#probably just the standard effect of being worshipped as a genius

[galsinspace]

Most of the post is pretty mild imo, just a writer musing about the changes, but damn this last line is MESSY:

deleting a post you made twenty minutes ago is a timeless tradition in the hallowed halls of all women who have blogged before us and will blog after us. grrm welcome to the ranks queen.

[youreacowgirllikeme]

Objection

Note: I’m a sucker for AUs, so here is a Lawyer!Chris fic nobody asked for, the plot (or whatever) is veery loosely inspired by this book I’m reading atm (The Hating Game) and by the the fact that Chris talking about lawyer stuff is incredibly hot to me

Warning: swearing (a lot), smut, Chris bashing (for the story line, pls don’t take this seriously, I adore this man to death), NSFW, slight exhibitionism

Plus another warning, I am not a lawyer or trained in any other legal profession, so if there are inaccuracies in the way I used certain terms I am sorry

„Objection, your honor, this is hearsay!” you shouted, shooting a furious glance over to the defense table, and to the absolute menace standing in front of it.

Chris Cuomo. The most obnoxious, arrogant, loud-mouthed asshole you ever had the misfortune to meet in court. He was a senior partner at one of New York’s most prestigious law firms, specialized on getting their wealthy clients out of everything from tax fraud to outright corruption.

This man stood for everything that, in your opinion, was wrong with the justice system and this country in general. Everything about him screamed elitist, boarding school, frat boy, preppy rich guy that had everything handed to him on a silver platter. He flaunted his famous last name around whenever he had the chance and it got him right to the top of the business.

You, on the opposite, went to law school on a scholarship, worked your ass of and now practiced law working for the district attorney to prosecute and convict the very people Cuomo tried to kept out of jail to afford the ridiculous Upper East Side Penthouse he probably had. You tried to push the fact that he was one of the most brilliant lawyers you knew aside, because you just hated him. No respect, no admiration for his legal genius, he was the bane of your existence fair and square.

You clashed heads in court more than once, and by now he knew exactly how to rile you up, smug bastard. His current client was accused of tax and investment fraud of incredible extent, and there he was, trying to discredit your main witness in front of the jury with some ridiculous accusations about them having a personal vendetta against the defendant. You saw your case crumbling in front of you as the witness got tangled up in Cuomo’s relentless questioning, stumbling over their own words, their credibility shrinking with each minute.

He did what he did best, lulling in people with his charm and striking when they least expected it. And he always did it with his disgusting smile on his disgustingly handsome face. Yes, of course he had to be a hot, fit, well-built asshole, making your professional life miserable at every chance he got.

Sometimes, he even had the audacity to wink at you. In court. During a trial. You wanted to punch him in his perfect face more than anything else.

The judge disrupted your thoughts.

“Dismissed, Ms. Y/L/N, and mind your tone in my courtroom. And Mr. Cuomo, please keep your questions professional or this interrogation will be over.” The judge said, shooting the both of you a warning glance.

“No more questions anyway, your honor, I think the jury heard it all.” Cuomo said, and almost strutted back to the defense table. And with a look over to the jury, you knew he was probably right. They eyed your witness suspiciously, and you almost wanted to stomp down out of pure rage. The fucker just destroyed your chance for a swift conviction right in front of your eyes. You needed more time to gather new evidence, or this would be over.

“Your honor, the prosecution is asking the court for adjournment.” You said, trying your best to not let your frustration show.

“Granted, the trial will be continued tomorrow. Court is dismissed.”

You put the case files into your bag and practically stormed out of the court room, passing the defense table without as much as a sideward glance.

But he caught up with you in the parking deck of the building.

“You’re aware you can’t win this one, right, Y/L/N? It’s all circumstantial, even you should see that.” His smug voice suddenly said from behind you as you were just about to get into your car.

You whirled around, pulse hammering in your chest out of pure anger.

“This is unprofessional even by your standards, Cuomo, I’m not discussing this case with you in a parking lot. Now why don’t you get into this environmental nightmare you call a car and leave me the hell alone.” You hissed, pointing over to where his obnoxiously big SUV was standing.

“Don’t talk to me like that, Y/L/N, just because you can’t handle yourself in court.” He said, smirk still firmly in place. His hands were playing with the car keys, and you were mesmerized for a second by how large his hands were. They looked like shovels.

“Whatever you’re plotting in that weird little brain of yours, stop staring at me.” Cuomo said, actually sounding a bit unsettled. You snapped out of it and went right back into anger mode.

“Staring at you? God, you’re so fucking full of yourself, aren’t you, you condescending prick? Not everything revolves around you and your spoiled ass, Cuomo.”

“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to, girl?” he snapped, raising his voice now. You clearly got to him, and seeing a crack in his arrogant façade gave you a satisfying sense of triumph. You couldn’t stop now, even if his angry face was screaming danger.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, your highness, are you used to people worshipping the ground you walk on because you had the dumb luck to be born with the Cuomo name? Fun fact, nobody cares, you’re still an asshole, just with a fancy suit.” You really threw all caution away, and one look at Cuomo told you that you’ve definitely gone too far.

Because he was livid. There was a vein on his temple that was literally pulsating, his hands were balled to fists at his side and his blue eyes were so full of fury that you were scared to look directly at him.

He took two giant steps in your direction, backing you up against your car. You were caught, Cuomo’s giant frame in front of you with no way to escape his wrath.

You looked up at him, daring to meet his eyes directly. He looked at you like he was about to kill you. You tried to recall your fury from some seconds ago, but the heat radiating from his body and the way his huge arms had you trapped on both sides of your head were making it impossible for you to focus. Damn him for being so attractive. You wanted to fight him, but you also wanted to press yourself against his body and feel what was underneath that suit.

“You presumptuous little…” he spat, stopping himself before saying something truly insulting. He took a deep breath, and looked at you again. And then he saw it.

The way you were biting your lip, the way your pupils were dilated.

And he smiled, a cruel smirk that send shivers down your spine. He brought his face even closer to yours and dropped his voice.

“You know, I got really good at reading people, comes with the job, I guess. But you are making it so easy for me, Y/L/N, look at you?” His mouth was at your ear now, his hot breath tickling your neck.

“Do you really want me to leave you alone? Doesn’t seem like it to me.”

You could barely think straight anymore, you wanted to tell him to fuck off, but it just came out as an embarrassing, needy whimper.

He chuckled darkly, and goosebumps broke out all over your body. Why did this man, that you hated more than almost anyone else, reduce to a state of arousal you had never experienced before just by whispering in your ear? Your panties were already soaked, and he didn’t even touch you. With your last few functioning brain cells, you cursed your needy, weak body, before you tiled your head to the side, baring your neck to Chris mouth.

He breathed over your skin, teasing you without actually touching. You felt like you were going insane.

“Please.” You whispered.

“What? Use your words, darling.”

“Kiss my neck, touch me, anything, just do it, asshole.” You hissed, glad you were able to form a coherent sentence.

“So impolite.” He chuckled and pressed a kiss to the side of your neck before starting to suck lightly. You moaned softly and pressed your pelvis into his. You could feel his hardness through his slacks, his unaffected behavior was clearly an act, he was just as aroused as you were.

One of his hands went down to squeeze your ass hard, bringing another surge of wetness to your panties.

Seeing him getting into this gave you some of your courage back, and you started to grind against him, making him growl against your neck.

“Is that everything you got, Cuomo.” You asked, trying to rile him up a bit. You really enjoyed the way he was manhandling you, as much as it pained you to admit it. But his hands were wandering under your skirt now, so you might as well just go with it.

Your provocative behavior clearly had the desired effect on him, because he grabbed your waist in a bruising grip, spun you around and pinned you against your car, his erection pressing against your ass. He yanked up your skirt and tore off your panties, leaving your lower body completely bare.

By now, you were glad that you picked the parking spot on the top floor, because your two cars were the only ones left and no one would come up here at this hour to catch you, about to be railed against your vehicle by Chris Cuomo.

“My, my, Y/L/N, this really turns you on, doesn’t it?” You could hear his breathy voice from behind you, and then felt a thick finger slowly being pressed into your aching pussy, followed by a sharp intake of breath. “Fuck, you already are so wet for me.” Chris growled.

“Are you going to fuck me soon, or do I have to take care of it myself?” You asked, teasingly.

He swore under his breath and gave your ass a sharp slap, making you welp.

You heard the sound of his zipper, and the rustle of foil.

“You really brought a condom to court, Cuomo? Wow, you are even more shameless than I imagined.”

“Shut up.” He growled, and you did, because he lined up his cock and slowly started pressing into you. He was big, and you had to bury your face into your arm to muffle the obscene sounds coming out of your mouth at the feeling of being stretched like this. He bottomed out with a low moan, and immediately started a fast, hard pace, pushing you against your car with every move of his hips.

You turned your head around to look at him. His face was flushed, and his eyes were fixed on the sight of his cock sliding in and out of you.

The friction was delicious, and he was hitting a perfect spot deep inside you with every thrust. Your moans became louder and louder, and he pressed one of his large hands over your mouth.

“Be quiet, you don’t want someone to catch little Miss Righteous being screwed in the parking lot by big, bad Cuomo, don’t you?” he whispered in your ear between husky breaths, and you could only cry out against his palm as he was speeding up his thrusts. The idea of someone catching you here was as arousing as it was terrifying.

Suddenly, Chris other hand sneaked around you to press on your clit, hard, and you screamed into his hand as your orgasm hit you like a punch to the gut, your walls gripping his cock like a vice while he was still fucking you through your climax.

“That’s it, darling, come for me. Fuck.” He groaned, before suddenly going tense as he reached his peak as well, cock buried deep inside you.

You slumped against your car with a huff, and the brief glimpse you caught of your reflection in the window made you question what you just did even more. Not only did you have (amazing, mind-blowing) sex with the opposing lawyer, he also absolutely wrecked you, you looked like you just had the roughest night ever with your hair undone, your makeup smudged and your panties in shreds on the floor of the parking lot. You hastily pulled down your skit again and tried to fix your hair as much as possible to get a minimum of decorum back.

Chris was just disposing the condom into a nearby bin, already looking calm and composed again. You hated him for that, and for the broad, self-satisfied grin that was all over his face again. And still, your heart gave a little flip as he approached you.

“That was fun.” He smirked, “We should definitely do that again. But not today, I’m busy. See you in court.”

He started to make his way to his car, and there was definitely a spring in his step.

“In your dreams, Cuomo.” You mumbled after him but couldn’t suppress a smile. That was, until you looked into the side mirror of your car to check your makeup and saw the giant, purple bruise on the side of your neck.

“Cuomo!” you screamed. “Come back here right now, you imbecile, you gave me a fucking hickey!”

“Better wear a scarf then tomorrow!” he called, entering his car. “And don’t make plans for after the trial, I’m taking you to dinner to celebrate my victory. And I mean that.”

And with that, he drove off. And as much as you hated yourself to admit it, you were really looking forward to having dinner with this idiot. After you destroyed him in court, of course.

[kendrixtermina]

The Team Dynamics of the Three Houses

Essay time! =D

Part One: Team Makeup and Thematic Framework Blue Lions

Overarching Theme: Classic basic fantasy archetypes but with a dark twist (We have Prince Charming/ Guilt-ridden softboy standard-issue JRPG protagonist, Handsome Lech/Idiot Friend, Standoffish Rival, Gentleman Thief, Lady Knight, Sweet nice healer, Adorable spellcaster Girl, the Gentle Giant etc. )

Composition: Has the most people with crests, and the one guy with a naturally occurring major crest. Foreshadows how the crest obsession is particularly bad here, due to Faerghus’ harsh environment and a society that’s both religious and has a serious element of hero worship

History: Notably the most tight-knit group. Everyone knows each other already. It’s basically Dimitri, Dimitri’s longtime best friends, the daughter of Dimitri’s former instructor who heard lots of stories about him and her super nice BFF who gets along with everyone... and Ashe, who didn’t know the others until the academy, but since he is a honest sweety who loves cooking and knight stories, he hits it off with the others right away. 

Atmosphere: Everyone has kind of the same hobbies (cooking, handicrafts, weapons collecting, knight stuff) and a lot of history, some posters have remarked on missing the “family ambiente” in the other routes but since the bonds are stronger they’re also more charged, it’s also been said that it’s the group with the most inter-team drama, especially when you feature in their relatives - You have Dimitri’s whole character arc, all the family drama between the Fraldariuses and the Dominics, Ingrid’s hangups regarding poor Dedue etc.

As expected if you recruit any of them they’ll kinda have a hard time going after their old home, even the tsundere ones. 

The Leader’s position: For all that Dimitri’s friends refuse to drop his honorifics they really are his friends. They’re just all kinda polite with the obvious exception of Felix, and he’s largely tsundere. Despite the afore mentioned drama we see plenty of Dimitri just hanging out with his friends and even coming to them for help, he’s really just one of the bunch . 

Since Faerghus is in chaos everyone’s pinning a lot of hopes on Dimitri and it’s not like he’s completely unaware of that or doesn’t have the corresponding sense of duty, he’s always torn between that and his revenge plan which eventually just takes over. He pursues this entirely on his own, too, with not even Dedue knowing what he’s sneaking around the library for. 

How this “flavors” part one: Gives it a very “personal” touch. Faerghus, it’s culture, recent past and current state of chaos are fleshed out a lot (we learn plenty about the Alliance and the Empire but Claude and Edelgard have greater scope plans) and since a lot of the part I missions concern the instabilities in the kingdom they affect the characters directly. Basically since they’re more “regular” fantasy protagonists we gotta hit em all with the Drama hammer to keep things fresh. And that’s how it continues - They follow Dimitri because of personal loyalty (both toward him specifically, and because it’s in their culture), and Dimitri just wants to protect (or avenge) the people he cares about. 

How this Ties into The Themes: The Kingdom route eventually becomes very much a Power of Friendship story where they all stick it out with Dimitri in his time of need because he’s their friend and they want to be there for him and that makes a lot more sense if there was a big emphasis on friendship/ found family before that, and of course their friendship is what eventually helps him turn his life around. 

How does Byleth fit into this: Dimitri, like Hubert and Leonie, can be filed into the box of those who aren’t immediately awed by their heroic charisma. He doesn’t really get people who aren’t as outwardly expressive as him (eg. Edelgard) But unlike, say, Leonie, Dimitri has no settings between crushkilldestroy and stilted politeness and seldom expresses or responds to overt hostility most of the time. On the one hand there’s a side to him that’s a bit judgemental and vindictive, but that extends to himself too so he’s very ashamed of his flaws and is afraid that he won’t be accepted, so he projects outward that same acceptance that he likes to receive.

So the end result is that he goes out of his way to befriend Byleth, he encourages everyone to speak with them in a familiar manner, insists that they join the victory celebrations etc. Then of course he gets to see that they’re actually quite supportive and so in time they become, as Dimitri puts it “the heart of the group”.

By the time they find out that Dimitri ever disliked them, that’s long past. He’s a very high-empathy, emotional person so once he likes you he really likes you and will regard your troubles like his own. Some ppl might say that maybe the bond feels more special since it took longer to “earn”. He’s practically ready to swear a blood oath with them once Jeralt dies.  There’s an unappreciated Symmetry here like he goes through the trouble to ‘defrost’ them, and then they return the favor by supporting him through his difficult times when they perhaps get to see the ugliest side of him.

Further Dynamic Notes:

So you have a dynamic of working past/ understanding and accepting each other despite one’s flaws and differences. (whereas Claude and Edelgard are interested in Byleth right away, because they’re unusual, but in slightly different ways - Claude can kinda relate to the experience of sticking out itself but is still stumped by being unable to read them, whereas Edelgard sticks out in the same way  so you’re actually on the same wavelenght to begin with)

“opposites attract” specifically in the way that they balance each other out. A cool steadfast leader type certainly has a grounding effect on Dimitri as a very reactive person, but he also pulls them into the ‘normal’ world a bit after they spend all this time just wandering the world like all places are the same to them. They basically put the magic destiny on the backburner to help him out. They still become archbishop and all to fit the standard fantasy look of it all but not like full messiah like on the church route

Even after the timeskip Byleth kinda plays the mentor role or at least that of the dominant person/ big spoon in the relationship (though Dimitri ends up waaay taler than them especially fem Byleth), “Excuse me this is my emotional support mercenary”

If you go the platonic route you very much stay at „mentor“, Byleth is basically the brains of the operation post timeskip ‘cause the old Mitya can‘t come to the phone right now and Gilbert and Rodrigue would follow him off a cliff

Plot wise, their contribution is to stop the revenge trip when it gets to be a too obvious kamikaze stunt, which they, as a relative outsider to Faerghus and experienced, pragmatic fighter, would do when someone like Gilbert would not

Character journey wise, they refuse to give up on Dimitri and still see the good in him so that he eventually comes to a point where he could envision his own redemption/ come to accept/forgive himself and learn that its okay to move on and live his own life

Byleth can be said to somewhat even out the flaws in everyone‘s leadership styles (while the house leaders help Byleth find their own direction – i didnt come up with this alone there was a brilliant post a while ago that i cant find rn) – In Dimitri‘s case, he has authority/credibility/integrity („Pathos“), being the rightful king with many loyal followers,  and emotional/ personal leadership as an emphatetic person who inspired respect for his character („Ethos“) but is lacking in plans („Logos“)

Golden Deer

Overarching Theme:  Ragtag Bunch of misfits /Unlikely Heroes (let’s see, we have trickster turned lying politician, upper-class twit turned opportunistic conservative, lazy rich girl,  shy glasses boy and his best friend dumb muscle, cursed werewolf girl, stuckup teen genius and the mean money obsessed one )

Composition: Has the most honest-to-goodness commoners - and they largely got in on their own merits, too, while almost all the others had connections. You have a few peeps from the Alliance’s prominent merchant class and one completely ordinary village person whose father was a simple hunter. 

History: Bar the two merchant kids none of them know each other and even they’ve been a little estranged since the demise of Rafael’s parents. There are a few backstory connections (Such as Lorenz’ dad basically having murdered everybody’s dead relatives, or Leonie’s village being in his territory) but they’re largely indirect. They come from a range of different backgrounds and life experiences. Even Claude just showed up the year before and doesn’t know anybody. Of course this is all so you can watch them grow into a team on-screen all leading up to Claude’s epic speech about how they got along despite being from different backgrounds (or be surprised if they show up as one post-timeskip)  

Unlike Dedue or Hubert, Hilda can still be napped early on because she doesn’t really become Claude’s right-hand person until halfway through part oneIf you recruit any of the deer they’ll say that they didn’t have that much ties to their homeland anyways. 

Atmosphere: These are definitely Garreg Magh’s party animals.  Or like a bunch of theatre kids. They’re tremendous fun. “Less complicated” as Claude puts it though some have missed the intensity/drama of the other bunches. The Alliance itself might be full of political intrigues but this younger generation is fairly chill with the important exceptions that are Leonie and Lysithea but Leonie’s lack of chill is largely Byleth-specific, she’s plenty chill in her other supports, and though Lysithea probably donated all the extra chill for the other deer and hence doesn’t have any left, the others  love her anyways wether she wants to or not because try as she might she can’t really get an argument out of them. 

This certainly jives well with Claude’s “friendly surface level extrovert” gimmick they all get along on a surface level and you’ll be hard-pressed to find an ounce of social skills in the Black Eagle house, and the Lions have the Drama Moments, but some have also perceived the deer as not quite as open. 

At the same time they’re not superficial. We have a large abundance of Artsy Ones, we have Ignatz, Claude and Lorenz both write poetry, Leonie isn’t good at it but she does draw etc There’s enough insightful ones for depht and insight to be a significant undercurrent in the group dynamics. They all have different sortts of insight - Hilda can read people well, Ignatz has this sort of intuuitive thoughtful understanding, Lysithea is observant and logically astute, Leonie has street smarts etc. 

The Leader’s position: Precarious. No one knows him, no one trusts him. He just showed up one day, very suspicious timing, not long after his uncle dropped dead (that was Lorenz’ dad but it’s not like anyone knows) and then he’s a shifty weirdo who cannot help being slightly unnerving despite his friendly extroverted demeanor. 

Still he’s a big believer in teamwork, appreciates the value in everyone’s perspective and he can do the friendly extroverted charm well enough to eventually win over most people based on that, though its not until waay after the timeskip that he even considers letting anyone past the soft outer layer.  (In Recruited, Raphael remembers him mainly a lover of feats and merriment)

The longer the story goes on the more the Deer transition to being “Claude’s jolly detective bureau” in which he pulls on all their individual insight for maximum info collection. 

How this “flavors” part one:  It’s taken up largely by Claude’s search for information with the various events being seen in that light.

Claude’s first reaction is often to ask questions and be curious with the emotional response hitting him somewhat later, though it’s definitely also that he keeps up a cheerful face for the team. 

Ironically he’s the only one who came to Garreg Magh for it’s intended purpose: To get a ruler’s education and do networking. Dimitri and Edelgard were already onto Thales courtesy of his having killed their families, him searching on his own, her making preparations for her takeover, and Claude doesn’t know - it’s probably a game balance thing because Claude is the smartest person in the game and if he started out with all the info there would be no plot. 

How this Ties into The Themes: It all builds towards Claude’s big speech about people from different backgrounds coming together. It’s like a microcosm for what he wants to do with the world, to bring people from different places and backgrounds together and have them understand each other.

Lorenz takes until halfway through part II to come around, but come around he does. (markedly, this happens only on Claude’s route, otherwise he sticks with the empire out of self-preservation and opportunism, though he gladly jumps ship to join the kingdom. )

How does Byleth fit into this:  Now I‘ve seen some people saying that Claude initially didn‘t like Byleth or just wanted to use them, but I don‘t think that‘s true. I do think he actually liked them, found them interesting and wanted to befriend them. But Claude, on principle, doesn‘t trust easily, and will in any interaction look at how he can use it.

It‘s a habit born out of both natural curiosity and intelligence (What the 12type eneagramm calls a „Mercury“ Personality type) and the need to survive in a hostile environment where people tried to kill him as a child, and as such it‘s automatic second nature. He has a strong overruling self-preservation instinct.  Claude is suspicious and will interogate people completely independent of how much he likes them. No amount of like makes him trust implicitly.

He doesn‘t have a bad impression like Dimitri, but he doesn‘t immediately click like Edelgard and the curve is pretty nonlinear: With Dimitri we have a clear progression from dislike to like and then the reversal where Dimitri had defrosted Byleth and now Byleth must defrost Dimitri. With Edelgard she likes them immediately out of similarity (like Felix likes Byleth, or like Edelgard likes Lysithea and Petra), and the difficulty/drama only comes later when Byleth‘s connection to the church and Edelgard‘s plots become apparent, but mostly she‘s sad that she‘s „destined“ to be enemies with this person she likes, her level of like never goes down. Claude meanwhile – you might compare him with Dorothea. He‘s used to being able to charm people as well as read them, and Byleth is not only a brick wall, but remains one upon closer examination. They really don‘t know about their past – but Claude takes that as evasions and becomes more and more suspicious.

A big turning point here is the Jeralt situation, where Byleth finally opens up and tells him everything, and Claude realizes they‘re not hiding. And that‘s something I really love about their dynamic – Byleth tells him all and Claude is so interested in them and looks out for them.

Though you could assign each of the three a „turning point“ after which they open up - The diary for Claude (which shows him that Byleth really isn‘t hiding anything) Flayn‘s dissapearance for Dimitri (which convinces him that Byleth cares) and the holy tomb scene for Edelgard (which shows her that Byleth won‘t betray her)

Further Dynamic Notes:

Claude and Byleth relate because they both stick out, but it‘s notably about the experience of sticking out in and of itself, whereas in Edelgard‘s case they stick out in the same way. They’re also alike in that they only found out some secrets about themselves when they were already young adults, Byleth’s magical destiny, and Claude finding out he was related to the ruling house. From how he mentions “not being raised in the lap of luxury” and how his royal connections in Almyra are also “distant”, he might in fact have been raised in a normal village and not known he was the king’s bastard son for some time, though once the secret was out he definitely got some princely instruction like training with Nader. 

The dynamic both interpersonally and as an action duo is very much a complementary one. Dimitri is very different and has that sorta morality chain dynamic going on. And though they each have their specialties that the other is lowkey jelly of Edelgard and Byleth actually fill a fairly similar niche as the charismatic superhumanly powerful field commander. Meanwhile with Claude there’s a division of labor: Claude’s the planner and Byleth’s the enforcer. He repeatedly observes that his plans would be way less effective without someone of Byleth’s caliber to carry them out.

Out of the three lords Claude is the only one where you get the sense that Byleth works for Claude post-timeskip or that Byleth becomes his subordinate. Dimitri’s lost without them, and while Edelgard offers them a formal position as royal advisor after the mock battle and gets this line about how they can’t yell orders at her in public now that she’s the emperor, but it’s phrased in such a way to suggest that she just wants them to yell orders at her discreetly. They certainly balance out Claude’s presentability/trustworthyness problem the way that Hubert quickly puts them in charge of morale to patch Edelgard’s PR shortcomings, but Hubert pretty much says this to Byleth’s face whereas Claude is the only one who knows where the ship is going for the majority of verdant wind. And in the end he’s like “Babysit fodlan for me while I finish world peace” He’s also the dominant one on an interpersonal level, he gives Byleth this speech about how they should use their position more confidently and promise to detective out their mysterious past for them. He also tries dropping hints that maybe Rhea’s not to be trusted though Byleth’s dialogue options are written to suggest that they bought her maternal act and want her back – some ppl said but this way really expositions that „well meaning deception“ aspect of Claude‘s character. He frequently steers ppl toward something they don‘t want but with the hope that they‘ll want it eventually. Perhaps he could be said to have a very fluid/dynamic view of things and people; The other two lords view them more as fixed, hence „I respectfully disagree… lets settle this by stabbing each other“ 

The platonic end result is your basic Epic Friendship, tell each other everything, very supportive, look out for each other, take down a zombie warrior together in an epic team attack, what more could you want I think I‘ve made a whole post about what a good friendo Claude is, initial ulterior motives nonwithstanding… He certainly had strategic advantages in the back of his mind but I don‘t think he ever faked liking Byleth

Plot wise, having The Messiah on his team gives Claude a bargaining chip to seize control of the church with its greater influence. On the other routes, he wisely refuses to touch that particular hot potato with a ten foot pole.

Character wise Byleth‘s influence largely serves to mitigate his jaded cynism. He starts to actually believe his far-flung dreams might happen, so he plays far less defensively than on the other routes.

Claude is smart and charismatic („Logos“ and „Ethos“), his main problem is that nobody trusts him. This is a bit more dimensional than just a flaw though, because he hides his real goals (though they are not truly sinister) both to avoid fights with people who would oppose these goals (contrast Edelgard who declares her intentions openly and deals with the fallout, so she has to fight the knights whereas claude manipulates them) and get the chance to gradually convince them and reveal the truth once ppl agree, also he‘s more a tactician than a strategist and often changes his plans in accordance with what he thinks is doable under the circumstances, and not telling what his plans are gives him the freedom to do that – either way, a downside of that is that no one trusts him. He lacks credibility and, having shown up out of nowhere, has less loyalty and support. Byleth, as a chrch-sanctioned charismatic figurehead, naturally mitigates that.

Black Eagles 

Overarching Theme: Subverted Villain tropes. We have Emperor Evulz / mad science supersoldier, Black Mage classic,  Seditious Chancellor Junior, Sexy Mage, Eccentric Scholar, Pretty Barbarian, Fighting Obsessed Blood Knight and Antisocial Sniper

Composition: It‘s nobles all the way down, even the one commoner used to be famous and is from the capital where all the wealthy ppl live (as opposed to the decentralied alliance and the very spartan kingdom nobles) – The capital‘s a heaven for culture and sophistication but you also see the evident elitism/corruption/inequality problem going on. In keeping with Adrestia being more secular, Ferdinand‘s the only one who‘s explicitly stated to be a believer (in the Marianne support) and he‘s not even super devout

One should also appreciate the irony that the side with the ‚saintly‘ crests is now against the church whereas Faerghus, ruled by the descendants of Nemesis‘ former allies and where he used to have his stronghold are now fighting for the church. But should you go with the church route it also makes a kind of sense as they‘d be goig back to the empire‘s distant origins in a sense.

History:  They all vaguely know/ have heard of each other due to their parents being co-workers or living in the same town, many have at least met each other but at the same time they‘re not BFF like the Lions and many take a bit to warm up to each other.

Another thing of note is that while many of the Lions‘ families were also friends and have been associates since the days of Nemesis, many of the backstory connections for the adrestian studenrs would seem to predispose them to being foes rather than friends, half their dads‘ essentially dethroned Edelgard‘s and are various degrees of complicit in what happened to her siblings, Petra was basically taken hostage by the previous administration, Dorothea has good reason to have beef with the local rich people etc

Atmosphere: I‘ve seen some ppl who played the other routes first say things like how they were struck by how individualistic they are and how there‘s far less team cohesion, or how they „all seem to hate each other“ - I don‘t think that‘s correct assesment but they definitely are quirky, independent-minded or both. They scamper off in all directions when introduced and definitely don‘t bother with formal politeness or friendly facades, if they‘re annoyed with you most of them will probably say so. Even Bernie gives Ferdinand a lecture once XD They‘re basically goth. Though I do think it‘s sorely underappreciated that there definitely IS friendship and admiration between them esp. later in the story, admiration & appreciation being key factors especially since they‘re none too easily impressed.

Of course being independent minded makes it likely that they wouldn‘t blindly follow a leader who‘s up to no good, but it would make them just as suitable to participate in a rebellion

Another thing of note is that while the Kingdom nobles all learned to hold sharp objects in the nusery and many of the deer have street smarts or survival experience having had to live through tough circumstances most of the Eagles are complete greenhorns when you first deploy them – sure many have seen their share of effed up stuff but not in a warlike setting. And you have many of the sensitive/reluctant ones like Bernie, Linny and Dorothea. This of course could either make you think twice about the church sending them on missions or predispose you toward Flayns brand of pacifism.

Of course this just leads to Hubert and Edelgard (and to a lesser extent Petra) to clearly stand out as the experienced ones. El-chan and Hubie dear have most definitely killed a man before. The rest of them will definitely have to measure up to pick up the slack after the two of them leave.

The trajectory certainly goes differently, in CF they all return notably more confident after the timeskip (most notably with Bernie) perhaps in keeping with how Edelgard believes in & promotes self-reliance whereas in Silver Snow they never quite stop being like „AAAAA“ though I suppose the point is that they get their act together and do the deed regardless.

The Leader’s position: Absolute both in terms of power (sorry Ferdie) and dynamics. Definite ‚student council president‘ vibe, she largely interacts with them as a taskmaster/ to make them do their homework. She markedly doesn‘t like this and would like to be one of the bunch but genuinely finds it hard to step out of boss mode.

She does try her best to cultivate an equal atmosphere and for what it‘s worth most do drop the honorifics and tell her when they disagree.  

How this “flavors” part one: The emphasis is certainly on expositioning how much everything in the setting sucks especially on the church‘s horribleness, I mean in the end if she‘s essentially like „We‘ve all seen it this past year“ but of course there‘s also definite foreshadowing that sHE is up to something, there‘s certainly peeps who picked her ‚cause she‘s pretty and she looked more put-together/less obviously dodgy than the others but then didn‘t personal taste wise jive with her character. The whole scene after Jeralt‘s death is definitely a point where you either decide you hate her or love her forever; You get both „WTF“ and „I get it“ type of dialogue options.  

How this Ties into The Themes:

No matter what route yo pick you essentially get a story about going your own way and putting right what the previous generations done fucked up – wether they do this by leading Adrestia back to its holy origins, or by backing Edelgard‘s revolution.

On a political level they either go against their homeland or the previous administration, and personally they‘re all sorta expected to take over their parents‘s job and follow these expectations of proper nobility that they have no interest in and many of them renounce their titles or cut ties with their folks. Only Ferdinand particularly wants his fathers job and even them he means to do it very differently. The happy ending, for most of the eagles, is getting to choose their own paths

How does Byleth fit into this: 

Mostly, they shift the team dynamics from Edelgard as the absolute leader in a lofty, distanced position to her coming closer to being „one of the group“ working under Byleth.

There‘s a reason she later names her elite troop the „Black Eagle Strike force“ in honor of their time at the academy. This is almost the bigger difference, because Byleth isn‘t there for the timeskip. The big change is caused by creating this situation where all the black eagles leave with Edelgard, so she knows she can trust them and having real allies needs the slithers less.

It‘s very hard for her to step out of boss mode for reasons ranging from her personality, backstory, monarch obligations and fear of vulnerability, but having Byleth be the boss for once helps. Some of her most formative experiences were a) Her family betrayed by almost all its allies including her own uncle b) being helplessly dragged around as a hostage. She wants to avoid being helpless ever again at all costs and thus grew to be a very proactive decisive adult which is mostly a good thing but can cause her tome come off blunt and unyielding at times. I mean when she‘s worried that Hubert, her best friend, is hiding some worrysome secret from her she‘s like „Tell me that‘s an order!“ and when he expertly sidesteps that (since he knows her well and understands that she wouldn‘t actually force it out of him) she‘s stumped and doesn‘t know how to tell him that she‘s worried about him – and this is a guy she knows since forever. With the other eagles she really looks out for them but can only really show it through her „leader“ persona, she has this one trick, and when it doesn‘t work (like with Caspar or Linhardt who don‘t really want anyone to boss them around or talk politics) she‘s stumped.

This is hugely mitigated when another person of her caliber shows up with whom she can share the responsibility or even leave it to them so she learns to allow herself to be soft and do stuff like admit her doubts, this starts with Byleth but also radiates into the other relationships. See Caspar and Linhard revising their bad first impressions of her later in the support chains

Further dynamics notes:

A recurring theme is being misunderstood (outright stated in the introduction and that one quote by ladislava – and also in the church route dialogues where Seteth says that „the people will never understand her ideals“ ) and finding someone who understands, which is different from Claude and Dimitri who ultimately want the world at large to understand and accept them. Edelgard has given up on that long ago - her version of the „pep talk“ scene implies she thinks its impossible to truly understand anothers sorrow – I like to think that after her siblings died she found great comfort in Hubert being „not much for condolences“ and talking plans rather than sympathies while everyone else was showing pity for something they couldnt understand. Dimitri is basically traumatized (he relates to Dedue about losing everything and thats why they‘re so tight knit), Claude is basically an outcast and relates to all that dont quite fit in, but Edelgard… yes her family‘s dead much like Dimitri‘s, but in addition to that, she has been through an indescribable science fiction fantasy thing that no one has any context for. She views herself as so altered that she considers herself a whole different person and her past self basically dead. Hence someone like Byleth or Lysithea who could relate to all that is very, very tempting to her – we‘re not told if that‘s the truth or just her perception though, Hubert doesn‘t note her being extremly different, and later on she kinda admids that she herself distanced herself from other people.

Likewise the ship dynamic is ‚birds of a feather‘. Edelgard tells you right away: She feels that she and Byleth are similar and is drawn to them because of that. It‘s not just the mad science background,  both are stoic natural leaders with a bit of a dorky side. This goes both ways – While others are often mildly stumped by Byleth, she can read them pretty well and gets a lot of dialoue like „wow you‘re telling the truth“ or „I can tell you‘re lying“ - that happens so often that it‘s even used to hint that she‘s the flame emperor.

If you had to name a dominant person it would probably be Byleth but overall this combination is disntinguished by being relatively equal and balanced. She likes having Byleth‘s support but repeatedly mentions wanting to support Byleth as well  - As she says after the big mock battle, „sometimes its better to have someone to rely on to support each other through the darkness“. Team dynamics wise they feel a similar niche – the abnormally powerful, stoic charismatic leader who inspires many followers and is a gifted field commander. When they‘re not allies they are foils after all. But as pointed out in their A support despite their similarities each of them have their own particular strenghts that the other envies – Byleth is a better tactician and ultimately better at moral support (though their time powers help). On the flipside, Edelgard is more proactive whereas Byleth struggles with that, and at least her 22 year old self probably has more raw strenght (judging by her stats total and how they‘re evenly matched in the church route reunion cinematic though she isn‘t using her preferred weapon)

If you don‘t marry her then the note the A support ends on would suggest that Byleth sorta gets adopted as a honorary big sister/brother with how El asks them to use her childhood nickname and just lampshading the sense of kinship between them – the platonic outcome is a family bond, which buils as much on similarity and alikeness as their romantic outcome

Plot wise, Byleth‘s presence gives Edelgard something that she wouldn‘t otherwise have: Reliable allies. This means not just Byleth themselves, but the other Black Eagles whom she feels are more firmly on her side as they never defended Garreg Mach from her assault. As she puts it when she tries to recruit you as the „Flame Emperor“, the slighterers will go around causinga strocities but with the sword of the creator on her side she could courttail that better and generally has less need to coorperate even for purely pragmatic reasons so she is free to weaken them ahead of time, kills Cornelia right away rather than work with her etc. Interestingly this is why the front lines are actually further back when Byleth returns than they are in the other routes, but then the war ends the quickest.  

Character journey wise, Edelgard goes from being convinced that she has to give up everything to be a tough leader to allowing herself to just be a person, cummulating in the ending where she pulls a washington/cincinatus, abdicates and gets a normal life.

In terms of leadership style, Edelgard has „Logos“ and „Pathos“ to spare, she‘s described as a remarkable leader who inspires remarkable devotion and has a cause/ rationale – but she‘s got her weakness with inspiring loyalty on an interpersonal level. The followers are loyal to the cause – Edelgard herself is perceived as unapproachable and shady/unsavory, see Dimitri‘s rant about how she‘s „strong“, or statements by herself and Ladislava that people tend to misunderstand her. As a superhuman science experiment she is by definition not a „relatable“ leader. So once Byleth proves trustworthy Hubert immediately puts them in charge of morale and of support/pep talking the reluctant recruits.

(In part II we‘ll get into decision making processes but I think here we have to separate by route rather than house since it’s most evident post-timeskip and dependent on plot events.)

Team Dynamics and Decisionmaking

Empire Route

Here, there is a very clear distinction between inner circle and outer circle. Edelgard and Hubert have their own thing going on and once you prove loyal, you’re in, and you get to see a whole different side to both of them, Edelgard lets down her guard, Hubert acts polite and sympathetic where he was previously suspicious and mocking, and they basically tell Byleth everything, including the unsavory pursuits that they keep secret from everyone else – but overall the secrecy, maintained for realpolitik reasons, never truly stops. Basically those three make all the decisions.

Notable is that if you’ve recruited Lysithea she hovers on the threshold between inner and outer circle. She was fed the cover story of the nuke being a church weapon (though she did’t buy it) but WAS told about the secret assault on Arianrhod. This is prolly cause Edelgard likes her, she can become her main advisor in their paired ending.

Kingdom Route

Dimitri describes himself as as someone who thinks change should come from the people and that the leadership should serve them, for all that he prefers to uphold the basic order of society, and this is reflected in his leadership style – though this also reflects that he is a ‚people person‘ rather than a planner, so the plans are left to his advisors like Byleth, Gilbert and Rodrigue. He is more the emotional/ spiritual lynchpin than the mind or will of the group.

In Azure Moon, especially later on, the decisions are really made by the entire group and you see them considering their next step together. Dimitri spills the backstory as soon as it comes up, telling everyone about his relationship with Edelgard for example.

In early part 2 this is at an extreme in that Byleth, Rodrigue and Gilbert are de facto making the decisions and Dimitri is at best a grumpy figurehead that they‘re putting up because they need him as a symbol, but at the same time he doesn‘t really compromise on his revenge obsession and is just dragging the whole team along/ not really reacting to how they are making him the lynchpin for their hopes. (though it is important to note that he didn‘t ask him too either – they decide to follow him out of friendship or loyalty to his house) yet inwardly Dimitri too is blindly following what he believes are his obligations.

A huge turning point is when he returns after the whole rain conversation and Byleth gets to ask him some variety of „What do you want to do“ in which Dimitri makes a step toward both inner and outer self-directedness, but precisely because of that becomes are more complete/better consensus leader.

I also want to stress that Claude and Edelgard LOVE togetherness and cooperation and equality as concepts every bit as much as Dimitri does they want to be one of the team but they find it difficult. And of course Dimitri’s style has its own flaws too

Alliance Route

While the Blue Lions decide everything together and either variation of the Black Eagles setup has an „inner circle“ that makes the decisions, in the Golden Dear that inner circle is basically just Claude.

Even Byleth doesn‘t find out his plans until part two, and it‘s later still till he comes clear with the team (and still doesn‘t reveal all but points to Cyril as a stand-in) Hilda and Lysithea are discernable as preferred right hand people, and Byleth and Marianne as special confidants, but in the end Claude rarely shows his real self and only he knows the plan. If Hilda and Lysithea pick up alot about him and his true self it‘s because of how observant THEY are and how much Hilda is basically a lot like him.

Claude does all the thinking and motivates followers (from Lorenz to the random merchans who support him) by promising them things they want – because even if he can‘t trust peopöle, he can trust their self-interest.

Church Route

Since you are with the church that is ideally a sort of benevolent parental authority under the supposition that people need guidance and that‘s a good thing it is perhaps fitting that though Byleth winds up the nominal leader, this is actually the route where they are more of a follower. They do watch Seteth says, who is doing what he believes is his duty and mission, and we have Flayn as an innocent, pacifistic voice.

They lost their dad, and the Nabateans are a sort of surrogate family. (wether its one that youre born into or marry into, the wiord „family“ is stressed) – they are the „inner circle“ making the decision and the empire kids, ragtag misfits estranged from their homes, follow. On the one hand they‘re going against their home country on the other they have the saint‘s blood and Adrestia USED to be church aligned so it also makes a kind of sense.

Among the Adrestian kids themselves, Ferdinand and Petra get a chance to shine as the ostensible leaders. They are stalward, competent leader-like people in CF too , but there they are more overshadowed by the much more experienced Hubert and Edelgard.  - Though when you think about it they are like „pure hero“ versions of them who were never forced to become as cold and pragmatic. Ferdinand, like Hubert, is a nobleman from a storied family who is proud of it but wants to fix its tarnished reputation from his corrupt father. Petra, like Edelgard, is a former political hostage who experienced hardship at a young age and worked her way up all on her own, being very serious and competent despite her young age. I prefer the version where they stay buds rly.

It‘s worth noting that Seteth, ‚Heir of Purpose‘, sees it as their families duty to protect Fodlan and is the only one really doing that – his brothers noped out, and Rhea, uneknowst to him, twisted „protect“ into „rule/subjugate“. One might question who gives him the right to decide things because his mom is magic but on the other hand he really is 100% benevolent and I see no sign that he has any greedy intentions especially in in Silver Snow, all the countries collapse and someone needs to keep order, he doesn‘t understand what the empire‘s doing and why just sees their agression and really is rising to the challenge of upholding peace because something needs to do something about the violence. He had withdrawn to protect his daughter but then in the end he‘s the last one who is really doing what Sothis would have wanted. He looks most like her too having the slightly darker, ‚spikier‘ hair.

Further Thoughts

I’m curious to see how Yuri, the Ashen Wolves, and Cindered Shadows compare/contrast to this and i theyll manage to make the dynamics sufficiently different so that its neither a carbon copy or a blabk mary sue ish superlative. 

I mean the other routes are so interesting to dissect because its a tradeof and all have their own flavor so really CS would do better to try to be “different” or, better yet,  “complementary” than “better” or “cooler”

[realm-sweet-realm]

Breaking the Timeloop, chapter 1: Henry, this is Henry

Thanks for showing support for this, guys. I hope you like it. The first chapter mostly outlines the “laws” of this fic’s universe, which are based on popular Reddit theories of the time. They’re outdated now, but made for a nice story.

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Henry Stein stepped into Joey Drew Studios, apprehensive as to what he might find. Returning to the studio had seemed like such a small favor to make his ex-business partner and old friend happy. Joey Drew had seemed so remorseful, and so much calmer and kinder than he had been back then. Still, as soon as Henry was staring down the studio's halls, lifeless and decaying  but otherwise unchanged, he was reminded of the time he'd spent working in them. In those years, Joey Drew had shown an ugly, selfish, twisted side of himself to Henry. One that Henry had all but forgotten about. Who knew what he'd wanted from having Henry return?

 With a start, Henry realized that he was holding two objects in his hand, neither of which he recalled bringing in: a strange, hand-mirror shaped instrument, and a book with the words, READ IMMEDIATELY written large in ink over the entire expanse of the cover. Henry obeyed the text.

Henry? This is Henry. This'll come as a surprise, but you're stuck in a time loop, buddy. You seem to lose your memory every few loops. After a few hundred loops, though, I figured that out and started this journal. This way, you can learn from my mistakes and hopefully have a better chance of getting out of here.

I don't know why I'm here. That makes it pretty difficult to guess what needs to be done to get out. My best guess is that Joey Drew put me in this time loop so that I could fix his mess. Keep your eyes out for any indication that this is not the case, but for now, focus on trying to save as many people as possible.

Follow these rules:

1. Write down anything significant you learn. If you end up in Joey Drew's apartment, write everything you need to down, because it'll be your last chance to do so before a new loop begins.

2. Don't be afraid to die. This time loop effectively makes you immortal. Take risks to experiment.

3. Protect this book at all costs. When Joey Drew sends you back into the studio at the end of a loop, transfer it and the seeing tool to your right hand to ensure it will be preserved.

The next page contains a table of contents. This page contains a list of the creatures you'll encounter. Please read it.

Ink creatures in general

Each ink creature was either made with a soul, or took on an imprint. The ones with souls hold the memories of the people they once were. I'll start with the ones with souls.

Sammy Lawrence

Yeah, that Sammy Lawrence. Sorry, bud, but you had to learn sometime that Joey created a real tragedy. Sammy isn't your chipper, if easily annoyed old friend anymore. He's an ink-covered loon who worships Bendy (who I'll get to later) to the point where he's willing to use you as a human sacrifice. He mostly lurks in the first basement floor and second to lowest floor of the studio. However, since he worships the ink demon, he can be anywhere instead of hiding away from him as most ink creatures do. Bendy is still malicious to him occasionally, however. He's almost invariably malicious at first, but there are ways of saving him. See pages 34, 52, and 57 for how to befriend him. He's a powerful ally as he runs a cult of lost ones and searchers. Times befriended: 63/584 (since I started counting) Times killed: 311/584

Susie Campbell/Alice Angel (scarred)

Susie Campbell's soul was transferred into an Alice Angel clone. Be extremely careful around her, as she is capricious and has no qualms with murder. She is mostly found on the ninth floor, where she has a fairly significant portion of the studio sealed up to protect herself from the ink demon. She has access to a lot of machinery in there, and can control the elevator to some extent. Don't fall into her web-she has arguably adapted to surviving and protecting herself here better than anyone. She can also be found on level S. Do not use the elevator unless she either hasn't met you, or is dead. Be especially wary of her if you're traveling with a Boris. She kills them to use their organs. For how to befriend her, go to page 78. For ways to kill her, go to pages 7, 12, and 21.

Times befriended: 3/584

Times killed: 105/584

The Projectionist

A mechanical creature containing the soul of Norman Polk. He shows no signs of sapience. I never liked the guy, but he didn't deserve this. He likes dark areas, but he can be found anywhere because he doesn't have the sense to beware the ink demon. You'll know him when you see him, and when you do, run. There are ways to kill him, though: see page 54.

Times befriended:     /584

Times killed: 9/584

Bertrum Piedmont

Apparently, after I left the company, Joey tried to make a Bendy-themed amusement park which never got off the ground, and enlisted in this guy's help. They were always at each other's throats, and after they were done doing business together, Joey put his soul in an amusement park ride resting in a storage room for all the other unused Bendyland equipment. You'll know it when you see it. Unfortunately, he always mistakes me for Joey Drew, and that makes him almost impossible to befriend: he thinks it's just Joey being a manipulative liar. You must debilitate him before even attempting to befriend him-there is one very specific way to do so. For how to kill him, see page 4. For how to debilitate and befriend, see page 49.

Times befriended: 69/584

Times killed: 415/584

Lacie Benton and Grant Cohen

By using the seeing tool, I have detected their names on coffins. These same coffins hold the corpses of the others that were killed. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots. At least one of them is a Lost One, it would seem, as at least one Lost One can talk and remembers its name. Lacie worked for Bertrum. She was probably killed because she was suspicious of Bertrum's whereabouts, but that's speculation. Grant Cohen was likely killed so that Joey could keep the company's financial matters secret.

Alright, now onto the soulless creatures. You probably can't save these, but they can still seriously help or hinder your quest.

Butcher Gang Members

Kill on sight. They have no signs of sapience and are invariably malicious. There are many copies of them.

Boris (perfect)

Almost invariably benevolent. The time spent with him (generally in his safehouse on the second basement floor) is like time spent with family. Down here, that kind of moral support is scarce and invaluable. However, he can be a serious liability if you run into the scarred Alice Angel. If that happens, keep him away from her at all costs. If she does get him, well, try to remember that he doesn't really have a soul. Just an imprint, seemingly of Wally Franks (laid-back, goofy, friendly, weak-willed, etc.) Though, that doesn't seem to keep him from feeling a fondness for me, or from feeling pain. I'm sorry Henry, but you're often gonna have to kill your dog. Alice hulks him up and turns him against you. For how to kill, see page 4.

Times befriended: 437/584

Times killed: 239/584

Alice Angel (unscarred)

She lives on the second-to-lowest level of the studio with a Boris clone she calls "Tom." She's generally benevolent. I suggest you recruit her early, as her combat skills can really come in handy, and, as I've mentioned, good company is scarce. When you meet her, show her your seeing tool. She has a tendency of thinking of you as some sort of savior, but she sees the seeing tool as some kind of proof of that. Her imprint could honestly be of anyone, but she's calmer than I ever knew Susie to be and has a rather feminine personality, so I'm going to guess it's Allison Pendle, who was hired to replace Susie as Alice's voice actress. For how to kill her, go to page 63.

Times befriended: 289/584

Times killed: 38/584

"Tom" Boris

Tom is a very distrustful, hardened Boris clone. He is often the main obstacle to befriending Alice. Sometimes, he can even convince her to imprison you. He is very useful in combat and situations involving strength, however. Don't try to befriend him: befriend Alice, and she'll convince him. And whatever you do, don't harm her, or look like you might harm her, in front of him. By his personality, he seems to have the imprint of Thomas Connor.

Times befriended: 260/584

Times killed: 38/584

Lost Ones and Searchers

Can't lie, don't know what these are. Some are malicious, some aren't. At least one can speak, most can't. By the same token, only a couple seem to have their own personality. I don't know if they have souls or not. I just know that when I am engulfed in the ink, I can hear their thoughts. It's like they're simultaneously one voice, and many. Their methods of combat often make them seem like a hive mind.

Bendy

Almost everyone in the studio fears Bendy. He's very powerful: he can teleport using posters, can only be killed or hurt by seeing the end tape of his cartoon (you read that right. See page 3.), and can send any creature back into the inky abyss with a single touch.

Because almost every interaction I have with him includes running away, I have not been able to get a good sense of his personality. However, I've noticed a pattern: he ceases to attack anything after he has killed a creature with a soul. He doesn't go after others without a soul, though he doesn't mind coming close enough to them to melt them into the tendrils of ink that follow him everywhere. I think he wants a soul. Maybe that's why he's after me.

I have not yet made allies with the ink demon. He doesn't seem to take sacrifices of a souled creature- in fact, he reacts with disgust and outrage, injuring (often mortally injuring) the sacrificer before coming after the sacrifice. The only exception I've found is if the person was defending themselves.

This shows me that Bendy has standards for other people but not himself. He uses everyone he can use, and is willing to stomp on and destroy anyone he can't. There's no question in my mind who his imprint is: Joey Drew. Nonetheless, his demonic powers lead me to believe that he might know something about how to save these souls.

 Henry stared at the page a long time after he'd finished reading, as though that would change its words.  Deep down, though, he knew that three pages of his own handwriting hadn't spontaneously appeared, and he definitely didn't remember writing them. He flipped through it to find that there indeed were over seventy pages to it, all in his own writing. His stomach sank as he realized that this was entirely real. "Oh, Joey, what have you been doing?" he whispered to himself.

[chaniters]

Cellmates

Awan and Elyise have time to talk, as they seek to escape their cell.

Part 13 of @kruk-art‘s Awan Cormac’s fic, and the longest thing I’ve written so far. The end is nigh though.

___________________________________________

“Are you awake?!” A voice says to your left. 

You turn lightly, to notice Elyise chained to the ceiling, her feet dangling over the ground.

Looking up you realize you are similarly restrained, and that you are dangling just as she is. 

“ARE YOU AWAKE?” she insists. 

“I think I am” you state.

“About time” she grumbles.

“What’s going on…?” you asks just an instant before your mind decides to reboot and provide all the missing memories. “Oh. Reaper is a jerk.” Your suit seems to be still on, and there’s a pair of burn marks where Reaper shot you. So this is where you ended up it seems.

“Precisely.” she nods. 

“He got you too?” you ask rather calmly. By your standards, being suspended is pretty tame… unlike the farm’s numerous pressure tests. 

“No, I just came to stretch my arms… OF COURSE, HE GOT ME TOO, GENIUS!!” she states dangling to the side furiously.

“Ugh, don’t yell, my head’s killing me” 

“He’s the one who’s gonna kill us if we don’t do something”

“Relax. If he wanted us dead we wouldn’t be even talking up here” 

“RELAX? You want me to relax?!”

“I’m the one who should be mad, you’re darn liar, remember? What the fuck is your deal, Elyise?”

“My deal? Getting out alive is my deal, always!”

“You worked for Hollow Ground, you had links with the Loanshark and then you helped Reaper? What side are you on?!”

“I’m on my own side ok?. Someone has to be,” 

“You could have mentioned that YOU HELPED KILL HOOD!”

Oh, that struck a chord. She turns to you, angrily. 

“Do you think it was my idea? I don’t know what you heard, but I was FORCED to help in that.”

“You could’ve said NO!”

“Because that was a great choice for me, right?  If I hadn’t helped Hollow Ground would have thrown me out for mom to find. She had precogs in her little cult. Wouldn’t have lasted a day on my own”

“You also helped Reaper murder a ton of people just to keep your secret!”

“Those people? They’re SCUM! And I don’t know if you noticed but everyone in their right mind approved of what Catastrofiend did”

“So if you’re so happy about it, then why aren’t you helping Reaper anymore?!” 

“BECAUSE HE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HURT YOU GUYS, OK?  I DONT KNOW WHY HE DID THAT! HE SHOULD HAVE TOLD CATASTROFIEND TO LEAVE WHEN YOU SHOWED UP. I QUESTIONED HIM AFTER OUR CHAT, AND HERE I AM!”

“Hurting us, huh? That’s what bothered you? What about, oh I don’t know DATING CHARGE for example? Did someone force you to do that too?!

“I knew this was about it! You never liked me around him! I saw how you looked at us!”

“That’s not...”

“Admit it already!” You’re definitely NEVER going to admit something like that. 

“You know he worshipped Hood, and you’re accessory to his murder! Don’t you think he had at least the right to know about something like that?!”

“...” she starts to say something, but her voice breaks and she looks away.  You won the argument, clearly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought!” you say annoyed, looking at the binds. Maybe you can find some way to get out and leave her here.

“...I just wanted to be normal, ok?” she says after a while, turning back at you. 

“Normal?”

“He talked to me about so many things… And he listened… And I… I had never been with anyone before… and he was so darn nice I just… I just wanted to be happy”

“Don’t. Just don’t! Don’t you dare... No.. don’t you… crap” you say looking at her teary eyes.

It’s not the physical crying that does it but the inner mess of emotions. It actually shuts you up, mainly because you understand where she’s coming from all too well. 

Are you just being one big hypocrite? 

You escaped the farm to kill someone in the first place.

Shit, she’s making it harder to hate her. 

“What?” she says as you fall silent “aren’t you going to go on about how am I a total piece of shit?”

“... No…” you grumble

Silence. Only interrupted by the clinking of the chains.

If only you could walk out of the room and have some time to think about it… But no. You have to return to reality. 

Realty being you’ve both been captured by a skull-faced homicidal maniac

“Listen… I assume you’ve tried to get us out with your telekinesis?” 

“I did. There’s some sort of security system that prevents it. 

“Can you show me?”

She nods slowly 

“This cell gets even funnier when I try that”  You can sense her concentrating and…. 

The walls start shinning in bright blue, the room filling with static, followed by a deafening booming sound from every side, stronger. She screams something… and then you’re screaming something too… so loud… 

Until it all dies out, your ears still ringing echoes of it. 

“Ugh, this is a nasty one… Sonic pain inducers” you yell.

“WHAT?” she yells back, still half-deaf.

Probably on par with some of the Farm’s tests. Just your luck, Awan, you say to yourself. 

A console lights up on the far end, with Charon’s logo on it…

“For the fourth time Prisoners, I advise you not to attempts that again. This room can be electrically magnetized and will counter any telekinetic attempt to escape. It is also equipped with sound blasting technology that will castigate unruly behavior.” The console shuts down soon after the last word is said. 

“Shit!” you say

“I know. Do you have any skills to escape something like this?”

You study the binds. They seem simple chains and manacles and you’ve got nothing to pick the lock with. THere’s no other mind than Elyise’s close enough for you to reach either.

“Nope”

“Then we’re royally fucked” she states.

“Indeed” you sigh.

“Distract Charon. I will try to send a telepathic message to the rangers” you send the words into her mind so Charon won’t overhear. She seems startled, but nods in silence. 

You start clearing your mind for the task at hand. Never attempted communication at this range, and there’s no guarantee that it would work at all even if you had been practising. It doesn’t help that there are millions of people in Los Diablos and you want to find a single mind.  

Piece of cake, Awan.  

________A few hours later._______________

Your arms hurt like hell from dangling and you’ve lost track of time, but you’re not giving up, repeating the message over and over… impossible to tell if you are being heard or not.  

“HEY CHARON!” She yells. Elyise has been doing a superb job of distracting the AI. You wish she wasn’t that good because it distracts you as well. 

The screen turns on, and the display comes online once more. If AI’s had human personalities you would say Charon is surprisingly gossipy. He probably doesn’t get many people to chat with since the Defenders Society disbanded. 

“What? I’ve already told you I’m not going to let you go”

“Just wanted to ask you when did Reaper decide he wanted to kill all those drug-dealers”

“Whatever do you mean? Master has killed drug-dealers many times in the past.”

“Oh c’mon! He hasn’t killed anyone in almost a decade!”

“It’s true… he took a long hiatus after retiring from the crime-fighting life. His focus fell almost entirely upon charity projects after his cancer got worse”

“Was it hard, overcoming it?”

“He did not overcome it.

“What do you mean? He told everyone he was doing great!”

“That was a lie he repeated many times. His doctors gave him months to live and he dismissed them. And then the Hauswald foundation burned down, sending him into a deep depression”

“What?” you interrupt. Elyise gives you an angry look, her mind telling you to focus on your own thing. She’s right… back to send your signal.

“Months to live? Is he dying? I saw him standing up earlier!”

“He was dying, right until he wasn’t. My research into the subject he brought in changed everything!”

You can barely hear what they’re saying… you’re picking up something… something getting closer...

“You mean my mother?”

“Affirmative. The subject possessed impressive regenerative properties never seen before on a boost. I theorized that a series of transfusions could heal him by making his own tissues more competitive than the cancer-cells”

It’s clear now. Someone picked up your message and is very close to Reaper’s complex… 

“He has… my mother’s blood?”

“Indeed. He was reluctant, thus I had to administer it hidden in his medication.”

“You… gave it to him without him knowing?!”

“Indeed. I would do anything to preserve my master.”

“Aren’t there secondary effects?”

“Oh yes. Many in fact. I discovered most of them after the third transfusion took place”

“What side effects?!”

“Psychological mostly. Sharp aggression increases, self-restraint, almost nullified. Morality ambiguity and…”

Someone’s walking up to the Manor’s gate… with a vengeance. You sense some sort of fight taking place. 

“I am sorry. Someone’s being rather rude at the main gate. We can finish this conversation later” the screen says before turning off.

“Did you get someone?” she asks

“I think so?”

“Who?”

“I’m not really sure… I think it’s…”

The sound of fighting interrupts you, along with blaring sirens.

There is only one presence in the complex asides from her, and it doesn’t take you long to figure out who. 

“It’s Anathema!” you say. “They’re fighting a lot of security drones”

“about time we got some good luck. Guide them to us?!”

It’s not hard to send Anathema a signal they can follow. They’re used to working with you. 

Finally, you can hear the noise coming up to your cell, with gunshots and skittering of metallic legs and the sizzling of acid.

“CEASE AND DESIST INTRUDER! THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY AND YOU ARE TRESPASSING!”

“I’ll give you trespassing and then some, you dumb toasters!”

“GET AWAY FROM  THE PREMISES!”

“Will you shut up already? I can’t hear my own thoughts and I think I’m getting some that are not even mine…”

“Get out before you are hurt human!” 

“Hurt? You know your spider-things can’t hurt me! I’ve gone through three dozens of them already!”

“Losses are meaningless. I have an immense reserve of combat drones!”

“And I have like the worst case of reflux in mankind’s history, so give me a break will you?” he sounds like he’s just in front of you now… 

“HERE! WE’RE IN HERE!” You shout out, with Elyise joining you.

“About time! I thought I was going mad with all the talking toasters”

The door starts smoking and dissolving under the acid shower from the other side. 

Soon, Anathema steps in, looking up at the two of you. 

“Oh, so you’re doing some stretching up in here?” he jokes, looking relieved.  

“Very funny” you answer. 

“Yeah, hilarious”  Elyise adds

“Oh c’mon, It was a good one-liner!” he grins looking up at the chains. “Now how do I get you out without dripping acid on your hair…”

“Can you deal with that box on the corner?” Elyise says looking down at it. 

“Can do” Annie states, letting a few drops off at it. Always amazes you, how it goes through almost anything.

Elyise inhales deeply and puts her powers in motions, both sets of chains bursting open to pieces. She floats gently to the ground…. While you land less gracefully.

“Ouch,” Anathema says helping you. 

“My poor arms” Elyise complains, stretching some. Yours do too, but you’re a bit more used to this kind of stuff.

“How long have we been here?” you ask. 

“A day and a half? I realized something was wrong when you didn’t come back… But I expected you were behind it all” Annie says looking at Elyise. “No offense”. 

“I do get that sometimes…” she sighs

“It’s not her Annie. It was Reaper all along”

“R… Reaper? Are you for real?”

“Afraid so…”

“RETURN THE PRISONERS AND SURRENDER!” Charon’s voice reaches from afar, the sound of metal legs coming in closer.

“Ahh crazy computers, love me. Ok, you two stay behind me, and don’t step on the acid, ok?” he says grinning.

The way out is plagued with spider terror drones but they are simply no match for Anathema, who marches you to the exit without a hitch. You find your gun on the way out along with the data rod. Elyise gives you a terrifyed look as you take it, but you don’t say a word about it to Annie. 

Not yet, at least. 

___________________________________________

My Fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

[chiseler]

The Madness of Ken Russell

Critical thinking in Britain has always taken the view that Ken Russell was a wild, ill-disciplined talent who ultimately went artistically mad: this was also the view in the film industry. The only major disagreement was about when he went from being merely excessive to being balls-out crazy: different parties chose different tipping points.

(WAIT! WHO CARES ABOUT CRITICS?)

(Bear with me: in Russell’s case, the critical consensus serves as a valuable reverse barometer.)

Russell, a suburban boy, former merchant seaman and Catholic convert, made a few brilliant short films with his wife and fellow genius, costume designer Shirley Russell, before landing a job at the BBC’s flagship arts program, Monitor. His stint here taught him to fight, and placed him under the stern patronage of producer Huw Weldon, probably the only authority figure he ever respected. Many good fights were enjoyed. When Russell joined the program, there was an absolute ban on dramatization and re-enactment: the most he was allowed was to show a composer’s hands at the piano. By the time he finished up on the show, he’d managed to twist it out of shape to the point where he’d been allowed to make complete dramatic works in the guise of documentary. These TV plays are highly cinematic, kinetic and bold: like Kubrick, Russell had a love of both stark symmetry and dynamic movement. Control and its opposite.

Russell found actors he liked, including Oliver Reed, with whom he enjoyed a strange kinship: both were heavy drinkers, both affected a casual attitude to their work, though Russell was never ashamed to call himself an artist. Ollie became the John Wayne to Russell’s Ford (in a roiling, nightmare vision of classical cinema).

The point when Russell moved out of TV is the first moment his detractors choose to mark his decline into self-indulgent craziness. He made a modest, eccentric comedy, French Dressing (with mounds of inflatable girls piled up like Holocaust victims) and a wild, idiosyncratic spy movie, The Billion Dollar Brain, a Russophile anti-Bond movie full of flip humor and Eisenstein homages. Critics saw these films as work-for-hire, as perhaps they were, and largely discount them. They are quite brilliant.

Women in Love is counted by others as the last pre-madness film, and its relative sanity can be attributed to the control exerted by its writer-producer Larry Kramer. Russell’s excesses are held in check, it is argued, and the tension between its creators was productive. It’s a very good film, but I find it too sedate in places, though the vivid color and Shirley Russell’s bold designs, and some scenes of genuine wildness and invention stave off actual boredom.

The Music Lovers, his dream project, expanding the TV composer film to the big screen and color, is where a real case for craziness begins to be made: the choice to explore Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality now seems mature rather than lurid, but Ken is undeniably pushing the biopic into unfamiliar terrain: fantasies of decapitation by cannon-shot, a filthy madhouse, a demented honeymoon on a train rocking like the Starship Enterprise, complete with crotch shots. Maybe even worse, from the critics’ viewpoint, Russell, who had directed one TV commercial before walking away from that business in disgust, co-opted the visual language of the shampoo commercial to depict the images conjured by the composer’s music. Russell was in love with romanticism but saw through it too. Ironically, the filmmaker constantly castigated for unsubtlety injected an irony into the film that critics missed, taking the soppiness at face value and not seeing how the concealed satire blended perfectly with the overt caricature and phantasmagoric visions.

Still, the subject was respectable, but with The Devils, Russell managed a film maudit that took decades to be reappraised, and earned him criticism of a uniquely vociferous sort, admittedly in keeping with the hysteria of the film itself. An account – or channelling – of a 16th Century witchcraft trial in France, the movie didn’t so much push as cremate the envelope as far as sex, violence and blasphemy were concerned: Russell, who had converted to Catholicism in his youth, lost his faith while making this one, converting to an animist worship of the Lake District, a religion of his own devising. Well, he did have a substantial ego.

Russell was upsetting: apart from the torture, abuse and madness, the film threw in discordant tonal shifts, creative anachronisms and deployed all of his cinematic influences, which prominently featured Orson Welles, Fellini, Fritz Lang’s German silents, and the musicals of Busby Berkeley, which supplied the top-shots used to depict the rape of Christ on the cross, a scene cut by the censor and lovingly preserved by the director for a future restoration, still explicitly forbidden by the film’s backers, Warner Brothers.

Asides from his crisis of faith and crises in his marriage and his dealings with the studio, Russell was also knocking back the wine. “Better before lunch,” was his prop man’s characterization of the director. Production designer Derek Jarman recounted Russell asking him, “What can I do that’ll really offend the British public?” “Well you could kill a lot of people,” mused Jarman, “but if you really want to upset them you could kill some animals.” A plan was then devised to have King Louis with a musket blowing the heads off the peacocks on his lawn: the birds were to be fitted with explosives at the neck, like Snake Plissken, but Russell backed away from this extreme, even by his standards, approach, and instead had the target practice performed with a man dressed as a blackbird, and the King saying “Bye-bye, blackbird,” and Peter Maxwell-Davies’ remarkable score quoting the popular twenties song, and that infuriated the critics just as much as actual bird-blasting would have.

Less amusingly, Russell was also guilty of unsafe practices involving the naked girls and rowdy extras: the stories here get really dark. As does the film: a demented masterpiece that shows Russell for once engaging with the political: a film about corruption that uses physical disintegration alongside social and spiritual rot.

Just to confuse us even more, Russell made The Boy Friend the same year, an epic music and a miniature at the same time, allowing him to recreate Busby Berkeley’s pixilated fantasias in a seedy English theater. It’s light and charming, but Russell’s version of these qualities was not recognized by the critics, and it’s true that his wit is clodhopping, his whimsy grotesque, everything is overplayed, in your face: but you have to climb aboard the film, get into its spirit, and then it really is a very lovely reversal of the usual nightmare.

The seventies brought more composer films, Mahler and Lisztomania, and also the rock opera Tommy, which earned Russell slightly better reviews as his boisterousness was judged more in keeping with the material (critics, it seemed, could not stand the idea of a filmmaker responding to classical music for its passion and energy, its rock ‘n’ roll qualities, rather than for its assumed civilising effect). Russell got away with showing Ann-Margret humping her cushions while slathered in feculent chocolate sauce, shot Tina Turner with a 6mm lens to uglify her as she thrashed around a steel sarcophagus studded with hypos, and put Elton John on ten-foot platform shoes.

Lisztomania is another movie that’s seen as marking the decline into lunacy: its producer, David Puttnam, hugely impressed by Russell’s flare and his ability to shoot Mahler after half the budget fell through, felt that ultimately the relentless negative press knocked his enfant terrible off-balance. Instead of rolling over in submission, Russell perversely doubled down on the excess and became a parody of himself. And he had already been a parody to begin with (but a parody without an original, unless we take him as a combined burlesque of all his cinematic influences). I’ve always adored Lisztomania, which knows it’s going too far, knows its japes and conceits are ludicrous and indefensible, knows it can’t get away with Roger Daltrey as Liszt and Ringo Starr as the Pope. And just. Doesn’t. Care.

Valentino, which marked the end of the Russell marriage (there would be a bunch more), was dismissed by Russell as the fag-end of his first British period, “everything about it was bored and boring, including me,” but it’s actually rather good. Nureyev as Valentino (well, he was used to being called Rudolph), Russell as Rex Ingram wielding a megaphone the size of a cannon. The twenties, as lived by Rambova, Dorothy Arzner, Fatty Arbuckle, or as dreamt by Mad Ken.

Russell had made his career in Britain at a time when the industry was in collapse: he largely missed the explosion of energy that marked Swinging London, the British new wave, and the only kitchen sink he liked was the one he was always throwing in. Now, the domestic business seemed to have expired of ennui, senile dementia and blood poisoning, but Hollywood beckoned. Russell was bottom of a long list of directors who all turned down Paddy Chayefsky’s Altered States, a late-mid-life crisis film about sensory deprivation tanks and psychedelics which takes John C. Lilley and fuses him with Dr. Jekyll. Russell took it on despite being forbidden from changing a line of dialogue, but got his revenge by having his actors speak fast -- like Jimmy Cagney fast, not so much throwing away their lines as firing them like tennis balls. And by having them eat at the same time. And by expanding the hallucination sequences until they took over the movie, so that they were all anyone talked about. Druggie audiences would hang out into the lobby, Russell gleefully reported, posting a sentry in the auditorium who would yell “Hallucination!” whenever one was starting, and everyone would rush back in to get a hit of audiovisual delirium.

A bit like Women in Love, Altered States benefited from the creative clash between director and writer (who took his name off the script in protest at Russell’s backhanded fidelity), but the reaction among respectable types was mainly a theatrical eye-roll: the maniac was up to his old tricks. Crimes of Passion, starring Kathleen Turner and Anthony Perkins, was next, with she as a Belle de Jour career girl by day, working girl by night, he as an insane sex-obsessed preacher, some forgettable soap opera type as leading man, the whole thing soaked in neon colors and spliced full of Bearsley and Hokusai, whom the American censor duly deleted in horror. “They cut out anything to do with art,” observed the filmmaker.

And that was it for America, save occasional pieces for HBO, progressively more televisual, the locked-off symmetrical winning out over the kinetic. Russell returned to the UK to make theatrical features, and again you heard the cry off “Whatever happened? He used to be good!” Gothic dealt with Byron and the Shelleys and the birth of Frankenstein, and was fruity, literate, dirty good fun. The Rainbow was a return to Women in Love territory, on a lower budget and with less energy and star wattage: Russell declared it his best film since that imagined zenith, and a few critics wanly agreed. The Lair of the White Worm was another journey beyond the pale, thrusting some of the same actors into a ludicrous vampire and snake goddess phallic farrago with Hugh Grant and a kilted Peter Capaldi attempting to snakecharm with bagpipes. A vampirized policeman gets his head impaled on a deco sundial. Marvelous. And the sequence was rounded out with Salome’s Last Dance, which stages Oscar Wilde’s biblical wet dream in a Victorian brothel, an inspired no-budget solution and a film which, unlike Altered States, really respects its words, lingering over them, rolling them salaciously over its tongue. Add in also Ken’s episode of Aria, in which he stages Nessun Dorma as an accident victim’s operating room hallucination, with porn mag model Linzi Drew, a new Russell favorite, in the lead.

Time was running out, the budgets shrinking like a Fu Manchu death chamber, the ceiling pressing down and clearly constraining what Russell could achieve, despite his continuing ambition. Lady Chatterley’s Lover for the BBC scored huge ratings, and he was never asked back. Commercial television’s top arts programme, The South Bank Show, run by Russell’s old screenwriter from Women in Love, Melvyn Bragg, kept him going with more-or-less annual commissions: he’d come full circle, or did when he moved back to home movies, shot in his garden or in his favorite Soho pub, which he hoped to “flog on the internet.” The symmetry of the career, its ourobousness, is more pleasing to contemplate than it must have been to live, though the last marriage lasted and was happy, and the ever-moving critical pendulum had reached the place where people were starting to say that The Devils and some of the other seventies work was really good, actually.

I can admire everything up until the final home movies, and maybe I’ll come round to them: Russell was right to admire all his earlier films. He spent decades more or less brushing off French Dressing, then saw it on TV and thought, “This is a masterpiece!” which it is. But only a minor one compared to what was those around it. Seaside-postcard humor, musical comedy performances, pop art imagery, Wagnerian and Stravinskian soundtracks, a defiant rejection of subtlety. “I don’t believe there’s any value in understatement […] This is the age of kicking people in the balls and telling them something and getting a reaction […] Picasso was not restrained, Mahler was not restrained!’” His detractors thought he should be, possibly in a straitjacket and with megadoses of Thorazine, but Russell was a volcanic eruption in cinematic form, a purple-faced tyrant of the Stroheim school, a demonic force driven to possess reels of celluloid and make them glow in the dark with a sugar rush radiation that has yet to decay. He was too big, too vulgar, too beautiful, too nasty and too beautiful for a national cinema mired in lethargic literary-theatrical respectability. “The visual arts have never had a foothold in England,” he sneered.

Ken!

Life is not a Ken Loach movie. It is a Ken Russell movie.

by David Cairns

[kongrisu]

❛ they always trust me to be someone who i don’t even want to be. ❜

A SOFTER WORLD.

↪ @deusvolent.

               She knows the feeling: the two of them may be opposite sides of a coin. The way he talks about his experiences with his family, it’s almost as if it’s mirroring hers, completely alike and yet exactly the opposite, as if everything were reflected back. But most of the expectations for her came from the public eye  —  people who didn’t even know her forming their own opinion of who she is and what she should be, the things that made her useful. She can’t imagine having that directed at her from her own family, if she lived in a world where they paid her any mind to begin with. The thought almost makes her smile bitterly. In the back of her mind, she can’t help but wonder which is worse: being hated and taken advantage of because of who you are or being forced onto a pedestal and made to play the part of who people expect you to be for their sake.

               Rather than voice any philosophical sentiments, she stands up from her seat and picks up the chair, ignoring glances from other nearby customers as she rounds the table and sets it back down beside his own. She’s hardly concerned about being seen as rude when she’s surrounded by a bunch of questionable otaku who spend their time gawking at girls in maid uniforms and cat ears. To be completely honest, she’s not even sure why she does it, though. In the end, she utilizes the lack of distance to reach her hand out and rest hers over his own, gently patting it as if in reassurance. This is something she could’ve done from the other side of the table, but that’s not the point, is it?

               “Then they’re idiots.”  She’s not usually so blunt when it comes to speaking of elders, especially not the guardians of those she knows. It’s impolite, but she’s always had a barbed tongue when the situation requires it. Maybe it’s a trait she’s picked up as a result of living in America: she doesn’t have the same meek personality that her mother does. Seeing him be so honest, however, she feels as if she owes him the same when it comes to her thoughts. If she intends to hold him to that standard, she should put herself there, as well. She wants to be genuine, anyways.  “Anyone who wants to force you into being someone you don’t want to be or refuses to see value in you beyond traits they pick and choose are cruel. You aren’t a tool or object. You shouldn’t be manipulated to suit a role for those around you, even your own family. You’re a person.”

               Which is precisely, she knows, why his admission doesn’t necessarily surprise her. She’s sure there are plenty of people who would be shocked to know someone like him has problems, the same as anyone who knew her as a cold-hearted genius would be surprised to realize she has emotions. For others, it’s easy to forget when people with certain dispositions are human. But of course he has troubles. Even though he fancies himself a God, even though a portion of the world had come to worship his ‘alter ego,’ even though he possesses intellect above most people: he’s still a person.

               “I can’t understand anyone who treats their family like that. I’ve always thought family should be the people who understand you the most and love you for who you are. People who would look past those parts of you they don’t agree with and learn to love them, too.”  Her mind goes to her father and briefly, the emotion on her face becomes very raw. She pulls her hand back from his and holds it with her other one, turning to stare down at her palm.  “That’s pretty sentimental for a scientist, I know. That’s not how reality works. But that doesn’t make it okay. Your parents and your little sister, they shouldn’t use you like that.”  He doesn’t deserve it. She’s not sure how to voice that in a way that makes her feelings known strongly enough, though. She doesn’t know where the line she risks crossing is.

               “You’re... hopeful,”  she starts mumbling after a brief silence, now massaging her hand absently in an attempt to look less embarrassed by her switch in topic.  “And optimistic. Most people probably wouldn’t expect that from you... because you look serious most of the time. When you think no one is looking, you get lost in your thoughts a lot, like you’re daydreaming or something. You’re probably just plotting and strategizing... but even that counts as dreaming, right? You have a lot of ambition and drive to achieve your goals. I think you’re a little lonely, too. You may not be a sentimental person, but I do think your burdens would seem lighter if you felt like you had people around you that you could actually trust. Whenever you get hurt in these world lines, you always seem relieved someone is there with you. That doesn’t strike me as someone who wishes to be completely alone.”  There’s a point she’s trying to make, but sincere as she is outside of her interactions with some of the more colorful members of Okabe’s lab, she’s still... struggling, a bit. This feels kind of humiliating.  “You’re also conceited. But when you’re passionate about something, you’re really passionate about it, that’s for sure. It makes it funny when you’re awkward, because that’s rare.”

               What she’s getting at should be clear by now, if it weren’t immediately so: there’s more to him than just his intelligence and wits. It’s not to say those were terrible traits to have, obviously. Her entire life and passion revolves around her skills in scientific discovery, but just as she wasn’t made up of hypotheses and research, he isn’t composed entirely of strategy and logic. She’s felt herself break down multiple times since their journey across world lines had begun, despite most viewing her as levelheaded and frigid. Likewise, he’s reached out to her and kept her feet on the ground despite the fact he seems to be treated more like a machine than a human. For his own family to turn a blind eye to his own wishes is unforgivable.

              She drops her hands down to her lap and fiddles with her fingers, brows furrowed as she fights against her own rising urge to backtrack in a fit of embarrassment. Even though she doesn’t agree with parts of him, even though he may be Kira, she’s accepted that she had chosen to pursue his friendship in the end, despite that. Because he had been honest with her when prompted and because Light, at least, had become important to her. If she had to be the one to remind him of all this because his family would not, so be it.

               With great difficulty, she fidgets and turns to face him fully, now sitting tot he side of her seat. She tries to look him in the eye properly, but upon making contact, she feels her entire face heat up and her courage fizzles away almost as immediately as she’d gathered it. So instead, she lets her forehead fall forward until it’s resting against his shoulder, effectively hiding her face. She’s thanking the universe for Faris right now, because if she weren’t the type to keep everyone in the cafe distracted, she’d want to die right then.  “I like... the Light I’ve gotten to know.”

[darkshrimpemotions]

olliedollie1204

replied to your post

“Sidenote but along with sorting Cas into Slytherin I would sort Sam...”

dean in ravenclaw?? i'm very intrigued, please explain? (sam i can understand but if you wanna explain that to i'd read it)

Okay so first I’ll explain why I’d put Dean in Ravenclaw, because you asked specifically for it and because I have a lot of feelings about this. Like it annoys me to no end that most people see Dean as the “less intelligent” Winchester brother, when he routinely displays his brilliance across SO MANY kinds of intelligence whereas Sam only really consistently displays one. It’s like at some point fandom started believing what Dean believes about himself, and what various demons have said, about Dean being John’s “blunt instrument.” But I’m getting off topic here.

(Under the cut because this got a bit long)

Ravenclaw House

Ravenclaw is the house of “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” of wisdom, learning, and ready minds. But it’s also the house of discovery, experimentation, innovation, and thinking outside the box.

And yet, although there’s been some fan writing on how brilliance doesn’t necessarily mean “good at school,” I think most people still tend to associate Ravenclaw with academic achievement anyway, probably because a) the majority of the Harry Potter franchise takes place in a school, and b) our “could’ve been Ravenclaw” Gryffindor is Hermione Granger, the fictional Queen of Book Smarts.

But would that really apply to Dean? Dean, who barely had even a basic education by most people’s standards. Dean who was actively encouraged by his father--who he hero-worshipped--not to put any stock in academic achievement. So when we look at how Dean could fit into Ravenclaw, we pretty much have to throw that measure of intelligence out the window.

*defenestrates cheerfully*

Dean Is Kinda A Genius Actually

Dean Winchester is a self-taught auto mechanic, electrical engineer, and inventor with nigh-MacGyver levels of ability to make useful things out of useless junk. Throughout the course of the show he has rebuilt his entire car from the ground up, made a completely functioning EMF (electromagnetic field) meter out of an old Walkman, and built his own portable EMP (electromagnetic pulse) generator basically over night.

Dean also has a high level of interpersonal and emotional intelligence, even though his father managed to all but beat (or actually beat, depending on who you ask) the ability to talk about his own feelings out of him. He is always aware of it when something is bothering someone he cares about. He is adept at assessing different social dynamics within minutes and fitting himself into them almost seamlessly (something he gets progressively better at as the seasons go on). He’s also, despite what both he and Sam seem to think, skilled at connecting with victims, witnesses, and families of both to get information needed for a job.

And oh, Dean’s work as a hunter in general. Like...goddamn. I mean leaving aside the background stuff like how much Latin he has to have picked up as a basic side effect of being a hunter, Dean is incredible at retaining and synthesizing information, and at pulling seemingly random tidbits from thin air that he remembers just from reading for fun.

Sure, Sam shines in the dogged research department, but Dean does his fair share of that as well. He just doesn’t enjoy it the way Sam does, because generally speaking Dean would rather read for pleasure and work with his hands than try to absorb facts off a page. Not that it matters, because Dean definitely brings his random trivia to bear all the time...usually to the shock of those around him, who somehow still find it surprising that the guy has read a book in his entire life (do you sense my salt?).

And when they run up against something they’ve never seen before? In general--with the notable exception of angels, which honestly I think we all know has more to do with Dean’s hangups when it comes to God than anything--Dean is very adaptable, just in general really good at integrating new information with the conventional wisdom available. He’s also resourceful and the literal king of thinking outside the box.

So to recap: Ravenclaw is the house of quick-witted people with a thirst for knowledge as well as an ability to think unconventionally. Ravenclaws don’t just absorb what’s already been written. They also want to know the things that no one else has written down yet. They forge their own paths, and add to the knowledge of those who’ve come before them.

Sound familiar? Because it sounds a lot like Dean Winchester to me.

[notesonfilm1]

A film of Arthur Miller´s famous play that made me think about Pauline Kael’s views on Long Day’s Journey Into Night, something like, ‘People argue about whether this is cinema or merely filmed theatre. I don’t care, whatever it is, it’s great’. The play, now considered a great American classics, opened to mix reviews in 1947, its run prolonged mainly by Brooks Atkinson´s appreciation in The New York Times which, according to Christopher Bigspy in Arthur Miller, ´welcomed a new talent and praised All My Sons as an honest and forceful drama, identifying Arthur Miller´s talent for unselfconscious dialogue, for creating characters as individuals with hearts and minds of their own (p.282). Word of mouth made it a hit, and in April of 1947 it won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award as best play over Eugene O´Neill´s The Iceman Cometh.

I saw the film in two stages. In the first, which amounted to the first act,  you’re introduced to the characters: Joe Keller (Edward G. Robinson), a rich industrialist who’d been taken to trial for manufacturing and shipping defective plane parts that caused the death of 21 airmen but found innocent by a jury; His wife Kate, (Mady Christians), warm, dutiful, and with a core strength, who nonetheless seems to be living in a fantasy world where horoscopes matter and her son Larry, a pilot who’s been missing in action for three years, is still alive; their other son, Chris (Burt Lancaster), back from the war, working with the Dad he seems to worship, and having fallen in love with Anne (Louisa Horton), who used to be Larry’s girl.

Watching the first part, it seemed to me that the film was going to be about Chris being able to marry Anne without sending Kate to an early grave. It had brilliant dialogue and the actor are magnificent. But it looked so dull. The direction is atrocious, like a film made by someone who knew nothing of the medium, the camera first using establishing shots and then merely following or focussing on whoever’s speaking next. I see that that’s not actually the case and that aside from filming many of the films in the Falcon series, Irving Reis also directed films that are still remembered including The Big Street (1942) Crack-up (1946 ), and The Batchelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947). But let’s just say he’s not a major visual stylist.

After I returned to the film, I saw the last two acts in one swoop, and it made me better understand those who go to cinemas to see filmed plays even without a live broadcast. This is such a great play and it seems more relevant now than ever. According to Kate Burford in her great biography of Lancaster, Burt Lancaster: An American Life, the film was made at a time when ‘the mistakes, chicanery and treachery of the home front’ during the war had become the stuff of daily postwar headlines. The New York Times would suggest that screenwriter Chester Erksine, had carefully deleted from the original play anything that might explicitly suggest that there are ‘faults in the capitalist system’ and had confined the drama to the greed of one man (Loc 1455 on Kindle). But what drama!

As the play unfolds, we find out that Anne, the girl Chris wants to marry ,is not only his brother’s ex but that her father is the man who’s taken the fall for sending defective equipment, and that Larry is not just missing in action but that he committed suicide out of shame for what his father had done. After worshipping him all his life, the son even raises his hands to the father, which when it’s Burt Lancaster raising it to Edward G. Robinson, is really something to see: ‘You can be better’, he tells him, ‘Once and for all you know that the whole earth comes in through those fences. That there’s a universe outside and you’re responsible for it’.  In the end the father realises that all those young airmen who died because he shipped defective equipment were also his children, thus the title, All My Sons.

  The film might not be great cinema but it does offer the opportunity of seeing two great stars — Burt Lancaster and Edward G. Robinson — performing in one of the great plays of the era. The casting might at first seem incongruous: Burt Lancaster as Edward G. Robinson´s son? But movies have their own logic. They´re both movie stars and so they belong together, they share a consanguinity of stardom. Plus their differences in shapes and sizes also evoke something of the ideology of the era and the message of the play. The parents not too distant from the old country and the journey that brought them to America, building a base there so that the next generation can be safer, bigger, better, stronger; and then how that their focus rests so squarely on themselves and their immediate family blinds them to a larger community, to full citizenship and its inherent responsibilities.

I found passages in the film like the one above very moving. It´s the siren song of immigrant parents, the dream that gives their life strength, meaning and purpose. To hear a truly great actor like Edward G. Robinson say lines like this is, as you can see above, a thrill: ‘I want a clean start for you kid…I´m going to build you a house….I want you to use what I made for you …with joy not with shame. Sometimes I think you´re ashamed of the money…..Because it´s good money. There´s nothing wrong with that money´

    Edward G. Robinson´s other aria, sparked by the moment when Burt Lancaster as the son begins to clock about his father´s actions on the line, ‘If you want to know ask Joe,’  I find unbearably moving, ‘Can´t you trust your own father? …. My own son…. Going behind my back’. The betrayal Joe feels, the hurt Chris knows he´s inflicting on someone he loves. The lashing out by the father. It´s familiarity crept up on me and its resonance moved me:   ‘I don´t have to explain. Not to you. You´re my son. You´re in it with me. My flesh and blood. You wear my clothes. Eat My Food. You live in my home. I don´t have to explain to you. If I´m guilty, then you´re guilty too’. And of course, it´s a thematic pivot: Joe´s actions have also become Chris´s responsibility. His very father tells him so.  And thus he must make his father answer.

  Burt Lancaster here plays the juvenile role. The quiet, All-American, typical boy next door. But Chris has been to the war. He´s survived it. And he´s now in love and wants a future. And he feels guilty, probably about both surviving the war and having fallen in love with his brother´s girl. Lancaster well conveys the sensitivity of Chris, his love for his father and his mother, the slow dawning that his father and therefore he himself is also responsible for what happened. He doesn´t offer the nuances or the bravado that Edward G. Robinson does. In much of the movie, he represents rather than acts. But the scene where he jumps on his father, the violence of an action both of them would have found unimaginable a few weeks before, is truly frightening and heart-breaking.

It´s also another part he´d had to fight for. According to Burford, ‘Ignoring (Hal) Wallis´doubts and Erskine´s protests that signing him was ´like casting Boris Karloff as a baby sitter,’ Lancaster pushed hard for the untough guy loanout part of Chris…’I wanted to play Chris Keller,’ he told one reporter, ‘because he had the courage to make his father realize that he was just as responsible for the deaths of many servicemen as if he had murdered them’. Happy for the chance to portray ‘an average guy — a solid character with high standards,’ his own best dream of himself, he insisted that his choice was a step forward in the direction he, not any studio, had chosen. The overnight star that Universal called ‘the hottest thing in pictures’ was not acting like one. ‘(Burford,  Kindle location 1466)

According to Christopher Bigsby in Arthur Miller, Miller himself derided the film, ´Watching the film forty years later, he found the result, starring Edward G. Robinson, a laughable melodrama that ought to be burned. His speeches had been re-written and all the subtleties blasted away(p.282)´ If so, he’s quite wrong. It’s not a great movie, but it’s a thrill to see great actors attack a great play like this. In the clip above, after Robinson has displayed his genius in the aria where he accepts responsibility it’s left up to Burt Lancaster to once more underline the theme of the play, the taking of responsibility : ‘It’s not enough to be sorry…you can be better….that’s there’s a universe outside and you’re responsible to i’ and then that great moment with the mother as she goes into the father’s room. It’s not a great movie. But I found the experience of watching it very moving.

  The film is often described as a noir, which baffled me a bit. As you can see in the images there is noir lighting throughout, very effectively deployed, particularly in the scenes where Chris and Anne first kiss, their faces barely visible, the relationship haunted by the past and the actions of their parents, and there are more examples of that throughout the film (see examples below).

    It didn´t seem to me too be a noir but I was perhaps stuck on it being an adaptation and overly focussing on noir in terms of recurrent techniques  (though see examples of Russell Metty´s superb noir cinematography above) or narrative conventions (though there are flashbacks). However, if one focusses on thematic and atmospheric attributes one might come to a different conclusion. According to Robert Sklar in Movie-Made America, ‘the hallmark of film noir is its sense of people trapped — trapped in a web of paranoia and fear, unable to tell guilt from innocence, true identity from false (p.253) ‘.  Thomas Schatz in Boom and Bust: Hollywood in the 1940s, notes that David Cook follows a similar tack, describing film noir as a ‘cinema of moral anxiety’ whose films thrived upon the unvarnished depiction of greed, lust, and cruelty because their basic theme was the depth of human depravity and the utterly unheroic nature of human beings.’ Cook notes that this style first emerged during the war but reached full maturity only with the paranoia, pessimism, and social angst of the postwar era(p.232).´

  Seen that way, All My Sons is a noir. But more importantly, though not a great movie, it remains a great opportunity to see great actors perform in a great piece. I for one was surprised at how moving I found it.

José Arroyo

  All My Sons (Irving Reis, USA, 1948) A film of Arthur Miller´s famous play that made me think about Pauline Kael's views on…