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bratz-kitten · 4 years ago

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attack on titan characters - birth chart analysis 🌙

Here is my take on the big 6 of Levi, Eren, Armin and Mikasa of attack on titan/shingeki no kyojin! I kept their sun signs since we know the day and month of their birthday and since I think they’re absolutely perfect. If you want me to do my take on the others (like Jean, Historia, Erwin, Hanji, Connie, Sasha, Reiner, etc) please let me know! (spoiler warning!)

Levi Ackerman

sun in capricorn - levi mf ackerman is fuelled by three things and three things only: LOYALTY, a strong moral code and power. he is seen by most people as a heartless, unemotional bastard but is canonically the most emotional character - he shows love through very indirect ways and he’s the peak of capricorn in the sense that he represses his emotions – he smiled literally ONE time in four seasons, and didn’t once shed a tear. he’s very hard to read. has a lot of respect for his superiors and follows the orders of only those he’s loyal to. he’s driven by his moral codes in the sense that the protection of humanity is his prime motive for fighting titans. like a true capricorn, is the master of his field of work and cares the most about being a survey corp member. please protect this tragic baby.

virgo rising - two words: CLEAN FREAK. this man has a strong need to be presentable at all times and hates getting blood on his hands for the single fact that he needs himself and his environment to be clean. his obsession with being clean is very much due to his childhood trauma and how he lived in in poor conditions in the underground. he has many quirks that correlate with this: the way he holds his cup, the carvat he uses bc of his mother, and the way he always cuts his own hair because that’s the way his mother used to do it. intimidating and demands respect. DRY HUMOUR.

moon in scorpio - i think he has many similarities with mikasa, especially in the moon and venus. introverted and hates people but will go to the ends of the earth to protect the ones he loves and respects. represses emotions and internalizes his hatred until he has a mental breakdown - which happens in the form of extreme violence. VERY sensitive and emotional even if he doesn’t show it. he’s very intuitive and often acts based on gut; he’s secretive and vindictive. very wise and great at giving advice. doesn’t let himself get manipulated and uses shitty situations to his advantage (like with the reeves company). trust is the most important thing to him.

mercury in aquarius - levi is extremely logical, and hates when others involve their feelings in the making of decisions. his decisions are always backed up by strong arguments and others often see him as cold and detached. i saw someone mention something extremely interesting about aquarius mercury’s/people with their mercuries in the 11th house: despite not being very sociable, others are drawn to them for friendships – and often they’re the introverts who get “adopted” by extroverts. this is 100% levi’s case, hanji and erwin practically adopted him. being very vulgar with his words and having a distinctive sense of humour, he’s very humanitarian and is actually really talkative but only when he’s very comfortable around someone. blunt, always tells it like it is – like when he tells eren he can’t know what the right choice really is and he needs to choose it himself. teases and insults his friends as a form of affection.

mars in scorpio - levi’s a fighter, a survivor. he knows what it’s like to come from nothing and have to build himself up. very confrontational. reclaims his power by exerting intimidation and mastering violence. others fear doing as much as make a joke at his expense. understands other’s motivations and characters very easily. he’s very intuitive. very serious due to his need for having an intense and demanding presence, for being respected and valued. he’s the one who everyone sighs of relief when things go to shit and he appears because you know he’s the strongest and most dependable person.

venus in capricorn - good luck getting this motherfucker to open up. his trust is very hard to gain but is necessary for working with him – he places his full trust in his comrades and demands the same from them. very work-oriented and takes relationships very serious; it’s really telling that he cares little for romance because capricorn venuses are the ones to date to marry, and will only devote themselves to someone once they believe they’ve met the one. they either want a more powerful and mature partner or they exude that energy (levi is the latter). slightly parental – we see this in the way that levi is pretty much the dad figure. it’s called squad levi for a reason, after all. very responsible. takes care of loved ones and often uses tough love as a form of discipline.

Eren Jaeger - im not even kidding with this one, he has extreme aries energy

sun in aries - eren feels the need to be very independent and he hates whenever he has to depend on mikasa and others, wanting to be strong enough to reverse the roles. he’s very self-confident, bold and direct. very impulsive, he’s quick to anger but is also very quick to forget - especially seen with his arguments with jean, fighting him is basically a love language at this point. aries suns are very fast thinkers and their strong energy may come off as intimidating. they have great intentions but that often becomes muddled with their impulsivity and the fact that they don’t think ideas through. eren is unabashedly himself and fights relentlessly for what he wants. his aries energy also makes him extremely motivated! he believes in the impossible and will make it happen no matter what.

aries rising – aries risings are the trailblazers. they ooze intensity. eren has very much a baby face and, due to his impulsivity and childish charm, people tend to baby him a lot – in the sense that he’s this kid surrounded by adults who needs supervision at all times or he’ll get into deep shit. aries risings are also marked by their extreme need for action, they’re the ones to do now and apologize later instead of asking for permission to do something in the first place. he is guided by his passion and is a natural leader who inspires everyone to fight alongside him. aries risings have a lot of energy which they need to express in a physical way, making them be prone to be very athletic and lead very active lives. he’s also extremely competitive and is driven by the force of becoming stronger than mikasa, and often feels angry when he realizes how stronger than him other people can be. at the same time, this pressure to be better is put solely on himself. he’s a dumbass with a good-heart and pure intentions.

moon in sagittarius – all this motherfucker talks about is freedom and seeing the world past the walls. he craves adventure and is extremely optimistic. but even if a sagittarius moon needs their freedom, they are still absolutely ride-or-dies and once they’ve commited to something, NOTHING or NO ONE can stop their determination. these are also the people to try their best to always appear cheerful and full of determination to hide their sad façade – like when he was nearly vomiting when talking about the titans to the other recruits when they began the training in the military but still forced himself to say that the titans aren’t scary at all and that they aren’t a big deal; he naturally inspires others and fills them with courage. but the way they put on this strong and brave façade leads to a strong emotional turmoil, violent urges and a sudden hostility to others. they are filled with surpressed anger that can lead them through very destructive paths – and the happy-go-lucky child might just lose her hope. we see this in eren in the most heartbreaking way.

mercury in aries – LOUD!!! eren speaks what’s on his mind with NO hesitation whatsover. he’s very quick to defend his friends and points of view, and speaks openly about his passions and dreams. he’s very assertive and tenacious. short attention span and not afraid to give a different opinion from someone else’s. very passionate about what he argues about. very expressive and when an aries mercury disagrees with you, you’ll know it immediately by their facial expression. confident and thrives on inspiring others. remember him being mad when it was discovered the possibility of all titans being humans because now he didn’t know who the enemy is and he NEEDS to hate someone and blame them in order to keep going? ARIES MERCURY ENERGY!!

mars in aries - people look to mars in aries to lead them. they’re full of energy and dynamic, and very athletic - eren exceeds at hand-to-hand combat and, in the other subjects where he’s not so good, his determination makes him push forward and become better. VERY hot-headed and confrontational, which is both the source of all their problems and their strength - they are not afraid of going after what they want and are willing to go through any obstacle to do so, and they’re also not afraid of upsetting other people in order to do so. eren is courageous, loves to take initiative and is very enthusiastic - something that is very contageous. competitive and hates compromise, he likes getting his own way. aries mars are also very individualistic and can have a huge ego.

venus in pisces - i know this is going to confuse a lot of people - like, how does he have so much aries energy, how is he so intense yet has one of the softest venus placements? i deeply believe he’s a pisces venus, and here’s why. his friends are EVERYTHING to him. pisces venus’ love very deeply and are very dependent on their loved ones, and eren is extremely protective of his loved ones and is willing to do anything to protect them. pisces venus’ are very vengeful, too, something that people seem to brush off about them - they might not do anything when you mess with them but as soon as you mess with their friends it’s game over. i also get a lot of “there was no other way, the word had to be fixed” vibes from this placement? like, this placement gives me the energy of someone willing to commit awful crimes under the excuse of it being for the greater good, which is something he dramatically experiences as he grows older and witnesses the cruelty of the world.

Armin Arlert

sun in scorpio - armin very resourceful!! he easily adapts to the circunstances he’s in and works his way around it. very intelligent and with great memory. extremely manipulative, cunning and perceptive. scorpios are known for their capability to be great investigators due to their natural curiosity, and armin has this deep need to see the world outside of the walls and he studies all there is to know about it with great passion. determined to succeed.

cancer rising - armin just wants to achieve his dream and it’s so soft. cancer risings are very receptive of other’s emotions and incredibly sensitive, but it’s difficult for them to open up to others. his appearance is very soft and delicate. loves to help others and has a naturally warm presence that makes others feel comfortable in his presence. give off a very grounded and stable energy, but this is often because they try to hide their most intense emotions and don’t know how to deal with them/don’t want to bother others by opening up about it.

moon in pisces - one word: EMPATHY!!! very compassionate. tendency to become a martyr and be very self-sacrificial. VERY imaginative, he is the strategist, after all. can feel others emotions and read them very easily. avoids confrontation but feels a strong need to take the weight off of others’ shoulders and to solve all their problems. very loving and giving, in tune with his emotions and emotionally intelligent. on the other side, this caring side of him can make him see other people through rose-colored glasses, and he is prone to believing in the best in people and giving them the benefit of the doubt. but when they’ve proven their true nature to him, he’ll see them for what they are and will no longer defend them, even if still feeling remorse. notice how he’s always like “this had to be done, we had no other choice” to justify his actions.

mercury in scorpio - bro armin’s eyes are so intense. when he gets on his manipulative bullshit it’s IMPOSSIBLE to look away from his gaze. he practically communicates through the eyes. armin is very sharp and his innocent appearance has everyone still thinking of him as a sweet angel as if he isn’t a whole war criminal. he easily psychoanalizes others to know what they want and uses it to his advantage, like how he used berthold’s love for annie to manipulate him to let eren go after him and reiner kidnapped him. scorpio mercuries be knowing shit, they be knowing everyone’s secrets and others usually confide in them as if they’re their therapists.

mars in pisces - mars in pisces makes a person avoid physical confrontation at all costs. notice how armin’s first response to everyone wanting to kill reiner and bertold/the marleyans was “please let’s just talk about this first”? he hates violence and deems it not worthy most times. he is very physically weak and aware of his limitations, unlike eren and levi, whose first instinct is to use violence in order to get what they want. no, armin has developed a much more subtle and effective way to get what he wants without using violence: emotional manipulation. he is the KING of appearing innocent and naïve and having people feel bad for him and want to baby him and protect him, and due to his extremely intuitive nature, he knows EXACTLY what to say to someone to get under their skin. he twists his words and emotions to get what he needs out of people and it’s both incredible and dangerous. also, very self-sacrifical and his goals are based on his emotions.

venus in cancer - he loves so much and it’s so beautiful and heartbreaking. he gives everything to the ones he loves and thrives off of being helpful and keeping everyone safe. reads a lot into the behaviour of the people he loves. very emotionally intelligent, wants stability and to maintain peace and may bend over backwords to achieve that. needs to feel understood and has a soft spot for troubled people, those who are more demanding and assertive (eren and mikasa), people he can take care of and who can take care of him in return. very affectionate and communicative. warm presence, you can pretty much feel the love radiating out of him.

Mikasa Ackerman

sun in aquarius - if you get past the emotional walls of an aquarius that has them appearing detached and distant because they’d rather use intelligence than seem emotional, you’ll be met with an incredibly soft, loving and caring person. an aquarius strength is their ability to be very unique, individualistic and humanitarian individuals - they truly march to the beat of their own drum. mikasa possesses a great deal of determination and isn’t afraid of being rebellious, especially when her loved ones are in danger.

capricorn rising - people with capricorn rising had to learn to be very independent from a very young age. mikasa is very intimidating but she has a very doll-like beauty, common to many capricorn risings. these people have had to deal with a lot ever since childhood, but they are fighters and their determination has them being able to survive even unsurmountable odds stacked up against them. capricorn risings tend to be serious and disciplined, and with a melancholic aura to them – which mikasa perfectly embodies. but the fact that these people have cancer in their descendant makes them strongly emotionally attached to their loved ones.

aquarius moon - even under the most stressful and dangerous situations, mikasa always remains in control of her emotions. she thrives in those situations, it’s the adrenaline of the moment that has her being so good at controlling her emotions until it’s safe to be anything but racional again. aquarius moons are feel very misunderstood and tend to racionalize their emotions a lot. however, it’s only due to their fear of vulnerability that they build this emotional walls, because they experience very intense emotions. i always think about that survey corp member saying “what did you have to go through for you to be like this?” when she was perfectly stable in a life-or-death situation.

mercury in capricorn - mikasa is incredibly action-oriented and she speaks in a structured but confident way. although she’s on the quieter side and is reserved, she’s able to inspire everyone when all hope seems lost, and she’s taken up eren’s words of “if we don’t fight, we can’t win” and uses it constantly in order to keep going. she’s very hard to read due to her usually expressionless face, giving her a mysterious aura. she’s very ambitious, persuasive and determined.

mars in capricorn - when people say that mars in capricorn people are the scariest when they’re angry, they’re not wrong. they act so calm and collected until suddenly they’re fixing you with a death glare and you’re rethinking all your life choices up until this point. mikasa might be extremely rational and calm, but as soon as someone threatens the ones she loves, she’ll stop at nothing to eliminate the threat. it’s like she fears nothing but ever being unable not to save them. she’s very responsible and reliable, with a lot of physical strength and stamina. very PROTECTIVE, grounded and GIVING

venus in virgo - this is one of the things that makes mikasa so similar to levi, the way they love. this bitch is LOYAL to her very core. she knows very well where her loyalties are - eren and armin - and is ready to kill all her close friends and superiors in order to protect them. she threatened to kill historia if she got in the way of getting eren back home safely, jumped levi on sight when he wanted to save erwin instead of armin, and got pissed at connie for doubting eren’s intentions after the whole marleyan ordeal. acts of service are very much her love language - she constantly picks up eren’s and armin’s stuff and carries it herself or orders them to rest while she works. it’s very hard to gain her trust and loyalty but once you do it’s forever, she’s very selective about the people she cares for. she’s possessive, too - giving historia the coldest death glare in the world when she saw her with eren. i’ve also noticed that venus in virgo are very difficult to declare their emotions!! they’ll just wait for the person to notice their indirect acts of affection. very attentive to the needs and details of loved ones.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyoujin #levi #levi ackerman #eren #eren jaeger #eren yeager #mikasa #mikasa ackerman #armin #armin arlert #birth chart analysis #astrology

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lyrebirdswrites · 4 years ago

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Shrödinger’s Nobara

So we got an update on how Nobara is doing. It was not the update I wanted to see.

My first impulse was to consider this a point blank confirmation of her death. I still think there’s a high chance she will not be recovering, and I would advise all Nobara stans to prepare emotionally for the possibility that she really is dead if you have not done so already. However, I also think it’s possible to make a case for her survival based on the information in this scene and the context from previous chapters, and I’m going to do my best to do so. Hopefully I can provide some comfort to anyone who might be freaking out over the implications here like I was at first.

Megumi doesn’t say she’s breathing or we don’t know or even it doesn’t look good - he says nothing at all. That does not fill me with confidence. But he doesn’t directly say she is gone either. This is a good time to remember the cardinal rule of character death; it’s not confirmed until we see the body. I think until we actually have indisputable proof of her death, we should continue operating under the assessment Nitta gave when he halted the damage caused by her wounds - don’t get your hopes up, but it’s not a zero percent chance.

I don’t consider Megumi’s pessimism to be indisputable proof. It’s damning, yes. But he is also highly subjective, inclined to assume the worst, and not an omnipotent force in the narrative. This isn’t me saying that the only reason there’s ambiguity is because she’s definitely still alive—that would be a wrong assumption to make. But if Akutami is still in two minds about what to do about her, or if he knows but doesn’t want to tell us, this scene is a neat way of sidestepping the need for a definitive answer right now. There’s enough plausible deniability in the framing of this exchange for Megumi’s answer to be read as she’s 100% dead, OR as she’s alive but in super fucking bad shape and it doesn’t look good. Whichever result it turns out to be, the scene can work in retrospect either way.

Which brings me to my not-retroactive interpretation of Yuuji’s immediate reaction. I think he would have been way more distressed if he perceived megumi’s silence as confirmation that she was without a doubt dead. He pulls himself together remarkably quickly for someone who full on had a mental breakdown mid fight at the sight of her injury. In the comments section over on readjujutsukaisen (credit where credit is due, not my analysis) commenter Asinine said “I think Megumi's non-response indicated the severity of her condition. I think Yuji's reaction revealed his pain followed by hope (clenched fist) she'll pull through.” That makes more sense to me than Yuuji thinking she’s actually dead and only having I get it!! to say about it before we rush on with the plot.

I’d really like to read the original raw version of this chapter, because it’s worth noting that the unofficial fan translation phrased Yuuji’s question like this: how is Kugisaki’s condition? It matters whether his question is past tense or present tense, because that positions Megumi’s answer as either past tense or present tense too. Megumi could be looking sad because, past tense, what happened to her was bad. Or he could be looking sad because, present tense, her condition is bad. I think the nuance there definitely affects how we as the audience should interpret this exchange and consequently Nobara’s chances. If anyone knows where I can read the raw scans please tell me.

Speaking of Nobara’s chances—structurally and narratively there is still more than enough room for her in the plot. When she was first taken out by Mahito, I figured she’d be fine because I thought her frequent references to people ‘messing up her beautiful face’ and her argument with Momo about scars on female jujutsu sorcerers/sexism in the jujutsu world were foreshadowing her having to live with that massive scar and a missing eye. If Akutami wants to continue exploring themes of feminism and sexism, as he has indicated through his characterisation of the broader zenin clan, Nobara now has a unique role to play in that aspect of the story: being treated differently after getting scarred.

Similarly, there are some interesting implications when it comes to her cursed technique and the current arc. Theoretically, she could use resonance on any of the newly awakened sorcerers/vessels and do some serious damage to The Brain, because they’re all strongly linked to him through the powers he gave them. She might provide an avenue to attack him later via that method—or Akutami might be deliberately sidelining her for the duration of this arc with the intent to have her recover later, because he saw this massive plot hole coming and he needs to thin out (cull) the crowd of awakened sorcerers first so she doesn’t have such easy access to a really powerful weakness in a major antagonist.

It’s also possible that he saw the plot hole coming and is killing her to fix it. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t have said in one of his interviews that he hadn’t made up his mind yet whether she was dead or not (?? That’s the translation I saw iirc, but I can’t vouch for its accuracy because I didn’t personally translate or cross check it myself).

Every other character’s death has been clear in a very gut punch kind of way, but ever since Nitta showed up this one has been SO ambiguous the whole way through. In my opinion, this scene does far more to increase the ambiguous tension than release it. It’s too vague. Akutami has been pretty good about giving his characters a fitting send off up to this point. I would be genuinely surprised if he broke the news about one of the main trio officially dying via one page in one chapter which doesn’t even give a status update though words, let alone through an actual drawing of her corpse/grave/ashes/funeral. Which loops me back to the cardinal rule of character death: it’s not confirmed until we see the body.

And let’s face it—if Akutami plans to keep Nobara alive, I am 100% sure he would drag the reveal out as long as possible and make it look as unlikely as possible in order to inflict Pain™ on his audience. Of course, if he plans to kill her off, the situation would look equally grim. But you know he wouldn’t hand us her recovery on a silver platter. Things seem bad (and like I said nobara stans this is your wake up call to start preparing for the worst case scenario now) but that doesn’t automatically mean that they are as bad as they seem.

In summary:

#jjk manga spoilers #jjk spoilers #jjk meta #jjk 144 #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #kugusaki nobara #nobara kugusaki #mangablogging #originalcontent

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teacupfulofstarshine · 4 years ago

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LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP CHAPTER 10

PLEASE HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!! this chapter features Evil Scientist Lady and her Fucked Up WorldView a LOT, and there are also some Major Plot Events that involve Violence. i will put a summary in the end notes if you decide at any point that this particular chapter is too much - that's super valid! i will also mention here that no main characters are going to die in this story and no one dies in this chapter either.

huge huge thanks to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

CW: extreme disregard for human life, mentioned human and animal cruelty, toxic workplace environment, violence (both imagined and actual, mildly graphic), gun mention, minor blood, death threats, extremely unethical character, unethical science, stalking

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!

“This is the same result we’ve gotten the last twenty times -”

“I don’t care, Steven, run it again!”

Steven sighs, punching at the keyboard to run the statistical analysis sequence again. “This is ridiculous! I’ve run this sequence so many times it feels like my eyes are going to bleed. Why can’t we just turn in the results we have and -”

“Because she’ll behead us,” James snaps, “and then she’ll destroy our reputations and our families and they’ll get no severance. I have three young children at home, Steven, I need this money.” Steven softens a little, fingers running smoothly over the keys as he combs the data again. Next to him, James has a computer screen full of frame-by-frame stills of what little data they recovered from the probe before it was destroyed; Penny across the room is surrounded by ancient texts a mile high and at least three laptops.

“Why is she so interested in this, anyway?”

“It’s beyond me. Since when do we question the whims of what we’re told to do?”

Steven squints at the screen, pushing his chair back and rubbing at his eyes. “If I have to stare at these numbers for one more second, my brain is going to explode. I feel like my eyeballs are going to melt out of my skull. I wanna scream.”

James pulls up another image, staring at the blurry image of the merman before him. Steven pushes away from his own screen and squints at James’s. The merman in the photo looks young, not much older than his kid brother, but they don’t know anything about the lifespan of these creatures. He looks confused, squinting at the camera. As James flicks through the stills, the merman transitions from confused to angry to enraged, and then he attacks.

“He’s not happy about the camera.”

“Would you be happy about someone spying on you and your family?” James says, switching to the next still.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I thought someone was doing anything we do in this lab to me or my family.” James elbows Steven, but luckily no one else seems to have heard.

“This lab isn’t the most ethical place I’ve ever worked, but it pays the bills,” James mutters. “And we’re not even in the experimentation lab. We just do data analysis. We’re removed from the situation.”

Are we? Steven wonders. He sees James reach out and touch the framed picture of his daughters, and keeps his mouth shut. He turns back to his computer, watching the little spinning color wheel of his mouse as the program calculates the same numbers again and again. The results come up identical to the previous ones, and Steven clicks “Run Program” again wordlessly.

They work in silence for a while, the three of them, broken only by James’s muttering and the occasional thud of one of Penny’s books and the clicks of keyboards and mice. If they weren’t so reliant on technology, Steven thinks, there would be an enormous corkboard spanning three of the four walls, covered in pushpins and handwriting and red string connecting images. He debates actually building one, if only to increase the levity in the room, but decides against it.

He’s seen people punished or fired or who-knows-what-else for far less, after all.

Instead, after his program tells him for the twenty-third time that his results are the same (and didn’t someone say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?), Steven scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms and opens the data entry window. Maybe the problem with the results has to do with the entry of the data; did he input something wrong? It’s possible . . .

Here he goes again, he supposes. He stands up, stretches, and leans back to crack some vertebrae. “I’m gonna grab a coffee, take a short screen break, and go back to the beginning. Maybe there’s something in the input that I missed. You want anything?”

James groans, thunking his head against the desk. “I want something with enough caffeine to kill three elephants, please.” Steven nods, looking over at Penny. She shakes her head, and he heads for the shitty coffee machine a few doors down.

Several floors below, a young woman pulls her lab goggles up to rest on top of her head with her perfectly-pinned protocol-compliant bun. “The latest round of tests is completely done, ma’am. I think you’ll find the efficacy . . . striking.”

She takes the clipboard, glossy perfectly-painted nails pinching the sheets of thin paper and flicking between them. “I’m afraid I don’t do so well with the scientific side of things - Kathleen, was it? Explain this to me, would you?”

“Certainly, ma’am. As you know, the kill time for the most effective neurotoxin currently available, tetrodotoxin, varies from thirty minutes to four hours. Average time for symptoms to manifest is seventeen minutes, and from there the symptoms progress through tingling of the lips and tongue, headache, vomiting, muscle weakness, ataxia, et cetera. Death occurs as a result of respiratory or heart failure, and the poison is nearly undetectable if you do not specifically test for it.”

“The untraceability is a plus, but that is far too wide a range of times, and too slow a time even at its fastest.”

“Of course, ma’am, but as far as naturally-occurring marine poisons go - actually, as far as naturally-occurring poisons go, full stop - it is the most effective. Until now, that is.”

“Oh? What are your findings?”

“Which trials would you like to start with, ma’am?”

“The human trials, Kathleen. The only ones that matter. I hardly intend to go around killing mice and hoping that no one traces their deaths to a novel neurotoxin.” She laughs airily, and Kathleen nods along.

“Certainly, ma’am. The most recent data points indicate an average efficacy time of thirteen minutes for our compound neurotoxin, with a full range between nine and seventeen minutes passing before subject death. Subjects began to show symptoms around five minutes, give or take twenty-five seconds.”

“And those symptoms were?”

Kathleen flips through the document. “Seizures, vital organ failure, blindness, painful muscle spasms, suffocation from the inside out.”

She hums, tapping a manicured finger against the report. “Well, Kathleen, that is certainly impressive, especially for a preliminary human subject trial. These results . . . I must say, they are not nearly as disappointing as I anticipated when I came down here.”

“Ma’am?”

“How long have you worked for this company, Kathleen?”

“Almost five years, ma’am, but I’ve always been an assistant. This is my first time as lead researcher and biochemist on a project, ever since you . . . laid off the previous lead researcher.”

“Kathleen, let me be frank. These results are not what I hoped for. The efficacy time and symptom onset times are both far too long for my liking, and the range of efficacy time is too broad. By all accounts, I should consider this a failure.” Kathleen swallows, but remains poised. “However, you’ve managed to shave off a considerable amount of time from the tetrodotoxin readings. The range of symptom onset time is an acceptable breadth, and your results are far beyond anything your predecessor ever accomplished for me. This is truly impressive, all things considered.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How should I proceed?”

“I want the efficacy doubled - tripled - I want it upped by anywhere between four and five hundred percent. I want the pain increased, too. Feel free to increase your requests for test subjects, but get me the results I want. You said the original tetrodotoxin was untraceable?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Can you keep that feature intact?”

“As of right now, it is intact, ma’am. I will endeavor to keep it so in future experiments.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Welcome to your new position as head of this research division. Don’t let me down.” She holds out a slender hand, and Kathleen takes it, trying not to seem too eager.

“I won’t, ma’am.”

“How soon can you start this experiment up again?”

“The cleaners should be finished by tomorrow morning, ma’am, and I can tweak chemical formulas until then.”

“Excellent.” Her watch beeps, and she lifts it, pursing her bright lips as she examines the message she’s just received. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Someone will drop off your master access key for Lab Three within the hour.”

She steps into the elevator and lifts her watch up to her face, swiping through the messages from her secretary. One finger reaches out to press the button for the digital analysis labs floor, and the other taps away at her watch.

When she steps off the elevator, her secretary is waiting. “Ma’am.”

“What do they have for me?”

“Unclear. They said it was something they wanted to report directly to you and you alone, but it seems to be something big.”

“Hopefully it’s a big step in the right direction, or they’ll be taking a big step out of a job.” She relishes in the way the employees she passes all unfailingly flinch and then snap to perfect attention when they hear the sharp echo of her heels against the floor. She lifts her head and walks faster, striking the tiles with her heels like a gavel, sharp and precise against a judge’s desk.

The computer labs are disorganized when she enters, but there is a string of promising-looking numbers on the main display monitor. There is a woman surrounded by books and a man pulling up photos on his computer, and there is a third man standing in front of her like a toy soldier. She focuses on that one.

“I hear you have news for me? Make it swift, and make it good.”

He swallows, hard, and her eyes idly trace the line of his throat. If he disappoints her, perhaps she will drive her heel through it, to make an example of him. That would be far too messy; perhaps his dominant hand will do.

“I have narrowed down the location of the missing net, ma’am. I believe it to have washed up somewhere around these general GPS coordinates.” He fiddles with a remote in his hand, and the image on the screen changes. It shows an aerial satellite view of a secluded strip of beach, framed by rocky cliffs with larger rocks studded out into the open water. “It should have washed up somewhere in this one-point-three-seven-mile strip of beach. The whole area is property of one Doctor Thomas Sanders.”

She snarls. “That man. He won’t let us on that beach willingly until hell freezes over.”

The other man, the one scanning through photo stills and video footage, jumps up, knocking his chair backwards. “I found something!”

She turns towards him, and his excitement freezes and sputters into something much more controlled and terrified. “Show me.” He clicks something and pulls up video footage from one of their surveillance drones, zooming in on a particular patch of ocean along the stretch of Sanders’ beach. Her eyes widen when she sees what he’d noticed - a hump of red-and-white tail arcing above the waves before a pattern of ripples streaks off towards the cliff. He pauses the footage, rewinds it, uses a laser pointer to show an opening concealed in the cliff face.

“There’s some kind of grotto in there, hidden by the cliff. It’s on Sanders’ property, he has to know it’s there. And it looks like the merman from the destroyed drone knows it’s there too. Which means -”

“That must be where he’s keeping them.” Something burns in her chest, brilliant and terrifying and all-encapsulating, like wildfire. “We’ve found them, at long last.”

“What would you have me do?” her secretary asks. “I can arrange for a recovery squad at your earliest possible convenience, ma’am.”

“Assemble the squad, but do not have them move out. They will wait for my orders. When they go, you are to go with them.” Her secretary nods, once, sharp and sure. “Dispatch a crew to Lab One and clear it out. I want it prepped for containment, vivisection, chemical tests - the works. Get at least three tanks set up and one strap-down human table.”

“A human table, ma’am?”

“Yes. We have to deal with Sanders once and for all to ensure that he does not ruin any future experiments.”

“Will we be taking him as well?”

She hums thoughtfully. “No. Pull up the file we have on his known associate?”

A few swift clicks and flicks and a photo appears on the large screen: a young man with brown-and-purple hair, sleeves rolled up, carefully lowering a perfectly viable specimen into the ocean and letting it go, like some kind of fool. “His doctoral student, ma’am. The longest one he’s ever kept - this one has been with him a few years.”

“Excellent. When you raid the lab, take him.”

“Should we kill Sanders?”

“No. Rough him up a little, but leave him alive. Taking his protégé and leaving him alone, helpless to rescue him, will be the highest form of torture for such an insufferable person. The agony will eat him alive until his dying day.”

Her secretary nods, taking the notes down dutifully. The other employees look vaguely horrified, but she pays them no mind. No sacrifice is too great to be made in the name of progress, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a weakling who will never get anywhere in life.

She refuses to be one of those weaklings.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan wakes up confused.

He’s warm, warmer than he thinks he’s ever been in his whole life. When he stirs, he moves farther than he meant to - he must not be underwater. That’s enough to send a jolt of concern through his sleep-addled brain. Why isn’t he underwater? Why was he sleeping if he was above the surface? There’s no way his dad is here, and Roman hates surfacing, where are they? Where is he? But he’s so comfortable . . .

Someone shifts beside him, an arm draping across his waist, and Logan forces his eyes open. He shifts his lower half, confused when two things move instead of one, and there are layers upon layers of thin, flat, soft things wrapping around him. What is happening?

Slowly, slowly, his mind clears, and he remembers the events of last night. He grew legs - he was a human, once, before he was mer - he couldn’t sleep underwater with Dad and Roman - Virgil was teaching him to walk - Virgil put “clothes” on him - Virgil was embarrassed that he didn’t have those “clothes” on him - Virgil took him out of the lab to sleep - Virgil agreed to cuddle him since his pod couldn’t -

Logan feels the strange burning in his face again as he shifts. He can’t see well in this new human form, but when things are close enough to his face they’re relatively clear. And Virgil, still sleeping, is close enough that Logan can smell him - he smells like salt water mixed with something sharp and something sweet and something else that Logan can’t quite identify but finds addicting nonetheless. Sunlight streams in and pools around Virgil’s face, illuminating the tangled mess of hair spread around him and flopping into his face, the small puddle of water leaking out from his open mouth onto the soft thing he’s resting his head on, the way his chest moves slowly with every breath. His arm is wrapped around Logan, pulling him close. Logan thinks he might explode if he focuses on this any more, so he rolls from his side to his back as carefully as he can, not wanting to wake Virgil. Virgil tightens his arm around Logan and mutters something indecipherable in his sleep, but he doesn’t wake.

Rather than focusing on his very confusing feelings for the very pretty man next to him, Logan focuses on what he can see of the room around him. He makes a list in his mind of things that he plans to ask Virgil about later today, including:

1: There are many draws attached to the small, smooth cliffs surrounding them. How do they stay there?

2: There are lots of “clothes” scattered all around the floor, and there were several on the bed, too. Is that normal for humans?

3: Last night, Virgil did something that made the room light up with trapped sunlight! How did he do that?

4: How did Virgil get ice to stay in those big frozen sheets in such a warm place to let the sunlight in?

5: How did Virgil make ice into that weird shape that he filled with water and drank last night?

6: How did Virgil get the water to come into this place?

7: Do all humans have a specific area set aside for sleeping? Logan and his pod usually just sleep wherever they can, but Virgil seems to have this soft slab set aside with all of these soft things to be comfortable and sleep in every night. Is this a Human Thing or strictly a Virgil Thing?

Logan looks out through the sheet of ice that protects Virgil’s area from the outside and gasps. He can’t see well, but there’s a glittering expanse of blue that shifts and moves and oh, is that the ocean?

He’s spent his whole life (well, his whole remembered life, anyways) in the ocean, and he’s seen some truly wondrous things. He travels around the world with his pod, he knows the ocean is big, but seeing it spread out like this is . . . awe-inspiring. Logan has never seen the ocean like this, and now that he has he doesn’t think he can ever not see it like this again. It’s like a perfect sheet of sea-glass, rippling and unbroken but dynamic in a way that he never really gets a sense of when he’s beneath it.

He knows that there are waves, of course. There are smaller swells out on the open ocean, and larger ones when the Second Goddess dips her fingers down from the Upper Ocean and swirls the storms to a thundering burst. There are waves along the shoreline, ones that he frolics in with Roman and batter him against the shoreline. There are waves created when he or his pod members surface. But watching the movement of the ocean from up here is . . .

Even with his imperfect vision, he is completely at a loss for words as he stares at the ocean.

Eventually, Virgil stirs next to him, and Logan turns away from the ocean to stare at him. Virgil is close to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, face pressed against him. Logan’s eyesight is not great, but Virgil is close enough that he can pick out little details of his face. There are brown face scales scattered all over him, but they seem to cluster on his nose and his cheeks. Logan has wanted to touch them for a substantial amount of time, and he can’t stop himself from gently settling the tips of his fingers over Virgil’s cheek.

His face doesn’t feel like Logan was expecting. The scales don’t give texture to his face the way that Logan’s do; the skin is smooth and flat. There are little bumps all over, but the brown scales aren’t raised off the skin like Logan expected. He lets his fingers trail along Virgil’s face. His bone structure seems to be exceedingly similar to Logan’s, at least in regards to his head. Logan’s finger rests gently on the curve of bone under Virgil’s eye, and Virgil exhales warm breath onto his palm.

Logan wonders what it would be like to have this for longer than just his recovery period. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to Virgil all the time, to get to run his hands over Virgil’s face and arms and chest and examine the differences between their anatomy. He wonders what it would be like to learn to walk without falling over, and he feels a sharp, unexpected twinge in his chest as he realizes that getting better at walking means no more closeness to Virgil.

His chest feels strange, like there’s a school of small fish swarming around and tickling his insides and making him feel all foamy, like the froth churned up by a windswept sea. He feels like he does when he’s underwater - free, weightless, mobile, limited by nothing except his own imagination. He feels unstoppable.

Virgil makes a sudden, sharp inhale, blinking his eyes open slowly. Logan thinks that, perhaps, he might not appreciate being studied unknowingly - he hadn’t appreciated Virgil doing it, before he understood what was happening, when all he knew was the loss of his pod aching like a scraped-out seashell. As Virgil wakes up, Logan shifts, turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

Virgil makes a sleepy grumbling noise, opening one eye. Logan chances another quick glance at him, and when his eye slides open Logan is struck by its beauty. He doesn’t get much of a chance to admire it, however, before Virgil is jolting backwards like Logan’s struck him with lightning. Logan is confused, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder. “Virgil?”

“Wassat?! Wait . . . L’gan?”

“It is me,” Logan says softly. “Are - are you upset with me?”

Virgil yawns, jaw dropping to his chest, revealing a flash of teeth and a soft pink tongue. (Logan wants to lick it. Why does Logan want to lick it? Why is Logan thinking about Virgil’s tongue licking his tongue - why is Logan thinking about Virgil - what in the Seven Oceans is happening to him.) “Wh - no, no, ‘m okay, I just - woke up, forgot I had you with me, got confused about another person in my bed.” Before Logan can start to feel bad, Virgil adds, “S’okay if it’s you, though,” and the foamy, floaty feeling is back.

“Did you sleep well?”

Virgil laughs, low and rumbling, and Logan can feel it in his fingers where he touches Virgil’s skin. “I never sleep well.” He sits up, and the fabric of his pajamas shifts to let Logan see stretches of soft, supple skin that he usually doesn’t. Logan wants to touch it. He very determinedly keeps his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, though, last night was . . . better than usual.”

This appears to be the point where Virgil first notices their position - pressed together, arm slung over Logan, basically cuddling the way that Logan normally would with his pod. (No tangle with his pod has ever felt this . . . electric, this charged, this important to Logan before.) His face flares a brilliant red, and he shifts like he wants to move away but -

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Logan blurts out. Virgil blinks at him a little, and maybe he was a little overly enthusiastic, but - “I sleep in a tangle with Dad and Roman all the time. I have extreme difficulty sleeping without contact with someone else. It . . . helped me greatly.”

“Oh,” Virgil says, face turning redder still, smiling shyly. “That - makes me feel better. Thanks, Lo.”

Logan smiles, and Virgil smiles too, reaching up to gently move a piece of hair away from his face. Logan thinks that, as far as deaths go, his chest exploding (which seems to be getting more and more likely every fifteen seconds he spends in Virgil’s presence, only accelerated by all this skin-on-skin contact they’re having right now) seems to be the most pleasurable.

Virgil opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was is interrupted by a Ping! noise from across the room. “What is that?” Logan asks. Virgil, sadly, untangles himself from Logan and the blankets, sliding out of bed and heading over to one of the other structures in the room (what did he call it last night? Dex?) and picking up a flat glowing rectangle.

“Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I - Thomas sent me a text, it’s a little weird.”

“What is a text?”

“It’s a kind of human messaging system, it allows us to communicate when we’re far away from each other.”

“Like a pod call?” “Kind of? I’ll explain more later, I promise, I just - I gotta go down to the lab real quick.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No!” Virgil snaps. Logan flinches, and Virgil softens, crossing the room and gently touching his shoulder. “Hey, no, Logan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just - this message, there’s something off. I think something might be wrong, and I don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger. Just - wait here, okay? Wait in my room, where it’s safe. It’s probably nothing, he’s probably fine, but on the off chance that he’s not, I want you to stay hidden safely up here.”

Logan isn’t sure why this makes his face heat up slightly, but it does. “Okay. I accept your apology, and I . . . trust you.”

Virgil smiles, soft and heartwarming, and Logan is beginning to give more credence to his “chest explosion is fine, actually” theory. “Wait for me here, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him, and the foamy feeling in Logan’s chest dissipates a little. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something . . . off. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d think that he was sensing a predator approaching.

But that can’t be right, he isn’t underwater. His danger senses are likely just overreacting to his disappointment at Virgil’s absence.

. . . Right?

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas is beginning to regret letting Roman and Patton (specifically, Roman) out of the large tank before finishing his first coffee of the morning.

“I want some!” Roman complains.

“Do you even know what it is?” Thomas says. Roman pouts sulkily at him.

“. . . No,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. Thomas gives him the deadpan, no-nonsense, I-am-your-direct-superior-take-the-damn-samples-Virgil stare that he has perfected over the past few years. Roman wilts a little more, and Thomas feels slightly bad.

“It’s called coffee,” he says. “It’s a hot drink that lots of people have in the morning. Some people drink it plain, and some people add things to it to change the way it tastes. It helps me wake up more and get focused to start my day, and sometimes I drink it late at night to help keep me awake.”

Roman looks less like a kicked puppy and more like Logan, eyes wide and curious. “I want some!”

Thomas, taking a sip of his own two-seconds-of-cream-five-cubes-of-sugar coffee, nearly spits it out. He looks at Roman, eyes the very sharp, very detachable, very toxic spines covering his body, and says, “No.”

Roman’s demeanor changes entirely, switching from “curious toddler” to “toddler about to throw a temper tantrum” in a heartbeat. “Why not?!”

“Because when people drink coffee without being used to it, sometimes it makes them a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Do I need to recount to you how many times you’ve threatened me and my assistant since we met you?” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not giving you coffee until I know I can trust you not to stab me with your poisonous spines that cover your entire body and can be fired at people.”

Roman pouts more, dropping under the water and letting out a gratingly harmonious string of mer that Thomas is pretty sure translates to Roman bitching about the coffee situation to his dad. Based on the pattern of Patton’s response, he’s pretty sure Patton is laughing at Roman.

More sulky chalkboard-violin music, and then Roman resurfaces grumpily. “Dad agrees with you and says no consuming strange human foods.”

“Did he laugh at you?”

Roman squints suspiciously at him. “You can’t speak our language.”

“Yeah, but I know what it sounds like when a dad laughs at his kid.” Roman, continuing to pout, sinks back into the tank, presumably to sulk some more. Thomas takes another very long sip of coffee that is definitely too hot for his mouth and turns back to his desk.

Virgil should definitely be awake and in the lab at this point. The samples he’s supposed to be analyzing are sitting in their little tubes, each neatly labelled with locations and dates and times and what, specifically, Virgil is supposed to be looking for. Thomas considers going upstairs and waking up Virgil, who’s almost never been late for work in this way, but he decides against it. Virgil is upstairs with Logan, and Thomas knows that there’s something building between them. He’s not sure how advisable that something is, but he trusts Virgil to make his own decisions.

Besides, he could probably use some practice. His water sample analysis skills are pretty rusty, he’s had Virgil doing them for years. “Virgil, you owe me big time for what I’m doing for you.” He carefully shifts the samples over to his own desk, slides his earbuds in, picks up a pipette, and gets to work analyzing the bacterial and algal concentrations for any abnormalities.

Thomas accomplishes about forty-five minutes’ worth of work before Roman interrupts him by flicking water at him and soaking the back of his neck. “Hey!”

“I tried your name, but your little ear bug things were keeping you from hearing me,” Roman says smugly. Thomas, not for the first time, considers retreating to the closet and throwing beakers until he feels better.

“Can I help you?”

“Dad wants to go hunting and bring back breakfast, but we can’t leave without you.”

“Are you not going hunting?”

“I’m going to stay here and observe you,” Roman says.

Thomas blinks. “Do I . . . need observing?”

“How do I know you won’t sell us out to your little human friends the second you get a chance? If I’m here, I can stop you. Plus, what if you do something to Logan while we’re not here to protect him? No, no, I’m staying right where I am and you can’t make me leave.” His spines ripple; Thomas steps closer to a whiteboard in case he needs to duck.

“I’m not going to do that, and I don’t want you to stab me.”

“Still! I’m staying here! Also, Dad’s bigger than me, and he’s a better hunter cause he’s faster and he’s been hunting longer.

“Does he need something to help him carry all those fish?” Thomas asks. Roman opens his mouth like he’s going to say something snarky, pauses, and stops.

“I . . . usually we just eat what we catch when we catch it. We make a pile of prey and take turns guarding it while the other two hunt. Then we make a sacrifice to the Seven Mother Goddesses and eat what’s left.”

After some debate, Thomas is able to fashion a sling of sorts from some waterproof tarps and leftover anchor rope to tie around Patton’s body. “You can put the fish in this pouch and carry them back here. Will you be able to navigate your way back to the grotto?”

“He will,” Roman says. “Dad knows more about the ocean than any human possibly could.” Another discordant song from the tank, chastising, and Roman huffs. “Dad wants me to reassure you that he’ll be fine.”

Patton settles into the mobile tank easily, and Thomas gets him down to the grotto leading towards the sea. “When you come back, let out one of your pod calls and Virgil or I will come and collect you and your catch. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

Patton reaches up and gently pats Thomas’s arm with one large, damp hand, and Thomas takes that to mean an agreement. “Alright, off you go.” There’s a whoosh and a rush of water as it flows from the tank into the grotto in a clean arc, carrying Patton with it. Thomas waits for a moment, letting Patton disappear into the open ocean, before returning to the laboratory.

Roman, for the most part, ignores Thomas. He asks the occasional question, which Thomas tries to answer in a way that he’ll understand, and leans over the edge of his touch tank, eyes guarded. Every time Thomas sneaks a glance, when he thinks Roman isn’t looking, his expression is wide-eyed and wondrous, like Logan’s usually are, but the moment he realizes Thomas is watching him his entire face closes up like a clamshell.

Thomas wonders what it’ll take to get Roman to trust him, trust Virgil, trust any human. Granted, he doesn’t know Roman’s history with humans, but he and Patton are both fairly scarred, and Thomas might not know the whole story but he’d bet a not-insignificant amount of his monthly income that the giant starburst scar taking up the majority of Patton’s chest isn’t the result of a clash with a marine creature.

He works quietly, fielding the occasional question, keeping one ear on the grotto tunnel for Patton’s return. He’s not sure how long he expected Patton to be gone, but he hears movement in the grotto tunnel far sooner than he’d expected.

“Thomas, what’s -”

“Shhhh,” Thomas says. He stands up, pushing away from his desk, but before he can say anything else, there’s a flood of movement coming from the tunnel. Bodies pour into the lab, swift and strong and carrying weapons that they immediately train on Thomas and Roman.

“What is this?” Roman snaps, bristling. He sounds betrayed, like he thinks Thomas is behind this. Thomas picks up a heavy glass beaker, fully prepared to shatter it upside someone’s skull if necessary, but something heavy and hard strikes the back of his skull and he feels his knees crumple. Roman cries out, and Thomas struggles to push himself up. A hand fists itself in his hair and yanks him upright, sharply. Thomas exhales sharply through his teeth, but before he can start struggling, something cool and round rests against the back of his neck, shutting him up and shutting his brain down.

Roman is puffed up like a hedgehog, apparently fully prepared to defend Thomas despite his strong and inherent mistrust. Before he can begin to attack, Thomas hears the click-click-click of shoes on the hard stone floor. Whoever’s holding his head yanks him back again, and he is forced to watch as a woman walks into his laboratory.

(It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - a sick, horrible, twisted joke.)

She has black heels, black tights, a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a blood-red blouse. Her hair is scraped back into a tight bun, pulled so taut it must hurt, and is held in place with a pitch black stick. She carries a - clipboard? tablet? Unclear - held against her chest, and there’s a sleek silver weapon in her right hand.

“The one from the video?” she asks.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” says the person holding Thomas’s head. The woman nods, lifting her weapon, and fires at Roman. Thomas tries to scream a warning, earning himself another painful yank from his captor, but the projectile lodges itself in Roman’s shoulder anyway.

It isn’t a bullet, but something that looks like a small syringe. Roman swats it out of his shoulder, swaying a little, but it doesn’t stop him from swiping at the - mercenary, they must be - who tries to grab him with his elbow spines. The woman frowns, lifts the weapon - some kind of tranquilizer gun? - and fires again.

Roman screams, inhuman and animal, and tears the newest dart from his arm, throwing himself out of his tank and clinging to the nearest mercenary. His teeth tear into the man’s shoulder, spines piercing through his camouflage clothing and flooding him with neurotoxin. The man collapses against the concrete, alive but unconscious, and Roman snarls at the next man as though daring him to approach. He sways, weakened but awake, and bares his teeth.

“Of course,” the woman says, tapping something on her tablet. “His naturally produced neurotoxin must be providing him with some level of natural resistance. Unexpected, but not a limitation.”

It takes three more tranquilizer darts before Roman finally slumps down into his tank, unconscious. The mercenaries look hesitant to approach him, but the woman reaches for her tablet and they scramble to action at once.

“No - no, stop, let him go, he’s not an animal for you to cart off to your lab -” Thomas starts. The man holding him knees him sharply in the back and he cries out, coughing.

They wrap Roman in thick leather bands, roughly shoving his spines flat and binding them against his skin so that he can’t attack them again. The woman nods, once, short and sharp, and they drag Roman away, letting his head bang mercilessly on the ground. Thomas catches a glimpse of a logo - emblazoned on the back of the jackets, on the back of the woman’s tablet, on the side of her tranquilizer gun - and commits it to memory. He’s going to need it, if he gets out of here alive.

“- your phone,” the woman says, and oh, when did she get in front of him.

“My what?”

His mouth runs dry as she places the tranquilizer gun under his chin, barrel pressing against his throat, and tips his chin up. “I said, give me your phone.”

Thomas blinks. “My - the desk. It’s on the desk.”

She sets her tablet down, picks up his phone, and shoves it in his face. “Open it.”

“I - wh -”

“Unlock your phone, Dr. Sanders. Must I repeat myself a third time?” She rolls her eyes. “Doctorates are wasted on people like you.”

Thomas numbly punches in his passcode, and she swipes through to his messages app, frowning before turning the screen towards his face to reveal a message thread with Virgil. “Is this your assistant?”

Thomas glares at her, he’s not going to give her what she wants, he’s not going to just give her Virgil but then the - gun, it must be a gun, what else would they be holding against his neck like this - pushes into him harder, and it’s probably bruising, and he can’t get himself killed here because then he definitely won’t be able to take care of Virgil and -

“Yes,” Thomas says, hating himself for giving in so easily. “What do you -”

She turns away from him, nails clicking against his phone screen as she sends a text message - to Virgil, presumably, and that makes his heart sink like a stone - before dropping it on the floor and stepping on it to shatter it. “I have a message for you.”

“A - what?”

“Did they really hit you that hard, or were you this stupid before we came here?” she says coldly, picking up the tablet again and tapping at the screen. Thomas groans as the man yanks him to his feet, shoving him onto his chair and pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of his multiple pants pockets. He tapes Thomas’s wrists and ankles to the chair, keeping his weapon trained on Thomas’s temple at all times, before pressing it roughly against his head and gripping his hair again.

The woman sets the tablet on his lab table, and the screen flickers to life, and then there’s a woman in front of a dark black backdrop, smiling at him like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Thomas Sanders. How long I’ve waited for this day.”

Thomas recognizes her. He knows he recognizes her. She used to be his classmate, before . . .

His head hurts, so badly that he can barely keep his eyes open, and the memory slips away. “You . . . why are you doing this?”

“Why? Because I am a real scientist, unlike you. You refuse to do what is necessary, what must be done for the progression of the species. The sacrifice of some worthless animals is necessary for humanity to reach its zenith. You would really hinder the entire human race for the preservation of lower life forms?”

“Wh - I -”

“You think that ‘preserving the ecosystem’ and ‘keeping animals alive’ makes you a good scientist, but it makes you weak. You are weak, Thomas Sanders, and if the world was left in the hands of people like you, the human race as we know it would die out in a few centuries. Fortunately, there are people like me, who understand what must be done.”

“Caring about other people and things - it doesn’t - it doesn’t make you weak,” Thomas says, chest heaving, and the woman just laughs.

“One of many logical fallacies to which you subscribe, Thomas. They really gave you a doctorate? Of course caring makes you weak. All emotions make you weak. They corrupt your data and make your experiments worthless. You must be ruthless. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your goals and achieve the height of success. But no.” She rolls her eyes, face hardening, twirling a pen in her fingers. “You insist on ethics and principles and letting emotions cloud your judgement, and that makes you a failure as a scientist. It makes you weak. Your attachments will be your downfall.”

Thomas’s eyes slide shut, head pounding, and the man behind him yanks at his hair so sharply that he knows some has been ripped out. He forces his eyes open in time to see a smile slide across the woman’s face like a knife, teeth gleaming white as sun-bleached bone.

“You won’t - get away with this,” Thomas manages. He grinds his teeth together and curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself awake. “If you leave me alive -” Thomas, stop talking, why are you reminding her that she has the option to fucking kill you “- I will not rest until I find you. I’ll - you can’t -”

“You’ll what, Thomas? If you call the police, you’ll expose those creatures you’re so intent on protecting to the world. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Before Thomas can even begin formulating a response, she steamrolls him. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you were, I’m going to take some . . . insurance, shall we say.”

“Why not just kill me?” Thomas spits. Excellent idea, Doc, poke the murderous lady with a stick like a god damn hornet’s nest, the tiny Virgil in his brain hisses. Her smile, somehow, only widens, and that’s . . . that can’t be good, can it? Smiles are supposed to be good! They’re supposed to make you happy, but all Thomas feels is creeping dread and pain, so much pain, and -

Yeah. He’s . . . pretty sure he has a concussion.

“Because if I kill you, you get to take the easy way out. Your suffering will end. But unlike you, I don’t put limits on my science. I know how to cause you the maximum amount of pain.”

Thomas eyes the toxin gun, but the on-screen woman just laughs. “Not yet, Thomas. We need something from you, first.”

“You already took Roman,” Thomas says. “What more can you possibly take from me?”

“You named it? You’re even weaker than I thought.”

“He told me his name, he’s not an it, he’s not a thing for you to play with and - and I -”

There’s a strange sinking feeling in Thomas’s chest as the woman onscreen laughs. “I knew you were emotional, Thomas, but I can’t believe this! It looks like I’ll have more hanging over your head than you thought.”

“You -”

“Say, Tommy-boy, have you heard from your precious little assistant recently?”

Thomas’s entire body flushes ice-cold and then white-hot, immediately struggling against his duct tape bindings despite the man tearing at his hair and shoving the gun into his neck and snapping at him to shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up before I do something we’re both gonna regret -

“Don’t you touch him!” Thomas snaps. “If you hurt him, I swear to God -”

“You’re not in a position to be making demands, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll paint your boring little lab bright red.” Thomas freezes, holding his entire body tensed like electricity is running through his blood.

There are footsteps on the stairs. “Doc? I got your text, what’s -”

“Virgil, run!” Thomas chokes. Virgil comes around the corner, holding his phone, staring at the screen in confusion. He looks up, eyes widening in horror as he takes in the scene.

“You know what to do,” the woman onscreen says. The other woman lifts her tranquilizer gun, and Thomas is sure that he’s screaming, his mouth is open and sound is coming out but his blood is rushing through his ears and his heart is pounding like waves against a boat in rough sea and he can’t - he can’t -

Virgil turns to run, but the tranquilizer dart hits in him the back of the neck and he collapses like a sack of bricks. The woman lowers her gun and jerks her head at the two remaining conscious, unoccupied mercenaries, who step forward and grab Virgil.

“Let him go!” Thomas screams, and his throat feels raw and his chest feels raw and his wrists are rubbed raw and his soul feels hollow and raw, like he’s been scraped out with a jagged piece of metal and only an empty shell remains. Virgil’s head lolls against his chest as they drag him down the grotto tunnel, and Thomas struggles and screams and stares after them until Virgil is out of sight.

His face is damp, and his eyes are burning, and he isn’t sure if it’s blood from his head wound or tears or some strange, morbid mixture of both.

“The greatest torture of which I can conceive,” the woman onscreen says, and it takes him a moment to realize that oh, she’s talking to me, “is to leave you alive, knowing that your precious little protégé is with me, and that there is nothing you can do about it.” She leans forward, and any trace of a smile is gone. “If you try to come after me, I will kill him. If you call the authorities, I will kill him. I already found you, Thomas. Don’t think I’m not watching. If I catch so much as a whiff of you planning something, his blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

Thomas, numb and shocked, can’t even respond. “Knock him out and bring the specimens back to me,” the woman onscreen says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He doesn’t even feel the tranquilizer dart hit his neck, but he welcomes the sweeping darkness.

(Summary: Evil Scientist Lady has been spying on Thomas and she finds the entrance to the grotto where our mer friends have been hiding. She sends her assistant and several armed thugs to invade the lab, they drug Roman with tranquilizers and kidnap him. Thomas gets knocked around a lot and is mocked for being an ethical scientist and caring about people by Evil Scientist Lady and she gloats at him through Evil Facetime before kidnapping Virgil in the same way they did Roman, knocking Thomas unconscious, and leaving him tied to his lab chair. During this whole scene, Patton is out in the open ocean hunting and Logan is safely hidden in Virgil's room.)

#starshinewrites #lovely dark and deep #romantic analogical #sanders sides #platonic TLAMP

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genshin-impacted · 4 years ago

Text

campfire stories // Childe x Reader (sfw)

Word Count: 2.3k

Notes: gender neutral reader, reader pov, (implied mutual pining), takes place in 1.2, hints to Childe’s Story Quest, but no direct spoilers, a LOT of bantering

an indulgent fic combo w/ character analysis of Childe and the reader’s inner turmoil in regards to their (developing) feelings for him

Summary: You walk on this tightrope, balancing the tension that exists on being on opposite sides and the comfort that comes with easy conversation and undemanding company. So you let yourself worry about Childe. How could you not when you look at Childe and see someone with an easy attitude, carefree laughter despite his guarded eyes?

For when you talk to him, you are reminded of home-- for better or for worse.

Here is the accompaniment/sequel fic: Letters to Home!

As a wanted person, there were few places you could safely invite yourself into. It is strange being received in such a manner when you were so welcomed back in Mondstadt, but you understand why, as a foreigner, you would pose the most threat to Liyue considering the recent death of the geo archon.

(The fact you keep getting dragged into political turmoil is concerning, to say the least, though you have a feeling your path is going to continue to be full of trouble.

You try not thinking of brown tousled hair and blue eyes and fail. Childe is, after all, the epitome of trouble.)

Luckily, you are used to camping out in the wilderness. Despite Paimon’s whines, she is also at ease surrounded by nature, with easy access to food and fresh air. Though both of you still wish you were able to sleep in an actual bed as you did at Wangshuu Inn, considering how close to the harbor you actually were.

When the moon fully rises above the two of you, Paimon is fast asleep within the tent while you tend to the flickering embers of the campfire, basking in the silence that solitude brings you. Though your moments to be alone are soon interrupted when you hear the crunching of grass underneath the footsteps of another, and you turn, alert, to see who approaches.

"Oh, what a surprise,” Childe says, coming down from the darkness of the hills. You can hear as much as you can see the amusement on his visage that you have become accustomed to seeing often. “Fancy meeting you here.”

"It really isn’t,” you reply back dryly, looking at the measly tent, the small campfire, and two logs that you placed in front of them as temporary seats. You try to not be embarrassed as Childe looks around with too much care. “You got something to say about my lovely campsite?” You ask, knowing full well you played into his hands when he laughs and waves a flippant hand. You roll your eyes, a small smile lifting your lips as you watch him patter around your set-up, only for you to notice a gash on his wrist-- maroon in color. And once you see that, you begin to notice other wounds scattered along his body like red paint splashes on a grey canvas.

He’s hurt, you think, and worry bubbles in your chest before you can tell yourself it’s a bad idea.

You shouldn’t be concerned, knowing who he is and who he works for. The last time you met up with a Fatui Harbinger (other than Childe, that is), she almost killed you and Paimon after stealing something that didn’t belong to her. You think you’re allowed to associate the Fatui with cold smiles and brutal actions.

But Childe is different. You find yourself relaxing in his presence before you remember who you’re talking to, but you wish you didn’t have to put your guard up for unsavory ulterior motives in the first place. It’s not as if you don’t see how Childe’s amiable smile can so easily turn icy or that his proclivity for violence is something dangerous in and of itself, but you wish these things were something you didn’t have to worry about.

There is a constant strain in your friendship, if you can call it that-- for no matter how many times you banter easily in a way that has you almost forgetting you’re on opposite sides, you remember Venti, and the suspicion wedges itself in between the two of you. You walk on this tightrope, balancing the tension that exists on being on opposite sides and the comfort that comes with easy conversation and undemanding company.

So you let yourself worry about Childe. How could you not when you look at Childe and see someone with an easy attitude, carefree laughter despite his guarded eyes?

(You never thought you would ever be involved with someone in such a complicated and convoluted way, but you can't help but crave the way you and Childe clash so casually, reminiscent of your friends back in your world.

You talk to him and are reminded of home, for better or for worse.

And if you think his smile is charming or that his eyes remind you of the ocean, you try not to.)

“Hey,” you start, gesturing toward him nonchalantly, “why are you so beat up?”

Childe chuckles, rubbing the back of his head, and you can see dried blood sticking to the tips of his hair. "Stumbled into a few ruin guards," he tells you, and you immediately translate that to ‘I picked a fight with them.’ As if knowing your train of thought, he quickly changes the subject. “You know, it shouldn’t be that bad trying to find an inn to take you in.” He grins, despite the look you threw at him. “You could just… provide the owners with extra incentive to let you under their roof.”

“Does it look like I’m made of money to you?” You retort, “Also, I can’t believe you’re trying to brush off the fact that you willingly walked into the ruins to fight them.”

Despite your snappy tone, Childe only laughs, and you can't help but be pleased that the conversation between the two of you is quick and smooth-- natural. “You know me so well already,” he says. “Have you been paying a little extra attention to me lately?”

“Can't help it," you reply sarcastically, "you're a walking disaster, can't keep my eyes off of you." You smile when he laughs. “Anyway, come over here,” you say, rummaging through your backpack to find the medical tape. “You look like you’re one flesh wound away from dying.”

You savor the moment of silence as Childe blinks at you in confusion.

“...ah, are you going to dress my wounds? Worried for me, are you? How kind of you.” You can hear the teasing tone in his voice, but it is gentler in a way you did not anticipate. He looks at you with a softened gaze, and you can feel your face warm for reasons other than the campfire, so you roughly pat the log next to you, ignoring his grin.

“No, this is actually my diabolical plan to end you once and for all,” you tell him, waiting as he takes off his top to bear his back to you.

He glances back and you must have been too slow to train your expression to a more neutral one because he winks at you. “Be gentle, alright?”

"I'm going to be the opposite just because you said that," you say, snickering as you sweep off the caked blood where the scratches have healed over. You think briefly that joking aside, it was strange that Childe would trust you to not stab him in the back, but it passes as soon as it comes when you finally see how many scars he actually has littered all over his body.

“Admiring my battle scars? Shall I let you take a look at every one of them?” You hear him say, and you bluster in silence as he laughs. “No need for ointment,” Childe says, when he hears you twist open an herbal soother. “I’ll be fine.”

Without warning, you slather a healthy amount of antibiotic cream onto his wounds. He yelps at the coldness of the balm, and you can’t help the laugh that bursts from your lips when he turns to you with a pout.

It's ridiculous to think that this man whose lower lip was protruding because of your mischievous administration was the 11th Harbinger, but you're starting to think part of the appeal is because this side of him is so unexpected to see.

“I never said that I'd be gentle,” you reply teasingly with a fondness that so easily comes through. (You think Diluc would disapprove of how trusting you seem to be, and how Amber would have a heart attack knowing how much you hang around Childe-- but neither of them are here with you, and you are not in Mondstadt.) You find yourself sweeping your fingers over his wounds more lightly, and if he notices that your hands are more gentle, only a momentary glance behind him is telling.

He hums. “Hm, I hope you don’t treat every patient you meet like this,” he says with a lilt of playfulness.

“Of course not.” The campfire flickers in the corner of your eyes, comfortably keeping you warm as you press your hand onto his shoulder to wrap it with gauze. “You’re a special case,” you remark dryly. “Aren’t you glad?”

“You really know how to make a guy feel warm inside,” Childe tells you, and you can hear rather than see the smile on his face.

For once, the two of you sit in silence. It’s a rare occasion, and you start to think that perhaps the two of you fill in the quiet with witty retorts in order to avoid the looming tension between the two of you. But with the soft flicker of fire and the gentle rise and fall of Childe’s shoulders with his breathing, you find yourself more comfortable in his presence than you’ve ever been.

You wish you could stay like this forever, and so you set out to make it so.

You tell him what you have wanted to be if you had not come to Teyvat and become an adventurer. You avoid the more personal feelings that come with it, the yearning to go back home, how lost you felt when you were alone, and tell him briefly about who you are beyond what he knows of you as Mondstadt’s Honorary Knight.

Childe listens to you without interruption, but you know his attention is on you from the way his shoulder shakes in laughter when you tell him about the antics your friends got into or the way he shifts when you talk about your dad.

“Do you miss your family?” He asks you suddenly when you take a brief pause to tie the tape around his shoulder.

“Yes,” you reply honestly. “I try not to, but I get homesick a lot.” You pause, your hand feeling the warmth that emanates from his skin. “You?" You try, "Do you get homesick?”

“If I give myself a moment to think about my family, I do,” he tells you, just as honestly. “I haven’t been back to Snezhnaya in, hm, quite some time, I think.”

You trace your finger along the middle of his back where a long, white gash of scar tissue lay, and Childe does not even flinch. “Do your family know you’re Fatui?” You ask quietly, and you see your hand leave his back when he leans forward, away from your touch, to pull his shirt over his head.

Before you can open your mouth to apologize, he glances back at you and gives you a smile that makes your heart clench. “Not the young ones.”

“Oh.”

Childe laughs, and you feel your face warm again at the lack of tact in your response. “I’m kind of a ‘bad guy,’ as you already know. I’d rather have my youngest sibling still think of the world of me for as long as I can, you know?” He slips his hands through his grey jacket, continuing almost superfluously, “Defend their childhood dreams and what not.”

Instead of a response, you hum, glancing down at the red scarf that still lay pooled on the grass. You reach out for it the same time he does, and you look up to see eyes dark and blue as the ocean deep.

“Do you think I should quit?” He asks you abruptly, or so it seems to you, as you tug the scarf instinctively. You look into his eyes, wondering why they reminded you of the abyss.

The campfire ambers flicker at the corner of your eyes.

You falter when you think you should have not; isn’t the answer clear to you? Haven’t you thought Childe was better off without the Fatui? But something about the way Childe told you about his family, about his given role as defender of childhood dreams makes you think that there is more than what he has shown you.

The fire seems unbearably hot now, but you think it might have something to do with the fact your body is close enough to Childe’s to feel how warm he is (and you wonder why you even took note of that).

“Does it really matter what I think?” You ask instead, lifting a hand to pinch at his cheek, feeling yourself smile when he lets you do it with only a tiny wince. “Whether you quit or not-- isn’t that up to whether you think what you’re doing is still worth it?” You let go of his cheek and scarf, grinning up at him as he rubs his cheek and stares at you thoughtfully.

“Ah, well…” Childe responds after a moment of silence where you could only hear the crackling of the wood. He pulls his scarf across his shoulder and smiles at you. “Who knows?”

You roll your eyes. “What do you mean ‘who knows’? Didn’t you ask me because you care about what I think of you?” You gasp dramatically. “Childe… am I… a special case?”

Much to your surprise, you watch as Childe’s expression morphs into something akin to embarrassment. “Ah, well, you know,” he stammers, “you’re certainly the only Honorary Knight that I know of.”

“If you really think I’m dumb enough to believe that--”

“I never said that!”

The two of you banter until the stars are high and the moon moves across the sky. You continue to share stories with him, eagerly stretching out the time where the two of you are not Fatui and Honorary Knight. Childe carefully listens to you, learning more of where you came from and the circumstances that brought you here. In return, he shares stories about his family, about his viewpoint on battles and of snow. (“You and your obsession with blood,” you retort, and he only laughs, inching closer, but never touching you, underneath the blanket you swept over the two of you for warmth when the fire dies out.)

If your relationship with him changes that night, you cannot tell. But sometimes you think his glances linger on you longer when the two of you pass by, and you wonder if he wants to share more campfire stories, knowing how much it brings you closer to each other-- no matter how much the two of you pretend that it isn’t the case.

#childe #tartaglia #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #genshin childe #i kept editing it over n over so i shall now release it #i will write childe's pov next bc nothings better than mutual pining

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renegadewangs · 3 years ago

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Van Zieks - the Examination, part 10

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Truth after truth after truth is about to be unveiled! It's time for The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo!

Episode 2-5: The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo, part 1

So after all the shocking revelations that brought 2-4 for a close, it's time for the second trial day. (Good grief, only the second day?) Van Zieks shows up in the defendant lobby and immediately hits it right out of the park.

WHA- HE- SIR??? Ryu is just as baffled as I am, wondering whether he heard correctly. Van Zieks catches sight of the obvious shock and asks “...What?”, but Ryu quickly dismisses it and changes the subject.

“(In fact, he hasn't been very Reaper-like at all since this all started yesterday.)”

Almost jovial? By this man's standards, that's extremely jovial. Don't worry about his expression, though. You know when an adult tells a kid they shouldn't scowl so much because “your face will get stuck like that”? That's what this is. He's just got resting bitch face now. But the fact that he isn't being very Reaper-like and is putting forth his best foot to be jovial means that he's mellowing out. Growth. Very good.

Susato, being her usual mindreading self, points out that Lord van Zieks isn't the Reaper at all. Van Zieks admits that “in hindsight, I shouldn't have allowed that misconception to go unchallenged. It was my tacit acceptance of that pseudonym... my failure to stop the Reaper becoming something more than a mere legend... that led to all this.” Interesting. So he knows that the troublesome situation he's in right now is one of his own making. He thought that it'd be fine to carry the title of the Reaper, even if got him killed by thugs, but he never stopped to consider he might stand trial for the Reaper's crimes. Susato immediately insists he's not to blame. Ryu brings up that which Van Zieks already said before; that crime dropped sharply ever since the public started calling him that, so that's why he didn't say anything against it. Van Zieks, however, admits that he's not sure that was the only reason.

“That having been slain by that evil killer, Klint's restless spirit returned as some sort of demigod... to wield a deadly blade of justice where I, by dint of the law, could not. When I lost him... I felt as though I'd lost my guiding light. I didn't know where to go or what to do. In some small way, I wonder if perhaps those rumours made me feel his absence a little less keenly. Even if I knew it was just an illusion. Just some nonsense conjured up by an over-imaginative public.”

Goodness. Well, this whole bit speaks for itself, really. Van Zieks is already doing the analyzing for me. There's just one more thing to add, and that's foreshadowing. Van Zieks has always insisted that his brother was a kind person; someone who wasn't corrupt. However, when the over-imaginative public started whispering about Klint's ghost dishing out vigilante justice, Van Zieks was willing to believe it. He wanted to believe it, if only it meant some surviving form of Klint would continue to be by his side, helping him along. He still hasn't realized that's what the living version of Klint was already doing, though. Ryu says that all that's important now is uncovering the truth, and that he knows Van Zieks didn't take anyone's life. This catches Van Zieks off guard a bit, with a “...!” in response. Van Zieks once again talks about how he sees something in Ryu's eyes; the burning desire to cut through all the lies and deception. (So serial killer eyes or serial killer killer eyes, okay.)

YOOO! He is really piling on the compliments today. This man started off with constant accusations of deceit, so for him to say Ryu has absolute integrity pretty much brings that aspect of his character to a close now. We're cut short when Van Zieks 'detects the scent of expensive tea leaves in the air', and if he can identify which leaves are expensive by smell alone, surely he must drink tea when he isn't drinking his wine! Surely! Iris enters the scene and while she seems a bit jarred, she offers up some of her special blend. Van Zieks thanks her very politely. (AWWW, building up to the family reveal, I see!) She points out that the atmosphere in the courtroom seems even more tense than yesterday, with Van Zieks saying that 'a certain someone has pulled out all the stops'. I suppose he means Stronghart? It could be Kazuma as well, but the atmosphere in the courtroom is mostly Stronghart's fault. After a bit more banter, Iris wishes them luck in the trial ahead. She singles out “Mr. Reaper” specifically, hoping that it goes well for him. (AWWWW!) Van Zieks thanks her for the tea a second time. So that's three expressions of gratitude in the span of roughly ten minutes. Character development, get!

In the courtroom, we find out that Stronghart has taken over as judge for the trial, because that's not ominous at all. Stronghart points out that the members of the audience are distinguished members of the judiciary. Van Zieks says that in other words, they're Stronghart's “acolytes”. Oh man, Van Zieks knows something fishy's going on here. Stronghart counters by saying that 'on a personal note, he finds this most distressing, since Van Zieks was a prosecutor of exceptional talent, much like his brother Klint'. Oh, I'll bet he finds that distressing. He's grown so used to using the Van Zieks brothers as his personal lapdogs, the thought of losing yet another one must be quite distressing indeed.

This is so ominous, oh my gosh. They're really raising the stakes now. So there's some talk about how Gregson's time of death was probably tampered with somehow, even though there aren't any refrigeration devices in that part of London big enough to store human corpses. Still, there's enough merit to it that Stronghart is forced to admit they need to investigate the matter further. Gina comes in to testify about what Gregson was up to the day before his supposed actual murder. Kazuma acts as if he doesn't know shit and instead diverts attention to a gentleman's club called The Grouse, where Van Zieks was also spotted.

Can we appreciate how funny this line is out of context? The game tells us later he was only there because he too had caught wind Gregson was going to investigate 'the Grouse', which makes this thing even funnier. Imagine this obviously socially-uncomfortable man going into a distinguished gentleman's club. Imagine all the stares and whispers that must've happened, because 'what is the Reaper of the Old Bailey doing here?', but he had to bear it in order to find the truth of Gregson and- Oh no, I've made myself sad.

Gregson was not seen at the club himself though, which makes sense because the Grouse is not only a club, it is a ship! The very same ship that Jigoku and Mikotoba were on when they traveled to Britain, even! So now we get into the thick of it. Kazuma admits outright in a court of law that Gregson wasn't investigating the Reaper, he was working for the Reaper. Stronghart appears hilariously alarmed for a second, but it's fine, because Kazuma insists the real Reaper is Van Zieks and thus our judge can breathe easy. Ryu cries out that “Barok van Zieks is not the Reaper!”, but Kazuma says that's a predictable response from someone who's advocating for the man. (Fair enough.) Ryu points out no one was killed on the SS Grouse, so Gregson going there on an assassination mission doesn't track. Kazuma insists it's because no one was killed that Gregson lost his life. Van Zieks killed him for his failure. I was about to point out that the reasoning doesn't track one bit because Van Zieks is not that sort of guy, but then I remembered what we've learned over the course of the game. Van Zieks is a perfectionist who doesn't trust others to do a good job and also, he flings perfectly good chalices and bottles when angered. So hypothetically, if he were the Reaper, wouldn't he kill a perfectly good henchman over one failure and then offer up a “pray forgive my impudence for shooting you through the heart, my finger slipped”? Kazuma would have considered this as well. The only thing off about the reasoning, in the end, is that Van Zieks supposedly shot Gregson when he doesn't carry a gun. He would've used his sword instead. Anyway, some more conversation later, Gina reveals that Gregson's next target was Seishiro Jigoku. The fact that Ryu saw him alive in England a day after Gregson's supposed mission only 'confirms that Gregson failed'. Once again, Kazuma asserts that the Reaper wouldn't tolerate the mistake and killed him personally. Van Zieks gets fed up and barges his way to the stand, slamming a leg down as he goes.

That is another funny line, right there. We're having a grand old time in this murder trial! Kazuma tells him he's got no right to speak and he should return to the dock. Van Zieks refuses. He won't say anything about whether or not he's the Reaper, since that's up to the court to decide. But there is one thing he can say unequivocally, and that's that Lestrade is no detective. Repeating rumors around the Yard and reading from a notebook of dubious origin is not testimony, it's a script, and he says the rest of the trial will likely go ahead as Kazuma planned it.

“In your mind, I'm sure I am the Reaper... who sent your father to the gallows all those years ago. But you're in danger of becoming a far more sinister Reaper yourself... by attempting to have me condemned with this feeble excuse for testimony.”

YO! Okay. So he's warning Kazuma. The emphasis is not on the fact that the testimony is feeble, though. I think that the warning is there because Kazuma is content to rely on feeble testimony in the first place. He's being blinded by his hatred for Van Zieks; hatred that Van Zieks admits to be well-earned. Even so, our man Barok refuses to be condemned so hastily by a man with a grudge. All it does is create a cycle. (Granted, there isn't anyone who would swear vengeance against Kazuma for condemning Van Zieks so easily, but you know what I mean.) So now Van Zieks will take the stand alongside Gina to rectify her testimony, which Stronghart will allow. It leads to a very funny exchange between Van Zieks and Stronghart.

HILARIOUS. Van Zieks is no longer Stronghart's golden boy now, which means our supposedly neutral judge is very much against his shenanigans. So during the testimony, Van Zieks repeats things he's already told Ryu in private about how he never objected to the Reaper monniker, how the Reaper is likely an organization and that Gregson was one of them... Etc. He also confirms he visited the Grouse, the club, because he believed that's where Gregson would be, not realizing it was in fact a ship. Kazuma says something very sus about a metal trunk which gives away that he's a liar liar with his pants on fire, the name Asa Shinn comes up... And then we talk about Jigoku some more. He studied under Stronghart's tutelage during the exchange project 16 years ago. Not only that, but Jigoku appeared in court 10 years ago for his behavior during the Professor trial.

How in the world did he forget something like that? He was betrayed by a Japanese person, thus developing an irrational xenophobic hatred for anyone from Japan and then he watched the culprit's buddy basically vandalize the courtroom, so he immediately prosecuted this other Japanese person and FORGOT? Was he just very drunk when he handled Jigoku's trial? Good grief. Anyway, Jigoku was told to make reparation to the witness stand he'd destroyed and was then acquitted. I wouldn't quite call it an acquittal if he'd been forced to pay for the damages, though. That's a plea bargain at best, and plea bargains involve a guilty verdict. Not that it matters; guilty or not-guilty verdict, the defendant dies. Thus, clearly, Jigoku was targeted by the Reaper, who Kazuma still insists is Van Zieks. Ryu calls Kazuma out on being absurd, but the certified bestie is beyond reason. Gina begs for Ryu to find a flaw in the testimony, and we already know exactly who the liar in this courtroom is (well, one of the two, anyway), so Ryu takes the opportunity to call out the contradiction in the prosecution's words. Sure enough, it's brought to the court's attention that Kazuma was on board the SS Grouse with Gregson on the very day he was murdered. Not only that; Ryu can prove it by comparing a metal shard found in Gregson's trunk with the legendary sword Karuma. Ryu asks Kazuma to draw it and show the court the full blade. Van Zieks, who's still at the stand, speaks up.

“That man is the son of London's most notorious killer.”

Kind of a bullshit thing to say. Just to make sure I wasn't about to spread misinformation, I had a quick Google, and it turns out aggressive behavior can indeed be passed down through genetics. “According to a meta-analysis on data from 24 genetically informative studies, up to 50% of the total variance in aggressive behavior is explained by genetic influences.” An example of this is the warrior gene. Thing is, it's the year 1900, so any research on the matter would be lousy and the only basis Van Zieks has for connecting Genshin's supposed killings to Kazuma's own behavior is convenience. Regardless of the weird implication that Kazuma inherited his father's murder tendencies, Van Zieks is right to be wary of this guy for very different reasons; it's just been revealed he was with Gregson the night he died, and a shard of a sword was found embedded in the side of the victim's trunk. Sure enough, the tip of the blade is broken and the shard is a match. Some bullshit excuses later, as is Ace Attorney norm, the implication drops that Jigoku may already be dead. Even if Gregson's attempt on the man's life was a failure, Kazuma insists that the Reaper would have “the power and influence to give orders from the inside of a prison cell. ...Isn't that right, Lord van Zieks?”

Oh, the SASS! So a recess is called to try and verify whether Jigoku is still alive or not. Stronghart warns Ryu that he hopes they're successful, because if they're unable to confirm Jigoku's “healthy existence” in the next 30 minutes, the defense will face grave difficulties. This... honestly baffles me a bit. In no way has the prosecution proven that the Reaper is behind Jigoku's disappearance, nor that Barok van Zieks is the Reaper, so why would Jigoku's disappearance affect the defense's case so negatively? Since when can the prosecution just randomly pin any crime on the defendant with no real evidence?

Recess time! Here we have my favorite part of the game, which has absolutely nothing to do with Van Zieks, so I'll have to skip it. Alas.

Back into the courtroom we go after the little break, where it's confirmed that Jigoku is indeed missing and Kazuma insists that “we must accept the unfortunate conclusion that the Reaper has already done the deed.” Which is laughable, because for all they know Jigoku got food poisoning and spent the night in a hospital. Or he's in some opium den. Or he was walking down the road, bent over to pick up a book and some idiot happened to throw a knife out the window at that very second. There's a million and one other explanations, but sure, the Reaper totally killed him. Ryu objects and reveals that Jigoku was found in Dunkirk. He's been subpoenaed, so trial is on hold until the next day!

What follows is an investigation day which has nothing to do with Van Zieks, because our heroes have like twenty unrelated plot-devices to discuss in the comfort of 221B. So while they enjoy their 'pre-victory feast', Van Zieks spends the rest of his day alone in jail. How unpheasant- I mean unpleasant for him.

At the start of the next trial day, Stronghart majestically proclaims that they'll “stop at nothing to uncover the truth behind these disturbing findings”, which will surely not come back and bite him in the ass. SURELY. Van Zieks rightly asks why Kazuma Asogi is still allowed to be the prosecutor.

“He shouldn't be enjoying the privilege of freedom, let alone be leading the prosecution.”

He's right, you know. This is conflict of interest at the highest degree. Unfortunately, the answer is that this is an Ace Attorney game. Kazuma requested to Stronghart that his judgment be delayed by one day, which... Doesn't actually change all that much. He's still biased as hell and outright admits to it. But... Again, this is an Ace Attorney game, so let's just let him build his case on pillars of blind personal spite and move on. Jigoku is summoned to be one of the most haughty, passive aggressive witnesses I've ever seen in this game series and I live for this. Even with all this, Kazuma continues to insist that Gregson was killed in Fresno Street by Van Zieks (sigh), so Ryu's only option is to shatter Jigoku's testimony to pieces with a sledgehammer. Some talk of the assassin exchange later, it's verified that the only reason Kazuma got to go on the study tour at all was because he'd agreed to kill Gregson. But that's cool, because he insists he Didn't Actually Do It and Ryu is inclined to believe it. In fact, when Jigoku later tries to throw Kazuma under the bus by insisting it was him who killed Gregson and Jigoku only transported the body, Ryu is the one who proves it was impossible for Kazuma to be the killer. Jigoku has his breakdown and breaks down the witness stand in the process, then admits to his crimes. Hurray, we've caught Gregson's killer! Unfortunately, Jigoku also lets it slip that the Reaper contributed in this plot to take Gregson out, as the late inspector was given a sham mission to lure him to Dunkirk. He won't say who the mastermind of the assassin exchange is though, nor who the Reaper is, but they're presumably the same person. Using his powers as a judge, Stronghart controls all the juror's flames to tip the scales to Guilty and-

HEY! Hang on a second! Jigoku isn't the defendant in this case! Take that verdict back right now, before you condemn the wrong person! And passing a verdict on Jigoku right this second is premature, as he needs his own trial, complete with defense attorney. Gosh! Lord Chief Justices these days, thinking they can just do whatever they want... Before you know it, they're getting away with murder.

Stronghart declares that with Jigoku's admission of guilt, Van Zieks's innocence is proven and he's to be cleared of all charges, but did we really think it'd be that easy? Van Zieks declares his intention to keep investigating the Reaper as a prosecutor and Stronghart gives a halfhearted “... As you wish,” which rather implies he's a little leery of keeping Van Zieks around. Naturally, the prosecution objects, because Jigoku getting his hands dirty doesn't necessarily mean Van Zieks isn't behind the murder. Which in itself is a reasonable claim to make, but that's not how Kazuma words it:

He's really certain of this, isn't he? Susato points out yet again that the Yard has already investigated Van Zieks and found no connection to the Reaper, but that point is moot, since Kazuma already insisted on his claims that Van Zieks is the Reaper far earlier than this. The fact of the matter is that just because someone didn't do the killing themselves, that doesn't mean they weren't pulling the strings. What we need is new testimony and Kazuma knows it. Van Zieks says he's surprised by how tenaciously Kazuma wants to besmirch his name, but really, that's just hot air. He's not surprised at all; he already knows Kazuma wants revenge for his father. Kazuma once again insists that Van Zieks is guilty of an unforgivable crime, and let's face it, he ain't talking about Gregson. Stronghart agrees to a 'supplementary hearing' with additional testimony from Van Zieks, so there's no avoiding it now.

Van Zieks pours himself a drink and slams a leg down on the stand, calling the accusation “vile and unremitting”, but testifies anyway. He mentions the “weight of implied guilt” that comes with the Reaper pseudonym, which in turn implies to me he doesn't feel any actual remorse over what happened to those acquitted criminals. Though we already knew he's of the opinion that they got what was coming to them. Still, he welcomes the chance to testify and crush the allegations once and for all. By now, the narrative is making it abundantly clear that the player is meant to support Van Zieks and that Kazuma is in the wrong with his pursuit of him, what with Susato pointing out that Kazuma's not thinking logically and Ryu saying he came to court prepared to face his friend through whatever may arise. Naturally, the player may not be inclined to think the way narrative wants us to think, with how all this has been set up. Kazuma is our bestie! The main issue here is that Ryu and Kazuma want the exact same thing, which is to uncover the truth- not only of the Reaper, but of what really happened ten years ago when Genshin was accused. The only trouble is that Kazuma already has a very particular destination in mind and is steering towards that, blind to the possibility that his 'truth' is, in fact, just a convenient and easy deception by the true mastermind. This, ironically, is exactly what happened ten years ago, when Van Zieks fell for Stronghart's deceptions and condemned Genshin.

Getting into the thick of the testimony isn't really necessary here. Van Zieks basically declares he's not the Reaper, as he has no connection to John H. Wil--- WATSON and thus no reason to want him dead. Kazuma attempts to poke at this testimony several times, much to Ryu's dismay, as it means this whole thing could take a while. What is something to take note of is this bit regarding Gregson:

“He was a personal acquaintance. We'd worked on cases together in the past.” (Ryu takes a moment to consider that they were friends.) “It felt like a betrayal, but... I demanded permission to search his office at the Yard without his permission.” And later on in the testimony we have... “We were close acquaintances. We'd worked on numerous cases together. I considered the man to be a mentor of sorts.”

So this is interesting. Van Zieks did actually consider Gregson something of a friend (because that's what personal acquaintance basically translates to from Van Zieks speech), and so, harboring suspicions and following up on them had him feel as if he was betraying that friendship. In other words, he felt bad for considering Gregson might've been involved with the Reaper- he didn't want to believe it- so he could've just turned a blind eye. But alas, the truth has to come out and so he went ahead with the investigation. I suppose you could say that just like Ryu is now doing, he chose the truth over blindly supporting a friend. Speaking of the truth though, let's help Kazuma out a bit; we have no choice now but to point out the connection between Van Zieks, Gregson and Watson.

Ouch. He sure looks pained that we're dragging this into the conversation, doesn't he? But we've been indirectly talking about Genshin's trial for days now, so we might as well talk about Klint's autopsy. Turns out, Van Zieks lied without meaning to! He was the prosecutor on Genshin's trial, Gregson was the detective who insisted on autopsy and Watson was the coroner, so here we have the connection. Van Zieks goes on to detail that just as Gregson had promised, the autopsy had indeed produced evidence. This evidence proved conclusively that Genshin Asogi was guilty of the murders. Stronghart then adds that it allowed Van Zieks to avenge his brother's “senseless death”, saying it was “a marvellous victory in court.” Kazuma ain't having any of this, though. He claims the evidence was fabricated. Van Zieks is shocked, calling that outrageous. Still, Kazuma insists this cover up is the perfect motivation to take out the coroner and the inspector, who were in on it.

“However... He who fails to quash his emotions in the courtroom... has failed as a lawyer.”

On the one hand, he's right. On the other hand, he's a filthy hypocrite. He consistently allowed his hatred towards Japanese people to reign supreme whenever facing Ryu, and especially when Soseki was the defendant. He'd be the first to admit to this hypocrisy, though. Anyway, Ryu points out that without evidence, Kazuma's theory won't wash. Thing is, he does have evidence of sorts, as Gregson outright admitted to the fabrication in Dunkirk. He did also sprinkle in the words that he was “only following orders”, which just makes it even more damning for Van Zieks. It does stand to reason that the prosecutor of the case would've been the one to order Gregson to fabricate evidence. Thing is, once it's all out in the open, Van Zieks loses his temper and addresses Kazuma directly.

He's so upset he just broke several fingers! The truth is dawning on him now. He always believed that he owed Gregson a great debt for insisting on the autopsy and finding the evidence left behind for them by Klint. He never questioned it. He trusted the evidence- Klint's last actions- to point to the true killer and so he came to terms with Genshin's “true nature”. However, if it turns out the evidence was fabricated, he knows now that he might have condemned the wrong person after all. The implications are dire. Not only that, he knows what Kazuma hasn't yet realized; Van Zieks wasn't the original prosecutor for this case. He knows now just who the Reaper is, because by following the trail of logic laid out by Kazuma, both the evidence fabrication and the assassin exchange can be trailed back to one person. Ryu has figured it out as well, because he'd already been told just who handled the Professor case before Van Zieks begged to take over. And so, Ryu is the one to back up Van Zieks by formally naming Mael Stronghart. When Stronghart calls bullshit, Van Zieks in turn backs Ryu up.

“But I had a burning desire to avenge my brother's death, so I pleaded for control of the case. The investigation up to that point... The supplication of the Lords to allow my brother's corpse to be examined... All the evidence I was given... The autopsy reports... It all came... From you. I've spent my life since then believing I was in your debt for the way you stood aside and let me handle the trial. But I see now... ...I was very much mistaken.”

Van Zieks knows now that being allowed to handle the trial wasn't a gesture which came from the kindness of Stronghart's heart. He was used as a puppet and a scapegoat, because if at some point it did turn out that there was fabricated evidence and wrongful conviction in play, the blame would fall squarely on Van Zieks's shoulders. It's a bit reminiscent of a certain incident in Apollo Justice. Thankfully, Stronghart had no reason to ever reveal the secret behind the Professor trial himself. It was in everyone's best interest to keep the autopsy shenanigans hidden, and that's exactly why Gregson and Wilson had to die.

Stronghart considers this whole thing a very poor joke, but Van Zieks insists it's a formal accusation by the defense. Kazuma even backs the accusation up from the prosecution's side, which means he's willing to give the theory of 'Van Zieks is not the Reaper' the benefit of the doubt. Stronghart doesn't think he needs to respond or defend himself, though, since there's no actual evidence of such wrongdoing. He rightly points out that Gregson and Wilson are both dead, and Sithe is in prison, so there's no one left who could testify about the autopsy. How very wrong he is! For a man so versed in law-enforcement and forensics, he knows frightfully little about the proper proceedings of an autopsy. As it turns out, there was one more person who saw the autopsy with his own eyes; the primary assistant, not mentioned in the autopsy report because he's the one who penned it himself. It's Yujin Mikotoba! Stronghart denies the request for his testimony, making it very clear that he's the true culprit and final antagonist here. Cue a (S)Holmeus Ex-Machina! He barges into the courtroom and appeals to the gallery, who all agree there's something sinister going on and begin to chant for more testimony.

Dependable colleagues, huh? So much for them being Stronghart's loyal acolytes. So with all the peer pressure damaging Stronghart's precious reputation, Mikotoba is called in to testify along with Maria Gorey about the autopsy ten years ago. Van Zieks is also still on the witness stand because it's just narratively convenient to get his input on some things.

After the basics of the testimony, Mikotoba rightly points out the biggest inconsistency of all: the first four victims of the Professor died when 'an enormous beast' was set upon them and ripped out their throats, but Klint died by having a Western sword jammed through his heart. Stronghart insists this is just supposition (UHHH... That was fact, man) and issues a stern warning. Luckily, Ryu still gets to cross-examine, so let's poke some holes! After a bit of pressing, Mikotoba points out another wonderful inconsistency, which is that the dog used to commit the killings was never found and there was no evidence that Genshin ever kept a dog, either. I can't even begin to imagine how Van Zieks talked his way around the absence of the murder weapon ten years ago. Eventually, the topic of Genshin's ring comes up, which was found inside the victim's stomach. Very fascinating that he even had one, because from what I understand, jewelry such as that was only just beginning to become more commonplace in Japan. Perhaps he got it from a blacksmith companion who used to craft weapons and armor for samurai, now forced to turn to crafting jewelry instead? It's a shame they never elaborated on why it's a keepsake.

So it's confirmed the ring was the decisive piece of evidence leading to Genshin's arrest and Stronghart adds that he admitted to all his crimes. Kazuma loses it, insisting his father was no killer and that 'Barok van Zieks twisted the truth to suit his purposes'. This line strikes me as very odd, since it was already established before Mikotoba was called to testify that Stronghart was the original prosecutor, thus Stronghart was the one who ordered this twisting of the truth. Heck, the prosecution even went along with the defense's formal accusation of Stronghart, so I'm not sure why Kazuma suddenly reverted to pointing his finger at Van Zieks for a single line of dialogue. Either way, it leads to this:

“My brother Klint had closed in on the Professor. In the end, he exposed the man and put a stop to his lethal rampage. ...In the way only a man of my brother's calibre would.”

Well, yes, that's the story that was established ten years ago, but that doesn't mean it's factual. So for Kazuma to point out that someone had twisted the truth is not only logical, it's what we've been discussing ever since Kazuma brought up Gregson's admission of guilt in the matter. At first, I entertained the idea that he's drawing attention to the notion of 'these are the facts established back then' with the expectation that those facts will be proven wrong. Unfortunately, as the conversation goes on, that idea is debunked through Van Zieks's attitude. Ryu points out that Mikotoba never saw the exact moment of the ring being discovered, so it's possible that Dr. Wilson only pretended to find it when it had, in truth, been handed to him beforehand. Van Zieks objects, calling it supposition and demanding evidence. Despite the obvious possibility of there being fabrication and Stronghart being responsible, he seems to insist that Klint did indeed muster up incredible courage to swallow that ring in hopes of exposing Genshin. He clings to that idea, even. Very disappointing. Evidence is something we have in the form of the autopsy report! Our man Klint can't possibly have swallowed that ring without some very nasty consequences to his throat, which was found to be perfectly unscathed. Mikotoba mentions that he did indeed bring that up to Dr. Wilson at the time, only for his words to be dismissed as inexperience.

At last, Van Zieks remembers something important about the ring. It has to do with an incident he's recounted to Ryu before; a memory he has of Genshin Asogi saving his life. Kazuma is shocked that his father would've saved the life of someone like Van Zieks, but that's not what's important here. Genshin wore the ring on his left hand and after the thugs attacked them in the street, Genshin was bleeding from that very same hand. It stands to reason the thugs were only after them to steal that ring in the first place. Kazuma calls him a pathetic coward, wondering whether Van Zieks expects him to believe he wasn't involved. Sure, it's possible Van Zieks stole that ring himself, but this has gone on long enough. We've already established over and over that Stronghart was the original prosecutor in charge of the evidence, and that Van Zieks only got involved after Genshin was arrested. Ryu tells Kazuma to open his eyes already. Trouble is, as Stronghart points out, Genshin admitted to all five murders. If indeed the evidence was fabricated, why hadn't he contested the accusation? Van Zieks agrees.

“The actions of a man who has accepted responsibility for his deeds and is resigned to his fate.”

Yeah, it can't have been easy for Van Zieks to see a close friend accused of such horrid crimes, and for the man to just openly admit to it. It erased any doubt he might've had about Genshin's responsibility in the matter, because no one in their right mind would accept the blame for something like this if they were innocent. Indeed, Van Zieks goes on to insist that “if the autopsy results were an invention, there's no conceivable reason why the man wouldn't have protested.” But that's not quite right, now is it? Kazuma has caught on, stating that he's beginning to see Van Zieks in a new light now. Perhaps it's Van Zieks who's been living in delusion these ten years. This is pretty much fact, we've already surmised as much several cases ago. The jail break proves that Genshin had a very good reason to admit to the charges; a deal must've been struck with someone higher up the chain and he could get away with his life, were it not for the unfortunate shooting in the graveyard.

So now Caidin and Vigil, the prison warders at the time, are called to testify about the jail break incident to see if there was indeed some sort of agreement. Indeed, so there was! The order came from a mystery person very high up the chain. The only thing verified, in the end, is that shooting Genshin must not have been part of the plan. If the intention had been to go back on the agreement, why bother with the prison break at all? They could've just let him be executed, then. Another thing that doesn't add up, according to Caidin, is that Asogi had nothing to bargain with. Why come to an agreement with him at all when conclusive evidence had already been fabricated anyway? They didn't really need his admission of guilt, it was just a nice touch. So the topic of will comes up, which Genshin described to be a weapon. Stronghart tries to shoot the topic down, but Ryu copies (S)Holmes's tactic and appeals to the gallery a second time, who demand more testimony on the matter. It seems that right now, the gallery is acting as a simplified version of the jurors. We don't need to go through the hassle of a closing argument mechanic to convince them the trial must go on, we only need a main character to wax some poetry about how there's something sinister going on behind the scenes. Some more testimony later, Vigil points out the document he saw had been written in scarlet ink, not black, implying it was not Genshin's will at all. Klint, however, was found with scarlet ink stains on his fingers, which seems very curious. Van Zieks has some comments!

“Should ink have sullied his fingertips, he would have cleaned them immediately!”

And that's exactly what proves Klint wrote a document with scarlet ink just before his death. As a sidenote, I know well-bred is usually taken to mean that someone has very good manners, but I can't help but chuckle at the wording. He did serve as Stronghart's attack hound, after all. We've convinced Van Zieks now that the ink is relevant, since he remembers the lid of the inkwell was found open at the scene of the crime. For a fastidious, well-bred, punctilious man, that's pretty unusual. No document written in that color was ever found, but as we've already established, Genshin had one in his possession in prison. Not only that, but Genshin referred to it as a will, which can only mean one thing. And something very curious happens here.

I want to draw attention to Van Zieks's stance and animation here. This looks like your average Van Zieks pose at first, but it's actually new. We have never seen him do this exact thing before. He isn't standing perfectly still, either. His upper body is in constant motion, bobbing up and down. He comes across as restless and unsteady. Perhaps he's breathing heavily, perhaps he's overcome with dizziness. He tries to shield his eye with a hand, but still peers through the curled fingers, which may be symbology related to how Van Zieks can't blind himself to the truth any longer. As we know, Ace Attorney has always cleverly used its character animations to indicate to players the rising level of suspense. This animation right here is very clear indication that we've hit a new turning point and Van Zieks is, in a way, 'breaking down'. His beliefs are being shattered by the notion that Klint had had time and intent to write a last will for himself. As he goes on to say, it would mean that his brother had chosen to die. It's out of the question in Van Zieks's eyes; Klint had dedicated himself to pursuing the Professor and he would never have abandoned that investigation before its conclusion. He wouldn't rest until the killer was caught, or so Van Zieks had believed all these years. Kazuma deduces that surely, the document must've contained some very important information of the utmost secrecy, since his father was able to use it as a bargaining tool. With that, Ryu hits upon the horrible truth of it all. Stronghart tries to shut the trial down, but the defense now insists on keeping it going to discuss the contents of the document.

Aaand this is where I'm going to end the essay for now. Stay tuned for the destruction of everything Van Zieks ever believed to be true, his would-be redemption and the conclusion of this essay series!

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks #apologies for the delay!#I got so much stuff thrown at me in the span of two weeks #it was kind of hectic

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rnelodyy · 3 years ago

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C!Dream, the status quo, and why conflict is okay sometimes.

In this fandom, there is a lot of talk about conflict, who causes it, who avoids it, who is to blame for it, et cetera. An argument often heard from c!Dream apologists to justify his abysmal treatment of L’Manburg in general and c!Tommy in specific is “He was just trying to stop people causing conflict! He was protecting the server by stopping these conflict-causing maniacs!”

And it’s not hard to see where they get this idea from, because c!Dream repeats this sentiment a lot, from his “happy family” speech, to the speech during the final disc war about how c!Tommy causes constant conflict, to the fact that he always portrays himself as a reasonable authority figure trying to calm down these feral creatures always fighting with one another (and we’ll get to that idea…).

My reasoning for explaining how c!Dream’s worldview is deeply flawed may be a bit controversial, so I decided to write this essay to explore the following idea:

Sometimes, conflict is good actually.

(all /dsmp /rp, names refer to characters, not content creators)

Conflict, in itself, is morally neutral. It’s the context surrounding the conflict that allows us to ascribe morality to it. This fact makes this topic a LOT harder to discuss, because morality is subjective. What I’m writing here is all my own opinion, you may agree or disagree on some points, I just ask that you read it through and please don’t start shit over this.

Anyway, the context. It’s dependent on a number of factors.

Justification. Why was the conflict started?

Intent. What is the desired outcome for either party?

Proportionality. If the conflict is started out of revenge or punishment, is it proportionate to the wrong committed?

Power Dynamic. Is the person on the receiving end more, less, or equally as powerful as the person starting the conflict?

For example, let’s compare the L’Manburg War for Independence with the intervention during the Final Disc War.

Justification:

Dream declared war on L’Manburg because he saw them as traitors, and the land they occupied as rightfully his. Therefore, them making a country of their own where his rules didn’t apply was a violation of the status quo he wanted to uphold.

Punz and the others intervened because they didn’t want Dream to kill Tommy and/or Tubbo, and were tired of his constant meddling in their affairs.

Intent:

Dream’s intent was to attack L’Manburg until they surrendered, no matter how much hurt he’d cause or how many lives he’d take.

Punz and the other’s intent was to stop Dream from killing Tommy and Tubbo, and stop whatever plan he had to keep the server under control.

Proportionality:

L’Manburg declared independence in response to brutal violence as retribution for clumsy attempts at crime, on land nobody except Wilbur was using, were explicitly pacifistic and invited Dream to make an embassy in their land to discuss trade. Dream responded by declaring war, destroying their land, luring them into a trap and killing them, and continuing to beat them down until they surrendered.

Punz and the others intervened after Dream dragged two teenagers out into the wilderness to fight him, with little chance of them ever returning. This was after months of Dream’s meddling in conflicts he had nothing to do with, trying to control people’s actions, ripping Tommy away from his home and abusing him in secret and, in the end, destroying the place most synonymous with freedom from his rule. They intervened by getting Tommy and Tubbo to safety, letting Tommy (the kid who arguably suffered the most at Dream’s hands) take his items and beat him to death twice, then locking him up in prison.

Power Dynamic:

L’Manburg was significantly less powerful than Dream and his goons, with less skilled fighters and heavily inferior gear. They held their position fairly okay at the start, but after the Final Control Room, they were basically defenseless against Dream’s assault.

Dream had always had unprecedented power on the server. He’s leveled entire countries, crowns and dethrones kings when he feels like it, overruled the decision of a court of law, and in the end, had Tommy and Tubbo completely at his mercy before the intervention. Even beating Dream was seen as such an insurmountable task that it took fourteen people (excluding Clingyduo) to take him down.

The thing about conflict, even violent conflict, is that it’s not always negative. If your sister is being abused by her boyfriend and refuses to report it out of fear, you’re gonna be hard-pressed to find someone unable to sympathize with you if you go over to his house and break his nose.

What is a defining feature of conflict, is that it disrupts the status quo.

That’s not to say that some characters are always disruptors and others always preservers of the status quo. For example, during the Disc War, Tommy is the one trying to preserve and Dream the one trying to disrupt (the status quo being: Tommy owns the discs), and during the L’Manburg War for Independence, Tommy and Wilbur are disrupting while Dream is preserving (the status quo being: Dream has absolute power and the entire server needs to follow his rules).

It’s ALSO not to say that this disruption is always bad, because sometimes, the status quo fucking sucks, and throwing it on its head is the right thing to do. Overthrowing Schlatt is seen by everyone on the SMP and pretty much every fan as morally correct, as while Schlatt being president was the status quo, it meant he was ruling as a dictator, exiling his political opponents, imprisoning and heavily taxing dissenters, being verbally and physically abusive to his cabinet members, and forcing a guest at his festival to execute a sixteen year-old boy for spying for the political opponent he exiled.

Conflict being a genuinely good force of societal change isn’t usually brought up in the fandom though, at least not consciously. A lot of people, both on the server and IRL, see conflict only as a source of hurt and pain, and try to prevent or avoid it as much as possible.

And here’s where Dream differs from someone like Ranboo. Because while both Dream and Ranboo operate on the assumption that all conflict is bad all the time, Ranboo shows this by becoming conflict-avoidant to the extreme, to the point where he refuses to pick sides in pretty much any conflict, no matter how obviously good or evil one side is. Meanwhile, Dream shows this by becoming controlling to the extreme. Mitigating conflict isn’t enough, he needs to control everything to prevent all conflict ever.

In Ranboo’s case, this is less due to ideology and more due to personality. Ranboo is a deeply anxious person, and hates being in the middle of fights. He’s also… not very self-critical? He has issues with self-worth, but he very rarely takes a look in the mirror to inspect what it actually is he believes and says, making him very gullible and convinced of his own righteousness. But while that’s a VERY interesting character trait, Ranboo’s conflict-avoidance doesn’t make him a very good character to examine in the context of conflict and what it means.

So let’s look at Dream. Because, despite claiming to want to stop conflict, Dream CONSTANTLY starts conflicts or escalates existing ones. The L’Manburg War for Independence could’ve been entirely avoided if Dream hadn’t lashed out so heavily at a nation of pacifists who made their own area to avoid violence from authorities. As I explored in my George Vod Analysis, the griefing of George’s house would’ve been a lighthearted dispute between two people if Dream hadn’t taken over the entire thing and turned it into one of the biggest diplomatic crises in the server’s history. Mexican L’Manburg hadn’t even existed for an hour before Dream came by to kill its residents and destroy its land.

So why is Dream so focused on stopping conflict, despite constantly starting it himself? Why is THAT his hill to die on?

Simple. Dream wants to prevent disruptions to the status quo. That status quo being “Dream is the one in power and everyone has to listen to him.”

But you can’t say that out loud. If you say “everyone needs to listen to me otherwise it’s not fair”, you sound like a whiny five year-old at best, and a tyrant at worst. So, instead of saying that, Dream says “I just want to prevent conflict, keep the server peaceful.”

Remember what I said about one party being the disruptor and another being the preserver? Well, Dream’s status in the early days of the server is almost always preserver of the status quo. The only times he’s the disruptor is if disrupting that status quo serves to strengthen the status quo of him being in power. For example: Stealing Tommy’s discs is a disruption of the “Tommy’s discs are his and his alone” status quo, but strengthens the “Dream is the most powerful dude on the server” status quo, because the discs give him power over Tommy.

By fighting L’Manburg, he was trying to preserve the status quo, because having a government on the server meant he no longer had absolute power. Hell, REALLY early on, he decided to kill George and burn all his stuff because George had full diamond while everyone else was still running around in iron armor.

However, after L’Manburg’s independence, Dream’s focus shifted. Instead of preserving the status quo, he’d disrupt it in order to return to the status quo as HE wanted it, with no nations, and himself at the top.

But again, that wouldn’t look good. Making yourself the undisputed ruler of the entire server is not good for optics, so instead, Dream hides behind the excuse that he’s just trying to stop conflict, or seeking retribution for slights against his nation.

By this point, Tommy, the only person who CONSTANTLY refuses to bow to his demands, becomes his scapegoat. Tommy is loud, enjoys chaos and getting on people’s nerves, and causes, admittedly, a LOT of conflict. Lighthearted, non-serious conflict with very little actual consequences, but conflict nonetheless. It’s not hard for him to start smearing Tommy’s name, painting him as this feral child at fault for every conflict ever, mostly because a lot of people already believed something like that to be true.

The idea that Tommy is uniquely destructive or chaotic is complete bullshit. Tommy is definitely on the more chaotic side, but he’s not that much more chaotic or destructive than your average server member, he’s just really loud and annoying about it, which makes the things he DOES do stick out more. But Dream, especially during the Exile Conflict, continuously pushed the idea that Tommy is the only one creating conflict on the server, that Tommy is responsible for all conflict ever, and that without Tommy, everyone would be at peace.

And at some point… Dream started believing this himself.

His speech during the Final Disc War illustrates this perfectly. He tells Tommy that ever since he joined, there’s been nothing but war and terrorism and conflict, and that those originated from the attachments Tommy brought to the server. That, by cutting off his own attachments, exploiting everyone else’s, and getting rid of Tommy, he could restore the old status quo, before L’Manburg, before Tommy, when everything was peaceful and no conflict existed. Except, Tommy is too fun to fuck with, so instead of killing him, Dream was going to lock Tommy up in Pandora’s Vault, probably for the rest of his life, to continue breaking him.

This is a prime example of Dream falling for his own bullshit.

First of all, Tommy didn’t cause all those wars, he was actually on the receiving end of most of them. A vast majority of the wars and terrorism Tommy got caught up in were actually started by Dream, or Dream was actively helping the guy who started it.

Second, Tommy didn’t bring the concept of attachment to the server. He gets very attached to things, true, but attachment is a very basic part of the human condition. Even Dream, the guy openly shunning all attachment, isn't immune to it, in the end, he’s attached to the server as a whole, and Tommy, who he gave almost biblical importance in his narrative. Like Tommy said, if you have no attachment to things, why does anything matter at all?

Third, getting rid of Tommy and controlling the entire server with their attachments… that wouldn’t have restored the status quo, because the status quo exactly as Dream envisioned it never existed. He’s not chasing a past that was ruined by Tommy, he’s chasing an idealized fairytale version of the past where everyone was friends and frolicked around in the fields and there was never any conflict, before Tommy came along and ruined everything. Before Tommy joined, there was a SHIT ton of conflict, from minor disputes over theft, to the above-mentioned incident where Dream destroyed George’s stuff, to the lemon tree conflicts that wound up being taken to court!

Except, even this idea of Dream wanting to restore an idealized, made-up past is only partially true. What Dream is looking to return to and uphold is a world where he was the only authority and nobody questioned him. The status quo he wants to return to, no matter how much he denies it, is the one where everyone was at his mercy and he could do whatever he wanted without impunity. However, because he’s convinced himself that conflict is the issue, not disobedience, even if his plan succeeded, he’d have to keep the entire server in a chokehold to get them to follow his ideal plan.

Because conflict is inevitable. Anywhere where there’s two or more people sharing a space, you’re going to run into conflict at some point. People will have disagreements, they will fight, they will have miscommunications, they will have a bad day or accident and antagonize someone else.

Resolving these issues through conflict, whether it’s verbal, physical or legal, will result in a healthier community in the long run, because people’s pent-up frustrations will get an outlet, and people will try to hash out compromises or accommodations based on the reactions they get. It’s not always the ideal solution, but it’s better than just sitting everyone down, telling them to play nice, and smacking them over the back of the head as soon as they start complaining.

But conflict threatens the status quo. And as Dream involves himself in more and more conflict, they increasingly start threatening HIS status quo. So in order to maintain his status quo, conflict needs to be stomped out as soon as it crops up, no matter how minor it is.

So, now to paint a timeline through this lens.

Dream started off as the ultimate power on the server, able to do whatever he wanted without consequence. Tommy joined and threatened that status quo, but he was just one guy, so keeping him away and occupied wasn’t too hard. It was fun, even.

Then L’Manburg came, and posed the first substantial threat to Dream’s rule. Dream tried crushing this rebellion before it had a chance to take root, but in the end, Tommy traded his discs (the things Dream was using to control him) for L’Manburg’s independence. The status quo changed, L’Manburg was here to stay.

However, L’Manburg still posed a threat to Dream’s rule, so manipulating events to destroy it became Dream’s next priority. He supported Schlatt during the election in the hope he’d destabilize the nation, then sided with Pogtopia in secret to help overthrow the government, then helped Wilbur with the TNT to blow L’Manburg sky high, then betrayed Pogtopia for Schlatt’s side for the revival book. When Pogtopia won, Dream was egging Techno on through whispers to try to get him to go ape shit, so with Techno’s withers and Wilbur’s TNT, L’Manburg was gone, and the old status quo had been restored.

Except it hadn’t been. L’Manburg was rebuilt, with Tubbo at the helm this time, and a new status quo was put in place, with L’Manburg still there and still a threat. However, with Wilbur’s death, Tommy was left almost completely unprotected, and Dream took his chance to get Tommy thrown out of the country, hoping to get his biggest threat out of the way, as well as being able to sink his claws into the L’Manburg Cabinet.

Dream isolated Tommy in exile and tried to break him to the point where he wouldn’t put up any resistance. During this time, he also commissioned the prison, which he claimed to only be for the most dangerous members of the server, but is a pretty transparent attempt to enforce his rule by making a place where he can stick anyone who disobeys him. The server is slipping more and more out of his control, with more factions popping up and more people outright defying him, so like any dictator, he takes harsher and harsher measures to stay on top.

Tommy escapes exile, and while Dream is keeping tabs on him, he can’t directly control him anymore. So, to prevent Tommy from returning to L’Manburg and stopping his plans at disrupting the status quo, he blows up the community house, frames Tommy for it, and goes to Tubbo to demand Tommy’s disc, the only reason destroying L’Manburg was disadvantageous for him. Tommy jumps in to defend himself and takes L’Manburg’s side, but in the end, Dream takes both the discs, then destroys L’Manburg with Techno.

By this point, the status quo Dream wanted to craft is almost complete. L’Manburg is gone, there are no other major factions threatening his rule, and he’s pretty much set a precedent for what happens to dissenters. All he needs to do now is get rid of Tommy.

Except he can’t kill him. Over time, Dream has become obsessed with Tommy, to the point where he’s started seeing Tommy as the lynchpin of the server that everyone else gravitates around. Tommy is almost a living MacGuffin: he brings chaos and attachment which gives him power, but in the right hands, that power can be harnessed to create order.

(This is absolute nonsense of course, Tommy is just A Guy, his presence itself doesn’t create chaos, and controlling him doesn’t mean controlling the entire server because a lot of people just plain don’t give a shit.)

So instead of killing him, Dream tries to put him in prison. He even outright says that he wants to finish what he started in exile, this time with even tighter control and no possibility for escape.

He goes to kill Tubbo for multiple reasons: Tubbo is no longer useful to him, Tubbo can be used as leverage to keep Tommy compliant in prison (the possibility to revive someone’s best friend is a pretty valuable bargaining chip), and Tubbo would absolutely raise hell if Dream threw his best friend in jail for no reason.

If Dream had gotten his way, he’d be able to blackmail everyone on the server into compliance. Tommy, his scapegoat, would’ve been in prison, so now without a scapegoat, he could’ve probably gone one of two ways.

He could’ve created a new scapegoat to blame all new conflict on. Quackity would’ve been a good candidate, he’s VEHEMENTLY anti-Dream, and would’ve had no qualms about starting shit with him. Whether it was with El Rapids or with Las Nevadas, Quackity would’ve been the biggest anti-Dream voice in Tommy’s absence. So c!Dream would keep Quackity around, blaming him for everything that goes wrong… Until Quackity would get too uppity and either gets murdered or put in jail with Tommy, and the cycle repeats until either people rise up, or everyone who isn’t completely subservient is in prison.

Or, he could’ve cracked down EVEN HARDER on conflict. Anyone creating a new nation gets stomped into the dirt, anyone fighting over resources gets murdered, anyone squabbling over griefed property gets thrown in prison for weeks at a time, all the while their property and pets that they care about more than anything else get dangled in front of their noses. Anyone who’s ever read any more than five pages about the dynamics of dictatorships can see that this kind of repression is basically ASKING for revolution, especially since Dream has shunned all friendships at this point and his only ally is only there because Dream pays him.

(this is all speculation, we don’t know what would’ve actually happened, dont yell at me)

The status quo Dream is trying to return to never existed, and the one he creates in the process isn’t sustainable. Stopping every conflict ever is completely unsustainable and detrimental to the larger community, which Dream knows, because he uses conflict CONSTANTLY to get his way, while still presenting himself as a peacekeeper. What he’s really against is disruptions of the status quo, because the status quo allows him to do whatever he wants and control the server as much as he wants.

Conflict isn’t inherently bad. Some conflicts are harmless, some are necessary disruptions of the status quo. Conflict itself is morally neutral, and trying to prevent all conflict ever leads into some… iffy territory. Remember when Ranboo yelled at the L’Manburgians for participating in conflict the day before Doomsday?

Anyway. Please examine situations with more nuance than “conflict bad”, it’ll make for much better analysis. Trust me. /nm

#dream smp #dsmp analysis #dsmp meta #dreamwastaken #c!dream #idk if this made any sense at all #i feel like i just slapped a buncha stuff in a google doc and completely bullshitted a conclusion from it #but anyway #just something to think abt i guess

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freddiekluger · 4 years ago

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please drop the essay length analysis Judas and Jesus (extra gay Swedish edition), O great and knowledgeable monarch of our times

alright, you ask i deliver! please excuse any typos, my eyes aren't exactly working rn

welcome to my probably super subjective but correct analysis, aka

Judas Was Right and Jesus Was A Victim (At Least, In Swedish)

Before we get started, a couple points: i’ll try to avoid comparisons to other specific productions, i’ve only seen the other recorded 2012 british version which i didn’t like for reasons including but not limited to the amount of white people with dreadlocks. Also, my understanding of swedish is limited to a couple words and phrases, so most of the lyrics i reference will be english subtitles from Ola Salo’s swedish translation and therefore might not be the most accurate !

There’s so much i could cover in this, but for now i’m going to focus on how jesus and judas are portrayed in the 2014 swedish arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar (JCS) starring Ola Salo as Jesus and Peter Johansson as Judas, along with how this production more implicitly views god.

From the opening number, translated into swedish as En Dimmig Himmelsdröm (A Foggy Heaven’s Dream), Peter Johansson’s acting and semantic differences in the lyrics present us with a deeply sympathetic portrayal of Judas. Looking purely at language, the english equivalent Heaven On Their Minds instantly paints Judas as much more of a faithless doubter- lyrics exclusive to the english version like “all your followers have gone blind / too much heaven on their minds” and “they think you’re the new messiah / and they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong” strongly enforce Judas’ main motivation for his actions being that he has less belief in Jesus and God’s plan than any of the other disciples with strong statements judging the other disciples for following him and claiming that Jesus ISN’T the messiah. The swedish translation doesn’t paint exactly the same picture- the focus of Judas’ number becomes his fear for Jesus’ wellbeing, not because he isn’t the messiah (the production remains fairly ambiguous on this point), but because Jesus can’t cope. The root of Judas’ concern comes from fear for Jesus’ wellbeing, and the disciples are referenced as regularly misunderstanding and wilfully twisting Jesus’ words. The swedish equivalent lyrics for the above examples are “they say, “jesus is god’s son” / but you know how people can change” (judas isn’t concerned with truth, just the danger that jesus will be in if the tide turns), and “the kingdom of heaven is within us, that’s what you said / bu they sew it, stitch by stich into some kind of foggy heaven’s dream”. Judas is showing that he HAS been listening and cares for Jesus’ teachings, but ‘they’ [his disciples] are turning them into something else entirely, and Judas’ worries that the support of the masses is fragile at best- the lines “and everything you say gets twisted by your lackeys / it will be anything but what you’ve said” and “you are being used by people who want you in their battle” reinforces this again. When combined with Peter Johansson’s tough but tender performance, in which he dances between disdain for Jesus, the institution, and affection for Jesus, the man (an important distinction), Judas is the harsh realist doing his best to look out for the man he loves. The way he takes Jesus hands and looks at him with love and urgency straight away establishes that his motivations are pure- Judas is doing what he thinks is best, even though it feels like no one will listen to him.

That was long, but En Dimmig Himmelsdröm is the perfect character introduction for Judas. He’s not totally unrecognisable, still delivering digs about ‘Jesus, the little carpenter’s son’, his manner is still rough and at this point we’re not sure whether or not the claims he makes about the disciples have any truth to them, BUT we can also see how much Jesus means to him, an important point that give context to the intensity of their future arguments and really makes the whole story much more heartbreaking.

This brings me to Ola Salo’s Jesus. Delightfully camp and queercoded, Judas describes him as being caught up in his own magic and mystery and buckling under the pressure, and he’s not entirely wrong. Throughout the first act, Jesus basks in the luxuries that being messiah can give him (the oils Mary paid for using disciple funds that were supposed to go towards helping the poor, him absolutely thriving in the shopping cart in What’s the Buzz?), and is shown actively avoiding any reminders of the seriousness of his position. He’s sick of the disciples asking him for a plan, he chooses the comforting Mary, who’s theme consists of telling Jesus everything is okay and he doesn’t need to think about anything, over Judas, who is less perhaps ‘cosy’ but is actively trying to warn and protect Jesus from an awful fate. During The Temple, he starts to crack as he’s overcome by the followers begging him to make him well, fear in his eyes as he raises his arms while frozen on the spot trying to avoid being devoured by the frenzy in desperate need of a messiah. Judas’ point about Jesus buckling under the pressure is starting to look more and more reasonable, and the dashes of showbiz campness add to the sense that much of Jesus is a persona constructed for the masses to give himself enough distance to prevent him from being crushed by the weight of God entirely. Jesus, the institution, prances around, lays his hands on his followers, and projects an air of easygoing calm. Jesus, the man, is scared and alone, and Jesus, the man, really comes out in Last Supper, but before we get there, I want to circle back to the Jesus/Mary/Judas thing.

Jesus, Mary, and Judas are presented as a love triangle: so much so, that Judas seeing Mary sing of her love for Jesus (I Don’t Know How To Love Him) is actually played as the inciting incident that sends him to the pharisees. Judas, the picture of the jealous lover, storms onto the scene, breaking them up and attempting to kiss Jesus, who instead shoves him to the ground in disdain. Judas, who is perhaps a little controlling, realises that any influence he had over Jesus has gone, and it’s likely a combination of jealousy and the knowledge that Jesus won’t stop that prompts him to head to the pharisees. In his meeting with the pharisees (known in english as Damned For All Time, although that phrase doesn’t appear once in the swedish), Judas’ expresses outright that “I’m the one who sees / Jesus, he can’t handle it anymore” “the truth is that this hysteria is making him lose control”, once he can get past explaining how much this plan of action feels like a last resort. He never even verbally or physically accept the pharisees’ offer of money, he denies it twice before it is eventually thrown over him after he reluctantly gives them the date and time to find Jesus- we never even see him pick it up, unlike other productions which show Judas grabbing for the cash and place a higher emphasis on Judas making sure he ‘won’t be damned for all time’, painting Judas as far more self serving. When it comes to Jesus, Judas is active- he’s running around trying to help, caressing him, embracing him, grabbing his hand, kissing him. They share countless moment of intimacy, especially at the start, establishing the fondness between them instead of instantly jumping to their conflict. When it comes to Mary (and admittedly, this is partially because she’s a secondary character- don’t get me wrong I still love her and Gunilla Backman does a brilliant job), she’s much more passive. Other than the much more gentle kisses in I Don’t Know How To Love Him and her penchant for dabbing Jesus’ forehead, she’s mostly just ‘there’. She cares for Jesus after the fact, and even when performing acts of intimacy like the oil and the kiss, she maintains a lot of physical distance- her songs touch on this as, much like Jesus (admittedly for different reasons), she actively distances herself from feelings to protect herself, so naturally she literally places distance between herself and the object of her love.

This brings me back to Last Supper, Gethsemane ( I Only Want to Say), and the kiss of death that broke all of our hearts. Throughout this segment, this is when Jesus, the man, really comes through, and it’s devastating. In Last Supper, he properly expresses the sheer amount of loneliness he feels, reiterating how he feels everyone will forget about him once he’s gone, and doesn’t really care about him as a man (”for you, my blood is not worth more than wine / for you, my body is not worth more than bread” “you will have forgotten me as soon as i give up my life”). This devolves into the disciples fighting each other and, you guessed it, ignoring him. For the first time, Jesus meaningfully lets out his anger, and as it turns to Judas, Judas does the same. Because of the set up of their complicated romantic relationship and the stakes involved, the amount of personal attacks and anger that comes out of Jesus and Judas’ repeated fights (which get physical) make complete sense- Jesus’ frustrations come from the fact that his entire fate has been predetermined and to him, Judas is just another instrument in the ways he’s been controlled (both with Judas being his betrayer, but also the way that Judas’ constant advice and interference with Jesus’ life (most obviously, the mary thing) are acted by Ola Salo as becoming increasingly frustrating to Jesus)- these frustrations are directed at their real cause, God, in Gethsemane. Judas’ frustrations come from the fact that no matter how hard he tries to help Jesus and keep him safe, Jesus keeps rejecting his efforts resulting in “all that we’ve built up [being] destroyed”- Judas’ heart hasn’t just been broken by Jesus rejecting him romantically, but on every level. Here, he’s actually shown to be the disciple most passionate about helping people practically and long term, being the only one concerned about Mary taking money which was supposed to help people, manipulated by the pharisees with the promise of doing good for the masses, and criticising Jesus for how they could be doing so much for people, ending his part of Last Supper with “every time i look at you i ask myself why you let all your things go so wrong? / all i ever wanted was to help you”.

This is also the point where Judas’ claims about the disciples are essentially confirmed, and this productions intent to portray Judas as more of a tragic hero become absolutely clear. In the english version, the disciples chorus remains virtually the same each time it appears, generally being far too calm considering their leader is about to die, revealing their aspirations to be apostles, and their intent to write the gospels to be remembered. the swedish translation still achieve this, but with variations from chorus to chorus it becomes much more poignant. i’m just going to stick to ttwo, which are choruses 1 and 3. In chorus 1, lines roughly translate to “i’ve always wanted to be an apostle / life is so nice when you’re saved/ then when we’ve got time we’ll write the gospels / then everything will be the way we want”- the apostles declaring that life is so good when you’re saved supports Judas’ opening statement that they care more about some idea of heaven than anything else, not to mention ignoring the absolute horrors that Jesus will have to go through to be saved, while the final line about the gospels introduces their intent to change whichever details they need to make ‘everything the way we want’: once again, exactly what Judas warned us of in En Dimmig Himmelsdröm. In chorus 3, taking place after Judas storms out for the last time, these lines change to “never really liked that judas / never saw what jesus saw in him / then, when we’ve got time we’ll write the gospels / and we’ll angle it so he gets all the blame”. Judas as a sympathetic character is confirmed here, as the disciples straight up admit how they don’t like Judas anyways and intend to write him as a villain (also inadvertently admitting that, since they have to write the gospels to make it look like only Judas’ fault, Judas isn’t really the sole one responsible for everything that is to come). It’s deeply unsettling, and for me was the point where I really began to question how good any of these disciples were, and by extension, how good is this production’s God if his truly sanctified followers are acting like this?

Jesus vents out all of his anger and desperation in Gethsemane. He acknowledges his own powerlessness and begs him to change the plan, but with the dark stage and no response (along with Ola Salo’s spectacular acting) it becomes clear that if anyone is there, they’re certainly not listening (”you, who have all the power / can you please change the plan / for i can already feel the pain burning in me”). It’s worth mentioning that a lot of the imagery in this swedish version is much more intense than the english, both in this song and the production as a whole. Jesus plainly calls god “thoughtless”, begging to understand, and it’s that this point we realise that he agrees with much more of what Judas has been saying than he’s been letting on- Jesus’ faith appears to be the only thing keeping him from listening to Judas and running away. Judas’ messages about people misunderstanding Jesus’ words also come out (”you care that everyone sees / but not that anyone understands”), and his eventual agreeing to die is played less as an inspiring act of faith, and more an act of desperation as he realises, he realise has no other choice. In this song, we see just how much of Judas Jesus has valued and taken on board, and that his air of carefree aloofness which frustrated Judas was, as we’ve already touched on, a complete act. The line “might as well finish what i’ve... what YOU’VE started” is absolutely miserable, reinforcing one of the major themes of this production: the idea that Jesus and Judas were both just ordinary men tormented by futures defined by forces out of their control. Just as Jesus has absorbed Judas’ logic, as an audience so we have, and it’s difficult to view the rest of the play’s events as anything other than an immense and unnecessary act of cruelty.

we’re almost done i promise!

Even knowing what Judas has/will do, Jesus still greets him with love. Judas, still under the impression that Jesus will be okay and that he’s doing what’s best, approaches him with the utmost tenderness, and the kiss is a beautiful signifier of two things. For Jesus, the return of his love for Judas shows his realisation in Gethsemane that Judas isn’t the one who’s sealed his fate and has only being trying to help, it’s god himself who has decided Jesus’ future. For Judas, the kiss shows that despite all of the anger and frustration that has been pouring out of him, he truly does love Jesus, and the way he cradles the scared and alone Jesus to his chest afterwards shows just how much he wishes he could be the one to help him and keep him close. Even with all their arguments and dysfunction, here Jesus and Judas find comfort in each other, and it almost seems like everything will end up alright. It’s in this moment that Judas and Jesus are most identifiable not as enemies, or as villain and hero, but as archetypal lovers from a Shakespearean tragedy. Neither of them set out to hurt each other, but through miscommunications, their own flaws, and external forces (both natural and supernatural), their love is simply never to be. Furthermore, in the following torture and spectacle, everything that Judas predicted for Jesus is about to come true. Another detail I find interesting is the way that Jesus and Judas both sport black nail polish, leather pants, and similar length hair: along with just looking cool as hell, the similarities really reinforce how close they are and how much they influence each other- it feels like a contemporary version of carrying a cameo or a lock of your lover's hair with you, a way for 'star crossed lovers' to keep a piece of their beloved no matter what.

The disaffected persona of Jesus, the institution, comes back as he’s taken by the authorities and subsequently insulted, degraded, and whipped. Also the swedish version of The Arrest, when the chorus starts singing questions, contains this dick joke and I think we all deserve it: “why were you dating a whore? / talk about a huge magic wand!”

Skipping forward to Judas’ Death, this is where both his character and the production’s conception of god beautifully (and miserably) align. When Judas runs to the pharisees, minor semantic changes (along with the genuine concern and great acting from Peter Johansson) reinforce that this Judas genuinely didn’t know that Jesus would be beaten and sentenced to death the way he has been, and Judas’ concern regarding how things look is played less as ‘oh no people will hate ME!’, but how having sentenced the man you love to death is one nightmarish thing, but for everyone to think you did it knowingly and willingly and then congratulate you for it is unthinkable. Where the english shows Judas’ attempting to evade responsibility for Jesus death, the swedish is more focused on Judas’ guilt, horror, and regret. The english “I’d save him all the suffering if I could / don’t believe our good / save him if I could” is swapped in swedish for “If anyone should die here I should / don’t say I’m good / better if I died”. While the english statements are somewhat empty (sure, Judas says he’d save Jesus’ suffering if he could, but he can’t so we’ll never truly know) and are still focused on Judas’ attempt to construct himself as a good guy, the swedish translation has Judas admit his guilt (even if it’s not really his fault), and make the promise of “better if i died” which, given the name of this sequence, he later delivers on. When english Judas sings “Christ, I’d sell out the nation / For I have been saddled with the murder of you”, swedish Judas sings “Jesus, I’ve been deceived / because of my act your blood’s now being spilt”, and instead of ending this first section with “I should be dragged through the slime and the mud”, swedish jesus returns to the theme of character assasination with “i will be cursed as the one behind your murder”.

The swedish translation of the next rework of I Don’t Know How to Love Him also places much more emphasis on Judas’ genuine romantic love for Jesus- we’d be here for hours if i listed everything but here are a few key contrasts. The english has Judas sing “I don’t know how to love him / I don’t know why he moves me”, whereas the swedish has Judas crying while singing “how do I show my love / all I want is to be close to you”. Along with acknowledging Judas already loves Jesus, the entirety of this segment is shifted from Judas singing about Jesus in the third person ‘he’, to a direct address. Judas isn’t performing his sadness, or venting his emotions, he’s emitting one last desperate cry to the man he loves as he sobs on a stage completely shrouded in darkness, and it’s devastating. Peter Johansson lets his voice run raw as he’s belting, and interrupts lines with sobs, and this Judas answers the question of “do you love me too? do you care for me?” with a quiet “no”- Judas is about to go to his death convinced Jesus must hate him, just as Jesus will face his knowing his love inadvertently put him there.

We finally reach Judas’ actual death, and the production’s far more ambiguous (if not negatively geared) depiction of god comes to a head. Judas’ screaming at god the moment he realises that his god essentially forced Judas to be the one to kill Jesus (an act of ultimate cruelty given their love) comes across as horrifying in it’s validity, unlike in other english language productions where it follows the more common characterisation of Judas being an unbeliever who can’t take responsibility for his own actions. When he spits on the ground, screaming “you have murdered me!”, we can’t help but agree- Judas was trying everything he could to stop Jesus from dying, and yet here he is. Most notably, Judas doesn’t set up his own suicide- a noose literally descends from the heavens, already tied, and Judas is literally trapped between the edge of the stage, and the symbol of death behind him. Much like he didn’t choose to kill Jesus, Judas has no choice in his own suicide- it’s suggested to merely be another part of the plan god has for him, and Judas raising his arms to form a crucifixion pose before he finally turns and jumps, disappearing into the depths of the theatre as the rope trails down (somewhat evocative of a leap to hell), highlight the sick joke. Much like Jesus begging in Gethsemane, a plea with god that in anyway implies fault or cruelty is met with silence followed by a death sentence.

When Judas reappears to the broken and bloodied Jesus in Superstar, he appears as more of a twisted hallucination than the literal spirit of Judas. He’s the opposite of everything he was in life, draped in colour, surrounded by red lighting instead of the signature blue, his hair quite literally let down, joking and dancing. Despite singing about him, Judas virtually ignores Jesus for the whole song except when he’s taunting him, snatching his hand away after a broken and desperate Jesus reaches out for the image of his beloved (refuting Judas’ belief that Jesus would die hating him), along with the swedish additions of Judas repeatedly addressing him as “little Jesus”. Where the living Judas was serious, sometimes harsh but always well intention, often paying more attention to Jesus than he received, this Judas is the opposite: light hearted but cruel, not caring about Jesus one bit. It’s somewhat an inversion of the beginning of JCS, where the tormented Judas was constantly reaching out to Jesus, and often met with scorn and insult (see: most of their arguments, this line from Everything’s Alright: “the thought is beautiful but quite unrealistic / yes, even quite stupid”). As the song goes on, and even as Jesus is crucified, the victorious scoring of the Superstar theme ends up reinforcing the cruelty and questioning of god distinctive of this production: Ola Salo’s Jesus is one of the bloodiest Jesus’s (Jesii?) I’ve been able to find, with blood covering his torso, his arms, and all over his face, not in passive dribbles, but violent ‘swooshes’ spreading out from his eyes, emphasising the fear and pain contained within them. As the music suggests how great and wonderful Jesus’ death is, the images straight out of a horror movie before us don’t seem to match up: as both Judas and Jesus question, if no one is understanding what Jesus is saying, why kill him? instead of making a point, you’re ensuring that the falsehoods continue to circulate, unless spreading the true message isn’t really the intent at all. or, simply that Jesus was wrong: his interpretation and teachings of god were far too kind and practical, and the true god really is the one that he briefly saw in the garden of Gethsemane, and that Judas saw before his death- a cruel and vindictive god using them for his own sick purposes. If you're a strong Christian, I'm sure you could watch this production and still believe that God was right (although I think Jesus and Judas being in love counts as blasphemy), but I think in doing so you'd lose part of what makes this production so hard hitting and, as i keep saying, devastating.

that’s pretty much it for this one! i feel like jesus and judas as a queer couple is less significant to this production than the fact that it’s specifically jesus and judas that are in love - they don’t face explicit homophobia as such, although i do think the paratextual and historical associations of queerness (both with them each looking visibly queer, and them as a couple) adds a beautiful dimension by subverting the standard christian teaching of Jesus’ sacrifice as “a love that changed the world” and making the love that truly could have been transformative (and was, to a degree) the love between Jesus and another man, not to mention the way in which queerness is often viewed as radical perfectly upholding the ‘radical’ views of god and the story of Jesus shown in the production. Why wouldn’t the love between two men be the love which has us questioning god, faith, and that which many of us have been taught since birth? Ola Salo has talked about how he’s able to be positive and negative towards christianity, along with how he wanted Jesus and Judas to really represent two sides of the same coin (’faith and intelligence’), and being bisexual along with having alluded to being raised christian (not to mention Breaking Up With God, a song by his band The Ark), it’s not surprising he’s managed to present such a nuanced and layered interpretation of Jesus Christ Superstar that even me, a trans exvangelical, can fall in love with.

UPDATE: @bands-and-hobbits has just let me know that Ola's dad was a priest! Apparently he's said that he liked the organs and the music, but that was all when it comes to christianity, which (when combined with Ola stating in interviews that the JCS soundtrack has been one of his favourite albums since he was 14) makes a lot of sense about the level of familiarity he had with the text giving him confidence to go in and make changes to really capitalised off of some of the themes that are hinted at in the english version- you have enough information to understand how everything works together, but aren't so dedicated to preserving belief that you feel you can't improve/change things (and my god are we glad he did)

#thank you if you made it this far!#also the inherent rhythm in swedish as a language just makes all of the songs sound better i'm gonna say it #english is really hit and miss when it comes to music and can get especially clunky with musicals requiring exposition #also sorry there's so much i've left out !#anyways enjoy #jesus christ superstar #jesus christ superstar swedish arena tour 2014 #jcs #peter johansson #ola salo #also i have barely edited this so i hope it's coherent

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unknowconcreteflower-art-blog-me · 4 years ago

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Re-contextualizing Angel Dust: Charlie was not ready for this...

And for the sake of warning Hazbin Hotel is an adult cartoon containing heavy dark subject matter (such as rape and drug abuse, that maybe trigger to views so please tread carefully. Warning out of the way on with the post! I also just wanna get this out there older post my analysis of Val and Angel people kept commenting “what Angel Dust isn’t in love with Valentino” and my rebuttal was “no no that’s a past Angel Dust a younger one who didn’t reach that level of abuse just yet” while their argument was “no it’s the current Angel Dust” which can’t be the case. To prove my point I would like to refer back to the comics and the music video and looking at it with the context of the show. And please read my previous post if you want more explanation on Addict.

I just want to start off with explaining his relations to Cherri, needless to say Cherri is someone who Angel sees as a true friend and confines in her. And she is there for him as he is for her even willing to fight for her knowing well that he will get in trouble for it. Though one has to wonder why is there such this deep love and care for each other. Looking back to Addict, where we have Cherri singing her “Yeah you fell in love and you fell deeper in this pit...” and several times we have an unknown character pop up during her part of the song. With the little snip bits of info we get from the sequence we can tell that Cherri is in the line of work because of someone who’s over her head. And what they have over is an emotional hold over her if we want to lean in on what the lyrics it might in a romantic sense be we still don’t know who it is tho. So what makes this so important to Angel Dust.

This is because she herself is in the similar situation as Angel as in the both of us are trapped in the holes we dug ourselves into. Giving Angel someone who can understand the stuff he’s going through. Cherri knows why he’s acting out because he’s just trying to hide how hurt he really is cause” hey so does she”. And knows she doesn’t have to say anything but just be there; and takes him out on a night out with her when he’s down. That’s why Cherri is so important to him she’s someone he know that’s not going to look down on him or patronize him on his actions. And his number 1# go to person; which is why he probably reveal to her that he wants to get clean because hey that’s what binds them together... This connects why he broke streak and his stopped his sobriety.

During the opening scene of the show we have Valentino texting Angel to do work right after the extermination. Which I also have to point out that Val showing a lack of care for Angel safety after the extermination. He clearly wants his money and is making Angel put himself out there for work. And what does he do after he’s done with the job; he falls back on drugs. Now this is important to note... remember during the News broadcast Charlie confirmed that Angel was clean for 2 weeks before all of this happened! He was doing so well what could have possibly made him break his streak-Valentino.

People were theorizing Val gave drugs to his employees meaning Val isn’t only his pimp but supplier as well! Giving the reason why Angel stayed with Val for so long; when I did my analysis of the music video Addict I said Val maybe the first one to find Angel when he first came to hell. Manipulating Angel in a weakened state to view him as a sort of savior and made him forget his sorrows and how did this happen you may ask... “drugs” using sweet words to mask his hidden agenda. So Val basically trained hims like a dog on a leash in a sense of “you’ll get a love & affection with a treat” which translates to “if you do this job for me I’ll give you all the love you were denied when you were alive as along with the drugs you’ve been craving”. I will argue that Val made Angel even more dependent on drugs; because he made it his number one coping method he’s the enabler. After Angel was assaulted and raped by Valentino probably made it even worse for him because Val’s his boss, he goes to work he has to see him... triggering him to fall back on to drugs. That’s why Angel needs his drugs and needs to numb himself, so him breaking his streak clean after taking a job from Val wasn’t coincidence back then.

“he’a been behaved, clean and out of trouble for 2 weeks now” until Val got to him...

This makes Val even more dangerous to Angel’s road to recovery than we could have ever imagined. No only that but it makes it difficult to tell someone about it as well Angel is afraid of him and has to stay in contact with him since he’s his employer. This would be good time to bring up my rebuttal for my case of Addict: I get. I identified that the Angel Dust in the beginning of the music video is a younger one that still has some love for before figured out he was using him and he stood up to Val (pre-trauma). And the Angel Dust at the end credits of the music video and the one in the comic is the current Angel Dust and show (post-trauma). When you look at the interactions with Val (via comic vs music video) they are clearly different hence the two different Angel Dusts!

I will be referring to the comics in this section so if you haven’t read them please do.

When Angel is in the limo with Val he’s trying to make it very apparent that he’s upset that he’s not getting any attention from Val. Being very huffy and puffy not even looking at him as Val’ counting his money, forgetting that he’s right there. This is very important because Angel doesn’t hesitate to hide his emotions, this Angel is willing to show discontentment in front of Val being angry and annoyed at him which leads up to why he doesn’t kiss want him and outright rejects him. He shows he’s willing to fight back against Val’s mistreatment and neglect of him, becoming more aware of it. In my earlier post I deduced this scene is where Angel first time he’s disobeyed Val and finally gets the full picture he understands he doesn’t mean anything to Val and he’s using him. He’s no longer willing to put up with his mind games anymore and probably would have left Val that night... which is why he raped him to gain control over Angel.

Music video vs. Comic scene

Now looking at the interactions Angel Dust has with Val are completely different he’s submissive to Valentino when we see his conversation in the limo. Not only that but it shows why Angel Dust went on that drug deal for Val; to show him he can do something else other than being a sex-worker. Angel wants out and this was his way of giving himself another option but Val shuts it down completely! Even before he entires, he’s holding his arm in fear and discomfort, even when he’s trying to plead his case he is terrified. He’s no longer willing to fight back because of what Val did to him. And Val reminds him constantly that he could do it again if he wanted to by reminding him of that night! He does this by grabs Angel face when he tries to explain himself, like he did when he forced Angel to kiss. Val forces him to smiles when he leaves the limo he wants him to never show any form of disagreement or disobedience like the last time because that’s what got him in trouble last. To add more salt in the wound he makes him Angel call him “Mister Valentino” reminding him he’s in control! The man is practical holding a gun over Angel saying “the same thing will happen, if you disobey me again...” AND THAT IS SADISTIC AS HELL! It making me hate Val even more and after he leaves the limo all he can do is let out his anger in silence as when he smokes similar to when we see him smoke at the end credits to Addict this Angel is our current Angel Dust. This is his way of expressing his sorrow in silence why he’s an addict.

So you maybe asking how does Cherri bomb come into play, well I don’t think after the initial incident with Val who does Angel confine to Cherri and destroy a bar together. You see the pattern; Angel has a break down, uses his drugs comes off of the high, he goes to Cherri and in turn go out, and have fun well her kind of destructive fun! And it has been confirmed that he learn all about weapons from Cherri so basically this is the reason why! He wasn’t breaking his clean streak “to do his girl buddy a solid” he went because he wanted to be with the only person who could understand him at that time. And she just happened to be in a fight and he jumped in thinking “oh my home girl’s in trouble I gotta help her out...” and that’s probably did out of instinct to protect Cherri. Charlie and Vaggie cut in... now things start to get a little dicey I’m not trying to attack them but they didn’t handle it this best way. They didn’t know anything, and before know Angels story a lot of people are upset with Angel’s action but now that we have context they’re (Charlie & Vaggie) in the wrong.

These are the points of why Angel cannot confine to Charlie or Vaggie, I will also argue that they pushed Angel further from them. Angel is someone who’s very prideful and isn’t going to tell someone that he’s hurt. Unless they figure it out for themselves or feels safe with them (Cherri). Looking back Vaggie & Charlie made a huge “No-No...” and this scene is incredibly painful to watch. Let’s cut to Vaggie how does she address Angel by scolding him for his actions she goes right to the blame game, which is the last thing she should be doing if they really want to help Angel. They don’t even take the chance to ask him why he did it; unintentionally isolating him from help.

What bother me is that Vaggie is quick to call Angel’s actions are a result of being “selfish” which is not the case now that we have context. And probably why Angel just kept trying to piss off Vaggie because he knows that his actions weren’t out of wanting be “selfish”... and makes it clear that he still wants to go clean. It probably actually really hurt him to when she said that and I’d like to point out that people who struggle with addiction it’s not easy to stay clean and people can relapse. Basically what Vaggie did was shamed Angel for relapsing which is not okay and paints him as a bad guy immediately! To say he ruined the image of the hotel ... it made me furious at Vaggie putting all the blame on Angel. And we know that’s not the case even before the fight was broad casted the demons and sinners in Hell were already laughing at Charlie’s idea and let’s be honest it was reasonable. Because WE DON’T KNOW IF IT’S POSSIBLE YET so putting all the blame on Angel Dust was uncalled if anything it’s just the cherry on top. I’m not trying to attack Charlie but she really doesn’t know what she’s doing she doesn’t know how to send a soul into heaven. Is it irresponsible to broadcast a client before they are proven successful, not only that but it puts a lot of pressure on Angel to prove theory that we’re not sure is true yet.

And let’s be honest did Charlie really believe Vaggie’s word’s wouldn’t but hurtful they didn’t even take the time to ask him why he did it; immediately writing him off when clearly somethings going on now she’s painting the image that they don’t care about him, they just care about the hotel, and that they just wanted to use him as a poster boy! Hmm... now who has used Angel Dust in the past for their own personal agenda... oh yeah VALENTINO! Which is why he goes on saying “I made you look sad and pathetic...” he chooses those words not to just make Vaggie mad but that’s probably what he was really feeling on the inside. Angel really did want to apologize to Charlie but after what Vaggie said to him it probably made him feel like his apology meant nothing and leaves these actions carry on into Addict. This is where naivety is her biggest downfall she rushed into it thinking just keeping Angel clean is gonna redeem him she was so not ready to broad cast the hotel. She makes it sound easy but it so much harder than that!

THIS WAS A 100% CALLED FOR! AND SHE DOESN”T EVEN REALIZE IT!

This is why Angel flips off Charlie and doesn’t want to talk to her, he’s basically doing cause “Why should I tell you about my problems you don’t really care you just care about your hotel...” that’s why this is so important to highlight. They already gave him that impression, that they think little of him and that they aren’t going sympathize with him but scold him. And Charlie should have stopped Vaggie yelling when she had the chance. Vaggie sabotaged her chance to understand Angel Dust and help him. And did she really think her temperamental girlfriend was the one to help sympathize and redeem sinners. If she really wants to help Angel Dust she needs to stop thinking it’s gonna be a cupcake walk, people have reasons why they fall to these bad habits; people have issues, relationships, traumas, that they need to navigate before they can heal. Which makes me believe that Charlie isn’t the one who’s going to get Angel Dust to open up to them about his trauma. Vaggie’s out of the question if not then who...

HUSKER

Yup our favorite flying poker kitty... I’ll do a separate post on that because it deserves it’s own explanation! (Side note I really do love Vaggie we don’t know her story so don’t hate her) Hope you guys enjoy the post~

#hazbin hotel #angel dust #valentino #hazbin hotel charlie #vaggie #Cherri Bomb #huskerdust #husker #hazbin husk #hazbin hotel addict #vivziepop

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meg-noel-art · 4 years ago

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Y'know I do agree that glimmadora should be a ship, they are meant to be with each other, like their love lasted more than catradora love, but I was thinking about this subject, so don't get me wrong, I love all ships and I love and respect everyone but I think that glimmer trusted shera then adora, now in the first episode glimmer was holding the sword away from adora who was a horse soldier, that she didn't trust her and didn't want her, she wanted power, even before seeing the sword she attacked adora, and she didn't give her chance only after she realize that they needed shera in the battle and she realized that she was good, so if it wasn't for shera, adora could have stayed in the prison unlike catra, catra saw her as who she was, and loved her for who she is not for what she do, let me know what you think about this subject, also if I said something wrong or hurt your feelings I am sorry I respect every chip :) 😍😍😍😘😀😁😅

I think you're wrong tbh

Glimmer didn’t start trusting Adora until she saw how she behaved in Thaymor. Not a spy, not a liar, a lost girl far away from the environment that had raised and brainwashed her into an army.

Glimmer didn’t trust Adora after she became she-ra to protect them from the spider thing. She snatched the sword back and refused to let Adora have that power again, until she saw who Adora was as a person.

And then she went back to rescue Adora from Catra (who was tazing her multiple times) and gave her a chance to prove she was willing to do good.

Not to mention Glimmer had verbatim lines later in like episode 4 where she says "She-Ra isn't the reason we like you" (everyone likes to forget that)

Idk if you wanna compare how Glimmer and Catra "care" about Adora -- sure seemed to me like Catra scowled and ran away from Adora in episode two when she saw her transformation into She-Ra and back into Adora.

Catra has always liked the IDEA of Adora. The concept of a friend who won't leave her side no matter what, a childhood companion that always catered to her jealousy, someone to push around to release the pain of her trauma.

Catra doesn't love Adora, she doesn't care about who she really is -- if she did, her entire issue in the show wouldn't have hinged on the fact that she was forever pissed off that Adora made a choice to be a good person and "left her behind".

Y’know.... Adora just BEING who she is.

I mean also, if you wanna argue Catra loves Adora but hates her She-Ra persona then that makes the ending awkward as hell considering Adora essentially fuses her identity as Adora WITH She-Ra in S5.

Which is also a point in Glimmer’s corner, who has always believed in her as Adora, and watched her grow as She-Ra. The narrative catharsis of having a character like Glimmer see and appreciate that fusion is far more powerful than Catra. Who outwardly hated one identity for 4 seasons, and inwardly hated the other.

I'll debate a bunch of aspects of c//a, but the argument that Catra "saw and loved her for who she was", no. I fully disagree with you. And honestly the context of the show does too.

Anyway, I'll clarify again on this post - my blog is not a catra/catradora safe space. Respect other ships all you want, but you will not find positive c//a analysis here and I've made many, many posts about my feelings on the ship.

With that information, please tread with caution, or do not follow my blog.

Thanks for the ask and have a good day 🙏

#wolfqueen-617 #asks #anti c//a #anti catradora #my only apology #is if i misunderstood your ask #otherwise no #fuck catradora #fuck catra tbh #she's a shitty person

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sylvyspritii · 3 years ago

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My opinions on RWBY

Hello everyone! So first of all, i'd like to start by saying that i am new to RWBY, i watched volume 1 in 2014, got bored, and never touched it again until a week ago, when i saw a random video on YouTube called "the fall of RWBY" and it got me curious, so i watched the first few minutes, and...i actually got very interested, so i stopped watching and decided to give volume 2 a try, i proceeded to watch a volume every evening for the rest of the week, and consider myself a new fan of the show now The following text will be quite long, so i will add a "read more" thingy very soon, but if you want to know my quick thoughts: tl;dr: RWBY is fun, flawed masterpiece, 7/10 (9/10 music) Time for the real meat of this text, press read more if you want! RWBY SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY

Still here? Okay good! Okay so, before we begin, i'd just like to clearly state that these are my personal, subjective, opinions, and that they are in no way, shape, or form, intended to be an attack on the RWBY creators, i respect the creators a lot for what they have made, and enjoyed RWBY as a whole, but because i fell in love with the series, i also have a lot of passionate things to say about what i think, so please remember that Also a little warning: i am new, so i don't know all the correct spellings of all the character names on top of my head, so please excuse me if they are wrong, i also know NOTHING about the fandom or "fandom drama", so please be gentle with me Like i said, i started watching RWBY volume 1 in 2014, but i got bored, because it was "yet another generic high school anime but with western 3D stuff", it didn't feel unique or interesting to me, and the characters (aside from Pyrrha Nikos) didn't strike me as interesting either, so i dropped it quite early on Then...a week ago, i saw this video in my recommendations (keep in mind i haven't interacted with any type of RWBY content for 7 years)

Those who know me know that i have a weakness for long YouTube video analysis videos, and when i saw this, i was just thinking "who is Ironwood? And why is RWBY still around? Wasn't that that weird bad 3D high school anime?" So i started watching the video, and i was really impressed with the character designs and environments, and what i noticed in particular was how well polished the 3D models and animation looked compared to other 3D "anime" series like The Dragon Prince for example, but what i found most curious of all was that the "RWBY gang" was not in a high school setting at all anymore, and i started asking myself questions about what could have happened to lead the show here, i got curious, so...i decided to watch RWBY volume 2 on Roosterteeth ...That was...alright? It was definitely fun, a lot of the fighting scenes had surprisingly amazing choreography, but what i noticed most of all, is how much the music fitted with everything that happened on screen, the music was (and was for all volumes) a big highlight for me, because i am not used to western 3D anime style animations having actual good music I started becoming more curious about the characters, they had much more personality than i remembered from when i first watched volume 1 in 2014, in particular, i started liking Weiss and Pyrrha a lot I started paying more attention to the lore as well, i started making my own theories and predictions on "what will this character do?" and "what will happen to them?", and overall, i started noticing that i was getting hooked (oh also Oobleck is the best teacher) Volume 3 blew me away. Where do i even begin? I was not expecting this "bad 3D high school anime" to surprise me positively THIS much The tournament characters were really fun, and i loved seeing what the show's world had to offer in terms of variety in powers and how they are used in battles, but what really blew me away is how many emotions i felt when shit started to hit the fan THEY KILLED MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER??? WHAT??? I DIDN'T EXPECT THEM TO HAVE THE GUTS TO DO THIS, AND IT WAS ACTUALLY HANDLED REALLY WELL AND DIDN'T FEEL FORCED??? I cried so much when Pyrrha died, and i REALLY started to feel invested in the show, like, holy shit, also, Ironwood is so badass, and i like how he actually gives the RWBY gang a choice if they want to fight or not, OH AND ALSO I REALLY LIKE CROW AND WINTER, and like, oh my god, that moment where Crow was fighting the robots and Ironwood thought Crow was gonna kill him and accepted his fate was such a cool character moment for both of them, showing so much with so little All things were adding up, and i started feeling like RWBY just went from a "shitty 3D high school anime" to something with real potential, i was hyped for what was next, and i couldn't stop watching anymore Volume 4 This volume was really great for worldbuilding I read that the original creator of the show passed away at this point, may he rest in peace Because of the death of the original creator, i feel like the show tried to start searching for a new direction on how to continue the show and expand on the world after the fall of Beacon, and honestly, i think they did this very well in volume 4, but unfortunately, the pacing was very slow, and i feel like they could have combined volume 4 and 5 in 1 volume maybe, but it's not terrible, i was just a little disappointed since it wasn't as hype as volume 3, but i also think that's perfectly understandable because not every moment in the show needs to be hype, and taking the time to expand and explain the expanded scope of the world's lore and story isn't a bad thing at all I think it's nice that we actually got to see a more vulnerable side of Yang in this volume, her traumatic experiences at Beacon are an important part of her development at this point in the story, and i think they made the right decision to slow things down for her at this point, we can't expect every character to react to everything the same (this is why i think it's okay that Ruby left quite early, because they are different

characters with different needs) Volume 5 was alright i suppose? And honestly volume 6 wasn't much to write home about But then. Volume 7. RWBY is the kind of series, i feel, that has very high highs, and very low lows, this is one of those very high highs Volume 7 tried so much, and it got so much right Volume 7 transformed one of the old characters, Ironwood, into a deeply complex morally grey character, and the build-up for this is done well since volume 2 I also really liked seeing Weiss stand up to her father more, and seeing Crow had a lot of REALLY great moments, i especially loved how Crow finally got more development in his way of handling people, and then, well...having Clover be killed was a very sad moment, but it didn't feel too forced, it was very sad for sure, but it wasn't out of character for Crow, in fact, i found the tragedy of the situation to be well written and it really showed the struggle between loyalty and personal feelings of the Ace Ops in general very well Trust is a very important theme of this volume, and we start seeing RWBY make many mistakes, making them seem less like heroes and more like more complex and interesting characters, this contrasts SO WELL with Ironwood, and the interactions between Ironwood (who is becoming more morally grey) and the RWBY team (which is also becoming more morally grey because of all their lies, betrayal, and theft) was always such a pleasure to watch, i became more and more invested, and then THE MUSIC Jeff Williams, the main composer for RWBY, knocked it OUT OF THE PARK for volume 7, especially the vocal battle themes are amazing (special shoutout to the Ironwood VS Watts fight, those lyrics were INSTANTLY ICONIC, and i usually do not care at all about lyrics in any kind of music) Oh also the Ace Ops had cool designs Basically, if volume 5 and 6 were a bit of a letdown, 7 took the hype back full swing, and i couldn't wait for what was ne-- A tragedy; volume 8 Volume 8 is my least favourite volume of RWBY Ironwood's character development was assassinated, they turned him into a full on evil dictator, completely going against all of his principles and personality that was built up for FOUR SEASONS, when i saw this happen, i felt like maybe the writers didn't /intend/ to make Ironwood seem morally grey in volume 7, but maybe wanted to make it more of a classic "black vs white" morality conflict, which was...disappointing, considering the whole theme of Salem is that she is trying to divide humanity, and i see how that fits in with the writers turning Ironwood evil, but that's it for me, it feels like that's a thing that "the writers" wanted, not something that Ironwood, the character that they have been developing for so many seasons, really was like, it was disappointing and felt very forced and rushed. What also really disappointed me is how much the show decided to play up Crow's longing for Clover, who was killed in volume 7 with, honestly, quite a good arc, but in volume 8, it feels like Clover's death meant way more to Crow than it did in volume 7, even implying that Crow was romantically interested in Clover, which i find disappointing because that would make Clover's death a case of the trope "bury your gays", i didn't feel like this was the case in volume 7, so i found it odd how much they decided to emphasise Crow's feelings about him in volume 8, it felt out of character in a way too Speaking of LGBT+ representation, i feel like the show has a big lack of that, and when it does, it often feels really quick and unimportant, which, isn't a bad thing per se, it is a "beat up the bad guys" type of show after all, there is not that much emphasis on things like relationships after volume 3 at all, only implications that something "could happen" at best (keep in mind i am LGBT+ myself) It's just surprising, for a show that was made in the west, and full of colourful characters, with a (from what i heard) big LGBT+ audience, to have so few LGBT+ characters, and when it tries to "hint" at characters being LGBT+ (like Blake and Yang) it still feels

very vague and unsure, kind of like Korra and Asami in Legend of Korra (but in Legend of Korra they at least made it clear in the comics, which i loved), basically my main problem with RWBY's at LGBT+ representation moments is just that i wish it was much more visible But hey at least Winter was super badass in volume 8, and they didn't ruin her character or principles, that was fun, i like Winter, and i can't wait to see more of her in volume 9, i hope she will get a lot more interaction with Weiss So basically Yeah, i'm a RWBY fan now, i enjoyed it overall I think RWBY is a flawed masterpiece with very high highs and very low lows, the superglue that sticks it all together is the fantastic 9/10 music work by Jeff Wiliams, which is always able to tie a scene together with music that never feels unfitting or unwelcome, with some very unique chord and key choices, i can safely say that RWBY music often really positively surprised me with the directions it dared to go, and when it stayed safe, it didn't do so in an annoying way, ever, and let's not forget about the great character and environment designs, the story is a mixed bad, but even though it's not perfect, i found it very enjoyable, and i can't wait for more

#rwby #opinion #critique #rwby spoilers #volume 8 #rwby volume 8 #rwby8 #rwby critical #rwby criticism

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blackjacktheboss · 4 years ago

Note

Can you please elaborate on your last post about Sally? I’m not trying to be mean or anything I’m genuinely curious

Sure! I’ll put the rest under a cut and just say trigger warning for somewhat vague (nothing explicit about acts of violence) talk about abuse

Just to start, I want to make a few things clear:

I love Sally Jackson, I think she’s wonderful. This is not an attempt at a take down or to label her as a bad mom. I just think it’s important to talk about the complexities that exist within her story.

I’m 27 and work with teens and parents so my analysis is coming from a social work lens. If you don’t like nuance, I would not suggest you continue reading!

Just to drive it home: it is not important to label anyone as bad, i just wanna... talk about some things

Sally is a book character! This analysis has been a part of my own processing of the series as an adult re reading media I loved as a kid, but it’s also important to remember that even though fiction reflects real life, it’s still fiction.

And to bounce off of that, Sally, again, is a book character, and a side character at that, so any attempt at analysis of her is always going to be seriously limited by the source material. I understand that and have taken that into account.

So in my post I say Sally is parenting from a place of survival and that’s about the fact that when someone is in an abusive relationship, they are making decisions based on what’s going to keep them alive and keep their immediate environment as benign as possible. Sally kept Percy close to her because in her mind, him being a demigod meant him leaving her forever and on top of living a life she wasn’t enjoying, the thought of losing him was too much. Is this completely understandable? Of course it is! Is it a good parenting decision? Definitely not. Boarding school was Sally’s middle road where she felt like she was keeping Percy out of a bad home environment for the majority of the year but he would still be coming back to her eventually. Her ultimate priority wasn’t Percy’s safety but rather her own comfort because again, she was struggling so much personally not having him would just be too much to bear.

Here are a couple examples of that from The Lightning Thief:

“I’ve tried to keep you as close to me as I could,” my mom said. “They told me that was a mistake. But there’s only one other option, Percy-- the place your father wanted me to send you. And I just… I just can’t stand to do it.”

“My father wanted me to go to a special school?”

“Not a school,” she said softly. “A summer camp.”

My head was spinning. Why would my dad -- who hadn’t even stayed around long enough to see me born -- talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn’t she ever mentioned it before?

“I’m sorry, Percy,” she said, seeing the look in my eyes. “But I can’t talk about it. I -- I couldn’t send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good.”

“I’ve been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me.”

These moments just highlight that Sally wasn’t in a good place and that seriously impacted her ability to make healthier parenting choices! Had she been maybe able to support herself and Percy or if she had been in a healthy relationship, she may have made the choice to send him to camp sooner because she wouldn’t need him for comfort/support but because that was her motivation, she puts Percy in an unhealthy home where abuse is taking place (whether or not she believes he is directly the victim) and also subjects him to countless boarding schools where he felt undervalued and disposable. So yeah.

Life is complicated and shit happens but her duty was to Percy above all else and she wasn’t in a place to honor that, is the ultimate point.

#Sally Jackson #the long awaited sally 'discourse' lol #I'm sure it's disappointing after all the build up but what can you do #we love empathy and nuance over here!

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astrognossienne · 3 years ago

Text

tragic star: keith moon

“If you don't like it, you can fuck off!” - last words of Keith Moon

This one was a long time coming, but frankly, it took me a while to get interested enough in the subject to actually do this analysis, let alone finish it. At any rate, Keith Moon, like most of the drummers from the rock ‘n’ roll period that we still read about today, led a self-destructive lifestyle. A close friend of his once said the drummer was “like a train ride you couldn’t stop.” Not only was his drumming chaotic – so was his life. According to some, he was at his core a kind and generous soul, but to others, he was lost, lonely soul, and terribly immature throughout his adult life. Perhaps it was the sudden success, upon joining the rock band The Who, when he was only 18 (although plenty of others of the same era were as young, or younger, and survived just fine), but Keith was so eager to please and make everyone laugh that he eventually became the “Moon the Loon” character that he was portrayed as in the media. It got to the point where he wasn't sure who he really was. A true Leo, he made a circus out of everything and he wouldn't walk into any room and just listen. He was an attention seeker and he had to have it. He used amphetamines, tranquilizers, drank way too much alcohol, destroyed hotel rooms and friends’ homes, threw TVs into swimming pools, set fires, and the list goes on. He was ultimately unable to outrun or outlast his demons; whether it was the wife and child he drove away, the friend and chauffeur he accidentally killed in early 1970...whatever else haunted him, it ultimately caught up with him just as he was finally trying to improve his life. Friends were well-acquainted with the many sides to Moon’s strange personality; one minute he was insulting, exaggerating, joking – the next minute he’s a wide-eyed, innocent-looking drummer boy. The public Keith Moon was The Who’s manic drummer and hellraising, daredevil comedian; a man who only ever lived in the moment. However, the real Keith Moon was a son, a brother, a father and a deeply insecure man. A man of extremes, his was a complete shitshow of a life.

Keith Moon, according to astrotheme, was a Leo sun and Cancer moon (the moon is speculative). Moon was born to working class parents in Wembley, London, England. He was a hyperactive child by nature and a mediocre student at school. His art teacher said in a report: "Retarded artistically. Idiotic in other respects". His music teacher wrote that Moon "has great ability, but must guard against a tendency to show off." At the age of 12, he had joined the Sea Cadet Corp and was given his first musical instrument, the bugle. He left school by 15 and was in his first band, The Beachcombers. While performing with the Beachcombers, he used to attend concerts of a band called The Detours. At that time The Detours were planning to sign a deal with Fontana Records and for this deal, this band required a new drummer. The Detours changed their name to The Who in 1964. When Moon learned about the band’s need for a new drummer, he approached them for an audition. After the audition, he became their new drummer, and performed with The Who for the first time in 1962.

From the moment he joined, musically the band was complete, although adding his already volatile personality to those of the other three equally headstrong members meant that the early years of the Who's career were fraught with drama and violence, despite their almost immediate success. Much of the tension came from the fact that Keith readily joined in on popping pills with guitarist Pete Townshend and bassist John Entwistle, while lead singer Roger Daltrey (with whom Keith was never particularly close) didn't. After sacking Roger for two weeks in mid-1965, he was reinstated, band relations improved, and the Who continued to release a string of successful singles and albums before a downturn in their fortunes in 1968. However, the release of the album Tommy in 1969 turned them into international megastars overnight and from that moment until the day Keith died, they would remain one of the top rock bands in the world. Running concurrently with the Who's rise to stardom in the 1960s was Keith's relationship with his wife Kim. She first met Keith in 1965 when he was 19 and she 15, and while they fell in love rather quickly, he exhibited twin streaks of jealousy and insecurity and Moon was occasionally violent towards Kim. While his mental issues, which would now be readily (and correctly) diagnosed as a combination of ADHD and BPD, reared their ugly heads on innumerable occasions, Keith's true personality shone through enough that Kim stayed with him; she decided to marry him when she became pregnant within a year of dating, and they got married in 1966. Their daughter Amanda was born on 12 July. In those days, there was a belief that married rockstars with kids weren’t as appealing to their mostly female fans, and the marriage (and child) were kept secret from the press until May 1968. He loved his daughter, but his absences due to touring and fondness for practical jokes made their relationship uneasy when she was very young. "He had no idea how to be a father", Kim said. "He was too much of a child himself."

The chaotic sixties would not hold a candle to what the new decade had in store for him, however. Shortly after New Year’s in 1970, Moon accidentally killed his friend, driver and bodyguard, Neil Boland, outside the Red Lion pub in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Pub patrons had begun to attack his Bentley; Moon, drunk, began driving to escape them. During the fracas, he hit Boland. After an investigation, the coroner ruled Boland's death an accident; Moon, having been charged with a number of offences, received an absolute discharge. Those close to Moon said that he was haunted by Boland's death for the rest of his life. Moon had nightmares about the incident and said he had no right to be alive. Also, compounding this tragedy, was the fragile state of Moon’s marriage. Even after marriage and his daughter being born, he was still jealous, self-centered, and abusive to his wife Kim, both verbally and physically. His mental state also deteriorated as his appetite for all manner of pills escalated and he exploded into a full-blown alcoholic. Even after separating for a year, Kim returned to him, hoping that he had finally changed, but the insane lifestyle Keith kept up at their house became too much. Kim and Amanda (nicknamed “Mandy”) finally left for good in 1973. Since his marriage was a central part of Keith's life, their divorce would come to affect him perhaps more than any other event in his adult life and it was a devastation Keith would never recover from. While most people would use an event like this as the impetus to clean up their act, Keith used it instead as an excuse to drive himself further into oblivion.

Moon's lifestyle began to undermine not only his health but his career. During the 1973 Quadrophenia tour, at the Who's debut US date, Moon ingested a mixture of tranquilizers and brandy. During the concert, Moon passed out on his drum kit during the song "Won't Get Fooled Again." The band stopped playing, and a group of roadies carried Moon offstage. After he was given a shower and an injection of cortisone, he was sent back onstage. Moon passed out again during "Magic Bus," and was again removed from the stage. The band continued without him for several songs before Pete Townshend asked, "Can anyone play the drums? – I mean somebody good?" A fan in the audience, who happened to be a drummer, came up and played the rest of the show. During the opening date of the band's March 1976 US tour at the Boston Garden, Moon passed out again over his drum kit after two numbers and the show was rescheduled. By the mid-1970s Keith was living in Los Angeles and getting up to even more insanity with John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, and other stars. Even a new love in his life, Swedish model Annette Walter-Lax, couldn't get him to slow down and take control. There were even stints in psychiatric wards after some mental breakdowns brought on by his despair at losing Kim and his daughter and his drinking. His alcohol and drug abuse was now not only affecting his health (he put on a significant amount of weight at this time due to infrequent gigging) but sadly, his drumming. In 1978 soon after he recorded Who Are You, his final album with The Who, depressed by the deterioration of his drumming and threats from the rest of the Who to clean up his act or else, that he finally decided to get some help. By the summer of 1978, he seemed to be trying to get his life in order, staying sober and solidifying his relationship with Annette. He was terrified to go into rehab or under psychiatric evaluation, however, and instead self-medicated with Heminevrin, a drug used for treating acute withdrawal from alcohol. However, he took too many on his final night and sadly died on September 7, 1978 at the age of 32.

Over forty years after his death, it's still difficult to think of Keith Moon as anything more than just a hard-drinking insane rock star who would smash his drum set on stage or destroy a hotel room. But regardless of the human being behind the drumkit, the legendary drummer should be remembered as the man who forever changed the sound of rock 'n' roll.

Next, I’ll go back to my beloved star analyses by covering a personal favourite of mine; a force of nature and an unsung pioneer of cinema whose death was ridiculously sensationalized and whose colourful life was almost as wild as Moon’s: Cancer Lupe Vélez

Stats

birthdate: August 23, 1946*

*note*: due to the absence of a birth time, this analysis will be even more speculative.

major planets:

Sun: Leo

Moon: Cancer

Rising: unknown

Mercury: Leo

Venus: Libra

Mars: Libra

Midheaven: unknown

Jupiter: Libra

Saturn: Leo

Uranus: Gemini

Neptune: Libra

Pluto: Leo

Overall personality snapshot: He may sometimes have wanted a safe, simple life where he felt emotionally contained and able to pursue his own creative interests. Then, however, the compulsion to strive for a more central, leading role reared its challenging head, and he knew he had it in him – so out into the spotlight he went. So immense was his creative energy as well as his warm feeling for others that he could become both the artistic home-maker and the home-loving artist/writer/entrepreneur. His personality was large and welcoming, colourful and theatrical because he had such an uncanny knack of dramatizing his vivid impressions and selling himself in the most genuine, heartfelt way. Both the paternal and the maternal urge was strong in him. He needed to use his will to project and establish your identity in the world, and to use his instincts to nurture and protect his emotional and material security. The Sun and the Moon are in their ‘home’ signs here, so that potentially he had the creative vision of Apollo and the lunar wisdom of Diana all rolled into one. This could make him pretty overpowering at times, and indeed he needed a partner and a family on whom he could lavish his emotions. His bearing was often aristocratic, sometimes haughty, oversensitive and self-absorbed, but he always seemed to have enough affection to go around so that no one felt left out. He also managed to remain approachable and compassionate because he was so aware of his own vulnerability and need to be loved. Thus he made a warm and understanding friend, and he enjoyed expressing his feelings with original flair and thoughtfulness.

He was protective, possessive and clannish, a stalwart member of his family, group and nation, and utterly devoted to his ideals. Deeply honourable and dependable, he brought an attitude of devotion and romantic style to all he did. He may have actually had a good head for business because he possessed an instinctive knowledge of security needs as well as a shrewd understanding of people, their desires, fears and foibles. His refined taste for comfort and beauty was part of the impetus for success – he knew his own mind and did not easily budge from his preferences and high standards. Aesthetic sensitivity was strong, and combined with his innate tenacity and quiet ambition means that he was quite successful in the arts. Even though he readily turned a bright face to the world, he did not always feel confident and strong. He had a lively sense of individuality, but his potency was sometimes too dependent on emotional familiarity, and the range of his self-expression too circumscribed within repetitive emotional patterns. Inwardly he shied away from encounters with the big, bad world, and early in life he may have needed to find ways of handling challenges that normally push the panic button. This wouldn’t have been hard for him because his creative drive was tremendous and his individuality needed recognition.

He was ambitious, sound at giving orders, carried responsibility well and was a good teacher, especially able to bring out the best in children. He believed in herself and generally knew the right thing to say at the right time, although he could show a stubborn and dogmatic side. He had a high opinion of his mental powers, and it was certainly true to say that he had plenty of mental energy. He was quite sociable and expected other people to behave well at all times. He was eager for close personal relationships, so he tended to have a wide circle of friends. Self-indulgence was a problem for him, as was laziness and conceit in relationships. He tended to be impatient with superficial details, preferring large-scale situations, and he disliked being tied down by obligations over which he had little control. Conservatism may have affected his creativity, artistic values and love affairs. This expressed itself as self-imposed restrictions or as selfishness. He often felt inadequate, which created an insidious form of oppression over all his forms of expression. He could also take herself so seriously, that people think that he was older than his years.

He was part of a generation that was strongly interested in humanitarian ideals, new avenues of communication and progress in mechanical skills. As a member of this generation, he was able to bring original ideas to both his career and spare-time interests. Crises in thought and ideology arose because he looked beyond tradition and old attitudes towards new original and inventive ways of looking at things. His active mind tended to need constant stimulation and his tastes could be quite fickle and difficult to satisfy. He belonged to a time of peace-loving idealism when the family unit and the way relationships were managed underwent great changes. He could be too idealistic and a little unrealistic when it came to matters of love, sex and romance. As a member of this generation, he tended to need to be motivated to make the most of his potential, because the line of least resistance appeared very attractive, especially when it involved pleasure-seeking. He embodied the Libra Neptune generation in the sense that he was a huge part of a time when beauty reappeared in fashion. He was part of a generation which was highlighted by the clash between authoritarianism and individualism. As a member of the Leo Plutonian generation, he wanted freedom in his relationships and demanded the loyalty of his friends as a right. As a member of this generation, he wanted power over his own life and was prepared to challenge established structures. He didn’t feel comfortable being dictated to, unless he in some way agreed to it beforehand. He was a part of excesses of the sixties. He was part of a generation that brought about a revolution in forms of entertainment, recreational activities and leisure time, as well as attitudes towards children.

Love/sex life: He was a lover so in love with the idea of love that nothing else matters. At times his whole-hearted idealism made him too optimistic and too easily deceived by people who promised to fulfill his ideals and then renege but, as delicate and unworldly as his romantic fantasy may seem, it was remarkably durable. Though he may have been misused and hurt, he never lost his faith in the power of true love. Issues of the flesh were always secondary to him and he was apt not to give them much thought. If such urges must be satisfied, then so be it. If sex proved useful in reaching other goals, that was fine too. As long as sex did not intrude on his ideal of perfect love such physical inconveniences hardly mattered. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world did not agree with him on this point and, measured by their standards, his sexual behaviour may have seemed immoral or at least strangely naïve. He needed to learn to allow for such harsh realities even as he strove to create that grand idyll of perfect love.

minor asteroids and points:

North Node: Gemini

Lilith: Capricorn

Juno: Libra

Chiron: Libra

Vesta: Aries

Ceres: Aquarius

Pallas: Sagittarius

His North Node in Gemini dictated that he needed to prevent his idealism from influencing his thoughts to such a high degree. He needed to consciously develop a more clear-minded and analytical approach involving his thought processes. His Lilith in Capricorn dictated that he was dangerously attracted to women who had a scrappy plucky attitude hot-wired into their psyche. Against his better judgment, he liked to be around a woman who needed to be in control and to be mistress of her own destiny, because her life was in the control of not-so-well-meaning others as a child. Juno in Libra, he sought a mate who was harmonious, artistic, musical and intelligent. He liked beauty and balance at home. He believed in equal partnerships where all lived up to the letter of the law. Chiron in Libra, he often felt wounded in relationships and could wound others in retaliation. He may have felt he was constantly hurt or rejected in relationships. Through learning that he was whole on his own, he could have freed himself from this destructive pattern. He would have benefited from a partner that could have helped him heal in some way. Vesta in Aries, he was incline to initiate work for religious and humanitarian projects. Action came from a desire to improve every situation. There was a great deal of insecurity in self-evaluation. Ceres in Aquarius, at his best, he had tact and the ability to compromise, making him well liked by all. Pallas in Sagittarius, he had the ability to evaluate true personal worth enabling him to use his resources in the most advantageous ways. Other people may think he was lucky. Ideally speaking, he could have been generally positive instead of being wasteful, and he could have been confident and reliable. Nonetheless, he still used his ideas in a practical way, especially in his career.

elemental dominance:

air

fire

He was communicative, quick and mentally agile, and he liked to stir things up. He was likely a havoc-seeker on some level. He was oriented more toward thinking than feeling. He carried information and the seeds of ideas. Out of balance, he lived in his head and could be insensitive to the feelings of others. But at his best, he helped others form connections in all spheres of their daily lives. He was dynamic and passionate, with strong leadership ability. He generated enormous warmth and vibrancy. He was exciting to be around, because he was genuinely enthusiastic and usually friendly. However, he could either be harnessed into helpful energy or flame up and cause destruction. Confident and opinionated, he was fond of declarative statements such as “I will do this” or “It’s this way.” When out of control—usually because he was bored, or hadn’t been acknowledged—he was bossy, demanding, and even tyrannical. But at his best, his confidence and vision inspired others to conquer new territory in the world, in society, and in themselves.

modality dominance:

cardinal

He was happiest when he was doing anything new, and he loved to begin new ventures. He enjoyed the challenge of claiming territory. He tended to be an initiator—and a bit territorial as well. Also, he had a tendency to start more things than she could possibly finish.

planet dominants:

Moon

Sun

Venus

He was defined by his inner world; by his emotional reactions to situations, how emotions flowed through him, motivating and compelling him—or limiting him and holding him back. He held great capacity to become a part of the whole rather than attempting to master the parts. He wanted to become whatever it was that he sought. He had vitality and creativity, as well as a strong ego and was authoritarian and powerful. He likely had strong leadership qualities, he definitely knew who he was, and he had tremendous will. He met challenges and believed in expanding his life. He was romantic, attractive and valued beauty, had an artistic instinct, and was sociable. He had an easy ability to create close personal relationships, for better or worse, and to form business partnerships.

sign dominants:

Leo

Libra

Cancer

He loved being the center of attention and often surrounded himself with admirers. He had an innate dramatic sense, and life was definitely his stage. His flamboyance and personal magnetism extended to every facet of his life. He wanted to succeed and make an impact in every situation. At his best, he was optimistic, honorable, loyal, and ambitious. He loved beauty in all its guises—art, literature, classical music, opera, mathematics, and the human body. He usually was a team player who enjoyed debate but not argument. He was, at his best, an excellent strategist and a master at the power of suggestion. Even though he was likely a courteous, amiable person, he was definitely not a pushover. He tried to use diplomacy and intelligence to get what he wanted. At first meeting, he seemed enigmatic, elusive. He needed roots, a place or even a state of mind that he could call his own. He needed a safe harbor, a refuge in which to retreat for solitude. He was generally gentle and kind, unless he was hurt. Then he could become vindictive and sharp-spoken. He was affectionate, passionate, and even possessive at times. He was intuitive and was perhaps even psychic. Experience flowed through him emotionally. He was often moody and always changeable; his interests and social circles shifted constantly. He was emotion distilled into its purest form.