the most recognizable actor that has ever played the role of Dracula, which he did in the 1931-movie of the same name. This is interesting because it could have several inherent connections and meanings:

Both Legosi and the Count are essentially predators who tries their best to maintain a sense of humanity, but are occasionally overwhelmed by their rage and/or instinctive bloodlust. The difference though is that the human aspect is more of a facade for Dracula, enabling him continue living in modern society and satisfy his monstrous appetite without persecution, while Legosi genuinly doesn’t want to hurt people and desires to be strong enough to enable a peaceful life with the ones he cares about.

Both Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Legosi are naturally intimidating, but also charismatic. Though the difference there lies in their different kinds of charisma: Dracula is a man of the world, an aristocrat who is intelligent, charming and eloquent. Legosi on the other hand is well-meaning, honest and kind-hearted, but also an insecure and awkward introvert, making him hard to dislike once you get past his scary appearence.

Both Dracula and Legosi desires a member of the opposite sex, both in a complicated fusion of hunger and lust. Dracula’s desires are directed at Mina Harker (among others), while Legosi’s are directed at Haru. While the original Dracula from the book (and the 1931-movie) probably sees Mina as just another in a long line of conquests, later versions, such as the movie by Francis Ford Coppola, turns that desire into a more romantic direction, where the lonely vampire searches for a partner with which to break the insufferable loneliness that is coupled with his immortality. Legosi on the other hand is romantically and sexually interested in Haru, though they both admit throughout the series that it could have something to with an underlying instinct between the two where one wants to eat the other and the other get eaten. Not that they actually WANT it to go down that way, but in the same time, it is a danger they don’t think they can ignore. This sort of of link between Dracula and Legosi may be the most poignant, as Beastars really likes to associate the act of sex with the act of devouring (I am surprised DA hasn’t gone crazy yet).

Legosi’s actual father, Miyagi, is an actor, like Bela Lugosi was.

With that said, I move on to another side of the subject: The naming of fan-made children of interspecies couples. We’ve seen this in fanarts and fanficitons of other anthro-centric works of fiction, such as Zootopia and Aggretsuko, and Beastars is no different. Except, unlike the two previous two who either hasn’t acknowledged it or it simply isn’t a possibility, Beastars may the first one to canonically showcase that hybrids can be created between very different species (Though not really in a happy light so far, which could also be a subject for speculation at another time). Anyway, several artists online enjoy imagining what the hybrid children between Legosi and Haru would look like and be named.

I too have pondered a bit about this, and if I got to decide what to call them, I’d probably use the same kind of poetic irony of which I’ve talked about in the text above, either by considering their mixed nature or the names and personalities of their parents, not to mention their own personalites and appearences. As a cinephile, I’d probably find a way to reference another Universal horror-film actor from the old Hollywood-era, such as Boris Karloff (Frankenstein’s monster), Lon Chaney Jr. (The Wolfman) or Claude Rains (The Invisible Man).

Anyway, that’s what I’d do. How about you guys?

#haru #legosi #speculation #beastars #children #hybrid #what is in a name #bela lugosi #count dracula #universal monsters

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injanery · 5 years ago

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A beginner's guide to Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is among the most widely-read and influential novels in the world, bringing together centuries of accumulated folk tales and popular elaborations relating to the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China (220-280 AD). The amalgamated version we read today is usually attributed to the fourteenth-century playwright Lo Kuan-Chung. Later editions added to this work, however, and by the seventeenth century the most widely-circulated version had acquired the immortal opening line: 'Empires wax and wane; states cleave asunder and coalesce.'

Partly because the book relates to such an omnipresent phenomenon as the rise and fall of states, it continues to capture imaginations on a global scale. Chinese and Japanese culture has drawn heavily on the themes and lessons of the Three Kingdoms in poetry, artwork, theatre, literature, and politics. In China, the novel has been adapted into multiple serialised television programmes, as well as a string of blockbuster films. Japan has developed many video games based on the book, and the British studio Creative Assembly also released their own Three Kingdoms strategy game.

For the casual reader, however, the book can present a bewildering challenge. The most popular English edition tops out at 1,360 pages, despite being heavily abridged. Following all the countless narrative threads from start to finish requires multiple readings, especially as some of them seem insignificant at first. The reader is also given a dizzying list of names to memorise, including geographical locations and, for individuals, as many as three different names which may be used interchangeably. The writing style is also not what most Western readers will be accustomed to: for example, detailed descriptive passages are used sparingly, and much of the scenery is not described at all. It is a shame for this remarkable story to go under-appreciated for such superficial reasons, but it does require some demystification. So what, exactly, is the book all about, and why does it still matter so much?

***

Until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912, China was ruled by a millennia-long succession of imperial families. The history of the country is usually split into chunks named after the dynasty ruling at the time, such as the Zhou (1050-256 BC), the Han (206 BC-220 AD), and the Tang (618-906 AD). Each dynasty ascended to power after a period of upheaval and civil war, and ended in the same fashion after descending into weakness, corruption, and inefficiency. This process gave rise to a sense of inevitability and a feeling that all regimes have a limited lifespan—hence the inclusion of the line 'Empires wax and wane' in the edition that was circulated shortly after the fall of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 AD).

The events of Romance of the Three Kingdoms take place during and after the demise the Han dynasty, which succeeded the short-lived Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) and before that the Zhou. The influence of Confucianism, a deeply hierarchical, patriarchal, and ritualised philosophy of social order formulated in the time of the late Zhou dynasty, can be felt throughout the Romance. Women, for instance, only become key actors when they are used as pawns to seduce enemies and destabilise states, or when they attempt to meddle in politics and thereby doom their own cause. All main characters have a deeply hierarchical view of the world, and among their followers, loyalty and sacrifice are the most prominent virtues. Nowhere are this themes more visible than in the opening chapters.

Readers are presented with a Han state that, through decades of misrule, has fallen into chaos. Instead of listening to learned advisers, recent emperors have let power fall into the hands of a group of eunuchs, leading the Heavens to inflict natural disasters and supernatural events upon China, and a visitation by a 'monstrous black serpent' upon the emperor. This sets the tone of the whole story: real events interspersed with fantastical elaborations and dramatised innovations.

We hear from one of the emperor's ministers, who informs him that the recent happenings were 'brought about by feminine interference in State affairs'. The social order has been neglected, leading to a general decay in the moral standing of state and country. Into this power vacuum comes a popular rebellion inspired by a mystical movement: the Yellow Turbans. The causes, composition, and objectives of the rebellion are left unexplored, and for the authors these details are inconsequential anyway—it merely serves as a narrative tool to demonstrate the extent of government weakness and set the scene for the introduction of the tale's central heroes.

The Han government puts out a call to arms to defeat the Yellow turbans, and among those to answer the call is Liu Bei, a shoemaker who claims descent from the Han royal line and, together with his sworn warrior-brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, goes on to found the Shu-Han state in south-western China—one of the Three Kingdoms. Liu Bei is the character with whom the authors seem to sympathise most, being portrayed as an empathetic and just ruler who surrounds himself with able advisers and noble warriors. His virtue, however, often becomes a detriment when competing with less scrupulous opponents.

Another to answer the call was Ts'ao Ts'ao, later the founder of the kingdom of Wei in northern China and an altogether more ruthless, cunning, and suspicious character. Although he takes on a villainous aura at times, his state would prove to be the base from which a new dynasty was ultimately founded.

The Yellow Turban rebellion is successfully defeated by this coalition, and the eunuchs too are deposed from their over-powerful position in the royal court. Into the power vacuum, however, comes another menace, Dong Zhuo—gluttonous, cruel, barbaric—who seizes possession of the young emperor Xian and therefore the levers of power. Another coalition of regional warlords, including Liu Bei and Ts'ao Ts'ao, is formed to challenge Dong, and at this point we meet the family behind the third of the Three Kingdoms—Sun Jian and his sons, Ce and Quan. Their kingdom would be called Wu, based south of the Yangtze river.

The coalition against Dong eventually breaks apart and fails, and he is instead killed by his own general when members of his court hatch a plot to involve the two of them in a love triangle. With Dong gone, China once again descends into a violent power-struggle. The list of petty regional lords and pretenders to the throne is gradually whittled down until there remains a triumvirate of challengers—Liu Bei's Shu-Han, Ts'ao Ts'ao's Wei, and Wu under the Sun family. What follows is an epic, winding tale of political and military intrigue, plots, assassinations, battles of wit, moral dilemmas, and an ever-changing web of alliances and loyalties. Each kingdom has its moments of triumph and disaster, and their rulers all declare themselves to be the sole legitimate emperor.

***

There are perhaps four key moments that define the direction of the story following the founding of the Three Kingdoms. The first is the Battle of Red Cliffs (208 AD), fought on the Yangtze river between an alliance of Liu Bei and Sun Quan and the vastly more numerous invading forces of Ts'ao Ts'ao. Liu’s strategist, the legendary Zhuge Liang, prays for a favourable wind, enabling the allies to launch a daring fire attack and burn the Wei navy. This victory halts Ts'ao's momentum, but Shu and Wu eventually fall out over territorial disputes, and one of Sun Quan's generals later kills Liu Bei's beloved brother, Guan Yu.

Liu's rage at the death of his brother prompts him, against the advice of his followers, to invade Wu. The result, the Battle of Xiaoting (222 AD), is the second key turning point in the story. Wu's forces again deploy fire tactics to destroy the invading army, and the defeated Liu retreats to coalesce and focus his efforts against the more expansive kingdom of Wei.

From 228 to 234 AD, the unmatched Shu strategist Zhuge Liang leads a series of northern expeditions against Wei, and these campaigns comprise the third turning point. Although Zhuge uses his superhuman strategic abilities to achieve some remarkable results on the battlefield, none of his expeditions inflict a decisive blow, partly because Wei had by this time found its own talismanic strategist in Sima Yi. A long rivalry ensues between these two great minds, and while Zhuge is portrayed as having the edge, he is always foiled at the last moment by natural causes or by political failures in Shu following the death of Liu Bei. Zhuge's own demise then removes the greatest external threat to Wei's dominance.

Another key player to have passed away by this point is Ts'ao Ts'ao. Like the Han state before it, the kingdom of Wei was now in the hands of far less capable figures than its founder, leaving the way clear for the final key moment in the tale: Sima Yi's coup against Ts'ao Shuang and his seizure of power in Wei (249 AD). Sima's descendants go on to conquer Shu-Han (263 AD), declare their own dynasty (the Jin, 266-420 AD), and finally conquer Wu (280 AD).

And so it was that none of the Three Kingdoms survived to unify China. All of them ultimately became microcosms of the same dysfunction and decay that afflicted late Han, and they suffered the same end. This is the great irony of the Romance. However, it also helps to explain the enduring popularity of this tale, for it concerns not just the fortunes of states, but something much more intimate—the apparent powerlessness of human effort when stacked against the will of the Heavens and the crushing inevitability of fate. As the book's concluding poem states:

All down the ages rings the note of change, For fate so rules it; none escape its sway. The kingdoms three have vanished as a dream, The useless misery is ours to grieve.

#china #threekingdoms #rotk #history #literature #dynasty #books #totalwar #dynastywarriors #educational

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elizabethrobertajones · 6 years ago

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14x06 watching notes

Bugs 2.0

this is more like a sleepy note to self from last night (hi future me in the morning, you better have coffee) but I can't believe Yockey is sending Jack, who is consumptive, caught in a crisis of personal identity, and sworn to kill his AUncle who is blurred dangerously with one of his fathers, WITH said father on a hunt, while Dean is so messed up about Michael and guilt and all he's coming at the angsty nonsense from the complete other side... And that's still like half the story because also Sam and AUCharlie and a giant fly monster or something...

Anyway last time a Yockey episode showed up I wrote 100k words of watching notes, broke down crying over the elevated Shakespearean drama, and astral projected into watching the final five-ten minutes in the Globe Theatre.

What we know so far about this episode has me legitimately terrified to the point I'm writing preemptive episode notes the night before so maybe I will fall asleep and dream in such a way I sort this all out and can come to it with Secret Dream Knowledge.

Mittens had the audacity to remind me that Speight directed as soon as I rolled out of bed as well

Oh no the recap is awful in moments. Please leave Jack alone. He is small and young and doesn't deserve anything bad that has ever happened to him.

The ticking and chiming of this all coming due is a great way to raise blood pressure, and as I was saying last night, we get both Dean blurring with Jack in his issues as well as Dean blurring with Michael

I remain eternally optimistic that seeing Christian Keyes in the recap means he might get smuggled back into the show.

I WILL say this every time it happens and refuse to back down on that :P

Anyway, tying the two main points of plot stress together - what is wrong with Jack, and what is wrong with Dean. We KNOW what is wrong with Dean - he said yes to Michael, and got taken for a ride and sorely used. Don’t know if there’s a ticking time bomb about Dean and something Michael did to him. We can guess a few avenues of where the awful comes from for Jack, but I suspect it's going to be at least another full episode of Rowena poking him next time to figure it out, if not an ongoing mystery so his consumptiveness can be dragged out as a point of tension.

His is so obvious that equating Dean's tick tock clock with it is considerably more alarming on Dean's behalf, since we have a much better visual of what's up with Jack, and just "djinn didn't like the inside of Dean's head despite dealing in nightmares" to wonder about Dean.

We get the recap that Jack's being given his hunter go ahead, but then Dean's dismal "it's all on me, it's my fault" over a dark screen and even the "Now" which is a very over dramatic way to press home the sense of ongoing trauma and how that line is going to be affecting him.

Not that we haven't seen him very visibly affected already, behaviourally, but this seems like a clock reaches the end of its countdown episode now >.>

ANYWAY HAVE SOME UPBEAT MUSIC AND THE KOOKY STATUE GUY

Ooh dear, here's bandanna girl from the promo pics, but wearing......... would you fukkin believe it............................................. a long tan coat with large dark buttons up the front. Hilariously, I nearly mentioned when chatting about ascots yesterday morning, that ties made of ribbons were a modern equivalent you see in the same professions so maybe she is just visually connected to these sort of neck ties. Her floofy shirt and that ribbon tie has both shades of people's fem!Cas cosplay and also the sort of faux puritan modern witch look from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, so. I'm gonna assume whether they know it or not she's a witch.

Aww she is the librarian :')

I love her already because she said good morning to the old person sitting by the statue, but also because she did that and therefore is emotionally completely at odds with the show and her personal theme music means she's in for it and I already feel protective that her jaunty tune is going to get interrupted.

Why do I feel like at least 4 of the library rules are going to be broken

Aww the floofy frills go all around her shoulders. She's so upbeat! Shelving books like it is the most thrilling and wonderful thing to be doing on this sunny morning after rain :')

She looks so much like Bela when she talks... good grief... I wonder if she's related. Anyway first jump scare is her library boyfriend because she was just so caught up in shelving.

Listen I get names wrong or ignore them constantly but for some reason I do not understand them at all so it sounded like Ambraubry to me and probably isn't Amber or Aubrey and also how comes I understand all the other dialogue but not this??? To the point that in multiple past episodes despite my slow and steady approach to understanding an episode, I've completely and utterly mangled understanding or missed entirely the name introductions D:

I really am going to try and do better this episode, because it's so awkward.

"Harper, are you okay?"

Adsjfhdkjsfhskjfds

She's an angel. Wings, trenchcoat, tie, harp -

Anyway she appears to have the affections of at least two dudes, one of whom will defend her with a stapler, and we're lucky the detective pikachu trailer came out like 2 days ago because the kid in that does it but it's too late to be an homage.

Obviously Harper's knight in dark plaid is brooding, gingery, and armed with a projectile weapon. *fires staples at sweater nice!guy*

"Put the stapler down"

*Dean Winchester's it back into the safety setting*

"That guy's always been creepy" See that was hilarious but now I like sweater guy better.

"He's just overreacting because nothing ever happens here" Is this Cas defending Dean to the bitter end, even when it might literally involve watching him murder the world for his own personal angst?

Harper is very clearly setting boundaries while being a total sweetie about being sad no one goes to libraries or reading time. She's almost too frighteningly well put together. No one is this well-adjusted :P

Aaand sweater!guy loses points for nice!guying his way into assuming he has a date

dear lord the music

RIP Sweater Guy.

We hardly knew ye.

Dear lord I love Yockey characters

And Speight directing

this is truly as unholy fun as I was fearing D:

Also re: something from 14x04... nice guy characters again being portrayed in this way where the old school "geek" coding (or at least, beta male who is small and wearing a sweater and such in this very old-school way which honestly I think is fashionable again or was recently... It's a coding which comes with not just the appearance but also the attitude, and if he'd been cool and charismatic, the same costume could have done something very different). It isn't so much the problem as the attitude... Nerds are beloved on this show, but people with gross toxic attitudes such as insisting dinner is a date and not taking no for an answer on that are going to be summarily murdered round back for hubris.

I mean the title is "optimism" and he was WILDLY over-optimistic about his chance of getting with Harper, so. I mean. If that's the magnetism that pulls the monster in...

On the other side of the title card, Jack is stayin alive, and curiously pouring way too much sugar in his coffee as the title comes up - there's an immediate irony that he may be optimistic that he is doing better and on his way to hunting with all his dads and being part of the team again and also optimistic that this much sugar will not ruin the coffee... It's also a little worrying though I doubt he thinks this far ahead, in the sense that too much sugar is bad for you and like Dean being thrilled at the thought of bacon killing him, Jack risking the health damage from drinking sugar-coffee-sludge is an endgame beyond his current consumptive state.

See also: tragic or byronic heroes who are gonna self-destruct because they have mayfly lives in the age of consumption. Jack again being at genre odds with himself as part of an internal conflict...

"What's with the sugar?"

"without my powers, everything tastes different, and I can't get this how I like it"

Maybe you aren't meant to be drinking coffee if it's too bitter for you. I mean in your current state what is chugging red bull gonna do to kill you faster.

It's very Cas in 9x11, commenting on being an angel again after being human. But we know Jack's still in that state. It's interesting because we know he has a sweet tooth because literally the first thing he ever eats is nougat and now we all call him nougat child, but I feel like with powers he was probably rather less discerning because nothing would kill him and everything was digestible... Coffee tastes bitter because it's technically a bitter poison warning, telling us not to consume because caffeine bad... Er, yeah, sorry, coffee plants. But bitterness to humans is supposed to repel us on a “is this food safe?” level, and kids have trouble with bitter foods, and prefer sweetness and uncomplicated flavours because they're instinctively safer.

Jack's struggling to consume the bitter adult juice that makes the hunters run, and is dealing with it by a Sisyphean task of just adding more and more sugar to taste. It reminds me of when I was smol and wanted to drink cranberry juice because I thought it would make me more sophisticated, but it was too bitter, so I kept adding more and more water until it went from even remotely resembling juice to sort of pinkish tart water that still tasted gross and made my mouth dry and didn't even taste like juice any more. At no point did I hit the sweet spot where it was drinkable, because I wasn't even putting the right stuff in to make it taste better. In that case, a spoonful of sugar. In Jack's case... dude. A splash of milk. You don't have to drink it angsty black-like-his-soul like Dean does.

Anyway, "I can't get it how I like it" is very telling of Jack's current overall mindset and sense of place and all. Now he's human but despite having chosen his family and even declared himself human before his powers were stolen, he now has no powers and is consumptive to boot, so the balance has swung way too far over from super powerful cosmic entity to sick kid who can't keep up with the adults. No amount of sugar can change that to something he WANTS to drink when there's still a fundamentally fatal problem with his situation. Sure the dangers of being cosmic lil nephilim on everyone's radar is over, but as this show always does, it swings over to an ironic flip of the first problem, and he's too weak to help.

I suppose the optimism is that he can change this scenario by pouring sugar into it - hunting with the dads - when he needs a different drink.

Whoops already with the dramatic irony - Jack's excited and admiring of heroes Sam and AUCharlie (ChAUrlie?) and just assumes they're having the time of their lives. He's yet to solo hunt with either Sam or Dean, but he'll tick Dean off the list today. For now, what No.1 Dad gets up to (no offence to other dads, this one just tackled Lucifer for him that one time) is mythically amazing, so probably why it's the last on the list... if we'll ever see it. After all, Sam and Jack had their whole season structured around their dynamic from open to close, while actual conflict and confusion remains between his dynamics with both Cas and Dean, as much more complicated, less ideal dads.

Meanwhile: Sam is discovering that it's SUPER AWKWARD to go on a stake out with an AU version hardened by war and with like at least 5-10 years less pop culture than the Charlie you knew, loved, and got murdered by accident that one time.

Which I am totally sure is not on Yockey's mind at all now he's caught the Charlie ball that Buckleming threw recklessly out there.

Anyway. Dean not sugarcoating (haha) "he just left you here" "yeeeep." Obviously Jack's spent a LOT of time in the Bunker recovering and training (he's back in his tracksuit top at least here) but Cas declared him fit for service and they even seem to have survived that hunt together. Somehow. (No slight on their competency, but it's Cas and Jack. Come on, that was a TRIP and I'm so bitter we didn't see it :P) So now Dean can say this in a way that makes it sound like Jack's being left out and get his bitterness immediately on the surface, as he doesn't really have filters.

More bitterness you can't pour sugar over.

The fact that Jack is sitting with his back to Kevin's coffee machine is the worst thing ever.

LOL, poor Dean. Sam deputised Jack to wait for Dean to get back from his supply run to the love cabin, because he was worried about him, which means that Dean now has his own kick from Sam which I am assuming is the spite motivator to take the boy out hunting with him, that he thinks that *Jack* now has to look after *Dean* at least emotionally.

Obviously, like. Yeah. They're good for each other especially if they can bond some more. But like. Try telling Dean that while insisting it's mandatory father son bonding time out of CONCERN.

*cat falling in a bathtub and freaking out and reaching supersonic speeds out the door gif*

Nougat Son attempts a pep talk anyway because he is good and pure of heart and adores his pop pop, even if by sheer lack of interaction or early interest he technically does rank at no.3 in the charts. Listen, Dean WOULD tackle Lucifer for you if he had to, but the story wasn't framed in such a way that he COULD over Sam's narrative need to tackle Lucifer for you.

Dean rebuffs it not out of harshness to Jack but to himself - Jack repeats the line that no one blames Dean, but Dean is like "i do"... Honestly I'm curious for the Dean n Cas version of this because Cas was there in the room and he so far hasn't given Dean the pep talk. Mostly out of them not spending any time together, and I'm sure Dean has a lot of shame that Cas saw him do it, but for as much as Cas blatantly loves Dean still and all on first sight, does he have a more complicated view on it, given he was in the room and tried to argue Dean down?

Anyway Dean and Jack share a very knowing silence of mutual self-loathing and wow this is hilaaaaarious that that's their mutual relationship bedrock but yeah. Last season the most bonding they did was in 13x23 when Dean was like yeah we all get horrifying nightmares kiddo.

*consumptive noises* *Dean's eyes immediately shoot over to the kid*

"Maybe I'm allergic to sitting around doing nothing"

THERE HE IS. THERE'S MY SARCASTIC LIL NOUGAT

We do not get enough of him. I mean, like, maybe since 13x04? He had a rough childhood but now he is a Teen, with all the door slamming and threatening to kill dad no.3 that entails.

"What do you want to do?" We really are getting Dean coming towards Jack from arms' length even now, so he sits down with him and NOW and only now he stops the pretence of being a somewhat disinterested grumpy adult talking to another angst ball adult - very 13x02 last scene kinda wary understanding but without the threat of murder - to sitting at the table with Jack (who of course is in Sam's place) and reaches out to him with a very clear opening up of father son bonding time. I think obviously Jack has grown on him and he cares but he's resisted overt responsibility and their connection has been tentative and weird, and as paternal as Dean can be and has been since the start of the show, with Jack only he's been very careful about opening himself up, specifically for reasons of not wanting to get lumped with another baby to care for right when he was truly setting Sam down at last, and also for like, the whole getting Cas killed thing, and even a year and a half later, he may actually HAVE tentative paternal feelings towards Jack, but he's very much intent on keeping himself Dad no.3, and to only open himself up when it's necessary or else he's emotionally ready for it.

(The description of next episode makes me pretty sure Dean is the worst person of them all to have to discover Consumptive Nougat Son issues which is why I’m assuming he’ll figure it out)

In this case, this appears to be a mutual distraction from their angst - "HUNT" Jack says, with the kind of horrifying enthusiasm of one who still doesn't see it as nightmarish as Dean does.

"Cas is an insurance policy on those hunts" Awww Dean loves his hubby and thinks he's still the biggest BAMF ever, even when Cas has, er, a patchy record lately. Though perhaps low-level monster nonsense is still within his scope...

Anyway, after the Sam n Cas nurturing Jack conspiracy (how dare they love and care for him!!!) Dean straight-talks the kid that he's still very much on hunter probation and has been tagging along with Cas specifically for his own protection. Again, Dean never sugarcoats for Jack, but that honesty has always been a core part of their relationship, even when things were really, really, really bad. Jack still cared what Dean thought and Dean, eternally bitter from his own childhood, gave it to Jack straight, even if it would hurt. No fairytales for Jack.

Even though he has fanciful notions of sleeping beauty from his more whimsical fathers and whatever Kelly left in there :P

Why does Sam have a fidget spinner except that Charlie may be about to declare HIM the monster of the week and kill him.

I mean, dramatic irony and making him look goofy. And Sam is very very very hard to make look goofy because he had all his funny bones replaced with serious bones.

It is very embarrassing to watch him be a goof for this exact reason.

I suppose it is a way to make us start to sympathise with AUCharlie and start to get into HER headspace. We're seeing Sam from an outside perspective - Jack and Dean saying admiring things about him, while looping over to Sam to show us what CHARLIE is experiencing of this. Especially as she's spent a lot of time on the road being an independent agent, rather than sticking with the AU Peeps all the time, she's very much a strong personality of her own as a former rebel leader, and yet knowing OUR Charlie it's less the leading and more the rebellion that would have drawn her. Though she makes a great Queen of Moondoor, that's her softer, nerdy side, and she very clearly had a hunter!Charlie persona of a rebel that struck out on her own, and even when she was a civilian whistleblower/hacker from within RRE, she was acting on her own initiative against the corporate enemy. With her trip to Oz she also had a similar role as AUCharlie of being perhaps a general to a higher leader such as AUBobby in Dorothy.

The adverts on the McCook Sentinel are for TRAVEL, retirement funds, eating healthy and a local student initiative cleaning up the park - the next generation doing their bit to make the world better.

Oh dear, Winston "sweater guy" Mathers - the same name as Dave Mathers in 13x06 - was bitten all over and it was probably bath salts. Case closed.

Now the negotiations and loopholes: Sam said we all need partners now "so we can be hunting buddies!!" Oh Jack. Alex really is good at sounding innocently purely enthusiastic with total childish glee.

"A: don't call it that."

Dean snarks at Jack that HE is going to back ME up? Nah kid. Mistake - this is the key to the angst floodgates. Honestly pausing just after the "I could have killed Michael when i was strong enough!!" declaration is enough info for me to accept a smash cut to Dean and Jack kitted out and on the case, guilt trip accomplished.

It's also very familiar to Dean to have the guilt of having not done enough, to find someone else also specifically feels responsible for what Michael is off doing. And Jack's claim to guilt lies like a whole FIVE MINUTES earlier than DEAN'S claim to guilt. If Jack had killed Michael, Dean wouldn't have had him there to say yes to.

Check and mate.

Sorry, Jack is saying he was distracted and stupid so now Dean is legally obligated to take him hunting to cheer him up.

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"AND NEITHER DID YOU, BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY EASIER, DOES IT?"

Okay, what is the one that comes after check mate but even more vicious because Jack's running loops around his old man.

Dean is making.... left over noodle... taco.....

Jack, knock him out, drag him to the impala, and start driving before he can eat it

He also sharply identifies hunting as the coping mechanism and how they don't just sit around in the Bunker feeling sorry for themselves, and Dean not only can relate but he is being wildly called out by someone who has no filters and also will tell him the absolute truth about it. More than Cas, these days, who carries so much of his guilt and shame secretly so as not to burden Dean, that Jack is now the refreshing voice who cuts through all their crap and shows it for what it is.

Dean is like, man, I never wanted kids. Because they do this to you.

Thank god Jack won that argument with the final emotional appeal and we shifted over to Sam and AUCharlie's adventure.

They really are not getting along.

Charlie just has a jar of sloppy goo. What did she get it from? How did she get so much in the jar when it's so runny? Why does she still have it? Why did Sam put it on the dash? How comes they have Bobby's truck?

Or do the AU Peeps have a whole collection of identical beaten up blue trucks as part of their uniform shabby hunter look?

It's super weird having Charlie pull out an old book instead of a laptop. How do you do product placement????

Dick's Red Rooster diner!

There's a massive photo of a barn at sunset behind them. Putting them out to pasture??

"Yeah, when a young guy dies they never know what to put in those things." Ouch, Dean. Spent a lifetime reading obits, he has a deep insider knowledge of the writing style of them.

The line itself in a more meta way is really sad to think about contemplating anyone having that thought to write it in the first place :( It's deep enough that it doesn't seem an obvious thing to occur to you unless you're super morbid or have first hand experience with this.

Let's just go with these writers all have to write fake obits all the time for their show(s) so they know the struggle of trying to pass off the obit as legit sounding while also contemplating what to even say about their fake people who of course they have just imagined up so don't even know anything about them to start with.

Cocks, everywhere.

(Man, I really hope there aren't people who read these notes before/instead of the episode also hi if you do, you weird wonderful people) (the diner has a heavy red rooster theme and there's metal cockerels all over the place)

(I assume they're for Dick Speight)

Oh dear, Dean is indeed going to have to be the parent who gives Jack the birds and the bees talk, because they've left their kid to learn what he can from TV while creating a perfect circle of Cas assuming Sam will do it, Sam assuming Dean will do it, Dean assuming it's not his problem but it would be hilarious if Cas did it...

So of course Dean ends up being the one on the hunt with Jack where he goes down the sudden horrifying rabbit hole from explaining courting to hearing Jack say "the sex" like he's freakin swap-meated Sam...

Worst case scenario: Cas has ALREADY given Jack the talk but Dean's now going to have to fix that damage :P

Oh teenagers. You want them to stay disturbingly 1 day old naked manchildren forever.

Of course the waitress leans in like "sometimes you just have 'the sex'"

Dean shifts uncomfortably and rotates the cock that had been staring right at his midsection away, like he'd not only clocked it earlier, thought about what it innuendoed, but now in the moment where they're thinking about all this stuff surface text, he's too uncomfortable to deal with cocks right now.

Thank god Dean is as uncomfortable as I am dealing with the concept of Jack being adult bodied and now emotionally teenaged, because he puts the conversation back on track before I actually expire of horror.

Me and Dean are mutually uncomfortable at the realisation that Jack is catching up fast with his outward age. More than halfway there, probably. Only just started bonding with the kid and now we have to let him fly the nest :P

Awww we're getting the everyone loves Harper montage of townsfolk. I love one of these things.

We're spending a LOT of time on the Dean n Jack side of things, which is making me wonder if Sam and Charlie will play catch up later, or if they really are a comic cutaway case to the real angst. That Yockey really really wanted to get our two tragic main dorks into one room alone to work through their issues of guilt and murder and stuff and Sam is too emotionally well-balanced currently to be around that.

I'm pretty sure one set of the townsfolk are two married women

Oh Harper. She's so bubbly and she keeps losing people D: Is there a Nice Guy latched onto you?

(Is it stapler!guy? Nooo I was rooting for him. Maybe he's innocent but will be the next victim... Or maybe not. He DID just see Winston trying to pick her up moments before he died)

"She's bad luck" "real shame."

Yeah, something wants her for itself >.>

Maybe Harper is the one doing the murdering and eating

Probably not.

Sam sits there picking his teeth and AUCharlie finally snaps and tries reaching out to him if it will make him a less annoying stakeout partner. She also does not come under the bracket of Sam's hunter army in the sense of being inexperienced and over grateful of the rescue - that fierce Charlie spark clearly sets her aside not to treat him like the Chief in the same way of needing to be coached and looked after and she was immediately free last season to head off with main named characters like Rowena for side adventures.

It's interesting just because WE know better that she's interesting and Charlie-like so obviously worth a main side character promotion, but in-universe in a practical way, on the surface there might not initially be anything to set her aside from why she gets special treatment except that she had a former leadership role and clearly more experience and innate feeling towards hunting and rebellion than the rest, compared with Maggie who clearly comes across as a refugee wanting to make a new life and learn the ropes of this world with skills she didn't even develop growing to adulthood in the AU.

Anyway, AUCharlie's attempts to shore Sam up end up with Sam throwing the awkwardness back on her and finally opening up the emotional heart of their story - telling her that Charlie was Dean's old wingman and that she'd been a best friend of his (see also: they'd been going to Moondoor meets off-screen)

This is also hilarious that they're using the term wingman when Cas is blatantly the "wing man" in Dean's life and yet Sam is of course focused on Charlie when it comes to dealing with the awkwards of being in a car with AUCharlie but also this skips over Cas's place in the order of best friendyness, because Cas is so much beyond that with his family status.

Anyway Sam uses "you" to refer to Charlie to AUCharlie, which is a direct comment on how they find it weird to have her around and she recoils also from the weirdness that they'd been so close to her in their universe. Their mutual discomfort with each other probably also being why she's been happy to go off on extended adventures on her own getting to grips with this world.

"I'm just saying, I'm not surprised you survived the apocalypse" "Well, I am!"

Sam and AUCharlie going back and forth on his uncomfortable admiration of the other Charlie, while AUCharlie is of course having to fill the shoes of the dear departed first Charlie, a harsh copy of her to Sam's eyes and she can feel that because of course of the weird hug when they first met, it's clear that he, like Dean, struggles to separate her - even in a way where she's AU Charlie but Bobby is "new bobby" which is a distinction which shows more awareness of Bobby as a clean replacement while Charlie is a murky zone where should she be treated like just having another Charlie dropped in their laps, or should she be seen clearly as a completely different person from the one she's replacing for them?

Oh nooo this Charlie worked for RRE but she had a love of her life unlike our singleton Charlie. Just like AUBobby had managed to have Daniel with Karen so things were clearly easier between them than our version... It seems like Mary's sacrifice to not have John somehow boosted the relationships of all the AU people except maybe poor old Kevin :P

Oh noooo what if AUCharlie goes to find this universe Cara??

Oh goodness actual details of the "angel wars" - a massive EMP that put Charlie out of a job just for starters.

"We banded together, thought, someone will save us! No one ever did." Probably not a commentary on the effectiveness of the current government/world leadership at protecting us from disaster >.>

You made AUCharlie cry, you asshole. D:

It's mass grief vs personal grief - the AU peeps lost their world, Sam and Dean saved their world at great personal loss. They took on every one of these deaths into their own personal angst machine, so no wonder it's still rolling on :P

Because in the AU everyone has a Karen or a Cara - everyone who was left lost everything and everyone who was gone.

In Sam n Dean's world, paradise world, the heroes had their own grief, but it's a mythologised version, the great mytharc of losing Mary, Jess, etc that powered the intense personal angst of the apocalypse. But that angst which was so intensely forged in Sam and Dean for taking on the entire burden of everyone's angst that made them the heroes who stopped the apocalypse.

And literally one episode later I'm back to Dean's 2x20 speech about why does it have to be us who saves the world and sacrifices happy normal lives - throw "Carmen" into the Karen, Cara collection.

"One day the water gets shut off. The next day, people are on fire."

Anyway, AUCharlie is intensely hardened to the point of "it all falls apart" because of course she's seen their world crumble.

And again, the outside view point where she's not got the perspective that Sam is the hero that saved the world - it's for us to remember that Sam is the reason this world hasn't crumbled, that hunters are the secret glue holding this world together and we can correct Charlie about their world.

Going too deep is quite uncomfortable to end up comparing 2 worlds, one with a set of destined heroes who are just about holding this one together from at least supernatural threats, and one which immediately fell to pieces when the damage came. In 13x14 AUBobby said that their world just had him, again leaving that empty space that Sam and Dean fixed. But implies the everyday heroism of the AU peeps who managed to hold it together enough to rebuild communities and organise fighting back in their spaces, even heroic-minded people like Bobby and Charlie... AUBobby reckoned he didn't have it together as much as Sam, but in our world, Bobby was a pillar who held the boys and hunting community together much of the time. And Charlie helped save the world once, yet this one felt it crumble around her.

There's something vaguely divine right of kings going on with Sam and Dean at this point, that whole Chuck getting personally involved and calling Dean the firewall between light and dark, that puts their role in a much stranger and more cosmic position. The same thing that made Billie angrily stop pursuing the Winchesters and sit back to read Dean's books in bafflement about how he doesn't die every other day of the week, but is so important on the grand scheme.

To go another step beyond that into meta realms, they have a main character narrative purpose in their own world, so embedded that in the world building of a similar universe, there's no one remotely fit for purpose to step up because no one else was narratively placed to do what they did. And that's their tragedy that they were the people singled out by the narrative, that it's character fights god, directly and on a meta level at times, yelling "why me" and getting "because you're the main character, dumbass, now get back to work" as the answer.

Sam has CONSIDERABLY less interaction across the entire show with being the more meta character, as Dean has genre savvy and was the onlooker to Sam being the one in the crosshairs, that the choice was on Lucifer's vessel to say no or yes, or crack him out of the cage or put him back in. Michael's only purpose was to kill Lucifer, and the rest was free character development space for Dean to yell about how unfair it was that he was there and Sam was being forced this way and that to fulfill his destiny. Even in some meta episodes Sam stayed within the lines or played a role while Dean was the one critiquing and going to speak to the manager, as per the metaphor of Swan Song - 4x18 is the best example of that.

So I think Sam having to confront this here and now is really interesting that he seems considerably less challenged over time to think of himself as the centre of this narrative and what causes and effects this has caused, and to see himself from outside eyes rather than being the one trapped in the middle of it. Lucifer showed him a clip of Swan Song from outside eyes, but it's just not been enough for Sam to really conceptualise himself in this way. Perhaps it'll help him appreciate more what he's done for the universe. I think 6x15 might be the only time he showed more interest than Dean, and that also was about an alternate universe and working out their effect or lack of on it. Of course it was a branch AU from OUR world, while Apocalypse AU is a branch AU from THEIR world.

"not here"

"not yet"

More sugar for Jack. Dean rewards him for finding a case with PIE. Not cake though there was a lot in the displays.

There's still cocks in the background. In the old season 10 pie vs cake thing (10x12 and 10x13 and 10x15 working HARD on it) cake was the forbidden option and pie was the sexy thing that literally was used as a yonic symbol. I'm beginning to dread that Jack's going to get the talk, if for no other reason that Dabb's pre-episode tweets of Jack as Fabio on romance novel covers, but the previous conversation sure didn't help. We're visually and show-language primed for Some Nonsense.

Oh Christ Jack starts asking about courting, and he says he's never experienced it "unless what you said about Rowena and Gabriel counts"

This dumb lump of nougat has witnessed one of the most ridiculous chapters of Dean n Cas angst and hasn't got a clue.

"No, definitely doesn't count."

He never saw them together, but he would have been there when they broke the news to Rowena I guess. Maybe had some innocent questions then too.

Maybe was advised not to touch the books on that side of the library until someone hosed them down with holy oil.

I've been avoiding watching more for like. 2-3 hours. I mean I've been dipping in and out but the mere prospect of this conversation has had me noping out for extended chunks of time to knit and stare into the void and I just realised it's 9am and I started at 5 and only some of that was typing.

My second hand embarrassment squick is barely able to cope with this concept. Now I'm IN this scene I've watched all of Rachel Maddow and nearly checked my dash before I remembered I'm avoiding watching the new episode because Dean has to give Jack the talk so I still have an unwatched episode and spoilers to avoid.

I'm ranking this episode right up there with my conceptual horror at 11x04 just for the prospect of Jack and sex in the same sentence.

Oh thank GOD "when we get back I promise I'll give you the Talk" I should have pressed play so much sooner.

(No, you're fooling yourself Lizzy. This concept doesn't just come up in the first quarter of an episode and then go away)

Oh. Oh Dear. Yeah, trying to do a trust fall with the rest of the scene just meant I walked right in to Dean proposing, I think, using this strapping young lad he has with him as bait to investigate Harper, by sending him to meet cute with her. You know, Jack, dressed in his tan coat, Harper now dressed with her red bandanna ascoting around her throat and a black shirt so she's more Dean-like.

Bless, Jack's all grown up, he's in a Destiel parallel :')

A Ploy! Father Son roleplay! Dean plays the horrible looming FBI man who is threatening a smol lady with only a book for protection to interview her aggressively... And in steps the hero, in his red shirt and still tan coat of course, primed for young love and a hunger for local history books! :P

Well at least maybe stapler!guy might be protected by this if he's not the monster :P

Dean has watched enough rom coms/read enough romance novels to know how to set this up even if Jack doesn't. Canon.

Put that nasty FBI man in his place! Bam! Jack's getting another one in over Dean in the roleplay which mirrors their starting conversation of him emotionally triple-checkmating Dean over letting him come.

It is also a position of trust to let him do the work to chat up Harper.

Gosh I am curious about the endgame of where the Jack vs Dean conflict goes. Jack was literally yelling at Cas that they might have to murder Dean to get Michael a few weeks ago. There's shit going on here and the self-aware staged conflict really makes a curious sort of play within a play aspect, where it mirrors the dynamic. Set a play to catch the conscience of the king.

In this case, Dean being overbearing and threatening to a young woman mirrors Kaia and his treatment of both versions of her, but this time someone is here to step in and stop him, when Jack has been a bystander in the past. And in 13x09 of course, when they first met Kaia, Jack was being really grabby and possessive of her, and she had to beat him off and when Sam and Dean caught up with Jack, Dean immediately said "Good!" about Kaia hitting him, because Jack really was overstepping lines and was wavering one way and the other about being a Joffrey.

Jack is again playing the hero - he's been the prince to sleeping beauty and now he's the Fabio to this love-challenged cursed town darling. This is about perceptions and surface levels - playing the games of being the hero while still working out his own place in the world and discovering that heroism can sometimes mean a murderous revenge quest against the AUncle and the high collateral damage of achieving that. Despite Jack's full on tragic narrative he's battling it hard to dabble in other more light-hearted genres, and join his dads who have all survived by travelling between genre lines and becoming action heroes instead of tragic heroes.

And why is Dean now the possessive and grabby one when he was possessed and grabbed? Or is he still the one who did the grabbing? He CAN'T be Just Michael for all this time, but what's the secret Michael has set up? We can't know it yet but there must be clues, and more we'll work out when we know and can look back on these episodes with hindsight...

But Dean also was presumably the one to come up with the ploy so is it HIS play, and we're getting the boy king (v.2) conscience caught here?

"Why don't you back off kid?"

"You back off... Old man" Jack suddenly sounds threatening enough that Dean recoils, having never been on that end of Jack's terrifying switch Alex can make to being a truly frightening presence, at least not when Jack wasn't naked and lashing out dumbly because he was literally hours old. Jack's never threatened Dean with intent because why would he.

Dean's caught off guard and makes a genuinely "uh" noise in his throat while recovering from the threat, but it impresses Harper so I suppose that's what matters.

Dean vs Jack is very much the Dean and John version of this whole thing, except Dean tried to launch himself to Mars rather than parent Jack and give him the same experience... While accidentally doing stuff like handing Jack a shovel and dismissively telling him to dig which had the exact same effect of being raised as he was. Because like it or not, by 13x02, Jack was mimicking Dean and idolised him a little all along. And now of course, with Daniel laying into Bobby and probably a bunch of other stuff I can't recall mid sentence, we're deep into confronting father figure territory, with John's ghost looming over them all.

"This isn't over" after a moment of comical blustering, the squint Dean gives Jack is almost imperceptible but there's a bit of confusion/curiosity there about just where Jack's assertiveness came from, because DEAN didn't teach him to disrespect authority like that (he totally got it from you Dean). The warning is of course nice and meta in the sense that this staged conflict probably is over, but the Dean vs Jack stuff is only just kicking off.

Jack... Smith.

Aw hon.

Still no surname then? Not Kline or Winchester or... whatever Cas's surname is.

"Dean what do you mean you don't know Jack's surname? It's the same as mine!" Dean stares blankly at Cas. Cas squints at Dean. Dean slowly, slowly, sinks to the floor and crab-walks backwards out of the room.

Anyway awwwwwww romance hero Jack! You play those genres! Find the one where you don't have to be consumptive and murderous!

Aha, Stapler Guy is probably called Miles, since Dean is getting perfect audio on this conversation from the car.

Jack is the politest nougat ever, and wants to shake hands with everyone. SOMEONE raised him right. Probably Kelly. I can't even begin to imagine where else he gets it so it must be an instinct she hammered into him from the womb.

Anyway as soon as another guy leaves to get coffee with Harper, Miles comes shooting out of the library to ask what's up, so he's looking more and more like the monster. Grabbiness as the motw!

Oooh she's taking Jack to her apartment to get him a book. Oh dear, Jack, this is what Dean did in 9x08.

Be careful, sweetie. No one's given you the Talk yet D:

"You don't even know this guy!" "Miles, stop it!"

Yeah, staples guy is definitely my no.1 suspect.

Oh.

Is staples guy about to be eaten?

Whoops, me and Dean both made the wrong call there. And I was just about to tell Dean he should have been following him in case he was the monster, which would have at least saved him.

Apparently just crushing on Harper is dangerous enough. Though Staples Guy crushed hard enough to be a threat. Which means, I would guess, that the MotW feeds on toxic masculinity.

Oh my GOD Sam is still stuck in the truck with AUCharlie.

"Who wants to be a hunter? Just a lot of tears and death." Yeah, our Charlie got into it with only personal sacrifice of broken arms in exchange for a bunch of thrill-seeking adventure. Until she died, of course. AUCharlie is what you get when Charlie has a tragic backstory involving monsters. I think she must still be hunting for the same principle Charlie had on our first meeting, of what sort of douchebag doesn't help when monsters are eating people in your very building you work... But at the same time, AUCharlie has none of the sunshine, because it was already all taken from her, and she never started hunting to save people, only to fight angels and survive. I suppose the only difference in this world is that now there's no angels to fight, she's outcast from society by default and has ended up with the same asocial vigilante skills from guerrilla warfare as hunters use day by day for their less world ends stakes job.

Sam says "you" and then corrects to "our Charlie" - I can't remember exactly when this was but I think it was 10x18, after Charlie had been through enough that she was starting to lose the shine and Robbie knew he was writing a Charlie who was about to be chewed up and devoured by the story. By Sam's man pain in the story.

This is a baton that Yockey is having to take very seriously and carefully, because of course AUCharlie is so different but the meta perspective on bringing her back is very much about replacement and loss of a fave and facing what the story did to Charlie and for what stakes, vs what was she brought back for and can just shoving a new different Charlie into the story actually make up for doing what they did to her.

"So glad this is my last case" aw no she's retiring to the beach. Has she just been working with them while she gets enough resources to start over?

She's going "away" - from monsters and people. Go live on a mountaintop or something. Again, this is more about the trauma she's been through and how she copes, and what she needs to do to settle herself.

(PS: I will weep openly if the last shot of this is Charlie outside a cupcake shop)

I don't think this means she's necessarily out of the story or that through this van conversation bottle episode, Sam might not convince her to at least just take a break like Mobby are doing, but she's clearly there in the collection with them and Dean of people who have been so badly hurt that they need to retreat from the hunting frontlines. Dean NEEDED to watch 2 weeks worth of horror movies and take it easy. He's not exactly describing himself as really ready for action now either. Charlie may end up a mirror that's a fair bit darker, because while AUBobby is full of grief and self-destruction, it's open and explosive, while she's cold and retreating and surrounded by people who see the wrong person when they look at her - the bubbly fun Charlie we used to know. In the same way, if Dean has changed, people look at him and see the Dean THEY used to know and expect things of him he's sometimes not ready to offer. He made a big step in letting Sam take charge of the operation, in the sense of acknowledging himself under Sam's direction.

It's interesting now that both AUBobby and Charlie lost romantic loved ones, when we saw Dean change so dramatically in season 13 without Cas and that being the beginning of Sam's tentative need to take control and start to be right about his hunches like nurturing Jack. The swap in the roles and Sam struggling to understand Dean, and in 13x05 - the Yockey episode - failing so desperately to help Dean on his chosen cheer up hunt compared to acing it the same time next year.

LOL Harper's house has "AMOUR" and a huge love heart on the wall. This poor romantic sap. I'm so sorry a monster is eating all your prospective boyfriends.

She has stuffed toys on her bed and so many shelves of books. I love her. She's the best. Protect her, please, Jack.

His "??" over the "moves" also is a great way to make her way more the flustered one, because Jack could be way more awkward with inexperience except he's literally transcended it, as Cas often does, back out the other side of obliviousness :')

He leaps into action to prepare to test her for monstery things :') He's been trained well!!

On the other hand it does look like he now has REALLLLLLLY sweaty hands after covering them in holy water.

Oh christ, Jack, this is why we don't do Christo any more. Also. You shouldn't be aggravating your cough. You could really set yourself off.

"I'm just nervous"

Harper goes through the correct range of emotions for how adorable Jack is.

Charlie's "I got something" is layered over Jack being invited to sit with her - both of them just got a break on the case, though for Jack it is being prey for the boyfriend eater, and Charlie has read enough books.

Muscas look horrifying. I love the 17th century illustration of one.

Awww AUCharlie calling him a nerd. Those awful flashes of her being the Charlie they once knew.

LOLLLLL the Musca has a "bad egg" who FAILS TO FIND A MATE and goes bad, and starts killing people to nest. So we're really roasting beta males who fall into the woe is me victimisation trap of incels and would rather kill people (literally, unfortunately, in some cases) than address their own issues, get help, and find some peace and probably, honestly, a girlfriend as soon as they stop behaving like that and learn to see women as people, not mating-prey >.>

Why do I feel like whatever has latched onto Harper is going to have a suspiciously similar motivation where it's picking off men in order to leave her single...

Not that I have the best judgement on her case, but it's B L A T A N T L Y about courting.

And these guys are courting her - lots of innocent courtly gestures like dinner dates, protecting her nobly with a stapler, fighting off the nasty FBI man... She's their damsel.

"Our perp might just be a giant fly with low self-esteem" Don't sugar coat it Sam.

Is this episode "wow look at this hetero bullshit by Steve Yockey"

AHAHAH THE GIANT FLY IS MANSPREADING AT THE BUS SHELTER

It also has ribbons at the front of its cloak. The design is both modern with the suit and boots, but with enough of that old 17th century twist to give it a nice spooky old fashioned uncanniness. it's not of this time, place, world, etc...

Awww Harper has a halo with the lamp!

Oh Jack no, I told you not to aggravate the cough.

Vance... probable monster. (I say that a lot but we’re past the elimination round)

She didn't want to leave town... we could see the world in books!

You are also adorable and not quite of this town or modern world. Her "sappiness" does make her a weirdly good match for Jack, though, just because of the pure-heartedness they exude.

Jack can not IMAGINE someone leaving Harper behind.

"That was the beginning of my bad luck" Fancy that.

Also you still keep a photo of your ex in your apartment.

That’s weird, hon.

Oh dear, now Jack's opening up. "I try to stay optimistic." "Me too."

Awww sweetie. for all the bad that's happened he keeps on powering through, because sometimes that can be powered by optimism for a happy ending

Unfortunately, we're in irony town where the grimmer you are about your fate the more chance you have of surviving just to spite that. And, you know, vice versa, it gives you consumption just to make it harder... like, how much can we throw at this kid before he stops?

"Do you believe in love in first sight?" "Harper..... do you mind if I use your bathroom?"

Unlike 9x08, Jack is rather less distracted by being adorably hit on by the sweetest romantic. Time to flee.

Dean has been standing awkwardly at the corpse this entire time.

The bathroom has dragonflies all over it which I assume are interesting symbolically in a way which relates to her love struggles. Also the other side of the story's bug struggles.

"Harper is not a monster. And i'm 99% sure she's in love with me."

"She was looking at me with these googly eyes"

This is like, warning for next time Cas and Dean are in the same room because you SAW them last time

Next time, you will be prepared.

Dean is convinced she couldn't be in love with him so instantly. What do YOU know about love, Dean?

"But if she is I need to know everything about sex. Go:"

Kid, there isn't time in the world to tell you everything Dean knows about sex. Also, are you really going to pull a Dean and hook up despite all the deaths in town? ALSO dude, courting. Court her first. You know NOTHING about this or what you're feeling.

Teenagers are the worst.

Ooops Dean just stood around talking and now he's been eaten.

Guess it's time for Jack to SAVE HIM

"You're fine. I'm fine." No you aren't Jack, stop kidding yourself.

Oh good, she's scaling back to saying they should get coffee.

This is sensible and take notes, Jack, but also disregard this offer of a date entirely and go save your dad, you're not in a romance novel.

"I... don't know" this was Jack's stock response when he was younger to encountering new things about himself and deep philosophical questions which he just had not had time to ponder but in the world he had been thrust into, he was being asked to immediately have an opinion on.

I think we ought to file courting and sex under those headings for now :P He will figure it out but not at this breakneck speed, no matter how fast he grew up.

Bam, Dean bursts in on them - is there remotely time for him to have done this fast enough? Is this really Dean? Are we supposed to be doubting who Dean is?

Vance has literally come back from the dead to bother her about having new boyfriends. Great.

Oh, okay, this looks pretty cut and dry that it's a zombie now he's in the room :P

he looks like Archie Andrews. Is this the crossover we've been waiting for?

"Archie! Hey!"

oops.

*puts another penny in the "quoted Dean before he said the line" jar*

I can't believe Dean watches Riverdale.

I mean, yeah he grew up reading the comics, but you know it's on his netflix queue.

Stop smashing up Harper's bookshelves! Dean's all "let's dance," still looking waaay too excited to get to wrestle monsters to take his mind off of all his angst.

Why are Sam and Charlie still sitting in the truck instead of following their weirdo fly?

"You can't just quit and go live on a mountain somewhere"

Somehow when he sits in cars with female characters in Yockey episodes he ends up saying a lot of things like this. Bless your heart, you just described my whole life.

"People need people." "We're social animals" Sam is finally starting to realise that maaaybe that bit in 8x10 where he and Dean removed everyone they cared about from their lives and sat gloomily in silence anger-eating chilli in a dank cabin in the backwoods was PERHAPS not the best way to be people.

He's really starting to like having a squad around him... Maybe this is awakening a bit of Sam that he never had except in college when he got to have people around him without too much fear about having to leave them behind because he was so determined to stick to his new life there.

Sam pulls that not only he tried and failed to quit hunting, but our Charlie did too.

"She ain't me!" but you are still cut from the same cloth whether you like it or not.

"It's my life, Sam! not hers and not yours" basically no one else can tell me whether I should be here or not, and it's on my terms if i am or not. Which is very healthy but kind of sad about the commentary on having a Charlie on the show if she's so insistent to escape hunting. Because it killed our Charlie so we should want AUCharlie to be safe. But at the same time, bringing her back then sending her off to a mountain... it's a cold comfort that a version of her survived, that they saw her face again before she left in slightly better terms. But what does it bring to the show to have had her back but then to let her go again?

And, on a character level, can Boss Sam wrangle a great asset and potential amazing friend to stay and work with them and be a key part of his hunter squad, or will he have to let her go and fail to achieve some networking people skills.

They have a funny friend potential moment as sam says we don't want to tackle him in case it’s a guy into weird fashion and she's all, don't we?

This hesitation was enough for that poor guy to get grabbed under cover of the bus.

Though perhaps the hesitation was also timed to stop Sam and AUCharlie getting mowed down by a bus and very disappointingly ending both their careers.

Harper stops and demands to know what's happening. Jack throws aside the book that was the ruse, and holds out his hand for trust with open honesty now and she takes it, and he continues to pull her away to protect her. Awwwww.

Has Dean been wrestling in her apartment since it got dark?

How has no one called the cops.

Vance gets a spidey sense tingle that someone is holding Harper's hand, and marches out of the apartment, to Dean's disappointment that he didn't get to smash a chair over his head. Because that was a totally normal amount of enthusiasm for a fight.

Jack is clever, Harper is snarky... aw :P

I can't believe Sam and Charlie can walk after sitting all day.

"Brass nail dipped in sugar water" lol flies are drawn to sugar. More flies with honey than vinegar.

If you creatively mock that up using American beverages I will be horrified that corn syrup counts as sugar. Charlie literally just reminded us of Dick Roman taking advantage of your industry's corn fetish

BUGS

Those who don't learn from history etc

I don't think that's enough fly papers

Sam just sniffed a chloroform rag. Er.

Oh that is disgusting. Why weren't you wearing the orange jacket so we could ritually burn it.

Oooh gross. (pt.2 - Yockey was only warming us up with bug juice)

Harper let the zombie in and now she's kissing him? She better be mind controlled or this is a whole level of weird Jack should not have had to deal with because no one should start the Talk at necrophilia and work backwards from there D:

Oh NO this is going to be the Talk Dean has to give Jack, and to top it off they have a jealous boyfriend stalking roleplay kink, AND she threw in a bunch of other things for Jack to ask questions about >.>

Told you she was a witch. It was the Sabrina-like collar that gave it away.

Who knew my dorkiest joke about my suspicions was the most accurate.

She's even wearing a red jacket, just like Sabrina has her signature red coats.

This is a CW cross-promotion episode.

"It's first love, Jack. The best kind. Without baggage or compromise. I mean. I did have to kill him to keep him here after college..."

She's a Mary mirror. This is Mary and young!John. Oh god. Azazel's deal is her raising the dead, and sharing a gross kiss to boot... And Harper is from a long line of necromancers and Mary was from a long line of hunters, the last of them...

Of course, Mary has all that baggage from her first love but has moved on and is now having a happy vacation with Bobby but I don't think it's symbolically unimportant that that was literally last episode and now we're seeing first loves with an undead boyfriend, that Harper couldn't let slip out of her hands so she did the most toxic thing to bring him back. It's very much like the Plum sisters being the zombie-raising parallels to Sam and Dean and their need to bring Mary back come what may - which of course after Jack's vision in 13x09 made Dean threaten Kaia in the first place

Can't spell Necromancer without "Romance"

I love the hiding from the zombie chase going on here. Vance is dumb as a box of rocks and we’re getting lots of new gifs of Jack being “sneaky”

Ahaha she has a romance novel called "Lances and Laces" (i think?)

Awww Jack is doing a Ruse again, playing dumb for her. "I thought we fell in love at first sight!"

Awwwwww he's proposing to her. The allure of un-undead love.

"But I tried to kill you!" "Every relationship has its stuff, right?"

pffffffffffffffft

You aren't officially in love on this show UNTIL you try and kill each other

Ow, Jack. That's going to shake some bloody phlegm loose.

FATHER SON TEAMWORK SAVES THE DAY

Lol, Vance got ditched as soon as it was awkward to have a zombie boyfriend

Sam is seriously using the fly as a parallel to Charlie being a loner. I wonder what you could put in front of him that he WOULDN'T be able to twist into a moral. He really is the camp leader :P

Awww the gross bug thing's people came for it

Sam I can not hear a word of your motivating speech over these terrifying things and their nightmare aesthetic taking home one of their own who strayed from the swarm to swooping music.

AUCharlie relents enough to have a door open... Yeah, she did also get knocked out when trying to hunt on her own and though she wanted to retire, well...

I can't believe Yockey metaphorically compared the hunter community to the fly swarm. Like, Charlie was all blurr the metaphor has holes but they had no idea the bugs looked after their own like that D: Dramatic irony again - this time against Charlie to make her more right than she knew that she has people who would care for her.

Oh NO, Jack has left an impression on Harper... Oh dear oh dear oh dear. You can NOT have a necromancer long distance girlfriend.

Even though she's in a different diner there's still a cock in the window.

"I'm sorry I have to kill you!" heee she's so cute. In a very twisted way, I still like her even though the necromancy thing is gross, and Jack should steer WAY clear.

But awwwwwwwww.

"And that's love."

Dean saying it can get crazier than that... Dude, just give him the talk, I'll turn off the last 2 minutes of the episode. You clearly need to. Or at the very least start the ball rolling on suggesting Sam do it, Sam asks Cas if he’d want to, Cas comes and asks you for help to do it and you end up being the one to try after all.

I LOVE Jack hanging with Dean, with his too-sweet coffee, angling to make Dean let him come on hunts more because he was right.

I think Dean just pointed out neither of them are ready to be hunters if they can't cope with the mistakes they make without feeling super guilty, since they had the guilt Olympics at the beginning.

Oh Jack, no.

OH NO HIS NOSE IS BLEEDING

Down he goes!

This is what happens when you meddle in genres you don't belong.

Tragedy comes back and kicks you in the face.

Dean on his knees by Jack yelling his name: same. D:

#14x06 #season 14 spoilers #my stuff

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ernmark · 6 years ago

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this is very random; but do you think they'd actually ever kill of any character from 'juno's-team' on tpp? i was just thinking about how tv shows are very into killing off peeps (often beloved characters) for 'shock factor' and although i don't think they'd ever kill of a character for that reason i did suddenly wonder about losing one of juno's main crew. it's just that in my mind rita and alessandra and mick and sasha are all relatively 'safe' bc i have never had to believe otherwise.

I don’t think they’d ever kill off a major character just for shock value. Partly because this show doesn’t do that kind of thing, and partly because it really doesn’t fit with the cartoony vibe they’re going for, and partly because they’re all too familiar with the “Bury Your Gays” tropes and are there for none of that.

So villains and minor characters aside, nobody’s going to be dying without a really, really good reason.

That being said, here’s how I think everybody stands, mortality-wise.

Juno is safe. Up until this point, his whole thing has been about him finding the will to live. They’re not just going to toss that out and kill him off anyway. Also, you know, protagonist and viewpoint character. Our lady’s good.

Rita is such a favorite that if she died the entire cast, crew, and then audience would show up at Vibert’s house in tears. Also, she’s very much an embodiment of that cartoony vibe. If she were to die, the whole show would go grimdark in the same second.

Nureyev, I think, is also entirely safe, because 1) Kill Your Gays is a shitty trope, and he’s The Love Interest, and 2) because he’s a major embodiment of Happily Ever After for Juno.

Alessandra is safe, because as hyper-competent as she is, she’s a survivor to her core. She’s not going to take the risks that’ll get her killed. Also, this world needs more ladies in happy same-sex marriages, and I think Sophie would mutiny if Alessandra wasn’t okay. Going back to theme, though: she’s a big embodiment of hope; she’s the one who tells Juno she’s proud of him for wanting to live. It would send too dark a message if she were to die.

Now for the ones who are, in my opinion, less safe:

Mick Mercury: the King of Bad Decisions. If you want to invert the Bury Your Gays trope, there’s a sort of twisted irony in killing off the one straight man on Mars. He’s also demonstrated before now that, as many bad ideas as he’s had, he is absolutely willing to sacrifice his life for the people he loves. I don’t think they will kill him off, though, because he’s just a really fun character. Also, he’s already made that heroic sacrifice in the first season, so it wouldn’t have as much of a punch if you tried to do it again.

Jacket: He’s very much about self-care, but he’s also ferociously devoted to his loved ones (which by now includes Juno), and I don’t think he’d hesitate to die for them. Also, as much as he’s about self-care, it’s not nearly as big a thematic element with him as survival is with Alessandra. If it were me and I had to kill him off, I’d do it right after Juno learns his name.

Sasha Wire: She’s quite possibly the single most capable person in the series, and likely one of the few decent people in charge of an organization of dubious morality (at best) in which promotion is achieved by assassinating your superiors. She’s got a galaxy-sized target on her back, both to the Big Bads she’s trying to stop, and the rivals within Dark Matters. Her two saving graces are her competence and how much Sophie clearly loves playing her. If it was me writing it, that would be an absolute last resort, when stakes are on an interstellar level– and even then, I’d probably have her sidelined instead of killed outright, because she’s the only character I would trust to run Dark Matters in an even remotely ethical way. I could see her faking her death or going into hiding if she realizes that she’s not in a position to survive.

Khan: If this man doesn’t end up at least hospitalized by the end of the series, I will be deeply surprised. He’s one of the few remaining Good Cops in Hyperion City, he’s got an adorable wife and a dozen or so adorable little children to sob dramatically over him, he’s very much a Mentor to Juno, as well as a reflection of the kind of person that Juno Could Have Been. If he is does die (or get seriously injured), expect it to be three days before he’s set to retire. Perhaps the biggest thing in his corner is that he’s Kevin’s favorite character to write.

#the penumbra podcast #penumbra meta #mostly guessing #Anonymous #100

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katieskarlette · 6 years ago

Text

Before the Storm: A Reaction Post

I just finished binge-reading the latest WoW novel, and I have thoughts. Quite a few of them, actually. So here goes.

Short non-spoilery version: Game tie-in novels are never going to be high literature, but for what it was, I really enjoyed this book. I know Golden’s name has been mud around this neck of the internet lately, so this probably isn’t a popular opinion. The contrast between Anduin and Sylvanas as leaders--and as people--was interesting to see, and the questions about how the living and the undead can (or should) interact were incredibly poignant. There was only one significant lore development (at the very end, regarding a new variety of undead) that is easy to catch up on via a quick summary, so it’s not a mandatory read to understand Battle For Azeroth. But as a character study and a fleshing-out of the world and how various issues stand going into the new expansion, it was a enjoyable read. If you’re a fan of Anduin, Sylvanas, Genn, Calia, or goblins, definitely check it out.

Spoilers (as well as a mention of real-life death/grief) below.

I think sometimes fandom marinates in an echo chamber and, because of how seldom new canon material is released, we assume that because Blizzard isn’t releasing a weekly short story they’re letting unresolved plot threads dangle and fester. Sometimes they do, granted, but there were an awful lot of things addressed (or at least mentioned) in this book that fandom has been wondering/worrying/complaining/speculating about:

The leadership void among the Darkspear. The impact of losing so many soldiers and supplies in the war with the Legion. What’s been going on in the Undercity while Sylvanas is away doing Warchief stuff. The fact that none of the Horde leaders have families. The reaction of the Cenarion Circle to their losses in Silithus. The unpopularity of Gallywix among his own people. The confusion and cross-faction misunderstandings about the disastrous battle of the Broken Shore. The tension and lost trust after Genn Greymane and Admiral Rogers’ shenanigans at the start of Stormheim’s storyline. Moira’s son not being a baby anymore. The unresolved issues between Moira and Magni. Velen’s grief over his son. The fact that Tess and Mia Greymane exist. Theramore. Calia’s claim to the throne of Lordaeron. The long-lasting impact of the Cataclysm. The mixed opinions among the Horde about the way the goblins terraformed Azshara. Kalec and Jaina’s relationship. Lore from the priest order hall. And yes, the fact that Anduin needs an heir.

I’m not saying all these things are settled or developed, or handled in ways I necessarily agree with, but it’s good to be reminded that Blizzard hasn’t forgotten about any of these elements. (Wrathion, on the other hand... Sigh. Don’t get me started. Suffice it to say he’s not even alluded to in the book. Onyxia does get a passing mention in relation to how her scheming impacted the Wrynns.)

Anyway, moving on to the main theme of the book: life, death, and all the corpse-gray areas in between.

It was hard to read sometimes because of how raw the emotions were and how hard the questions were that it asked. I’m not sure that it would have the same impact on someone who has never grieved the death of a loved one, but for me it was quite emotional. I got misty-eyed in several places.

I found myself imagining what it would be like to see my much-beloved grandmother (who, by the time she died, was as hunched, emaciated and discolored as any Forsaken, although that’s not how I try to remember her) standing across a field from me. To be able to speak to her again, tell her how much I love and miss her, to tell her what I’ve been doing in the last fifteen years...yet to see her as a withered, pungent, unnatural husk, to know she’d been denied the rest of the grave... Faced with that choice, I don’t know how I would react. I’m glad I never will--for a lot of reasons!

The book never said that Anduin imagined himself facing either of his parents under such circumstances, but I’m sure he must have. (I mean, not that there was anything left of Varian to turn undead, but hypothetically speaking.) Anduin’s a very empathetic person, and his own grief over his father was still so raw. It certainly affected Genn, who I thought was written very well.

I’ve never been a fan of the Forsaken, because their dark, mean-spirited, nihilistic outlook and the corpse/bone aesthetic don’t appeal to me. (It doesn’t in other contexts, either. Give me cute jack o’ lanterns and chubby-cheeked ghosts for Halloween decorations, and skip the plastic tombstones and cardboard skeletons, please.) This book gave a lot of insight into what it would be like to be undead, without the need for sleep, cut off from any living friends/relatives, with a body that’s slowly wearing out without the ability to heal or do physical therapy, knowing that you are repulsive and smelly to others, making the most of second chances while also perhaps yearning for the peace of true death, and being acutely aware of how fragile you really are. It made the Forsaken more sympathetic and (excuse the pun) fleshed out.

I was also quite pleased to see acknowledgement of Forsaken who aren’t emotionless, gibbering eeeevil. My lone, seldom-played undead alt, a lowbie priest, is that kind of a character: holding onto the Light even though it now is painful to use, and refusing to stoop to being a monster just because she’s a walking corpse. That wasn’t a viewpoint that was really highlighted in canon before. (Of course, that means my little priest would be out there on the Arathi plain with a bunch of black arrows sticking out of her right now, so...)

I was disappointed that the book never mentioned Anduin bringing Elsie’s body back to Stormwind to bury beside Wyll. I’m going to assume he did, because geez.

I still don’t know where they’re going with the new Light-infused variety of undead, but we’re not really supposed to. It’s just a teaser and cliffhanger. There’s a lot of story potential, anyway. We’ll see. I’m glad they didn’t remove Calia from the story completely, at least.

Speaking of cliffhangers, if that adorable gnome/goblin couple didn’t survive, I’m going to be majorly bummed out. It was also interesting to know that goblins and gnomes can get married in canon. Presumably other cross-species relationships can be made legal, too.

Anyone who’s emotionally invested in the Menethil dynasty has sure had a rollercoaster of ups and downs lately. Yay, Calia’s finally in game! Noooo, she’s not interested in claiming her throne! Yay, she’s interested after all! Nooooo, she’s dead! Yay, she’s...undead? And she's totally cool with the idea that Lordaeron belongs to the Forsaken? (Which, I mean, it does, but it’s surprising to have her think that. So many forum threads about this stuff suddenly became obsolete...) And there’s a slim chance that her daughter is either undead or still alive out there somehow? WHAAAAAAT?

Oh yeah, she secretly got married to a footman, had a kid, escaped the Scourge, lived in Southshore for years under an assumed identity, and then presumably lost her husband and daughter when the town got Blighted (yet she’s okay with the Forsaken???), but we didn’t see the bodies so heaven only knows what plot twist could come of that.

On one hand (the Watsonian one) it’s a tragic, awful thing for her to have gone through and I felt really bad for her. On the other hand (the Doylist one), did she really need more tragic, awful backstory? No. No, she really did not. It seemed like overkill, which makes me suspect they’re seeding a plot thread for the future. Meh. Hey, if she lived in Southshore, did she know the Rogers family? Would Admiral Catherine Rogers recognize her as whatever her fake identity was?

On a related note, you’ve got Anduin who in the past was always like, “OMG noooo don’t compare me to Arthas!” and now is like, “Okay, Calia, I’m officially adopting you as my new big sister.” Oh, the irony...

I should address the rainbow-striped elephant in the room: There is no LGBTQIA+ representation in the book. Anduin is specifically mentioned as having been attracted to the female dwarf Aerin, and he expects to fall in love with a woman someday. Personally, I‘ve headcanoned him as bi, perhaps leaning a bit ace, while always expecting Blizz to have him marry a woman. I do sympathize with those who had hoped that he might be canonically gay, and I strongly agree that Warcraft badly needs more representation in that regard. In this book alone, it would have been so easy to have that blacksmith bringing a helmet as a gift to his long-lost Forsaken husband instead of friend. But we also need a major Warcraft character to be unequivocally LGBT. It’s way, way past time. Get on it, Blizzard.

[Edited to add: I almost forgot, another kind of representation I wish they had explored was that of physical disability. As convenient as Anduin’s Magic Lie-and-Bad-Idea-Detecting Bones are, why couldn’t he have had some negative lasting effects of being crushed by the Divine Bell? Chronic aches, maybe a limp at least? Loss of a limb, even? There is a narrative to be explored there, and as someone with a close family member who suffers from chronic pain and limited mobility it would be refreshing to see that kind of thing addressed.]

Moving on, I’ve never cared for Valeera Sanguinar that much, but I did like how she’s set up as Anduin’s super secret spy. I wonder if she gets to wear pants now.

Big ol’ meanie Sylvanas made Baine and Anduin stop being pen pals. *pout* I loved how Magni called her “lassie,” though. That takes balls of diamond, to be sure...

Speaking of the banshee queen, I tried very hard to read between the lines to see what their long-term plans are for her. Just because the last line of the book is Anduin proclaiming that she’s beyond saving, that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try to pull off some kind of redemption arc. If anything it just draws our attention to the question.

Is Anduin right? A big part of his plot arc lately is how he’s finding his way, making mistakes and learning from them. Could he be wrong about Sylvanas? He saw potential for good in Garrosh that never developed, so it’s not impossible that he could find compassion for Sylvanas someday...if she shows remorse and a desire to change. And that’s an “if” bigger than the sword sticking out of Silithus.

I didn’t see any signs of her wrestling with her conscience. If anything, the emphasis on how some Forsaken do still have feelings (besides hatred, bitterness, and anger) condemned her all the more by comparison. Yet she does regret Vol’jin’s death, and she did respect him. And her feelings were definitely hurt by her sisters’ responses to her, and you have to have feelings to have them be hurt. But her lack of remorse for any of the vicious, heartless things she does, combined with her new penchant for killing her own people, doesn’t bode well for her to have a change of heart any time soon.

I also kept a close eye on Nathanos. In his short story they made a point of saying that his senses were sharper with his new body, and that he felt a pang of regret for the first time since his death. That could simply be an indication of his renewed state, or it could be a tiny sliver of foreshadowing that he’s not 100% on board with Sylvanas’ plotting. Then again, that was set before Legion, and he spent all of Stormheim frantically trying to find her, and worrying about her, and just generally not being remotely subtle about how much he cares for her. Heh. Then again, he can care about her (in whatever way the undead feel such bonds, that is) and still think she’s going too far with her ideas about the valkyr, raising more Forsaken, keeping them up and functioning indefinitely without the release of true death, etc. Interesting potential for conflict there, as well.

I don’t know that I even want to see a Sylvanas redemption arc, but it’s fun to try guessing what Blizzard has planned. And such a plot twist would alleviate some of the “Didn’t we just do this same ‘overthrow a bad warchief’ plot with Garrosh?” syndrome, and allow them to keep around one of the franchise’s most recognizable characters.

I was also relieved to find no evidence that Anduin is being corrupted by the Old Gods, Azerite, or anything else. He’s true to himself and the Light, as always. I appreciate characters who stubbornly insist that there is good in (almost) everyone, despite living in a world that does its best to beat that optimism out of them. It’s not blind idealism or naivete; it’s faith and its own kind of strength.

Sylvanas and Anduin are fascinating foils for each other. The stark contrast between a young king who is still finding his place and a bitter, scarred, centuries-old queen, someone who comes to understand that death is not always the enemy versus someone who digs in her heels and refuses to accept it, someone who wants his people to be happy versus someone who kills them for not agreeing with her... It’s intriguing.

Was it the best book ever? No. Did I enjoy reading it? Yes. Is it absolutely necessary to read in order to understand the story going into the next expansion? Nah. Would it have been a lot better with Wrathion in it somehow? Of course. ;)

And that’s my two cents. (Er, well, judging by how long this post got, more like $2.50.)

#Before the Storm spoilers #Before the Storm #BFA spoilers #rambling about wow

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linkspooky · 7 years ago

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Hi Link ! Thank you ahead of time if you answer this ask, I absolutely love your metas ! Besides the actual manga & a few other TG Blogs, it's the only thing I sit down to read, so thank you ! Do you think that maybe the reason some characters are so caught up on those few moments of happiness for years is because typically, Ghouls don't live very long to begin with, & so every moment is precious ? (Granted, this doesn't apply to all the characters who do this since not everyone is a ghoul.)

Thank you! I’ll try my best to keep making enjoyable content for you to read.

That’s a good observation... V.

It is in fact the central theme of Haise’s birthday poem.

“Even if you have no memories of being loved, for as long as you have memories of loving someone, you can continue to live.”

…But how is someone who has never been loved be capable of loving someone else?

A child who wasn’t able to receive the minimal love they required at the time they needed it the most will continue to gaze at the illusion of affection and never know how to love until the day they die.

Well, how about me? Can I continue to live?

Translation by @makyun [x].

How is it possible for somebody with no memories of being loved to continue to live?

This poem itself is rather complementary to Furuta’s own poem which addresses the same topic but taking an actual stance, rather than simply raising the question. “I have no memories of being loved, therefore I see no value in life at all.”

How stupid.

What’s so joyous about birthdays, I wonder.Never in my life have I ever felt grateful for being born.

But for you people, how are you still celebrating your life despite how hopelessly stupid or ugly you are?

I am genuinely impressed.

Doesn’t it make you want to die?If you die, you can get cured you know. (This is true.)

Translation by @makyun [x]

In a manga whose theme is blatantly live, there is no character who advocates for death more than Furuta. Other than the times he’s been drawn teasingly pointing a gun with his head, or playing with a noose, this theme of death and suicide are things clearly wrapped around Furuta’s character.

I bring this up now because while the manga does indeed explore the fact that it’s understandable that these characters would think this way, that these poeple so starved for love and affection would grasp onto what few moments of happiness they have. That it is therefore not wrong for them to want love when they’ve been neglected for it.

However, while it serves as an explanation for why these characters are the way they are, eternally unable to progress, and how they reached this point as well it does not excuse them. It is not an excuse because if it excuses any character in the manga, it would excuse Furuta as well.

if we follow that logic, then Furuta has every right to obsess over Rize because she’s the only small point of happiness he ever experienced in a life where he was basically born into slavery, told he was not going to live long, and then forced to kill.

It is perfectly understandable that anybody born in those circumstances would not only develop a worthless view of life, but also an unhealthy view of romance. After all, where exactly would Furuta find a model for healthy romance in the Washuu who repeatedly rape women for the sake of breeding as if they’re cattle, then throw the children away and forget even what their names were.

Furuta, probably moreso than any other character in the cast is raised in an environment completely devoid of love. In repsonse to that, Furuta has no regard for life and his destructive activities are all a direct and thoughtful response to how he was raised.

If Kaneki’s acts of mass murder are excusable because he does them from an origin point of being starved of love, then what makes him different than Furuta? Is Furuta worse because he actively robs the agency of his love obsession in the most inhumane of ways again and again?

In that case does Kaneki arbitrarily being nice to a few people he is close to, but not caring about the vast majority of the people around him, either letting ghouls starve, or going berserk and killing hundreds of humans any better? Getting eaten by dragon probably instantly removed a lot of people from their agency as well.

I’m not saying that Kaneki is somehow worse than Furuta. I’m just saying if we deem Furuta inexcusable, than none of these other characters who are desperately looking for love can be excused in their motivations either because they come from a loveless background. Wanting to cling to the few happy moments you have is understandable and sympathetic, but ultimately it’s not an excuse you can use to stop yourself from moving forward.

"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can" (116).

(Hint, Gatsby fails at repeating the past).

Not only is it philosophically wrong, but the story does not allow it. There are of course several relationships right now where characters still seem to hung up on who they were in the past moreso than who they are developing into being. (Akira and Amon mainly), but even in those cases have you noticed that neither Akira nor Amon have developed as characters at all since getting together. Or even... done much besides stand next to each other?

Anyway, onto the examples where the idealization of the past is not allowed.

It quite literally kills Naki. The irony here being that Yamori was not really somebody that was worth dying for at all. Every small kindness that Yamori showed Naki was outweighed by his abuse. We have every indication that Yamori tortured Naki too, and if he did not do that he beat him, broke his bones, threw him out of windows.

Naki clung to the absolute bare minimum amount of kidnness that was in Yamori’s memory because it was all he had yes, but in that decision he also failed to notice that in many ways he was a lot better than Yamori.

Hoguro and Shousei followed him for him, and not Yamori. Naki’s death isn’t really some beautiful act of sacrifice for the memory of his beloved brother. It’s ironic and sad, because Naki truly couldn’t grasp even in the end that there were people who loved him more and much more healthily than his brother who beat the shit out of him and treated him like garbage.

Then we have a few chapters later, Hinami’s own sacrifice. For almost the exact same reason, Hinami overidealizes her brother especially the one of the past.

She nearly dies trying to earn the praise and support that Kaneki was just never going to give her, because just like Hinami Kaneki is a grown orphan who does not really understand love, and feels like he himself is constantly weak and needing assurance from others.

It’s this fixation on the past that robs Hinami of any true ability to grow, because the Kaneki that she wants to acknowledge her isn’t even there anymore. That was like five Kanekis ago. In fact, the current Kingneki did not even talk to Hinami once the entire arc, until she was just about to die.

However, Hinami herself is not like Naki, Furuta, or Kaneki who had absolutely no exposure to love when they needed it the most growing up as children. In fact for the first thirteen years of her life, Hinami was happy, loved, secure and cared for.

Yet, we see that loss has inspired the same reaction in her. However, to reach a conclusion to this, Ui shows an example for what these characters need to realize.

Ui who was one of the most hung up characters on the past, to the point of believing he could genuinely revive the dead eventually admits this. That all of his clinging to the past was just his own seeking of solace.

All he wanted was a reason. An excuse. His seeking of returning to the past with Arima and Hairu became that excuse and it helped him believe he was seeking comfort, but in the end it was flimsy, not any real solace.

It’s a lesson that i want Kaneki to eventually grasp as well. That he doesn’t need to base everything in his life on whether or not other people around him love him or not.

There’s more to life than simply wanting to be loved. There’s more experiences to life than just the positive ones. Which is also what I think Kaneki is staring to move towards.

There’s value in both good and bad experiences, so there’s no reason really at all to simply cling to the good ones and sip only unsullied water.

That’s why the move to the future in Tokyo Ghoul has always been framed as a destructive and terrifying one. It’s comforting to linger in past memories, to stay in familiar relationships, to simply fall back into place without having to figure out how things have changed and how you have changed.

However, to reach a better future you have to risk losing those things. Sometimes you might even have to destroy them with your own hands, to make room for something better.

It’s scary to let go of those things, it’s destructive, it could possibly even be self destructive, but ultimately the only way things can change for the better is if you allow them to change.

#metasks #wow these are getting long tonight #thanks for sending in an ask #your hairu art the other day was pretty btw #and so was your karren #i looked at your older art and your terror in resonance fanart was pretty #volkitotibirgi

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owl-eyed-woman · 6 years ago

Text

Pacific Rim Uprising: A Comparative Review

A miracle has occurred. Pacific Rim, the brainchild of Guillermo del Toro that bombed in the US but soared internationally for a total box office gross of $400 million, has, against all odds, managed to get a sequel. Am I dreaming? Pacific Rim: the movie (and now franchise) that could.

But though the existence of a follow-up to this underdog of a movie (if a Hollywood blockbuster can be called that) is certainly miraculous, we must ask ourselves if a greater miracle has occurred: Is Pacific Rim Uprising actually good?

The answer is no… and yes. Wait, let me be clearer. This is a bad movie… and I dug it. OK, this is still confusing. I guess ‘patchy’ is the most accurate word here. The patches mostly consist of giant gaping holes of badness, but there are patches of (relative) goodness.

Let’s get this out of the way: Uprising is, in most ways, not the Pacific Rim we know and love. Set 10 years after the first, sporting a new director along with an almost entirely new cast, it is unmistakably a departure from the first one. Yes, it still has giant robots and giant monsters and they do indeed punch each other, but it is a fundamentally different movie in so many ways that it isn’t really surprising to find that something essential has been lost in the sequel.

I almost feel bad comparing Pacific Rim Uprising to its predecessor. As special as Pacific Rim was, I do typically believe that movies should be judged on their own merits… but it is a sequel and such comparisons are inevitable, so screw it, I’m doing it anyway.

Before we can unpack what Pacific Rim Uprising lacks, we first need to understand what made Pacific Rim so beloved.

Pacific Rim was special from the start. Guillermo del Toro, a man who has made a career out of penning revisionist love letters to cherished nerd genres, somehow managed to get 200 million dollars to make a big budget ode to monster movies and mecha anime. This once-in-a-millennia, stars-aligning act of providence made Pacific Rim, from its inception, something to behold and treasure.

But to suggest that the improbability of Pacific Rim’s existence is what makes it so special, is to do a disservice to Guillermo Del Toro and the film he created.

On a purely surface level, Pacific Rim has some of the most striking visuals of an action movie in recent years. Pacific rim could have just skated by on the novel prospect of trashy anime and B-movie visuals paired with the polish of a Hollywood blockbuster. Instead, Guillermo del Toro paired this already enticing spectacle with what can only be described as an explosion of saturated rainbow. In a time when The Dark Knight-inspired grey was the norm, Pacific Rim was a sweet, candy-coloured treat for sore eyes. I would even argue that the neon wonder of Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok have the bravery of Pacific Rim’s psychedelic colour palette to thank.

But the uniqueness of Pacific Rim goes much deeper than its admittedly stunning surface. What makes Pacific Rim stand, maybe not above, but most definitely apart from the crowd, is tone and theme.

At its heart, Pacific Rim is a silly movie. Its premise is ridiculous, its spectacle is over the top, it’s big budget, b-movie, anime trash. In the hands of a lesser director *cough Steven S. Deknight cough* this kind of movie would most likely be couched in a form of defensive snark and detached irony, as if embarrassed by its own frivolousness; the implication being that a movie like Pacific Rim is an indulgence we can partake in, but only if we feel guilty about.

This is what makes Pacific Rim so refreshing; it isn’t ashamed of itself. Every ridiculous line, every overwrought emotion, every heroic sacrifice and every earnest declaration, contains not one ounce of shame or cynicism. Instead, Pacific Rim oozes self-love, pride and, perhaps most unexpectedly, gravity.

There is always an urge to dismiss the often-simplistic conflicts and relationships we see in movies like Pacific Rim as mindless fluff, but Pacific Rim just won’t let you. Every part of this movie is delivered with a feeling of weight and import. An elbow rocket may at first seem like a throw-away sight-gag, but honestly, Pacific Rim takes Jaegers, and, by extension, their elbow rockets, seriously and you should too. They are trying to cancel the apocalypse and you need to get on board.

In this way, Pacific Rim doesn’t just make sure you get invested in the movie’s characters, robots, monsters and endlessly goofy dialogue; it makes sure you respect it.

And honestly, as much as I’ve been playing up the more outlandish parts of Pacific Rim’s premise, it’s hard not to respect the truly weighty and revolutionary ideas that Pacific Rim contends with. Its central conceit shows every nation banding together to save the world in a utopian vision of internationalism and global co-operation. Its puppy dog-like characters love each other with all their heart seemingly from the second they meet, truly trusting each other with theirs lives and innermost self. Its Jaegers are literally powered by emotional understanding and compassion between human beings. Every part of Pacific Rim expounds a far too rare faith in humanity’s potential for positivity, idealism and empathy.

In a movie ostensibly about revelling in the apocalypse, Pacific Rim was, in actual fact, creating a utopia by showing us how humanity’s fundamental goodness could save the world. So needless to say, it is deeply disappointing to find that these things that made Pacific Rim so memorable and, dare I say, important, have been abandoned by the sequel.

The most obvious change is, unsurprisingly, the visual style, as the rainbow extravaganza of Pacific Rim is traded in for the grim, muted greys of reality. To be fair, Pacific Rim Uprising is not entirely devoid of colour, but it isn’t soaking in it like the first film.

In the scheme of things, it’s not a devastating loss, but it is indicative of Pacific Rim Uprising’s biggest problem: its decision to trade in the flavour and uniqueness of Pacific Rim for the bland, the generic and the safe.

Thematically, the internationalism of the first movie is still present implicitly in the diversity of its cast, but the unique positivity and unabashed idealism of the first film has been abandoned. Ideas of empathy and interpersonal relationships are inextricably woven into the premise of Pacific Rim, but these elements never really congeal into any coherent message or ideology; it has lost the unique voice and lofty ambitions of Pacific Rim, so it never feels like Pacific Rim Uprising is trying to say anything other than ‘friendship is good’ and ‘let’s save the world’.

Tonally, the child-like sincerity and self-respect of Pacific Rim has been replaced by generic snark and detached “edgy” humour. Mostly, this tonal shift is just boring and predictable – scenes play out emotionally like you’d expect, characters react with defensive sarcasm and contempt, the humour is crude and forgettable. It plays like a typical, middle of the road blockbuster, content in its mediocrity.

To be fair, it doesn’t not work, it mostly just exists, but it also leads to some bewilderingly bad choices when it comes to humour, especially when it involves the younger members of the cast. A joke about a cadet’s plastic surgeon father goes on for far too long and somehow, in 2018, the triumphant blast off for battle is accompanied by, of all things, the Trololol song.

That’s not to say all the sincerity or joy has been lost – a scene where the team bands together to rebuild their Jaegers hits the right blend of cheesy and awesome, and Jake and Amara’s bond is, at times, quite sweet but in the context of such a snide movie, these glimpses of sincerity seem awkward and unnatural.

Let me put it this way. In Uprising, a Jaeger, the awe-inspiring feat of human ingenuity and mechanical embodiment of empathy and co-operation, flips a kaiju the bird. This is the what Pacific Rim is now.

It’s appropriate that Pacific Rim Uprising shifts the focus to a younger generation of cadets, because Uprising kind of reminds me of being a teenager. It wants so badly to be detached and cool, but it’s far too desperate and unsure of itself to ever truly be considered ‘hip’; it embodies that awkward teenage posturing we all thankfully escape in adulthood. Contrastingly, Pacific Rim exudes the confidence of an adult, secure in their interests and themselves, and in that, effortlessly achieves the coolness Pacific Rim Uprising so desperately seeks.

By now, I think I’ve made it clear that Pacific Rim Uprising is pretty bad, but the thing is, I actually do think there’s some good in here!

But before I get into that, we need to once again, return to the original Pacific Rim, because I haven’t been entirely honest in my assessment. Though my glowing praise at the beginning of this review may suggest an intense, fangirl-ish love of Pacific Rim, in all honesty, I actually don’t like it that much. I appreciate it, I respect it, and I do enjoy parts of it, but there are fundamental flaws that prevent me from truly loving it, specifically, character and plot.

When it comes to Pacific Rim’s characters, the word patchy once again comes to mind. There is some genuinely strong character work in this movie - Mako Mori was rightfully praised at the time for being a well-rounded and interesting female character with a character arc separate from the men around her – and then there is some bafflingly incompetent character work, namely, Raleigh, the protagonist of the film, is fundamentally uninteresting.

Part of this can be attributed to the dearth of charisma that is Charlie Hunnam who seems unable to imbue Raleigh with any emotional depth, but even setting this bland performance aside, Raleigh just feels like countless other mediocre male leads. He’s got a tragic backstory related to a dead family member that he still hasn’t gotten over and he needs to learn to let someone else into his heart before he can save the world; I’ve seen this plot in most uninspired video games.

But to be fair, just because this setup is cliché doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been interesting; Pacific Rim is, in many aspects, an example of this, elevating classic genre tropes through thoughtful execution and smart, progressive additions.

This only makes it more perplexing that Raleigh remains so conventional, with no real twist or update. Even the most interesting part of his character arc, that is, the difficulty of reconnecting emotionally with others after a loss, falls flat since Raleigh never seems to struggle with this. Once he agrees to re-join the Jaeger program and meets Mako, he instantly accepts her as his co-pilot and his arc is resolved.

This emotional hollowness also impacts Pacific Rim’s greater plot issues. Pacific Rim’s plot is mostly passable, with a straightforward story propped up by the novelty of the premise and world. However, Guillermo del Toro seems to be aware that to make Pacific Rim great, he can’t just rely on the inherent coolness of giant robots and monsters fighting. To this end, he has intentionally foregrounded human relationships in the very premise of the film with the idea of an intense, emotional connection required for Jaeger co-pilots to control their mech – its ingenious really! But that only makes it more disappointing and bizarre that Raleigh’s arc is so devoid of emotional depth. This setup for emotional conflict never really pays off past the halfway point of the film, with next to no internal conflict between Mako and Raleigh after they drift together. They face external threats of course, like Kaiju, Stacker and an angry Australian, but there is no conflict between our main characters.

That’s not to say there is no emotional conflict in this movie; Mako struggles to reconcile her respect for her adopted father with her need to define her own destiny and avenge her family’s death. But as amazing as Mako is, she isn’t the main character. We’re stuck with Raleigh, a bland, white man who is the hero despite the fact that his female co-star is so much more compelling and, well, heroic.

The other threads in the film are similarly hit or miss. Idris Elba kills it as Stacker Pentecost but the Australian Jaeger pilots are mostly annoying and the resolution to Yancy’s arc is perfunctory and unearned. I honestly loved Newton and Hermann but many people found them grating, and the other secondary characters, while memorable, remain fairly flat, sketched out in broad strokes rather than elaborated upon with depth or nuance.

I still think Pacific Rim is a great, nay, important movie, but I also think we must acknowledge where great movies go wrong and, conversely, where terrible movie go (somewhat) right, or perhaps more accurately, go wrong again but in a slightly different direction.

?) Thus, we once more return to Pacific Rim Uprising. In regards to the film’s protagonist, Raleigh has been cast aside and traded in for a newer model in the form of John Boyega as Jake Pentecost, which, unsurprisingly, is a good decision. As a character, Jake isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but there are a few things that elevate him above his archetypal beginnings. John Boyega’s performance makes a huge difference. Unlike Charlie Hunnam, he has genuine screen presence and acting skills to boot, imbuing what could be a flat, cliché role with character and vivacity - he is a speck of salt in an otherwise bland and flavourless movie.

But to give props where its due, Jake’s arc is just better constructed than Raleigh. Thematically, Jake has more going on than Raleigh; he starts off as a party boy avoiding responsibility to both his family and the world and learns how to move past his father and sister’s death and become the leader the world needs. Already, it’s a stronger base for a character than Raleigh’s, but what really makes Jake work is how he genuinely struggles with what path he should take; he tries and fails, he makes mistakes, he grows, and because of this, when he finally gets his heroic moment as both a leader and a surrogate brother to Amara, it feels earned and makes the earlier struggles actually mean something.

Did I just praise Pacific Rim Uprising? Well, don’t get used to it, because, like its predecessor, Pacific Rim Uprising can’t seem to get a handle on its ensemble. This leads me to the worst part of the movie: the cadets.

The cadet plot line didn’t have to be bad. On a meta-textual level, it makes sense – just as the cadets are aspiring to take over from an older generation of Jaeger pilots, so too is Uprising is taking on the mantle of the original Pacific Rim. On a more basic level, who doesn’t like stories with training montages and burgeoning camaraderie?

But even the most basic elements of character development are absent from Uprising. The cadets have screen time, they appear in scenes and they say things, yet it is all done with no greater purpose or pay-off. For Generic Teens, 1 through 6 (i can’t remember their names and I refuse to look them up), they remain half-baked, under-developed and pointless.

The cadet storyline needed not just re-writing, but some actual writing, because if the filmmakers don’t care about the cadets, why should I? In the end, the only real function the cadets have is to be an attentive audience for John Boyega when he delivers his Pentecost brand inspirational speech.

But as angry as the mishandling of the cadets makes me, I am only saddened by the film’s mistreatment of their female characters.

Pacific Rim was a feminist film with some caveats: while Mako became a minor feminist icon because of the (sadly) uncommon amount of respect and care given to her arc, she was still the only female character in an otherwise a male-dominated film.

One might think then, that Pacific Rim Uprising, with its noticeable increase in female characters, could challenge the first movie on the feminist front, but apart from Amara (who is fine), every female character is under-served and disrespected.

The most cursory and useless of them all is the ‘character’ Jules. I’ve put quotation marks around ‘character’ because her only character trait is ‘happens to be into Nate’. You see, the filmmakers wanted some sexual tension, along with some bro-conflict between the two male leads but they didn’t want to go to the bother of writing an actual character for these bros to lust after. So they didn’t. You could edit her out of the movie and lose nothing. It is unacceptable to so callously write a woman like this.

They do better with Shao, the imperious and imposing head of Shao Industries. She works well as a fake out villain, but when she takes a more active role in the third act, she is denied the development and screen time needed to make me truly invested in her. Yes, it’s a cool moment when she pilots Scrapper and saves our heroes, but her appearance is more of a convenience than any culmination for her character.

But what of Mako aka the best character in the whole franchise? Mako returns for a bit as Jake’s older sister and shines as the new boss of the PPDC, before being killed off in the first act. Mako, a character who was never defined by the men around her, has been reduced to fodder for male character development. Need I say more?

I can’t help but imagine what could have been if Mako hadn’t been fridged, and she’d been the one to pilot Scrapper and save her brother and Amara’s life in the climax – what a moment that would have been! Or, if not this, imagine if they had truly fleshed out Shao as a character with an arc. Or, why not simply have two Asian female leads treated with respect they deserve? But maybe I’m being unrealistic (if it’s not clear, this angry sarcasm).

But despite these numerous flaws, I still really enjoy this movie, if only because, unlike the first movie, I was never bored by the story.

Pacific Rim had a great world and premise, but its plot was too straightforward and predictable. Pacific Rim Uprising, by comparison, has a sense of mystery and several reveals that genuinely surprised me. As much as I bemoaned Uprising’s generic tone, for most of the film, I really had no idea where it was going, and that’s not something to be dismissed.

Admittedly, Uprising’s success in this realm is indebted to the original Pacific Rim and the skill with which Guillermo del Toro built its world. It’s because of this strong foundation that Uprising is able to take this franchise into new and bold places, expanding on the world of Pacific Rim in exciting ways, like all good sequels should! We get to see how the Jaeger program proceeds after the threat has seemingly disappeared, as well as new drone tech looking to supersede a human workforce, the repercussions of human-kaiju drifting and kaiju-jaeger hybrids! This is all fascinating stuff and I’m actually getting excited just thinking about it. It reminds me of why I was so desperate for a sequel in the first place.

Yes, most of it is handled clumsily and it’s still plagued by character and tone issues, but the core ideas and worldbuilding are strong enough that it still made the film worth watching. And sometimes, you even get glimpses of a good movie in there; seeing the effect of kaiju-drifting on Newton, the reveal of Alice and how his and Hermann’s relationship had changed, was so satisfying and well-done it shocked me (I’ll stop here before I start fangirling about Newmann).

This is all supported by some stellar action scenes. Earlier, I bemoaned the loss of Pacific Rim’s rainbow colour scheme, but to the film’s credit, what it sacrifices in visual innovation, it makes up for in clarity and thrills. The fights are faster, the monsters are bigger and every Jaeger has a sword. Like all good action sequels, Uprising ups the scale, the spectacle and the challenge, and lives up to the inherent coolness of watching two giant things fight each other.

There’s a scene in Pacific Rim Uprising, just before the final battle, where the Jaeger pilots and cadets combine broken parts of various mechs in order to build a working Jaeger to fight with. In the film, it’s a triumphant moment, but it’s also the perfect metaphor for Pacific Rim Uprising: it’s a mess of a movie made with broken and disparate parts, that may function, but not as a cohesive whole. Many choices are bad. Some choices are different. Some choices are good. It is the definition of a mixed bag.

But honestly, at the end of the day, I’m still left with a smile on my face, and an eager, grabby hand reaching back into that mixed bag for more.

I hope they make a sequel

(but Uprising bombed at the box office so...)

#pacific rim #pacific rim uprising #guillermo del toro #movie reviews #movie criticism #review #reviews #criticism #mako mori #mako #raleigh #raleigh becket #newton geiszler #hermann gottlieb #jaeger #kaiju #jake pentecost #pacific rim 2

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littleredroseonthevalley · 7 years ago

Text

Red Rose - Chapter 6

Prologue Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 CH. 6 Ch. 7 Ch. 8 Ch. 9 Ch. 10 Ch. 11 Ch. 12 Ch. 13 Ch. 14 Ch. 15 Ch. 16

Summary: After a meeting with an elusive figure of her past, Riley meets Queen Regina, the Prince’s evil stepmother. A new player makes her début at a rigged game of croquet and poetry, tea and baked goods make some courtesans pour their hearts.

Rating: T - Content not suitable for children. Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with minor suggestive adult themes.

Notes: Hello, everybody! How did you like the premiere of TRR3? I’m still mad I won’t be getting my harem. Are you ready to know who on Earth was speaking with Riley last week? Now we are one fourth into the story, and I’d love to hear your theories!

Without further ado, enjoy!

Palace of the Brigades, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2015

“Charlotte.” Riley acknowledged.

“Back to first names, are we?” She barbed. “What are you going by now?”

“Riley. Riley Flowers.”

“Flowers? You’ve always appreciated an irony.” Charlotte said. “No irony is grander to meet you just here of all places, though.”

“I don’t talk about the past, Charlotte, you know that.” Riley shot the other woman a dirty look.

“Very well.” She sat on the bed. “Let us talk about the future.”

“I’m not going back, you can’t make me.” Riley declared.

“Oh, naiveté!” The other teased. “You know they can, they just wanted for you to come willingly.” She breathed out and let out a smirk. “Well, they did.”

“How did you get in?” She asked.

Charlotte smiled wolfishly. “I have my ways.”

“What are you even doing here?” The black-haired pressed.

“The bigger question is what you are doing here. But before you ask again, no, I wasn’t looking for you, and no, anyone else but me knows you’re here. It was just a big coincidence, you see, I was here with my husband.

“Anyways, your secret is safe, so you can stop making escape plans on your head. For now.” She smiled wickedly with her last sentence.

“You cannot intimidate me, Charlotte. I’m not one of your puppies.”

“Can’t blame me for trying, though.” She shrugged. “What are you even doing here?”

“One of your goons cornered me in New York.” Riley explained. “Maxwell, one of the Beaumont’s, said he had a plane and a diplomatic passport. And so, I’ve came.”

“Hiding in plain sight, so to speak?” The blonde asked and the black-haired concurred. “I give it to you, no one would ever expect to find you here, after all it happened.”

“And no-one shall ever, if you keep your mouth shut.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “What do I get from that?”

“What do you want, Charlotte? I don’t have any money. You can prey on my jewelry if you’d like.”

“Haven’t you heard, Riley?” She spat the name. “I married rich. I don’t need money or stones. I can get my own, thank you.”

“Then what you want?”

“A promise.” She said. “Whatever outcome happens to this royal mess, you’ll come with me, you’ll pay off your debt, and then I’ll take you wherever you want to go, with whatever identity you want to take and nor me, nor them shall ever contact you again.”

“After the opening of the Parliament, on February.” Riley negotiated.

“Very well.”

They shook on it.

Charlotte handed her a cellphone. “In case I need to contact you. If you don’t answer or try to escape once again, I’ll assume our deal is void.”

“Fine, but you tell no-one else.”

“I never intended to.” Charlotte huffed. “Good-night, Riley. I hope you have nice dreams.”

She laughed and left through the door.

Palace of the Brigades, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2015

A few days later, and Riley was feeling bedridden. Sleeping does get old, and it gets old fast.

Liam couldn’t come and visit, but he sent some sunflowers and a most beautiful card and a Cordonian poetry book.

Bertrand came the very next morning bitching about her low endurance.

“Bertrand, please,” She said on the occasion. “There’s no events this week. What else would I’ve been doing? No ladies would receive me, the King and the Prince are busy with stately affairs, we don’t have any money to spend with impromptu visits by fashion designers. The only thing I would have been doing is studying etiquette,” She motioned to her bedside table. “Which, if you had been any more observant, you’d have noticed I’m doing either way.”

Duke Ramsford haven’t returned yet. Maxwell, however, was nursing her gently back to “health”, as well as keeping her company, for which she was immensely grateful.

Drake also came by on occasion. As Charlotte promised to keep her supplied with information and cash, she did not need the loans any longer, so, as to keep the brunet from having to come by every so often to take the books back and forth, she told him to return them all. He, however, kept visiting, not that Riley was complaining.

As for Hana, she hadn’t heard of so far. But as she thinks about that, a knock resounds on the room.

“Come in.” Riley invited.

“Riley?” It was Hana. “Are you alright?”

The black-haired smiled. “I’m fine, better now, actually. I’m terribly bored and lonely.”

Hana gave a polite laughter. “I can imagine. What have you been doing the last week?”

“Oh, reading and sleeping, mostly. And eating, if I keep up, there won’t be a single dress that fits!”

Hana sat down on a chair next to Riley’s bed, which Maxwell used to help her eat and to keep her company a few hours a day. The Asian woman motioned to Riley’s bedside table, which contained three books, one on etiquette, one on economy and the other she did not know.

“What is that?” Hana asked, taking the unknown book on her hands.

“It’s a poetry book.” Riley answered. “Supposedly, it’s an anthology of the most important Cordonian poems, some are very nice. Would you like to read one?”

The Asian opened the book, but the poems were in Greek. As she was skimming, lost, through the pages, she noticed one marked with a sunflower print.

“Can you read this one for me?” Hana asked, pointing to the marked sonnet.

Riley smiled. “A mighty choice! Very well.” And so, she begun, translating it to French.

“Few were our fifty years,

Penelope of mine, my dearest beloved.

Few would be fifty centuries.

Only fair would be if they gave us

The eternity, and eternity alone.

From the Heavens, you were destined,

By the All-Mighty,

To sweetly damn my existence.

To rise me beyond my own height

And making me worthy of you,

For I to be forever your joyful partner

The path of life you’ve walked with me.

And I, as your equal,

Shall rejoice as your comely companion.”

Hana was impressed by the poem. “It is most beautiful…”

“Yes…” Riley concurred. “Full of longing, don’t you think?”

“Of course. It sounds like the work of someone who loves another very much.”

Riley played distractedly with a strand of hair. “You believe it so?”

“I know it so!” Hana assured her. “Who have even given you this book, anyways?”

“Oh, no-one,” Riley lies through her teeth, but with some grumble to her stomach. “It is just something I had Maxwell pick up from the library.”

Hana, however, made no inclination to which Riley could assume she did not believe the lie that she was told.

As to dispel any suspicion, Riley asked: “How was your week?”

Palace of the Brigades, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2015

Riley walked down the stairs, a lesson on tranquility. The event of the week would be held at the palace, and Bertrand yet hadn’t the chance of come and nag her. She wore a traditional, yet modern, dress she had at her trunk.

As she arrived at the tents in which would be served lunch, she could hear a voice she despised.

“I cannot believe we did not get to see the Prince at all this week…” Olivia laments.

“He’s sure to be at the luncheon, though…” Penelope consoled.

“Sometimes I feel like I’d rather face a rampaging horse than deal with the other girls.” She thought, self-depreciating. With that, she picked up her pace to meet the others.

“And there she arrives.” Olivia says, spited. “Fashionably late has its limits, you know?”

She could comment on the ridiculousness of her hat but preferred to take the high road and ignore her.

“Riley, I was worried about you!” Hana said. “What happened?”

“I just had some difficulty choosing a suitable dress.” She said, somewhat dismissively.

“It’s only day three and you can’t even keep up?” Kiara snubbed. “How sad.”

“I know it can be really difficult…” Hana said, with some compassion. “But you look very good, in fact.”

Smiling at her, Riley said: “So do you! Actually, Hana, you look stunning!”

“Oh… Thank you.” The mandarin girl said, self-conscious. “I don’t have as many dresses as I’d like, so I feel like I lack variety sometimes.”

“But you work with what you have and work it well.” She comments. “So, shall we go?” She offered an arm to Hana.

“Let’s.”

“Tell me,” Riley asked. “Are we on our way to the best party ever?”

“Well…” The other girl starts but is soon cut off.

“I don’t like when it starts with ‘well’.” Riley said, good-humoredly.

“Oh, I’m positive you’ll hate it, too. If your idea of the best party ever is tea, lemonade, finger sandwiches and butter cookies, then yeah, this is gonna be a blast.”

“Yeah,” Riley agreed. “They’re not really my scene.”

“I can see how they’re a bit silly…” Hana conceded. “The flowery china, the fussy napkins, the frilly dollies…”

“They remind me too much of my grandmother.” Riley explained. “She’d take me to those tea houses on Sunday, after church. Not my favorite way to spend my weekend, surrounded by elderly women, having my cheeks tortured with pinches…”

“Funny for you to say that,” Hana said. “When I was little, I didn’t have too many toys to play with because my parents thought they were frivolous. But I was allowed a tea set, so I could learn how to be a proper hostess.”

“Naturally.” Riley lifted her eyebrow.

“I spent lots of happy afternoons sipping tea with all my favorite guests… Mr. Sock, Miss Lemon Curd and Princess Snickerdoodle.”

Riley’s frown got more prominent, and so Hana amended: “Like I said, I wasn’t allowed to have toys, so I had to get a little creative.”

“I can only hope the company today can keep up!” Riley, somewhat amused, said.

“Oh, I much prefer your company!” Hana says. “You actually can talk to me!”

“Princess Snickerdoodle wasn’t a good conversationalist?”

“The worse.” The mandarin agreed. “And don’t forget, we’ll be meeting the Queen today! That’s sure to be… eventful.”

“Oh, right, I’d forgot.” Riley says. “Have you ever met her before?”

“Once, a long time ago, but I doubt she remembers me. Today will be our first official meeting. I must confess, I’m a bit nervous.”

As soon as they arrive to the venue, Maxwell calls for Riley and so she excuses herself from Hana.

“I hope you had a good night’s sleep!” Maxwell said.

“It was…” Riley was about to respond, but was soon cut off by Bertrand.

“Enough pleasantries! We only have time for business.”

“Lovely, Bertrand.” Riley ironizes. “A minute in your company and one might just find out why you’re such of a beloved community leader.”

Bertrand scoffed, but did not respond to the provocation. “First of all, was that Lady Hana Lee I saw you with before we pulled up? You two looked friendly.”

“Hana and I are becoming friends, yes.”

“Interesting.” The Duke pondered. “An alliance with her family isn’t the worse thing as long as you do not let it distract you from the Prince. In whichever case, your focus now should be on impressing the Queen. She holds more sway than anyone else at court.”

Now, that’s some important information: “Even more than the King?”

“Socially, yes. Don’t underestimate her.” Bertrand said.

“You need to get her to like you.” Maxwell complements.

She recalls her last exchange with the King. She knew some of her tastes, but did not know about her pet peeves. “What she despises in a person? That’s something to know.”

“She’s quite… wary of ladies not born in Cordonia, so you should watch your step there.” Maxwell provides. A xenophobe, yay.

“The Queen hates it when protocol isn’t followed. You should call her ‘Your Majesty’ when you first meet her, and ‘ma’am’ thereafter.” Bertrand tells her this time. “Etiquette-wise, do not forget that you must always stay a step or two behind her when keeping company with her.”

Maxwell looked her in the eye, unsure of how to tell her what he was about to. “I know you have a great sense of humor, Riley…”

“I’ll take it as a compliment, thanks, Maxwell.”

“Well, she doesn’t.” He continued. “So, if you only have something snarky to say…”

“Say nothing at all, got it.”

“Ultimately, she’s very concerned about how the Prince’s bride will be partly responsible for Cordonia’s future.” Bertrand tells her. “Keep that in mind when talking to her.”

“Will do.”

“I hope you do.” Bertrand snarked. “One slip up…”

Riley cut him off: “And eternal doom, yeah, I got it.”

Maxwell takes her arm and takes her to the table they’re supposed to be at. They say their goodbyes, and soon enough Hana is engaging her again.

“Welcome to the tea party.”

“Yay…” Riley responded.

“Cutting awfully close there…” Olivia teased.

As soon as Riley arrived at the designated area, the herald announces the Queen. She approaches the table and says: “Welcome all. I’m delighted you could join us this afternoon.”

Regina makes her way through the crowd, and Riley takes notice of a tall, blonde woman on her left, serving as a guard hound.

Hana seems to have noticed it too, as she whispers: “I wonder who’s the lady with the Queen is…”

“Madeleine.” Riley snarks her name.

“That’s Countess Madeleine of Fydelia to you.” Olivia reprimanded.

“As much as you think I’m an ignorant, Olivia, if I recall correctly you’re a duchess. Aren’t you too much of a big shot to serve as a goon to her?” Riley wondered.

Olivia was about to respond, furiously, but the gossip was too loud for her to say it without being heard by the pair at the front.

Riley, however, chooses to pay attention to the Queen and the Countess, making their way towards the end of the line, where she was.

As Riley’s turn finally comes up, she curtsies and says, politely: “It is an honor to meet you, Your Majesty.”

Madeleine whisper into her ear: “Ma’am, this is the one I was telling you about.”

Regina made a non-committal hum and says to her guest: “A pleasure to meet you, Lady Riley Flowers. The press speaks well of you. It takes great effort to manage one’s image so responsibly.” She offhandedly complimented. “They’re branding you as a mystery, I hope you realize no one can remain a mystery long when they are a public servant and must attend to the people.”

That really sounded like a threat to Riley. Not to let herself fall for it, she responded: “Of course, ma’am. Trust me when I say I take my responsibilities very seriously, much more so when it is crucial to the lives of so many.”

Not yet satisfied, Regina tries to trick her: “Lady Riley, tell me, what do you think is the best quality for a ruler to have?”

“A sense of duty, of course.” She said, confidently. “Loyalty to the realm you represent and the people you serve should be the north of every decision. Isn’t it really the point of government?”

The Queen hummed. “Good answer.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Seizing the opportunity, Regina warned once again: “Governance is not to be taken lightly. You’ll be bombarded daily by a hundred little decisions. Few will be glamourous, and many will weigh on you.” She said. “Loyalty to the country and the people must guide every and each one of them.”

“Of course, ma’am. The monarchies, especially, may seem to an untrained eye a self-serving machine, but, to be honest, I always thought it took a certain strength of character to sacrifice your own lifespan to the betterment of the nation.”

The old woman seemed less than impressed with the compliment. Damn.

“As heads of State,” Regina says, as if Riley hadn’t said a thing. “We have a responsibility to the people. We must always portray a sense of calm and dignity. If the rulers appear in control, then everyone will be reassured.”

“Ma’am, I do believe that while the monarchs should remain calm in times of crisis, but they aren’t neither machines nor detached from society. They should be able to express joy in appropriate times, as well.”

The Queen made a motion to respond, but soon Madeleine cut her off: “Ma’am, I hate to interrupt, but it is time to begin the game.”

“Yes, thank you for reminding me.” She says to her escort, and then announces to the whole group: “Everyone, please, follow me. It’s time to begin the croquet match.”

She leads the group out of the hall and through the lawn to a croquet court.

“Ladies,” The Queen announces as they arrive. “Knowing that one of you will be the next Queen overjoys me, but I expect you to represent the country well. Madeleine here has been the embodiment of dignity and devotion. It is my hope that you may all learn from her example.”

The blonde, Madeleine, bowed gracefully at the compliment, all in the while of smiling smugly.

Riley tunes out of the speech for a moment to watch the settled court. It seemed a nice place for a game or a picnic, by the shade of trees and smelling of nature. By the equipment, Liam awaited, in polite impatience.

As the spectacle begins, the Prince greets each lady as they pass by him. As Riley approaches, she holds out her hand as he brushes his lips by her knuckles.

Lowering his voice, he says: “Lady Riley, I’m very pleased to see you.”

“Yes.” She says in a mocking neutral tone. “Meeting you. For the first time in many, many weeks.”

He quietly suppresses a laughter. “I trust your health has been improving?”

“Yes, I’m as healthy as Mirabelle’s Dream, thank you very much.”

She curtsies and give turn to the next one behind her. Her ears peer as she thinks the Queen is saying something important.

“Custom has it that the Queen and the Prince play a round of croquet with two of the season’s suitors.” Funny it is croquet. To this point, she couldn’t help feeling disappointed it isn’t a fist-fight to death. It’d be more interesting to watch, at least. “I have chosen Madeleine as my partner.”

A fury of whispers from the noble ladies arise from all around the lawn. Unsurprisingly, as it means Madeleine is in the dispute. And she has a head start over them all.

The main player of the latest scandal amongst the women, however, smiles as she confidently remains by the Queen’s side.

“As for myself,” Liam says. “I shall choose Lady Riley.”

The black-haired takes a page from Madeleine’s book and smile, confidently, to the nomination.

Olivia seemed livid, but couldn’t say anything.

“Looks like we found another way to steal a few minutes.” The prince says, boyishly.

“Looks like it, indeed.” She smiled at him. “We are getting good at this stealing things. Any hope to keep up our game?”

He laughed, and then asked: “Do you know how to play croquet?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She swung her bat and went to the playing area.

As the Queen makes her first shot, Riley follows with a smooth, though perfect, touch to the ball. As it passes through the hoop, Liam comments: “Nice swing.”

“Thank you!”

As the game goes on, the Queen and Madeleine seemed to be in deep conversation. As Liam makes his shot, Riley approaches the pair.

“Am I interrupting anything?” She asks.

“No, not at all,” Madeleine acted in a polite manner. “We were just discussing how to best undress when meeting with ministers during the coucher.”

“Well, I suppose if it is a short audience, it’d be best to dally with jewelry. If they require something more protracted, a folding screen would be required. I don’t think they would take very seriously advice from a woman in her underwear, would they?” She smiled, faux-sweetly.

Regina laughed. “Lord, Riley, that was funny.”

“What?” She faked confusion. “You don’t do levers and couchers in Cordonia anymore?”

Madeleine answered, clenching teeth. “No. That’s just antiquated.”

“Oh! So, it was a joke!” She pretends to realize. “I did find it strange such a practice in this day and age, but Cordonia seems such a foreign land to me! I just assumed it was a tradition I just hadn’t heard of before.”

“Now, let us give Riley an opportunity to speak, yes?” Regina conceded, after settling her laughter. “Tell me your thoughts on governance, dear.”

“An art lost on most.” The youngest said.

“A sad truth.” The Queen agreed.

Before she could elaborate any further, Liam calls her: “My apologies for interrupting your conversation, but I believe it’s your turn.”

“If you excuse me, ma’am, my Lady.” She excused herself.

“No pressure,” Liam said. “But if you hit the peg in the center, we’ll win the game!”

“Easy peasy!” Riley said.

With no second thoughts, she hit the ball and it rolls into the center peg.

“I believe the victory is ours.” Liam announced to the group.

“I’m glad you had the guts to finish the game.” Regina said.

“Wait, what?” Riley thought. “Was that supposed to be a test?”

“That’s why I decided to make it a point to lose this match.” The eldest woman continued, smiling.

“Hey!” The black-haired outcries internally. “That’s just plain bad sportsmanship!”

“I’m sure we’ll have times in the future where we’ll find ourselves on opposing sides. Next time, though, I expect we won’t be just playing croquet… and I won’t be holding back.” The Queen finished.

“I hope, though,” Riley answers, pleasantly. “That between now and such time, we have the chance to play croquet once more. I quite enjoyed the game, despite the circumstances.”

They hand the bats to a gardener, who was charged to disassemble the court.

“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Flowers.” The Queen said, pleasantly. “You’ve shown yourself unlike many ladies of the court, which is no small feat in my eyes.”

“You honor me, ma’am.” Riley bows.

The Queen smiles and then turns to the crowd of women watching their game. “Thank you all for coming,” She announces. “I look forward to seeing you at the next event.”

The Queen and Madeleine leave the premises, while the women climb back the stairs to the air-conditioned ballroom at the club.

As she observed the people all around her moving, Liam and Hana approach Riley.

“Riley, Prince Liam, that was well-played.” Hana said.

“Thank you.” Liam thanked. “Why don’t you sit with us?”

“I’d love to!” She exclaimed.

Liam takes Riley’s arm and lead them to one of the tables in the room which sat Maxwell and Drake.

“Hey!” Maxwell greeted. “We finally get to eat!”

“If you can call this eating.” Drake held up a small sandwich.

“I kind of agree… they could serve in bigger portions.” Riley said.

“Thank you, somebody else understands!” Drake exclaimed, dramatically.

“Oh well,” She shrugged. “We’ll just have to eat them by the bunch.”

“Anyway,” Maxwell interrupted. “How did you fare against the Queen?”

Mindful of the company, she said: “I’m pretty sure I impressed her. I could be dead wrong, but let’s hope not?”

“I’m sure you did well!” Maxwell encouraged. “But, in case you didn’t, don’t tell Bertrand!”

“No complaints from me.” Riley said. As she turns to Liam, she continued: “Lucky us somebody here knows Regina well enough to have a definite answer. Liam, do you think the Queen approves of me?”

“Yes, I think you performed gracefully in front of her.” He announced, quite content.

“And that’s what we’ll tell anyone who asks.” She told Maxwell, all in the while Drake complained about the lack of food.

“Not to worry!” Maxwell said. “There’s more food waiting for us at the palace.”

“I could really go for a cronut right now.” Riley bemoaned.

“A what?” Liam asked, confused.

“I think you mean donut, Riley.” Hana corrected.

“No, I meant what I said. Cro-nut.” She raised her eyebrow. “Never heard of ‘em?”

“Can’t say I have.” Maxwell confessed.

“You’re all posers.” The black-haired said. “All that money and no cronuts. Don’t you know how to live?!”

“Please tell me it doesn’t have anything to do with crows.” Maxwell said.

“It’s the sumptuous inside of a croissant mixed with the glazed outside of a donut.” She explained. “One of my favorite bakeries back in New York used to bake them, a different flavor every month.”

“It sounds… American.” Maxwell said, with mixed feelings.

“It sounds delicious, you bigot.” Riley responded. “We should get some.”

“While it does sound like an adventure,” Liam said, smiling wickedly. “I don’t think the schedule will allow for it.”

“If only all the problems of the world were that simple!” Riley mocked. “How ‘bout that, we sneak out of the palace tonight? There’s bound to be a bakery around here that makes them.”

“That does sound like fun…” Hana conceded.

“Very tempting.” The Prince agreed with the Asian woman. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Oh, no, sweetheart.” Riley said. “Bertrand can physically bound me to that bed. I’m going. The question is: are you coming with?”

“Sure do.” The blond responded. “What time?”

“At dusk, on the Palace gates.” Riley informed them.

“Ooh, me too!” Maxwell agreed.

“Time away from the Palace.” Drake pronounced. “Sure.”

“New food sounds like a treat.” Hana implicitly agreed.

“It’s on, then!” Riley wrapped it up.

Milan, Italy, Fall 2015

“Come on! Come on! You can do it!” The woman pepped herself up.

She was alone in the luxurious bedroom. It was night out and the lights were mostly off. A cellphone on her hand, while she sat on the queen-sized bed with silk, purple sheets.

The blonde woman quickly tapped on a contact, before she had the time to lose her nerve.

It rung four times before a voice picked up. “Charlotte?”

“I have some news for you, and it’s bound to interest you.” Charlotte said.

Palace of the Brigades, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2015

The group was waiting on a SUV, waiting for Liam, who seemed to be taking his sweet time getting ready.

“Prince Liam is taking a while.” Maxwell acknowledged the elephant in the room.

“He’s the prince.” Drake defended. “We’ll be lucky if we can sneak out at all.”

Hana glanced to the service door. “There he is!”

“You’ve made it!” Riley celebrated. “Someone didn’t think you’d made it.”

“Hey!” Drake responded. “I said he might not make it.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve had to sneak out my own bedroom window.” The blond said, somewhat amused. “I nearly fell into the rose bushes, but I stand before you unscathed.”

“And now the real adventure begins.” Riley gave the mystique. “Drake, step on it.”

“Sure will, ma’am.”

Le Berceuse, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2015

“Okay, Flowers, we’re out of the palace.” Drake stated, as he drove the car through the avenue that gave access to Brigade Hill. “Where to now?”

“Lemme just check my phone.” She took out the device off her hoodie.

“By the way, what on Earth are you wearing?” The brunet teased.

“It’s a hoodie that has a kangaroo on it, so what?” She huffed. “Y’all didn’t gave me much time to pack, that’s the only one I remembered to take. Unless you preferred me to come with a party dress.”

“God, no!” He responded. “We’re conspicuous enough with Captain Gucci and Princess Spring Blossom over there.”

Hana seemed self-conscious. “What is wrong with my dress?”

“Nothing, Hana.” Riley soothed her nerves. “Drake’s just a jerk.” And then slapped his arm for good measure.

Liam laughed, to which Drake said: “Dunno what you’re laughing at, you’re actually a Prince, and that’s not helpful at all to blend in.”

“Drake, if you’re done raining on everybody’s parade, I have the directions on me.” Riley told him.

“Not a minute earlier. The address, please.”

“The internet says the only bakery that sells cronuts in this country is on 5 Rue de Castries, Vougliameni.”

With the mention of the neighborhood, Drake, Liam and Maxwell tensed.

“What?” Riley asked, confused. “Did I say something wrong?”

She looked at Hana, who also wore a confounded expression.

Drake seemed to open his mouth to speak, but Liam cut him off: “No, nothing. It’s just far from here.”

Riley lifted one of her eyebrows in suspicion, but chose to stay silent.

“Good news is,” Drake said, as in to dispels some of the tension. “Gucci and Flower Blossom will fit right in.”

Vougliameni, Cordonia, Fall 2015

Some twenty to thirty minutes of driving through middle- and upper-class suburbs and hilly woodlands, they passed through a sign written Βουλιαγμένη, which, Riley’s Greek abilities indicated, meant that they finally arrived.

From the town’s entrance, Riley could notice this was a projected village for the wealthy. It reminded her of a Bel Air by the beach, with wide, planned streets, storefronts, and the sumptuous houses.

The bakery was at a small street, off the main avenue, which was beach-side. Drake parked the humongous car by a closing restaurant. Riley pointed to the parking meter and asked: “Aren’t you gonna pay?”

“Don’t need to.” The jean-clad man said. “Government plates.”

“Is it just me, or is it more fun to be out at night when you’re also breaking the rules?” Maxwell wondered out loud.

“It’s more fun when you know you’re headed to something delicious!” Hana celebrated.

“After a day answering the press and the Queen, this is the sweetest freedom.” The Prince concurred.

“You can say that again, buddy.” Riley thought, mean. And then said out loud: “And it is about to get sweeter!”

Maxwell jumps ahead and enters the bakery. “We need all of your finest cronuts, please!” He ordered.

The attendant mutters something nasty in Greek, but goes out the back fetch the order.

Hana, however, pulls Maxwell’s sleeve and softly tells him: “I think you’re supposed to go to the counter, not just shout from the doorway…”

Drake added: “Y’know, like normal people.”

The group sat on the table as the attended brings a tray filled with cronuts. The table was round, they were sat, on right-hand side order, as Riley, Liam, Hana, Maxwell and Drake, closing the circle.

“Well, these looks delicious.” Liam said.

“What is more important is how they taste.” Drake huffed. “Let me at ‘em.”

“Go ahead, you Viking.” Riley motioned for him to grab one.

“Don’t mind me if I do.”

Maxwell takes the first bite, and hums. “Flaky, crusty, glazed cloud of flavor!” He said, in a mouthful.

“I really should take some of these back home.” Hana says, with a napkin for propriety sake. “I’ve never tasted anything so light and fluffy and sweet!”

Liam nudged: “Even Drake’s smiling.”

“What?” A few crumbs fall from the brunet’s mouth. “I like a good dessert. Who doesn’t?”

Maxwell gave his two cents: “The last time I had something this good, Bertrand hired a pastry chef from a Michelin-starred restaurant to make his birthday cake.”

“Now, I call bullshit, Maxwell. Bertrand couldn’t possibly have enough friends to throw a party. Unless he’s a masochist and enjoys feeling unloved.”

The young man hummed. “He’s a powerful man. You’d be surprised how many people at least pretended to be his friend.”

“There was a time when Bertrand would have been here with us.” Liam reminisced.

“Y’all talking crazy.” She dismissed.

“We were all close, once.” Liam said, rather sadly. “But he’s grown distant in the past few years.”

Riley supposed it was because of the bad finances of the Beaumont estate. She could almost feel sorry for Bertrand. Almost.

“You know what?” Maxwell said, bringing her back from her thoughts. “I’ll even bring him a cronut!”

“That’s sweet of you.” Hana said.

“It’s a noble thought, but let’s see that cronut making its way back to the Palace.” Drake countered.

“I hope you’re not implying I’d eat my brother’s cronut!” Maxwell faked offence.

“I’m not implying, I’m saying it.”

“Oh, well,” The youngest shrugged. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“I’ve ate so much!” Hana happily complained. “I can’t believe I had so many!”

“Now, now, trust me for I never shall steer you wrong!” Riley said. “A pity we cannot get the Dominique Ansel’s. Those are great, but in New York they take it to a whole ‘nother ballgame.”

“Either way, it’s been a treat!” Maxwell said, excitedly. “Thanks, Riley!”

Hana checks her clock. “It’s gotten late!” She realizes.

“We should be getting back.” Liam regretfully says.

“Don’t you want the kingdom panicking because of a missing Prince?” Riley asked, teasingly.

“Precisely. I’ve been out for too long.”

“History will forever remember the day a mighty Balkan kingdom collapsed because a Prince went out for cronuts.” Drake pointed out, ironically.

“Okay, nothing that ominous, but we should get going.” Liam conceded.

As they leave the bakery, Riley spots a tall, tanned man, lurking after them. Her breath hitch on her throat, as she prepares to take a run for it.

“Bastien!” Liam recognizes. That is relieving. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t let you out without security, Your Majesty.” The man, Bastien, responded. “Much less around here.”

“How did you even know?” The Prince asked, making a kicked puppy face.

“Please, sir, I’ve been assigned to your brother once. I’ve seen every trick on the book.” He says, good-naturedly.

Liam apologizes: “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

“Like I said, I’ve been assigned to your brother. Compared to him, you’re hardly any trouble at all.”

“I suppose we should be heading back.”

“If you could be so kind, sir.” Bastien says. “I’ll be trailing behind and keep an eye on things.”

The Prince tried to climb on the front seat of the car, as they’ve came all the way from Brigade Hill, but Bastien made a face.

“Better if I go back on the front, Liam.” Riley said. “Besides, you’re bound to be sleepy, on the back there’s plenty of space for a quick nap.”

“Thanks, Riley, I am quite tired, indeed.”

“No trouble.” She smiled and send him on his way.

Drake starts driving, and, as they leave Vougliameni, he says: “Well, Flowers, you win this round.”

“Don’t tell me big, bad Drake thinks cronuts are worth the hype?”

“I can admit when someone else’s right.” He said, smiling. “It’s one of my charms.”

“They must arise very rarely, as far as I’ve noticed.”

“You’re kind of funny, you know that?”

“Well, and I’m glad you managed to join us.” She brushed a lock of hair behind her ears. “I’d thought it was too much nobles in one place for you.”

“And pass by the chance of escaping the Palace? You should really know me better than that.”

“The thing is, Drake, I hardly know you at all. If you say two words to me, they are laced with warnings and doom.”

“Being around nobility has this effect on me.” He said, rather regretfully.

“I can understand that. But I’m okay, and I’m gonna be okay.” She rose her eyebrows. “We all are going to be okay.”

“You’re more fun when you’re not trying to play princess.”

And with that they fell silent for the rest of the way back.

Palace of the Brigades, Avlona, Cordonia, Fall 2015

As she arrived into her room, Riley noticed she wasn’t particularly tired. The newspapers of the day and subscription magazines Charlotte had arranged for her were laid carefully on her vanity, as some maid must have left them when they arrived and while she was out.

Most of the magazines were from the week before, as it was Saturday yet, and most issues were printed on Sunday. She noticed Trend carried Kiara and the Marquess of Krumau on the cover.

She’d think Ana de Luca would give preference to Olivia, as the clear front-runner of this competition, much to Riley’s displeasure, but as it seemed the redhead was relegated to the same position as herself had, as a second-tier competitor.

She scanned quickly the issue, and observed there were small pieces about Charlotte, as a magnate’s wife attending an upper-crust event, and Penelope, on a human-interest story.

Bored of gossip, she relegated the magazine for another. Dēmokratía had a blood-red logo and a cover featuring the present Prime-Minister of Cordonia, Lord Bellevue, denouncing his continued austerity plan. Looking through the table of contents, she wondered why such a magazine was at Colline de Miel. It was clearly a leftist, republican newscast.

A small article, near the end of the issue, she finds out her answer.

“Oh, God,” She thought, near desperation. “I’m so screwed.”

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