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onecornerface · 28 days

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Against two papers which seem to imply we should go on unwanted dates for social justice

Last year, a philosophy paper by William D'Alessandro argued that it was bad, because lookist, for someone to prefer dating physically attractive people. The paper was widely mocked, but most critics failed to diagnose its most severe problem. And many failed to realize it was similarly objectionable to more mainstream-ish currents in social justice discourse, some of which are even worse.

Some critics objected on the grounds of apparent skepticism toward lookism as a real type of oppression. But I think lookism is a real oppression, and that the paper’s argument is objectionable even when aimed at more widely recognized forms of oppression such as racism and transphobia. In fact, a year earlier, a paper by Cheryl Abbate argued that it was wrong for white people to discriminate against black people on dating apps. I think both papers are guilty of a very similar terrible error.

(For the full Abbate paper, see The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics.)

Abbate briefly affirms that she thinks appearance-based discrimination in dating is wrong, and D’Alessandro briefly affirms that he thinks race-based discrimination in dating is bad. So their views are largely convergent on both racism and lookism, although D’Alessandro hedges more by merely saying that (holding and/or acting on) the relevant preferences are in some way “bad,” whereas Abbate makes the stronger claim that acting on the relevant preferences is “wrong.” Even if a refusal to date black people is more clearly problematic than a refusal to date unattractive people, I think the racism paper actually is worse overall.

My "Dutiful Date" Objection/Problem My problem with each paper is that it fails to recognize the most serious objection: Does the view, or does the view not, entail that we can sometimes be morally obligated to have a romantic/sexual encounter that we’d rather *not* have? If the view entails such a thing, then I insist it is pernicious—basically on feminist anti-rape-culture grounds. And if the view does *not* entail such a thing, then the paper should have clearly explained why not. But in neither paper is any of this addressed.

Abbate argues white people have moral duties to *not* discriminate against black people on dating apps. Her paper was somewhat similar to the infamous lookism paper, but received less attention or mockery. But both papers fail to clarify the exact scope of the resultant moral duties in a way that I consider extremely important.

Both papers *sound* like they entail that something like the following scenario could happen: There are two people, who I'll call Inviter and Respondent. Inviter makes a romantic or sexual invitation to Respondent (Inviter asks: "Will you go out with [or have sex with] me?"). The moral dilemma is faced by Respondent.

Respondent wishes to say “no”— but knows or believes that their own motivating reason for saying “no” (or too large a proportion of their reason, or too high a probability of this being their reason, etc.) is that, or is grounded by the fact that, they have a lookist preference, or a racist preference, of the sort that the paper condemns. (Respondent thinks: "I suspect I'm not attracted to this woman, at least in part, because she's black. Maybe that's bad. But what should I do now?")

From what is stated in each paper, especially Abbate, it *sounds* to me like there is an implication that *at least sometimes*, a person will have a moral duty to say “yes” when they wish to say “no” in a nonzero number of plausible real-world cases. *If* either paper has this implication, then this is a reductio and also pernicious! This *could* be a problem for D’Alessandro, and is more clearly a massive problem for Abbate.

I call this the Dutiful Date objection. I think it is the most serious problem with these sorts of views and arguments. It’s such an obvious problem, that (at the risk of double-counting) I think the failure to recognize the issue is *also* a serious problem! D’Alessandro and Abbate are both guilty of this, and this is the main problem with both their papers.

How Abbate's Paper Inadvertantly Raises the Dutiful Date Problem Each paper fails to recognize the severity of this potential concern, let alone address it. The racism paper seems to ignore it entirely. Abbate claims it is always wrong for a white person to “act on” “anti-black sexual preferences,” such as by skipping over a black person’s profile on dating apps (an example she gives). But what exactly all counts as anti-black sexual preferences, and as acting on anti-black sexual preferences? She does not require that it be malicious, so a lot can count.

My concern is that her account seemingly implies that it is wrongful discrimination when a white person decides to not date a black person for being black, and that this view would open the door to the Dutiful Date problem. In brief, here's how I derive the problem from what she says:

Abbate claims that quietly skipping over a profile is anti-black sexual discrimination, when this is motivated by an anti-black sexual preference. An anti-black sexual preference is seemingly any preference to not date black people, including a preference against black physical features. If so, then it is also natural to infer that saying “no” to a black person’s invitation for a date will also be acting on an anti-black sexual preference, when this is motivated by the *same* kind of preference. And Abbate insists it is always wrong to act on anti-black sexual preferences, which she explicitly considers to be wrongful anti-black sexual discrimination.

This, in turn, seems to imply that a white person may sometimes have a moral duty to date a black person—in order to avoid acting on a racist motive, in scenarios such as what I've sketched a few paragraphs above. Abbate never recognizes this possibility and never explains how her view can avoid it, even though it is a pretty obvious extension of her argument. That’s the problem. The notion of having a duty to go on a date, or to have sex, is an egregious implication. I think it is obvious that nobody ever has a moral duty to subject themselves to an unwanted romantic or sexual encounter.

There are two popular objections to D'Alessandro/Abbate-style views, which I'll call the "Control" objection and the "Innocent Preference" objection. I think D'Alessandro and Abbate are partially successful in refuting some versions of these objections, but their responses so far are powerless to refute my Dutiful Date objection.

My Concern is Not Dependent on the "Control" Objection One objection to the D’Alessandro/Abbate views is the control objection—we cannot control our romantic/sexual preferences, even if they are racist or otherwise problematic. D’Alessandro and Abbate both independently address and reject the control objection on the grounds of (frankly rather nebulous) evidence that sometimes we can change some of our romantic or sexual preferences over time. However, I can show that their defense is powerless against the Dutiful Date objection.

D’Alessandro and Abbate *only* provide evidence that we can (sometimes) change our preferences over *long* spans of time—*not* spur of the moment. But if someone asks you on a date (or for sex) right now, and you’d prefer to say “no” (due to a racist or otherwise problematic preference), then you just can’t immediately change your preference. Your ONLY psychologically possible options are [A] to say “no” (for a problematic reason) or [B] to say “yes” (when you’d rather not). If it’s wrong to say “no” for a racist reason, as Abbate’s view implies, then the only remaining possibility is that you ARE morally obligated to go on an unwanted date, or even to have unwanted sex!

And, as I keep saying, this is false and egregious, and Abbate’s failure to recognize the problem is also egregious. On some interpretations, D’Alessandro has the same problem.

My Concern is Not Dependent on "Innocent Preference" Objection Some people also dispute D’Alessandro/Abbate style views on the grounds that the preferences at issue, such as race-based romantic/sexual preferences, are not grounded in racial prejudice and are instead mere innocent preferences. I’m skeptical of this defense. I think Abbate is correct to challenge it by appeal to the pernicious effects of Eurocentric beauty standards, de facto segregation, and racist stereotypes. But it doesn’t matter for my purposes. My Dutiful Date objection is an independent argument. Suppose we know that a given white person prefers not to date black people due to racism (indeed due to indefensible racial prejudice), regardless of whether or not we think *some* other white people’s racial preferences are non-racist. I think it is obvious that this white person is STILL not morally obligated to go on an unwanted date, even if their motives are grounded in racism.

Wrongness and Injustice -Clarifying their Relation Perhaps surprisingly, this commits me to the claim that it is sometimes morally permissible to act on a racist motive. This clashes with what may be thought a standard view that it is always wrong to act on a racist motive. But this shouldn’t be surprising. Claims about racism should most directly imply notions of injustice, and only derivatively imply more downstream notions of personal wrongdoing and duty.

I have no problem with the claim that white people’s general aversion to dating black people (indicated by the low interracial dating statistics) is unjust in the aggregate or in a systemic way. I also think Abbate is plausibly correct to claim that dating apps ought to be redesigned so as to more encourage interracial dating, and that white people may have *some* moral reason to broaden their horizons in dating preferences. My problem is with how her argument, as stated, implies that individual white people may sometimes have a moral duty to respond to this injustice specifically by dating particular black people when they don’t want to—and my specific objection here is grounded in a deeper more general objection to the notion that anyone *ever* has a moral duty to have an unwanted romantic or sexual encounter. Such a view would badly fail to respect the moral seriousness of consent and sexual autonomy and integrity. Moreover, again, it’s egregious that Abbate somehow fails to recognize this problem despite how blatant it is.

Averting Two Problems of My Framing One may object to my framing of the issue in at least two ways. First, it may be objected that black people generally don't want to date or have sex with racist white people. This may be true, but it does not address the question of whether Abbate's view implies that a white racist-- OR a mostly non-racist white person who holds a more mild racist prejudice, OR even who merely mistakenly suspects themselves to hold a racist prejudice-- would have a moral duty to date a black person who *did* want to date them for whatever reason.

It may also be objected that my framing risks reinforcing a stereotype of black people as sexual predators who pressure white people into sex. I think I can undercut this risk by emphasizing that it is Abbate's view that risks pressuring white people into sex, even if black people do not agree with it, and it looks to me that Abbate is white (although I'm not certain). Moreover, Abbate's view is gender neutral, e.g. potentially implying that white men may sometimes have a duty to date black women. Even if it is objectionable to harp on a scenario of a white woman being pressured to date a black man (due to pernicious stereotypes which portray black men as predators against white women), it is not objectionable to discuss the problem in terms of potential pressure on white men to date black women, or to discuss the problem in more gender-neutral terms.

More on D'Alessandro's (Non-) Response to the Problem D’Alessandro seems to veer close to addressing the Dutiful Date problem in a few places (mainly page 9), and sounds like he *might* even bite the bullet, but is weirdly and obnoxiously vague on this. He more-or-less suggests that going on a date from a motive of pity or duty mightn’t be so bad after all, since the dater’s feelings could warm up over time. In all honesty, I think this is crazy and ridiculous on D’Alessandro’s part.

In fairness, he does hedge in claiming that preferring attractive partners is (in some way) “bad,” rather than “wrong”—but this is not sufficient to acknowledge or avert what I’m really worried about here. I think hedging can be fine, and in fact I actually think a modest version of the claim is plausible: people’s preferences for physically attractive partners may indeed be bad, in some way or other. I don’t even object to this. My problem is that he fails to rule out the possibility that people may sometimes have duties to go on dates or even to have sex, and that it is egregious for him to fail to address the threat of this implication. *Some* interpretations of his view will raise the Dutiful Date problem, and this is still objectionable.

I think it is very important to specify whether one’s argument does or doesn’t imply that a person sometimes might have a moral duty to engage in a romantic or sexual encounter that they’d rather not have. It is pernicious to write in such a way that this implication sounds like it may be present, and then not clarify. And it is pernicious to bite the bullet and argue for this implication (which, to be clear, neither author has yet done-- but *would* they?).

Why the Dutiful Date Problem (and Failure to Address it) Is So Bad I think this is pernicious because it amounts (by making a moral argument) to pressuring people into romantic or sexual encounters in a manner that ultimately is violating or at unacceptable risk of being violating. I think making moral arguments in philosophy papers can in fact be a way of violating people by eroding the recognition of taking consent and autonomy seriously in the right kind of way. I strongly condemn this both on libertarian-esque freedom-of-association grounds, and on feminist anti-rape-culture grounds.

I think criticizing people’s romantic or sexual preferences is seriously hazardous from the outset, much more so than most philosophers seem to recognize, for this kind of reason (among several other reasons). But there *are* legitimately valuable aspects of this sort of inquiry (provided that it is done well—which is difficult), and there are less objectionable ways of doing it. For instance, some of the “racial fetish” literature (among others) is more careful to avoid implying that people may ever have an obligation to say “yes” when they’d rather say “no.”

For instance, Robin Zheng’s paper on “yellow fever” (“Asian fetishes”) is more careful to avoid implying that people may have duties to go on unwanted dates. Moreover, some criticisms of race fetishes may simply imply that it’s wrong to say “yes” to a date because of that person’s race. This view seems to me far from bulletproof—but clearly *vastly* less problematic than the notion that it’s wrong to say “no” to a date because of that person’s race. These don’t look to me symmetrical at all. So my view is potentially compatible with affirming moral opposition to race fetishes.

It is very important to promote ideas and social norms which empower all people to affirm their rights to freedom of association and bodily integrity, and to disempower rape culture and all forms of compulsive sexuality. When some philosophy papers and social justice discoursers promote the notion that discrimination against potential romantic or sexual partners could be problematically racist (or lookist, or transphobic, etc.), this notion, while potentially legitimate, must be handled with immense care—otherwise, it is a hazardous threat to very important values. Done carelessly, as D’Alessandro and Abbate have done, it amounts to a gross and weird way of smuggling some regressive notions-- inadvertent cousins to “nice guy”-ism and incel-adjacent ideology-- into an ostensibly progressive guise.

Should people’s romantic and sexual preferences be off-limits to moral scrutiny, to avert the risk of such regression? That would be far from ideal, but it’d be better than the way things are currently going in some quarters.

Frankly both the D’Alessandro paper and the Abbate paper are bizarre and terrible in a lot of ways I haven't even mentioned. But here my main goal is simply to recognize the Dutiful Date problem, to characterize some of why it's so bad, and to condemn these papers—and broader currents of similar thought in social justice discourse—for their failure to address it.

#social justice #racism #lookism

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canmom · 1 year

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pinnochio 1940/pinocchio 2022

here are some post movie night comments on the Pinnochios - Disney 1940 and del Toro 2022.

Disney’s Pinocchio, viewed for the first time with adult eyes, is a strange movie. The animation is lavish - the water, especially, Elemental Magic was right. I have thought the bar for water animation is pretty high after films like Children of the Sea, but the particular way of handling it in Pinocchio was something special - it’s not merely the familiar movement of unreasonable numbers of droplets, and the foam and spray is probably the weakest part, but the body of the water, moving shapes in a way that unambiguously captured the feeling of a flowing fluid, sloshing waves - that was fucking unbelievable. it was hard to believe human hands had animated that.

But, as a movie, what was going on lmao. I mean, I understand what was going on, it was a Disney movie animated during the late 30s. At that time, the sort of stories expected in a movie were very different, and Disney was pretty much laying down the first stones on what a feature-length animated movie should be like. So, an episodic structure, subplots that start and stop rather abruptly, a large amount of screen time devoted to extended scenes of spontaneous dancing. Character beats just kind of happen: Pinocchio is informed that he should want to be a ‘real boy’ almost the second he is awakened. Gepetto’s absent-mindness is played for jokes, but he mostly seems to take having a new puppet son in stride, and eagerly sends him off to school. It’s hard to tell how much of this is adapting a rather meandering serial novel, how much is Disney’s need to bowlderise the material, and how much is just that’s how they did films back then.

Del Toro’s version - which is astonishingly beautifully animated, more on that in a minute - starts off by hitting a lot of the beats from the Disney version but giving them a lot more context and motivation. Gepetto is now grieving a son killed in the first world war, and his creation of Pinocchio is a spur of the moment act of madness after he’s been drunken for like twenty years. The fairy that takes pity on him thus has a much stronger reason to help than ‘oh you asked nicely, Some Guy’. His reaction to Pinocchio manifesting in his house and singing a song is a more understandable terror. Even the talking cricket - here Sebastian J. - is someone who has physically taken up residence in Pinocchio’s heart before he gets the job as moral guide.

Later beats follow a similar pattern. When the circus master Count Volpe threatens Pinocchio and tells him he will be forced to perform until he wears out and then burned, it comes much later in their relationship as a plausible outburst when Pinocchio is already rebelling. When Pinocchio is ordered to go to school, it is an order given by the Podestà, the film’s avatar of fascism, rather than a spontaneous, assumed self-explanatory decision of Gepetto and the Fairy (stay in school kids!). Gepetto is angry that Pinocchio disobeys him about school not because of the ultimate moral importance of school, but because he’s being threatened by the fascists.

It’s a little tricky to tease out what’s responding to the Disney version, and what’s simply a new interpretation of the book. Many of its initial surprising elements, like the undertaker/psychopomp rabbits, actually do come from the book (where they’re invoked by the fairy as a threat). Others, like the sphinx who resurrects Pinocchio when he dies, are completely del Toro original. The giant sea monster, that Disney made a whale called Monstro, is here a giant dogfish as in the book, though it performs an almost identical role.

On all these fronts, the movie succeeds wonderfully, creating a recognisable Pinocchio story that’s just a little more grounded, the metaphors adjusted to del Toro’s preferred tastes. But then, hmm.

In the book, and Disney’s film, Pinocchio is tempted with vice alongside his friend Candlewick, unaware that this will lead to him being turned into a donkey and enslaved, which is a really hardcore worldbuilding detail lmao. In del Toro’s film, this temptation subplot sees Pinocchio going to a fascist soldier training camp. He naively participates in the fascist training makes a bond with Candlewick over ‘having a shitty dad’; Candlewick’s fascistdad the Podestà attempts to have Candlewick kill Pinnochio after they agree to draw in a training exercise, then moves to shoot Candlewick instead when Candlewick disobeys, only to be abruptly killed off by a bomb. More on that later.

The whole ‘it’s in facsist Italy’ thing is the element of the film I was most anticipating, since it’s a del Toro film and ‘antifascist metaphor’ is kind of his main deal, and... honestly I’m a little nonplussed. It doesn’t beat around the bush with fascistdad praising his son as healthy and ‘virile’ and the priest and the fascist being thick as thieves, and while the Podestà is a bit one-note, it fits the sort of fairy tale/parable story the film is telling. It’s clearly driving somewhere as Pinocchio’s puppet show turning into military songs, drawing a very direct link between the circus owner (who pines for lost glory days while performing in the remains of a Roman amphitheatre) and Mussolini. Fascism is clearly a Theme, nay, a THEME.

But this plot... kind of terminates abruptly without exactly resolving. Pinocchio and Candlewick form an alliance, there’s about to be a showdown, and then a bomb blasts Pinocchio away to have a resolution with Volpe, who we’d otherwise have thought to be shot by Mussolini. We briefly see Candlewick long enough to confirm he’s alive but he never appears in the movie after that. The Podestà is killed in the explosion.

Afterwards... Volpe’s monkey Spazzatura betrays his master, and Volpe gets a Disney death, while Pinnochio is briefly tied to a cross in a strange invocation of Jesus imagery. The main villains resolved, we press on to the whale sequence.

Now, we can always write counterfactuals. I don’t know what script revisions they tried along the way. But to me it seems that a plausible resolution for this plot would be to drop the return of Volpe, and for Candlewick to shoot his dad instead of Pinocchio. That’s essentially the same beat as Spazzatura attacking and killing Volpe on Pinocchio’s behalf, but it’s closer to the father/son central theme, and Candlewick as a mirror of Pinocchio. We already have some very clear Messages, e.g. that you should physically break ‘rules’ as represented by the hourglass, or that it’s right to tell lies in some circumstances when Pinocchio uses his extending nose to get out of a whale. So if we want to be really on the nose about it, and this film generally does seem to prefer to be on the nose about it... ‘shoot your fascist dad before he shoots you’? That said, it would be a larger escalation than what Pinocchio does later, so maybe that doesn’t really work.

Or if you would prefer something super tragic and fucked up, we could see Candlewick forced into a position where he has to kill himself rather than Pinocchio, and then Pinocchio is left with the banner from the silly little war game and the Podestà realises what happens and awkwardly congratulates Pinocchio on his victory and then goes away and shoots himself. Heavy-handed moral this time: “Fascism leads to nothing but pointless self-destructive tragedies.” Then again, that’s more of an Anno plot than a del Toro plot. I think that’s sorta what happens in Pan’s Labyrinth? It’s been a while though.

I admit, my ideas are kind of stupid and grimdark, so it’s probably for the best I’m not in charge of films. I still do feel the ‘bomb out of nowhere’ is a cheap way to avoid resolving the question of ‘who shoots whomst’.

Similarly, the film’s ending walks a rather fine line between an easy happy ending like the Disney version and something a bit more bittersweet. Pinocchio chooses to become mortal to save Gepetto (filial piety win!), and accordingly dies, but conveniently Sebastian has a wish he can use to save him according to fairy rules. Thus we finally fire the Chekhov’s gun that the immortal Pinocchio will outlive his family, but it’s fine, because they basically all live long and happy lives.

It’s not a bad ending by any means, ties up a lot more themes... but while we’re playing with counterfactuals? I imagined it ending right at the point where Gepetto is crying on the beach with the dead Pinocchio in his arms a la End of Evangelion, realising he should have accepted him when he was alive. Or maybe we continue a bit further, and we see Gepetto building more puppets, but none of them come alive - yes I’m definitely ripping off the trope of the monk carving thousands of Buddhas here which we saw in Asura last week lmao. I’m not saying this would be better than the actual ending, honestly it would be kind of pointlessly grimdark and not really say anything, so it would be a pretty shit ending when the shock wears off... but idk, ‘they lived happily ever after for the rest of their days’ doesn’t really do it for me either.

These counterfactual games aside... what an absolutely gorgeous fantastic looking movie. The animation is so rich in character, the puppet rigs so advanced, the lighting so perfect. Laika have been outdone. Modern computer-aided stop-motion has reached a level now that’s hard to comprehend.

The making-of documentary was interesting, mostly for the brief glimpses we got of design sheets and animation process. I loved seeing the huge miniature sets, and the giant Pinocchio model used for interactions with Sebastian. Although brief, we got to see some of the storyboards and expression sheets, and hear del Toro talk very thoughtfully (if briefly) about naturalistic acting in animation.

I don’t know all the details, but given this is animation to match a recording, I assume the scenes were roughed out in traditional animation before any commitment to moving models. Since stop motion animation is essentially forced to be straight-ahead, this is the only way I can think to time out the acting in a way that makes sense. They also made pretty heavy use of video reference to nail the acting. There’s a large block of the credits under ‘roto’, though I think that may actually be painting out armatures rather than direct rotoscopy.

Sadly not at all addressed were all the water scenes, which is a shame, since I really wanted to know how they were done: the water has this curious sheen to it that makes it look like it’s some sort of physical model-scale material, and there’s all sorts of tiny particles in a way that seems to me to suggest the famous Disney water animation. So we thought, are they doing some sort of ridiculously complex technique with gels, at least in some shots? The answer turns out to be... no they are not, it’s ‘just’ CG. But a cool use of CGI that managed to make me wonder!

The animation process here is not exactly ‘pure’ stop motion where each frame is essentially unaltered beyond removing armatures - instead, it seems most shots are composites of multiple photos with different lighting, and combined with digital matte paintings and effects. For example, in a scene with a flaming torch, a photo would be taken with just the LED torch light, allowing the relative contributions of light sources to be adjusted in post. The fire effects appeared to be physical, and looked really nice, although they came in all the movie’s most tragic scenes so I was a little distracted lol. It’s clearly an effective technique - it’s weird to think just how different moviemaking has become in all mediums now compositing software is ubiquitous.

Overall, even if it feels a little stuffed with plots that don’t quite tie together, I kind of loved this movie anyway. There were so many beautiful shots and moments of animation, the designs are fantastic, and it all flows well, so just on a pure visual level I was completely captivated. I really hope this isn’t the last time del Toro works in animation, since he’s clearly got a real love of the medium and a flair for directing it.

Thanks for coming to movie night with me those who did! I really enjoyed tonight, it was a real break from the depression. And see you next year...

#pinocchio #del toro pinocchio #animation #animation night #film

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ask-sad-ghost-piett · 2 years

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Posthumous Admiral's Log - Entry 33

I wish someone would summon Admiral Motti for a séance session or insult the engineering team of the DS-I. He is evidently bored and has far too much free time. I, on the other hand, have far too little time to sift through all of his threatening spam transmissions piling up in my inbox.

I will say, he is very creative with his threats. If I weren’t so stressed, I might have even laughed at a few of them. The one about the Sarlacc Pit was mildly amusing, though I did not appreciate the comment stating that he would use a "miniature Sarlacc Pit". I know a childish gibe about my height when I see one. I’m very secure in my intangible spectral body, of course, but I don’t see why people feel the need to continuously comment on it. As ghosts, we spend so much of our time levitating that I’m not even sure why it would matter anymore. Granted, I don’t generally levitate quite as high above the ground as the other ghosts. It’s rather uncomfortable for me. It feels as if I’m standing on tiptoes, and frankly, I don’t see the point.

At any rate, I am quite sure that most average sized Sarlacc Pits are more than 1.65 meters deep. Motti’s threats are all invalid, but that particular one was especially invalid.

Regardless of their validity, the threats have become such a nuisance that I know I must address them one way or another. So, I brought up the matter with Max.

“Jerjerrod’s always been sensitive,” Max said. “Though I am curious what you said to get him so worked up. I’ve heard you scandalized him with your colorful vocabulary of expletives.”

I don’t actually remember whether or not I cursed out Jerjerrod. That entire shift is a blur. I will confess I was likely too exhausted to censor myself, but I didn’t think it would matter.

“We’re in the bloody navy, Max, not some Monastery of the Whills,” I said. “If he’s scandalized by me telling him to kriff off and do his job or something like that, he needs to get over himself. I still can’t believe he ran off tattling to Motti, and now the bloke wants to challenge me to some sort of duel to settle it. I don’t have time for this.”

Max nodded and then said something odd:

“You’re going to do it, right?”

“Do what?” I asked him.

“Fight Motti, of course,” Max said. “What sort of fight is it going to be? Perhaps we could cast lots on it. It’d be good for morale in the spirit of the holiday haunting.”

For a moment, I thought he was joking. Max has a wonderful sense of humor, after all. Then, I realized he was being entirely serious.

“I’m not planning on dueling Motti,” I told him. “I’m a respectable commanding officer of the Imperial Navy, Max, not some pit fighter on Geonosis.”

“That isn’t the point,” Max said sternly. “This is about your reputation, Firmus. The last thing you want is to look like a coward. How will anyone respect your command?”

We argued for a long while about this. I still do not think it’s fair that I should have to fistfight Motti in a dark alley to gain the respect of the armed forces. However, Max is insistent that this is necessary to protect my masculine honor. To be frank, I've never thought much about protecting my masculine honor. I suppose I’ve simply been lucky that it’s never been threatened. But I’ve also never really given much thought to the subject, and I doubt anyone would know it better than Maximillian Veers.

So, I promised Max that I’d “be a man” and accept Motti’s challenge. I am not familiar with the dueling protocol on Seswenna. Axxila has no protocol when it comes to fights. We simply hit each other. But it seems other planets have very complicated rules about how to fight properly. According to the rules on Denon, if Motti and I can’t settle things ourselves, we can nominate a representative on our behalf for another round. I believe it is only fair that if I have to fight Motti, Jerjerrod should have to fight Max. I know that this would go terribly for Jerjerrod, and it is possible that the threat of this happening will be enough to have him ask Motti to withdraw the challenge altogether.

I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but it seems I have no choice. My mother is in agreement with Max. I spoke with her on the matter over séance, and she told me that I’d better not “dishonor the Piett family name in the afterlife”. She then informed me that if she was to make a wager on the fight, she’d place her credits on Motti. I did not ask for this information.

Lord Vader also believes that I must accept the challenge.

“If he is not with you, then he is your enemy and you must destroy him,” he told me, regarding Motti. “The same goes for Jerjerrod and Needa.”

I do not know why he brought Needa into this, though I didn’t see any use in correcting him. I do hope that someday, Lord Vader will overcome his hatred for Needa. I do not know where it stems from. Needa is a nice man, even if he is a complete idiot with naïve ideals about the world.

Speaking of Needa, he is the only person who advised me against fighting Motti. He told me that I should simply explain that I lost my temper and tell Jerjerrod that I am sorry for what I said to him. This is, of course, incredibly foolish advice and I do not plan on heeding it. For one thing, I am not at all sorry for whatever I said to Jerjerrod, and I do not wish to be a liar. Secondly, humble apologies are against COMPNOR regulations according to the latest ISB-issued handbook.

So, now I have to set aside time from planning the holiday haunting to compose a properly aggressive reply to Admiral Motti’s challenge and then block off time in my schedule appropriately for the fight. I am not aware of any dark alleys in the Imperial afterlife. Perhaps there are some in the Rebel Scum afterlife, but I doubt we’d be able to concentrate on the fight there with all the heckling. Regardless of the venue, I hope the fight will be quick and efficient. I don’t have much time to spare.

- Admiral Piett

Read the full log on AO3.

#veers x piett #motti x jerjerrod #star wars crack #toxic masculinity in the imperial afterlife #posthumous log #if you are not with me then you are my enemy

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mineofilms · 2 years

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quam quod sumus

“People having an uninformed opinion about something they don't understand and proclaiming their opinion as being equally valid as FACTS is what is ruining the world… No one wants to do any research… They just want to be right…” ~Sciencephile the AI

For those who do not know, “Sciencephile the AI” is a YouTube channel where the speaker is meant to be an AI that has a science-based YouTube channel. The AI talks in a tone as if it were a sarcastic asshole of a human intelligence. It’s a parody channel, but they do post about real science topics. It is always told from the point of view of the fictional AI character, Sciencephile, and it is funny as hell.

The rest of this is more or less my lack of understanding as to why people crave either attention or have that sort of an attitude/mindset towards their social media. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my 100th career blog on this topic, but this is exactly why I write these. To sort out things and thoughts that do not jump off the page at me. Rather than walking through life faking it to make it in that understanding I choose to try to make sense of it all.

In this case some have disguised their opinion about “whatever subject matter” as experience, but really it is just an opinion. Sure, experience creeps into the subject matter here and there. However, how much objective experience can you receive when said person suffers from extreme depression and other mental health aspects that do not get treated, because they hide them well or planted whatever, “they’re an alpha” flag in the ground and do not recognize/identify the problem lies within themselves? Some see this as mental health. Some see it as pure narcissism, which of itself, narcissism could be thought of as a mental illness all its own.

Just because someone is doing well in life on the outside doesn’t mean they are doing well in life. More times than not you see the extreme opposite play out.

I know that sounds a little vague, but people today in this country are more mentally messed up than we all will lead on. We all believe ourselves to be more than what we are. My point of view is that I tend to take a lot of the emotional value out of things. Specifically in and from people I actually know. I have had my expectations in life, love, friends, business and a passion for these things so stepped on over the years that I sometimes show a lack of empathy towards other people and their grievances. Even more so in people I know in real life.

Some I would call friends and others are unlucky passersbys in life that are too busy talking about everything, but mostly saying nothing of worth. For all their talk all I feel the message is -is incredibly superficial, yet they “tend” to get angry at other superficial people the way they will talk about their morning routine like a current day influencer would. Talk about life choices and moral high ground as if it were a honey almond body scrub; the way they describe daily mantra routines is much the same. Throwing out quotes, out of context and not even know where/who/what the quote is even about, but yet throw it out there like it is a valuable lesson they daily live by and needs to let their audience know that, usually in some condescending way.

Hey… I do it to. I just try to know what the FK I am posting and talking about. I attempt to be much deeper about it. Find a deeper meaning in it over just being another generic voice with an attitude about this or that. No real metaphor for my life as I tend to be more literal than metaphor. I see this on TikTok now a lot. It is either this kind of fake/phony trash bag talk or fake money shark loan people lol. They talk and talk……and talk. Monologues/Reaction videos from other two-step flow-theory practitioners, what other thinkers say and regurgitate the thinker’s beliefs as their own original ideas without even looking into the validity of said concepts.

The best places to get reservations, which salons to visit, where they got this dress or swimsuit. Where they purchase their bodybuilding supplements, etc. Their constant obsession with being seen in the right places, with the right clothes, with the right people. Their constant need to be better than everyone while seething rage gets posted under the context of self-love, self-awareness and moral high ground, over simple things such as feelings about where our culture is heading and relationships or their lack of.

While this seems so much that it is both oddly entrenching and entertaining AF, but also incredibly shallow. Their world is one where simply copying what everyone else does on social media (influencer mentality) with an inflated belief in themselves based on nothing concrete other than their belief of it is much more important than the chatter from their mate planning their wedding or what to do for the weekend with their partner.

Their desperate cry to be positive ends up just being a shallow self-serving attempt to be normal when they have yet to accept that they are not the norm. That isn’t always a bad thing, even here. This whole blog was an afterthought after I saw a “WTF happen to this movie” video about the 2000 film, “American Psycho.” I really need to sit through that movie again and I am highly considering listening to the audiobook version down the road once I finish some other stuff I want to hear first. There were a string of films that really talk about societal change in the negative around the turn of the century. Fight Club, American Psycho, Rules of Attraction. There are a bunch of them. I feel like they hold up pretty good 20-something years later and all. Probably even more so now than they were then. Fight Club was 1999. American Psycho was 2000. We are talking 2 decades and some change ago now.

The point I am trying to make here is; I just do not see enough creativity in these efforts by others, especially on social media. Mostly, I am directly talking about people I know somewhat personally that I have been friends with over the years and I have watched them descend into a sort of controlled madness on their social media. There have been times when even I consider this for myself. Am I contributing to this and at what level am I doing this at? All along with what I am doing to correct it and/or understand it better.

If I was closer to these people I would probably have different feelings about the logistics of their efforts and where they are coming from. How severe their mental health is, which I know is at play here with most of them. I post these thoughts in places where they all would have to make an effort to see them. So I do not worry about that; nor even if they did take offense to it. It is my opinion, on my platform, which is both mine and not theirs. I never mention names/accounts and I am also including myself and my short comings into the conversation as well. No one knows, but me and them (if they were to make the effort to see/read those comments and have some insight about their own lives.)

I mean what are the odds that I would see their TikTok rants the morning after I saw the video on American Psycho the night before and to make the correlation between the 2 different types of direct media and their messages that are presented and not associated together directly? I do not wanna catch too much, “Mineo, WTH are you talking about” heat? So what I am trying to say is; aren’t you all just as tired as I am? Seeing people you actually know contribute to the influencer mentality of life, moral high ground, superficial talk? Words are said but the concepts seem extremely vague and narcissistic. I get it. I should probably remove Meta services and TikTok to get these things out of my area of perception. Hey, I get all that. It is a little hard for me because of what I got going on inside these services at the moment.

The best efforts I have made is just let sleeping dogs lie. “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” can be associated with change. The thing about change is, it sucks, it’s uncomfortable, it’s painful AF and it’s HARD. Even with all the good intentions, others may not share that. They have their own intentions. Be it to love or be loved, to live and let live or live alone with nothing. Change is never easily embraced. Change is always these things. If you can accept change you have already begun moving forward.

The levels of toxicity people tend to project onto others via their own social media these days really has made me pull away from being social with people in the real world that I already know. Their posts make me not wanna follow them or even support their endeavors anymore be it professional or personal. I have disconnected from them and their mentality of trying to be the superior moral high ground alpha person in the room. I see this in both sexes. This isn’t just towards dudes I know or ladies for that matter. I want to help, I want to be there for others in my circle that now appears to have been blindly accepted upon. I am very limited and even more limited with patience/faith in other people. They simply never do what they say they are gonna do. Ever… Not some of the time or once in a blue moon, but all of the time. They never complete what they set out to do or at the very least make that transparent enough to not question or not if that person is firing on all cylinders.

Having faith in people and that faith transitioning to expectations held on other people. The expectation has to be based on something other than wishful thinking. It has to be built upon. With real tangible things. Like action. Action is real truth. If someone says they are coming over and they don't show up. What was said and what was actually done are not one in the same. The expectation must be built upon from action. What we do... Not say, but do, matters… That is why I say people never do what they say they are gonna do. Because they say, but what they do are not even close to the same thing in most cases.

“It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.” ~Claude Bernard; because everyone already knows everything already and they need no more education, insight or perspective. They believe themselves to be master. The thing about mastery of anything is no one is ever the master. Always the student and never the master should be the perspective, but it hardly ever is.

I am trying to have more INTENTIONALITY in my life or (to be about, represent, stand for, or be directed towards some object or state of affairs). Intention isn’t enough if one does nothing about it and that is where my crossed roads end. If one seeks change and does nothing to make said change happen then nothing will happen and nothing will change. If someone goes on TikTok and tells the world they are right about this/that and we all have it wrong then I guess what is seen, what is shown and what is actually projected never are the same things or even closely associated together. Yet, that is what is expected of us. To simply comply, agree and obey…

OBEY…

My advice to people like this is stop talking about it or projecting it onto other people because you want it to be real so bad, but lack any of the actual attributes to make it real and tangible. Stop changing the rules of the game and get better at playing the game. The question of your existence isn't solely about what you are. It is about who you are. Lead by example, lead by action, which is the only real truth out there.

I ask, don’t you get tired of having to cycle through your friends every few years, because they drop you because of this “better than you influencer of moral high ground mentality?” Going on social media and complain about that and tell everyone how wrong we all are and how correct you promote yourself to be. Is it an accident people leave you? That people around you leave you high and dry, which now seems like it is a constant theme in your life? Take that WOKE stick out of your ASS and grow the Fuck Up… If you want respect from others for your moral high ground, walk the walk. It isn’t an update status. It isn’t a fad. It isn’t a reaction video on TikTok. It isn’t something you can copy from someone else’s social media and post as your own original thoughts.

You Have To Be This Yourself.

No matter how many LIKES, HEARTS, ReTweets you get will not make you more than what you are right now. You want these things. Then suffer alone and quietly like all the others that came before you and picked themselves up and discovered what you are trying to discover now. PEACE… You have to endure unmet expectations. Lots of them… Here is a thought, don’t have any expectations at all. Be prepared, you may walk alone for a long while before the serenity of that peace finds you…

Nobody wants to be with or around a NARCISSIST…

quam quod sumus Latin for (more than what we are) By David-Angelo Mineo 2,340 Words 8/21/2022

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nxrthmizu · 3 years

Text

Crash and Burn

fandom | miraculous ladybug

genre | salt, lila salt

pairing | n/a

w.c | 3.2k

author's note | hey remember that lila salt fic i promised? this isn't it but this is something i made today so yep. please accept this as an apology for yknow. me promising to write and. not doing it.

Enough was enough.

“Marinette, stop accusing Lila! She just wants to make friends!”

“Take the high road.”

“Be a good model student, Marinette.”

Enough. Was. Enough.

Marinette had the connections, the power, the choice to make Lila’s entire world crumble apart. The only thing that stood between the liar’s demise was the tiniest pinch of morality and self-restraint— And no, that self-restraint did not come in the form of Tikki. Even the kwami, who had to be an aggregation of all the good and nice things in the world, was fed up and ready to retaliate.

“What a joke.” Lila cackled, tossing a chunk of her sausage hair over her shoulder flamboyantly. The two girls were in the bathroom, with Lila smirking in front of the sink and Marinette a little distance away from her. “You can make my world crumble? What is this, a threat?”

“A promise.” Marinette corrected. “Stop telling lies. Come clean to every one. No more lying about knowing celebrities left and right, no more making excuses about not being able to take your own notes, no more making up ‘diseases’ just so your life gets a little more convenient. To be frank, I really don’t care what happens to you— But by making these empty promises to introduce my classmates to great ‘celebrities’, you’re ruining their futures. Stop.”

“And what are you going to do if I don’t?” Lila sneered, face twisted into an ugly grin. “You going to cry in front of the class? Try and convince them that I, the one they adore— That I am lying?”

“No.” Marinette’s eyes were clear when she met Lila’s. The clouds of self-doubt that used to hover over the bright, shining star inside her soul had now dissipated, letting the bluenette emit a confident, glowing appearance as she met the liar head on. “I’m just going to keep my promise.”

──────── ⋆⋅❉⋅⋆ ────────

Lila headed off to a modelling shoot after school, pleased at the prospect of spending more time with Adrien. There were a couple tendrils of Marinette’s words hanging behind in her mind— Did the girl mean what she said? Did she actually… Was she actually capable of causing Lila’s downfall? … Surely not. Marinette may have once been the ‘Everyday Ladybug’, but there was no way she was that competent, there was no way the girl was capable of plotting.

The Italian hummed, brushing away thoughts of the annoying bluenette from her mind. She was going on a photoshoot— One that was going cause the rise and burst of her career, the one that was going to make her name a globally-known one. Unfortunately for Lila, her plans were going to be derailed quite soon— In fact, as soon as Gabriel Agreste’s car rolled into the parking lot of the shoot location.

“Explain this, Mlle. Rossi.” Gabriel’s nostrils flared as he pointed to the tabloid article on his tablet. The Italian girl froze, the headlines seared into her eyes, big and black and bold, shooting poison right into the core of her body, paralysing her cell by cell starting from her heart. “What is the meaning of this?”

‘Adrien Agreste Reported To Be Harassed by Fellow Model’— The image under the caption was one that was clearly taken by a hidden photographer. The picture was framed with leafy foliage, which suggested that the camera was tucked up in a tree. Despite the distance, it was quite obvious in the image that Adrien was reeling away, disgusted and uncomfortable as a faceless woman in an orange blazer, back turned to the camera— Invaded his personal space.

The subtitle was the cream on the cupcake.

‘Witnesses State Gabriel Agreste Ignorant of Workplace Harassment’.

──────── ⋆⋅❉⋅⋆ ────────

As if things couldn’t quite go down a worser path, Lila returned home to a fuming mother and an unexpected visitor.

“Lila! You come here right this instant!” The diplomat demanded as soon as the front door opened, her daughter shrinking slightly at the tone and pitch that her mother was using. The last time her mother had been this angry— Well, it was when she got expelled from her last school. “I can’t believe what you’ve done! If it weren’t for your kind classmate, lord knows how long you would’ve continued with this!”

The Italian meekly followed her mother into the living room, eyes widening until they were as large as saucers, mouth agape at the last person she expected to see sitting on the couch.

Marinette smiled kindly, waving at the girl, looking every bit the part of the innocent, pure, kind child that every parent wanted to have. Before Lila could release a torrent of questions about what the hell Marinette Dupain-Cheng was doing in her living room, her mother charged on, beginning to take out her anger on her daughter while a literal angel sat on the sofa, cradling a box of pastries from her family’s bakery.

“Your friend here tells me that you’ve been taking absences from school to go on trips to help humanity!” Mme. Rossi exploded, waving her arms around madly. “She says she’s here to share her notes from the classes you’ve missed! You’ve never left Paris this year! What’s this I hear about flying off to the kingdom of— What was it called again, Marinette dear?”

“Achu.” Provided the bluenette helpfully, the diplomat’s expression instantly softening when she talked to the other teen in the living room.

“Ah, yes. Thank you, dear.” The woman turned back to her daughter, instantly snapping on a mask of anger in a matter of a fraction of a second. “What’s this about flying off to this kingdom of Achu to help homeless orphans with some random prince?”

“Um…” Lila piped up, wriggling as her brain churned at 200 lies per hour, trying to whip up a cover of some sort.

“I’m not done! Your friend here is such a helpful child that she even went as far as to ask her family doctor is there’s a cure for your… Lying disease!” Mme. Rossi practically roared, breathing flames as if she were an intimidating dragon, her daughter flinching away from the heat. “I’ve never heard of anything more ridiculous! And then there’s the fact that you lied to your classmates about having tinnitus?!”

“I actually do have tinnitus!” Lila cut in forcibly, widening her eyes to make herself look more pitiful. “I was just afraid to tell you because I didn’t want you to worry!”

“Bullshit!”

“Um… Sorry to interrupt, Mme. Rossi,” Marinette piped up, the diplomat instantly cooling down as she faced the bluenette, a soft smile tracing the Italian woman’s lips. “But it’s getting rather late and my parents would love me home soon. I also have some tests to revise for tonight, so I think I should get going.”

“Oh, of course, dear.” Mme. Rossi hastily got up to help the bluenette to the door, shooting a warning glare at her daughter— ‘Sit still and don’t you dare go anywhere’, the glare read. “Feel free to come over again anytime you want, dear. I’m not home often, but you are such a sweet child. I’m sure Lila could learn a lot from you.”

“Thanks for having me as well, Mme. Rossi. I really like your home. I left the pastries on the counter— Make sure to warm the curry puffs before you eat them.” Marinette returned the smile, bowing slightly to the older woman as a sign of respect.

“Thank you for the pastries as well, Marinette. I ought to visit your parents’ bakery sometime when I’m free.” Mme. Rossi opened the door kindly for the bluenette, waving the girl off with an affectionate smile. Her parents must be so lucky to have such a sweet little thing like her, Mme. Rossi sighed internally, turning the key so she locked the door. And she seems to be a high-scoring student as well.

──────── ⋆⋅❉⋅⋆ ────────

Lila seethed, having been grounded by her mother. As far as Mme. Rossi was concerned, there was a boarding school not too far away from their current residence, and by the next week, the Italian girl would be transferred over. Lila had never hated Dupain-Cheng as much as she did in that moment.

Still furious, the Italian snapped her laptop open, too angry to bother with the fact she might’ve scratched the surface. Clicking into the web browser, she started to type in the words ‘Ladyblog’— That was, before a news article caught her eye.

‘Jagged Stone Interview Reveals Underage, Obsessed Fan’.

What on Earth…

As soon as Lila clicked into the link, the news footage from the interview immediately begin to play. The date stamp on it showed that it had aired last night— Which meant that she would’ve missed it, since her mother was too busy yelling at her to turn on the television to watch Nadja Chamack’s daily news.

“As soon as I heard this rumour about some underage teenage girl claiming that she had saved my cat on an airport runway, I called Penny and asked her to book a slot for me to clarify this,” Jagged Stone said grimly, dressed in more formal attire as he sat in the comfortable, cushioned chair of the news station, with Nadja nodding equally seriously beside him. “Let me clarify— I’ve never owned a cat. I’m allergic to fur. The only pet I’ve had was Fang, and he’s an al-li-ga-tor. Not a cat. Whatever the girl is claiming, she’s obsessed and making up stories.”

“It’s also kind of bewildering that she saved it on an airport runway,” Nadja continued, shaking her head in disappointment. “That kind of thing only happens in dramas— It’s too dangerous for anyone besides authorised workers to be on airport runways.”

“Right, right!” Jagged agreed instantly. “The whole rumour is just really baffling.”

“M. Jagged, may I ask what kind of effect these rumours have on a celebrities’ career?” Nadja continued, leading the conversation on like a professional.

“Well, rumours that circulate around tend to have really bad effects, and the worse ones can hang around for a long, long time. Tabloids are often spun off from rumours, baseless and with no evidence. Those tabloids will never truly disappear, so they can leave a mark on a celebrity’s reputation as some people will believe anything— Even things they read from un-cited tabloids.”

“That is simply terrible. Have you ever had any cases of rumours created by underaged teens before this?”

“I’ve had quite a number, but none of them really got as big as this one. From what Penny has found from digging around, the teen girl managed to spread the rumour through her school and onto a once-popular blog.” Jagged explained. “Penny has also found out that the same girl has claimed that I’ve written songs for her to thank her for saving my cat! I would never write songs and dedicate them to an underaged girl— Trust me. If I could do such a thing, I’d already have written a dozen in honour of my niece— She’s my favourite designer.”

Nadja smiled at that sentence. “Then—“

The news footage cut off abruptly as Lila slammed her laptop shut, too upset to continue watching.

──────── ⋆⋅❉⋅⋆ ────────

On the other side of Paris, Alya was pacing around her room frantically, wondering why on earth Lila wasn’t picking up on her calls. She’d left at least four dozen messages to the Italian, who was absent from school that day. There had been a couple whispers here and there about why she was missing— Rose had suggested another impromptu trip to Achu.

Lila’s absence wasn’t the weirdest part of the day, however.

That award would go to Marinette, who walked into class with a smile, the slightest sprinkles of delight colouring her bluebell eyes when she spotted Lila’s empty seat.

Growing in frustration, Alya threw herself onto her bed, phone clattering onto the mattress with her. Within the next few minutes, however, her phone suddenly started exploding with notifications. Excited at the prospect of Lila finally texting back, Alya turned on her phone, only to be disappointed by the notifications all clamouring from the class group chat.

Kim had sent a link to the chat— Without hesitation, Alya clicked into it, frowning when she saw Nadja and Jagged appear on the screen. Throughout the interview, the colour on the Ladyblogger’s face only paled by the second until she was as white as a sheet, and if it were halloween at that time, she would’ve won the best costume award for being a ghost.

There must… There must’ve been a mistake.

A notification from Lila’s number made the blogger perk up, instantly clicking into the conversation— But her newfound hope didn’t last very long.

[Lila]

Hi, Alya. This is Lila’s mom. She’s currently grounded right now. Is there anything important you need to tell her?

[Alya]

Oh, nothing much… I just wanted to ask where she was.

[Lila]

She’s at home.

[Alya]

Okay, thanks.

Flopping onto her bed, Alya begin thinking, revising over the past few months like it was an old clip. Lila’s exciting adventures and interactions with celebrities of every kind— Lila going overseas and face timing the entire class— Lila letting her in on the secrets of being Ladybug’s friend…

… Marinette trying to tell them that Lila was lying…

──────── ⋆⋅❉⋅⋆ ────────

The class was awfully silent the next day. Adrien was absent as well— A social worker was looking into his home life as a result of the tabloid that arose. Things for the blonde could either get better or worse from then on, as the matters were still foggy and things hadn’t cleared up yet. The blonde maintained contact with his friends, however, calling and texting them whenever he could.

“Class, settle down.” Mlle. Bustier stepped into the class, looking very tense and uncomfortable. “Today, we will have a guest, so please be on your best behaviours, alright?”

Just as the teacher finished speaking, a tall, regal-looking Italian woman entered the classroom, a cowering principal and a meek-looking Lila in tow. The class brightened slightly at the sight of their friend— But by the way she wasn’t looking into their eyes… Things weren’t going to be good.

“Good morning. I am Mme. Rossi, Lila’s mother.” The woman begin speaking, her firm and no-nonsense tone instantly making every student sit straight, their eyes too afraid to look anywhere else but the Italian diplomat. “It has come to my attention that my daughter has been taking absences from school to do charity work— And I have to clarify that this is a lie. Lila has been doing nothing but holing herself up in her room, lying to me and saying that there are no classes due to akumas.” The Italian diplomat glowered at Damocles. “What’s even more baffling is the fact that neither her homeroom nor the principal bothered to check up with me despite a student having extended periods of absence with no note or email written whatsoever.”

The class was so quiet that they could hear the quiver of Mlle. Bustier’s trembling lip.

“In addition, I’ve been kindly told that Lila has claimed to have a lying disease, which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard this week.” It was impossible to miss the way the Italian diplomat was glaring daggers at both Mlle. Bustier and Damocles. “No one bothered to look it up online to see if it’s actual disorder, nor did anyone call me to confirm and ask for a doctor’s note, which is standard procedure.” Chills burst over the room, making every one shiver as the woman hissed out her words.

“Mme. Rossi, we didn’t want to disturb your busy schedule—” Damocles begin, only to be blown backwards from the sheer intensity of Mme. Rossi’s glower.

“M. Damocles, standard procedures exist for a reason. Unless you’d like to tell me about any other things you’ve been letting my daughter get away with?”

“N— No, Mme.”

The Italian diplomat continued on her war path. “My daughter also claimed to have tinnitus, am I correct?”

“Y— Yes, Mme.” Mlle. Bustier answered when it seemed like no one was going to.

“And I heard that the class seating arrangement was shifted to accommodate for that?” The homeroom teacher didn’t dare answer this time, for it seemed like whatever she said would be the incorrect answer. “And apparently, my daughter has also been faking broken wrists and requesting for her classmates to complete her work for her.” Mme. Rossi was practically breathing flames at that point, “And I am incredibly upset at the lack of action from the homeroom teacher.”

No one could breath.

“I have many concerns about the running of this schooling facility, and I expect to discuss this with M. Damocles privately after this. However, there is still something to be done.” Mme. Rossi swept her gaze towards her daughter, who found the floor incredibly interesting at that point of time. “Lila? Something you’d like to say to your classmates?”

“… I’m sorry for lying to you.” Lila mumbled resentfully.

“Louder, Lila. No one can hear you.”

“I’m sorry for lying to you!” Lila swallowed, bursting like an explosion that had finally been triggered, tears in her eyes and fists hatefully curled. “I’m sorry for lying about my diseases and injuries. I’m sorry for making you do my work,” She spat. “Sorry for causing any inconveniences.”

Mme. Rossi raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “Is that all?”

Lila glared at her mother, who was completely unfazed. “Oh, so you want an apology from me? Fine!” She turned to the class, a maniacal glint in her eyes as she sneered at the class, a few gasps puffing from around the room as they caught their first glimpse of the liar that resided in the ‘harmless’ shell of Lila Rossi. “I’m sorry that you are all such idiots that you all fell for everything. I’m sorry that Marinette has such terrible, untrusting classmates that turned their backs on her even though she was still a goody-two shoes till the end, even though she still wanted to help you sorry peasants. I’m sorry that you were all so goddamn gullible! There! Good enough for you?”

Shock was etched into the faces of every human in the classroom— Including Mlle. Bustier, M. Damocles, and Mme. Rossi themselves. Clearly, that part of the apology had not been part of the plan.

“Did I miss something?” Said a sweet voice, followed by the presence of a bluenette, her hair tied in a half-up. A royal blue blazer decorated her lithe form, accompanied by a smart-looking white blouse and a black plaited skirt. Formal had never looked so good on anyone— And if someone didn't know better, they'd think that the bluenette was a young lawyer, emerging victorious from her first successful case.

“Marinette!” Alya exclaimed.

“I’m sorry that you’re such an annoying, little, pest.” Lila bit in the girl’s face, disdain colouring her features as she ignored her mother’s enraged gasp behind her.

The bluenette simply smiled, unaffected by the liar who had crashed and burned like the liar once wished upon her. Marinette Dupain-Cheng stood at her full height, the perfect image of grace and poise as she maintained her composure, quite unlike her nemesis, who thrashed under her mother’s restraining hands.

“And I’m sorry that you didn’t take my promise to heart.”

this can count as adrien redemption depending on you cause ehhh i dont like how passive he is but i havent caught up with the recent episodes, he might have become better. idk.

also where the hell is my miraculous taglist i cant find it so eep. no tagging ppl ig oops

#miraculous ladybug #the tales of ladybug and chat noir #marinette dupain-cheng #lila rossi #lila salt #rossi salt #ml class #ml salt #ml class salt #marinette deserves better #badass marinette #lila rossi lies #lila's lies are exposed #adrien agrete #alya cesaire #cady writesss «

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

LXC offhandedly says something about his relationship with NHS that would be totally innocent from *anyone* else, but sounds scandalously filthy coming from *him*. Bonus points if it's around LWJ and/or WWX and they are floored. Double bonus points if he did it on purpose for revenge over having to listen to *them* all the time. - 🦇

Petty - ao3

The first time was an accident.

No, that wasn’t right. More accurately, the first time was entirely Wei Wuxian’s fault.

(Lan Xichen sometimes thought, not very kindly, that many things were, more than Lan Wangji would necessarily admit to. He had not yet settled with himself if those were his actual thoughts or if it was merely bitterness about everything that had happened and in which Wei Wuxian had played chief role, but that was one of the things he was working on, for himself.

After all those years of being deceived, it was important for him to get to know his own mind, his own thoughts, and to be sure about them.)

“It’s good to see you out and about,” Wei Wuxian said warmly to him when they met again, as if Lan Xichen had only been confined at home with a brief illness rather than in strict seclusion for over a year.

Lan Xichen thought, perhaps, that Wei Wuxian was attempting to translate for Lan Wangji, standing beside him, practically radiating welcome and hopefulness and other such things that Lan Xichen honestly wasn’t equipped to deal with at the moment and had been purposefully ignoring. If so, it was not a very accurate translation, and unnecessary – no one knew his brother better than him.

Certainly not his brother’s long-dead lost love, who hadn’t even known.

“Indeed,” he said, not smiling, and Wei Wuxian’s own smile faded a little, as Lan Wangji’s own hope already had. “Nie Huaisang will be coming to visit me, and I plan to host him at the hanshi.”

That might also have been at Lan Wangji’s request, although only obliquely, if at all – even when he had appeared at his weakest, his most fallible and pathetic, Nie Huaisang had always been as stubborn as an ox (as stubborn as his brother), and no one could make him do anything he didn’t want to do. This included running his own sect, no matter how much they had tried, and it also included actually listening to the people he’d just begged to solve problems for him. Lan Xichen could remember all the countless times Nie Huaisang had sobbed on his shoulder, and Jin Guangyao’s, too, until they’d given him advice, at which point he would thank them effusively and merrily go along and do whatever he felt like doing regardless. He was very good at getting his own way in the end.

As subsequent events had shown.

Lan Xichen could tell from the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face that he didn’t understand why Lan Xichen would choose to break his seclusion to host Nie Huaisang of all people, especially when he had declined all similar efforts by Lan Wangji, but he wasn’t especially inclined to explain.

If he even could.

How to explain that contemplation had shown that he had been the one to fail Nie Huaisang and not the other way around? Long before they’d ever sworn brotherhood, he had promised Nie Mingjue to watch over Nie Huaisang and aid him whole-heartedly in all his endeavors. Nie Mingjue had always worried, first and foremost, that Nie Huaisang not be lonely, knowing that his brother, born with a weak body, had long struggled with finding his place in his martially-inclined sect – everything else was secondary in Nie Mingjue’s mind, even Nie Huaisang’s personal safety. He’d always said that Nie Huaisang was a proper Nie in that fashion, that he would devote every part of him to the things he loved no matter if it meant death, and there was nothing anyone could do about it; all he’d ever wanted, instead, was for Nie Huaisang not to be alone as he did so.

Lan Xichen had sworn to be there for him.

He hadn’t been.

He’d sworn to stand beside Nie Mingjue, too, promised it in his heart and in the eyes of all the world, and he’d even meant it when he’d done so. And then, despite it all, he’d spent nearly half his life supporting and shielding his murderer – he’d broken so many promises. To the Nie, to himself. The only thing Lan Xichen could do to atone for those failures was to try to do better: to learn from what he’d done, to teach himself what he’d lacked, to make up for his deficiencies. To live up to what little remained of those promises.

And so, if Nie Huaisang wanted to see him, he would see him, even if he had seen no one else.

Wei Wuxian didn’t understand that.

Couldn’t, maybe.

Wei Wuxian was his brother-in-law, he made Lan Wangji happy, and Lan Xichen was grateful for that. He was even grateful, in a painful, agonizing sort of way, for Wei Wuxian’s help in revealing the truth about Jin Guangyao and his dark deeds. But Wei Wuxian forgot pain as soon as it happened and believed everyone else ought to be the same: they were together now, so never mind about all those years Lan Wangji spent alone and in mourning; Jin Guangyao had been a murderer, so never mind about all the good things he’d done or the good times they’d shared; Lan Xichen was out of seclusion, so clearly he’d gotten over everything that had happened.

At least for Lan Xichen, pain did not work that way.

“Well, that’s nice,” Wei Wuxian said after a while, when the silence had gone from merely familiar to actively awkward and Lan Wangji was staring at the ground, his hopes dashed to bits, even though that had not been Lan Xichen’s intent. He loved his brother very much, but he couldn’t heal himself fast enough to assuage Lan Wangji’s guilt at winning his happiness at the expense of Lan Xichen’s pain, nor did he intend to try. “I didn’t know he was coming.”

Lan Xichen did not point out that he was Sect Leader, not Lan Wangji, and that his word was final regarding who did and did not have the right to enter the Cloud Recesses at any time. It would be petty.

He was trying not to be petty. It was very hard.

“I hope to spend some quality time together with him,” Lan Xichen finally said, some meaningless filler designed to let them get out of the current conversational impasse, and was bewildered when Wei Wuxian, possibly inspired by the high tension of the moment, burst out in raucous laughter, reaching out to elbow Lan Wangji in the side.

“I bet you will,” he said, his tone almost jeering. “Quality time, yeah? Just the two of you together in the hanshi and everything.”

It wasn’t until Lan Wangji’s ears reddened slightly that Lan Xichen comprehended what Wei Wuxian was implying. That he had left a year’s seclusion because, what, he wanted to hop into bed with Nie Huaisang?

The mere notion was so puerile that it could barely be considered as rising to the level of a joke, the implication not only crude but actively cruel and disdainful of all the work Lan Xichen had done to put himself back together over the past year, and Lan Xichen had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to respond.

He glanced at Lan Wangji, wondering if his brother would say something – apologize, maybe – but he was clearly unable or unwilling to help. Finally, he shook his head and walked away.

That was the first time.

The second time – and many of the other times thereafter – were not accidental at all.

Talking with Nie Huaisang had been wretchedly painful but cleansing, necessary, just as his silent and extended contemplation in seclusion had been. They had not wholly forgiven each other for everything that had happened, whether the harms they had knowingly or unknowingly inflicted or for the agonies they had each suffered, but they were on a path to get there together – each one of them agreeing to learn from what had happened, to try to extend trust to each other, real trust, so that neither of them had to continue on their lonely roads alone.

It might be nearly two decades late, but Lan Xichen was determined to make good on his promise to Nie Mingjue, and Nie Huaisang equally determined in his own way to live up to what his brother would have wanted now that it was an option.

One unexpected aspect of this, interestingly, was how the clash between their values – Lan sect rules, Nie sect principles – gave rise to any number of very interesting analytical conversations. Nie Huaisang was a poor scholar for rules that required rote memorization to learn, but he understood his sect’s moral code down to his bones, well enough to be able to fashion himself a path within it. When pressed for his thoughts on any given subject, his arguments were well-fashioned, logical, and difficult to refute.

Lan Xichen had not enjoyed himself so much in years.

Even in the days when he had wholly believed in Jin Guangyao, his former friend was simply too facile to have a proper back-and-forth with: he would always yield, or seem to, or else dance around the main subject until they were on another on which they could agree; he had always prioritized good feeling over intellecutal growth. He’d never understood what enjoyment could be gotten out of standing your ground on some theoretical or philosophical issue.

At any rate, one of the points Nie Huaisang had won, curiously enough, was in regards to the subject of pettiness: bad in large doses, but acceptable in small, in his view. He compared it to venting frustrations or to understanding and indulging oneself in the positive sense – if you’re a petty person, he said matter-of-factly, you can try to improve yourself, but you’re not going accept yourself unless you just admit it. If that’s the sort of person you were, you wouldn’t get anywhere constantly resisting the urge to fight things out in petty, stupid ways.

Sometimes you just wanted to get into it over something stupid because otherwise you’d get into it over something important, and that was, in Nie Huaisang’s view, not a bad thing: if someone got in your face, get back in theirs.

Lan Xichen was, in many ways, a petty person.

“So, how is Nie Huaisang doing?” Wei Wuxian asked when lunch was not entirely over. Etiquette dictated that Lan Xichen had to respond, and family rules that he knew Wei Wuxian knew made clear it was impermissible to talk over meals: the only acceptable solution, therefore, was for him to consider his half-eaten meal as already complete, respond, and wait until dinner to fill up. And all because Wei Wuxian simply couldn’t wait another half-ke to blurt out his question, because he was too free and unrestrained to honor the rules of the family he had married into just because he personally didn’t think they were important. “Where is he, anyway? I would’ve thought he’d be here with us.”

Lan Xichen put down his bowl with just a little extra more force than he should, enough to make it clink against the table, and Lan Wangji’s eyes tightened a little at the unusual display of irritation.

“He’s still in bed,” Lan Xichen said mildly. “I’m afraid I rather wore him out last night.”

Wei Wuxian choked, misunderstanding, just as Lan Xichen had intended him to.

They’d gotten onto an interesting subject of conversation and had ended up talking most of the previous day’s afternoon and evening, as it happened, and Nie Huaisang was still a sect leader, with important business to attend to; Lan Xichen was fairly sure that after he had retired at the usual time for his sect, Nie Huaisang had worked until nearly dawn. Anyway, Nie Huaisang wasn’t much for set meal-times, not even by Wei Wuxian’s lax standards; he’d shared an early breakfast with Lan Xichen before going to sleep.

“Perhaps you can speak with him later, if you need him,” Lan Xichen said, folding his hands in front of him. “I will pass along your regards when I return to the hanshi. Which I should do now, in fact: I have some correspondence I need to attend to.”

Lan Xichen wondered if Wei Wuxian even noticed that his words signified Lan Xichen’s graceful removal of the work of sect correspondence from Lan Wangji, returning it into his own hands. Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji had managed sect business between them during Lan Xichen’s seclusion, and both had recognized that even though he had emerged from that seclusion he was still very much in the midst of his recovery and neither had tried to push him back into the role of Sect Leader. His announcement that he needed to attend to correspondence indicated that he was shouldering that burden once more – moreover, it was, by Lan sect standards, a rather vicious snub to make the announcement of the transition a public one, however subtle the wording, especially when he did not similarly make any sort of announcement regarding the work his uncle was managing on his behalf.

Petty.

Unnecessarily petty, really – it wasn’t Lan Wangji’s fault that he’d married a man who couldn’t even after all this time comprehend that sometimes you valued something because someone else did, even if you yourself didn’t care for or understand it.

It was, however, his fault in not putting a stop to Wei Wuxian’s rudeness.

It wasn’t actually hard for a grown man to at least try to respect a rule as basic as do not speak during meals, or for that matter the one about not making tremendous noise late at night when you knew everyone else was sleeping. Having previously been in seclusion, Lan Xichen wasn’t aware of how bad it had gotten, with disciples rearranging their living quarters further and further away from any place Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian might be found breaking the rules against excessive promiscuity – and really, Lan Wangji should know better. No one was asking that he refrain from being in love, even extravagantly so, but they did live in a community, and he ought to have basic respect for others, even if it meant occasionally saying no to his beloved long-lost and miraculously reunited lover.

Lan Xichen knew how hard it was for him to say no, of course; he suffered from the same generosity of spirit as his brother. But hadn’t everything that had happened a year ago shown the folly of always saying yes?

“Ah, Wei-xiong,” Lan Xichen said a few days later when they crossed paths in the middle of the day. “Are you on your way to the apothecary? Could I ask you to pick up a few items for me?”

Wei Wuxian shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, presumably still aching from the bout of early afternoon delight that he and Lan Wangji had been indulging in over by the cold spring – which was meant to be a place for cultivation for all, not a private garden in which the young master of the sect could frolic like one of his pet rabbits. It would have to be cleaned before anyone else could use it, and Lan Wangji was undoubtedly back there giving those orders now, his forehead ribbon no doubt askew from having been utilized in private activity before being hastily replaced.

“Certainly, Xichen-xiong,” he said. “What do you need?”

“Some ointments of the sort used for stretching and to ease pain,” Lan Xichen said. “Huaisang has been complaining of soreness and stiffness as of late.”

He had, of course – among his misfortunes, Nie Huaisang had been born with something of a crooked spine, and his lower back would sporadically spasm, causing him great pain. Not that that was what Wei Wuxian was thinking of, of course.

“I’ve tried using my hands on him,” Lan Xichen added, allowing himself to sound regretful – which he was, as he hated to see Nie Huaisang suffering. “But he says it’s not enough, given the, ah, magnitude of the issue. I want to get him some relief and make sure he’s comfortable…I’m sure you understand.”

He was sure Wei Wuxian did not.

“Uh, sure,” Wei Wuxian said, barely bothering to hide the fact that he was giggling under his breath. “I’ll grab some for you, no problem…you should really ask Nie Huaisang to give you some, uh, books. To provide you with some guidance.”

“He’s provided several,” Lan Xichen said peaceably. Nie Huaisang was extremely fussy; naturally he would ensure that Lan Xichen was well supplied in guides on massage before allowing him to tend to him. “But thank you for the suggestion.”

Wei Wuxian nodded and saluted briefly, clearly ready to move on.

“Oh,” Lan Xichen said, as if only just remembering. “And tell Wangji that he doesn’t need to come to the meeting this evening – I know the two of you have better things to do with your time than having him listen to interminable reports on agriculture.”

Wei Wuxian actually smiled at that, as if the quarterly agricultural reports from the farms that fed the entire Cloud Recesses weren’t one of the most critical duties for Lan clan members to attend to and one that Lan Wangji had been assisting with since the age of twelve.

That task accomplished, Lan Xichen returned to the hanshi, where Nie Huaisang was scowling over the initial reports that had come in from the furthest farms in writing – he’d already offered to supplement any harvest shortfalls with the excess from Qinghe’s own extremely productive fields, but any shortage in one area could lead to shortages in others; no one wanted another famine among the common people the way there had been during the Sunshot Campaign and the hard years thereafter.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked doubtfully when Lan Xichen mentioned that he’d excused Lan Wangji from attending that evening and would therefore be doubly reliant on Nie Huaisang’s recollection of the meeting afterwards. “Lan Wangji may think you’re punishing him for marrying Wei Wuxian, which you’re not.”

“I’m not,” Lan Xichen agreed, because he wasn’t. If anything, he’d encouraged them to get together, and no matter the cost to himself, he was happy that Lan Wangji had achieved his heart’s desire after wanting it for such a long time.

“He may also interpret it as you punishing him for failing to control his spouse.”

“I don’t want him to control his spouse,” Lan Xichen said. “I want him to have some self-respect. Wangji has always greatly respected the rules of our sect and, until now, has always thought carefully before choosing to break them, accepting the consequences for doing so no matter how harsh. If I believed that Wangji truly disagreed with the rules, I would be willing to engage with him on the subject in good faith, but that isn’t what’s happening. He still believes in the rules.”

“He just doesn’t have the balls to tell Wei Wuxian that he wants him to stop stamping all over them?”

Lan Xichen huffed lightly. “I wouldn’t have put it that way.”

“But it’s what you think,” Nie Huaisang concluded.

“It is,” Lan Xichen said. “They’re going to spend the rest of their lives together – is Wangji planning on letting Wei Wuxian to win every argument without fail, no matter the cost to himself? Is he even planning on informing with him what the cost of his actions is? To always give and never take is not an equal relationship.”

“And your increased sensitivity on the subject of keeping secrets from your loved ones for, purportedly, their own good is completely beside the point, I assume?”

“The fact that I’m sensitive doesn’t make me wrong,” Lan Xichen said. “If Wangji is keeping secrets from Wei Wuxian, if he’s unwilling to rely on him or share his troubles with him, if he intends to one-sidedly sacrifice everything for him without even consulting with him as to whether he would be willing to accept such a sacrifice, then what they have isn’t a marriage.”

There was a house filled with purple gentians in the Cloud Recesses that stood as the eternal reminder of what that sort of marriage looked like, a terrible sacrifice that eventually became as much of a shackle on the recipient as it had been on the giver. Lan Xichen wouldn’t allow Lan Wangji to make that mistake.

And as for Wei Wuxian...if he truly oved Lan Wangji, he wouldn’t want it, either.

Lan Xichen certainly hadn’t.

Nie Huaisang sighed gustily. “All right, fine, fine. You know me, I’m always in favor of people standing up for what they think is the right thing even when it’s hard –” This was an almost grotesque understatement, but the friendship they were forging now was in some large parts based on the gallows humor emerging from their shared traumas. “– so I will reluctantly endorse your actions and, even more reluctantly, attend your meeting with you to take notes for later.”

“I appreciate your help. And your endorsement, of course.”

“Nie Huaisang has gotten much better at playing the xiao,” Lan Xichen remarked to Wei Wuxian on the day he removed Lan Wangji from the teaching roster and disqualified him from accompanying the juniors in night-hunts. “He’s a very – hands-on learner.”

Wei Wuxian snorted.

“I’ve been demonstrating the proper technique for him. Breath control is paramount, naturally, but of course you also have to know what to do with your tongue…”

Wei Wuxian was full on sniggering. “Oh, I bet,” he said salaciously. “I’m sure you’re a very hands-on teacher, eh, Xichen-xiong?”

“I want him to excel,” Lan Xichen agreed. “And that means plenty of practice…oh, I’m sorry, Wei-xiong. I shouldn’t have interrupted you – you were running somewhere?”

Right in the middle of the main pathways, no less, where the quick footfalls and sudden movement had startled countless people into very nearly raising an alarm before they realized there wasn’t anything to worry about. There were too many of them that remembered the war.

They had taken comfort in the enforced tranquility of the Cloud Recesses, before.

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” Wei Wuxian said breezily. “Just had an idea and wanted to get back to my workshop as quickly as possible, that’s all.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen said. “I won’t stand in your way, then.”

He actually was teaching Nie Huaisang how to play the xiao, at his request – he’d made some comparisons to it while debating a matter of ethics, and Nie Huaisang was determined to learn just enough to argue back in kind.

Lan Xichen didn’t have any illusions that Nie Huaisang would stick with it any more than he’d stuck with any other type of cultivation – he’d first tried teaching him musical cultivation when he was a child without any success at all, and Jin Guangyao’s example had definitely not endeared Nie Huaisang to the concept – but it was rather nice to discuss music without necessarily focusing on the backdrop of cultivation within it.

Accordingly, he continued the metaphor with Wei Wuxian for several days running. He talked about how energetic a student Nie Huaisang was –“He’s wearing me out,” he said, shaking his head. “Draining me dry…” – and mentioned that they were having an interesting time going back and forth on the subject of fingering, despite Nie Huaisang’s claims that his weak fingers weren’t nearly as suited for quick, assured movement as Lan Xichen’s.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Lan Xichen had said, even as Wei Wuxian had nearly cried from laughter. “His fingers are very flexible, and I get a great deal of enjoyment from his enthusiasm. Skill comes later.”

“Definitely something you have to work on together,” Wei Wuxian said enthusiastically. “It gets better as you go, doesn’t it?”

In the past few days, he had brought alcohol into public places, rather than leaving it in the jingshi where the breach would be a minor one, and tried to encourage the juniors to share it with him, although they’d refused; he’d even tried to bully them into doing so using his superior age and the respect they’d owed him until Lan Xichen had intervened with ‘urgent’ tasks for the juniors instead.

He had loudly speculated regarding one sect elder’s marital affairs after the man had refused to speak with him following a disagreement, breaking both the rules against malicious gossip and those against disrespecting the older generation all at once. He had gone hunting and fishing right outside the boundary line of the Cloud Recesses in clear sight of the disciples, including several who were attempting to practice cultivation based on compassion for all creatures; several others were pulled from their usual tasks to go purify the ground according to their customs, including a careful check of their wells to ensure that the blood and viscera had not seeped into the groundwater that ran so high and near to the surface.

In return, Lan Xichen relieved Lan Wangji of his requirement to go patrolling – “You’re married now, after all,” he’d said to Wei Wuxian, as if it wasn’t a duty shared by adult every sect member, “I’m sure you want the benefit of his company at night. Isn’t that right?” – and revoked his access to the restricted areas of the sect, including the discipline hall of which he had had sole charge since before the age of fifteen. He asked his uncle to resume the full schedule of teaching, including the classes which had previously been shifted in part over to Lan Wangji – his uncle agreed, understanding his motives, although he looked sick to his stomach with anxiety the way he always did when Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji were fighting – and had publicly chided one of the juniors for “bothering” Lan Wangji with questions regarding his cultivation.

“Aren’t you so old already?” he scolded gently, a smile fixed on his face and his eyes firmly on the junior instead of his brother standing beside him. “You can’t go running to Wangji with every little issue that comes to mind. Reflect on yourself, and take pains not to be a burden to others.”

The junior appeared very nearly on the verge of tears, and he was not the only one. He, at least, understood the significance of Lan Xichen issuing the reprimand in public – if the junior in question had truly been pestering Lan Wangji with too many questions, it would have been a tremendous rebuke to him personally; as he had not, and everyone knew he had not, it was a clear order from the sect leader that no one was to bring any questions to Lan Wangji.

“Brother,” Lan Wangji said, his voice low and hurt.

“I know you must be tired, recently,” Lan Xichen said, looking back at him with a steady, unflinching gaze. “I understand that you and your husband have been taking long walks at night.”

Through residential areas, no less, and Lan Wangji knew better. Perhaps their sect was too strict with the rules about waking and resting, strict enough that the other sects laughed at them over it, but the rules were in place for a reason. Even if Lan Wangji himself was feeling restless enough to wander at night, there were places he could go that were designated specifically for that – gardens, mountain paths, what have you – where their wanderings would not bother others who had already gone to sleep.

Lan Wangji hesitated, his shoulders rising to his ears, but he dropped his gaze to the ground and nodded, conceding the point.

He knew better.

He knew better, he cared about doing better, and he let Wei Wuxian walk all over him anyway.

“It must be difficult to go walking at zi hour and wake at mao,” Lan Xichen said. “Perhaps waking at si hour would suit you better.”

Lan Wangji looked stricken. After over thirty years of waking at the appropriate time, he would have to be suffering from true bone-deep exhaustion for him not to rise at mao hour per their rules; Lan Xichen’s suggestion, if he enforced it, would do nothing but restrict him from leaving the jingshi until that later time.

Confinement was not a punishment Lan Xichen inflicted lightly on anyone, least of all his brother. His brother, who had suffered just as much from what had happened to their mother as he had.

“Perhaps you can use the additional time to talk to your spouse,” Lan Xichen said.

Tell him that you don’t like how he ignores all our rules like he’s trying to make a contest out of it, he meant. Tell him that you wince every time he puts his foot in it, every time he offends someone he didn’t have to, every time he disrespects our ancestors and all but spits on everything they cared about. Tell him that you’ll compromise on some rules, the ones that are genuinely hard for him, but that you want him to follow others out of respect for the fact that they mean something to you.

He would do it for you, Wangji. He loves you. You don’t always have to be the one to sacrifice.

Just tell him.

Lan Wangji’s lips pressed together.

Another refusal. It wasn’t that Lan Xichen didn’t know how stubborn his brother could be, especially in matters relating to Wei Wuxian, and he didn’t really want to match wills against him – he never really had, not in all their life. He loved his little brother so very much, and so Lan Xichen always been the one to yield, the one to give in, the one to make up the difference between them. The one to encourage him, the one to look the other way: whatever Lan Wangji had needed or even wanted, Lan Xichen had sought to give him.

Even the dreadful punishment with the discipline whip had been something Lan Xichen had sought to avert, and would have, if only Lan Wangji had not so self-destructively insisted upon it.

He had allowed it to proceed only because he thought that the physical pain would give Lan Wangji some measure of relief from the enormous emotional pain he was suffering from.

But now – this wasn’t just a temporary physical pain that Lan Wangji was trying to choose.

This was the rest of his life.

Lan Xichen was not going to back down over this.

“Si hour it is, then,” he said with a sigh. Nor would he revoke the instruction he had implicitly given to the juniors that Lan Wangji was no longer an acceptable advisor, unable to guide them in the Lan sect rules that he was constantly defying by proxy. “It’s for the best, I suppose. It’ll help habituate you.”

Lan Wangji looked up sharply.

Lan Xichen met his gaze head on. His brother, he reflected, was for once the one underestimating his stubbornness.

“I understand,” he said, his words very slow and very deliberate and very carefully chosen, “that rising at si hour is customary in the Lotus Pier, if a little late. That’s where Wei Wuxian picked up his habits, was it not?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes were wide as if he couldn’t believe Lan Xichen was saying what he was saying.

Perhaps he had become infected by Wei Wuxian’s obliviousness and needed things to be said flat out.

Very well.

“The Cloud Recesses is the home of the Lan,” Lan Xichen said. “Our lives are here, guided by our rules that are laid out on the Wall of Discipline for all to see. It is the life we have all chosen, freely and without coercion – but I know it is not the life for everyone.”

“Brother!” Lan Wangji exclaimed, and he actually looked viscerally upset, the expression clear enough on his face that even Wei Wuxian ought to be able to tell what he was feeling.

“You don’t have to follow them if you don’t want to, Wangji,” Lan Xichen continued, inexorable. He, like most of his sect, disliked this sort of straightforwardness, but he was Nie Mingjue’s sworn brother and Nie Huaisang’s brother by proxy; he knew how to wield his words with the brutality of a saber as well as the grace of a sword or the gentle lilt of the xiao. “But I will not allow you to continue making a mockery of them. Not here.”

Lan Wangji looked as if he’d been stabbed.

No – Lan Xichen had seen his brother get stabbed. He had taken that better than this.

“I will write to Sect Leader Jiang by the end of the week,” Lan Xichen said, and clasped his hands behind his back to keep them from trembling. Tell him before then. Please. “Between the two of us, I’m certain that we can find somewhere to suit both you and your husband, so that you may live as free and unrestrained as you wish.”

He did Lan Wangji the honor of not looking back as he walked away.

He knew his brother wouldn’t want him to see the tears.

It was, if anything, a pleasant surprise when Wei Wuxian burst into Lan Xichen’s home less than a day later. Lan Xichen had thought it would take at least three.

“What is wrong with you?” Wei Wuxian shouted, slamming his hands down on the table in front of Lan Xichen. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Is it me? If it’s me you have a problem with, say it to my face directly!”

Lan Xichen finished swallowing the tea he’d just sipped. “Not everything is about you,” he said, feeling tired. “This is about Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes were red-rimmed as if he, too, had been crying.

“You’re not seriously planning on kicking him out of the Cloud Recesses because I broke a few of your rules, are you?” he asked, biting off each word individually. “He’s your brother. He’s a perfect Lan – he ran your sect for a year!”

“Our sect,” Lan Xichen corrected. “Wangji will always have a place here, as will you.”

Wei Wuxian crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why is he convinced that you want him to go?”

Lan Xichen sighed.

“I’m sure his knees hurt,” he said.

“…what?”

“His knees,” Lan Xichen said. “From all the kneeling he’s been doing.”

Wei Wuxian looked truly bewildered now. “Are you – making a sex joke?” he said. “Now?”

“No, though I’m unsurprised you took it as one,” Lan Xichen said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m referring to all the kneeling in penance that my brother has been doing to atone for all the rules he has been breaking on your behalf. You wouldn’t have noticed it, as I assume he’s been deliberately hiding it from you.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him. “He’s been kneeling?”

“Wangji cares very deeply about our sect’s traditions,” Lan Xichen said. “He would never have been made the head of the discipline hall if he didn’t. He knows them backwards and forwards, better than anyone except for my uncle and the sect elders that specialize in it. They’re important to him.”

“But –”

“He keeps track of every rule you instigate him into breaking,” Lan Xichen said flatly. “Every single one, large and small, major or minor, and he tries to do his best to pay for what he’s done because he’d rather kneel all night without getting any sleep, rather hurt his hand copying out rules, rather endure a beating or two if it means he doesn’t have to tell you to stop.”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth was slightly agape.

“Do you remember the story I told you about our parents? I shared that story with you for a reason, because I wanted you to better understand Wangji. We all carry the scars our parents left on us, and he’s no different. He’s so afraid of imprisoning you the way our father did our mother that he has decided to follow in our father’s footsteps by sacrificing everything for you.”

“I don’t – I don’t want him to sacrifice anything for me!”

“I know,” Lan Xichen said simply. “That’s why I said that this wasn’t about you. Yes, now that you live here, you should follow our rules, or at least respect them – and respect means respect, not playing around to see how many loopholes you can find in them. Do you think we don’t know about them? That no one in the history of our sect has ever figured out that ‘do not take life within the premises’ could be subverted by taking a life directly outside of it?”

Wei Wuxian was silent.

“We follow the rules because we want to,” Lan Xichen said. “They’re the rules our ancestors put together and handed down. They are meaningful to us, even when they are awkward or seem pointless. Even when other people laugh at us or belittle us or act like we’re stupid for choosing to behave the way we do.”

Wei Wuxian winced.

“Your conduct would be a problem if you were a guest,” Lan Xichen continued. “But you are not a guest. You are Wangji’s husband, my brother-in-law. You are family. If you do not wish to obey the rules, you do not have to, and you will still be welcome here. But Wangji wants to obey the rules – it is only that he fears losing you more.”

“How long have you been having this argument?” Wei Wuxian asked, because he wasn’t actually stupid, merely oblivious.

“I started taking away his responsibilities on the third day following my exit from seclusion,” Lan Xichen said. “I have steadily escalated it with every rule you have incited him into breaking with you since. And still, he refused to speak with you.”

Wei Wuxian’s hands were clenched into fists. He looked down at them.

“I know how much you love my brother,” Lan Xichen said. “If he had told you that it mattered to him, you would have found a way to reach a compromise with him – of that I have no doubt. But if it wasn’t the rules, it would be something else; some other thing that he would choose to sacrifice, another situation where he would choose to endure agony over having a mildly uncomfortable conversation with you. That was why I couldn’t just reach out to you directly. It had to be him; he had to be the one to tell you.”

“I understand,” Wei Wuxian said. “I don’t…I’d rather find it out over this than have him throw away his life instead of telling me I was being stupid.”

Lan Xichen nodded. That had been his fear as well, and the reason that one of his first moves had been to restrict Lan Wangji from going out on night-hunts.

“I’ll talk to him,” Wei Wuxian said, and scrubbed his face. His eyes had started tearing up again. “I’ll – I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him understand that it’s not – he can’t just do that! He didn’t even ask me if I wanted him to give all of that up for me; he knew I wouldn’t want him to, that’s why he didn’t ask, and he just went ahead and did it anyway. He didn’t tell me that he was suffering, that you were taking away his responsibilities! He didn’t say a single word, and I just blithely carried on thinking everything was fucking all right and all the while he was suffering, and – and he – he…oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

Lan Xichen blinked.

“I did the exact same fucking thing to Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian exploded. He leapt to his feet. “I’m such a fucking idiot! Lan Zhan and me, we’re both – we’re really well matched, aren’t we?”

He shook his head.

“I’ll talk to Lan Zhan,” he said again, and he looked grimly determined the way he had in the war, the same expression shining through even with a new face. “Don’t worry, Xichen-xiong. I’ll make him understand.”

He turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

Lan Xichen watched him go, thinking to himself that he might have inadvertently done something good for Wei Wuxian as well through all of this. And perhaps it would help Lan Wangji’s own crisis to see Wei Wuxian going through the same – because Lan Wangji’s crisis had already taken place.

He could have lied to Wei Wuxian’s face over why they were leaving. He could have chosen not to tell him that Lan Xichen was forcing him out, cutting him off; he could have kept it secret, hidden, could have come up with some story or just left it all unsaid. If he was truly determined to never let any of his pain onto Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, he could have done that.

He’d chosen to come clean instead.

Maybe now they’d be able to move forward as equals, as partners.

(And, if they were really lucky, maybe finally reaching agreement to stop breaking all the rules all the time would mean that they’d stop having sex on every possible available surface and keep it to the jingshi and a few gardens. No one else needed to see that. Really.)

“I see that Wangji-xiong and Wei-xiong are now even more disgustingly in love than ever before,” Nie Huaisang said. “And that Wei-xiong seems to have finally gotten over his obsession with defying authority through violating each and every one of the Lan sect rules. I was only away at the Unclean Realm for three days, you know.”

“I work fast,” Lan Xichen said with a smile.

Lan Wangji had come to him, eyes red, and put his head in Lan Xichen’s lap the way he used to as a child, and they’d talked. For hours, they’d talked, in the slow and halting way they had – where each word was carefully considered, each emotion analyzed, and only a quarter of conversation was said out loud – and at the end of it, they were both completely wrecked, but stronger for it.

They’d talked about their parents, which they had never verbalized before; they talked about Jin Guangyao, and Nie Mingjue, and Wei Wuxian, both past and present. They talked about their ruined expectations, their hopes, their guilt; they talked about the rules that bound them both, the ones that served them as both strength and weakness, the foundation on which they relied in their times of doubt. They talked about love, and fear, and anger.

They’d promised to never to need to have to have this conversation ever again, and they were both very determined to keep that promise.

Lan Qiren had agreed to work with Wei Wuxian regarding which rules could be bent and which ones ought not be – finally giving him the full version of education he’d missed out on when he’d been returned home too early by Jiang Fengmian all those years before, because copying rules didn’t mean understanding them – and Lan Xichen had returned to Lan Wangji all the responsibilities and privileges he’d taken away from him, much to the relief of all the juniors that had been suffering through their fight.

(Lan Wangji confided in Lan Xichen that he was relieved that Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi had been away on a long visit to Lanling Jin throughout the entire debacle, and Lan Xichen wholeheartedly agreed.)

“That you do,” Nie Huaisang said. “Did being straightforward help?”

“More than expected,” Lan Xichen conceded. That had been one of the things he and Nie Huaisang had been discussing these past few weeks, the merits of straightforwardness against obliqueness, and they’d both argued both sides of the issue, given their personal experiences. “I will grant you that it served its purpose well in this situation.”

“Good,” Nie Huaisang said, and put his chin into his hands. “Now tell me, what’s this I hear about you and me being the subject of a series of apparently godawful sex jokes?”

Lan Xichen froze.

Nie Huaisang grinned.

“It was…a metaphor?” Lan Xichen tried. “A means of communicating with Wei Wuxian while not acknowledging the ongoing situation, and a message about paying attention to underlying meaning.”

“Try again,” Nie Huaisang said gleefully. “You could’ve done that without invoking my name.”

“Who else could I invoke? I spend all my time with you!”

All the time he wasn’t being Sect Leader, that was. If there was one good thing that had come out of this entire debacle beyond his heart-to-heart with Lan Wangji, it was that Lan Xichen had been so anxious over Lan Wangji that he had forgotten his own fears about resuming his position, and now that he was back, it didn’t seem as scary as it had when he’d been alone in his room in seclusion.

Nie Huaisang did not appear especially moved by this eminently logical argument. He put his hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes, saying in an affected, almost operatic voice, “And all this time I never knew you felt like that, Xichen-gege –”

Lan Xichen choked.

“To think that all of this time that we spent cloistered together, pure as virgins, we could have been doing all sorts of things – using my, what was the term used, ample assets –”

Lan Xichen wondered if it would be possible for the ground to swallow him up at this very second. Failing that, a sect emergency would do.

Possibly an invasion?

“– and this, of course, refers to my extremely large…stock of picture books.”

“Huaisang…”

Nie Huaisang laughed at his face and settled down across from him. “I’m not ready to court or be courted,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No,” Lan Xichen said. “I’m not either, I don’t think.”

He was starting to think that he might be one day, though. That there would be a day – a distant day, far in the future, just barely coming into view – where his days would be more all right than not, where he could make decisions and be confident that he was making them for himself and not to cover up some mess of trauma.

And maybe, when that day arrived for him, it would also arrive for Nie Huaisang, who was himself digging himself back out of the deep pit he had made in his soul seeking his lonely vengeance.

“Still,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “Since Wei-xiong and Lan Wangji are on their way here right now to join us, and given that I’m already crushing your hopes and dreams…”

Lan Xichen foresaw a great deal of mockery in his future, and he was almost looking forward to it.

“…do you want to pretend to be making out on the table that they’ll have to drink tea off until they catch us and plead for mercy?”

Well.

Lan Xichen did always say that he was petty.

#mdzs #lan xichen #lan wangji #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #mostly Lan brothers focused #background wangxian and xisang #my fic #my fics #petty #lan sect civil war #Anonymous #not as silly a fic as you might expect from the prompt

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kurtskrow · 3 years

Text

⠀ ⠀ ⠀𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗘𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞𝗦

⠀ ⠀ ⠀> Tap for better quality

⠀ ⠀ ⠀> Episode: Hope Falls

- Like I promised in my last post. I’d say why I have a love hate relationship with this episode. So yeah.

Another thing I love about this episode is that we get to learn more about Frank, and we get to see that Scott does indeed have a heart, and that he does learn from his mistakes. For those who don't know, at the beginning of the show. Scott is supposed to be seen as a stone cold stoner who just likes getting high, and has no heart. But past episode 3, we get to learn Scott does have a heart. This episode, Hope Falls, shows us that he does have a heart, and feels bad.

When Scott learns about Franks son, and that Franks son overdosed and died. When Frank says. "I never got to say goodbye." You can see how hurt Scott is. He looks down at the ground, speechless, he feels some sort of guilt, then looks back at Frank to listen to him.

This episode shows you that even though the Cliff Hangers are fucked in the head, they still have a moral compass, they still have pride, and honor. Even though they've seen and experienced things a child should never go through, they still have some sort of direction. Even Scott, the most fucked up (mentally) he still has something, he still has his moral compass. That is something I admire.

We learn that everyone in Horizon at one point has problems. Even the teachers and counselors have problems. Frank, the head master, the principle, even he has problems. He couldn't save his son, and he has some sort of guilt because his son, Tommy I believe, couldn't be saved.

Another thing I love about this episode. This may sound fucked up. But I love how there is this kid who OD's, and tries to off himself by overdosing. I absolutely LOVE this. Not because he tried to off himself, but rather because of how real it is. Often times when kids are sent off to a ranch, such as Horizon, so they can get better. Instead of wanting to get better, they try to off themselves. This is the most real part of Higher Ground. The fact that kids will always try to off themselves.

This kid doesn't wanna be at Horizon, not to mention he hates his home, his life, and most importantly, himself. Due to this, he tries to off himself at the ranch. A ranch where nobody knows him, a ranch he knows damn well where nobody will miss him, so he tries to off himself.

I like that, it's so realistic, I just- man, I love it so much. Not to mention the kid looks like a Chinese knock-off of Scott.

Another part I liked was when Scott at the end apologizes to the kids mother, he clearly doesn't know what to say. But, you can tell he does feel bad for her, so he apologizes to her. It's a little detail of Scott that I like. Shows you, he does have a good heart deep down.

Also the way Scott rejects Shelby is just chefs kiss.

I love how Scott chops wood at the wood station. Later in the season it’s basically established that chopping wood is something Scott just does. The guy is always chopping wood. In episode 8- it’s like 5AM, and this boy is over here finding some wood to chop. It’s great. He just owns the wood station and I love it.

Now for the stuff I didn't like:

SHELBY. I hate Shelby in this episode. I like her most of the times cause she does a great job at being a special bitchy bitch. But my GOD was she incomprehensible. She tries so hard to hook up with Scott to the point where it is just unbearable to watch.

Now I'm not a smart man myself but believe me when I say, I understand what "no, I don't wanna hook up with you." means. And for some reason, Shelby doesn't understand what, "you're a skank." means.

The most memorable thing about Shelby in this episode, is her purposefully provoking Scott because he tells her, "I quit smoking." Shelby gets pissed at Scott, because he says, "I quit smoking." And it is BEYOND retarded. She literally goes up to his face and is like. "Oh yeah? Well when I lived in the streets you took what you could."

As someone who raised in a ghetto ass area. Yes, in the streets or the hood, you would take whatever you could get, but, you had the opportunity to say no. Nobody forced me to do meth, heroin, cocaine, none of that shit when I was in California. They would offer it yeah, but they wouldn't force it upon me. When I would reject, they'd leave me alone, they wouldn't pressure me for shit. So the fact that Shelby says this, is so stupid to me, because if you say no, TRUST ME, they will leave you alone. Trainspotting is a great movie that displays this. None of the drug addicts force their non-druggie friend to do drugs. In fact, it was all his choice to do drugs. Which is exactly what happens 8 times out of 10.

People always act like most drug dealers will pressure you into taking drugs, or smoking, when the reality is, they won't. They really won't. You say no, to your druggie friends, or to a drug dealer, they will leave you alone. You know how I know this? Because every time I rejected an offer to do some sort of drug, they would leave me alone right after. So Shelby saying this, IS STUPID beyond belief.

Another thing I hate, is how Shelby doesn't understand the words, "No." because she borderline harasses Scott from episode 1-9. She never leaves him alone. She's always like. "Scott, I want your dick."

Scott goes. "Uh... no thanks."

Shelby proceeds to get mad. And it's so stupid. Yes, Scott said no, too bad. He doesn't want you, move on. BUT SHE DOESN'T. She doesn't move on, she continues and continues and continues, even though he says no multiple times. Scott even acknowledges that Shelby is no good for him, he basically tells her. "You're no good for me, Juliette is better, she's loyal, she loves me, and I love her." But Shelby pursues him, she still tries to make him cheat on Juliette.

I hate this so much. He said no. HE LITERALLY TELLS HER NO, and for some reason, she STILL tries to get him to cheat on Juliette. I hate it so much. But Scott, our loyal boyo, rejects her every time.

And so, Shelby, tries her best to make Scott doubt Juliette. What sucks is that she succeeds because she says. "Auggie was all up in Juliette's pants." This works, and Scott starts doubting his relationship with Juliette and it sucks ass, because, she was also loyal to Scott and was very healthy for him, but whatever I guess. I don't fuckin know.

Another thing I hate about this episode is Isaac's mother. Her acting is just deplorable. It's atrocious, it is genuinely hard to watch her acting. It's awful. It is downright awful. It is hard to watch, it really is. I'm not kidding. So, that is one thing I despise about this episode.

The other thing I hate, is I DON'T KNOW IF SCOTT IS DATING JULIETTE. This is the one fucking problem with Juliette and Scott. It is never established when these two officially started going out. Yes, in Episode 2, Juliette gently pecks Scott's lips, and it makes him shy, and that's it. That's literally it. You don't ACTUALLY know that's when they started going out, but that's when it's established they had a thing for each other.

Shelby talks about how Scott only has Juliette but- you're still confused if they're dating or not. You're always left assuming. "Are these two dating? Or are they actually friends with benefits?" I've watched this show 37 times now, and I STILL for the life of me, do not know when Scott and Juliette started dating. And this episode, doesn't help in the slightest.

Instead, this episode makes you assume that they started going out in the episode prior, but in the episode prior, they weren't really talking, so in this episode, you are assuming they are a thing, but you still don't know beCAUSE, IT ISN'T. FUCKING. ESTABLISHED.

Yes, Scott did fight Auggie because Auggie kissed Juliette. But if you loved a girl, and some other fuck came in, and kissed the girl you loved, you would be pissed and tell them fuck off cause you want that girl and you don't want competition.

You know when they break up but you don't know when they officially started dating, and it sucks ass cheeks.

My rating for this episode: 8/10.

8 because the plot is good. But, 1.5 is taken away due to Shelby, and the other .5 is because of all the other stuff. That's it, bye.

#icons #higher ground #higher ground hayden christensen #higher ground icons #hayden christensen #hayden christensen icons #scott barringer icons #scott barringer #higher ground scott icons #higher ground scott barringer icons #2000 higher ground icons #2000 higher ground

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6blackfilin9 · 3 years

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I love your Anko fanart! Tell me, what are your views/headcannons on Anko X Kazuku?

hThank you so much for the ask, finally I can answer it

here is my big thank you for the waitng

In a nutshell, the shipp was created by accident while me and my buddy were working on our first Naruto AU in 2019, where Kakuzu and Deidara survived their shitty plotholes end eventually ended up in Konoha

Yeah

so, the shipp’s birth date is july the 1, 2019

anything like classy, aristocracy kind of tension-filled passionate gothic romance with playful, psychological games & hurt/comfort vibes with slight scent of rivalry is KakuAnko

Basically, they are: a very, very old man with absolutely horrendous background who’s trying to finally have his mother*cking 10 or 30 years of peace, and a rather young lady with a rocky youth who’s being good & noble yet has very strong antihero tendencies

You know, I think they do have potential, since, in fact, they seem to be very similar, at the core

They are both very pragmatic realists, the people of logic and reason, yet if Kakuzu’s irritability doesn’t affect him a tiny bit due to his ideal self-control, Anko’s can lead her to quite bad places, sometimes. They put their interests in the first place, and even though she tries to attach them to Konoha’s, she still has ‘personal’ things (I’ll write ‘bout it lower*). Their mindsets are so complicatedly organized that, at some point & way, it prevents them from having many close people, and makes them very hard to see through and predict

Both of them are very flexible & adaptive, independent individuals with similar outlooks on plenty of things and high intellectual level. They clearly can find plenty of traits that they would highly respect and adore in each other

Here I will speak mostly for “why and how” kind of things, bc both of them are terribly tricky to accurately figure out. But there will be some headcanons too

So, there are still some odds about them, due to the strong difference in their occupation, like, in plenty of cases they are really tricky to be brought together, because:

- Of the job

In original, Anko is a Konoha’s special jounin, and she is very dedicated to serving the country. Independently of whether she likes her job or not (depends on the plot), she orienteers at the people, at society’s gain from her work. So, accordingly, in any other AU her job is somehow connected to civil service, whether it’s something police-like, connected to science, or something like CCG in Tokyo Ghoul

Kakuzu, on the other hand, is a hitman and a persona non grata in literally all the five big countries, Konoha too (which makes it barely possible to bring them together in the original universe without hard complications or heavy drama. But still possible). He orienteers on his own gain alone, but, depending on the job, it can include others’ gain, too.

This detail makes him a saint once he holds supervising position in some company or any high position in the government (the better the working conditions of the staff now- the more money in the prospective), and the sheer nightmare once he has it on the opposite side of the law. Him as a mob boss is a complete different topic for discussion, but to get the point, in this case, the trouble isn’t him increasing the level of criminality (its rather vice-versa), but taking hold of too much control in the high and underground structures. Even as an ordinary hitman he’s rather tricky, since everything depends on the case

In most of the stories, they come to some sort of compromise, and how hard it is to reach it depends on how shitty his job is and how attached they are to each other at the moment

Like, in the above mentioned Shippuden AU and Harry Potter AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) everything went like clockwork, because there they are both more or less on this side of the law, in Tokyo Ghoul AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) it is a bit more complicated, with her being in-law and him being very much outlaw, in the Avatar AU (which I also figured out with my buddy, but we never happened to write it) it is also pretty smooth, with both of them being outlaws and then jumping out to the glory after all the shit is done, but in another Shippuden AU of mine, this all would be just a motherfucking bloody disaster

- Kakuzu is actually a hard nut to get attached to anyone

He lived too long to be truly afraid of anything, though. Its mostly because he doesn’t really need to get attached to or become close with someone to satisfy his need for communication. The man can get along with anyone once he wishes to, he can have countless acquaintances and plenty of buddies, but he doesn’t have many comrades and barely can call anyone a friend. Because he is used to lose everything and everyone he ever had or happened to have, because of his inhumanly lengthened lifespan.

It requires time for him to get used to the person, and then, eventually, in some cases, spend plenty of it to get attached

Plus, for him, due to his profession, each close connection is a really great responsibility for him. In most cases, he’d think twice of weather he is ready to take it or not

Though it of course has the personal factor, too

In Anko’s case, she has a grand privilege by being a very intelligent and keen woman, not just in cognitive plane, but in emotional, too. High emotional intellect is actually a rare trait, so she automatically stands out of the crowd for him. Even though it won’t guarantee his alliance, it will grant her his high respect and some sort of sympathy

- Kakuzu is, technically, an asshole

He does have his moral compass, which includes a great amount of common social morality, but he also has that “I am working” state

Even though Kakusu has a set of professional principles, and he still acts accordingly to what he thinks is right, one and the very same situation can be solved diametrically different once the context changes from working to casual and vice versa

This, and him being very independent and quite antisocial, makes the degree of assholeness depend on various factors

This can lead to major conflicts of interests, and if they are possible to have any compromise or not is strongly attached to the circumstances. After all, both are very, very prideful and dignified people

- In other words, the only major issue for them would be morality questions. It’s possible to make the case acceptable for Anko, since both of them ain’t truly squeaky clean, along with Kakuzu being willing enough to watch his borders

- She is provident and doesn’t really need a lot of money on a daily basis, which is much of a joy to him lol

- *they both seek for the stable ground, first of all

Taking in consideration the life conditions Kakuzu had in his youth (despite war state, he still stably had family, friends, grand respect from everyone, home, warmth and food) and how terribly he was torn out of his secured social environment, I believe what he seeks through all his bounty hunt and other money-connected manipulations is stability. Sustainability he had back then. The only way to have it in the conditions of our existent world order is to have money (and a very good mind and luck)

Anko has indeed much more altruistic motives, yet it’s still not that simple. It seems to be, on the first sight, yet considering the “Orochimaru related cases” and her very wayward behavior toward them, it’s clear she keeps her own motives and needs in mind oh so well. The service she has is very well payed, it allows her to do what she likes or believes is right, and to have the living conditions she finds comfortable. And only here, relying on the made sustainable basis, she does what she does

- Thus, they both illustrate the principle “first help yourself, next help the other” just right

- She knows she can keep an eye on him, yet it’s clear for her that her influence isn’t borderless, as well as telling him off some stuff is kind of a not wise thing to do. So in the majority of cases, she never interferes

- This is not common, yet he can actually change some plans if the situation is serious and the compromise can’t be found. He is that kind of person who works on a further prospective, and in this context, this would be the relationship with his loved one

- While Kakuzu is quite conflicted and has very reserved controversial persona, Anko is both controversial, conflicted, and sort of two-faced, on top of that

She is a very sincere, cheerful and humbly honest human being, yet she has some darker natural traits of her character that became rather strong with age and traumatic experience. Cunningness, guile, ways-depend-on-the-case and a bit of ruthlessness, that is. Moreover, she has some unsolved personal issues, which makes her even more twisted.

Like, remember the time when she confronted Orochimaru during the exam? And Kabuto, on the war? Getting rid of them is indeed beneficial for Konoha, but it’s clear that for her it is personal vendetta in the first place. She wouldn’t have tried to do this alone, otherwise, because these two are rather dangerous ones, to say the least.

She uses greater good to cover her real motives (even though it is not truly complete bullshit), and seems to have a terrible habit to keep silence about really important things, which makes her quite prone to lying, in some cases

And sometimes it very badly pisses Kakuzu off, since it makes her prone to doing useless but dangerous shit too

Yet this not any kind of separate hidden side, it is integrated into her personality, and coexists with her bright one. That’s where her violent humour comes from, for example.

But Kakuzu, on the other side, is completely monolith individual, yet sometimes his mindset can create contradictions when it comes to something important to him. but it's another topic

And seeing these layered constructions, and motives, they can pretty finely predict each other’s behavior. Not super-neatly, but they for sure see the basis. This is what helps Kakuzu to prevent Anko from doing some stupid shit, sometimes

- Anko has a role of an indicator for the people who don’t understand and see the changes in Kakuzu’s mood sometimes, since she usually reacts quite openly. Yet, when she has the same unreadable mask of cold, or one of guile, it’s a nightmare for them

- They prefer the non-verbal way to show their feelings, even though Anko is obviously the more chatty one

- They don’t say things such as “I love you”, or other sensual stuff like that really often, believing it to be some sort of cherished words that shall not be spelled mindlessly

- Anko isn’t majorly into PDA, but she fancies it much more than Kakuzu does. She has her whole moments of studying something with her hands, whether it’s a hand, scar or face. He’s more into passive display of affection, like wrapping an arm over her waist or leaning to her or something of this kind; they can allow themselves to (not sexually) kiss in public though

- She knows he doesn’t like to walk hand in hand due to considering it a youthful thing, so there are times when she intentionally walks holding on to his sleeve; generally they walk separately in order not to bother each other, but sometimes they walk arm in arm (like an old Victorian couple lol)

- Being older and wiser, Kakuzu eventually upholds some kind of mentoring position, yet he never considers himself any kind of a teacher or master to Anko, believing her to have a good head of her own. He is just insightful enough to break something through to her or give a word of advise

- This, combined with his highly powerful demeanor, also makes him have the leading position in their relationship

- Anko respects him much enough to fortify this, entrusting with plenty of life questions (like organizing the family budget), even though they make the majority of decisions together. Mostly because he is truly wise and highly experienced individual.

- This makes him one of the very few people Anko would actually listen to and take their opinion in consideration

- So basically they have equal relationship with some tendency to patriarchal order

- And it is, really, mostly economically-based disbalance, with him earning much more than she does

- Yet they never have any financial-based issues, since both of them keep in mind and respect the contributions of each

- There is major power play here, too. He has the absolute might, she has seduction. Anko loves how he makes her want to submit to him, let him have all the power, so she likes provoking him. And she knows he adores it, loves the subtle control she has over him

- They don’t have conflicts in their everyday life. Each knows how to avoid pissing one another off

- He cherishes her playful demeanor, her intellect. Combined with her cunningness, it allows her to rival him, in social sphere. The way she constructs her phrases, the way she speaks, mimics, moves, how bewitchingly it suits her feminine snaky features makes his blood boil and heart melt

- Both of them, actually, have rather specific kind of dry, dark humour. Kakuzu’s is very cynical, satirical, quite often menacing and subtly demeaning; Anko’s is very sarcastic and quite dirty, even gruesome and rather violent

- Sometimes they “fight” verbally as a form of a play. In some circumstances they may sound pretty vile, so some unobservant people mistake this for display of hate

- In general, Anko is the one to heat things up with her playful demeanor, which can include provocation and rivalry, and Kakuzu is the one to keep this energy in borders, accumulating it up to much more intense states

- They both put the comfort in the first place when it comes to household. Everything must be cozy, useful, silent and super clean

- Yet they are both very unpretentious and modest, really

- She absolutely adores when he is showing his serious, severe side, or powerful demeanor. She finds it incredibly suitable for him. She also likes how his real age is sliding out in this or that way. Like, even though he has rather young face (that of 37-40 y.o.), his eyes give away that he’ve seen oh so much more than it seems; the grumpy noises and grunts he makes, the lazy attitude in movements and the way how rapidly he finds a comfy pose once he has a chance to take a seat

- They are both rather patriotic, yet while in the most stories Anko’s feelings mostly lay towards the country she lives in, Kakuzu’s more often lay towards some places, so called small motherland.

- Kakuzu actually could be a source of deep, strong admiration and delight for her, despite all of his bullshit. The unbreakable will he has, mighty burning heart, all the wisdom, talents and mind. Being sent to fight god damn Hashirama, clearly a genius of his times, financial & management genius at the least. And, still, after all the hard times he’ve been through, he maintained the very strong sense of dignity and nobility, even though slightly twisted due to the profession and abnormal lifespan

- And the very same things can serve as the source for her chagrin: with all those traits, he could have been so much more rather than a criminal. With all the gifts he’ve got, he could have been of great use to society. He’s much easier about this, since his prospective is much wider and embraces decades (and in some universes even centuries) instead of months & years, and he knows that he’d be switching sides throughout his life, being on this and that side of the law, yet he still is a bit uncomfortable once it’s brought up

- They are deeply into science, which makes them atheists. He’s into medicine and human biology, she’s into chemistry and reptilian biology; both of them are nuts for physics, history and psychology

- They solve complicated physical and mathematical problems together time to time. She is the first one to have tea-breaks due to losing her temper over it, he tries to figure things out right until you can sense the smoke coming off his head

- Actually, they do have a stumbling stone aside from job & morality complications. And this is Anko’s attitude towards Orochimaru

What she does is basically ruins her life very-very slowly, maintaining the issues she has and planning to make him pay for all he’s done

Kakuzu knows exactly what is really going on with this attitude and why, but he can’t really do anything about it. Like, he knows he can’t make her change her mind or put something into her head

All he can do is really nothing but try to explain how those things are working, and even this option is basically a landmine field for him. At some level she does understand that he could probably be right, yet she just refuses to go back on her mind. And this is actually really dangerous, so at some moments they can fight quite badly about it

- He’s scared shitless to lose her, though; especially like that, even though he knows clearly that he will, anyway, sooner or later

- he knows that losing loved ones ends up with sheer disaster for him, yet he isn’t afraid to pay such a high price for those six, five or four decades of being with her. Because these decades are that of a paradise ones for him. Wife and family, as well as stable job, incomes and life conditions, are some sort of physical definitions of sustainability he craves. Especially family, yet it’s far ahead to plan

- The fact that he will have to bury her one day makes her rather depressed, as well as the knowledge that the only thing she can really do about it is to try to bring him as much happiness and comfort as possible before she dies

thank you, i'd say more, but it's too much already

#my art #naruto #naruto shipuden #akatsuki #naruto akatsuki #akatsuki kakuzu #kakuzu #naruto anko #mitarashi anko #kakuanko #they are very entertaining disaster

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oumakokichi · 3 years

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So what do you think of Kaede and Kokichi's relationship? And if Kaede remained the protagonist how do you think it would change?

Considering it’s Kaede’s birthday today I think this is a really fun question to come back to!

Kaede is an absolutely amazing character, and I love how different her relationships with the rest of the cast feel from Saihara’s. She and Ouma have an especially interesting friendship in their FTEs together (one of Kaede’s FTEs with Ouma might be one of my favorite FTEs ever, really), so I don’t mind going a little more in-depth on my thoughts about their dynamic, as well as about how that dynamic and the story itself might’ve changed if Kaede had remained the protagonist!

Warning for spoilers as always, though I’m pretty sure most people know about the chapter 1 twist by now.

I think one of my absolute favorite things about Kaede is just how easy it is to get attached to her in such a short amount of time. She’s only around for the prologue and a single chapter, but despite that (or rather, because of the sheer length of the chapters in ndrv3, which tend to be much longer than dr1 or sdr2’s chapters), we still get to see so many different sides of her and just how complex of a character she really is. And I think that’s largely the reason for her continued popularity to this day: Kaede might not stay around for long, but we still really feel like we know her by the end of it.

And really, I think that’s pretty similar to how the actual characters feel about Kaede themselves. Despite how short her time is with all of them, she leaves such a powerful, lasting impression, even after her death. This is a pretty big change from previous DR games, where the chapter 1 culprits especially tend to suffer a pretty big lack of relevance or relationship to other characters in later chapters. Often times the victims are at least somewhat memorable (Maizono and the Impostor both at least come up a few times in their respective games), but characters like Leon or Teruteru just don’t feel like they have much of an impact on the other characters or the plot itself after their trials are finished.

This is totally different from Kaede, whose positive outlook and outgoing attitude already makes her fairly likable to most of the others, but who also openly invites the others to rely on her once she establishes herself as a leader figure fairly quickly in chapter 1. Most of the other characters latch onto her almost immediately, either because she seems so reliable and helpful (Saihara and Tenko in particular seem to like this about her), or because they can’t help but respect her and what she’s trying to do for the group (characters like Momota, who really values group cooperation, come to mind).

Personally, I think Ouma fell into the latter category. He and Kaede have something of a complicated relationship almost right from the get-go in chapter 1, but it’s still pretty clear that Ouma did respect Kaede a lot and recognized that she had the group’s best interests at heart, even if he didn’t always agree with her methods.

Likewise, I think Kaede was somewhat curious about Ouma and really wanted to get along with him, despite how difficult he could be. We see in Ouma’s introduction, both in the demo and the actual game, that Kaede clearly recognizes on some level that part of his annoying attitude is really just his way of teasing others, and that he doesn’t seem particularly malicious. More specifically, she describes him as “having a childish streak that makes him hard to hate,” which is a pretty spot-on description of Ouma in a nutshell. In short, she knew he was annoying and childish (on purpose, most of the time) but she definitely didn’t think of him as evil or cruel. This may in part also be because she didn’t live long enough to see him embrace the fake villain routine by the end of chapter 4, of course.

Ouma has a few teasing remarks throughout most of the game, but it’s not really until the death road of despair is discovered that he and Kaede butt heads for the very first time. This is because of a big, fundamental difference between their ideologies: while both of them very much have the group’s best interests at heart, they completely disagree when it comes to whether it’s worth it to cooperate as a team or not.

By the end of the game, Ouma is extremely paranoid, refusing to cooperate with absolutely anyone unless it’s out of some mixture of chance and necessity (such as working with Momota in chapter 5). He keeps all his cards close to the chest, and refuses to confide in or trust any of his remaining classmates, believing it’s fully possible any of them could be the ringleader.

But before the events of chapter 4, we see that he’s actually not opposed to the idea of selective cooperation. He strikes up a tentative collaboration with Miu early on, commissioning her to create some extremely useful inventions with the intent of using them to try and end the killing game. He also extends an invitation of cooperation to both Kaede (in one of her FTEs) and Saihara (in chapter 4, in the parlor of the VR world), though he goes about this in such a sly, underhanded, and off-putting way that both of them shoot his offer down flat. Even he’s not beyond the idea of teaming up with people he perceives as “useful” or “smart,” as long as it’s a much smaller, one-on-one effort rather than trusting or working with the entire group.

By contrast, Kaede is someone who believes that group unity is almost a necessity if they want to escape the killing game. This is very much in line with the role she establishes for herself as a leader. Unlike characters like Momota, who has always sort of longed to embrace a “hero” role, or Saihara, who is considerably more awkward and unwilling to be a leader because of how guilty he feels, Kaede’s role is much more about boosting and maintaining the group’s morale.

This is lampshaded several times by the classical music pieces that she references, often in an attempt to either clam the others down or fire them up at the idea of working together and escaping. It’s also a fantastic little clue that her own positive outlook is something a bit more crafted than it seems on the surface; she always tries to be optimistic about things and face her problems head-on, but that’s in large part because she tries to energize herself and present that reliable, dependable persona to the rest of the group. In short, she believes that if she reveals her own uncertainty or lack of faith in her plans, the rest of the group’s trust and morale will fall too.

Like I mentioned, this difference in their outlook is really what begins to cause problems for them once they discover the death road of despair in chapter 1. Kaede sees the tunnel as their one opportunity to escape without having to rely on the killing game itself; even if it’s extremely difficult and damn near impossible to get through it, the chance of injury is a risk she’s willing to take, no matter how many times they have to start over. But Ouma disagrees with this mindset and criticizes her in front of the entire group, pointing out how everyone else is already exhausted and even injured, and saying that she has no right to make that decision for the rest of them.

He even goes a step further and accuses her of strong-arming the rest of them by “denying them the right to give up in an impossible situation.” He claims that by positing herself as an inspirational figure, she has the “moral high-ground” no matter what the rest of them do or say, and clearly doesn’t think it’s possible for them to continue down the death road without someone getting seriously injured, or worse.

These harsh words really take Kaede aback, especially since most of the rest of the group seems to more or less agree with Ouma. She’s extremely hurt—not just by the fact that no one seems to really want to keep going with her plan, but also, I think, because she felt as if Ouma was right on some level. In my opinion, this is why she cries once she’s alone in her room later: because she did feel as though she’d forced everyone else to go along with an unreasonable plan. It’s the first time that we really see the cracks in her leader persona beginning to show, as well as the self-doubt that she carries.

I honestly think many people who dislike Ouma on their first playthrough of the game may have started here, right at this moment. Because so much of this seems to be fairly black-or-white initially—Kaede is presented as the unequivocally good heroine, trying to get everyone to work together and escape, and Ouma by contrast seems mean and unreasonable for arguing with her in front of everyone. We’re not supposed to linger on the fact that he makes several good points about everyone else’s safety and exhaustion because how he goes about it is off-putting and unlikable.

Not only that, but we as first-time players aren’t supposed to know about all the similarities that Ouma and Kaede actually have in common, despite their differences on the matter of group cooperation. We’re not supposed to know just yet that they both want to save the group, no matter what it takes, or that both of them are willing to go to extreme, sometimes morally grey measures in order to try and stop the killing game. We’re not supposed to know right away that Ouma can be every bit as self-sacrificing as Kaede, despite the selfish things that he says in front of the others, or that when push comes to shove, Kaede is willing to lie almost as much as he is.

We don’t know any of that, initially—which is why that scene hits so hard and sets Ouma up to be so unpleasant. But I think going back on a replay and evaluating it again is pretty interesting specifically because of all these similarities that I’ve listed. The fact that they clash here is especially interesting, given the sort of roles they embody to the rest of the group, with Kaede deliberately choosing to be someone that the entire group relies on and finds trustworthy, while Ouma later sets himself up to become a villain who’s hated by everyone. And despite this, their goals are largely one and the same: expose the ringleader and end the killing game.

I think it’s specifically because Kaede realized she couldn’t continue pushing everyone to do the things she wanted them to, no matter how badly she wanted everyone to cooperate and escape together, and that’s ultimately why she turns to Plan B when she hears from Saihara about the bookshelf hiding the ringleader’s lair in the library. And for all that she does want to trust and cooperate with everyone else, she actually goes about this plan in the most Ouma-like way possible: by doing everything herself and without telling anyone her real intentions, not even Saihara.

Something I especially like about Kaede as a character is just how nuanced she is. Because she is simultaneously the brave, trustworthy, outgoing protagonist that we see her as, but she’s also so, so much more than that. She’s fiercely determined and cares about everyone else, yes, but it’s also because she cares so much that she’s willing to do things like lie and attempt murder behind everyone else’s back.

If we look at the audition videos as any sort of clue as to what the characters might’ve been like before the start of the game, I do think there was a somewhat more skeptical, cynical side of Kaede deep down that didn’t quite trust other people—and that’s all the more reason she wanted to trust them and work together with all of them, because she knew exactly how hard it was to do so. It’s such an interesting contrast from Ouma, who could easily have used all his lies and charm to cooperate with people if he wanted to, but who instead continually pushes people away because of his skepticism, all the while pretending to act completely arrogant and self-assured in his plans. Deep down, I think both of them were much more vulnerable than they were ever willing to show in front of other people.

And I think by the end of chapter 1, Ouma became more or less aware of that side of Kaede, once she confesses everything she tried to do to end the killing game. Prior to this, I personally think Ouma still very much liked and respected her guts and her attempts at leading the group, but that he ultimately thought she was doomed by her reliance on trust and cooperation when they didn’t even know who the ringleader was within their group. But I think that after hearing just how far she was willing to go to stop the killing game, including but not limited to lying to everyone else and going behind their backs with her own plan, he couldn’t help but respect her even more. Despite his accusations that she was too soft or naïve for trusting everyone else, her actual attempted solution was far closer to his own outlook than he initially gave her credit for.

This is why, just before Kaede is about to be executed, Ouma drops all of his usual acts and facades with her and gives her a sincere goodbye, telling her that she “wasn’t boring.” And this is really the highest compliment someone like Ouma can give: she did take him by surprise and surpass all his expectations from her, and I do believe he was genuinely sad to see her go when she attempted such a huge sacrifice for everyone else’s sakes.

Truly, the only part of her plan that I think he disagreed with was the act of (attempted) murder in and of itself. He felt that despite her good intentions, she had “crossed a line” that shouldn’t be crossed, and that she fell into the ringleader’s trap the moment the idea of murder crossed her mind. Considering how much DICE’s “no murder” taboo guided Ouma throughout the game, it’s not surprising at all that this is where he disagreed with Kaede. Though ironically, he himself crosses the same line in chapter 4 when he decides the only possible solution to Miu’s attempt on his life is to kill her himself, and therefore winds up getting his hands dirty without ever directly committing murder, much like Kaede herself.

Questioning how they might’ve gotten along if Kaede had actually lived past chapter 1 and continued being the game’s protagonist is interesting, mainly because so many factors would change as a result. Kaede and Saihara are so fundamentally different as protagonists, and Kaede herself is much more in line with what we would expect from a Hope’s Peak protagonist instead. Kodaka himself has described her in an interview as being extremely similar to Asahina, and I personally think she’s something of a combination between Asahina’s outgoing attitude and Maizono’s carefully crafted façade (not to mention moral ambiguity). So it stands to reason that the game and its themes wouldn’t quite be the same if Kaede were still the protagonist.

On the one hand, I do think there would be interesting potential for a possible alliance between her and Ouma, especially given how similar they could both be. Ouma himself proposes such an alliance to her in one of his FTEs, though she does get angry and shoots him down, as I mentioned earlier. But it’s interesting to consider if Kaede might’ve been more willing to cooperate in smaller, one-on-one alliances if she had attempted her plan in chapter 1 and failed without getting executed for it.

There’s also the fact that Ouma claims to remember her and everyone else adamantly in his FTEs with her, even going so far as to claim that she and everyone else forgot about him, even though he never forgot about them. It’s unclear whether he’s referring to his memories from before the game still being intact (which is likely, since he’s pretty skeptical of the flashback lights right away), or if there’s some other explanation for it, but personally, I don’t think it can be dismissed as a complete lie. Even if Kaede herself accuses him of lying and making it all up, he goes uncharacteristically blank and claims that “even he’s not that good at lying.”

This adds huge potential to Kaede sticking around, as there could easily be an underlying mystery element. In addition to the trials themselves and the mystery of the outside world, it’d be very possible to explore their dynamic further, as well as why Ouma said the things he did and if he was actually telling the truth about knowing her and everyone else from before. Kaede is absolutely persistent enough that I feel like she would’ve pressed him for details about this, especially once it became clear in the main plot that their memories were unreliable.

On the other hand, it’s really unclear if Ouma would’ve still been willing to offer that alliance to Kaede once she had attempted to commit murder. Assuming the events of chapter 1 stay more or less the same and the only difference is that Kaede survives instead of getting executed, this raises some potential problems with Ouma actually working together with her or trusting her. She did, as he puts it, “cross the line”—even if her murder attempt wasn’t successful, Ouma claims that she was already too far gone the moment she even considered murder as a possible solution. This could definitely cause another clash of opinions between them, especially as Ouma is much too paranoid to work directly with anyone who he thinks might kill him.

Another potential source of conflict in my opinion is the Hope’s Peak flashback light in chapter 5. Unlike Saihara, who deals primarily with questions of “truth or lies” and is ultimately able to see through Tsumugi’s false ultimatum in chapter 6 with the choice of either the “hope ending” or “despair ending,” Kaede is, as I mentioned, much more in line with what you’d expect from a Hope’s Peak protagonist. She’s extremely smart of course, but she has a bit of a reckless, headstrong streak where she tends to act based on emotion rather than reason, and this could get her into quite a lot of trouble once Tsumugi started rewriting everyone’s memories in chapter 5.

Saihara was able to see that both of the choices Tsumugi presented in the final trial were bullshit and would ultimately keep the cycle of Danganronpa ongoing, but I’m not entirely sure if Kaede would realize the same thing, or even if she did eventually realize it, I’m not sure it would’ve been in time to stop it. Because of her self-sacrificing nature, I personally think she would’ve chosen to be one of the sacrifices for the sake of “hope,” much like Amami presumably did in season 52. This ultimately means that Kaede sticking around might have ultimately led to a “bad end” of sorts, where even if the rest of the group went free aside from her and one other sacrifice, Danganronpa itself never gets dismantled and lives to see another season.

The only possible way I see for Kaede to avoid falling into this trap and making this choice is if enough of her classmates rubbed off on her or helped her see things in less black-or-white terms like “hope” or “despair,” and in more nuanced shades of grey instead. But considering how completely fooled almost everyone was in the actual events of the game, it’s difficult to say if this would happen. She would definitely need to talk and debate with someone who viewed the flashback lights a lot more skeptically, whether it was Saihara or Ouma (or maybe even Angie), before she could reach the truth about what Tsumugi and Team Danganronpa were really after.

This analysis has gotten pretty long by this point, so I’ll just wrap things up by saying that I really do love Kaede and Ouma’s friendship, and I think they had more potential of getting along than either of them might’ve realized in canon. Despite their fundamental differences, both of them were two characters who went farther than almost anyone else in trying to stop the killing game, and both of them weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty if necessary. I think the fact that Ouma claims to remember Kaede and everyone else from before the killing game is super interesting, and I would’ve absolutely loved to see it touched on more if Ouma had lived longer.

All in all, Kaede is such an amazing, morally grey character who really helps to establish what we can expect from the rest of the game, and I think that’s part of what makes her so memorable. Maybe one day we’ll get some sort of DR:IF equivalent where we get a semi-canon look into a scenario where everyone lives, and hopefully there we could see not only more of Kaede being a protagonist figure, but also more of her interactions with Ouma and everyone else.

#danganronpa #new danganronpa v3 #ndrv3 #kaede akamatsu #kokichi ouma #ndrv3 spoilers //#my meta #okay to reblog #lamekit

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griffnoir · 3 years

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i had this idea for a fic that i just wanted to share bc i thought it was neat and i know i will never write it under the cut : regulus black and severus snape, young and not that desperate, team up to defeat voldemort (for better and for worse)

- we are in 79. regulus goes to retrieve the locket, happy to die a sad and heroic death BUT kreacher brings him back to grimmauld place against his orders. he is dying... because of a potion... kreacher knows someone who knows shit about potions... regulus lives au! severus gets kidnapped by a nasty house-elf :/ he def had better sundays but that’s fine: he helps his fellow death-eater bc it’s what one does (everything for the cause!)

- regulus heals. regulus isn’t so happy about it (one cannot even kill oneself in this economy) then the conversation goes: reg : hey do u wanna know something that will get u killed? sev : no. reg : so the dark lord has made this thing called an horcrux... :D sev : T.T fuck why would u say that to me

- severus had doubts(tm) about this death-eater thing. this is the tipping point. so they are here, 18 and 19, one braincell between them, deciding after multiple identity crisis that they will kill the dark lord or die trying (they have better faith in the dying part but that’s ok they have nothing to lose) - they both know too much so this is a sort of race against time reg : i guess we could go to dumbledore sev : lol we are not THAT desperate

- they don’t go to dumbledore ://

- it is very important to me that they can’t fucking stand each other on the best of days. like: severus is severus, the little rat(affectionate) but i always thought of regulus as a mix between sirius and draco, plus whatever u want (this is not a good mix). the guy is pampered, rich, posh and a bloody nuisance of a person (also a dedicated blood supremacist); severus isn’t a Black so for once in his life he is actually the well-adjusted one - this doesn’t augure well for their enterprise

- do they succeed? yes. how? dumb luck. also they have a “they didn’t know it was impossible so they did it” type of thing going on. regulus’ superpower is the fact that he is rich, has connections and that nobody suspects him of anything. severus’ one is pure spite and the hogging of the braincell; they both think they are the brain behind this operation and that they are superior to the other in the ways that count (actually they are both just clowns)

- one of the only thing they share is the ultimate goal of killing voldemort; also, they both have somebody on the other side they don’t want ending up dead, so there is that; moreover they are both stressed out of their minds (the self-medication is strong and it could become a problem)

- they have to juggle their public life, their death-eater life and their hunting horcruxes life. it gets complicated :(

- grey-ish moral decisions are made, but hey! one has to do what one has to do

- how do they find the horcruxes? perhaps with the help of dark magic? through inside knowledge? a bit of both? regulus could know where is the diary/ the cup; if u know what u are looking for, nagini is an obvious answer; the ring can be found with minimal research on tom riddle; the diadem can be a lucky find (one could call it an educated guess lol)

- regulus learns that he can actually stand up for himself without his family weighing in and that his whole worldview is in fact a giant with feet of clay. severus that he can lead his life without idly surfing on the consequences of his bad decisions and can change things for the better by acting on them. that’s great. they are doing great. they are fucking terrified for their lifes.

- they end up begrudgingly respecting each other. are they friends? loaded question. perhaps.

- in this au, severus does also report the prophecy to the dark lord, then panics when the potters are brought up. sev and reg pass the information to the order one way or another and this just speeds up their research

- they kill nagini on the sly: it’s a shitshow of epic proportion, but they get away with it bc uh... who would think them able of such a feat? it’s def an highly-trained task force or something. sad that the snake got in the way though :/ (there is no more horcrux, the dark lord is mortal once more)

- who kills voldemort? neither of them. it would be cool, but no. the obvious choice would rather be dumbledore, and why not, in an impressive duel for the ages. personally i would prefer someone from the order, why not one of the youngsters: sirius? remus (a fucking win for the werewolves if it’s the case)? if we are only in 80, why not a peter who has not yet turned traitor lmao? if it’s one of them it’s just totally anti-climatic

- hell yeah! voldemort is trully, trully dead! the one who killed him is hailed as an hero and everybody lived happily ever after! severus and regulus will never have to speak to each other again!

- no.

- the hunt for the death-eaters begins: names are being dropped left and right. regulus doesn’t even go to trial bc he throws money at his problems; severus is not so lucky and gets rounded up in the most stupid way possible, also he thinks he deserves azkaban bc he did some shady shit and likes the martyr vibes reg, who has outgrown his suicidal tendencies: shit i need to save this punk’s ass since he won’t do it himself

- are regulus and his money enough to exonerate severus? perhaps. living with the morale high ground of having brought down the dark lord could be enough to rebuild a decent life for themselves; would they have closure? in a bittersweet way they could

- if it’s not enough, regulus being THAT desperate, he would go to the biggest bully of the playground aka dumbledore. a dumbledore ready to believe that voldemort would be coming back, until this scrawny (almost) 20 years-old goes “nah, we took care of that for you, you are welcome! also, since the whole wizarding world has a debt for us or something, could u pls bail my colleague? friend? out that would be great” albus : ... what?

- i just want a fun reveal; in the future to have regulus talking to his brother, severus to lily (at least for one good talk, i don’t ask for much), just to have that closure pls :’(

- 10 years later or something rita skeeter digs up the whole convulated story it’s glorious. nobody wants that

i don’t have anything else but it was fun to think about

#harry potter #hp #severus snape #regulus black #pro snape #fic idea #we are july 31 it's time to share the hp #u defeated voldemort? what like it's hard?

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cybernaght · 3 years

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The Rebel/叛逆者: A Review of Sorts

After being only semi-invested in the Rebel, I ended up getting so into it in the final weeks of its release, I’ve shelled out on IQIYI premium just to get the final couple of episodes a few days earlier.

That’s right kids, it’s a Review of Sorts. Unfortunately, I could not find a translation of the novella the drama is based on, so will be looking at it as a separate entity.

Most of this post is spoiler-free, however I have dedicated a few paragraphs at the end of it to discussing the final episode, as there are a few specific things about it I wanted to mention. There is a clear spoiler warning before that part.

If you don’t want to risk it, TL;DR version of this review goes something like this: Rebel is very decent, and positively one of the best things that I have seen to come out of China since I’ve jumped into that particular rabbit hole. It’s pretty well written, it’s very beautifully dressed and shot, and the cast is killing it. I thought it dropped the ball a little in post production, and I did not always love the pacing. Other than that, it’s incredibly decent, and well worth watching, unless communist propaganda really irks you, in which case stay very well away.

I have been having many conversations with @supernovasimplicity all the way through watching this drama, so there are likely to be some thoughts here that are influenced by those.

The story centers around Lin Nansheng, a struggling servicemen in the Guomingdang party. He has a great analytical mind, and absolutely no emotional capacity for his job. He has trouble handling violence, he is impulsive, he cannot speak to his superiors without bursting into tears, and has nothing even remotely resembling a poker face. And that is what makes this drama as enjoyable as it is.

I don’t think Lin Nansheng’s journey would have been nearly as exciting had he started it from a place of competence. He botches up everything he touches because his big brain switches off the moment his emotions kick in. And so, when you see him grow in confidence, learn to control himself, learn to fake his smiles and compliments, you can’t help but feel a strange sense of pride. It also makes Lin Nansheng very likeable as a character for reasons other than Zhu Yilong’s ability to look like a bush baby.

It did take me a while to feel fully engaged with his performance - not because there is anything lacking in it, but just because it’s hard to be truly surprised by his choices after the exposure I have given myself to his work. That said, at about a half-way point I got charmed by him anyway, and there were quite a few scenes that were truly mesmerising. There were scenes where he broke out of the familiar mould of big unguarded eyes and fluttering wet eyelashes, and tried something that was not pretty: every time to a great success. I am hoping to see more of that in his future work.

I really wanted to like the female lead, Zhu Yizhen, but unfortunately both the way she was written and the way she was performed by Tong Yao left me somewhat cold. It did not help of course that the screenplay ended up sidelining her at every turn, leaving her with very little personal agency. She was set up so interestingly, but in the end her sole purpose became being someone for Lin Nansheng to pine over. It is particularly curious from a perspective of meta storytelling: seeing how this is all centered around superiority of communism, which as a whole was, arguably, ahead of its time in the matters of binary gender equality.

The ensemble cast of the drama is stunning. Wang Yang came very close to stealing the show at several points as Chen Moqun, somehow managing to make his rather unlikeable character interesting. I can say the same thing about Zhu Zhu who absolutely shined as Lin Xinjie, showing an incredible range and imagination in her performance.

The overarching story of the show is engaging, with some incredibly suspenseful elements; every narrative arc including a nice progression through it. As spy thrillers go, it was fairly well plotted. You could if you go looking for a few things that did not pay off in a satisfying way (notably, the Chekhov’s cyanide capsule), but you overall the story really was well told for the most of it.

I did, however, feel like the pacing started to fall apart in the last quarter of the drama. Last episode in particular really did feel rushed, not just due to its pace, but also in a way it failed to pay off the final mission in any visible way. There will be more on that in the spoiler section of this post.

Important to note that The Rebel is a show made in Communist China in the year 2021. It does not ideologically side-step from the path that was laid out for it by that fact. Which is to say, it is, undeniably, filled with propaganda. Communists are the good guys, and if you think a good guy (or gal) is not a communist, they probably secretly are. With one exception of a friendly character who is not a communist, and whose fate we actually never find out. Curious, that.

The Rebel is not a kind of a show where censorship-appeasing scenes are shoehorned in. It’s a kind of a show in which the main theme is Sacrifice For the Party.

Aside from the being the moral vector of the show, Mao’s gentle teachings explicitly help get Ling Nansheng out of prolonged depression following his injury, and almost annoyingly, this sat incredibly well with the character, as he was written. Lin Nansheng is conceived as this naive idealist who wants to be on the front line, who needs validation and support of others. His - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - his being disillusioned in his beliefs and choosing to join a party which includes people whom he likes and trusts makes sense. Him finding this one thing that gives him hope and letting it propel him into gaining confidence and competence makes sense.

In many ways, the Rebel is a story of Lin Nansheng’s failure to become an antagonist within the world of the drama.

I have honestly spent this past couple of weeks pondering whether being well written makes political propaganda better or worse, whether the subtlety of it makes it more or less palatable, whether it’s enough, as a viewer, to be aware of it to shrug it off. Ultimately, this is not something I could or should make moral judgements on, but I do believe that it’s possible to acknowledge the fact that propaganda exists in the drama, and still appreciate it for a good piece of television that it is.

That said, I am very well aware that me being kind of okay with it stems entirely from my own removal from the culture this is made in, and I am, perhaps, lucky to even have a choice as to whether I want to engage with a product which is, undoubtably, here to dress political ideology in fancy clothes.

I have, on the other hand, also seen many things in Russian media of the “Annexation of Crimea is Good Actually” variety and those make me feel very unwell, so feeling somewhat at ease with blatant political propaganda in Chinese media makes me the biggest hypocrite.

But, I digress.

Before we go into some specific plot-related things, I would like to mention that the Rebel has this weird dichotomy in which the production is sublime, and the post-production… not so much. The show very well shot. Every element of it sits perfectly together, not a single prop out of place, not a single extra underdressed, not a page of script not put to good use. It’s lit to perfection. It’s scored beautifully. So much of this show is just stunning.

And then… there is post-production.

This is not even about bad CGI (and the CGI is, indeed, bad), it’s just that most of post-production as a whole feels rushed.

Starting with surprisingly imperfect editing, which at times just fails to make the scene flow together. The final line of dialogue would be spoken within a scene, and it would fade to black instantly without a single breath to indicate a full stop. A montage sequence would be created, but every shot within it condensed to a second, making it feel incredibly fast-paced when the effect should be the opposite. There would be a cut away from a speaking character and to the same speaking character from a slightly different angle, making it dynamic without any reason to do so. There are a couple of truly startling jump-cuts.

I did not speed this gif up. This is part of a romantic montage, edited like it’s a goddamn action sequence.

And of course dear old friend slowing down footage shot at 24FPS. Please don’t do this. You think no one notices - but we do.

There are other tell-tale signs of production rushing to the finish line: occasional, but very noticeable ADR glitches, very sloppy job done at sound mixing, which contribute to parts of the show feeling ever so slightly off.

It’s not unforgivable, but it does make me wish the same amount of care and efforts that went into shooting this drama would also go into it after it was all in the can.

Oh, and just because if you know me you know I have a professional fixation on fights, and I am happy to say most action scenes are toe-curlingly delightful. Hot damn those fights are good. I am absolutely in love with the shot below, for example. Placing an actor behind a piece of set so he can exchange places with the stunt double during a one shot is such an old trick, but the execution, timing and camerawork are just... flawless. This is what perfection looks like.

Now we got all that out of the way...

SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE BELOW

Here’s the thing. I wanted to love the ending and I found that I could not.

The final mission was presented as important, and honestly the scene in which Zhu Yizhen is sending the vital message out as Lin Nansheng holds his ground in hand to hand fight is incredibly dynamic. Party, this is due to the fight itself being incredibly well choreographed, yes, but it’s also where it sits within the narrative, how high the stakes are for everything surrounding it.

But then, the tension all but bleeds out. The Important Message is sent, the fight is won, and we are treated to ten minutes of a very slow car chase, problem of which is not even its speed as much as its placing within the story. As in, by this point both of those operatives have lost their cover, and completed their Very Important Mission. It would be very sad if they died, but their survival does not technically contribute to their cause. Moreover, Zhu Yizhen getting mortally injured in order to protect Lin Nansheng as part of her mission read a little empty when the mission is technically over.

While I personally found Lin Nansheng slow recuperation and his low key ending enjoyable, I think I would have preferred to have seen a more tangible pay-off to all the sacrifices made in the name of “bright communist future”, just a little more justification for every moment of death and despair we witnessed. I would have certainly at the very least preferred to see Wang Shi’an’s death on screen. Considering how many likeable characters martyred themselves on screen, denying us the death of the one antagonist just seemed cruel.

I really did love the ambiguity of the final few scenes however, if we consider the children choir at the end a fantasy. The idea that Lin Nansheng will live out his life in this hope that Zhu Yizhen is still alive, imagining her just outside of his field of vision, his only joy being in this fantasy of her… now, that is incredibly strong. I equally like the idea of rest being promised to him at the end of his journey, and said rest being painful, and slow and unwelcome.

But it felt like as they chose not to to lean into the “sweet” part of the bitter-sweet tone of the ending and we’re unable not commit to the “bitter” part either, so it lands with a splat which is somewhat lacklustre.

---

This concludes my thoughts on the Rebel.

I am more or less out of Zhu Yilong’s filmography to watch, which is probably a good thing at this point. I have just emerged out of several back to back work projects - literally today - and will hopefully once more have time for things I grew to enjoy doing during the lockdown.

Those things, if you have not guessed, include watching Chinese television and writing things about Chinese television.

#the rebel #叛逆者 #Zhu Yilong #review of sorts #now with gifs #chinese drama

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maaruin · 4 years

Text

The Institutional Problems of the Jedi Order

Preface

I think it is time to finally write this post. These ideas have been going through my head for some time after reading some Jedi discourse. But I should preface this with: even though the Jedi made mistakes, this does not mean Palpatine’s genocide of them was justified. It only means that he saw certain flaws in the Order that he could exploit. I suspect that without these flaws, he probably still would have managed to take over and persecute the Jedi, but much more of the Order would have survived.

For this post, I am mostly using the prequel movies with a bit of lore added from the old Expanded Universe. I’m not using The Clone Wars, because its depiction of Anakin’s fall to the dark side is different from the movies. And I’m not using the new Disney Canon, because I don’t know what has been retconned so far and what hasn’t.

Depending on how we count, I think there were either two or four major flaws. I’ll number them as four, but the first three could be grouped together.

1. The Jedi Order is a religion but isn’t organized like one

The Jedi are a religion. They are a group that believes certain things about the universe and practices a way of life that fits with these beliefs. But they are also entirely organized as “Jedi Knights” who are “guardians of peace and justice in the [old] republic”. This is… odd. The entire religion is basically made up of full-time professionals. Or rather, monastics.

If you want to study the Force and use it, you have to become a monk, basically. And more than that, to be accepted you need to already have a special talent in using the Force. Actually, you can’t even do that, they only take toddlers, so your parents have to decide if you should join this religion and become a monk. (Or maybe the Jedi Order just takes all Force sensitive children no matter what the parents think, it’s not entirely clear.)

A normal religion isn’t organized like that. Normally most members of a religion are normal people with normal jobs with varying levels of devotion. They participate in the practices of the religion in a way that fits into their daily life. Then there are religious professionals like priests who work to make it possible for the normal followers to practice this religion. And then, in some religions, there are monastics who dedicate their life to practicing the religion, generally apart from the normal believers. The Jedi only have the last group.

That alone would make them much easier to target and wipe out. But it is even more like that. The entire Jedi Order is integrated into the institutional framework of the Republic. All of the higher ranked Jedi (we will talk about the lower ranked later) basically work as special police and special diplomats for the Republic. “and” not “or”, all of them must fulfill both roles. And, when the Clone Wars start, they all become officers in the Republic military.

Now, in principle I don’t think religious institutions working closely with the state and fulfilling important roles for it is necessarily a problem. But if this is the only way this religion can be practiced, the practice of this religion will become poor in variety and closed off to most people who would be interested in participating.

2. Slavery in the Galaxy

There is slavery in the Galaxy Far Far Away. It is illegal in the Galactic Republic, but it is widely practiced in the planets of the Outer Rim, which might or might not be members of the Republic. The Jedi know that slavery is bad. What should they do?

Well, as much as a like the image of a hundred Jedi waltzing into the Hutt Cartel and killing/arresting them all, that probably wouldn’t be the best idea and cause much more chaos and harm than it solves, at least in the short run. But there are alternatives besides doing that and mostly ignoring it. For a start, here are two:

Establish underground railroads to smuggle slaves to freedom or assist on already established ones. Jedi mind-reading and precognition abilities will be very helpful in such endeavors.

Assist in organizing and fighting in slave revolts. One Jedi can turn the tide on the battlefield and if they are respected diplomats, the can help the slaves in finding supporters.

But this isn’t what the Jedi do because they are preoccupied with their role in the Republic. Qui-Gon says to Anakin that he didn’t come to Tatooine to free slaves. Which is true, he was sent to assist the government of Naboo against the Trade Federation, not the slaves on Tatooine against the Hutts. And why was he sent to Naboo and not Tatooine? Because Chancellor Valorum decided that resisting the Trade Federation was in the interest of the Republic, but freeing slaves wasn’t.

As mentioned in part 1 the number of members of the Jedi religion is smaller than it should be and integrated into the Republic in a way that leaves little room for it to act independently.

3. The Clone Army

Suddenly, an army for the Republic conveniently appears in time when the Republic is about to go to war after centuries of peace. This army is made up of, for all intents and purposes, slaves. Slaves that have been bred to be especially obedient. The Republic is expecting the Jedi to serve as officers in this army. What should the Jedi do?

Serve as officers, because the clones would suffer more without them?

Refuse to serve because that would mean supporting the introduction of slavery into the Republic?

Throw their political weight around and demand the clone troopers be freed and given Republic citizenship and in addition demand an end of the clone production in return for serving in the war?

Serve on both sides of the clone wars because the Republic obviously doesn’t have the moral high ground anymore and if their service in the Republic army leads to less suffering, their service in the Separatist army will do so as well?

There are probably more options. The Jedi decided to pick the one that reduced the suffering of the clones in the short term, but by doing that squandered the opportunity to take a stance against the creation of the clone army. And we don’t even see meaningful discussion within the order about this choice. This is, I suspect, because the Jedi are so used to their role as enforcers in the Galactic Republic that the alternatives weren’t really on the table.

(Palpatine’s plan was counting on the Jedi to behave this way when he planned Order 66.)

4. Dealing with emotions (the problem with Anakin)

While the Jedi Order may not demand it’s members to be emotionless, it does demand that they keep their emotions under very strict control. Nonetheless, almost all the Jedi we see do seem to be emotionally well adjusted. Obi-Wan, Yoda, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu, all of them seem to have little trouble with this demand.

Anakin, on the other hand, has a lot of trouble with it. He often has emotional outbursts through Episode II and III, then shortly afterwards walks back and apologizes. Curiously, this isn’t the case in Episode I. There he is actually quite good in dealing with his emotions. In other words, his time in the Jedi Order made his ability to handle his own emotions worse. Much worse, actually.

I think the reason for this is that whenever he feels something, other Jedi tell him that this is not right. It starts with Yoda in Episode I. “Afraid are you? […] Fear is the path to the dark side... fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate.. hate leads to suffering.” Criticisms like this no doubt continued all the way through his training until, by the time of Episode II, every time he feels an emotion he is angry at himself for feeling that emotion, which leads to more emotional instability, not less.

But why is this a problem Anakin has and not for the other Jedi we see. Maybe it is because he started his training later than is normal for a Jedi. But I suspect it is something slightly different: The Jedi who go through their training either find a way to handle their emotions in a way the order approves of, or they are sorted out. In the Expanded Universe there is a so called Jedi Service Corps where Jedi who fail their training go to work as farmers, explorers, educators or medical assistants. These jobs are, however, seen as lesser and going there is considered a failure. This is unfortunate, I think the Jedi could do much more good in the galaxy if the best of them were able to work in different fields instead of all being stuck with warrior-diplomat. Nonetheless, the Service Corps actually mitigates one of the flaws the Order has to some extend, if it works like I suspect. If the Jedi don’t have a way of dealing with emotions that works for everyone, the next best thing is to only pick the ones that can handle it and put the rest somewhere where they are useful and can’t do damage. Certainly not ideal, but an understandable adjustment.

But anyways, Anakin wasn’t sorted out. It is never confirmed in the movies, but I would suspect they made an exception for him. Yoda already made an exception for him when they decided to train him at all. And because he was the chosen one, I think they thought that his potential would be wasted if he only got to be in the Service Corps. If we ignore the Service Corps and only go off the movies, my criticism still stands: Yoda recognized that Anakin might not handle Jedi training well and he should have stuck to his guns and refuse Anakin to be trained within the Jedi Order.

Why are the Jedi like this?

Personally, I like to explain these flaws of the Jedi Order historically. Now, the EU doesn’t really fit with the theory I have. Because in games like KotOR and SWtOR the Order seems very similar to the Order in the Prequels. On the other hand, other sources say that this structure of the Jedi Order is a product of the Ruusan Reformation which happened after the end of the last Sith War a thousand years before Episode I.

To defeat the Sith at the end of that war, all Jedi were brought together as one army, no matter what they had done before. They didn’t really defeat the Sith (the Sith were deceived by Darth Bane to destroy themselves), but they thought they did. They thought they almost single-handedly saved the Republic from destruction.

Because of this, they rebuilt the Jedi Order in a way that was explicitly integrated into the institutions of the Republic. They built it in a way that made the fighting Jedi the core of the Order, other forms of being a Jedi were downgraded to the Service Corps. Because many Jedi had fallen to the dark side in that war, they taught a very strict form of emotional control and only trained force-sensitives from birth. And because they were so linked to their role as enforcers for the Republic, the neglected many other things Jedi should do, like helping slaves free themselves.

A better Jedi Order

No matter if this is how it happened, I do think the Jedi Order could be different (better). Here is how I would change it:

A Jedi Laity: Every living being is connected to the Force, so let them participate in practices that serve this connection like Jedi meditation. They may never be able to move things with their mind, but that’s not the point.

Jedi who serve the people should live among them: Jedi priests, Jedi healers, and yes, even Jedi knights should not form their own community but instead be in the same community as the Jedi laity.

Monasteries for the monks: Jedi who fully want to focus on their connection with the Force could still live in monastic communities.

Don’t completely integrate into the state: Working with the Galactic Republic could still be a thing, but the Republic should never depend on the Jedi and only a minority of Jedi should serve the Republic directly.

Help people everywhere: Because they are not completely bound to the Republic, many Jedi can decide how they will serve the people in the galaxy. Some might decide to help the slaves in the Outer Rim.

A Variety of Emotion: Not every Jedi will be as capable of controlling their emotions as the others. If there is a large variety of ways to be a Jedi, I suspect that most of them could still find their place to fit into the Order.

Allow adults to join: With adults it is much easier to determine if they would make a good Jedi and what way of being a Jedi would suit them. If there is a Jedi laity, they can be trained as children to some degree before they decide if they want to join.

Would this Jedi Order have fallen to Palpatine’s manipulation? I don’t know. But I think it would have been harder for him. If most Jedi didn’t serve in the Republic military and weren’t in a small number of Jedi temples, Order 66 would have claimed much less of the Order. (Probably 10%-20% instead of >90%.) Jedi would find it much more easy to hide in the population and the laity could help carry on the Jedi traditions in secret. Anakin might have been more emotionally well adjusted and not fall for Palpatine’s manipulations. (On the other hand, in a more open Jedi Order like this, there might be more people who could be turned, so who knows.)

Well, this is my contribution the Jedi discourse. The Jedi aren’t evil, and they certainly didn’t deserve genocide because of this. But as the Prequels depict them, they have certain tragic flaws in the way they are organized that Palpatine could exploit.

(Maybe I’ll make a shorter Part 2 about how Luke deals with this.)

#star wars #prequel trilogy #jedi #jedi order #order 66 #there is no emotion #jedi service corps #fictional slavery #jedi critical #galactic republic #anakin skywalker #palpatine

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snapeaddict · 3 years

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Hi, what do you say to the people who claim Regulus is the real Slytherin hero, and not Snape? To me RAB always seemed like a plot device and nothing more so I don't get why he's being worshipped... He's just another rich pureblood kid...

I say this is a very bad take, and it is disrespectful (that's a strong word for something that isn't really important but I cannot think of a softer version) of the actual people who enjoy his character. I'm going to write down some thoughts, but there's more to it than just what I would reply to them - allow me to ramble a little on the roots of this claim and on the thought process embraced by Snaters and Marauders apologists (I've seen that some people don't like this term, so I mean people who erase the Marauders' flaws and make them morally superior to Snape, justifying them being abusers and him being abused.)

The nonsense of comparing a plot device to a complex, layered character: Comparing Severus and Regulus is ludicrous. You are comparing one of the most (I would argue the most well-written and complex, but Dumbledore is quite something as well) well-written, accomplished character of the books to a plot device. It is indeed what Regulus is, no matter if his character could have been really interesting/seems to be interesting: we know very little of him, and he exists solely for the Slytherin locket plot. The very little we know of him certainly isn't enough to express any critical judgment of his character; he is mostly made out of white pages which are filled out by his fans, which is great, and by the people making this kind of argument, which is unfortunate.

The interest in the character only stems in his usefulness: I would argue that the vast majority of people making this claim do not care at all for the character himself, despite using him as a moral high ground. It is not his character which interests them, but how useful he can be to fuel their hate and biased claims. His personality? Having being sorted in Slytherin. His merits? Being a Slytherin. This is the only fact that matters, because it allows them to 'prove' that Snape wasn't a hero (being a hero does not mean being a good person, by the way) and diminishes Severus' merits. Using a character solely for the purpose of depreciating, downgrading another is not appreciating them: it's just completely hypocritical. This is often the kind of flat argument used by people opposed to social justice movements, if you will allow the broad comparison: using something you have never cared for before (often minority populations) in an attempt to depreciate something, even though the very fact you are using them for this purpose shows how little concerned you are with the actual people you are talking about. Well, it reminds me of this a bit. The true purpose is to try and impose your own views, and here they try to legitimise them by filling an almost inexistent character with their views to carry on with their agenda.

The sudden leniency toward privileged characters: Making such a claim in fact once again proves that Snaters have an extremely biased, subjective and elitist vision of what being good means, an opinion on what is moral integrity (and superiority because they keep comparing people), which they also apply to James and Sirius. I think Regulus is loved because he is a Black, respected by the fandom because he comes from a pureblood, rich family. It is very easy to prove: look at how much love Draco and Lucius get, despite being supporters of blood supremacy, active members of a terrorist group, using discriminatory insults on a daily basis, being actively supportive of the murders of muggle borns/participating in these murders [do not misinterpret this - I'm pointing out double standards, not saying they should not be loved. One's interest in a character does not depend on the character's morals]. Look at how respected Snape was in the fandom before book 6, when people thought he was a rich pureblood from an ancient family. Social hierarchy has a great impact on how people view characters, and they tend to be much more lenient toward privileged characters, because prestige is attractive, even in fiction. Similarly - but it is more concealed - there is the usual refusal to acknowledge that social inequalities do impact one's life, choices, and opportunities to be or do good. The quote "You didn't make good choices! You had good choices" (Little Fires Everywhere) works quite well in this context, especially regarding James and Severus, but also regarding the Blacks versus Severus. Severus' survival was completely, utterly dependent on his adherence to blood supremacist values. This must be taken into account - but weirdly, this is an argument that is often used to prove Sirius' moral superiority, because his family required him to share their beliefs. This is ignoring that despite his difficulties, he still beneficiated from a support system and privileges that others did not have access to. Similarly, you cannot compare Regulus' and Severus' choices. And in my opinion, both are tragic; but if we had to take part in Snaters' silly arguments, then I would remind them that Regulus effectively had no obligation to join Voldemort, his parents were not death eaters. The pressure both characters experienced certainly wasn't of the same nature - even perhaps not of the same intensity. But does comparing them makes any sense, again...

The social biases: While Snape is blamed for his decision to join the death Eaters (rightly), Regulus is praised for his decision to leave them. While Regulus is pitied because he came from a family who brought him up with this ideology (just like Draco is), which apparently takes off all responsibility from him, Severus' background is never considered as a factor which pushed him right into extremists' opened arms. Regulus' privilege is used as an excuse; Snape's social disadvantage and familial issues are, at best, ignored, at worst, interpreted as proof of his inherently bad nature. Some people associate his upbringing with him being bad, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. While Regulus is headcanonned as handsome, Snape is constantly described as 'greasy' and 'ugly' by these same people, and you can see exactly how important appearances are to them. I'm even going to argue that worshipping a rich, handsome, privileged pureblood must sound better to them than being fond of the 'greasy git', and I am also saying these are mostly internalised biases. When you read these claims carefully, it sounds like in the mind of these people, Regulus is more legitimate as Slytherin's hero because he is better - inherently. And it is easy to see why.

The double-standards and their disturbing roots: This is also plainly ignoring the fact that Regulus and Snape defected for the same reasons, if we must make comparisons. Voldemort was targeting one of their loved ones, Kreatur for the former and Lily for the later, which made them realise, because they are humans and thus not selfless, how wrong his methods were when they turned against them. However, in Snape's case, turning against Voldemort in an attempt to save Lily is often held as proof of his selfishness/absence of morality: he wanted her for himself, he only deflected because someone he liked was in danger. In Regulus' case however, his gesture is seen as heroic and compassionate. Why? Well, there are a variety of reasons apart from Snaters' double standards, but I have noticed that most of them seem to think of Lily as 'belonging' to either James or Snape, and think Snape unworthy of having ever had Lily as a friend because of some kind of deep rooted flaws he had even as a child ('He tried to hurt Petunia with accidental magic when he was 11, he was always bad'. In fact I should make a post about how horrible this claim is.) In Regulus' case however, wanting to save Kreatur is seen as an act of compassion. Why? Not only because they want to make Regulus look better than Snape. I think it is also because Kreatur is a house-elf, an inferior being: Regulus' wish to protect him becomes praiseworthy, laudable, because house-elves do not really deserve consideration. So wanting to save him becomes an act of generosity. Even when you're not thinking of the double standards, this way of thinking is disturbing. Snape also turned against Voldemort at the age of 20, 21? Like Regulus did if I recall? They weren't death Eaters for very long. They both actively fought to bring Voldemort down. It would be tremendously hypocritical, wrong and plain bad faith to think of Regulus' action as superior to Snape's 20 years of hard work to bring Voldemort down.

So why can't Snape be a hero? I think this claim is a confession. To me it shows a very simplistic vision of heroism, of good and bad, of models, and a complete refusal to consider the grey, sometimes praise the grey- it's a failure to accept the complexity of the human functioning. Thinking that the people we praise for certain actions, or consider to be examples must be flawless is vain, simply because it is unrealistic, and we could not admire them/relate to them/like or dislike them/learn from them if they were not like us, layered and flawed - but this is exactly what this claim desperately wants us to believe. Or rather, what Snaters want to believe, while imposing their very biased views of good and bad, themselves rooted in prejudices. This is why they are using a character that is mostly inexistent: an empty, one dimensional character can fulfil this aim. This is also why so many people fail to appreciate characters such as James, Sirius and Remus without completely ripping off their flaws, and thus complexness - they cannot be loved if you can find fault in them.

#I think this ask is from July 2020 or something #I'm so sorry anon #Forgive me #Thoughts #My opinion #Meta #Regulus black #Severus Snape #Pro Snape

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sabraeal · 3 years

Text

Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 5

[Read on AO3]

Written for @vfordii‘s birthday which was....five months ago. BUT LISTEN, it’s still better than last year’s six months so like...improvement. IMPROVEMENT.

“You know why I called you here.” The Marshal’s voice is soft, barely louder than the hum of the fluorescents. “I presume.”

Shirayuki catches herself at the edge of her seat, chest pitched forward, neck craning to decipher every word and--

She settles back with a frown. Even a PhD isn’t a defense to the cheapest tactic on the pop-psych bookstore self-help shelf, it seems. Worse, Izana knows it, his mouth tipped so subtly toward a smile. And now he knows she knows it, and--

Her mug has gone cool, but it’s at least a credible distraction, a convenient way to buy some time and save face. Not something she ever expected she’d care about. Doesn’t mean she won’t take the opportunity.

“Zen.” The ceramic clacks like a shot as she sets it down. “You want to talk about the drift.”

“Yes.” He breathes, long and labored. “And no. I want him back in the cockpit.”

Come see me at your earliest convenience, his email had said, practically polite by PPDC standards. Manners atrophied when a body spent so much time in the higher altitudes of the chain of command. I’d like to discuss a few things with you.

She’d known what this would be about. What it was always going to be about. And still--

Shirayuki is still disappointed. “You have to be joking. It took him three years to get him into a jaeger at all, and you want to just...push him right back in.”

“No,” he hums, fingers still and steepled over his desk. “I want you to do it.”

There are rules of engagement for tangling with the Marshal. Voices are to be kept low, steady. Think before speaking. Don’t react. Showing an emotion in front of Izana Wisteria would be as good as handing him a rope to hang her with. “I’m not his commander.”

His fingers knit, knuckles popping in the silence-- “I know that, Doctor.”

Her own are curled into fists; at least then he can’t see them shaking. “Then I don’t know what you expect me to do.”

“I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to do your job,” he tells her, with only a pause for breath before he does. “I am merely suggesting that it is far past time to remove the kid gloves you have been handling him with.”

Her fists clench, hard enough to leave vivid crescents in the meat of her palms. “I believe I’m the judge of that.”

“Of course.” Every word drips with insincerity. “But I’m sure a little encouragement from you would--”

“I’ll do what’s necessary for the health of my patient,” she informs him, words clipped. “You’re not my commander.”

Izana stills, gaze riveted to her. “I am well aware of that, doctor. But I need him in a jaeger yesterday.”

“You’ve needed him in a jaeger for the past three years.” Shirayuki bolts to her feet, and oh, if only she could locate at least another foot of height, she might be able to finally have the high ground in one of these arguments. “I don’t see what the rush is now.”

His voice doesn’t raise above a pleasant chat, but bitterness weighs down every word. “You should.”

Shirayuki doesn’t believe in violence. Or rather, violence is a choice, and she doesn’t believe in choosing it unless no other option remains that causes less harm, but, well--

She’s got a very short list of people who deserved a black eye, and Izana Wisteria sorely tempts her to put his name on it. “What do you mean by that?”

The Marshall is all tense lines behind the battlement of his desk, a buttress against the fall. “Aren’t you a part of K-Science?”

The only distinction that mattered in the dome was between combatants and non; that a licensed therapist fell more into the ‘administration’ box rather than ‘research scientist’ was the least of their concerns. At least as far as the placement of her office. “Tangentially.”

“Well then.” His tension washes away like debris after the storm. “It’s all in the numbers.”

Shirayuki has been trained extensively in conflict resolution, in effective communication, in managerial manipulation, and still, still-- annoyance dogs her every step, nipping at her heels as she loses herself in the dome’s labyrinth of corridors. For once it would be nice to leave the Marshal’s office with something more like a sense of purpose and less like a reprieve in shoving boulders up a muddy hill in Tartarus, but this far into her tenure with the PPDC, she knows better than to hope for impossible asks. It’s not a new feeling by any means-- there’s certainly a hole worn in her heart for just this sort of fruitless anger and a monkey on her back with Izana Wisteria’s face, but he’s certainly devised an entirely new way to get her hackles up today.

Long limbs insinuate themself next to hers, a white-clad arm weaving its way around her elbow. She looks up-- not far-- into a pearl white, movie star grin.

“Well, well,” Yuzuri lilts, halfway between a drawl and singsong. “Someone’s looking stormy.”

Shirayuki doesn’t know how tall a person has to be to be considered thunderous, but if the crinkle to Yuzuri’s eyes are any indication, she’s well below the mark. “I was meeting with the Marshal.”

Yuzuri swings a single, impressed note. “Yeah, that’d do it. Or, I’d imagine it would. Not like he asks to see many of us in K-Science.”

Funny, she doesn’t say, since he’s so comfortable quoting your data. “You should probably count yourself lucky on that one.”

“Oh, yeah.” Yuzuri waves a hand, bangles jangling down her wrist. “Garrack handles him. Honestly, I think she enjoys the aggravation.”

Knowing Garrack like she does, Shirayuki certainly wouldn’t discount it.

Slender fingers flick out a sharp snap. “Hey, maybe you can send her the next time you need to deal with His Majesty. I’m sure she’d kill for a distraction just about now.”

“Oh, no! I’m-- I don’t need any help, it’s just...” She frowns, rifling through the satchel slung over her shoulder. She hardly has anything in it-- lip balm, her notes, a pack of tissues, her civilian identification, her wallet-- but still, her keys are shifted underneath the whole of her life, jingling just out of her reach.

It’s a metaphor, probably, but her love affair with literature is at too much of a standstill these days for her to bother unpacking it. Not when it’s probably going to end in her storming back into the Marshal’s office and demanding he show her some form of respect if he expects her to do her job.

Yuzuri’s mouth curls into a sly smile. “He’s top brass that’s used to having full grown adults ask how high rather than why?”

“That’s part of it,” she admits begrudgingly. “But it would also be nice if he could say what he means, instead of--youch!”

Metal teeth digging painfully into her palm, but she holds on anyway, dragging the ring right out, hair ties and all.

“Instead of...?” Yuzuri prompts, far too amused.

She heaves a sigh, plucking rubber bands off her hand. “Making it all some sort of...logic block word puzzle.”

Blonde brows slant skeptically. “I thought you loved those things.”

“For fun. Not for...” She waves a hand, keys jingling and brightly as Yuzuri’s bangles. “...Professional conversations. I’m not here for his entertainment. I don’t have time for-- for games!”

“Not when you could be doing your actual job.”

“Right.” Her actual job, which has almost exclusively been managing Zen’s feelings regarding Izana for months now. “And now he wants me to...“

She hesitates, teeth sinking into her lip. Outside the dome, patient confidentiality is the backbone of her profession, but here, when everyone eats and breathes and lives on top of one another--

“Lemme guess,” Yuzuri drawls, “get that boy in a pilot seat?”

-- it’s impossible. “I just wish he would show some faith.”

“In you?”

“No.” That’s asking far too much from a man who has only ever trusted as far as the drift could take him. She heaves a sigh, flyaways fluttering in her peripherals. “In Zen.”

A laugh huffs out of Yuzuri. “That’s asking a bit much from an older brother, don’t you think?”

Shirayuki has never, strictly, had a sibling. Ryuu certainly straddles the line between friend, colleague, and family, but she’s never doubted his drive, or the rigorous course of his research. He wouldn’t be her first choice to stand in front of the PPDC committee and defend her findings, but in a pinch, she would trust him wholeheartedly, with no reservations, to do the job.

That does not seem to be the unifying sibling experience. “Is it?”

Yuzuri grins. “You are definitely an only child.”

She restrains her scowl to a disapproving frown. “Maybe, in this case, that’s a good thing.”

They turn down a corridor, and relief floods into her-- this is it, the hall that holds her office at the end. She takes a step forward, but Yuzuri holds her back, gaze fixed leagues away.

“Do you really think he’ll do it?” She blinks, eyes finally focusing down on Shirayuki. “You really think he’ll get back in that jeager?”

“Yes.”

Yuzuri recoils, blinking. “Wow, no hesitation on that one, huh?”

“None,” she agrees, a smile lingering at the edge of her lips. “I know Zen might be hurting right now after--” the most disastrous drift she’s witnessed in her entire career-- “everything, but he...”

She takes in a breath, putting her back to her door. “No matter what happens, Zen always does the right thing.” It’d been that unwavering moral compass that had drawn her to him, a shining bright light among the downtrodden heart of the dome. “He may need a little time to pick himself back up, dust himself back off, but he knows that one day, he’ll have to sit down and talk this out, not run--”

“But not today, it looks like.” Yuzuri’s hand darts right over her shoulder, plucking something off her door.

Shirayuki blinks, letting the yellowed square of paper come into focus.

Something came up. Rain check ~Z

She stares, fingers numb as she swipes the scrap out of Yuzuri’s hands.

“That sunovabitch,” she grits out, paper dinting beneath her grip. “He’s avoiding me.”

“So.” Yuzuri cocks her head, mouth stretching wide. “Wanna grab some grub?”

“I’m just saying.” Suzu’s hand scribbles across a napkin, dropping symbols more arcane than any rift. “If I could just get any of the brass to take a good look at this, things would be different.”

“Different how?” Kazaha drawls, accusation dripping from every word. At least, that’s how it sounds-- it hadn’t taken Shirayuki long to realize that’s just how the man speaks, every phoneme meant to cut glass. The asshole accent, Yuzuri calls it. “Does this somehow improve the quality of life in the dome? The world? The--?”

“It’ll certainly improve my quality of life if I don’t have to hear about it,” Yuzuri deadpans. “C’mon, we’re eating dinner. Let’s put the toys away.”

“It’s not a toy, it’s a tool,” Suzu grumbles, finishing it with a flourish. “And if we used it, we’d know when the kaiju would show up, instead of just waiting for them to wade into the Sea of China or whatever.”

That, at least, gets the team to bow their heads over it, passing around frowns and furrows alike.

“If that was the case,” Kazaha sniffs, pushing it away. “Garrack Gazelt would have already put this in front of the Marshal.”

Suzu scowls, yanking it back. “You know that none of those jarheads appreciate good science! Until I get this paired up with some pretty little graphs, I might as well be speaking Japanese.”

Izuru perks up at that. “Doesn’t the Marshal speak Japanese?”

“That’s besides the point.”

“Hm.” Ryuu squirms next to her, craning his head over the napkin. “I think you’re missing a variable.”

“Impossible.” Suzu stares down at it. “Just look here--”

Shirayuki glances down, letters and numbers do-si-doing between roots and over fractions. Izana might shove her office all the way down in K-Science, but that certainly didn’t give her the training to decipher this little bit of mathematical prognostication.

Suzu pitches forward, felt-tip pen rolling across his knuckles in a bit of sleight-of-hand she would have never thought him capable of. “--you’ll see that by putting ‘a’ over ‘n’ squared--”

“All right.” Yuzuri’s fingers knit in the cotton of his button-down, dragging him back down onto the bench with a thump. “I think we’ve had quite enough of that.”

With a lift of his brows, Suzu’s face shifts from fox to puppy in eight muscles flat. “But, Yuzuri--”

“No buts.” Her fingers pluck the pen out of his, dropping it back into a pocket with a firm, warning pat. “Now, as I was trying to say: His Highness is avoiding you.”

Shirayuki blinks, gaze dragging up to where Yuzuri waits with an impatient smirk. “N-no! That’s not it at all. Something probably came up--”

“Izana’s avoiding you?” Suzu swings a wide, gaping stare at her. “Didn’t you just have a meeting today? What did you do to him?”

Her hands fly up, waving off the accusation. “Ah, no, I didn’t--”

“No, not His Majesty, His Highness,” Yuzuri corrects, blowing on a spoonful of the mess’s finest chicken noodle. “And he is avoiding you, which is bullshit.”

She has to bite her cheeks to keep her lips from peeling back into a grimace. “Zen has lots of work to keep him busy--”

“What work?” Kazaha scoffs, meticulously cutting his chicken into bite-sized pieces. “He’s a ranger without a co-pilot. It’s not like he can just jump into a jaeger and fight kaiju with half a working mecha.”

Yuzuri swivels toward him, hands held out with a level of emphasis Shirayuki can’t help but feel is more than the situation truly deserves. Especially since some of the rangers are starting to peer over their way. “See, even Kazaha knows it’s bullshit.”

His mouth purses into a tight frown. “I don’t know why it’s even Kazaha--”

Yuzuri’s brows make a dubious stretch toward her hairline. “I’m pretty sure you do.”

“--I’m very socially astute, even Shidan--”

“--just because he lets you out of the lab doesn’t mean you don’t offend people by breathing--”

“I dunno.” Suzu’s forehead furrows, tapping a spoon on each of his oyster crackers, drowning them in broth. “Zen seems like a real upright guy, you know? Forthright. If he had a problem, he’d say something, not just ghost you.”

Yuzuri stares at him. “He buys you one bubble tea, and now he can do no wrong.”

“Do you know how hard those are to get out here? He had to go all the way out to--”

Whatever else Suzu means to say, it’s lost in the siren.

This isn’t Shirayuki’s first time in the dome-- far from it-- but it’s never easy.

The siren’s moan shivers through the air, something she feels rather than hears. Her teeth rattle in her mouth, and there’s nothing she wants to do more than curl up beneath the table and ride it out, eyes squeezed shut and hands over her ears. She wouldn’t be the only one; already half of K-Science is on the ground, tears streaming down more than one ashen face.

Man’s worst enemy is fear. Grandpa had told her that, letting her dip her toes into the bay. She’d been small, young enough that she still wondered if kaiju might lurk under the surface, waiting to pull tasty little girls beneath the depths. Kaiju can only kill you once, but fear kills a hundred times. His hand sits heavy on her shoulder, a comfort, a cage; and she--

She gets up.

Pilots and personnel scramble; one tech stands up too fast, boot hooking on the bench’s edge and sprawling face-first into the floor. It’s only ranger reflexes that keep her from getting trampled, dodging around the splay of her fingers with a dexterity that would make Shirayuki’s jaw drop if she wasn’t trying to keep all her molars from jittering out of their sockets.

There’s a hand on her shoulder. She hadn’t just imagined it, a goad to get her standing. She traces the hand back, up ranger fatigues to dark hair, brows raised, and beneath them--

It’s violet eyes, not gold. Not Obi, but a ranger she’s never seen before, his mouth quirked with cold consideration.

“It would be safer,” he says, voice somehow Altantic-crisp over the cacophony, “if you stayed in your seat.”

Her mouth opens, working around the sounds to thank him, but he’s already gone, disappeared into the crowd of PPDC personnel around her. Shirayuki’s eyes shift over the mob, trying to-- to find him, maybe, or at least a face she knew, someone that she could talk to, someone to memorize one last time--

She finds one, silver-blond hair shimmering at the door, too pale to be anyone else. Zen. It’s Zen looking right at her, those deep blue eyes inscrutable, mouth carved into a line more grim than he’s ever shown her.

He turns away.

“It’s too soon, though,” Suzu murmurs, staring down at his napkin. The screens are on now, muted by the siren’s wails, and there’s a Kaiju on it, frill rigid around its reptilian face as it tears a city to twisted metal ribbons. It’s just buildings, streets, impossible to tell which one, but all that matters right now is not here.

“As I said,” Ryuu says, only just audible over the drone. “You dropped a variable.”

What hurts most, once her teeth stop rattling and her heart ceases to pound in her chest, is that Yuzuri is right-- Zen is avoiding her.

“The sessions are his choice.” Labeling tubes isn’t quite how Shirayuki had envisioned her evening going, especially with her mind half-away, pondering over the Pacific, but it’s something to do. “No one can force him to come.”

“Sounds like that’s half the problem,” Garrack mutters, forehead pressed to the hood, leaving a faint, oily smear across the glass. “Free will. Foils gods and men alike, doesn’t it?”

Her mouth pulls down at the corners, a bow stretched too tight, just like her patience. “I don’t want him to be forced. Therapy only works if the patient wants to change.”

Which, by Zen’s conspicuous absence, tells her he doesn’t. He’s happy as he is, wearing the fatigues but never getting in the cockpit, waiting for a copilot that’s already shown how little he cares about anything but lining his own pocket.

“Of course. You can lead a horse to water, but you’ll never make it drink.” It’s impressive to watch Garrack work; even in rubber sleeves, her grip never trembles, never slips. In the same position, Shirayuki can barely close a fist, but Garrack’s got the same dexterity in the hood as she does out of it. “Good thing you get paid regardless.”

Shirayuki flushes, heat pricking at her pride. “I’m not worried about that.”

“No, I wouldn’t think you are,” Garrack murmurs. “I’m just saying it’s nice. Salaried, with room and board to boot.”

Her frown falls further, flirting with a glower. “I’m aware that I’m in the unique position of not having to care in an official capacity if he bothers to come back. But personally--” her breath catches, stomach doing one, solid somersault-- “I do. I want him to want this.”

Garrack hums, not an agreement or judgement, but an acknowledgement. Tactic permission to proceed.

“Izana wants me to tells him to climb into a jeager, to use my-- our personal connection to manipulate him into the cockpit, regardless of what his personal feelings are.” Her breath rushes from her lungs, suddenly ragged, frayed at either end. “No, encourage. That’s what he told me. That it’s my job to do it for humanity.”

One thick eyebrow arches under Garrack’s cap, her eyes bright with interest. “And how do you feel about that?”

It’s strange being on the other side of this question, to be the analyzed instead of the analyzer. She squirms, teeth worrying at her lip, mind racing with possibilities.

“C’mon now,” Garrack chides, mouth hooking into a smirk. She picks up her rack, rattling the small tubes in their holes. “I gave you those for a reason. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, you know-- at least, that’s what people say when they’re afraid of what you’ll get up to if you start thinking.”

She tosses her a wink, ejecting the tip of her pipette into the trash before fitting on another. “Too bad they don’t know that drudgery clears your mind. Have all my best ideas when I’ve got a sharpie and a hundred two-mils to get through. So come on--” she grins, all conspiracy-- “tell me. What do you think of our illustrious leader’s idea?”

Her teeth click shut around her first opinion-- saying Izana Wisteria should go suck eggs would not only please Garrack far too much, but would be around the rest of the base by morning. The last thing she needs is the Marshal inviting her into his office and reading that off one of his hundreds of emails. “...Think that’s beyond my professional scope to comment on.”

“Oh please.” Garrack waves her off, one rubber arm flailing behind the glass. “I’m not asking you to issue a formal complaint about the marshal’s policies. I want to know if you think that kid should get in that steel coffin and kick the closest kaiju in whatever passes for their balls. If throwing another body at the breach is what’s best for humanity.”

“I...”

It shouldn’t be. There’s more rangers on this base than jaegers to fit them; one career pilot pulling back to fill the ranks shouldn’t be more than a drop in the bucket, a chair to fill. But this is no ordinary jaeger-- this is Rex Tyrannous, the most advanced piece of machinery to roll out of a PPDC facility before or since. Rebuilt from the same blueprint as the Mark I, reconfigured with the best technology the Mark III could offer, the Mark IV’s older, more deadly brother, and--

And the money for it hadn’t come out of Defense Corps coffers. No matter how many hopefuls washed up at the dome, the King of Kaijus wouldn’t come out of its box for anyone less than a Wisteria, not as long as at least one was still standing.

“Yes.” She spits the word out like poison, but still she feels unclean. “There’s no one else that can do what he needs to.”

Garrack’s mouth twists in a wry curve. “Then there you go.”

“It’s a conflict of interest!” Shirayuki insists, the sharpie in her hand shaking as she tries to form a 4. “If there was anyone on this base that had the credentials, I’d-- I’d put in the referral myself. He deserves someone that’s impartial--”

“Shirayuki.” With exaggerated care, Garrack pulls her arms from the hood, letting her hands fall down to her lap. “Do you think there is a single soul in this dome who could do the math you did and not be partial?”

Her mouth works, opening once, twice, before settling shut with a snick.

“I didn’t hire you because you lacked bias.” Garrack’s voice pitches low, softer than she’s ever heard her, knuckles white where they clasp her knees . “You wrote a paper about PTSD in rangers that lost a partner in the drift. A paper, might I add, that showed a great deal of knowledge in jaeger production and use. The sort of thing no one learns unless they’ve been locked up under a dome for years before being released in the wild.”

It’s not an accusation, not yet, but Shirayuki’s hands still anyway, clammy beneath latex.

“Because of that useless wall, we’re years behind in jaeger production. We need new mechs, and Rex Tyrannous is the best model we got left, whether it’s been sitting in its box for half a decade or not. ” She settles back, brow arched. “But I don’t need to tell you that, now do I?”

No. Her fingers clench hard around the sharpie. She doesn’t.

“Shirayuki, I know you’re a good kid, but you do get to be selfish sometimes.” Garrack grins, too pleased at the prospect. “You’re human, just like the rest of us. There’s no one who doesn’t have skin in this game.”

“I know,” she murmurs. “But it’s my job to do what’s best for him as my patient, not just--”

Garrack snorts. “Oh, is the discontinuation of the human race not going to affect him?”

Shirayuki frowns, opening her mouth to-- well, to say something quelling, no doubt. But-- “Oh.”

Garrack hunches over her lap, forearms braced on her thighs. “I know the Wisterias put on a good show of being gods, but they’re flesh and blood like the rest of us. It doesn’t do anyone good for them to sit out the apocalypse. Not even themselves.”

“But, I...” She sets the tubes down, gloves crinkling into fists. “I don’t know what happened in the drift, just what the readouts said. It could have been a failure on Obi’s side just as much as his, and if they’re not compatible--”

“Then just ask him,” Garrack sighs, swiveling back toward the hood. “You don’t need to try to read minds.”

“But he’s not talking--”

“Not that Wisteria prick.” She chucks her chin toward the door, toward the vague direction of the dome beyond. “The other one. Seems like the real problem there might be getting him to stop talking.”

“Obi?” She blinks. He’s friendly, sure, but she wouldn’t say he’s been one to volunteer information.

“If that’s the one that’s down here every other day, talking my ears off with Suzu, then yes.” One rubber arm flails at her through the glass. “Now get out of here, and get those two little shits inside their tuna can before a Cat 5 can make it down the coast and make us regret it.”

When she steps into the hall, Shirayuki has every intention of following Garrack’s advice. It’s solid, after all; in a two-sided problem where one solution makes itself unavailable, the obvious answer is the best approach-- especially when in this labyrinth of a dome, there’s only so many places where he can hide.

She stops by the mess for a peace offering. Obi might be disposed to be friendly toward her at the moment, but she knows all too well how far good will will get her if she’s going to start rummaging around in things he’d rather keep cooped up behind that smile. Quality coffee and some contraband cookies might not mend the bridges she burns, but it’ll at least keep them standing while she’s walking over it.

It’s a good plan, a solid plan; she just doesn’t anticipate the company.

“Shirayuki.” Dark circles ring dark eyes, but Mitsuhide smiles just as warm as he always does, sprawled stiffly on the bench. “It’s good to see you.”

“I should be saying the same thing!” she gasps, her and her tea sliding in across from him at the formica table. “I thought you’d be out...” in your tuna can.

She bites her cheek, just hard enough to keep the words from spilling out. Sometimes she really, truly wishes she didn’t listen to Garrack quite as much; her mouth and Garrack’s words made a volatile mix. The sort that would get her a dishonorable discharge, if she weren’t a civilian-- or careful.

“We were. I mean, I was. Both Kiki and myself.” His body twists with a good, solid shake, eyes clearing. “Sorry, just had to exorcise the ghost. You know how it is.”

She doesn’t, but she does. There’s papers on the subject; reams of them-- Longevity of neural imprints in active rangers had been a favorite when she’d been in undergrad, as well as the far more entertaining, Ghost Drifting: How does one leave a ghost while still alive? It’s still novel to witness it, to see that spectral presence cling to the neural stem so long after--

“We just got back a little while ago.” He shifts, his right leg stretching long across the floor, knee bucking stiffly. “Kiki hit the rack, but I needed to, ah, take a walk.”

That’s his-- his good leg, as Kiki likes to call it, the half of him that becomes Redwood Dancer to pair with her left. That’s what makes them first line defense, even in an older Mark III; Kiki’s a real lefty, not one made by the drift. When Dancer throws a punch, both sides come full powered.

That’s what you get being the best of the best, Zen would say, envy and wistfulness thickening his voice, everyone knows they can count on you to serve.

That seems less like a good thing as Shirayuki sits across from it, watching the shadows shift in Mitsuhide’s eyes.

“Did you see it?” she asks, voice a whisper in the cavernous lair of the mess. “The kaiju?”

Mitsuhide grunts, shaking his head. “No, we were kept on standby. Got there after some of the boys in Hong Kong did, and they handled it.”

He doesn’t offer how well; she doesn’t ask.

“Ah,” she hums instead, hunching over her mug. “So it was out that way?”

“When they get that far down, yeah.” One of his large fingers wraps around the handle of his mug, bringing it to his mouth for a long, steady drag. “Not many wander out this way.”

“Alaska--”

“Yeah, there’s a few up north, and I think Seattle always has a good sweat when that happens, but...” His brows furrow, just a small wrinkle in the center of his forehead. “Not so much down here. Not anymore.”

Her palms press against warm ceramic, lips curling into a thin smile. “I guess we don’t have what they want. Whatever that is.”

His mouth gives a wryly twitch. “Thank God for small blessings.”

It would be nice to let the silence between them mellow, to allow herself a companionable respite after swallowing around her heart for half a day, but--

But there are things that won’t keep, no matter how much she’d like to set them aside, set them down even for just a moment. “Mitsuhide...”

He stiffens, the way a dog does when it hears its name shouted in the key of trouble. There’s two ways to respond to conflict, they used to say, fight or flight; years later they added freeze with as begrudging a reception as any change to common wisdom was given. But Mitsuhide does none of those; he just hunkers, eyes warm and dark and wary when they meet hers, hedged by hunched shoulders. The sort of man who grew up in a place where natural disasters are weathered in bathtubs and basements, or else watched from afar on front porches.

“I meant to talk to you.” Her fingers knit into the natural ridges of her mug; the only way to keep them from trembling. “After...after. I mean, not this, but before. The, um...”

It’s ridiculous how many calamities can cluster in a few hours. She’ll need to start numbering them to keep them all straight.

“The drift,” he rasps wearily. “Zen's talked about it with you, hasn’t he?”

Her mouth works; her duty to her profession says to keep it shut, to keep her patient’s business confidential, but her duty as a member of the human race, of a species that is growing more endangered by the year-- “He skipped his session.”

Shirayuki couldn’t have moved him if she hit him, but this rocks him back in his seat. “I’d been hoping...” He shakes his head, mouth curling into a rueful smile. “I thought I’d be the one trying to work something out of you.”

“Ah.” She bows her head, watching the leaves swirl in her tea. “So you haven’t had any luck either?”

Her shakes his head, disappointment stark in every sway. “He won’t talk about it. After he got out of the hanger he went and locked himself in his rack. He only agreed to come to the mess if we promised to drop the whole thing.”

Shirayuki winces. “I’d normally never ask, but when he didn’t show up to our usual appointment...”

Mitsuhide lets out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “I don’t know why he’d do that. I’d give some of my teeth to let someone else listen to my head sometimes.”

She blinks. “You’re always welcome, if you wanted to.”

“No.” His mouth rucks up in a rueful curve. “I really couldn’t.”

“But--”

“The thing they don’t tell you before you get into that cockpit is--” he takes a deep breath, the air emptying out the tension in his shoulders-- “is that the second you hit the drift, all your secrets aren’t your own anymore.”

“Oh.” The drift is two minds laid bare to one another, the deepest form of trust, but in all her studies, she’d never thought what that meant. How tangled and deep a mind could become in things that weren’t theirs to know, weren’t their secrets to carry. “Can I ask you something?”

His eyebrows ruffle up an inch, curious. “Of course. Anything I can answer.”

“When you first came to the dome, you were...” Shirayuki bites her lips, considering. “You were Zen’s copilot. But then Kiki came...”

The PPDC might be the one that’s stamped on the letterhead, but the Wisterias are the spine of the jeager project as well as its face. Their neural net stretches far and wide through the Corp’s hierarchies, fingers in every pie, and although Zen might not be in the upper echelons of leadership, the sort of state secrets someone might glean from the casual details rattling around in his head...

Well, it’s a good thing the Seirans were just as entrenched.

“Why did you do it?” she asks finally, though it’s miles away from what she means. “Why change when you already...?”

“Ah, well...” Mitsuhide’s shoulders heave awkwardly. “It was an emergency, at first, and then...I don’t know how to explain it. We just fit. Not that I didn’t with Zen, but this was...”

He hesitates, smile edging towards a kind of self-deprecation that doesn’t quite fit him. “It was different. If that makes sense.”

“It doesn’t,” she admits. Not to her, at least, someone who has never been in a cockpit, who has never drifted over a set of pons and tried to make a connection. But to someone who has, who has spent the last half decade rotating through a list of hopefuls and throwing them all in the trash-- “But I think...maybe it could.”

Shirayuki would love to say that she’s experienced a perception shift, that a few words with Mitsuhide gave her a clarity that she needs to pore over before acting on, but the fact of it is-- she’s too anxious to approach Obi, pure and simple.

Not that he’s given her much cause; he’s scarce after that failure of a drift, but his absence lacks the marked purpose of Zen’s. It’s hard to find anyone after an attack; everyone’s on high alert, hypervigilant, waiting for another call to come like an aftershock. It’s never happened before, but to assume that means a double event is out of the question--

Well, humanity stopped making assumptions about what lurked beneath the Pacific the day Trespasser ripped the Golden Gate off its moorings.

She catches a glimpse of him every once and a while, always going the wrong way but with a smile to share before he disappears. He’s not avoiding her, he’s avoiding everyone else, and she’s just too much of a cog in the dome’s machinery to not be a casualty of it. It’s nothing personal, she’s sure, but with all the people giving her a wide berth lately, it’s hard not to feel that his absence is pointed.

Still, there are things that just won’t keep. She can’t just keep avoiding this because she’s afraid of one more rejection.

And that’s how she finds herself in the middle of the dome’s combat room, on the business end of Obi’s smirk.

“Doc,” he hums, kicking the end of his staff up to yoke his neck. He makes it look easy, like the jo is an extension of him rather than a separate piece. She can’t help but think of what he might do with a hundred tons of jeager strapped to him, how easy he might make it move. “Funny seeing you here.”

She nods, rocking on her toes. “It’s been a while.”

He swaggers toward her, stopping barely an arm’s length away, hip cocked. Sweat dews along every inch of him, his tank damp and clinging to the hard planes of his stomach, tighter than the lycra in her own gear. His pants swing low, leaving a sliver of skin between it and his shirt, and she--

She should really be looking elsewhere. He’s not a giant, not like Mitsuhide, but when she looks up, it’s a long way to meet his eyes. They’re laughing at her when she does.

“You’re not gonna get anything out of me, you know,” he says as if he’d like to see her try; a challenge rather than a defense. “What happens in the drift stays in the drift.”

Her mouth works; this time stuck less on the sweat crawling over his skin and more on how quickly she’s been made. “I didn’t say I was going to.”

“You had the look.” He shifts, hips drawing her gaze with them. When she glances back up, he seems to find that funny too. “Besides, why else would you come in here? Most shrinks I meet aren’t, hm, combat ready.”

“I-I work out!”

His eyebrows raise, mouth following suit. “That so?”

She flexes arm, baring what, in her humble opinion, is no small bicep. Kiki might have her beat, but in K-science terms she’s practically buff. “See?”

Obi slinks close, hunching over, jo and all, to give her offering a good squint. With a hum she’d like to think is at least mildly impressed, he straightens, suddenly so close she can smell the sweat on him and the faint whiff of his deodorant.

“Well then, I stand corrected.” His smile stretches Cheshire-wide as he steps aside, sweeping out a hand. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Shirayuki peers past him, fighting to keep the grimace from her face. She works out, sure, but more along the lines of slow and low. Yoga. Tai chi. Pilates. Things that promote mind and body balance. But even in the gym, all the equipment is meant for bulking muscle, for building the sort of bodies that can bear up a skyscraper. And the combat room...

Well the only equipment here is the jo in their rack and the tatami on the floor. This isn’t for people looking to do a pull up, it’s for rangers looking to spar.

“Tell you what, Doc,” Obi says, no small amount of amusement or pity in his voice. “I could use a cool down.”

His jo whips down from his shoulders, lightning fast, hands thrusting out in the air, and she--

Her hand rises to match, catching the jo mid-air. She sags under it, a little heavier than she expected from a stick that size, but keeps her feet under her. She glances back at Obi, wide-eyed, but he just lifts his brows, impressed. “How about we go a round, you and me?”

It’s a normal request-- maybe not to her, but the rangers certainly aren’t shy about taking conversations to the tatami. But Obi��s voice does something with it, pushes it down into a register that feels more mattress than mat, and she shivers as she lets the jo drop more naturally into her grip. “Me?”

“Well, I really thought you wouldn’t catch it.” His chin juts toward her staff. “But it looks like you at least know how to hold it.”

Her finger flex around the wood, settling against its smooth surface. “I’ve done it once or twice.”

A half dozen years ago, but he doesn’t need to know that.

His mouth twitches. “Great.”

Obi’s not a mountain of a man, not like Mitsuhide, but when he falls into stance, he could make himself one. It would take an earthquake to move him, and she has the world’s smallest lever. “Come at me.”

Shirayuki shuffles awkwardly on the mat, twisting the jo to rest on both her hands. It feels like she’s got two left ones holding it-- neither one of them are as good as Kiki’s-- but muscle serves her better than memory. Center yourself, Grampa told her, yanking her chest above her hips, feel the earth come to meet you. You’ll be part of it one day, and it’s ready.

Morbid, but it works. Her spine jolts into a straight line, weight teetering between her feet, and she takes her swing.

Obi doesn’t try to dodge. He could-- even in that split second, his muscles twitch, goading him to flee-- but he just raises his staff, a jolt she feels right down to her shoulders. The puny clack echoes in her ears. It’s nothing even close to how him and Zen were sparring.

“Go ahead.” He shifts his weight as she recovers, bracing himself. “Again.”

Right. Her feet flatten against the mat-- or at least they try to, pressing instead against the foam of her sneakers. Her sneakers that she’s still wearing, since she came in here thinking there would be an elliptical, or weights, or not this.

That won’t do at all. She toes them off, setting them at the edge of the tatami, the only spectators to her impending humiliation.

She hesitates, fingers peeling socks over her heels. Obi’s already said she won’t get any information out of him; she doesn’t need to do this. She could walk away right now, and the only consequence would be his teasing. And yet--

And yet, Shirayuki walks back, feet grounding against the weave beneath them. The jo settles between her hands. Obi grins.

When she moves again, it’s with more confidence, memory fueling her strike. He catches it again, but this time it doesn’t rattle her. At least, not until he moves too, viper fast, and then she’s scrambling again. She’s no noodle-armed K-science geek, no matter what Obi might say, but when she thrusts her staff up overhead to meet his swing, her arms tremble, teeth jangling in her mouth.

Obi retreats, amusement clinging to his lips, and she huffs. Maybe she can’t take the same sort of beating Kiki can, but she isn’t about to be some pushover.

She comes at him again, lower this time, on the outside. He’s not prepared-- she can tell the way his eyes widen-- but reflexes smooth his response, drawing her back with a few of his own strikes, and then--

Then it’s just trading blows. Not like his spar with Zen; he’s too skilled and she’s too inexperienced for this to be anything but a planned draw, for him to do anything but go easy on her. But still, still-- there’s a strange electricity every time they meet, more than just their jo rising to meet each other, an anticipation--

Obi steps back, brow furrowed. “Hm.”

Shirayuki’s panting, drenched, and he’s barely broken a sweat. “Is something wrong?”

It certainly doesn’t feel wrong to her.

“N-no.” He plucks her jo from her grip, the swagger gone from his hips as he mounts it on the wall beside his. “Just. Interesting.”

“Interesting?” she prompts hopefully.

Obi shrugs, like there’s an itch between his shoulders. “Did you need anything else, Doc?”

“I...” She bites down on the impulse to ask, to demand to know if he felt it too. “No. I should, um. Get going.”

“Nowhere to go but people to see, huh?” he laughs, but it’s weaker than his usual, stilted.

“Yeah,” she breathes, turning away. “Something like that.”

We just fit, Mitsuhide said with that strange look on his face, a yearning she knows now. If that makes sense.

“Obi?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounds distant, like it’s coming from another mouth, not her own. Maybe it’s just because she’s bent in half, working cotton over sweaty toes. Maybe it’s because it feels like she’s only working with half a body.

His head swivels, chin peeking over his shoulder. “Yeah, Doc?”

“It wasn’t you, was it?” He blinks, head tilting with confusion, and she clarifies, “It wasn’t your failure.”

His breath tumbles from his like wind over water; she swears she can feel the ripples of it even where she stands. “No,” he says, so soft it’s nearly lost over the rattle of the vents. “Not yet.”

The static fizzles on her skin, belly rocking as she bends to slip on her sneakers, and oh, Mitsuhide’s words might not have made sense before, but--

But she’s worried they’re starting to now.

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #pacific rim au #my fic #this chapter ended up being much more of a beast than i thought #and this is WITH some scenes getting moved to next chapter for like...SPACE #but that's pretty much what took this so long #trying to rearrange this to cover some of the big points that HAD to be covered by Shirayuki POV #so that this was only like...6K instead of 8K and double the chapter length of any one before it #DEEP SIGH #this is a hobby i choose to do for fun

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stxrrywildflower · 4 years

Text

hypothermia

pairing - spencer reid x reader

summary - you and derek go to extreme lengths to save a victim

warnings - injury, mentions of case, cursing

word count - ?

cold.

all you felt was cold.

you could barely remember where you were or what had happened.

your senses felt frozen.

all you could manage to do was shut your eyes.

___

the team arrived in portland, oregon a few days prior.

it was march, meaning the temperatures barely passed the the mid-fifties at the high, and dropped extremely low during the night. even snow fell on the ground as you landed, resulting in everyone on the team adding an extra layer or two.

the unsub was killing women and disposing of their bodies on the streets lining the beaches. it was becoming extremely difficult to narrow the suspect pool down, due to the large population.

hotch ordered you and spencer to go to the morgue and look at the previous victims to find out what you could.

“he must have some sort of emotional tie to to the ocean. it would explain why the unsub chooses that location,” spencer spoke from the passenger seat.

you nodded, “possible grew up on the coast or maybe even lost someone to drowning.”

upon arrival at the morgue, the two of you made your way inside. you both greeted the coroner before grabbing gloves. as you moved around the victims bodies, spencer talked to the man about what he could figure out.

“they’re not drowned. there’s a puncture wound in her foot, probobly died from a heart attack,” you concluded.

with that, you and spencer returned to the police station to alert your team about what you had discovered. while walking towards the doors, the wind picked up causing you to hug your jacket a little tighter. spencer pulled you closer to him to keep you warm.

the next four days were agonizingly slow. another body had been found, but it had the exact same marks as the others with nothing different. if anything, it slowed your investigation down rather than help you.

the team worked long hours, desperate to find a lead. and finally, after those four days, they found one.

hotch sent you and morgan to investigate the suspects house that night. it was dark and very cold. upon arrival, you found it was empty. but with further investigation, you two concluded that this defiantly was your guy.

pictures and articles on these women were pinned on the walls as well as an article about a little boy drowning in a riptide a month or so ago.

“stresser,” you informed morgan.

as you two were walking out of the house, a red car sped out of the garage of the house and down the road. you managed to catch a glimpse of the driver and passenger; it was the unsub and his current victim. thankfully, she was alive.

morgan jumped into the drivers seat as you got into the passengers seat. he sped off, following the car the best he could. at one point, due to the darkness and wind, you lost the car.

however, a few moments later, after driving around, you saw the red care carelessly parked on the side of the road. the unsub was dragging the girl, who was gagged and tied at her wrists and ankles, towards the end of the pier.

“unsub located, he has a girl with him. location is the pier just off of south street,” you spoke into your communication system.

you and morgan slowly stepped out of the car and took a step towards the unsub who had a sly grin on his face. he held an automatic rifle which was pointed at the girls head.

“morgan she has weights on her,” you informed your fellow agent.

“you don’t have to do this man!” morgan shouted, “just let the girl go. we can tell the judge you cooperated. let her go.”

the next moments happened all so quickly. the unsub pushed the girl off of the pier into the water. due to the weights attached, she slowly began to sink to the bottom. the man then pointed his gun at morgan. you fired a shot, killing him instantly. you and derek shared a quick look before taking off sprinting off of the pier and diving into the water.

the team arrived just in time to see you and morgan go under. rossi and emily went over to the unsub, checking his pulse before concluding him to be dead. the rest of the team stayed on the beach, narrowing their eyes at the water, no sign of you or morgan anywhere.

after hitting the water, your entire body tensed up. the water couldn’t have been more than 35-40 degrees. you managed to pry your eyes open, just enough to see the light from derek’s flashlight.

the water was pitch black and you needed to find the girl. you were both loosing oxygen quickly and no doubt the victim was too.

after then more seconds of desperately searching, you saw the woman floating towards the bottom of the water. as quickly as you could, you grabbed your pocket knife and sliced the ropes. the process was painfully slow, and with each moment, you felt yourself in more and more pain.

finally, the ropes fell and you took one arm while derek took the other. after pushing off the ocean floor, you made it to the surface, gasping for air. you used your spare hand to push back your hair as you frantically looked around.

in the distance, you could make out your team as well as the police standing on the beach. your whole body was shaking as you couldn’t believe how far out you were. slowly but surely, you began to swim towards the mainland.

in your mind, the process seemed to take forever. your boots finally made contact with the sand, allowing for you to stand up. you and morgan hauled the victim onto the sand where the emt’s were waiting.

you and derek, however, seemed locked in place, still standing waist deep in painfully cold water. spencer was helping the emt’s after orders from hotch but looked over when he heard a large splash. his head turned just in time to witness morgan collapsing, just after you went down. thankfully, emily and hotch were there to catch you both.

“w-who are you. where a-am i,” you spoke shakily, mind incredibly fuzzy.

the pain began to increase throughout your body, but it seemed to attack your head the most. after your legs went out, your arms were next. they were holding emily’s arms but then dropped. your head rolled to the side. upon looking at hotch, derek was having the same results.

“medics!” hotch shouted.

“hey y/n, i need you to stay awake. keep those eyes open. come on y/n, please,” the woman who you couldn’t quite remember in front of you pleaded. the next few moments were a blur as you couldn’t follow her demands and instead shut your eyes.

once the second wave of emt’s arrived, you and morgan were quickly loaded onto stretcher’s and rushed to the hospital. the team stood on the beach, still processing what happened. hotch and emily were starting to feel a little sick from entering the water to help their team.

“i know we all want to get to the hospital but it’s already late. everyone go back to the hotel and get changed and we can go to the hospital afterwards,” hotch spoke to his team.

as everyone began to walk back to to the car, spencer stopped, tapping his hands against his leg as he looked at the ocean. j.j. noticed this and made her way over, placing her hand softly on his shoulder.

“talk to me,” j.j. spoke with a calm tone.

“hypothermia is one of the most dangerous medical conditions out there. your body literally shuts down after being in the water for only a few minutes. but y/n and morgan were in the water for a long time. i’m just so worried,” spencer struggled to get out.

for a genius who knew so much, he had run out of things to say.

“spence, the doctors are going to do everything in their power to help them. you have every right to be worried. derek is your best friend, besides me of course,” j.j. joked, causing spence to smile slightly, “and to state the obvious, you’re so in love with y/n. you two have known each other for practically forever and she’s your girlfriend, of course you’re going to be worried. but for now, all we can do is go back to the hotel and then the hospital.”

he nodded slightly before allowing j.j. to lead him to the car and to the hotel.

spencer changed into a comfortable button up with a sweater overtop before meeting the team back in the lobby. everyone made sure to bundle up, especially after the situation with you and morgan, before they made their way to the hospital.

after using his status as an fbi agent for a little leverage, hotch managed to get the nurse to give them some information. you and morgan were currently in the icu but that’s all they received. the nurse permitted two members of the team to stay overnight while everyone could return the following morning. at that point, full medical information could be released.

spencer was as easy first choice. j.j. was nominated to be second. she was the closest with spencer and would be the best moral support. the team echoed their goodbyes to the two before promising to be there tomorrow morning right when opening hours started.

the two were led to an area where they could sit and rest for the night. it wasn’t outside of yours our derek’s room which wasn’t ideal, but spencer and j.j. accepted it. the two collapsed into the chairs, each pulling a blanket over themselves before slowly drifting to sleep.

the following morning, the team re-grouped in the waiting room of the hospital. surprisingly, spencer and j.j. had managed to get an actual good night of sleep.

“i can take you to agent y/n and morgan’s took where a doctor while then brief you,” the nurse told the group.

they were lead to a different floor and down the hallway. the nurse motioned for chairs to sit in while she went to go get the doctor later. a moment later, another women appeared in front of them, introducing herself.

“first of all, agent y/n and morgan will be okay,” the doctor spoke causing a relived sigh to echo through the hallway, “but, both have sustained serious injuries. hypothermia is the obvious one. y/n and derek were in the freezing water for an extremely long time causing their bodies to almost shut down completely. i’ve never seen two patients cases mirror each other but y/n and derek’s do. y/n’s heart stopped for a quick few seconds but quickly started beating again. moments later, derek’s stopped also. thankfully, both are hooked up to iv’s and are recovering nicely. the only problem is, it may take awhile for the two to wake up. they really should have died, and i am unsure how they’re still okay. without their selfless efforts, the woman who is now in recovery would be dead. so i wanted to thank your team for their actions.”

the team processed the doctors words. “can we see them?” emily asked. “yes of course, we put them both in one of the larger rooms. it’s room number 503, three doors down on the left,” with one more smile, the doctor then left.

entering the hospital room, the team paused. you both had thick blankets covering your bodies, a slight buzz sounding from the electric heater inside. spencer looked at you first. your lips were still a slight shade of blue and your fingertips had a few black marks on them. derek was the exact same.

spencer teared up at the sight of the two of you. he collapsed in a chair by your bedside first. he pressed his lips together and rubbed his temple. all the team could do was wait for you two to wake up.

a week later, at around 10pm, derek woke up. the room was dark and the hallway lights were dim, as it was past visiting hours. he went to sit up but his muscles were weak. it took a large effort to move his hand to the ‘call nurse’ button. after pressing it, he moved his head to the side where you were still laying. a few moments later, a nurse entered the room. “good to see you awake agent morgan, how are you feeling?”

“not great. what happened?” derek asked.

“you and agent y/n went into the freezing ocean to save one of the victims. luckily, she has since been released. for the two of you, your hearts both stopped momentarily as a side effect of the hypothermia. but, with lots of rest and recovery, you two should be fine.”

derek nodded to the nurses words before leanining back into the hospital bed.

at close to 4am, you woke up. you felt the same way as derek did but managed to move your head to the side. derek was sitting up, looking at some magazine the nurse must have given him.

“hey kid,” derek spoke softly.

you moved your hand up to your head. “remind me to not go swimming ever again during the winter,” you first spoke resulting in derek to laugh. soon after, a nurse came in, checking over you first before changing the iv’s. “your team should be here in a few hours, they’ve visited everyday,” the nurse told you with a smile.

true to her word, once visiting hours, you heard talking from outside of your room. the doors opened seconds later. spencer immediately rushed to your bedside, hugging you softly as you did your best to return it.

“you’re amazing,” spencer spoke before cupping your cheeks and kissing you softly.

the two of you stopped when morgan called over, “hey lover boy, no hello to me?” loud laughs echoed through the hospital room as relief washed over the team that you two were okay.

#criminal #criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #emily prentiss #jennifer jareau #david rossi #penelope garcia

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