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spinelli-gemelli · 5 months

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A Degrassi Essay About Rick Murray

(Part 2)

"We have to do something."

It's difficult to continue this story without discussing the one-and-only Emma Nelson's role in Rick's return. Most fans find her intervention in this plot line quite irritating, wondering what would motivate her to suddenly interact with the upperclassmen. If we refer back to episode 4x03, we would recall that her current classmates have unofficially stopped talking to her because of how she felt about her ex-boyfriend, Chris, showing interest in Liberty Van Zandt. Her lines in that episode have become infamous. "What are people gonna think of me if Chris goes out with Liberty next?" Manny Santos, Emma's BFF, who was first on board the "Emma and Chris reunite" train, was taken aback by Emma's...well, let's call it condescension. Anyway, word gets back to Liberty, and, to quote her words, Emma is "dead to [her]." Since Manny and JT are dating, and since Toby is friends with J.T. (though not for very long here: more on that later), that leaves Emma completely friendless in time for this season's festivities. I doubt that the boys of the friend group care about the ladies' petty squabbles about the Chris ordeal, but since J.T.'s girlfriend is friends with Liberty, and they all hang out, it would just be awkward for them to include Emma in any of their social engagements at this time.

Now that we've established her social status, let's get back to Emma's involvement in the return of Rick Murray. Miss Nelson quickly learns from Paige and Spinner about who he is and what he's done and ceases the perfect opportunity to flex her cause girl muscles. I'll give her credit where it's due: she's bold, driven, committed, and smart. She may have let the glow up get to her head, and so what if she thinks that she's better than Liberty. At least she didn't put a classmate in a coma! She actually is better than this guy. She takes it upon herself to do whatever it takes to get this abuser out of her school. Of course, it's wrong to hurt others, but if she were successful with this mission, she would win the approval of Paige and her clique. What could be cooler than that? Definitely not Liberty's hot tub!

Collaborating with Paige and Marco, Emma manages to organize a ribbon campaign at school that is against domestic violence on the surface, though truly, it is an anti-Rick campaign. Somehow harassing a student in school, regardless of what he did before, is not considered breaking the rules. "We wanna pressure Rick. Make his life hell," Emma would go on to explain to Sean Cameron after he asks about her true motives behind launching this crusade. Either Emma doesn't know what the word "pressure" means, or she didn't foresee how the students of Degrassi would interpret the word. The campaign combined with Paige's popularity status means that everyone knows Rick, hates him, and wants nothing to do with him. Now, because of Emma, Rick's identity is out, and the student body feels a sense of duty to make this guy suffer the consequences of his actions. It's not like the principal was going to do anything about it anyway (more on that later).

The fact that this happened is both good and bad. On one hand, Rick was reminded of the simple fact that his actions have consequences. Everywhere he went, he was greeted with hostility. Going back to my argument in part 1, here at Degrassi, he wouldn't be granted the luxury to slip back into his old, abusive behaviours. While I believe that Rick was sincerely repentant this time around, it wasn't enough for him to just want to "bury the hatchet" with Paige et al. He made a student suffer because of his unchecked rage and almost killed her. Wanting to change is a good starting point, but he had to prove to everyone that he was different from last year, and students had no reason to believe that he was. Degrassi's opposition to his presence was a reminder that what he did couldn't be swept under the rug and forgotten about. He didn't just hurt Terri; he wounded her community as well.

On the other hand, getting the entire student body involved was a bit extreme, as not everyone knew Terri or even cared about her. Students like Jay Hogart were simply tormenting Rick for their own amusement. Jay loved to wreak havoc, and Rick was an easy target. No one was going to go out of their way to defend the guy, so why not have some fun? Treating Rick poorly on school grounds is one thing, but to heckle him at the Dot? Sure, it's a popular hang out spot for Degrassians, but they don't own the establishment, and Rick should be free to dine wherever he wishes. It's not like he's causing any trouble by ordering a cup of coffee. After Rick got jumped by Jay behind the Dot, Emma realized that her crusade had gone too far, and stopped the students from attacking him before he became severely injured.

Emma's involvement in Rick's plot, though it initially seemed to come out of left field, was necessary in order for Rick to see the error of his ways and to know what it felt like to be physically assaulted. After considering the events that happened to Emma in "King of Pain", the episode that preceded "Mercy Street", it makes perfect sense that she would take up a new cause at Degrassi in an attempt to be accepted and appreciated by a new group of friends. When fans look back at Rick's story, they usually view these episodes in a vacuum, forgetting about the buildup that came before the episode of Rick's return, and as a result, they are confused and annoyed about Emma's seemingly sudden involvement.

While Emma might not have meant for her campaign to take such a violent turn, I think after episode 4x04, Rick understood that he had to work extra hard in order to earn the rapport and acceptance of his classmates. He is sadly mistaken, however, that they are interested in his change of heart to begin with. Ironically, at the end of this episode, both Rick and Emma are social outcasts: Rick for putting Terri in a coma, and Emma for publicly defending him. Both were seeking approval from their peers, and neither of them received it in the end. In a sense, they are both on the same side against the student body.

#degrassi #Rick murray #Emma nelson #Mercy street #the next generation #season4 #essay #confession #degrassi confessions #degrassi the next generation

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narutsuart · 5 years

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Updated Three Houses Top 10 Females List:

Just in time for International Women’s Day! I’ve been working on revising my list as much as possible in light of revisiting Three Houses, playing Ashen Wolves, and rethinking my love for each female character I put on my last list. I will this time do the my list from Tenth place to First place. Just a heads up my # 1 one spot has not changed so don’t expect some crazy surprise there.

Disclaimer: please don’t flame me or comment about how “WRONG” I am it’s just my personal opinion or preference. BE NICE! and maybe reblog or comment your favorite list if you’d like?

#10: Shamir:

My opinion Shamir literally has not changed. She is just a cool character, I love how despite her debt to Rhea she isn’t kissing Rhea’s ass like Catherine or Ciril. Did I mention I really don’t like them lol? She’s badass and she has an excellent character design. Perfect blend of sexy and badass.

#9. Bernadetta:

Bernie dropped another spot going from 8th to 9th. I still have an abundance of love for Bernie, and I want to protect her at all cost. I still hold the opinion that while she’s an absolutely hilarious character, she can still get repetitive and stale pretty fast upon replays. That being said when I was thinking of characters that might potentially drop to below my top ten I couldn’t reasonably see myself dropping her out of my top 10, as Bernie is still a genuinely enjoyable character, and I do have a soft spot for her.

#8. Sothis:

Unfortunately Sothis dropped down a bit no fault of her own, simply because I enjoy the ladies above her more. That being said I really do enjoy Sothis. Even though our time is brief with her, I really do love the snarky little goddess. It’s funny, last time I made this list I had gotten her Christmas altand expressed my excitement, but I didn’t have her Mythic version(aka original version). I just recently I finally got lucky, and pulled her Mythic version!

#7 Dorothea:

AHHH THE PITCH FORKS!! I’M SO SORRY!! I know! I know! WTF?! I honestly any think of a perfectly justifiable reason as to why Dorothea has dropped so low on my list. She went from 4th place to 7th place for those that don’t remember. I honestly feel disgusting for putting her so low....I absolutely adore her character, her design is absolutely stunning, and I still enjoy most of her supports, but honestly I can’t justify putting her any higher than the women above her on this list. Like many who have dropped lower in placement it’s of no fault of her own. I just happened to realize I love the women above her more. I still believe deserves all the happiness, love and care that she desires!

#6. Hapi:

Hapi is such a fucking gem, I don’t know if it’s just the dub but Hapi’s dialogue is just so ahead of its time period and I love it so much lol. She has some of the funniest quotes and her habit for nicknaming everyone is hilarious. I’m aware that it’s not a trait unique to her, but I’m of the opinion that her nicknames far surpasses Dorothea’s nicknames. Now if we we’re talking strictly design Hapi would place 4th out of entire female cast for me, and that’s impressive feat since Three Houses has an abundance of amazing designs. In fact if I was strictly talking design a lot of the placements on this list would actually change. For example Hapi would actually rank above Constance for me in terms of design, but is trumped by Constance in terms of character. I might do a separate list for “best” designs in the near future.

#5. Rhea:

I KNOW ITS BLASPHEMY I STILL have both Edelgard and Rhea in my top 5?!! As those who saw my last list can see Rhea’s placement has not changed. I love Rhea so much is because she’s the perfect foil to Edelgard. Rhea is an excellenty written character with a lot of emotional depth. She acts as a perfect foil for Edelgard’s character they are so similar yet so different. It also makes sense that she and Edelgard’s ideals would come to clash. I’m of the opinion that if Edelgard and Rhea just talked about their views it still would still not end well. Rhea sage guarded her fabricated history of Fódlan for a thousand years and would not just tell the truth because Edelgard called her out. She would’ve branded Edelgard a heretic and have her executed. That type of tranquil furry is honestly unsettling and I LOVE it. Btw the only reason she tells the truth in CS and VW is because in CS she doesn’t think she has much time left, and in VW she doesn’t have much time left and chaos is marching on Fódlan’s door. Likewise Edelgard would sympathize with Rhea’s past if she told the truth, but would insist that Rhea step down from power or tell the truth to the world which would still lead to conflict. I personally agree with Edelgard vision for Fodlan more, and personally think Rhea is unstable, and worst SOLE leader for Fodlan, but neither are evil people and I can empathize with their motives and reasons for doing the morally grey things they do. Neither of them “do nothing wrong” like people claim and in fact do a LOT wrong. It’s those wrong things they do that makes them intriguing characters, and more relatable. They also both have the potential to do so many good things for Fódlan depending on the route.

#4. Constance:

GOOD LORD Costance is truly a one of a kind. I was pro Constance since her design was first revealed in the Cindered Shadows DLC trailer. That being said never did I envision loving her THIS much! Her motivations are easily understandable, and her fall from grace makes even more sad when you realize that haughty attitude that she almost always has on display is due to her compensating for her lack of status. Constance is one of the funniest characters in the game to me and she came out AFTER the game lol. She’s an incredibly intelligent prodigy when it comes to all things magic yet she has this naivety that people are able to exploit like Yuri with the “bootlicking nobles” phrase. She takes it so literal that she tries it out for her self, and tries to make a way for the boots to taste better making it easier to lick their boots......I CANT EVEN!!... honestly Constance could top this list if it weren’t for her split personality..... don’t get me wrong her split personality when in sunlight can be funny every now and then, but honestly it does more harm to her character then helps it in my opinion. Her change in personality when in sunlight is implied that to be because of the trauma of the fall of House Nuevelle, but we never get any real explanation for it or anything implying she can overcome it. Its not expanded upon, and never treated seriously. In fact it’s played for laughs and it’s something people just accept as Constance just being Constance. I honestly felt Constance C rank support with Ferdinand was done so well. She calls him out for his usually insensitive comments about status and makes him regret his words immediately. I had so much respect for her in that moment, come the b-rank support she acts all submissive and praises the ground he walks on....which ruined the c-rank support for me tbh. That being said, as you can see based off her placement this trait of hers doesn’t ruin the character for me, just keeps her from being higher.

#3. Petra:

On a much lighter note, Petra is my 3rd favorite! If you notice she has dropped down from my second favorite spot. This is due to no fault of her own I, just happened to realize that I loved my number 2 spot more. With that being said Petra has still gotten the victory! Like I mentioned in my first list, Petra is just a delight. I love how she’s so dedicated, and always willing to learn. Funnily enough my initial expectation for Petra’s character pre-release was vastly different then what her actual character ended up being. She’s one of those character’s who’s design got revealed MUCH earlier than any details about her personality and her design gave me the impression that she was the aloof, intimidating, and serious type that doesn’t have time for making friends or fun. I don’t know if anyone else got this impression, but obviously I was wrong! Petra truly does remind me a lot of Starfire from the original 2003 Teen Titans tv show and kinda re-awakens that childhood cartoon crush in me lol. Petra is just awesome there’s not a single support I don’t like of her.

#2. Marianne

Now if you saw my old list you probably noticed that Marianne moved up a bit. Naturally I still love her design(I’m a sucker for light blue hair I think lol), but upon revisiting Three Houses I realized that leaving Marianne at 3rd place somehow didn’t feel adequate. Funnily enough she was technically the first person I S-ranked in Three Houses due to locking myself out of the Crimson Flower Route on accident. Honestly she has become my favorite character to S-rank in Three Houses even more so than my number one spot! Anyway my love for Marianne is very different for most character’s as she is one I feel can really relate to on very personal and emotional level. I’m gonna get real for a minute. I honestly I had been in bad place in my life recently. I had been feeling like the world has been crashing down on me. I have plenty of things to be happy for yet I often felt depressed. I’d often had “friends” call me out, saying I have no reason to be depressed, or that I have been blessed with so many things, and while I agree I’m very blessed, they couldn’t understand how I felt, as all they could provide was the view of an outsider looking in. While the action of suicide was something I never considered, I’d had been contemplating the value of my life or if it was really worth living. First want to clarify that I’m in MUCH better headspace than I was then. I definitely feel like I’m getting better. I have my ups and downs, but I’m currently making better friendships, I’m actively getting the help I need! I’ve always sympathized with Marianne, but now I can say that I really empathize with Marianne. When we take things at face value she seemingly had everything going for her, being brought up into the nobility, trained for success, and even having an extremely rare crest. By all means to an outsider looking in she had every reason to be happy. Of course while all these things sound nice especially in the context of the story they are in actuality a source for her depression. In her C-rank support with Ferdinand we see his confusion as to why Marianne dislikes being a part of the nobility. This support is one of the few times she expresses real anger, and is when expresses she never got to have what she saw as a normal life, she never wanted to be a part of the nobility and the weight and the expectations of being nobility was crushing her, as she had to adhere to standards of those around her. She was also taught to fear her crest as curse, so the blessing many commoners would be estatic to receive was thing she deemed as a curse. Over the course of the story and through her supports, Marianne begins to learn how to be more accepting of herself and gain more self-confidence. Naturally her timeskip appearance reflects this. She looks well-rested, expressive, and she genuinely seems more happy. I will never forget In her A-support with Byleth, that over the course of 5 years she had abandoned her depression and suicidal thoughts thanks to the genuine and long lasting friendship‘s she’s made and that she managed to uncover the truth of her heritage, and overcome the fear and hatred of her Crest. Her character arc is a very powerful thing to me, and is also example of what makes the 5 year timeskip so great. In addition to her character arc Marianne is just so cute, don’t get me stated on how adorable her habit of talking to animals is! Marianne is a fucking fantastic character and I love her so much.

EDIT: So I wanted to clarify that if I’m being honest Marianne and #1 spot are technically both tied as #1 me, and are so for very different reasons. For the sake of creating a Top 10 and to avoid a cop out list I chose to put her at second. To me Marianne is “BEST GIRL”. She’s my favorite female character to marry, she’s most endearing to me, she has like my third favorite female character design in all of Fire Emblem, and I relate to her on an emotional level. That being said this next character is “BEST CHARACTER” I like more for her role in the story, how her character is written, and how she was designed. Despite this I do not marry her NEARLY as often as Marianne. While I ship her with F! Byleth(OTP!) she’s not someone I personally would persue romantically. In other words Marianne is more my type and I tend to be biased with her while this next character is female character that I feel is the BEST WRITTEN and the female character I respect the most out of the cast.

#1. Edelgard:

Upon revisiting Fire Emblem Three Houses story as well as playing the Cindered Shadows DLC, nothing has changed, in fact my love and resolve for Edelgard has only been strengthened. I made a huge in depth posts for Edelgard a while back explaining her past, motives, and reasons for what she does. The posts had spanned multiple reblogs of details and clarification and I went over the typing limit in every single one. I won’t divulge further into all that. Like I mentioned last time I created my top ten list, aside from her being IN MY OPINION one of the best written female protagonists in Fire Emblem history, I absolutely love her design, its probably one of my favorite designs in all of Fire Emblem. That being said, If I had to say while she’s definitely close, she doesn’t have my all time number one favorite design, that spot goes to Azura from Fire Emblem Fates. Edelgard will always be my favorite Three Houses female character no matter what and I’m so happy she was brought into existence!

Well that’s my revised list, I had a lot of fun writing this list and I hope it was enjoyable for you guys to read as well! I would really love it if you guys comment or reblog with your own list of favorite Three House females! Y’know what?! Comment or reblog with your list of favorite females in the entire Fire Emblem franchise if you’d like! I’m very interested in seeing your lists Happy International Women’s Day!

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem three houses cindered shadows #international women's day #edelgard fire emblem #fire emblem marianne #petra fire emblem #fire emblem constance #fire emblem rhea #fire emblem hapi #fire emblem dorothea #fire emblem women

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ofaheadstronghealer · 4 years

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Alma Bio

I know we have official bios but until that was posted I thought I’d temporarily post this to help with interactions, please feel free to message me if you have any ideas for plots or connections or what have you! :)

FULL NAME: Alma

AGE: 36

OCCUPATION: Healer/Slave

CHARACTER TRAITS: (+ Clever +Kind Hearted , -Headstrong - Insecure )

LABEL: The Phoenix

GENDER + PRONOUNS: Cis-female, she/her

BIO

(trigger warning: implied sexual assault)

Alma, an unusual name for an unusual girl. There has not been a moment in her life that could be described as ‘typical’ or ‘normal’, perhaps that is why for most of her life being normal had been something she’d craved so desperately until she would come to understand the true power in being different from the rest. Something her mother had always understood.

Alma was born a fatherless child. Not literally, of course, but in the sense that the man who is her father was not her mother's husband nor was his identity ever known to the girl or to the others in the village in which she grew up. Being branded a ‘bastard’ was her first taste of this ‘otherness’ that she would come to experience her whole life, being the daughter of a woman who was suspected by many of being a witch….well that certainly didn’t help matters. When Alma thinks on it now she finds proof that God has a sense of humor, how hard she fought to be unlike her mother and yet how like her she later became. Alma isn’t a witch, not one of the barbarians ‘Volvas’ or one of their ‘seers’, and neither was her mother before her but that mattered little to the townspeople she grew up around. They were pariahs for her whole childhood, ostracized by the community until one of their people needed a healer with skill unmatched by any other and then only under the most dire of circumstances would they accept them with open arms. Alma wouldn’t realize that until she was much older, a naïve thing desperate for acceptance she would bask in it no matter what the price for as long as it lasted. Sometimes at night she would kneel before her bed and pray, pray to god to show the truth of her innocence to the people so that she might live among them as kin and not be regarded with such fear. The first time God answered her prayers she was but the tender age of 14 and she was shown his power...as well as his cruelty. Had she known the price that God would make her pay for her freedom she would have been more specific in her prayers, would have extended the prayer to her mother as well but alas she was selfish as children so often are and did not think of such things. A life for a life, her mother's death for her freedom. She still remembers the way her mother’s hand felt upon her cheek before they brought her to the pyre, remembers the tremble in her voice as, for the last time, her mother told her that she loved her. Alma was forced to bear witness to her mother's death, forced to stand there as she was engulfed in flame and pleading for her life. Suddenly acceptance didn’t matter so much to Alma, all she wanted in that moment was her mother back.

The years following her mother's passing were difficult in many ways and brought many changes, on one hand she was welcomed back into the community as a show of the villagers' mercy but on the other she was an orphaned girl with no family and no prospects. Her mother had not raised her as a proper lady, she was not educated in the things a girl should be and though everyone around her agreed she was beautiful she was far too clever and her reputation too marred to make a suitable wife for anyone ‘such a waste of a beautiful girl’ they’d mutter as though that were supposed to make Alma feel appreciated. Perhaps other women if put in her position would have simply bowed to fate but not Alma, she had too much of her mother in her for that. If she had no use as a wife then she would find another way to have use, to make herself indispensable so she could not be so easily cast aside. In what she would later realize was a bold move she became a healer like her mother before her though unlike her mother she was more careful in how she was perceived, cautious to never show up the men around her, to curb her clever tongue, and to never perform acts that could be considered miracles and later used against her. She couldn’t really say in any sincerity that she was truly happy but it was as close as she’d ever gotten, she was valued and though people looked at her sometimes with pity it was better than the terror she had become accustomed to in her youth. If only she’d been able to save her mother than perhaps it would have been perfect. Alma lived this way in the village for many years, alone but accepted as much as she could be. That all changed the day they showed up.

The day of the raid was like any other, Alma had been making her rounds attending to the villagers when she heard the screams. At first the healer thought it was simply in her head, it wasn’t unusual for the painful memory to surface; it had been haunting her for years, but it grew in its volume and intensity and soon it became clear to her that they were not the screams she remembered hearing as a child. Of course they’d all heard of the Vikings and their ways, how they would often raid and pillage and kill everything in sight, but as every other town did they never thought they would be targeted. She was still in the house of a patient when it happened, the person too weak to realize what was going on and certainly too weak to fend for themselves. Alma is no saint, she will not deny if asked that there was a moment when she simply considered running and trying to save herself but one look at the pathetic state of the woman laying there and her mind was purged of that thought. She could not abandon her. Alma helped the other woman to the back of the house, hid both herself and the woman in a dark pantry not easily seen and for the first time in a very long time Alma prayed ‘Please God protect us, see us through this, save us’. God answered Alma much like he had the time before, granting her her wish but always with a twist. The Vikings that crashed through the house at first appeared as though mindless beasts that had not the capacity to think beyond destruction and for just a moment Alma thought herself and the woman safe. She was made aware of how wrong she was when rough hands tore her from the safety of the pantry, a foreign tongue that she couldn’t understand flooded her ears but she understood the tone well enough. The only thing that got her through the assault that followed was the sight of the other woman, frail but still hidden. Safe.

Alma doesn’t remember much about the journey that led her to Hedeby, she tries not to think about it. She can recall her captors dragging her back to show the horde their prize, remembers her feeble escape attempt just before they threw her on one of their boats. The rest of the voyage was not memorable, she kept her head down as much as possible on the boat and simply listened. Though she could not understand all of what was being said at some point in the journey she managed to make out that they were going to one of their cities, a place they called ‘Hedeby’. Alma was not certain what to expect, what would become of all those they had taken including herself? Would they be killed? Sold? The thought was frightening but she did not let it overwhelm her, simply continuing to listen and do as the Vikings bid. When Alma was brought to what appeared to be an open market in chains with the others she stood silently as they were inspected by the market goers. As time passed and the other villagers were distributed it became clear to the healer exactly the position she was in, she had always been a slight thing and while that had not been looked at negatively back home it was becoming clear that as a slave she was probably the most unappealing of the bunch. Death, it seemed, would be the escape that God would deliver her. It was not to be so. Much to her own surprise she was bought by what appeared to be a family of little means meaning that they had little to trade and therefore she was the only one they could afford, the man looked brutish, as they all did, but was not unkind in his handling of her. She was in their service for a few years, quietly observing the customs and language of these strange people with whom she now resided, but knew it would not last, she was a healer not a farmer and unsuited for the physical labour demanded of her and every day she grew weaker. It was a miracle of God when one day as she was working the fields a man emerged from the forests and collapsed before her clearly wounded, it was pure instinct when Alma leapt into action. Over the next few days there grew a small gathering of Vikings who watched as she tended to the man, they appeared intrigued by her methods some of which were unknown to them. Unknown to Alma the man she eventually ended up saving was someone that the King of these Vikings held as a very dear friend, King Ragnar demanded Alma be brought to him at once. Alma entered the great halls of the Viking King with the family that had bought her but she did not leave with them, word spread not long after of the healer from a foreign land who was now under the ownership of the King.

That was many years ago and much about Alma has changed, she still bears the status of slave under King Ragnar and his family but as their personal healer she is treated with a great deal more respect than most slaves. Though sometimes she finds herself longing for the familiarity of her old home Alma has managed to settle somewhat among the Vikings and has found respect for some aspects of the way they live their lives and is, in some ways, more herself here than she ever was back at home.

EXTRAS

- Due to how her mother died and having been forced to watch it Alma has a deep and intense fear of fire.

- She can fully understand the Vikings language but she still cannot fully speak it

- When first she arrived at Hedeby Alma was incredibly quiet but since being raised to the royals personal healer and over the years becoming more settled she has let more of her true personality come through, she has a clever tongue and a headstrong nature and does not feel she’s in such a precarious position anymore that she must hide those things though she is still cautious with who she shows it to

- Although she acts like she’s over the whole wanting to be accepted and loved thing she is very much not over it and longs for a feeling of home and belonging and love.

- At first she hated the Vikings and saw them as brutes and barbarians but now for the most part she has let go of that view though there are still moments where she considers them beasts

- One of the first things she noticed and loved about the Viking culture was how they treated their women, coming from a place where she was only looked at as a thing of value through marriage and the fact that she had a brain frowned upon she was secretly impressed at the freedoms Viking women were afforded.

#Bio #temporarily here until the official one gets released :)

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strayneoculturekids · 5 years

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On my Own - part 1

Pairing: Prince!Woojin x Knight!Reader

Summary: You and Woojin had been friends for as long as anyone could remember, the entire kingdom adored the two of you- Woojin, the young prince and his little friend, a child born from a long line of knights that served close to the King and Queen. You thought you’d be friends with Woojin forever, but when you’re appointed his personal knight, his attitude towards you takes a sharp turn.

Royalty AU, Childhood friends AU, Friends to Enemies to Lovers AU, Knight!AU

Genre: fluff, angst

Warnings: I’m not a historian, who knows how accurate this is, I sure don’t

A/N: This fic has two parts, but part two has two different versions- essentially two different endings, one is angsty and one is fluffy, I was originally gonna do just angst but @writenowskz would’ve killed me so please enjoy 🙃 - the angsty one will be posted first though :)

For convenience sake, we’ll pretend that ‘Knight’ is a gender-neutral term, or, if you really want to, you can replace the word ‘Knight’ with ‘Lady’ or ‘Dame’, but all three titles have the same status

[Part 1], [Part 2 - angst], [Part 2 - fluff]

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~18 years earlier than present~

You giggled as you ran through the intricate stone pathway, barely even noticing how hard the rock was beneath your bare feet, too focused on running away from your pursuer, Woojin.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Woojin called from behind you, obviously out of breath, his voice adorably high, matching yours “pause the game,”

You immediately stopped, turning around and being met with the young boy.

“What’s wrong?” You questioned, going closer to him, not even bothering to stay out of arms reach

“Unpause!” He said quickly, tipping you and running off in the opposite direction

“Hey! Cheater!” You called, beginning to run after him

There was nothing but small, childlike giggling, the sound of birds chirping, running water, and the rustle of the neatly trimmed flower hedges surrounding the path, creating an intricate maze, in the backyard of the palace.

You were faster than Woojin, and after not too long, you began to catch up to him. You reached out your arm, almost certain that you would tip the boy, but, just as you lunged forward, Woojin turned a sharp corner you weren’t expecting, causing you to go tumbling into the bush in front of you. He turned around curiously when he heard the crash, and there was a moment of shocked silence, you blinked a single time before crying out. Rose thorns were digging into your fragile skin, drawing blood from all over, and two large scrapes presented themselves on your knees, along with dirt smears to top it all off. Woojin gasped, his eyes wide, and he began to run again, as fast as his short legs could carry him, to find someone to help.

“Help!” He called at first glance of the nearest palace servant “Y/N got hurt! They’re bleeding really badly!”

The servant immediately sprung into action at the words, and called over to another servant before asking Woojin to show her where you were. Woojin nodded dutifully and brought the servant back to you.

“Oh dear,” She gasped, looking at you, who had managed to get yourself out of the bush, but blood was tricking all over your body, a heavy flow of tears going along with it, and your loud, pain-filled cries.

Before you knew it, you were picked up and were being brought back to the palace. Everything seemed to be going by quite fast, but soon you were in front of who you recognized to be the palace doctor.

“I-it hurts,” You bawled, hiccuping through your words, flinching away when the doctor tried to touch you

“Yes, it must,” The doctor sympathized, bringing out tissues and some alcohol, sparingly pouring the alcohol onto the paper

“I don’t want to,” You vigorously shook your head, trying to, once again, move away

“I have to treat the wounds, or you could get an infection,” The doctor soothed “Woojin, hold their hand,”

Woojin, who had been watching from afar immediately obeyed and grabbed your hand, squeezing it tightly.

“Be brave for me, okay?” the doctor spoke “See? Woojin is here, too,”

You nodded, squeezing your best friend’s hand in return, letting the doctor disinfect your wounds, trying not to cry more. Soon, you were wrapped in bandages and were dirt-free.

“Are you okay?” Woojin asked, grabbing both your hands, pouting slightly, looking at you with his big, innocent eyes

“Yeah,” You confirmed, nodding firmly “I’m brave,”

“yeah! That looked like it hurt!” He said, suddenly becoming excited “You were so awesome! You didn’t even cry that much!”

You felt an overwhelming sense of pride build up in your stomach and you smiled broadly, puffing your chest out.

“Y/N? Baby, are you okay?” The voice of your father interrupted your conversation with your best friend, and he immediately scooped you up into his arms

“Yes,” You smiled proudly at him, “Everybody said I was very brave,”

“You were,” He said softly, smiling back at you “You’ll certainly make a perfect knight,”

“Y/N will be amazing!” Woojin agreed, practically jumping up and down “I want to have them as my knight!”

Your father smiled down at Woojin.

“Maybe one day, Prince Woojin,” Your father said, and you watched as Woojin’s eyes lit up

~8 years earlier than present~

“Y/N!” Woojin’s voice came from behind you, and you turned to him

“Your majesty,” You greeted, bowing mockingly

“Hey!” He laughed, wacking you slightly “If you’re gonna call me by my title, at least do it genuinely,”

“I guess when I get appointed knight, I’ll have to, huh?” You mused, looking fondly at the rose bushes you used to play so much in

“Speaking of,” He said, cocking his head slightly “Don’t you have training right now?”

“SHIT!” You yelled, so loudly that the birds stopped chirping “Thanks, Woojin!”

You waved a goodbye to your friend as you ran off, and he waved back with an amused smile.

“Y/N’s really becoming a knight,” He whispered to himself “...hm...”

You ran through the garden, jumping over bushes and cutting across lawns you weren’t supposed to be on, making it to the guard training grounds just in time.

“I’m here,” You panted, keeling over

“Just in time,” Your father said in a reprimanding voice, “Get in line,”

You gulped down your saliva and quickly joined the rest of the training guards on their straight line, all already standing at attention. ‘I’m on my way to becoming a knight’ you thought proudly to yourself.

~2 years earlier than present~

The king stood in the large, silent room, his sword brandished, you kneeling down in front of him, your head bowed.

“I, in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit-” He spoke majestically, placing his sword gently upon your right shoulder, and then your left “-dub thee, stricken with the sword upon their back and shoulder, a knight,”

The room seemed to have stopped breathing, and you could feel beads of sweat forming on your forehead.

“Rise up, Sir/Lady Y/N,” He finished, and you obeyed, slowly and steadily rising up

You secretly smiled to yourself, your heart swelling with pride as you caught sight of your father, who was smiling subtly at you. You looked behind the king, to Woojin, to find that, unlike you thought he would be, he wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t even looking at you. You gulped, shaking slightly as the room filled itself with chatter.

“Y/N,” The king addressed you

“Yes, your majesty?” You looked to him, a small smile on your lips

“You understand that you will be a personal knight to my son, do you not?”

“I do, your majesty,” You bowed slightly

“I would like to inform you...” The king trailed off “He does not exactly enjoy the idea of a personal knight,”

You paused for a moment, processing the information

“Which is exactly why I chose you,” The king continued “You two have been friends for almost as long as you’ve been alive. I’m hoping he won’t be too hard on you,”

You hesitated slightly, chancing a glance at Woojin, who still refused to meet your gaze

“I understand,”

~present day~

“Woojin-” You called, running up to the boy

“I am a prince and you’ll address me as such,” He interrupted you, speaking curtly and formally

You froze. Two years. That’s how long it had been. And you still weren’t used to his new attitude- it didn’t make sense to you.

“Prince Woojin,” you corrected, pursing your lips shortly, keeping your eyes focused on the ground “I apologize, but it’s my duty to protect you, and you can’t keep running off like this-”

“Protect me from what?” He asked harshly, finally looking at you, but this time, it was you who was hesitant to meet his gaze “You won’t even look at me when I address you. How brave can you be?”

You gulped before fixing your posture, standing up straight and looking up, locking eyes with the boy.

“With all due respect, prince Woojin,” Your eyes were intense, and Woojin found himself wanting to look away, but he refused too “I’ve had years of training,”

“As have I,” He countered calmly

“I’m well aware of that, however, I do think that I’ve had harsher training, and, no offense your majesty, but I could probably best you,”

“Is that a challenge?”

“...Only if you’d like it to be,” You said bravely, knowing that no matter how much Woojin pretended to hate you, he could never have you punished severely for speaking slightly out of turn

“Fine,” He turned around “We’ll duel,”

You fully expected this, but you didn’t want it to happen. You didn’t think you’d be able to win in a duel with Woojin, you knew you’d be able to win. Which is what scared you most. You could either let Woojin beat you, and have your relationship get worse because he’ll see you as even more unfit to protect him, or beat him, and have your relationship get worse because he’ll be annoyed over the fact that maybe, just maybe, having you to protect him is a good idea.

“Woojin, I don’t-”

“Prince Woojin,” He corrected, starting to walk away “Come,”

“Wait- right now?” You asked, slightly surprised

“When else?” He asked, not stopping

You hadn’t even processed what was happening, but eventually, you found yourself in a dueling ring with Woojin, both of you brandishing training swords with pads covering vital areas. A crowd had formed around the two of you, the king, the queen, your father, and your mother included, and you knew that you couldn’t lose.

“En garde,” He said, raising his sword

You raised yours, too, but in a different manner. The thing about Woojin’s training was that he was trained in a practiced, controlled manner, while you were trained to fight in a battlefield, you were trained not to fight an opponent who you knew the next moves of, but an opponent who is trying to kill you, an opponent who is unpredictable, an opponent who is much harder to beat than Woojin would be.

He began swinging his sword in a graceful manner, and you caught it immediately. There were moments were you hesitated, but you soon learned that Woojin didn’t, and you decided to follow suit. The duel was over minutes, four minutes, if you had to guess. Woojin’s sword was across the field, out of his reach, and he was beneath you, your training sword to his throat.

There was a moment of silence before clapping ensued. You looked to the king and queen, and they nodded their heads, as if to say that there was no harm in beating someone who had challenged you, even if it was their own son.

“I don’t like being underestimated, Woojin,” You said, your words harsh but your voice soft

You took your sword away from his throat and walked off. He got up, glaring at you.

“Y/N is your knight for your safety, my son,” The king walked up to Woojin, who jumped slightly at being addressed

“There’s nothing I need protection from,” Woojin said to his father, speaking rather rudely, quickly changing his tone once he realized his voice “I mean- I’m sorry...”

“That’s okay. I understand you’re agitated,”

----

Woojin sighed as he traveled along the halls of the palace that he had been through so many times before. He was heading to the garden, like every day, and sat by the lake where so many fish gathered, the same spot you and him used to play at, fruitlessly trying to catch fish while laughing so hard you almost cried; splashing each other, then being reprimanded for it, only to do it again the next day. He smiled fondly thinking about it, almost not hearing the voices around the corner. He quickly came out of his trance, stopping just in time to listen in to the conversation without interrupting it

“Hey Y/N,” Jisung called to you, smiling brightly

“You’re lucky you’re so adorable, Jisung,” You mused at the boy, he knew that he was supposed to address you as your title

“I am, aren’t I?” He said, “Oh, but besides that, you absolutely killed it in that duel with Prince Woojin!”

You chuckled

“No, really! I always heard Woojin was a good sword-fighter, and it’s really true! But you took him down in no time at all! No wonder you’re a knight!”

“Thanks, Ji,”

“Well, Woojin had it coming, don’t you think?”

“You shouldn’t speak badly of the prince so loudly,” You reprimanded, jokingly hitting him on the back of the head

“Ow!” He stumbled forward, rubbing the back his head “Well, for the way he treats you, really,”

“It’s fine,” You sighed

“Doesn’t it ever hurt you?? You guys were best friends for who knows how long-”

“Han," You cut him off sternly, “I said It’s fine,”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” He persisted despite your obvious warning, Jisung never knew when to quit “He still sits by that lake, you know. How come you never go there?”

“I doubt he sits there because it’s where he and I used to play,” You tried to keep your voice steady but couldn’t help but let it falter slightly, so slight that the only person who was ever able to pick up on that falter was Woojin

Woojin pursed his lips, chancing a quick look around the corner. He frowned when he saw your face, it looked as stern as ever, but he could tell by the shake of your pupils that you weren’t exactly comfortable.

“Y/N, Jisung,” Woojin turned the corner, acting as if he’d only just come within hearing range

“Prince Woojin!” Jisung immediately stood at attention, his usual, cheeky smile on his lips that always made people think he was up to something, even when he wasn’t

“Prince Woojin,” You greeted courteously

Woojin opened his mouth to say something, but the words didn’t come out. Instead, he nodded, and continued walking.

“Fuck,” He muttered to himself once he was sure you two wouldn’t hear him “I’m a fucking coward,”

----

You creaked open your door, slowly walking out in the pitch-black halls with a single lantern to illuminate your journey.

“Sir/lady Y/N?” A curious voice came from behind you

You turned around, being met with Felix.

“Felix,” You greeted with a small smile “What are you doing here?”

“I’m on duty,” He replied “What about you? If you don’t mind me asking,”

“Just going out to the gardens for a walk,”

“Ah, okay, stay safe!” He smiled brightly, waving a goodbye

“You too, Lix,” You waved back, vanishing behind the corner

Felix wandered around his station for another few minutes in silence. Jumping and turning around when he heard footsteps. He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it.

“Felix,” Woojin greeted, coming around the corner

“Ah, prince Woojin,” Felix bowed, lowering his guard

“Is Y/N in her room?”

“Oh- no, she went out,”

Woojin nodded, walking in the direction of your room

“Thank you,” He said as he passed Felix

“No problem, your majesty,” Felix replied

Once Felix was out of sight, Woojin quickened his pace, and before he knew it, he was at your bedroom door. He breathed in, it had certainly been a while since he was in there. Without knocking, he entered. Woojin didn’t know why he was going in even though he knew you weren’t there, he didn’t bother to think of it, the sense of reminiscence that swept over him the second he entered the room had blocked any coherent thoughts. It had barely changed since when you two were teenagers. The same ornaments and jewels were strung sparingly throughout the room, the same sheets covered the same bed, the same dark-oak wood desk was littered with books, along with the bookshelf next to it. The only thing he noticed immediately that was different was the sword hung on the opposite side of the room to the door, the sword that you'd been knighted with, a gift.

He knew he shouldn’t look around, but once he saw an open book that was so obviously a diary, he couldn’t help himself, and he closed the door behind him, walking up to it and carefully picking it up, like evidence at a crime scene.

“Wow,” He breathed as he flipped back to the very first page. It was the date that you were knighted

Reading through the very first entry of the book, he couldn’t help but smile. You were so excited, so adorable. The smile dropped when he saw his name.

Woojin didn’t look at me, though

The king told me it was because he hated the idea of a personal knight. Well, that’s what I assume he meant by it. It’ll be fine, though. Woojin doesn’t hate me, I refuse to believe something like that.

Woojin gulped and shakily turned the next page. Him again.

This entire diary might be filled with Woojin. He’s been avoiding me the entire week...I really didn’t think this is how he would act

Next page, dated a few days later, the page was stained and creased with tears, and Woojin felt his heart stop and his lips shake

I don’t know if this is worth writing, maybe it’s stupid. Yeah, it is stupid. Woojin talked to me for the first time in what’s felt like forever, but he was...not the Woojin I knew, I guess. The king was right. Sorry.

Woojin couldn’t read any more properly, instead, he skimmed through the pages, finding that each page had his name written on it, and every few pages, he would feel his fingers flip past a page that was creased differently from the others- a page creased with tears. Finally, after too long, he got to the latest entry, and willed himself to read it.

It’s...a shame, really. I just want to protect him. I just want to talk to him. I just want things to go back to how they used to be.

That was the only thing he was able to read before he heard a rather loud splash come from outside. He jumped, going over to the window once he recovered. Outside, he saw...you, at the lake, where you and he used to play. Your pants were rolled up, and you were standing in the water. He couldn’t quite make out what you were doing in the dark, but it looked like you were watching the fish.

Hesitantly, Woojin placed down the diary. He looked around once more before exiting the room, cringing at how loud the creak of the door was in the dead silence of the night. He blinked away the tears in his eyes. Most of the diary entries were dry, but that’s how he knew they were bad. You never knew how to express extreme sadness, you would just switch off your emotions, you didn’t know how to portray it, which is exactly what he saw in that diary.

Determined, the boy marched through the long hallways. Towards the garden. Towards the lake. Towards you.

----

Part 2 is coming soon~ Feedback is always appreciated :D

#woojin #kim woojin #stray kids #stray kids woojin #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids fluff #stray kids angst #woojin imagines #woojin scenarios #woojin fluff #woojin angst #kim woojin imagines #kim woojin scenarios #kim woojin fluff #kim woojin angst

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brialavellan · 4 years

Text

It has been 20 years since Inquisitor ‘Manehn Lavellan defeated Corypheus, and 18 years since the Exalted Council. Solas is furthering his plans and so far, all efforts to stop him seem to be in vain….until the Well of Sorrows begins to speak to ‘Manehn once more. Led by ancient magics and beset by enemies from Ferelden and Orlais to Antiva and Tevinter, ‘Manehn must gather allies old and new in a race against time to defeat Solas - at any cost.

(NOW ON AO3)

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8

CH 9: Smoke and Mirrors

“What good luck we’re having,” Katrina murmured to herself as she made her way down the stairs towards the Cathedral exit, her hands on the hilts of her daggers and a smile creeping across her face.

Everything was going as planned. The bait was irresistible. It was almost foolproof, if Briala wasn’t so cautious, so cagey. Decades of loyal-enough service had won her a spot in Briala’s inner circle among her most trusted spies. However, if Natalie was too sloppy, and if Katrina did not choose her words and actions carefully, the web of careful intrigue would be torn to shreds.

Briala would not look lightly on traitors. Solas would not look lightly on failures.

She was about to open the doors towards the outside grounds when she heard the faintest footsteps following her. She turned to see Briala hot on her heels in russet brown leather armor with a crossbody bag and a bow on her back.

Briala was trained for years in the art of subterfuge, misdirection and occasional assassination. Her calm masked her anger. This slaying was merely more retaliation. Or misdirection. None of Solas’s agents were so sloppy as to be seen. She was sure of it. But she couldn’t let any potential lead go to waste.

Briala pulled Katrina to the side and checked her surroundings to make sure no one was listening.

“Where did you say the boy took off to?”

“The catacombs, my lady.” Katrina whispered back, “I was on my way to inform Amir and -”

“No need,” Briala said, “We’ll look ourselves.”

Katrina paused for a brief moment, caught off-guard by Briala’s insistence, worried this meant Briala was getting suspicious.

“Of course, I can take you to the last location I saw him,” she said as they both left the Cathedral, crossed the grounds, and made their way towards the bustling streets of Val Royeaux in front of them.

Carts and carriages rumbled past while pedestrians darted in between. Merchants and peddlers yelled to the crowds from stalls, shops, and street corners, selling wares from Orlesian finery to Fereldan leathers, from Tevinter curios to Nevarran books. The cacophony of sights, smells and sounds would be nearly unbearable to those newly initiated to Val Royeaux’s streets, but both Briala and Katrina knew these streets intimately. They had wandered the hidden alleys and the underbelly as much, if not more than the cobblestone streets that weaved their way across the city.

Briala and Katrina darted into a nearby alley and nearly collided with a family of huddled, filthy, weary elven beggars, all tearing into a loaf of hard tack with skeletal fingers, their pale skin as pallid as bleached bone.

“My lady,” a small boy with matted auburn curls scurried up to Briala and tugged at her sleeve with wide and sunken brown eyes. “Can you spare something, please?”

Briala pulled out a sovereign and pressed it into the palm of the young boy and closed his fingers over it.

“Don’t despair, little one. Have pride.” she said as the young boy stumbled away, wide-eyed, clutching his prize. She let herself be still for a moment as the boy presented his gift to the others, who eyed her with a mixture of gratitude and suspicion. She could have coaxed him for information but she wanted to pay a kindness without demanding a price.

Katrina noted otherwise. “You could have pressed the boy for information, ask if he’s seen anyone around.”

Briala glanced back at the boy before turning to Katrina. “We’ll find a better lead in the catacombs, and I have sovereigns to spare for bribing.”

They kept walking through the alley, watching for anyone who would tail them or would attempt to accost them, before coming to a dead end. They crouched behind a wall of crates and bags, both scanning the ground and tracing the cobblestone surface with their fingers until Briala found a rim of steel and a small slot. She took a small socket wrench from her bag and placed the wrench into the slot and pushed hard with both hands, nearly wrenching her own fingers in the process. The cobblestone began to move and loosen with the shriek of grinding metal. Briala pried the circle of cobblestone from the slot and descended into the catacombs, Katrina following closely behind her and pulling the cobblestone on top of them with a loud scraping thud.

————————

Cassandra and Vivienne found a templar and a servant to clean up the body and the mess, respectively. Vivienne had suggested taking the body to a doctor to examine the wound and deduce any potential clue, and Cassandra had agreed. The Knight Vigilant had ordered rotations doubled and a pair of templars stationed outside the Divine’s office, which she had protested.

“I do not need a full garrison, not when forces are stretched thin. Put your men back in the Circles or out on patrol where they belong!” she argued, “We need to find who did this!”

“With all due respect, Your Perfection, your life is obviously at risk, and we will not allow you to come to harm,” the Knight Vigilant implored her. “One garrison to protect you now beats the ten I would have to put on the streets to calm rioters if you are slain.”

“We have men looking at the scene and watching for anything suspicious.” he said to mollify her. “We will let you know immediately if anything is amiss.”

Vivienne coaxed Cassandra to turn towards her and placed both hands on her shoulders with a gentle squeeze and reassuring tone. “It’s for your sake, darling. The Knight Vigilant speaks sense. Yes, you can handle yourself, but let them do their jobs.”

Cassandra closed her eyes, and took a long, heavy breath.

“Very good, Knight Vigilant,” Vivienne said with a wave of her hand in dismissal, “Let us know if you find out anything at all.”

“Of course, Grand Enchanter,” The Knight Vigilant said with a bow as he departed. Vivienne and Cassandra retreated into Cassandra’s quarters.

“Despite everything, Briala has her uses and her network of agents are vast enough. They will find something,” Vivienne said as Cassandra sat herself down at her desk. “Whether they will act quickly enough is another question. The important thing now is that we find out who was so brazen enough to do this. I will interrogate the girl’s associates.”

Cassandra shifted in her seat and rapped her fingers loudly on her desk, trying to displace her energy into something as close to punching as she could manage. She was far more comfortable with a straight and honest fight, but she was grateful to have someone well versed in the ways of the Court to advise and support her. She did not have the head for the politics of the Chantry and the patience to learn the intricacies of the Grand Game. For her, it was not only a distraction from her work as overseer of the religious life of all Thedas’s people, it was an affront. She believed that the Divine should not stoop to such pettiness. Many of her beliefs had been tested since she had been voted into her position.

“I don’t think you should do that.” Cassandra said after a long silence, “If you’re right, you’d be in danger. Maybe I should go with you. A Chantry sister would not think to lie to my face.”

Vivienne laughed at her naivete. “They will absolutely lie to your face, my dear.”

She saw Cassandra’s jaw clench and face redden and reached to grab her hand, gently squeezing it as she leaned against the desk. “Chantry sisters are Chantry sisters because they wouldn’t last even five minutes at a simple soiree without losing their status, their wealth, or their lives,” she said with an apologetic smile. “I appreciate the offer. And the sentiment.”

“Now, why don’t you change into some armor, take a guard with you to the training grounds, and beat out some of that nervous energy?” Vivienne teased her as she rose to leave. “I will inquire about her dealings. I’m positive, as I’m sure Briala is as well, that all traces will lead to Natalie.”

Cassandra took a deep breath and rose to her feet. “I will take your advice. All of it.”

“Of course you will,” Vivienne said with a mischievous smile as she departed. She walked down the hall and down the stairs, leaving the Apartments and crossing the grounds to the Chantry sisters’ living quarters. She would find a few initiates there, and a few answers. She had lied to Cassandra. Some sisters were actually quite good at the Game.

But she was better.

————————

Useless! Useless! Useless!

The word drummed in Mirwen’s head as she combed her way through every scrap of paper in every book she could get her hands on in that squalid library. They had nothing, of course. No information that she didn’t already know. In fact, most of the books were wild conjectures and half truths all bathed in anti-elf sentiment and disdain for every magic outside of a proper Circle’s purview. Contempt leaped from the pages.

Even the “forbidden” books were merely re-treads of the same theories in less palatable language for a rigid Chantry. All books with any mention of blood magic were here, she noted, not because they condoned such magic (none did), but because they mentioned it existed.

Mirwen took a deep breath to suppress her bitter disappointment.There was no reason for her to feel this way, she thought to herself, just as there was no reason to expect that the any shemlen Circles had answers. Maybe Tevinter’s libraries might bear more fruit. Their magics were appropriated from elven magic, after all. Legend did say their first magister, Thalsin, had learned blood magic from the elves.

And what all of Thedas had learned within the two decades she had been alive was that most of their legends were true.

As she lifted the last tome from her reading stand and put it upon the shelf, she noticed a small paper placed in the empty space, meticulously folded. She glanced around the room. The paper wasn’t there before, and her section of the library was sealed off. She took the paper and placed the book back on the shelf. She gingerly unfurled the paper. At her touch, odd symbols began to scroll across and envelop the page. These symbols could reveal themselves only to a mage’s eyes, she hypothesized, and though the symbols were unclear in their meaning, there was a definite pattern to them, a flow of structure that suggested that this was a cipher of some sort.

Footsteps and voices coming closer to her snapped her back to her senses. She took a few sidelong suspicious glimpses around her as she hurriedly shoved the note into her small belted satchel, just as the First Enchanter was unlocking the door.

Varric peered into the room, the First Enchanter standing behind him, with the smallest glimmer of a smile.

“Did you find what you need?” he asked. “Shall we go back to the Keep?”

“I found nothing at all, unfortunately,” Mirwen said as she adjusted her belt. “Let us move on.”

————————

Back at the Keep, Mirwen and Varric shared a small table and a scrumptious meal, with servants waiting to change courses and serve water and wine. The air was warm with the scent of succulent foods and the vaulted walls of the Keep’s dining hall were softened by the glow of candlelight and of a setting summer sun. Mirwen felt much more comfortable in this space than the squalor of the Alienage, the cold sterility of Kirkwall’s Circle, and the harshness of Sundermount’s rugged peaks. A small amount of guilt began to gnaw at her as she ate. She enjoyed such finery to the point that she almost expected it, while her brethren wanted for little more than food, shelter and safety.

She couldn’t help it. She was, in all arenas except magic, quite sheltered after all.

She tried to put her unease out of her mind by listening to Varric talk. She could see why he was a prolific author and she smiled softly as he weaved his tales of her mother’s heroics and their long-past battles. Mirwen placed her head in her hand, feeling strangely nostalgic as she listened to Varric wax on. She did remember his love of stories, and her love of his love of them from when she was small.

She remembered her mother’s other friends as well. She remembered Dorian. She remembered Iron Bull. She remembered Blackwall and Sera too. When her mother spoke of them, there were faint flickers of faces vaguely familiar from the time when she was a toddler in pinafores teetering around Skyhold. But that was all they were. She knew Vivienne well and Cassandra well enough, but these were her mother’s friends, her mother’s stories, and her mother’s memories - not hers.

Now, she wasn’t so small anymore. Now, she felt incredibly irked by her sudden complacency. Her mood soured immediately and Varric’s sweeping tales now sounded like meaningless drivel. There was no more time to waste on nostalgia, she angrily mused, her breath quickening. Not when her mother and Davhalla were aimlessly wandering Maker-knows-where while Briala was up to Maker-knows-what and while they fumbled for answers, an immortal self-proclaimed God was Void-bent on destroying everything.

His rising has shattered her small world once before.

And he was coming for whatever she had left.

As Mirwen silently groused and Varric talked to her to soothe her nerves, the doors slammed open and Aveline barged in with a full retinue of guards, her jaw clenched and her face as red as her hair. Three elves flanked her and the guards, dressed in bl leathers and brown cloaks with short swords on their belts and sour grimaces. Mirwen recognized their leathers and their faces. They were Briala’s people, she was sure of it.

“Varric, we need to go. Now.”

“That bad, huh?” Varric said with a weak chuckle.

She shoved a small, bloodstained paper into his hands. Varric’s eyes widened as he scanned the page.

“From my retinue stationed outside the Alienage,” she said grimly. “Sent by courier just before they were cut down.”

“Well, shit.” He looked at Mirwen, his jaw slack and eyes wide. “We need to get you back home. Immediately. You’re not safe here anymore, no matter how many guards I post outside my doors.”

“I can take care of myself -”

“This is a little beyond taking care of yourself, Sugar Plum,” Varric said, his voice trailing off, followed by a small stream of curses, “Ancestors preserve me, I didn’t want it to come to this…”

“They have not taken the docks yet, but we would have to go through Lowtown to get there.” Aveline said. “Unless…”

She drew out parchment and quickly scribbled a crude map of Kirkwall. “Remember Hawke’s estate? Her wine cellar leads straight to Darktown. And she would just be another elf fleeing the chaos. No one would know or notice.”

“Sure, you can get to the docks from Darktown, but how many of your guards would you like to send to their immediate deaths?” Varric pointed out, “Guards would draw way too much attention.”

“We don’t send my guards,” Aveline said “We send -”

“Here on behalf of Marquise Briala.” the youngest of them, a petite man with striking black hair and carrying a fourth cloak, addressed them with a slight nod of his head and a strong Starkhaven accent. “We’ll make sure she’s safe. We’ll stake our lives on it.” The other two nodded at his words.

Varric pulled Aveline closer and whispered. Mirwen couldn’t hear what he said, but could read his lips as he asked her the most important question.

“Can we trust them? If some of her spies have turned before - “

Aveline looked at Mirwen and back at the spies that stood at the doorway as the sound of shouts and fighting began to make their way up to Hightown’s sealed gates.

She whispered back. “We don’t have a choice anymore, do we?”

Aveline approached Mirwen and unclasped a small silverite dagger with a golden handle that gleamed in the warm glow of the candlelight from her belt.

She pressed it into Mirwen’s hands.

“Consider this a gift from us that we hope you never have to use,” she said firmly, her eyes darting to the side where the elves were standing.

Mirwen nodded as she took it and cinched it on her belt. “I understand,” she said darkly as she rose from the table. The young Starkhaven elf handed her a cloak to put on and carefully fastened it while pulling the hood over Mirwen’s head.

“Keep that cloak covering you nice and tight,” he advised with a crooked grin, “Fancy-dressed elves don’t last two seconds in Darktown. As long as you follow our lead, you’ll be fine.”

“Right then. I’ll take you to the estate,” Aveline said with a firm shake of her head. “My guards here will stay near the entrance to the Keep. Varric, I beg you to please stay put until I get back.”

————————

Aveline and the elves promptly left the Keep and sprinted to Hawke’s old estate, occasionally sticking to the shadows to avoid drawing attention and to give time for Mirwen to catch her breath. As they approached a Kirkwall mansion at the foot of the stairs that led to the Keep, Mirwen could see what time had worn away. The white marble that shone in the Kirkwall sun was a dull, drab gray from decades of accumulated dirt. The glass windows were shattered from vandals, and the crest that had hung above the door, a proud mark of Hawke’s heritage, was hanging askew and weather-worn away to the point that she could only see a vague outline and smatterings of blood red. This was formerly a glorious building, now decaying and dying, as if it too mourned the loss of the Champion.

Aveline wrestled with the rusted lock for a short while before impatiently bashing in the door with a plated boot. The elves scrambled inside and Aveline slipped them her map. As she pulled the door, now hanging off its last hinge, shut, she urged them one last time.

“Do everything in your power to keep her safe.”

————————

The Starkhavener moved down the stairs towards the cellar, keeping to corners and signalling with a quick wave of his hand to move forward. The other two trailed behind Mirwen, eyes darting towards the slightest hint of shadow or movement. Mirwen kept her cloak pulled close. She had reluctantly left her staff behind. It would draw too much attention, the spies had warned her. Varric had promised she would get it back “when the shitstorm settles down at least a little bit”.

The years of disuse had turned the cellar as fetid as Kirkwall’s sewers. Waves of vermin scurried across the tiles, parting at the sound of their footsteps. Rank puddles pooled in spots where slick water dripped from the ceiling. They had even found a couple of groveling squatters, who had seen a flash of the elves’ blades and decided not to take a chance on attacking the group, or the pangs in their bellies would no longer come from hunger but from steel. By the time they had descended the ladder into Darktown proper, Mirwen was queasy from the noxious smells.

They stopped for a moment to let her breathe, and huddled close to a corner, watching waves of elves and humans alike slip and scramble as they fled from the fires of Lowtown into the tunnels. The guards and rioters would not dare descend down here. That is what all four of them were counting on.

What they were not counting on was that someone was waiting for them.

As they crept forward towards a hatch that would take them towards the docks, they were met by three elves - a woman holding a staff and two men holding axes - all three grinning with homicidal glee as they approached.

“I didn’t think you would make it at all,” the woman taunted. “I’d hate to go through all this trouble to find out you were all eaten by giant spiders and such.”

Briala’s spies moved forward to guard Mirwen.

“Sorry to disappoint,” one of the other ones said in a brusque Fereldan accent. “But we have no time to stick around.” All three unsheathed their swords and rushed towards the mage but were intercepted by the two melee fighters.

The clatter of blades was muffled by the sound of people fleeing, but she could hear the death wail of one fighter falling, his axe clattering to the ground, and a hiss from one of Briala’s people as the other fighter made contact with his side.

Mirwen stood ready to cast but found her arms grow leaden, her head beginning to ache, and her magic sputtering away. The mage began to approach her as Mirwen’s knees began to buckle.

The mage, eyes gleaming, walked up to Mirwen and began to taunt her, “All of this effort over a child who is useless without her -”

She shrieked as Mirwen tackled her to the ground, flailing and reaching for the staff. The mage rolled over and grabbed her by the cloak, choking Mirwen and throwing her aside. Mirwen snapped back up and drew her blade but the mage had readied herself, grabbing Mirwen’s curls and slamming her head to the ground. She began to stand, assured in victory before a leather boot collided with her face. The black-haired Starkhavener rushed forward, snatched the staff from her hands, snapped it over his knee and threw it on the bodies of the melee fighters all three had slain. Then he calmly walked towards the mage who now struggled to her feet and cut her down.

Assured she was dead, the Starkhavener raced to Mirwen’s side, ready to apologize, but she waved him off with a weak smile.

He smiled back, “Guess you were right, you can handle yourself fine.”

The Fereldan elf lifted Mirwen from the ground, examined her head, and slapped a poultice on her scalp under the matted curls where she had begun to bleed. The third clutched his side, mildly limping as he approached. The Fereldan elf turned towards him and slapped another poultice on his wound.

“I can do better,” Mirwen said as she approached the man and gingerly touched his side with her fingers. He winced but stayed still. A few words from her lips and the bleeding stopped. Flesh and sinew began to stitch itself back together. He said nothing back but nodded with grim approval.

The Starkhavener walked towards the hatch and bashed it open with a swift kick. The Fereldan elf went first and motioned for Mirwen to follow as they all descended a long ladder. Mirwen could hear the rush of water and saw a small ballinger waiting in an expansive stone grotto. She could not help but gape at the size of this cavern, for she could not possibly fathom how Varric or Briala’s spies could have kept something like this hidden, though she had to assume someone knew something.

Otherwise, how could they have been attacked?

Anxious to get to safety as their feet found ground, the elves rushed towards the ballinger while several elves already on board wrestled with the sails. Mirwen and the others hurried on board. They set the ballinger loose, all exchanging wary glances even as they shook hands and smiled.

Mirwen watched from the deck as the ballinger emerged from the grotto and she caught a glimpse of Kirkwall within sight. Her veins turned to ice as she saw the furling of black smoke and flickers of orange that were starting to engulf all of Lowtown. She turned from the sight, took a deep rattled breath and descended into the hold below.

#da fic #dragon age fic #cassandra pentaghast #briala #vivienne #oc lavellan #fic by brialavellan

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tarithenurse · 5 years

Text

On my mind, in my soul - 10

Prompt: (Anon) “Natural” by Imagine Dragons, Asgard, Loki’s helmet. Pairing: Loki x Burglar!reader. Content: Swearing as usual (I think), angsting, pining, worrying due to illness, arguing, fluffing (Yes! You read that right: FLUFF.). A/N: Please feel free to reblog if you liked it <3 Or comment! Thanks to all of those who’ve been waiting patiently through the last while of scheming, but hey...now I’ve got a few chapters lying ready.

Patience

It’s annoyingly difficult to stalk with rage in each step when you’re still weak from having been poisoned. If you could have, however, then the footsteps would have been sharp against the stones on the way through the palace. As it is, you’re using every ounce of energy simply to keep up with the two royal men and the surrounding guards.

At least you pay attention to the route. Valhalla’s grand, filled with numerous chambers, halls, and stairs that would make it easy to get lost. You’ve got a method which always has helped you memorize a new place…just in case you’ll need to navigate through the building alone and possibly while being chased. Occupational hazard. Admittedly, if you had to run now, you probably wouldn’t move quickly at all.

Maybe Thor notices your physical discomfort. Maybe he’s simply as curious as the electric-blue eyes shimmering at you leads to think. Slowing his steps, he falls back to walk by your side and even offers an impressively muscular arm to lean on which you take after a brief hesitation. If he’d hurt me, then he’d already have done so.

With his support, you manage to descend several levels, leaving the light of day behind in favour of brazier-fueled shadows that jump and dance when people pass. Down past heavily locked and guarded doors to a room that seems a hybrid between a fancy gallery and old dungeons. Invisible walls shimmer with fragmented lines of gold, somehow containing the bright illumination as if the wall were solid concrete. Descending a number of steps brings the contents of the two first “rooms” in view. One on either side, and each with what must constitute for prisoners here in Asgard.

“Why’re we here?” you demand, unafraid of which etiquettes you’re breaking.

Not bothering to pause or look back, Odin leaves it up to his son to answer. “You recall the warning Loki was given? That the donation of his blood could cause him his life?”

“…yeeah?” Gods…no. Not that. Please don’t…

“He seemed to think it was a price worth paying as he otherwise would be at the mercy of Odin due to having entered the realm uninvited.” His eyes dance around, landing on the cells and the floor…anywhere but you before he points to a cell a few yards up ahead. “He will not escape the punishment for his transgressions.”

Shoving ahead of the group, you stumble to the raised area of the cell, catching yourself on the barrier as you stumble over the ledge. You’re faintly aware of mixed reactions behind you, but it doesn’t matter because all you see is a room where ice spreads from a single, blue figure lying on a bed. Loki. The effect of his natural form is raging unchecked and it should frighten you…perhaps. All it does is turn fear to joy. He’s alive.

“Loki!” Your yell only stirs a few snowflakes that are gliding through the air on the other side of the barrier. “Loki!”

A heavy but gentle hand latches on to your shoulder and isn’t shaken off. “Lady [Y/N], he cannot hear you. He’s beyond reach,” Odin explains gently.

“Then let me in there so he can hear me!”

“It is not due to any barrier of our world.” Turning you, an old eye scans your face. “He may be alive…but the procedure took its toll.”

The words click fast enough, but the king’s choice is beyond your grasp. “Then why’s here in there? Send him to a hospital!” How can he be so cruel?

“He is being treated by our healers, Midgardian. However, this is the safest place to keep him until his powers are under control once more.”

That…kinda makes sense. Looking over your shoulder, only a magical veil obstructs the view to the unconscious Loki. A blanket’s spread over him but it doesn’t quite cover the tall frame so blue shoulders are left exposed save for where a few tendrils of black hair reaches. You could look at him all day. Will him to wake up.

In this house of mine? Nothing ever comes without a consequence or cost, tell me

…

It had been a surprise when the king wanted you to stay as long as was needed, even more so when he hadn’t objected when Thor recommended you were moved to another room. You didn’t care much even if it was a veritable suite with perfect view and lavish furniture, preferring instead to spend as much time as you could by the cell. The guards had gotten used to you, greeting you with smiles when you arrived and if there’d been any changes in Loki’s status then they’d undoubtedly let you know. There just wasn’t.

The last rays of sun are slipping past a layer of clouds, finally bringing some warmth into the room. If you would pay any attention, then you could marvel at the amber gleam of the wood, or the many shimmering hues of green woven into the drapes at either side of the wide windows and balcony doors. Instead you’re staring into one of the many books this room contains without actually seeing the page or what’s written on it. It’s the knocking on the door that brings you back to the present.

“Enter.”

It’s probably yet another servant. Of all the differences you’re getting accustomed to here on Asgard, it’s the staff that are making you feel the most out of place, especially because they all seem to find you more adorable than actually special. Sure, they’re perfectly polite. They just happen to talk to you as though you were a child.

“Lady [Y/N],” the deep rumble belongs to the only prince capable of walking the castle freely, “may I keep you company for a while?”

You can hardly refuse and soon Thor has dragged over another gigantic chair next to the one you sit in and set down a flask and two goblets. Watching bemused, you mentally note the difference of liquid he pours into the goblets but choose not to comment as he passes you the one with the least in. A careful sniff clears your sinuses instantaneously, but the honeyed scent is too good to resist for long, so you accept the quiet toast. Holy fuck! The alcohol burns sweet and strong, triggering all the right taste buds.

“You may want to drink with caution,” Thor warns as you down the remaining mouthful, “Midgardians are more…susceptible to our liquors.”

“Oh. Okay.” You’ve barely placed the goblet on the table before you feel the slight buzz which normally would require a lot more to drink.

Silence reigns. Oppressing. Loaded with unspoken thoughts, most of which (at least on your behalf) are related to Loki and his situation. So, he’s a stalker with a conscience…big deal. Still, there’s no way you can pretend the flutter in your stomach doesn’t appear each time you think of being near him (in a more conscious state), or the paralyzing dread by the idea that Loki might not survive. Even the thought of him being stuck in a prison cell while you’re free to live your life somehow seems unbearable. I don’t owe him! He chose to save…save me oh crap. Not only had he saved you, he’d even tried to warn you. And he’d confided in you.

“Why did Loki attack New York?”

Shifting in his seat, Thor thinks for a while before answering. “I shouldn’t tell anyone this…but I’m willing to do an exception in your case...” A sip from the goblet buys him more time. “The full tale is much longer…but there had been certain…event.” Grabbing the flask, both cups are given a generous refill. “My brother was distraught, acting out of despair and spite…sorrow…” A drink is shared, renewing the buzz in your head. “He left us and fell into the hands of a very evil being who…broke him…”

“A titan.” Your comment makes Thor eye you with surprise. “Loki told me a gruesome story full of torture and brainwashing…I guess I kinda hoped it’d been a lie.”

“You would rather see him commit those crime voluntarily?”

“Of course not! I just don’t want him to…to…”

“Trust you?” You shrug at the suggestion. “[Y/N]…I do not claim to understand the nature of the relationship between my brother and you. But I know he’s good at heart, and that circumstances beyond his control have forced him to build a façade, to keep people at an arms length.”

…

There’s so much you want to know, but you don’t know how to and the liquor’s beginning to cloud your brain. It’s not until Thor’s about to leave and offhandedly remarks whom the room belonged to, that your mind jumps back into action.

“I used to sneak in here at night, as a little boy, if I couldn’t sleep,” the god smiles, “often Loki would be awake too and we’d play until we ended up being too noisy and the maid or mother would hear us.” A shimmer of bittersweet joy is visible in the rugged face, but it’s soon gone and Thor bids you goodnight.

Loki’s room. Leaning against the closed door, you take in the place, noticing the colour scheme and items reflecting the interests Loki still entertain on Earth. All the books (or at least those you’ve been able to decipher) cover a range of subjects and genres, forming a perfect foundation for someone who wishes to be well-spoken…even silver-tongued. I should’ve seen it. The entire room is a treasure trove of information on the one person you need to know everything about.

Rather be the hunter than the prey And you're standing on the edge, face up 'cause you're a…

…

Dividing your time more or less equally between your own basic needs, watching over Loki, and exploring his room meticulously, it takes a few days before there’s only a single chest left unopened…and still the god is unconscious.

“Lady [Y/N],” one of the usual guards greets you as you enter the dungeon, “I’m afraid there has been no change overnight.”

For the untrained eye, it could almost look as if he really is sorry, but there is a shadow of relief that not even the most rigorous training can smother.

“It’s oka– it’s fine.” Placate him. What you want to achieve requires all the pity you can make him feel. “I don’t expect he’ll recover…not before I have to leave, anyways.”

“You’re leaving?”

Gaze downcast, you shrug awkwardly. “I don’t belong here…even though everyone treats me kindly, there’s no…joy for me here. Just pain.”

“Is there anything we can do to ease your troubled heart?”

“I…it’s…what I want isn’t possible.” Sheer willpower (and a bit of bad memories) makes the vision of your shoes go blurry with tears and you can finally look up.

A split-second of shock and discomfort is all it takes before the guard’s mind has been made up. “Tell me what I can do.”

A beating heart of stone You gotta be so cold To make it in this world

… Loki’s PoV …

A fistful of bright heat has appeared in the midst of the soothing cool enveloping Loki’s body. A part of it wants to shake it away because it burns his skin where it touches…but mostly he wants the sweet pain the stay. To remind him of something…important. Nay…someone? It would fit with the soft hum of a gentle voice that has infused the dreamlike state Loki has revelled in since…

Memories rattle the calm, sets the god fighting against the paralyzing dream that has numbed his thoughts until now. I must wake up. He recalls everything up to the moment where darkness took him. Death, he had thought, but this cannot be death after all because the voice belongs to [Y/N] and she must have survived.

“…waiting……all very……why did…”

Bits and pieces of a one-sided conversation are recognizable by now, spurring Loki on. The heat he’s been feeling takes form of a hand, fingers entwined in his own and although he doesn’t dare move or open his eyes just yet, he knows how little it is in the blue of his own limb. Shivers run all the way to [Y/N]’s fingertips. She’s cold. Grasping for the magic within to shift into the warmer, gentler form of an Asgardian, Loki finds that he has nothing left to work with.

“…”

He can’t get the words out to get the Midgardian to leave, to find a warm place rather than linger in the cold he emanate. Finally wrenching his eyelids up, the white room nearly blinds him until he manages to find the darker shape that is the woman. Wrapped in a cloak, she huddles on something by the floor of his bed, probably preferring to sit there so she can hold his hand.

Testingly, Loki squeezes the slender fingers, and all sounds stills. Even her breathing. Once more, then.

“Loki?” A trill of hope’s laced into that single uttering.

As their eyes meet, [Y/N]’s begin to well up with tears of joy that fall on her cheeks to freeze into beads of glittery ice. It’s a sight he could admire all day, but he’s given very little time to do so before her face looms tauntingly over his, the smiling lips whispering his name before finding his. Cold and heat mingle beautifully, proving that this is no dream. The kisses taste of ocean and fruits, the crisp air smells like heaven, and a shy face beams down at Loki when it comes to a halt.

“Loki…”

“Mmmmm?” He can’t help the smile from stretching his lips.

“You. Are.” A delicate finger taps the tip of the blue nose. “A complete and bloody moron!”

The smile disappears, replaced by surprise and angrily furrowed brows. “What –?”

“Why the hell would y’ give up your freedom let alone risk your fucking life?! Fine!” Even the time it takes for [Y/N] to draw in air is too short to get a word in. “So you’ve claimed y’ care about me ‘n whatnot! What am I s’posed to do with that if you go ‘n sacrifice yourself like some some…uhh!”

Loki can fell how dry his throat is when he tries to talk again. “If this is your way of thanki–“

“Thanking?” Pretty eyebrows shoot upwards in protest. “Yes, thank you for saving my life.” She sounds as sarcastic as I can. “And for placing me in an impossible position where I’m in debt to a fucking god and his freaking family!”

“The debt owed was mine. We’re even now.”

“Oh really? Just like that?” [Y/N] wipes away tears from her hectically warm cheeks. “From where I stand the scales are out o’ balance.”

By Odin’s beard, she’s stubborn. “It’s of no concern right now, at least. Alright?” A shrug and then a nod makes it out for an answer. “Tell me instead…why are you here? Is the All-Father not letting you leave?”

“H’agreed to let me stay for a while…” [Y/E/C] doesn’t meet Loki’s but are trained on their hands that still are locked together. “They took me t’ see you when I woke up…y’re just lyin’ here...”

Loki knows better than to say anything as the woman explains the part of the events she has witnessed. The words themselves hold little value, it’s the tone and the facial expressions that captivates the Trickster because it tells much more than [Y/N] intends. Yes, she has been cared for. Yes, she feels indebted after her life has been saved. Yet none of that is the true concern harboured in her heart, and even if she realises what the cause really is, she still hasn’t got the words. Eventually, she quiets, eyes partially following the path of her thumb over Loki’s knuckles and back.

That’s how Odin and Thor finds them after a guard has hurried slowly to alert them of Loki’s consciousness.

… Reader’s PoV …

The castle is going to sleep, and you’re sitting on the soft rug, finally calmed down enough to use the improvised tools you’ve created to pick the lock on the chest. Alright, tools might still be too grand a term. It’s a couple of hair and shawl pins, a fork with bent prongs, and a thin dagger. Asgardian locks are slightly different from the standard Midgardian type, but it only takes a few attempts before you’ve managed to gain access and lift the lid.

“Oh.”

You’re not sure what you should have expected…but it wasn’t a deep green, velvet pillow in the bottom with one object resting upon it. Colden horns the length of your forearm are curving upwards from the headgear. Picking it up slowly, you turn the familiar crown-like item over and over in your hands, careful not to poke yourself in the face with the horns. Antlers.

A silly thought pops into your mind, prompting you to rush over to the tall mirror by the wardrobe and place the iconic accessory on you head. It’s a tad too big, wobbling when you move and needs to be stabilized to prevent it from sliding crooked. Still…I get it. This is power in an object.

“I see you understand the appeal,” a smooth voice announces from behind you.

A mix of fear and embarrassment freezes you in place rather than turn towards the door, but in the mirror, you see Loki being ushered into the room by a couple of guards and Thor before the door closes again. You hear the lock click, but that doesn’t matter because the green eyes are burning.

#On my Mind in my Soul #loki x reader #loki x you #Loki Laufeyson #loki odinson #loki angst #loki pining #loki fluff #loki fanfic #loki marvel #loki mcu #Loki Laufeyson x reader #Loki odinson x reader #asgard #Thor Odinson #thor #odin #Valhalla #Loki lemon series

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thedcdunce · 6 years

Text

Batgirl

“I don't kill... but I don't lose, either.” - Batgirl

Real Name: Cassandra Cain

Aliases:

Black Bat

Kasumi

The Nothing

Gender: Female

Height: 5′ 5″

Weight: 110 lbs (50 kg)

Eyes: Blue/ Green/ Brown

Hair: Black

Abilities:

Peak Human Condition

Martial Arts

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced)

Body Reading Ability

Investigation

Stealth

Weaknesses:

Dyslexia

Over-Reliance on Body Reading Ability

Equipment:

Batgirl Suit

Utility Belt

Shadow Belt

Batcycle

Batarangs

Universe: New Earth

Base of Operations:

Gotham City

Blüdhaven

Tibet

New York City

Hong Kong

Parents:

David Cain; father

Lady Shiva; mother

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Vigilante

First Appearance: Batman #567 (July, 1999)

Abilities

Peak Human Condition: Through continuous intense training Cassandra represents the greatest fighting weapon ever conceived. She possesses peak level strength, stamina, speed and agility comparable to the finest human athlete.

Martial Arts: Due to her lifelong training Cassandra has a master level knowledge of all fighting arts known and unknown and continues to learn with every new opponent she faces. She has also invented her own styles and techniques.

Dragon Style Kung Fu

The Falling Leaf Technique: A nerve pinch invented by Chinese monks in the 16th Century.

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced): Cassandra is schooled in all known and many unknown assassin techniques such as pressure points, killing techniques and stealth to name a few.

Body Reading Ability: Cassandra has the advanced ability to read body language enabling her to read what people are thinking and tell what they are going to do next before they do it. She has been shown able to read opponents far faster than herself, along with non-humans and even alien lifeforms once she is given a chance to learn their body language. This enables her to identify disguised and transformed people as well.

Investigation

Stealth: Due to her excessive training she is also a master of stealth.

Weaknesses

Dyslexia: Due to her training using the language centers of her brain to read body language, Cassandra has extreme dyslexia, making it very difficult for her to read and write.

Over-Reliance on Body Reading Ability: While a definite strength in combat, Cassandra's ability to read body language can work against her when she can't properly discern the intent of the opponent's actions based on body language. Generally this can be happen when an opponent is very good at disguising their intent, who can keep Cassandra distracted with subtle body language that could hint at many possible actions. In another instance, it could be that an opponent isn't thinking or focusing on their movements as they make them like when Cassandra tried to stop a gunshot from a cybernetically enhanced assassin but couldn't because his cybernetics took over the aiming for him independently of his movements. The last way in which this weakness manifests is when Cassandra is facing an opponent who is mentally unstable or ill. Such an opponent is simply too unpredictable to anticipate.

Equipment

Batgirl Suit

Utility Belt

Shadow Belt: During her time as Kasumi on the Justice League Elite, she wore a belt of Thanagarian origin that allowed her to transform into and travel intangibly as a living shadow. Kasumi mostly used this when the team was on under-cover missions as the metahuman gang member The Nothing, the shadow from covering even her Kasumi disguise.

Batcycle

Batarangs

History

Cassandra Cain is the fourth Batgirl. Born with the assassins David Cain and Lady Shiva as her parents, she was trained to become the perfect warrior. Her father deprived her of speech so she would learn movement and physicality as her first language. Batman adopted her into the Batman Family during No Man's Land, to replace Helena Bertinelli as Batgirl. Cassandra would eventually turn her Batgirl costume over to Stephanie Brown, and become a member of Batman Incorporated as Black Bat.

Birth

The daughter of David Cain and Sandra Wu-San, Cassandra Cain was conceived and trained from birth with the intention of creating the perfect bodyguard for Ra's al Ghul. After many unsuccessful attempts to train children from birth in martial arts to make them inculcate it like a native language, David Cain, then a member of Ra's League of Assassins, decided the right genes were necessary to create this "Who Is All". With Ra's go ahead Cain searched for the perfect mother for this child, finding her in the Wu-San sisters of Detroit, who practiced martial arts with each other nearly every moment of their childhood in a type of sister's language. Cain sympathized with the younger sister, Sandra, when he noticed that she held back out of love for Carolyn. To "help" Sandra reach her full potential, Cain murdered Carolyn, then lured Sandra into an ambush by the League of Assassins, where he defeated her. Cain spared Sandra from death on the condition that she bear his child, and leave her for him to raise. Awed by the potential heights she could reach in her physical talents now that Carolyn was gone, Sandra agreed to Cain's bargain in order that she might go on to become the unstoppable force of nature known as Lady Shiva: creator and destroyer. Shiva's hope for her child was that she might one day grow to be the force that could stop her reign of destruction.

Childhood

Trained by her father to be the ultimate weapon, Cassandra was not taught to speak. Instead, he relied mostly on actions to communicate with her. Also, he cut her off from the outside world, only exposing her to anything or anyone other than him when absolutely necessary. As a result, the parts of her brain normally used for speech and language processing were trained so she could read other people's movements and body language to recognize their thoughts without verbal communication and predict, with uncanny accuracy, their next move in a fight. This also caused her brain to develop learning functions different from most, a form of dyslexia that hampers her ability to talk, read, and write.

When she was 8 years old, Cain decided his experiment had progressed far enough for him to test Cassandra's abilities in the real world and took her to a hit; the target being Faizul, a 'bookman' in Macau. At the time Cassandra had no idea what she was doing and believed it was only a game. After striking a deathblow, she "read" the target as he died, and saw death as he saw it.

In addition to scarring her emotionally, she realized murder, like her father's profession, was wrong, and she ran away.

No Man's Land

Cassandra spent the next nine years homeless, guilt- and fear-ridden as she traveled the world. Entering Gotham City at 17, Cassandra came to be of Oracle's agents in the No Man's Land of Gotham City. After saving Commissioner Gordon's life from her assassin father, she was given the Batgirl costume with the approval of both Batman and Oracle. She became Barbara's ward and in a sense, the Batman's adoptive daughter. As the No Man's Land wore on, the new Batgirl was introduced to the rest of the Bat-Family with varying levels of acceptance. Usually acting as the Batman's watchful eye, she was finally allowed to go on a solo mission when a petrol station needed guarding against a local gang. Near the end of No Man's Land, Batman noticed her death wish and forced her to make a decision between suicidal actions and self-preservation. She opted for self-preservation.

Batgirl

Despite her notable handicap of being unable to talk, read, or write, Cassandra did remarkably well. Capable of understanding others' intentions due to her ability to read body language she was a more than a capable listener, despite the fact she couldn't process their words or reply to them. It was this trait that made her one of the Batman's most loyal and trusted followers and helped her to survive when the Bat-clan became hunted by the Bloodhawks. Although the fact that she couldn't talk frustrated Barbara Gordon, she proved herself useful in other ways during a team with the spectral vigilante Ghost in tracking disappearing corpses. The running successes and final understanding of her mission as Batgirl allowed Batman to give her the privilege of running solo in Gotham City on the condition that she faced no 'costumed criminals'.

From going undercover in Madras with Batman to saving local heroes from the mob, Cassandra continued to impress as the new Batgirl. Especially when, despite Batman's warnings, she went face to face with a meta-human and won. She even managed to, despite her restriction to Gotham City, make it on the reserve member list of Young Justice.

But Cassandra's career was not the only thing that was growing. In the background a rift between Oracle and Batman was slowly emerging, as was the growing image of Batman as a father figure in Cassandra's eyes but the major development was David Cain's intentions to get his daughter back.

Batman learned about Cassandra's past when Cain sent a tape depicting Faizul's death to the Batcave. Nevertheless, Batman continued to accept Cassandra. Things became more strained when a run-away psychic altered Cassandra's mind so that she could understand words. As a side effect, she lost her ability to read body language and thus, her ability to fight properly. After she almost died while trying to protect the psychic from assassins, Batman took away her costume and began retraining her. The training remained ineffective, however, in part due to Cassandra dwelling on her lost ability instead of focusing on learning all over again, and Cassandra wanted to roam the streets, with or without the costume.

It was during of these 'unauthorized' vigilante outings that she encountered her mother. After Shiva attempted to kill a wealthy young girl, Cassandra intervened but was swiftly knocked out. After waking up, she immediately tracked Shiva down, despite having a dead arm, to find out why she spared. Shiva explained that she came to Gotham to lure her out and fight her, and left when she felt Cassandra was no longer a challenge.When she explained why her skills were lacking, Shiva recognized her Cassandra's missing skills and offered to train in a way that will allow her to possess them again. In exchange, they would fight to the death in a year. Knowing she had no chance of winning, but wanting her skills back, Cassandra accepted.

Duel to the Death

Cassandra began training immediately; going after every talented fighter she came across in order to gain more skills. After hearing how notorious the Joker was with the Bat-clan, she freed him in order to apprehend him again in order to gauge just how good he was. Batman and Oracle deduced that Cassandra had not given up her death wish and that it was due to guilt over her murdering Faizul. They began looking into what had brought the death wish back. Her reckless training was interrupted when an officer down was called over the frequencies. Batman's longtime ally and friend, Commissioner Gordon had been shot in cold blood.

It was during yet another training session in the Batcave that Cassandra first met her future friend Stephanie Brown.

It wasn't long until Batman gave her a cave of her own to operate from. Her training continued as she found even more powerful opponents like Bizarro, Supergirl and Shadow Thief during the Joker's Last Laugh, as well as numerous villains during the aftermath of Our Worlds at War. These activities had not gone unnoticed by Batman and Oracle. Knowing about Cassandra's match with Shiva but impressed by her progress, Batman allowed Cassandra to continue -- despite Oracle's protests. When the fateful night arrived that Cassandra had to face Shiva on the rooftops of Gotham City Barbara Gordon tried to talk her out of it. In response, she used a nerve strike to paralyze her, apologized and left to face her fate. Despite her best efforts, Shiva won the battle fairly easily, killing Cassandra with a shot to a nerve cluster near the heart. After the battle, within a temple devoted to her, Shiva brought Cassandra back to life. Shiva's price: A rematch. This time, with her death wish satisfied, Cassandra won and became the first to defeat Lady Shiva in martial combat. However, she spared Shiva's life, who vowed to return to kill Cassandra.

Unfortunately, the victory would be short-lived. Bruce Wayne was in jail on suspicion of murder. Cassandra arrived back at the cave in time to see Batman leave. Cassandra's resulting investigation revealed that Batman and Bruce Wayne were, in fact, the same person. Later she, along with Spoiler and Nightwing, discovered critical clues that pointed to Bruce Wayne's innocence and, eventually, incriminating evidence to the real culprit: David Cain. Her father safely behind bars and no battle-to-the-death with Shiva to train for, Cassandra focused on her crime-fighting career.

Tough Love

Batgirl makes a mistake due to stress, and Oracle insists that they vacation on a cruise liner. Superboy happened to attend the same cruise, and together they stop a terrorist named Black Wind. Superboy gives Batgirl his number, and Batgirl kisses him. Batgirl goes on date with Superboy in Smallville, but they end up deciding to just be friends. Batgirl and Batman work together when Doctor Death tries to auction his chemical weapons in Gotham. They pursue him to Tarakstan, where they're forced to ally with Black Wind. Doctor Death is shot, and Black Wind sacrifices his life to contain the chemical weapons released. Before leaving the country, Cassandra, imitating a local custom, professes her feelings for him and vows to keep it a secret.

Barbara Gordon lends her old costume to Cassandra, who briefly uses it on patrol, but decides she prefers her own costume. Later, Batgirl investigates a new drug called Soul. This leads her to the Lost Girls street gang, whom Cassandra fights, unaware that the leaders are all metahumans. Midway through the fight, she accidentally swallows a Soul pill. Because Soul's effects are determined by whether a person has a good or evil heart, she briefly hallucinates as her inner good and evil wrestle for control. When her evil side wins out, defeats the Girls under the Soul's influence. Later, Batgirl hunts and stops a serial killer named Doll Man. When she tries to stop a white slavery ring, but Batman shows up, angry because she ruined his sting operation. Batman tells Cassandra that she has been making too many mistakes recently, and forces her to suspend her activities as Batgirl. When Barbara tries to console her, Cassandra steals her Batgirl costume and takes to the streets. Investigating Soul again, she leads her to the scientist supplying the Lost Girls, who is revealed to be Doctor Death. Doctor Death doses Batgirl and Batman with concentrated Soul, and they fight to the death. When the effects wear off, Batgirl has a tender moment with Batman, and she explains that her father never let her display affection. Batman asks who she is loyal to, and Batgirl responds that she is loyal not to him but to their symbol. Robin takes Doctor Death into custody. Cassandra begins enjoying her new freedom, and Oracle takes her to a public garden. This garden is revealed to be a plot by Poison Ivy to recreate the Garden of Eden. Batgirl burns down Ivy's Tree of Knowledge, from which the entire garden grew from, stopping her.

War Games

Stephanie Brown became the new Robin when Tim Drake quit, and Batgirl teamed with her to take down the Penguin. Batman had Batgirl stage a public fight with Onyx in the Iceberg Lounge to improve Onyx's street credibility. Batgirl was later sent to protect Tim Drake when Scarab is looking to kill Robin. Later, Batgirl stopped a robot called Project Mars who was trying to destroy the public library. This revealed that her illiteracy was still a problem when she had trouble determining its self-destruct code. When Stephanie Brown was fired as Robin and told to give up crime-fighting, she approached Batgirl to thank her for their friendship.

Gotham became a war zone when the leaders of several crime syndicates were killed, leaving a massive vacuum. Batgirl was sent to deal with the Lucky Hand Triad in Chinatown when Kwan Lin was killed and later she helped Onyx and Orpheus put out a battle between the Hill Gang and the Latino Unified. Batgirl then pursued Alexandra Kosov of the Odessa Mob into an explosive firefight, but lost her. Tarantula fought Batgirl and rejected her offer to bring the Latino Unified under the protection of Orpheus. Batgirl confronted Spoiler and told her to get off the streets, but Spoiler did not listen. Soon after, Batgirl joined Batman and Nightwing to stop a shootout at Louis Grieve High School. This incident was the first time Batman was caught on film, which also revealed Batgirl's existence to the public.

Batman told Batgirl and the Bat-Family to push on when Commissioner Akins declared a curfew, and later he revealed to them that he has discovered that the gang war is one of his own contingency plans. Batgirl protected Leslie Thompkins against an attack by Lynx and the Ghost Dragons. Accidentally, Lynx was deadly injured by her own henchmen aiming at Batgirl.

Batgirl was placed on the perimeter at Robinson Park when Black Mask started a riot while posing as Orpheus. They're forced to fight every criminal in the city until the riot dispersed. Batman sent Batgirl to deal with Killer Croc and Suicide King and before leaving, she told Batman that Spoiler was responsible for the war games, but Batman already knew. Batgirl rescued Onyx, who was being tortured by Croc's henchmen. The final confrontation with Black Mask was at Gotham Clock Tower, where police were told to shoot vigilantes on sight. Batgirl helped put away Scarebeast and then escaped the law.

Fresh Blood

Following War Games, the Gotham City Police Department declared all costumed heroes illegal. Because of this and Nightwing being injured during the War Games, Batman suggested that he and Batgirl move to Blüdhaven, as well as financially supporting them. There, she quickly made a name for herself by defeating the Society of Evil. Deathstroke later took on a contract from the Penguin to kill Batgirl and decided to let his daughter Rose Wilson do the job instead. Cassandra beat Rose by critically wounding her and giving Deathstroke no choice but to get her medical attention. It was during fathers' day that Cassandra became infatuated with knowing who her mother was. Interrogating all the contacts she had she eventually found her mother to be Lady Shiva.

Justice League Elite

Cassandra joined the Justice League Elite, masquerading as an assassin named Kasumi to monitor the team for Batman and participated in several missions with them. Ultimately she helped them save the world from the Worlogog and a psychic impression of Manchester Black that had taken over the team's leader, Vera Black. She revealed herself to her teammate Coldcast to tell him that he was not a bad guy before he was accused of murder. She personally stood by him in clearing his name.

League of Assassins

Returning to Gotham City Cassandra discovered that not only had her adoptive family left on a year-long training trip without her but that Batman had left a recently cured Harvey Dent to protect Gotham in his stead. Despite this Cassandra still retained the Batgirl persona and patrolled Gotham while staying at Wayne Manor under Alfred's care. Due to Alfred's influence, Cassandra would gradually learn to read and write due to her attending ESL classes between her nightly activities. It was during one of these patrols, however, that Deathstroke managed to not only inject her with a controlled dose of his serum but influenced her enough to join him in a plan to form an army involving David Cain's 'daughters'. Slade's influence Cassandra gained control of a part of the League of Assassins, assassinating Nyssa al Ghul in the process, and became a member of his Titan's East. As leader of the League of Assassins she also -- again under Slade's control -- attempted to kill Kara Zor-el and masterminded the escape of David Cain from prison. She was cured when Timothy Drake injected her with an antiserum during a confrontation between the Teen East and the Teen Titans. However, suffering residual effects of the drug, she briefly worked for David Cain in attaining the drug Pheno before fully coming to her senses and returning to the Bat Family.

Redemption

Feeling partially responsible for what happened to her, Batman allowed her to return after a strict detoxification program and gave her a strict curfew. Nightwing, however, was not so accepting, regarding her with open hostility and suspicion. When Cassandra began seeking vengeance upon her father and Slade, she had to do it secretly due to their mistrust. Unfortunately, her activities eventually were found out, resulting in her clashing with Nightwing and stealing a Batwing from the Batcave. However, the ordeal resulted in Cassandra officially adopted as Bruce Wayne's daughter.

Outsiders

With Batman's invitation Cassandra began working in the Outsiders team and, despite some mistrust from some members due to her recent activities, was accepted as part of the team. When Batman suddenly disappeared without word or warning, the Outsiders went looking for him all across Gotham. Cassandra went to the Iceberg Lounge to question Penguin about Batman's whereabouts, but learned nothing from him and instead she was forced to deal with Johnny Stitches. Back at their headquarters, the Outsiders received a message from Batman, but Batgirl noticed that he wasn't the real man. However, she decided to play along with the impostor's plan, allowing REMAC to be injected with a virus that caused him to die in an explosion that left Thunder in a coma. Batgirl was blamed for the disaster and the Outsiders disbanded. Afterward, Batgirl went to the Batcave, where she learned that the attack was part of the Black Glove's plan and she decided to reform the Outsiders.

Batgirl began recruiting heroes across Gotham that matched Batman's unique abilities in order to create a team that could replace the missing Batman and the disbanded Outsiders at the same time, but Batgirl didn't expect that Nightwing would not agree with her plan. Nightwing was having trouble coming to grips with his adoptive father's possible death, but this would eventually sort out their conflict after Alfred intervened in a fight between the two. Cassandra handed over further creation of the Network to Nightwing.

When the third crisis hit, Cassandra was among the heroes responding to an Article X draft to combat the rise of Darkseid. Cassandra has also been seen assisting Supergirl and Wonder Woman fight an incarnation of the villainous Chang Tzu.

Cassandra was summoned along with many other heroes, to Gotham city after Batman's death. Together, they formed the Network, a team designed to maintain order in Gotham during Batman's absence. As part of this team, Batgirl teamed up with Huntress to stop Hugo Strange following Oracle's instructions. However, Batgirl was forced to fight Huntress to stop her from killing a criminal.

Batgirl Rising

Following the Battle for Batman's cowl, Cassandra began to feel emotional about her adoptive father's death, becoming disillusioned and passing her costume on to Stephanie Brown who becomes the new Batgirl. Cassandra leaves via the Gotham Airport, warning Stephanie not to follow her. After Batman's return, it was revealed that Cassandra had handed over her Batgirl mantle to Stephanie, acting in accords with her mentor's order in the event of his death or disappearance and because giving over the role would help Stephanie become a stronger hero. Drake remained in contact with her, implying that she's been working as an anonymous agent in Batman's plans.

Shortly thereafter, Red Robin visited her in Hong Kong to exchange information on cases they were working with, on the crime boss and possible undercover cop Lynx and a mysterious assassin known as Cricket that Cassandra was searching for. Aside from the minor aid they offered each other, Tim had brought her a new costume with a Bat on it to replace the plain black costume she had been wearing ever since she gave her Batgirl uniform and name to Stephanie, telling her that it didn't matter if she called herself Bat-Chick, Knightbat, or Black Robin, she had a family. She thanked him but said that family is not always home as she left, giving no sign she'd use the new costume but taking it with her regardless. Drake noted that despite her not wanting to be Batgirl anymore, there was no sign she was being anything but true to herself and who she had wanted to become.

Batman Incorporated

Cassandra later becomes an operative of Batman Incorporated protecting Hong Kong, using the suit given to her by Tim and calling herself Blackbat. Bruce Wayne has her take a neo-heroin smuggling operation.

Black Bat traveled to Paris following a homing signal to Red Robin to the final site in a tournament of assassins, saving him from being raped by Daughter of Acheron, Ra's al Ghul's half-sister, and defeated the vigilante Promise while freeing Drake. Cassandra then proceeded to take a sword and impale Tim in the chest, triggering confirmation that she had won the tournament, being one of the few in history to do so and activating a system that would 'immortalize' her, by killing her with a laser. Red Robin saved her from the beam, and then revealed they had faked Red Robin's death using a trick sword, blood packets, and a stopped heart to fool the temple's automated systems. They attempted to examine the base, but although Tim conversed with the assassin tournament's creator, a previously unknown centuries old immortal, the base self-destructed before they could learn any close as to his location.

Red Robin came to Hong Kong to assist Black Bat in Cassandra's hunt for Cricket, but they were defeated by the Cricket, badly injuring Tim and promising to fight Cassandra 'For real' next time.

Fun Facts

In 2000, Cassandra Cain became the first Batgirl to get her own ongoing self-titled comic book series.

Cassandra has scars across her back from bullet wounds made by her father during her childhood training.

She tended to keep a rose around during her time as Batgirl.

She possesses high levels of serotonin.

Due to her upbringing, Cassandra was unable to understand words being spoken and used body language to understand what people were saying. Eventually, she gains the ability to process and attach meaning to words.

She possessed a death wish due to guilt over killing that resulted in nightmares and self-destructive behavior.

Her first spoken word was "Stop".

Her favorite flavor of ice cream is chocolate.

Cassandra's birthday is January 26th.

Her favorite tea is Assam.

Cassandra was called Who Is All by Lady Shiva.

Cassandra's first kiss was Conner Kent.

Cassandra was formally adopted by Bruce Wayne and now goes by Cassandra Cain-Wayne.

#batgirl #cassandra cain #black bat #kasumi #the nothing #batman family #batman inc.#batman inc #justice league elite #jle #League of Assassins #outsiders #titans east #Young Justice #dc #DC comics #thedcdunce

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douxreviews · 6 years

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Parade's End - Series Review

"What I stand for is gone."

"But to live for. You have something to live for."

Without question, "Parade's End" is the best television miniseries I have seen in recent years. This five-part installment from 2012 is something as rare as a classic love triangle both expertly crafted and superbly acted, with a sentimental and optimistic ending which feels both earned and logical, while simultaneously addressing political questions, moral values and social class dimensions in such a way that it does not come off as shoehorned but rather as a vital element of the story.

The show is based on a series of World War I-era novels written by Ford Madox Ford. This review does not go into detail on all the storylines but nevertheless it does contain spoilers for the entire series.

The reason I came across this gem was me looking through the filmography of Adelaide Clemens. I was very impressed with her role as Tawney Talbot on the television show Rectify and I wanted to see more of her. Okay, so maybe I just thought she's one of the prettiest girls I've seen on screen over the last decade. Sue me. Anyway I wasn't disappointed.

The two other main characters of the drama are played by Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, The Hollow Crown) and Rebecca Hall (The Prestige, Transcendence). We all know they're talented performers and every single one of the cast brought their A-game to this series.

This is a very beautiful show, a wonderfully filmed BBC costume drama at its finest. One nice touch is how it often establishes the time frame for a given scene with people reading period newspapers, such as the famous article of Kerensky vowing to continue the war against Germany. The dialog sometimes comes across as a bit stilted, but I believe it's more of a conscious choice than anything, lending a certain formal way to how the characters speak, and it's often supremely clever, packed with the trademark English dry humor. It wasn't exactly hard to find stunning screenshots for it.

The protagonist of the show is Christopher Tietjens, who is probably the most perplexing character of the series. The two ladies competing for his affection - in their own and vastly dissimilar ways - are his wife Sylvia and the young, idealistic and well-educated suffragette girl Valentine Wannop, who is quite a bit below them on the social ladder.

Christopher is an anachronism, and this is that which drives the entire plot of the story. It defines his problems, drives the action and points to the solution of the piece. He represents the old values of the bourgeoisie. It would then be easy to dismiss him as a mere reactionary but this absolutely misses the point. Christopher embodies an idealized version of the morals of the bourgeoisie during and after the French revolution, the values of the class at a time where it was still a revolutionary force. He's actually speaking out in favor of the women's vote at a tea party even before he meets Valentine.

As she notes, Christopher is living in a "glass cabinet" - he is championing a class, a system of values and a society which no longer exists, and perhaps never truly did, more resembling the role of the perfect feudal lord. He is a devotedly ascetic, old-school moral man believing in leading by example and protecting the rights of those under his charge. More than this, he is invested in what he refers to as the "parade" - the sanctity of marriage and keeping up appearances so as to not disgrace oneself or one's peers. In one of his most confusing yet significant ramblings, he tells Valentine how he's joining the war to "protect the 18th Century from the 20th". No, Valentine, I didn't quite get that either.

In contrast, Sylvia Tietjens is a monster. It would be rather boring if she was just a monster, but she isn't. She's a spectacular monster, played with incredible panache by Hall. Sylvia is representing the rotten bourgeoisie of the beginning of the 1900's, the laissez faire attitude - the vampires and exploiters of men to the point of virtual slavery, spitting at those beneath her. She is completely amoral and depraved, even seemingly taking pride in being so. She's the embodiment of the upper class as a cancer. In her most comical and recurring theme she consistently accuses Christopher of being "too perfect" such as that she comes off feeling inferior to him, yet her response is never truly to attempt to better herself, but rather to provoke him into striking back and lower himself to her level with increasingly outrageous behavior, being unapologetically unfaithful and scandalizing him at every turn. I would think there are very few actresses who could pull off a line like "you forgave, without mercy" in a way that makes herself out to be the victim.

Her weakness lies in how she gradually becomes absolutely obsessed with Christopher precisely because, after everything she does, she is still utterly unable to break him. In a ridiculous sense, Sylvia is in touch with her times and her social status - the predatory Capitalism, the subjugation of the colonies, the trampling of the working class under her iron heel and a life in shameless luxury - whereas Christopher is not. This is further indicated by the ire Christopher is drawing from his peers, precisely because of his devotion to his work, his utter inability to compromise his ideals and his brutal, acidic verbal beatdowns of other men in power who fail to respect or even be honest towards their subjects, leading him ultimately to be regarded as the most vile and debauched man in London due to slander from his enemies - an adulterer and a traitor to his country, none of it true. He can't even help doing his job well when it goes against his own interests, as evidenced by this brilliant piece of dialog between him and Valentine:

C- "The French were bleating about the devastation of bricks and mortar they've incurred by enemy action. I saw suddenly it was no more than one year's normal peacetime dilapidation spread over the whole country." A- "How wonderful!" C- "So the argument for French command of the Western Front gets kicked out of court for a season." A- "But weren't you arguing against your own convictions?" C- "Yes, of course. But Macmaster depends on me."

The third player, Valentine Wallop, is a symbol of the petty-bourgeois sympathizing with the plights of the proletariat amidst the increasing social contradictions of her age, which at this time and place were actually threatening her class with extinction. She's working for the vote for women and she's intensely pacifist. Her little brother, occupying a rather small role on the show, is a socialist and later a Bolshevik, writing her a postcard in Latin from the front, afraid it will get picked up by the censorship - "long live the October revolution!"

Where a lesser work would find this a golden opportunity to insert some synthetic plug against Communism, "Parade's End" significantly has Valentine exclaiming to her horrified mother, "well, it's enough to make anyone Bolshevik sending men and boys to murder each other in millions!" She is the least nuanced but most admirable of the three characters - outspoken, disrespectful of authority, perhaps a bit naïve and with a big heart.

This sets the stage for our drama - the love triangle between the moral traditionalist aristocrat, the corrupt would-be tyrant from his own class and the moral revolutionary commoner.

The conflict is symbolized by the Tietjens family tree at his grounds at Groby estate, where people from all walks of life have been hanging good luck charms for centuries. It is a symbol for tradition and the bond between the ruling class and its subjects. The tree's roots have grown too deep and wide and threaten to destabilize the very ground on which the estate is seated - another symbol for how the morals of times past have turned into obstacles for the needs of modern Capitalism - but in Sylvia's inimitable, shallow manner of thinking the main reason she wants to get rid of it is because it "darkens the view out the window". That, and out of spite for her husband, who dearly loves it and all it stands for - as he says, "young men and maidens have made their marriage vows under the Groby tree for longer than memory."

Her mother urges her to stay her hand and wait for her son to decide what to do with it once he is Lord of Groby but Sylvia bluntly states that his son will "grow up to be a Tietjens", so she won't even give him that choice. When she has the tree cut down with no sanction, that is the breaking point and the true conclusion of the triangle, in a single stroke showing Christopher that all the old values he lived for are dead.

In the end, Christopher chooses and chooses wisely. As his godfather told him on the field of battle, "well, there are no more parades for that regiment. It held out to the last man, but you were him", and as he himself says to Valentine, in a defining, game-changing piece of conversation: "My colours are in the mud. It's not a good thing to find oneself living by an outmoded code of conduct. People take you to be a fool. I'm coming round to their opinion."

The final shot of the series, with Christopher burning the last log of wood from the tree in the fireplace, dancing with Valentine at the post-war party with his fellow soldiers, is one of the most satisfying ends to any show I have ever seen.

It is good precisely because when I watched through this series for the first time, I fully expected Christopher to die in the finale, bleeding out in some ditch half-way to Belgium and setting up the standard tragic conclusion, as most of these great stories do - but this ending sends a powerful message. It is possible to change, and it is possible to find happiness even after you have let go of all your old baggage and sentiments. It is not a happy ending for the sake of it. It's a happy ending because ultimately that is what best serves the story.

There are of course many other characters in this drama - the timid, upstart Macmaster and his hypocrite mistress, Christopher's dad who commits suicide poisoned by false rumors about his son, the likable Irish priest most likely connected to the Irish Republican Army, executed on false charges of treason by Ulstermen, and Christopher's brother, who finally comes to understand him and take Valentine's side against his wife, and they are all well-crafted and well-played - but if I were to address them all, this would turn from an essay into a novel. You might as well go read the novels.

It's inspiring television. In one word, it's perfect.

Thomas Ijon Tichy

#Parade's End #Ford Madox Ford #Benedict Cumberbatch #Rebecca Hall #Adelaide Clemens #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #something from the archive

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profeyandere · 2 years

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𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐌 𝐂. ─── ☾ 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐀𝐓 𝐌𝐄

ʟɪɴᴋꜱ ↪ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ ↪ ᴘʀɪᴅᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴘʀᴇᴊᴜᴅɪᴄᴇ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ ↪ ᴡᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ

ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏꜱ ↪ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 2.2ᴋ ↪ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ᴡɪʟʟɪᴀᴍ ᴄᴏʟʟɪɴꜱ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

English is not my native language, so I apologize for any mistake and if you can help me improve it, I will greatly appreciate it. I hope you enjoy it :D

From a young age, you were instilled, and instructed, to be able to maintain eye contact with everyone with whom you had a heated discussion, regardless of the specific topic that had started that conversation, simply to be able to provoke your interlocutors a sense of attention and education that your actions did not precede you at all because, although you had been born under the roof of a wealthy and comfortable family of important merchants, as much as they had tried to teach you to be the perfect lady they expected you to be, you had not helped much to your various governesses to make the job easier; you had known young people who were calm and were able to remain submissive to any instruction, but you were always different in that area of life.

Although you were able to remain to look into the eyes of the same person for several minutes, even hours, you had learned that the different deviations that the rest made were due to the discomfort that you caused by your actions because, returning to the same thing previously mentioned, you were never able to keep your hands to yourself and your vocabulary to scratch, getting friends and associates in such a strange way that not even your parents wanted to correct that defect of yours that was so useful to them.

You were kind to everyone around you, forming fairly consistent relationships in a matter of seconds, but it was your expressive and surprising displays of affection that caused some of the assorted adults you had met to mistake your status at first. After all, they did not expect a young lady of your age and with the power of your parents had to jovially embrace all the ladies and almost mockingly shake hands with every gentleman you saw at the most important social gatherings and it was just that which caused you to become close friends with one of the daughters of the Bennet family.

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth was introduced to the society shortly after her older sister, Jane, and when you made eye contact with this young lady, you could not help but be fascinated by her candy-coloured eyes, which sparkled even brighter in the sheer amount of light around her, and although your parents tried to stop you, they couldn't help but end up meeting Elizabeth and, by domino effect, meeting her parents and her older sister, who was very excited to see that you had taken an interest in his second oldest daughter and that you were beyond fascinated to strike up a friendship with her.

Time passed and although the Bennet family thought that your happy personality came mainly from the party, the illusion of the dances and some detail about the social gathering in which you met, their surprise was greater when they saw that your closeness and trust towards them was normal in you, reaching the point of treating them as if they were your lifelong friends or your own family; the three youngest daughters had the most fun with you thanks to your constant games with them and the natural way you had of preparing them for their family's most important dances and dinners, while Elizabeth and Jane preferred to walk with you through around the house to get tired enough to have a rational conversation with you.

And that had continued to this day.

"Kitty, Lydia, stay still," you ordered as you ran after both of you through one of the rooms in the Bennet house, even climbing onto some of the furniture and almost tripping over the length of your dress.

"I can't find my corset!" Catherine exclaimed, making you roll your eyes for a moment before walking out of her room with her sister following behind her.

The fact that the gallant party orchestrated by Mr. Bingley was going to be celebrated had encouraged you and, for obvious reasons, you had come to the Bennet home intending to dress their youngest daughters since they only longed for the perfection found when you told them what clothes to wear and how they should arrange their hair; being a couple of years older than Jane had taken its toll and they looked to you for much more advice than to their biological sister or her mother.

"We'll get your corset, Kitty!" You shouted as you left the room in a hurry in search of the other two who had left.

You could see how quickly they went down the stairs, stopping for a moment in front of the street door before heading to one of the rooms of the house, making you snort for a moment when you saw the extra effort that dressing those two young girls would entail. Of course, the light banging on the main door stopped you and made you open the door out of politeness to prevent the newcomer from staying in the street waiting for a servant to attend to him; you were aware that, with the noise caused by the screams of the little ones and the mother, along with the talks between the various household workers, no one would be able to hear sounds as soft as the ones the man was making to the other side.

"Hello, welcome to the Bennet house!" You greeted happily while showing a big smile full of joy. "I'm sorry I can't stop to talk with you but I'm very busy," you excused yourself before looking towards the door that was ajar and that allowed you to see the two sisters laughing. "Catherine and Lydia Bennet, stay there or I swear I won't see you!" You exclaimed angrily, before smiling at the stranger again. "I don't know which of the Bennets have you come to visit, but the daughters are dressing in their respective rooms and the parents are in the library of the house,” you explained quickly. "It has been a pleasure meeting you, even if I don't know his name, but I can say that his eyes are beautiful, so I doubt that we ever met because I'm sure he wouldn't forget those pearls that you have," you flattered, noticing how the man seemed to stay speechless. "If he excuses me."

William Collins was speechless before your first meeting and it was not for less.

He had returned from his short walk in the afternoons, as was usual for him, around the house in which he had settled during that week intending to look for a fiancee among his cousins and, although at first, he could catalogue all of them as some of the most beautiful he had ever seen and met in his life, he had not been able to point to one of them as his future wife because, as he had observed in all of them, they did not seem to be interested in him and they did not he intended to live in a marriage where interest in the other did not exist. Attention in relationships was very important to him, regardless of what type they were, and he was not prepared to live with a person who could make fun of him or would not take him into account for future decisions in married life.

Of course, you seemed to pay attention to him from the start with your surprise introduction, your angry exclamations towards his cousins and your slight flirtation by mentioning those compliments about his eyes, almost making him feel for a moment like a lady should feel about the attentions of a gentlemen toward them, and for a moment he thought that you had behaved that way in the rush you seemed to be in to attend to the two young women, he had found his surmise growing more and more intense just by seeing the smile on the face of Mrs. Bennet and listening to her husband's short laugh; there was something about you they had no intention of telling him and he was more than willing to find out what he was.

Of course, he was looking forward to seeing you at the party in Netherfield, and it was not too difficult to do so.

You showed up shortly after the Bennets at the party and, although it was true that it was normal to see you completely alone in those types of gatherings, your greetings introduced you to all the guests and you did not need the presence of your parents to attract attention, not in a ridiculous way but in a more friendly and pleasant way; many knew that it was difficult to deal with several of the guests due to the lack of knowledge they had about them, but you had a calming effect on those concerns and many dared to deal with others even with ignorance.

"Lizzie!" You exclaimed when you had finally seen the girl after looking impatiently for her all over the huge house. "Jesus, dear, this house is huge."

"You got lost, right?" She asked, taking as an affirmative answer to her question that you only shrugged while your cheeks turned a strongly reddish tone. "You're hopeless."

"It must have had some defect, I guess," you joked, looking to your left at the man you had talked to that afternoon. "But if it is el ojazos"

"Excuse me, ojazos?" He repeated in a confused way while he tried to repeat the word, stumbling for a moment before the lacked knowledge of it for the language in which you were speaking. "My ignorance seems to have presented itself. What exactly does that expression mean?"

"Miss (Y / S) sometimes uses the Spanish language to refer to certain attributes that represent her known to her," Elizabeth explained.

"But I only use that language in case I can't find its equivalent in English," you mentioned as you smiled at the man. "Lizzy, are you going to introduce us?"

Elizabeth made your respective introductions as formally as possible, noting with amusement the intense look you were giving her cousin as he grew shyer at the attention you were so disinterestedly offering him, making her almost laugh at how he seemed to avoid your attention at all costs and seemed to be engrossed in the conversation even if he was not looking at you; despite the fact that anyone would have been annoyed by that, in reality, you also found it as funny as Lizzy, mainly because you loved seeing the reaction of others when seeing your eyes on them.

But, even if he was too intimidated to look you directly, he was quite comfortable with your presence because, even though you were just a friend of his cousin and it was true that you were the daughter of one of the most important merchants from all over the country, he had been surprised to see the cheerfulness and naturalness with which you spoke to everyone and about all the guests there were; you introduced him to the hosts of the evening, with it also Mr. Darcy, and some of the most important people he could ever meet in his life, you also talked in between about some of those present, your respective homes and about the action of Lady Catherine de Bourgh towards him and the help that had been given him by that wealthy and powerful woman.

You found the way he talked about her charming, although you also found the way he did it funny; If it weren't for the fact that you knew Lady Catherine and you knew that she was older, after all, she would be Mrs. Bennet's age, you could even consider that he was madly in love with her because of the many times he had mentioned her during your talk.

At some point during the evening at the house in Netherfield, you found yourself on the side of the ballroom next to the clergyman, barely able to understand the story he was telling you, which, although it seemed interesting to you because of how he had made you see it in at the beginning, you had lost the thread with the passing of the minutes when you had the music hovering around you, the footsteps on the floor of the room and the innumerable talks that surrounded you; you were used to parties, but your hearing was everywhere and you hated the fact that you couldn't hear your interlocutor.

"Mr. Collins," you called, watching his new tirade stop and noticeably tense, "Can we continue our conversation somewhere more private? I can't understand him with such a fuss."

The named, who seemed to listen to you, nodded slightly before making a gesture and allowing you to take the lead to guide him to the place that seemed right to you; you were aware that the fact of seeing two adults together, of different genders and without being married, was something strange and that it gave a lot to talk about, although you did not care that people thought nonsense just to see you interact with the cousin of the Bennets who, curious to see you leading their relative towards the doors that led to the back garden of the house, could not help but exchange with each other looks of happiness that made them laugh afterwards.

They couldn't believe that you had found any appeal in his bland, awkward cousin.

To your good luck, and without having to stray too far from the main building, you managed to get far enough away from the guests to be able to continue talking about what was on your mind without fear of other people listening or the fear of not knowing what respond to the other for not having understood what he was commenting on.

"Someday I would like to visit your garden," you mentioned as you gently tilted your head to try to meet his gaze. "I have heard that it is perfectly cared for and that you take care of all the care that the plants require, even if they are very different from each other."

"Of course," said Collins, gently nodding his head in assent, "as soon as I get back to Hunsford, I'll let you know you can visit whenever you want with your parents."

Even though you had heard him give a thousand rants during the night, you had noticed that being in private, completely alone with another person with no one else around, caused a state of shyness to beset him entirely and prevented him from talking to you in the same way he had done it before; he didn't even look like the same man and that worried you.

Mr. Collins had avoided your gaze all night and now was no exception, but it was the sight of your little hand in front of their eyes that turned them away from the huge rosebush to you and your little smile that showed an invitation that never came to understand at first.

"You want to dance? You haven't asked me for any," you spoke bravely, surprising him again by your proposal. "I'm not asking you to marry me, it's just a dance."

"I'm afraid to mention that I'm not able to hear the music from here," he confessed with some embarrassment, seeing how your hand hesitated for a moment before taking his with strength and security.

"We don't need music to have a good time."

With shame and clumsiness, he tried to follow the same steps in which a waltz was performed that you were not sure you had danced before because, although you had learned various dances from different countries, you swore that this one was not among those that you already knew, and you swore that the stomps were not included in the dances; he was clumsy in the dance and you did not have to be a genius to notice it, but the one that tried to convince you that it was not like that through continuous apologies and excuses that you did not believe just caused you to try to calm him down.

You noticed in his shoulders and his posture that he was not entirely sure what he was doing and that he had no idea how to dance whatever he was trying to interpret.

"William."

That call made him stop suddenly since no one, very few people, at some point had called him by his first name.

"Yes?" He said back.

"Why don't you look at me?" Asked. "I don't think I'm so ugly as not to deserve that you delight me with a single look from you."

You noticed how he tensed even more and slowly removed his hands from yours and your waist, this time surprising you.

"I'm not best suited for a ball and I'm afraid you'll get the wrong idea of me because of it," he confessed, making you stifle a sound of tenderness at how adorable you had almost seemed. "I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused you."

“Is that the reason why you have avoided looking at me all night?" You questioned, raising an eyebrow. "Perhaps I have been too impulsive with you and you need more time to get used to this side of a woman."

"It's possible," he murmured, making you smile slightly.

You couldn't blame him for it, you were someone very outgoing and you hadn't taken into account that he wasn't.

"We can fix both things," you spoke, drawing his attention to how you stood up on one foot to take off each of your shoes, being helped by him holding you carefully so that you didn't fall onto the wet, cold grass on which you placed your feet covered by your fine white stocking. "We already have a solution to the dance, you guide the piece and I follow you, but at least allow me to delight myself with your silver and brilliant night gaze."

When Elizabeth came looking for you, mainly because she hadn't been able to find you at Mr. Blingley's house, she was surprised to finally see you in the gardens in the company of her cousin, the two of you revelling in a ball at which there was nothing but tranquillity and serenity thanks to your idea of putting yourself on his cousin's shoes to prevent you from ending up in pain at the end of the evening, while your faces full of happiness and joy complimented you and made that moment something magical for both of you.

#william collins #william #collins #william collins x reader #william collins x you #william collins x oc #reader #you #oc #tom hollander #william collins imagine #tom hollander imagine #pride and prejudice #pride and prejudice 2005

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afootnotetoallthisnoise-blog · 6 years

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on ‘lady bird’, ‘love, simon’, and teenagers’ relationships on film

(Plug: this new YouTuber is way better at analysing film/TV than I am.)

I just watched Lady Bird and Love, Simon on a flight to New York, and since both films are deeply preoccupied with teenagers’ platonic, romantic, and familial relationships, I wanted to look at what I thought was original and fresh about these films’ perspectives – and what was more derivative and inauthentic.

i. parent-child relationships: attention and complexity

Lady Bird is centred around the titular girl and her developing identity, relationships and aspirations through her final year of high school. Easily the deepest and most emotionally arresting aspect of Lady Bird is Christine’s, or ‘Lady Bird’s’, relationships with her family, particularly her mother, Marion. This film works hard to expand a turbulent mother-daughter relationship past the simple archetypes of ‘moody teenage daughter’ and ‘unreasonable bitch mother’, into a more complex, three-dimensional whole which incorporates both the faults and the humanity that both characters have. Not only are both characters viewed singly as well as in relation to each other – LB is not solely ‘Marion’s daughter’, Marion does not solely exist as ‘LB’s mother’ – the film moves past a simply summed-up conflict into a more complicated picture, where both LB and Marion are driven by desires, fears and anxieties they can’t completely articulate to themselves, but which drive conflict both through difference in perspective and through inability to communicate.

There are painful, powerful, intense moments in Lady Bird where LB and Marion are struggling to communicate, to reconcile their differing views and convey themselves properly. LB’s confused but intense desire to go to New York, a place where she believes she will experience things which constitute ‘life’, exists alongside Marion’s grief at LB’s ostensible rejection of the life she has worked to give her, and neither are made out to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. They love each other deeply, but they can’t articulate the fears, anxieties, and stubborn desires which complicate their relationship, so their silent moments of shared, intense emotion – like the audiobook at the beginning of the film – are coupled with frustrated moments of crosstalk, mutual misunderstanding, hurt, affront, and anger. LB, as a self-centred, self-discovering adolescent, often fails to think about how her actions and speech are affecting her family, whilst Marion’s worry and care about LB manifest in being overly critical – she seems completely incapable of speaking positively to LB, including a deeply painful moment where she refuses to compliment LB’s prom dress.

They both reminded me of real people I know, real pangs of discomfort I’ve felt hearing a family friend speak slightly disparagingly about her daughter’s university chances, or an old acquaintance roll his eyes at his parents’ careful efforts to help him. It felt so refreshing seeing that complexity get handled on film – often parents are just supplementary figureheads in their child’s story (or vice versa), and if the film is interested in the parent-child relationship, it rarely gets its teeth into the sheer nastiness which can come out in certain parent-child relationships. There are, of course, teenager-centric films which get into complex parent-child dynamics – the differing burdens of childhood illness on parents and children, like in The Fault in Our Stars; parents’ work intersecting with children’s feelings of neglect, like in Coraline; radical inability to communicate or understand, e.g. The Virgin Suicides – but that richness of both love and frustration on both sides is a rare thing to see.

Love, Simon isn’t aiming to be as deep on this matter as Lady Bird, but it still has its own insights. Mostly Simon’s family is pretty happy and saccharine, but when Simon comes out, I think Simon’s father’s reaction – garbling a joke, panicking, leaving, shutting down – showed excellent acting and direction: it did what most good acting does, which is to break down a dichotomy of response (here, between the coming-out reactions of ‘I love you and everything’s fine’ and ‘BEGONE FROM THE PREMISES, DEMON GAY’). That confused, choked response conveyed the rush of forces acting on Simon’s father: desire to defuse the tension, desire to support, desire to downplay the situation, confusion, shock, grief at the reality of change, grief at the loss of a presumed similarity, grief that he hadn’t realised sooner. I’m sure more realistic reactions like that have happened in films before, but I haven’t personally seen any, and I found it refreshing: it broke down the scripted feel of both overly saccharine and uniformly harsh reactions, both of which close the door to further growth and development in the parents’ reaction to their child’s queerness.

ii. romantic relationships: centrality, development

In Love, Simon, there are tropes present, but I liked how it approached some aspects of teenagers’ romantic relationships. The ambiguity about Blue’s identity meant that we got a different model for how relationships can develop, pertinent in an age where dating is conceptualised as mainly visual (think the structure of apps like Tinder) and connection is determined through in-person interaction, but where, conversely, deep, lasting relationships have developed without that visual focus since the advent of the internet (through MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, for instance). The bit at the end was cheesy, but that’s what they were going for, and it was so sweet to watch.

Most of the other romantic stuff was pretty run-of-the-mill – the couple who like each other but things keep getting in the way; the unrequited crush; etc – but there’s one other aspect I’d like to mention, which is how Simon’s falling-out with his friends is handled about 2/3 of the way through the film. A less nuanced film would just have Abby, Leah, and Nick getting pissed that Simon meddled in Abby and Nick’s relationship, without them understanding about Simon’s bind due to Martin’s blackmail. But what I liked was that both Abby and Leah acknowledge the pressure that the blackmail put on Simon, but they make clear that it doesn’t excuse his disrespect for both Abby (by treating her like a ‘piece of meat’ to be given to Martin in exchange for his own safety) and Leah (by sending her on a date with a man he thought she loved, knowing that he wasn’t interested in her). It’s not the tired ‘it’s all a misunderstanding, guys’ conflict: they understand what happened, but they still argue that Simon’s disrespect for their own romantic lives and autonomy wasn’t okay.

While Love, Simon is dually focused on Simon’s coming out and his budding relationship – though the two threads aren’t separate – LB’s relationships in Lady Bird are significant but aren’t the central focus of the movie, which I liked; while it makes sense for a romantic relationship to be central to Love, Simon, since it’s a sensible mode within which to discover something like queerness (which is intrinsically tied up with your relationships to other people), Lady Bird’s focus on self-discovery works better with the romantic relationships not being central, otherwise it would perpetuate the tired stereotype that a woman’s ‘coming of age’ has to be pretty-much-entirely experienced through falling in love with a man. (It being central is fine, but I don’t like the implications that somehow, teenage girls cannot Mature into Full Human Beings unless a dude and his dick shows up.) LB’s two relationships are with the too-perfect-guy and the douchebag-who-doesn’t-give-a-shit, neither of which provide really new perspectives on teenagers’ romantic relationships – neither character has much depth in the film, either – but I thought the sex scene and its aftermath was very well done: LB’s recognition that the performative significance she’d given her first sexual experience was different from the reality, and her recognition that the guy she’d slept with wasn’t worth the language she’d inherited for it, rang very true. (Also, the situation bore out some excellent humour. ‘I was on top! Who the hell is on top for their first time?!’)

iii. friendships: the status problem

I think Lady Bird is a great film, but the part I found the least inspiring was LB’s friendship arc. I’m pretty sick of this formula: protagonist is best friends with good, loyal, but low-status friend/s -> protagonist manages to get in with the popular kids and abandons their low-status friend/s -> protagonist realises popular kids are shallow assholes and they’ve made a horrible mistake -> protagonist apologetically returns to low status friend/s, there is a bit of anger and conflict, but eventually they all make nice. I’m sick of it because I feel like it doesn’t ring true.

Now, I have been through secondary school, recently though not overly so (I graduated from sixth form in 2015). I know that status is a thing in secondary school and that it exerts an influence. But I dislike this ubiquitous storyline which implies that a) every school conforms to a rigid hierarchy of popularity and that b) literally everyone gives a shit about improving their status. I found Love, Simon’s group of four much more authentic in this regard: ultimately, Simon’s group of four just enjoy each other’s company, rather than being rigidly grouped based on status or fitting a recognised ‘type’. Depicting popularity as being present but not all-encompassing seems to resonate more with how my school worked, where there were recognisable groups but a lot of boundary-blurring, and where different subcultures could - usually - peacefully coexist alongside each other.

Because it adheres closely to the student-social-climber model, the astounding depth of familial relationships and notable depth of romantic relationships in Lady Bird isn’t replicated in LB’s friendships. Not every character needs to be an incredibly complex seventeen-year-old (I’m fine with Kyle just being a bit of a bored poser), but I feel like the film either tried and failed to give Jenna depth or just agreed she wouldn’t have any, and I feel like it would have really served the story for LB to realise that the girl at the top of the totem pole actually had problems and internal conflict, despite her status and wealth. As it is, she just stays ‘bored rich chick’ from beginning to end. Julie isn’t given as much depth as she could be either – all her appearances just seem to reinforce ‘sweet nerd archetype’, and no attention is given to her own brief romantic relationship and romantic turmoil - though I don’t begrudge them the prom scene (it was very sweet).

Overall, I didn’t realise just how refreshing it would feel to see a group of friends who experience growth, development and conflict, but who also just really like getting iced coffee together! And the fact that it did highlights a problem with friendship stereotypes in high school movies.

#essay #love simon #love #simon #lady bird #movies #film

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greencapitation-blog · 6 years

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It had all started on a recent mission for Gumbaldia.

Green Knight had been dutifully escorting and protecting uncle Gumbald on their path to a man who had advertised himself as the kind to sell large quantities of metals, the kind that could hopefully be used to build something of the giant likes of a battle automaton.

“We will do unto her, as she has never done unto us! Because she never had the ambition!” Gumbald lectured, clenching a fist raised to his chest at the thought of triumph.

…Green Knight had had not made peace with the thoughts of killing PB. For once in a long time, he actually had some doubts about killing someone. However, he chose to suppress those doubts under the knowledge that he now had other people in his life, people that cared about him, unlike PB, or Jake, or anyone else in Ooo. So if uncle G hated her and wanted her dead, he wasn’t going to be voicing any objections.

In fact, he wasn’t going to voice anything at all. Instead, he let Gumbald continue his megalomaniacal rant as they approached a large heap of metals in the middle of the grasslands.

In front of the pile was a small kiosk, with a sign made of (obviously) metal, with he words “Montheloos’ metal empire” rusted into it.

Gumbald had ceased with his ranting, and Green Knight felt a tug on the side of his left arm. He looked down at Gumbald, helmet expressionless.

“Now, for the second part of our genius plan.” Gumbald beckoned Green Knight to lean over so he could whisper those sweet somethings into his non-existent ear.

“You let me do all the talking. When I give the word, you kill him. We cannot have anyone know of my future plans until they are set into motion.” Uncle G explained.

Green Knight nodded once with almost too much enthusiasm.

And just as the plan had been brought into light, a clang of metal could be heard; the source of the sound was none other than a disgruntled looking wizard appearing. He was clad in clothes that were obviously composed of cheap metal scraps, complete with a scrappy wizard hat and a rusty bowtie made out of the top of some cans. Plus a terrible moustache and goatie to complete the look.

….Green Knight didn’t know what he was expecting. Wizards always had stupid senses of fashion. But this guy was even worse than usual. Montheloos looked like he had a serious case of businessman.

While he remained still as a disconcerting statue, Green Knight was silently judging this wizard so hard.

“Hey hey hey! I heard you were the rising monarch that wanted in on the montheloos’ metal deals!” The wizard cheerfully jabbered, climbing over the stall to be face to face with his buyers.

“Yes,” Gumbald’s voice had clear distain in it. “I have come to obtain your highest grade of metals. It’s for my….Important family business.”

Family business was an understatement, and the scrappy wizard most likely knew that.“Sounds fine to me! So, what’re you really interested in? Remember-You’re not getting any discounts! Ask for one of those, and I’d probably have to kill you and usurp your kingdom!” The wizard joked, jabbing a finger at Gumbald.

Gumbald took a step back, and Green Knight stepped forward in his defense.

“Heyyy, who’s this guy? I thought I told you, no body guards, no families, no hot ladies! You’re breaching some serious customer security levels right now.” The wizard growled, conjuring up a spinning razor blade with a great deal of effort. Green Knight raised his sword arm in response, ready to chop those hands right off the wizard if he had to.

The wizard looked up at the sword, and gasped, offended. “If you don’t wanna make any deals, you can just get your gummy butt out of here!”

“No no no, this is all a..Misunderstanding! This, this man isn’t my body guard! We just so happen to be...Friends, that’s all.” Gumbald raised both hands, trying to act like a force of calm despite his malicious intentions. He looked up at Green knight-and scolded him. “Fern, put your weapon down.” At Gumbald’s command, Green Knight lowered his arm, looking pretty disheartened. He specifically remembered uncle G saying they were going to kill this guy and steal his loot. What happened to that?

“Well ah, okay. If it’s just some big misunderstanding.” Straightening his terrible bowtie, the wizard tightly closed his eyes for a moment, and made the blades evaporate.

“But I still got my eyes on you, Mr-silent-rowdy-green-man.” This was the second time in his existence that Green Knight had been called a “mister” of something. He silently wondered if that had anything to do with how tall he was now.

“Oh, don’t you worry about him.” Now Gumbald was blatantly lying through his teeth.

“Nah, nah, I’m not, I got special magic against the likes of him if he tries anything funny,” The wizard paused, looking to his side. “Oh, hey, you interested in buying any pumpkins? They’re not like, metal stuff, but a wizards gotta have other thing to do their magics on. I’ve been working on this farm for awhile, trying to get it off the ground..” With his back turned, the wizard walked away from his stall and bent down over one of the pumpkins strewn across the ground, lightly stroking it. Green Knight continued to stare at the man, an unseen expression of distaste upon his face. The wizard was getting just a little too handsy with some vegetables, in his opinion.

Gumbald however, seemed to have no problem with it. He had been waiting for the perfect moment to set his knight after the wizard.

“Now! Sneak attack!”

Finally!

At Gumbald’s cue, Green Knight rushed over to the wizard, bringing down his sword on to the wizards head-Oh no wait that was a pumpkin.

The wizard had jumped over the pumpkin, and held it up as fodder as he tore off his own metal bowtie, chucking it at the Green Knight.

“Hah! High velocity bowtie!”

Green Knight took a step back, regaining his balance after slicing through the pumpkin with ease and hitting thin air. The wizard’s attack had grazed off one of the spikes on his shoulder, causing Green Knight to wince, looking at where the bowtie had sliced him. In that time, the wizard had taken off his hat, and tapped it with his hand before flinging it at Green Knight. This time, the knight had dodged the attack, and the hat sailed past him, flying off into the distance.

“Nice going.” Green Knight mocked him, closing in on the wizard. Before the other had the opportunity to attack, the knight’s sword had cross sectioned them. The wizard’s remains had turned into two halves of a safe, probably through last second transfiguration to save himself. Green Knight was satisfied to know that he managed to beat a wizard to the punch.

“Excellent job. Now go grab some metal before we get out of here.”

Green Knight smiled behind his mask, now doubly satisfied with the approval of uncle Gumbald.

If Green Knight had been any faster, he would have dodged the wizard’s hat, which had returned like some sort of tacky boomerang, slicing clean through Green Knight’s neck in its course back to its now-dead-owner.

Reflexively, Green Knight raised both of his hands to where his head had been a moment ago, feeling the air. He knew he could just put the head back on, and he would be fine. But the sudden and unsolicited decapitation had him shocked for a moment.

Being in front of uncle Gumbald, Green knight tried to recover quickly, and stepped forward to get his head back. As obviously uncle G had no plans on doing so for him, the man was off to the side, attempting at tugging a large sheet of metal from the pile.

Green knight reached for his head, when a spark flew off the hat, the head, which was just an extension of him, gasped. The spark had landed, and it had ignited Green Knight’s head. He recoiled in both pain and fear. He could still see everything from the perspective of his head, and felt as the flames ravaged through it. If his face wasn’t currently being on fire, he would have screamed in pain.

Green Knight bent down with heavy effort, and forced himself to try and pat out the fire, but when he touched the flames, his hand had began to burn too. Quickly, he pulled his hand away from the fire, waving the flames off.

The last thing he needed was all of him to burn. But the whole situation seemed hopeless now. There was no way his head would be recovering, he felt it slowly becoming ashes.

That’s when uncle Gumbald had finally looked towards Green Knight. Perhaps he had smelled the burning grass. Or the cry of pain from his supposed champion. Whatever the reason, uncle Gumbald had abandoned the pile of metal for the time being. He strode over to the fire, and stamped it out with his boot. Another action the Green Knight had physically felt, though it was hardly as bad as the sensation of his face being burnt.

“What were you thinking?” uncle Gumbald raised both hands in the air, heavily disappointed in Green Knight for failing to stop the late wizard’s final attack. “You wasted precious time on what, being in pain? Where is your head, boy?”

But Green Knight could not see uncle Gumbald’s expression, and could only vaguely hear what was being said. Green Knight felt like an apology was due. Not that he could say anything. Instead he pointed at the ash and grass beneath uncle Gumbald’s boot.

“We have plans to carry out, I don’t have time to grow you a new head, you know. That could take weeks! And I need you now.”

Clenching his fist in shame, Green Knight could not help but feel an incredibly amount of guilt in the face of the situation. Uncle Gumbald was right, he had all the opportunities to move, but he didn’t! He thought he was better than this now! But no matter what, he was always finding a way to mess everything up! The failure to have stopped himself from losing overshadowed his utter victory against the wizard. It was all he could focus on now. If he still had a head, which he did not, Green Knight would have been staring at the ground, avoiding eye contact.

Meanwhile, uncle Gumbald had walked off from the Green Knight. He had taken notice of the many pumpkins around the field. It had given him an idea.

Uncle Gumbald picked up a particularly round pumpkin, holding it close to his own face.

“Hmm.” If the Green Knight was plant matter, and so were these, it would only take a small amount of genetic manipulation to use one as a sort of portable chamber that could hasten the process of healing. It would take no effort on his behalf, and while he wanted to, now was not the right time to ditch the Green Knight. He was still a useful asset in the upcoming war.

With a malicious grin on his face and a pumpkin in hand, Gumbald returned to his weakened warrior.

“Pick up your remains. I have an idea.”

#|hallowv| 2018|#ahh yes blame the wizard #this can also be liked for a starter if anyones got the interests!#this is part 1 #long post #i cant believe i made an entire oc just to kill him off #oh wait yes i can!#might have put too much focus on uncle g in this whoops #i dont even know how to write him! i hate the guy!#this actually does sort of tie into canon! sort of! if you can guess how then you get a prize #decapitation #tw bodily harm #tw body horror #|you lookin' for an uncle?| (uncle gumbald)

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mischiefmanagedrp-blog1 · 6 years

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James Potter

james potter. gryffindor. sixth year. quidditch captain. chaser. pureblood.

out of character info

Name/Alias: Samantha Pronouns: she/her Age: 25 Timezone: est Activity: 5-8 Triggers: no kiddie shit or stuff with animals >:( Password: always Character that you’re applying for: James Potter Faceclaim: Mikey Murphy Favourite ships for your character: Jily, but until that, James is free for the flirting and the smooching

in character info

Full name: James Potter Birthday: March 17th Sexuality, gender, pronouns: bisexual, heteroromantic, not that James knows what any of that is Age: 16

Wizarding World Info

House: Gryffindor Year: Sixth Wand: Mahogany, 11″, thunderbird tail feather Boggart: dead family and friends Patronus: Stag Quidditch Team: Captain & chaser Classes: transfiguration. charms. potions. history of magic. defence against the dark arts. herbology. muggle studies. arithmancy. Clubs: Potions Club, Dueling Club

Detailed Info

Appearance: James is a scruffy looking character, despite his wealth and his pureblood status. He’s spoiled by nature and nurture, so while his robes and other clothes come from fine designers who are eager to dress the Potter family, he often wears them not properly put together. His uniform tie is usually undone, his dress shirt untucked from his trousers. The lone Potter son has mastered the art of how to look like you don’t care, simply because he doesn’t. His hair is already uncontrollable, after all, no matter how much Sleekeazy his parents had used on his head as a child. So James matches that with his fashion sense, aiming to look effortlessly cool while putting in minimal effort.

It often works in his favour, though perhaps it’s less about his rough and tough (so he thinks) exterior and more the charming grin that’s often on his face. It reaches to his eyes, and James can nearly always be seen with a smile on his face. While his attitude is arrogant and pompous, many overlook it due to his carefree body language and charming smile.

Fashion sense and mannerism aside, James is fairly tall, just barely brushing past the six foot mark. He intends to keep growing, of course. He’s only sixteen, he’s got his whole life ahead of him. As well, James is slender, built well for his position as a seeker on the Gryffindor quidditch team. Because of practice, doing laps and other exercises to keep his arms, core and legs strong to stay on the broom, he’s a pretty fit lad. He’s not ripped, by any means. There’s not much sense when you’re not a beater, after all. But he’s toned, enough to admire himself in the mirrors when he’s feeling particularly full of himself. In such mirrors, James also likes to fluff up the unruly brown hair atop his head. It’s a mess of waves, and on occasion will fade lighter if his summers are spent on holidays or out in the sun.

Overall, James considers himself to be an attractive bloke. One of the better ones as far as he’s concerned. But, as Lily’s told him, taste is subjective. (And, she says, she has some, and James isn’t it.)

Personality: Arrogant, pompous, bullheaded. There are many a things about James Potter that could be negative. However, James likes to think of himself not as any of those things. Confident. Proud. Committed. Whatever negative thing about James you have to say, he has a way of turning it to see the positives, even if what you think may be negative. Where an outsider who doesn’t know James may think that he’s boisterous or spoiled, James will turn around and explain that he’s not those things. He’s... energetic. He’s privileged. A lot of this comes from his parents, both Fleamont “Monty” Potter and his wife, Euphemia (or Effie for short) spending all of his upbringing coddling him.

James was a welcomed surprise, after all. His well to due parents didn’t discipline him much, simply falling prey to the charm James had when he came from the womb. He’s bright eyed and full of life, after all. It’s hard to discipline a child who not only has been told he can do no wrong, but who he himself can’t see if he’s done wrong either.

This leads to complications, of course. James is completely and utterly hopeless when it comes to learning lessons. Detentions offer nothing to him, nor do they really for any of his friends.

Aside from his overall spoild brat-ness, James can be quite the sweetheart. He’s full of love, and is capable of giving it to almost everyone. A foulweather friend to strangers, James will appear when you’re down in the dumps and go to great lengths to cheer you up, especially if you’ve got a pretty face and a good laugh. While some don’t get this treatment(i.e. Severus, of course), most anyone can experience it.

As well, James is a bright young man, especially when he uses his energy to apply himself. He’s capable of being a great wizard, as evidenced by various pranks and duels that have landed him and his friends in trouble on many occasion. The problem, his professors say, is that he rarely uses that energy and passion on his school work.

While James is more than capable of showering those in love and affection, as he was as a child, he’s also a vicious boy. When you’ve wronged him, he’ll never forget it. It explains why his feud with Severus is destined to be lifelong. That, and he’s a bit of a jealous boy. He’s used to getting what he wants, and in the event of, for example, taking a person he wants close to him? Well, James won’t take too kindly and you’ll likely be the butt of much teasing, if not worse.

Very few people can successfully scold him. Both his mother and father are incapable of doing so, they see no wrong, only their perfect boy. Some who can? Remus Lupin, one of his closest friends who may as well be family. Lily Evans, the love of his life since he had first seen her firey red hair on the boats to the castle in first year. Another being Albus Dumbledore, who has never failed to make James truly think about his actions when he’s being reprimanded by the headmaster.

History: Born to Euphemia and Fleamont Potter, James is an only child, and a spoiled one at that. Due to conception at such an age, Euphemia and Fleamont both never had the energy nor care to spend James’ childhood disciplining him. He was a very welcomed, and very loved surprise and both his parents never felt the need to give him any negative parenting. As far as both Potters were concerned, James was an angel, albeit a fireball.

He amused them with his wild, childhood antics, and overall was a good child for the first eleven years of his life. His closest relationship was with his parents, respecting and adoring them above all else.

It wasn’t until Hogwarts when James started to develop into the arrogant young man he currently is. He enjoyed the attention that he got, and had little to no trouble quickly becoming popular amongst his peers. Attached at the hip with Sirius Black from day one, the two quickly became some of the favourite students at Hogwarts. Adding in Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew to their social circle only improved their social standing, along with the antics and pranks they started to pull.

Class clowns, they were called, and James fed off the approval and laughter. Ego growing more and more every day as the attention on him grew. As far as social ranking went, James climbed quickly with his friends, who were quickly called the Marauders.

As the years went on, James developed more into a young man that everyone wanted to be, be with, or befriend. A quidditch star, a student who challenged his professors and the authorties, who had no problem putting some of the naff students in their place. James had money, blood purity, a good family, an excellent group of friends. With good grades, a charming smile, and a personality that could get anyone (with the exception of a select few), it was no wonder.

In fifth year is when his ego reached its peak. He and his friends had finally become animagi (a stag, for himself), and his and his friends pull with the other students had him in an ongoing, showoffy feud with Severus Snape and several of the other Slytherins. He had little qualms in teasing, using Snapes own spells against him, humiliating the greasy little git.

As anything that comes to a peak, his ego has currently been on the downward. Between dragging Snape from the willow to make sure the gobshite didn’t kick the bucket, and Lily putting him in his place despite Snivellus calling her a mudblood, James’ personality has begun to mature. He intends to do better on his NEWTs than he had on his owls, and has made a pact to study a bit more, and fool around a bit less.

But with friends like Sirius, Remus and Peter, and the constant need to impress those around him, whose to say it’ll stay that way?

Sample paragraph: "She’ll say yes this year, mate. I’ll put a wager on it, even,” James grinned, fluffing up the bouquet of roses he held in his hands. He had a reservation at the tea shop in Hogsmede, like he had made every year since his first. On the table lay a large, heart shaped box of chocolates and a charmed card to sing a love ballad preformed by himself and Sirius. Every year, James offered flowers and chocolates to Lily Evans, asking her to accompany him on a date to town and to be his Valentine.

Every year, Lily said no.

But this year? This was going to be different. He could feel it. Lily had been less hostile the last few months, even so much as cracking a smile at a joke he had made in their charms class when they’d been partnered together last week. “She’s into me, mate. She’s just trying to play it cool.” James insisted, looking down the table in the great hall to see the girl chatting happily to Marlene.

“Good luck, you big twit,” Sirius said, a look of fondness on his face as he reached over to fluff James’ hair up. James stood after, gathering the chocolates and tables in hand before giving a playful bow. “Gentlemen, a lady awaits my proposal,” he nodded, tipping an invisible hat on his head and getting an eyeroll from Remus on the otherside of the table.

As he turned, he could hear the three of his mates placing various bets. Ten galleons if Lily kicked or hexed him, apparently.

Good to know they believed in him. But James would show them.

Other Information

Headcanons:

• James has been infatuated with Lily since the first time he saw her. • He’s got a lovely barn owl named Rapier • Loves muggle disco music Anything of importance: Nope

#james potter #submissiom #accepted

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otapleonehalf · 7 years

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Pripara, Self Image and Feminism

Intro:

Pripara is a kids’ idol anime based off an arcade game of the same name. The anime exists purely to advertise the game and sell related merchandise.

The premise of the anime is that, at some point, every little girl will find her first Priticket, a magical ticket that will allow her admittance to Prism Stone, a shop in the the fashionable district of Parajuku where you can transform into your own personalized idol persona. (You can change your hair color, height, basically anything.) Idols can then inhabit the virtual world of Prism Paradise (PriPara for short) to practice dancing, go to each others’ concerts, eat at cute cafes and, of course, pick out new outfits to wear on stage.

The following is a feminist analysis of the Love Tochiotome subplot from Episode 10 of the Pripara anime.

Summary and Analysis:

The premise of this episode is that our protagonists, Lala and Mirei, need to figure out what to wear for a competitive concert where the winners will become the models for the new fall line of lipsticks from a big cosmetic brand. The two need to win in order to convince their manager that they are worthy of teaming up with a more prestigious idol.

This episode, at its most basic, is about the ever pressing question of: What to wear? Pripara emphasizes the real life association between women and fashion by making a choice of clothing the catalyst for the episode’s resulting subplot and by extension, the series promotes stereotype that women are materialistic and shallow. The characters’ only preparation for this competitive concert is choosing their outfits which illustrates the idea that what a woman wears is the most important criteria of how others should judge her. This whole episode is about the importance of appearances.

During the two girls’ search for the perfect autumn themed outfit they meet Love Tochiotome.

Love Tochiotome is presumed to be of middle school age. She’s a revered tennis player and is about 6′3″. She has cropped hair and is much taller than her peers in addition to being notably more muscular, tanner and having a more masculine face.

Comparison between Love and her fellow tennis player, Eiko

Love has never been to PriPara, to the shock of her fellow female students. She has a Priticket but just hasn’t gone.

At this point it’s apparent that Love has a complex about her height and thinks she isn’t cute enough to become an idol (which in this universe is basically a right of passage for little girls).

Her friend Eiko asks Lala and Mirei to help convince Love to go to PriPara. With both verbal and physical persuasion, they succeed.

Social pressure clearly plays a large role in Love’s actions. Love wants to go to Pripara but has just never worked up the courage to go on her own. However, Lala and Mirei are not approaching the situation as friends to Love who want to see her have fun. They are instead acting as ambassadors from Pripara that can’t believe Love hasn’t been yet and now must correct this wrong. Lala and Mirei are also serving to further contrast Love from “normal” girls where Love is very unusual relative to other characters, not just in her character design but also in her nervousness towards becoming an idol.

Love is a part of a minority in not having an idol persona yet like everyone else. “Everyone else” being other young girls. Specifically, female social pressure is at play here, and just like in real life, females are key in policing the gender norms of other females to the point of being more effective at it than males. Love’s reluctance to approach Prism Stone makes it unclear if she really wants to become an idol or if she is just giving in to peer pressure.

Upon entering PriPara Love transforms into her idol persona and has trouble recognizing herself.

Her hair is lengthened, her skin becomes paler and her face becomes more feminine. Unlike her normal self, Love’s idol persona adheres much closer to modern Japanese beauty standards. Love is actually brought to tears over this transformation.

Love thought that due to her height she could not be considered cute, confirming that the image of “cute” within this series is a narrow one that excludes body diversity, specifically bodies that have stereotypical masculine/non-feminine traits. It’s also important to note that while Love and the other characters are focused on being “cute”, cute could easily be swapped out for the concepts of beautiful or attractive. Being cute in the context of this episode refers solely to how well one’s outward appearance adhere to the beauty standards of their society.

Love at no point says that she likes long hair or frilly dresses or being an idol. She only expresses an implied desire to be cute. But if the image of cuteness is to be petite and feminine like Lala, Mirei and Eiko then Love’s desire to be cute actually represents a desire to be similar to her peers. Love does not seek the acceptance of herself as she is. Instead she seeks the merit of being seen as the same as one of her cute peers. She wants to join the status quo rather than challenge it. Once in the idol world she blends in much better with the other girls than outside of Pripara where her height made her stand out to the point of comedy.

Lala assures her that Love’s surprise at her new appearance is unfounded because “Every girl can be cute!” Lala’s declaration implies two things. Firstly, that the concept of cuteness can be broadened to accommodate cases like Love. And second that cuteness is a change that Love had to actively choose and that this choice is theoretically available to everyone.

Lala has nothing to back up her statement of “Every girl can be cute!” If societal standards for cuteness are as flexible as Lala claims then there would be no reason for Love to have developed a complex over her appearance in the first place. Lala’s other insinuation that a desired appearance can be attained by will of choice is indeed true in the real world, but at a price. Clothes, hair extensions, make up, and other types of cosmetic treatments cost money, making them more accessible to those with more disposable income, and virtually non-accessible to those without, no matter that person’s will to choose beauty.

After transforming into her idol persona, Love confirms that she feels confident after seeing how cute she has become. The link between physical appearance and confidence both in Love’s case and in many real world cases comes from a sense of comfort in how you perceive yourself. It’s a safe assumption that Love’s confidence is from being able to see herself as living up to a beauty standard. While Love’s new found confidence is positive for her own self image and self worth it actually devalues her other talents as a tennis ace in favor of emphasizing physical beauty as more important. Love’s success in sports only serves as a pun for her name, where it is this moment of Love finding herself beautiful that is supposed to define her character.

Meganee-san, one of Pripara’s omnipresent clerks, says Love is “like a super model” in reference the combination of her tall height and new makeover.

The transformations into idol personas are based off how players of the Pripara arcade game can customize the look of their idol avatar but in the Pripara anime its not clear if they are based on the desires of the characters or the calculations of Meganee-san. However, if a character voices their desires then that character can determine any feature of their persona. It’s established that Mirei carefully constructed her persona to look and act nothing like her actual self.

So Love could have changed her height in the idol world and essentially erased the cause of her complex. But due to nervousness or just ignorance over how Pripara works she left the creation of her persona to Meganee-san.

Of course, Love’s idol persona was designed by the show’s creators and simply making Love’s persona shorter would have defeated the “moral” of the story. That moral being that Love’s height was a hidden strength all along, as confirmed by all the super model comparisons thrown her way. Love viewed her tall height as a masculine feature but thanks to standards within the real life fashion world where models must be tall in order to emphasize their thinness, Love’s height can now do the same for her. So this loop hole in the beauty standards Love is trying to meet, ended up working in her favor, that is, after her hair, skin and facial structure were changed to move Love closer within the image of cute rather than expand what cute can be to encompass Love.

As the group moves through PriPara Love is met with more attention and compliments from other idols and continues to be compared to a model. Lala and Mirei’s manager, Kuma, a pink flying teddy bear, comes to ask Lala and Mirei if they’ve decided on outfits for the upcoming concert yet but when Love catches his eye he ignores the others in favor of hitting on Love.

Kuma is a big-talking good-for-nothing manager who thinks of himself as a ladies man and spends most of his time in kid friendly version of a hostess bar in later seasons. Lala and company know this, and are not impressed by the pick up lines used on Love. Love, on the other hand, knows nothing about Kuma’s sleazy reputation and is so overwhelmed by the event of a tiny talking bear hitting on her that she serves Kuma what was coming to him.

Unfortunately, it’s established that this was out of a fit of excitement and not a retaliation to Kuma’s actions. It was not a defense of her personal space or safety but just an overreaction intended for comedic purposes. She apologizes to Kuma shortly after thus asserting that Kuma was not in the wrong for hitting on her and she was in the wrong for not taking his “compliment” in a manner that accommodated him.

Kuma is Love’s only interaction with a male entity in this episode. Kuma solely interacts with Love due to her appearance, reinforcing that Love was right to worry about how she looked. Love’s flattered response to Kuma’s pick up line also affirms the idea that attention is a reward received for being attractive and that this reward should be cherished. This is a dangerous mentality that contributes to the real life issue of street harassment.

Kuma also carries out the real life and problematic practice of perceiving women as inherently sexual objects even when there’s nothing signifying to do so. Most of the idol outfits in Pripara are based on the silhouettes of lolita fashion and as a result are fairly conservative and non-sexualizing. Love’s outfit certainly falls into this category, meaning that nothing about Love’s appearance sexually enticed Kuma into hitting on her, beyond Love simply being a girl meeting beauty standards. Kuma is operating under the assumption that he is socially expected to sexualize women even in non-sexual scenarios, and the resulting behavior is perfectly acceptable, when in fact its rather despicable. The point of this scene’s punchline is that Kuma is suppose to seem like a sleazeball so that the audience won’t sympathize with him when he gets Lovely Smashed into the ground but no one ever corrects his actions or tells him why that behavior was unacceptable. Kuma isn’t expected to not be sleazy, because of his character is that of a masculine caricature and so his character is illustrative of the real life issue of how men can be frequently held less responsible for their actions than women are.

This small scene between Love and Kuma is suppose to be funny but actually reinforces the types of dynamics between men and women that feminists are trying to combat.

Lala and Mirei show no concern for Kuma’s shocked condition and instead use his injury as inspiration for their concert outfits.

And this is where Love’s story ends. Lala and Mirei thank Love for the inspiration and go on to preform their concert. They win and go on to model the lipstick line.

Love never has a concert of her own and from here on out is a comic relief character. The characters that better embody cuteness are used to advertise the lipstick. This reflects real life where women considered average looking are rarely used to advertise makeup, fashion or other similar products to other women, because such advertisements carry a message that women should aspire to look like the idealized women featured in the commercial rather than be satisfied with or confident in how they actually look.

Other deviants from Pripara’s image of cute like Love are also slotted into comic relief side roles. One of the more notable being Chanko, a heavyset member of an idol fan club who’s whole character is sumo themed. As comic relief charcters, we are meant to laugh at characters like Love and Chanko, not identify with them.

Even though Love managed to enter Pripara and become cute despite her height, she is ultimately dismissed by the show.

Love’s conflict might seem compelling or relatable at first since she wants to change and be more confident, but her anxiety over appearances shouldn’t be solved with a makeover. This episode of the Pripara anime misses the big picture when it comes to dealing with beauty standards. The solution to Love’s anxiety is not figuring out how to “fix” Love’s looks but instead to stop emphasizing the importance of beauty standards entirely.

Love has good reason to be concerned about how other’s judge her based on appearance. Real life studies have found that woman perceived as less attractive are also perceived as less professional and less trustworthy. Leaving women who don’t wear make-up or use other products to adhere to beauty standards at a disadvantage in the workplace which can lead to a financial disadvantage in life.

The answer is not to have makeovers become more accessible to every woman but instead dismantle society’s emphasis on beauty being an inherent part of femininity and the ultimate goal for a woman’s existence. Women should be valued for their ideas, talents, and accomplishments, not their appearances. When Love’s appearance is what other characters notice about her, it makes the audience think that must be what is important about her.

I wish this episode celebrated Love’s differences. Instead of “Any girl can change.” I wish they told Love: You don’t have to change. You can have confidence even if your tall AND have tan skin AND have broad shoulders. Love’s hidden strength could have been that her athleticism from playing tennis gave her stamina for preforming on stage or that her height gave her a commanding presence over an audience but instead Love’s achievement was that she looked like a model, a walking manikin that serves only to advertise an outfit, and in Love’s case, a virtual outfit that you can unlock in the arcade game.

#pripara #anime #feminism

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kin-chan-fanfic-blog · 8 years

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BTS and Monsta X ship~

Hi! I just found your blog and I’m in love <3

May I have written ships A and B with BTS and Monsta X please? I’m very polite & quiet at first. I’m good at getting to know people, but rarely let them know the real me. I have depression & anxiety so I tend to isolate myself sometimes. It takes a long time for me to get close. I’m studying to be a travel nurse. I love traveling and want to go all over the world with my spouse. I love helping people & making them laugh. I make a lot of puns. I’m very loyal, quirky, & flirty at times. I’m happiest when surrounded by books & my dogs/family. I love learning new languages, photography, baking, hiking, watching dramas/musicals, & writing. I love skinship/cheesy romance, but hate PDA. Thank you!

Hi sweetie~ of course! Here we go…

BTS: Written ship type B: Jin!

Jin would sense your tendency to isolate yourself and, following his nurturing nature, he would try to get to know you. It would take sometime to you to open up to him, but, as soon as you feel like you can trust him, he would be delighted. Once he got to see your cute side, he would fall harder for you. You would be everything he was looking for in a partner: loyal, cute, nice personality, quirky and good wife material. He would respect your wish not to display affection in public, since he is not himself so comfort with it either, but he would treat you like his princess whenever you are around him. You would be so cute together :)

BTS; Written ship type A: Jin- asking you out…

He was quite shy to see you walking down on the station. You two took always the same line to get to work. You first met each other in the same spot. You waved at him and he waved to you back. He was wondering why did your smile was always a bit forced…and you seemed not to enjoy his company because you maintained a certain distance from him…well…this made him rethink if he should ask you or not, but, as he kept wondering, he told himself to just ask you instead of formulating a new theory and start all over again…

-(Y/n)…wasn’t it?

-You remembered me!- you laughed a little.

-Of course! It’s not everyday that we see a person looking for a pet…how is the little puppy by the way?- he smiled at you…

-He is very well! Thank you so much for the other day!

-You finally gave me a genuine smile…-he was very happy.

-What are you talking about?- you looked a bit down again- Do I seem sad to you?

-That’s not it…you are very polite to everyone, but when you are talking about your family or your dogs, your eyes become very sparkly…you look very cute…-he blushed realizing the words he just said…

-Thank you…-your face became red- you are a very gentle person, aren’t you, Jin? No wonder you are adored…your girlfriend must be a very happy one…

-Girlfriend?- he laughed- No, I don’t have one…but I do have someone in my mind…she is so pretty, cute, caring, gentle, generous…I just wanted her to realize all that…

-Really? She is a fortunate girl then…- you stared the floor. Due to some technical problems, the line you were taking was shut down….everyone was trying to pick another, but you stood there, sighing. Jin approached you…

-(Y/n)…would you like to go somewhere else?

-Hm?

-Well…-his face was blushing hard…- would you like to go out with me until the next train arrive?- he was dying inside…he could believe he could actually say it!

-Sure…-you didn’t really know how to respond to it…

-Yes!- he celebrated in a silly way, making you smile.

Monsta X: Written ship type B: Minhyuk!

Minhyuk would be delighted when he saw you for the first time. He is attracted to persons that have a different personality and you would definitely fall in this group. He would try to get to know you more, cheering you up whenever you were feeling down. It would take some time to you let your guard down, since he is always so lively and playful, but, once down, he would conquer you entirely. He would assure you that you had nothing to be insecure about…he was by his side. In the other hand, you would be the caring and loving essence that he needed to look after him as he always trying to make others feel better. There would be times in which you fight with him, once he is the kind of person that might display some affection in public, however, he would do it just to see your reaction from time to time, ignoring all your nagging. You would be a perfect fit for him… :)

Monsta X: Written ship type A: Minhyuk- first date….

You two walked down the street. He was so happy that you said you would go out with him! He, by impulse, held your hand and pulled you into the aquarium. You could see the excitement from his face staring at the fish and other animals. It was a very cute sight. It was funny to see his reaction right after: he tried to hide the fact that he was acting all cute, changing to a more serious expression. You laughed…

-Why you are laughing?

-You are so cute…-you couldn’t help yourself…

-I’m not cute!- he said with a serious tone…

-Alright….alright-you tried to hold your laugh- you are very sexy, Minhyuk…

-Really?- his face blushed…

-Yes…

-Hey! Look!- he pointed out the dolphins- Wow! Look how they move! Aren’t they amazing?!

-Yes they are…-you were quite impressed too…until they got closer to your side and spread water into your clothes. Both of you became soaked. Minhyuk laughed off, nut you got very shy, since you had a very light blouse that, when became soaked, could show your underwear…you quickly left to the restroom to try to dry it a little. He was curious about it…the first thought that came to him was that you weren’t enjoying as much as he bet you would. He chased after you, seeing you entering in the ladies’ restroom. He stopped right there…

-(Y/n)? Are you alright?

-I am…I just need some time…

-Are you annoyed?

-Of course not! I’m enjoying it very much!- you shout it as you tried to find ways of drying yourself…gosh! Why it had to be so hard to find something!- Minhyuk?

-Yes?

-Could you do a favor for me?

He found it strange: you were not the type to ask him anything…

-What is it?

-Could you buy me a coat? Can be the one that they sell in the enter of the aquarium…

-Sure…what size?

You told him your size. You were hesitant…you were not comfortable telling a man that type of thing. He bought it pretty quickly and came back.

-(Y/n)? Are you still there?

-Yes…-you checked the restroom…you were alone…-Come on in…

-What?-he was surprized with your statement…

-Just come on in!- you grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the restroom. He was shocked with the sudden action coming from you and...he finally realized that your bra was visible...he blushed as he gave you the coat to wear...

-Thank you very much- you smiled to him.

-How about you pay your debt with one more date- he came closer as he teased you...

-It’s my pleasure- you smirked...

Special “Seis Flores” ship:

Walter Hensel

Status: A noble

Personality: Talkative, easygoing, polite and romantic.

Walter Hensel is an international relations' student at the capital. He had his family back in the country side, so he had liberty to do what he wanted to. When the revolution came, he had to choose who was going to live and who was to die. He had just one chance to save either his brother or his sister...

Sorry for tooking so long to respond…I had some problems I had to deal with…thank you for reading :) I hope you liked it :) Feel free to request me anytime :)

PS: Since there wasn’t a response whether you liked it or not the special shipping, I will just put a simple ship...thank you for understanding :)

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