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tumblingclockwork · 3 years ago

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HI LEAF IVE BEEN HYPERFIXATING ON MC STORY MODE AND ON STAMPYCAT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT STAMPYCAT BEING THE WHITE PUMPKIN IT SOUNDS SO COOL

HELLO HI YES I AM MORE THAN WILLING TO EXPLAIN

Before I start I wanna give a huge shout out to @mephones-declining-mental-health who was actually the first to point a lot of this out. We spent a lot of time putting this all together and she deserves a ton of credit for it. So go check them out.

ok so mcsm is an old game so quick refresher on episode 6: Jesse and his gang end up in another world and are put into a murder-mystery type situation. They’re trapped in the mansion due to zombies and have to survive until the day while the person who invited them all to the mansion (who goes by “The White Pumpkin”) kills them off one-by-one in order to obtain the Enchanted Flint And Steel. Which Jesse is also trying to get. Minus the main cast, everyone in this murder mystery is based off and voiced by famous minecraft YouTubers from the time. This was a pretty genius move on TellTale’s part because it meant the players were already going in with a certain level of attachment to these characters, allowing the game to kill them off in a way that would be emotionally impactful without effecting the plot of the overall story that much.

The people you meet in the mansion are the following youtubers: CaptainSparklez, TorqueDawg, StampyCat, TheDiamondMinecart, LDShadowLady, StacyPlays, and CassieRose

Multiple of these YouTubers are killed off (though some can be either saved or killed depending on your choices) and [spoiler warning] Cassie Rose is revealed to be the white pumpkin at the end. Her motivation being that she’s stuck away from her home world for and desperate to get back.

Now here’s the thing: that doesn’t make Any sense.

Cassie doesn’t have a single line or any piece of evidence that would necessarily point to her being the white pumpkin. The only real evidence that points to her feels so last minute and forced. And just completely disregards any other scene in which you were collecting evidence.

This would be less frustrating if there weren’t multiple other people that had far more evidence against them. But the one who has the most undeniable evidence against them? StampyCat.

Now I don’t know if they changed the story halfway through development or if the writers at TellTale are just bad at their jobs (equally likely but there is some evidence to suggest Cassie was not always the intended White Pumpkin) but Stampy has the most evidence, best motive, and would have just been a very interesting villain entirely.

Let’s go over everything.

So for starters. The first murder.

Spoiler alert! But the first murder is TorqueDawg. He stands under a dispenser that shoots him with a poison tipped arrow and he dies.

Now, tipped arrows were a relatively new thing at the time, and the game makes a point out of this. A lot of the characters in the mansion Don’t Know what a tipped arrow is. But a few do.

After the second murder (which we’ll address in a moment) you have the ability to interrogate three of the characters. LDShadowLady, TheDiamondMinecart, and StampyCat

Lizzie (LDShadowLady) is fully aware of the tipped arrows. Both Dan (TheDiamondMinecart) and Stampy point this out. When you ask her about it, she says she does know how to make them and taught others about it.

One of the people she talked about the tip arrows to is Cassie, aka the white pumpkin. So story-wise it does make sense. But Lizzie also states that Stampy had asked her about the tipped arrows, and specifically how to make them. So we know he has full knowledge of them.

But what does Stampy say when you ask him about the tipped arrows?

“I’ve never seen anything like it before”

This is Never addressed. Not once. Stampy blatantly lies about knowledge of a murder weapon when he seemingly has no reason to do so and he gets away with it.

So Stampy 1. Has the ability to create the weapon used for the murder and 2. Felt the need to hide this ability.

So that’s pretty suspicious right off the bat.

Now these interviews are caused by the second murder. So let’s talk about that.

Second murder: CaptainSparklez is pushed into a sand pit and suffocated by a very elaborate redstone trap. The trap is activated by one of the buttons on the table that they’re all sitting at.

Each of the buttons activates the trap, but only one of them was actually pressed. The connection we’re supposed to make here is that the White Pumpkin set up multiple buttons to keep suspicion off of themself.

The people sitting at the buttons were StampyCat, TheDiamondMinecart, LDShadowLady and Jesse’s friend Lucas.

Now you’ll notice that CassieRose, the actual White Pumpkin, is not on this list.

TheDiamondMinecart (Dan) is the one who presses the button. Dan is supposed to be a Red Herring here as he didn’t know what the button would do and pressed it anyway (though he’s a bad red herring. And we’ll discuss that in a moment). Even with the knowledge that it wasn’t the white pumpkin who pressed it, it doesn’t make any sense for her to have not been sitting at a seat with a button. And this is never really addressed either. Making this scene a complete waste of time, unless of course the original white pumpkin was intended to be one of those 4 people.

The interviews give us a lot of knowledge about the interpersonal relationships of the characters and what their skill levels are. Such as what I discussed earlier about the tipped arrows. But one thing that stays consistent is Jesse’s insistence that whoever the white pumpkin is, they must be good at redstone.

And he’s right. Every trap set by the white pumpkin at this point was redstone activated. Whoever made it must have been very skilled with it. And out of all the suspects there’s only one who has that level of ability. Stampy.

Both Dan and Lizzie make a point of saying that Stampy is a master of redstone and his skill is unmatched. But when Stampy is asked about this, his first instinct is to lie about it. When you catch him in this lie, he immediately back-tracks.

So Stampy

Has knowledge on how to build the first murder weapon (which wasn’t knowledge everyone had at the time)

Completely lies about this knowledge and is never called out for it

Was sitting at one of the buttons that caused the second murder

Is the only one with the redstone knowledge capable of creating the white pumpkins traps.

Lies about his redstone ability

So there you go! That’s a ton of evidence against him! And pretty much no evidence against Cassie other than the fact that she also knew about tipped arrows at the time.

In fact the dinner scene confirms Cassie can’t be a suspect unless we’re supposed to believe she just hoped someone else would do the job for her. Which considering she’s later characterized to be super paranoid and unwilling to leave things to chance, I doubt it.

While looking through secret tunnels you manage to find a secret conversation between Dan and Lizzie where Dan admits that he was the one who pushed the button on accident and that he feels super guilty about it. Jessie spots the white pumpkin looking through a painting at this moment. And considering he’s also seeing Dan and Lizzie, and he knows where Lucas is, out of all the people sitting near buttons, Stampy is the only one left. If the White Pumpkin was someone who was sitting at one of the buttons (which it should have been) it would have had to be Stampy

Now I do think having Dan push the button is realistic and fine. It’s a button. Everyone likes pushing buttons. But the fact that the white pumpkin would Bet On That Happening and not sit near a button at all feels like it couldn’t possibly be right, especially because everything else is so thought through and calculated. It feels out of character for Cassie to do. Cassie being the white pumpkin also means those interview scenes were an entire waste of time. They gave us no real information that could be used in the case and crossed off the real murderer as a possible suspect.

If *Stampy* was the murderer however, this would have made a lot more sense. As the interviews would have given us a lot of info about him and against him. Plus his relationship to the others. Even if Dan turned out to be the one who pressed the button, we still would have gotten that important info on Stampy. Not to mention that Dan just so happening to press the button before the White Pumpkin got a chance is a lot more believable than the White Pumpkin betting on that.

Now the way the story actually goes is that Stampy is revealed to have the enchanted flint and steel (even though before he claimed to not even want it) and as I’ve said, Cassie is revealed to be the white pumpkin.

We learn she’s the white pumpkin because she’s the only one who didn’t have a portrait of herself with a red X over it, which is a sign someone had died. Meaning she was never intended to die at all.

Now because the writing team didn’t put any actual evidence of her being guilty before this, they slip in a Not At All Subtle clue that she’s the white pumpkin.

The white pumpkin’s hide out is Filled with calico cats. The same cats as Winslow (the cat that Cassie had kept with her). And while this is obviously supposed to tell us it’s her, it doesn’t really make much sense as a clue. Considering Winslow is just one cat. A bunch of cats that look like him is sort of out-of-nowhere. She’s had no real evidence against her other than the final connection, meanwhile all signs seem to point to Stampy.

This doesn’t necessarily mean anything but I do think it’s worth mentioning that there is one character who Does have a ton of animals like the ones we see in the white pumpkin’s room. And that’s Stampy. He has a ton of dogs that could have easily taken the place of the cats. But anyway.

This last second Right At The End clue seems to almost indicate that there was some change in writing half way through the process. Before Stampy is revealed to have the flint and steel (which is something that any character could have confessed to and the story would be pretty much the same), the story makes a lot more sense with the idea that Stampy was originally intended to be the white pumpkin. We can also gather that it seems they intended the white pumpkin to be a man, as the protagonists refer to the white pumpkin by he/him pronouns and that assumption is never addressed when they learn the white pumpkin is a girl.

Either that or the writers are just. bad. Which is also very likely.

That’s all the evidence I have. So let’s talk about how story-wise it would have been so much more interesting to make Stampy the white pumpkin.

Cassie is great. But she didn’t get a lot of actual screen time in game until her villain reveal because she really never had any evidence against her. Stampy however got a lot of screen time and was generally the fan favorite when it came to the youtubers that were in episode 6. He was one of the most beloved youtubers at the time and the writers took that into account.

Whenever Stampy was accused of something, he’d play the innocent card. He’d say things like “it’s me! Stampy! I’m everyone’s friend!” In an attempt to get sympathy. Instead of defending himself, he played at the emotions of the people around him. He was played as the sweet innocent character who wouldn’t do anything wrong. I think this would have made him a Great twist villain. It would have made a lot more sense for the end scene as well, as the other youtubers defend Cassie, saying she would “never do something like that”. Which never really made sense considering they all knew one of them must have done it, and none of them had any real connection to her. Defending Stampy or being shocked would have made a lot more sense regarding the relationships of the characters.

His villain reveal would have been so much more surprising as well, as Cassie’s tone quickly shifts to much more malicious once she admits to being the White Pumpkin. And while I do believe shes a very good actor, I do believe the scene would have had an extra punch if the lines were delivered by someone who was previously set up to be the trustworthy friend who wouldn’t hurt a fly

But it’s Cassie’s motive specifically that I think would have fit So Well if Stampy had taken her place.

Cassie wants the flint and steel so that she can return to her home dimension. She’a been stuck here for a very long time and is willing to do anything to get back home. Specifically saying that she needs to get out of this “stupid world”.

Now this will only really make sense for those who are familiar with StampyCat outside of mcsm. But I’ll do my best to explain.

Stampy, as a YouTuber, was known for his “lovely world”. The minecraft world that he loved and cared about a lot. If the plot line was that Stampy specifically was separated from his lovely world, it would have been a great motive that he was desperate to get back it it.

So uh. Yeah! I think that’s all I got. I’m sure me and Worm aren’t the only people who have come to this conclusion but I’m just here to put it all into writing. I’m not sure if this was all a last minute change or sloppy writing but either way I think it’s interesting!

#minecraft story mode #mcsm #minecraft story mode episode 6 #a portal to mystery mcsm #Stampy cat #long post #wooo boy I am a Nerd haha #sorry for the rant there was just a lot to go over-#I typically don’t go off on tangents like this on this blog but hey. you asked and I provided.#anyway I’m so sorry to my followers for the long post about the cringe minecraft game lmao

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rhetorical-ink · 4 years ago

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Haikyuu!! Ship Analysis: OiHina

**SUNSHINE SETTER SPOILERS BELOW**

With all the negative in the world, Furudate really said, “screw you, 2020, I’m giving everyone some good food” with Haikyuu!! coming into this year, and with the manga concluded, I want to go back and examine some popular ships and why we love them/why they work.

The 2020-2021 Haikyuu!! calendar just dropped and I was pretty excited to see the month of August highlighted with this image:

So, this calendar image, followed by the cover of the Haikyuu!! Light Novel, volume 12, has really screamed, “Oihina rights!” to many fans, myself included. But...why has this ship grown in popularity? What has Furudate given us fans to fuel the flames for this pairing? Well, let’s find out, with this analysis!

Part I. Setting Up A Rivalry...

So, it’s been established early on that Oikawa views Kageyama as a threat, and has been constantly working to make sure he stays superior to his rival setter. But from Chapter 14, there was the faintest inklings of rivalry established between Oikawa and Hinata -- starting with this famous scene from Chapter 14, “Versus the Great King”:

Despite Oikawa looking frustrated they lost the game, this is his reaction immediately following the moment in Chapter 15. He seems to get over his initial shock, as it’s replaced with some...other...emotion, it seems:

And later, we can see the foundation of the dynamic Oikawa establishes with both Hinata and Kageyama. Notice how in this scene he offers Hinata polite praise for his winning move, while immediately challenging Kageyama, who clearly did not sign up for this barrage of taunts.

It’s interesting, because it kind of sets Oikawa up as a rival for Kageyama...just like Hinata. We’ll talk more about Hinata and Oikawa’s similarities below, but I love how this weird “Rival Triangle” has formed between these three and carries on into both matches of Karasuno vs. Aoba Johsai later on.

PART II. Oikawa’s Not-So Subtle Focus on Hinata:

While there are hints in the practice match that Oikawa recognizes Shoyo could be a threat, we don’t see Oikawa really focusing on Hinata until later, when Aoba Johsai shows up to watch Karasuno’s game before they play them in Chapter 39, “The Return.” I like how Oikawa is not at ALL impressed with Asahi,

But seconds later, is all-hungry-eyes on Hinata’s “god-mode” set:

And then there’s Chapter 48, “The Conductor.” I love this chapter. I saw this image on Twitter, and I about fell out of my seat laughing:

Seriously. Think about it. Oikawa sat like that for over an HOUR, listening to Hinata screaming “Bring it” and “Give it.” No, no, we’re fine over here...

Of course, we see how Oikawa views Hinata as a threat during their first match up against them in the Inter High Prelim Qualifier match in Chapters 61-63:

His reference to Shoyo as a “Monster” is consistently brought up in the series, and then, waaaay later on in Chapter 189 at the end of the Shiratorizawa match, acknowledges how Hinata is indeed the type of hitter you WANT to throw the ball to, foreshadowing Inarizaki and Atsumu Miya literally 100 chapters early:

PART III. “We’re Not So Different, You and I”

So, this leads us to the dreaded Chapter 365 and onward into the now-infamous “Rio Mini Arc.” I’ve noted it in a previous post, but during Takeda’s lecture to Shoyo in Chapter 365, and then later on in chapter 368-369, any time the words “defeat” or “hurdle” are thrown up, there’s an image of Oikawa beside them. In this moment, we are to meant as readers to liken Hinata’s hurdles and obstacles with those that plagued our main antagonist, Oikawa, all those chapters ago. You may be wondering why Furudate would set such a thing up...well, in Chapter 371, we get this reveal:

Ah, yes, of all places and of all people -- Shoyo wasn’t the only one crazy enough to trek across the ocean to South America to improve his game. Oikawa did too, only going to Argentina instead of Brazil. Yes, as Kindaichi and Kunimi kindly observe, Shoyo and Oikawa may have more in common that we the readers gave credit to, originally, as we see in the precursor to the best damn selfie in the whole series and possibly manga history:

But it’s below that’s kind of the crux of this whole OiHina ship for me -- It’s not just that Oikawa and Shoyo are so alike...it’s that Oikawa and Kageyama are so alike, too:

Oikawa, whether he wants to admit it or not, has a lot in common with our blueberry setter...the difference, as we can see in these panels, is that unlike Kageyama, Oikawa is GREAT with communication. His ability to communicate with his team and connect with them is his hallmark as a player, right?

Take for example, this situation below. If it’d been Kageyama, he’d probably fluster around, call Hinata “boke” and they’d bicker and carry on -- Oikawa, though, rightfully takes the compliment and runs with it, even adding in that flirty little tag there at the end. You’re not helping matters, Furudate...

Back to similarities with Hinata, though, and showing just how much Hinata has GROWN to Oikawa, we have this conversation below. Oikawa started out this manga literally calling Shoyo and Tsukishima “dumb.” Now, 300+ chapters later, he’s acknowledged that Hinata is “thinking” ahead...doing very much the same kind of crazy tricks to improve himself that Oikawa has chosen as well.

Also, good to know that Hinata initiated wanting to get Oikawa’s contact info; plus, Oikawa having to deal with his own teammates just giving him a hard time 24/7, when Shoyo’s offering open praise? No wonder he latched on...

But seriously, go read Chapters 373 and 374 in their fullest -- there are TOO many amazing moments between Shoyo and Oikawa to count, but they all show this forming friendship that I’m just in love with, like this one from 373:

And while I LOVE the moment Oikawa calls our ray of sunshine straight-up “Shoyo” and shakes his hand, acknowledging their friendship and respect for each other, I really love this final shot of Oikawa before we see him at the Olympics. That panel of him walking away, reminding Shoyo that he has a looooong way to go, but showing his sudden motivation to get even better:

Seriously, in the anime, I have a feeling that one episode is going to end with the ending of Chapter 371, and then they’ll probably just have one episode encapsulate Chapters 372 - 374, which I will be sad if it’s one episode in the anime...but MAN, I’m going to be watching that episode on repeat for a while, just to see these chapters re-imagined in animation.

PART IV. To The Olympics...and BEYOND!

The final chapter of Haikyuu!! graced us with the reunion of our ray of sunshine and our sassy trash king setter, and let’s be real -- we all need this animated...and to have Atsumu and Kageyama’s reactions on display in this moment, just for the fun of it.

And ya’ll wonder why there’s so many Rio/Brazil Fling fics out there?!

I think, besides this hug, what cements this ship after this last chapter is the following:

* Even if it’s just a platonic friendship, it’s still one of the most fun and freshly developed friendships in the series, and makes sense going back from start to finish in the manga.

* Even if it’s just a fling, it’s flirty, fun, and could be the stepping stone for shippers that want to spice up their Iwaoi/Kagehina drama/angsty fics by adding in a little “fling” for Oikawa and/or Hinata to go through before reconnecting with their soulmates, if that’s your ship.

* And even if you want to view it as something more than platonic friendship or stepping stones into other ships, it still works. I mean, after all, Hinata went to play for Brazil after the Olympics. And Brazil’s a stone’s throw away from Argentina...so...who knows what could have ended up happening, right?

Furudate definitely doesn’t confirm many ships (with the exception of Tanaka and Kiyoko), but he definitely lays out some crumbs for us the fandom to nibble on and speculate with endlessly. OiHina may not be my OTP for Hinata, but I will never deny that it’s fun, spicy, and presents a VERY nuanced way to view the relationship between one of my favorite manga protagonist and antagonist pairings. Furudate, you are a genius. Thank you for the food!

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sage-nebula · 4 years ago

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the pokemon company be like *thinly-veiled misogyny*

To be honest, the sexism isn’t even really thinly-veiled if you think about it. Like off the top of my head:

— Professor Juniper was our first female professor, and it took until Gen V to get her. But whereas all the other professors got to stand on their own without needing anyone else, Professor Juniper had to have her father come in to provide answers to various plot occurrences that she didn’t know. IIRC, she also inherited her practice from him, which was also something that the male professors before and after didn’t have to contend with. It’s a miracle that this was averted with Professors Magnolia and Sonia in Gen VIII, both of whom are women.

— Speaking of female professors being screwed over, in Gen VII we’re introduced to Professor Burnet, whose practice specifically focuses on ultra wormholes and disturbances in space-time (which makes sense since she was previously working on the Dream Radar). Given how much of the plot concerns ultra wormholes, you would think that she would be the main professor of the story, or at least play a big part. But you’re wrong! Instead she’s only in one mandatory scene, and then is basically never heard from again. Meanwhile, Kukui shows up all the goddamn time even though his goal (to create a League) is literally meaningless in the scope of the overall plot. (And even that could have been cool if it had delved into the socio-political ramifications of what overthrowing Alola’s current system of government for another one would mean, but now is not the time to get into the failings of Gen VII’s plot. I’ve gone through that enough times.)

— Back to Gen V for a second, we’re also given two rivals in the first of the Unova games: Bianca and Cheren. While Cheren, the male rival, is taken seriously and has it talked up over and over how great of a battler he is, Bianca has her Munna stolen from her halfway through the story and spends the rest of the game talking down on herself and ultimately deciding that her father was right and she really is not cut out to be a Pokémon Trainer. Keep in mind that Bianca was the first mandatory female rival in the games, because while May could be a rival in Gen III if you played as Brendan, if you chose to play as her, both rivals (Brendan and Wally) were male. So on that note, our rivals so far look like:

Gen I: Blue Oak (male)

Gen II: Silver (male)

Gen III: Wally (male), optional May (female), optional Brendan (male)

Gen IV: Barry (male)

Gen V: Cheren (male), Bianca (female), Hugh (male)

Gen VI: Shauna (female), Tierno (male), Trevor (male), optional Serena (female), optional Calem (male)

Gen VII: Hau (male), Gladion (male)

Gen: Hop (male), Bede (male), Marnie (female)

So, let’s see. We only have two mandatory female rivals (Bianca and Marnie), as well as two optional female rivals (May and Serena). Meanwhile, we have twelve mandatory male rivals, as well as two optional male rivals (Brendan and Calem). To cap this off, while the mandatory male rivals (outside of the useless Kalos ones) are always treated as strong, competent battlers who have important roles in the story, our two mandatory female rivals, well . . .

Bianca: See above

Marnie: Gets battled a whole grand total of two times and has basically zero impact on the plot despite the fact that her brother is the only Gym Leader who didn’t give into Rose’s vision for how Galar should operate and use Dynamax evolution

And even when it comes to the optional ones, since Brendan is treated as the default MC by TPCi, that means May is the one who gives up training to go be a professor like her dad. (Which is the exact thing they basically did to Bianca in Gen V, except she studies under Juniper instead.) Serena at least keeps battling if she’s the rival, but jeez.

So to say there’s definite gender inequality where the rivals are concerned is a bit of an understatement.

— Moving away from the rivals, let’s talk about villains! We didn’t get a female villain until Gen VII with Lusamine, and even then she wasn’t allowed to stay a villain because I guess Game Freak doesn’t want to accept the fact that women can be evil, too. Moreover, all of Lusamine’s achievements come from the men in her life, and all of her motivations revolve around her husband. To spell it out:

- She inherited the Aether Foundation from her grandfather / father, without having founded it herself like we’re at first led to believe.

- Her husband Mohn was the one who discovered how the ultra wormholes work, not her. IIRC, he was also the primary researcher behind Type: Null’s creation.

- The reason why she does what she does is because she’s looking for her missing husband Mohn, with an added dash of “women just go crazy (and abuse their children) without their husbands!!1!!!” thrown in for flavor.

Compare this to Giovanni, Maxie, Archie, Cyrus, Ghetsis, Colress, Lysandre, and now Chairman Rose, all of whom formed their own organizations (Giovanni inheriting his from his mother is anime only and does not pertain to the games at all) and had their own goals and desires, versus relying on someone else for those goals and desires. And as if Lusamine not being allowed to form her own organization and have her own goals for her own sake wasn’t bad enough, they then had to go and make it even worse in USUM by turning her into a damsel in distress in the Rainbow Rocket plot, depicting her as not only less capable as the male villains, but also less capable than her male subordinate. Gag me.

— On that note, Oleana is sorely underappreciated by basically everyone except the Twilight Wings writers considering she’s the only reason anything Rose did got done, yet got none of the credit for herself. Damn shame.

— Stepping away from the games for a moment, Generations was a hot mess in terms of sexism. First of all, they only ever used the male MCs, pretending that the female ones didn’t exist at all, even in cases where the female MCs are vastly more popular (e.g. May, Dawn, Hilda). Second, most of the episodes focused on male characters from the series, and the ones that didn’t were either there so they could disrespect the best character in the series by not giving her the episode she deserved (Zinnia), or were told from the point of view of a male character despite that it was supposed to be a female character’s story (Emma). And lastly, there was whatever the fuck that mess with Cheryl was. It was animated in a way that made it look like an anime not suitable for anyone under the age of eighteen. Like honestly, what the hell.

— Leaf has been consistently and constantly disrespected all over the franchise. Despite there allegedly being four trainers who left from Pallet Town (counting Ash) in the anime, Leaf has never been seen or mentioned even once throughout the two decades that anime has been running. They had an opportunity to show her in at least a cameo form in the 20th anniversary movie, but they chose not to do that either, adding yet another disappointment from that movie to the list. She had no appearances in Origins, no appearances in Generations, they didn’t do what they should have done in HGSS by making her the rival atop Mt Silver if you chose to play as Lyra, she wasn’t a skin for Pokémon Trainer in Super Smash Bros. until Ultimate, I’m pretty sure they never made an Amiibo for her either, they replaced her with her Special counterpart in LGPE and her characterization absolutely bonkers to boot, and back to Masters, SS Leaf doesn’t have the Main Character designation for the theme skills that SS Red has, and is also routinely left out of any story bits that feature Red or Blue. It’s a miracle she was even included in the Battling Legends event or whatever it was. As far as TPCi seems to be considered, Kanto only has one main character and that’s Red.

— Oh and speaking of Iris, they gave her the Gym Leader theme designation instead of the Champion designation, instead choosing to act like Alder is Unova’s only Champion when he, no offense, didn’t really fucking do anything in Gen V. :’) We hate to see it.

— In the current run of the anime, the two boys (Ash and Gou) have gotten to go around and have adventures for ~50 episodes while the girl (Koharu) has had to stay home and go to school. You can argue, “She wanted that!” all you want, but you have to remember that she only wants what the writers tell her to want, and the writers said the boys get to have adventures while the girls stay home. She finally has an Eevee and will presumably go on adventures now, but we’ll have to wait and see. And don’t get me wrong, I like Journeys and I love Gou as a character, but it is absolutely a Choice to not have a female lead present in the adventures at all and it’s one that the writers deliberately made for whatever reason.

— On that note, let’s look at Ash’s female companions, shall we?

Misty: A Gym Leader who has a vague goal (water pokémon master) and is largely out of focus during her run as a primary companion. She had no rivals or in-series (as in, concrete ones she could accomplish before leaving the main cast) goals of her own.

May: A coordinator. Does have rivals and has a story, which is nice, but battling isn’t her focus.

Dawn: Another coordinator. Even more focus than May (she was written as a deuteragonist), but also not primarily focused on battling.

Iris: A battler (her Gym Leader / Champion Status is written out) who actually does get decent focus and a cool arc surrounding her connection to dragons.

Serena: A performer, which is a girls-only career path that doesn’t have battling in it at all, unlike contests. Does have a goal, but much of her character is written around her crush for Ash and at the end of the series she says that he is her goal.

Lillie, Lana, Mallow: Honestly I didn’t watch enough of SM to have an opinion on how these three were handled outside of hating how Lusamine didn’t get to be a villain in the anime either.

Koharu: See above, she’s only just now getting to be involved with things.

Now, don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with being a coordinator (and we do see male coordinators too, such as Drew and Harley), and I think that both May and Dawn are wonderful characters. But it does make me feel some kind of way that the female characters were often given the “girly” sidequest while the male main character got to go for the Gym badges, especially since AG and DP went on for a good chunk of years. None of the ladies so far have been treated as badly as Serena was (that performer stuff is just nasty, I’m not sorry), but again, it’s a deliberate choice and something to think about, especially since I feel the only reason they didn’t go that route with Iris is because of her Gym Leader / Champion status in the games.

I could probably think of more examples of the casual sexism in the series if I thought about it, but this is just from the top of my head. As you can see, there is a lot. All of this being said, and I’m putting major emphasis on this since I don’t want anyone to get it twisted—

I love Pokémon with my entire heart, flaws and all. It has been my hyperfixation for 22 years and that is not going to change any time soon. So DO NOT even dare suggest that I hate Pokémon, or shouldn’t play it, or anything like that. I will be playing Pokémon on my deathbed and nothing and no one will stop me.

But that being said, I criticize because I care. Because I wish it would do better. Pokémon is for everyone. It’s for boys, girls, nonbinary folks, and people all over the gender spectrum. But the treatment of its female characters and the abundance of favoritism shown toward the male characters leaves a lot to be desired (though at least girls are at the table, whereas trans folk are relegated to background NPCs and nonbinary folk are nowhere to be seen :/). I think Pokémon can get better—Magnolia and Sonia felt like a proper apology for how Juniper in particular was shafted, not to mention Burnet—but it’s got a long way to go.

(And also, yes, you’ve understood this right. Twilight Wings is the only anime series to not fuck up at all when it comes to sexism. You go, Twilight Wings. Four for you, Twilight Wings.)

#pokemon critical #pokemon criticism #pokemon negative #let me know if I should use any other tags #long post for ts #stabbymattress #the treatment of Ash's female companions from best to worst has been:#Dawn - May - Iris - Misty - Koharu - Serena #and the Alola girls somewhere in the middle ig I honestly didn't watch enough of that series to know

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gardenofkore · 4 years ago

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“The Norman monarchs tended to choose their wives not from among the families of powerful Sicilians. Rather, they married women from prominent European courts. Thus, their wives might be presumed to have brought a European influence to the cultural life of the kingdom. However—despite the fact that a number of the Norman queens ruled as regents for their underage sons; despite evidence that some of the queens had the capacity to influence Sicilian culture and even exerted a certain amount of effort to this end—this does not seem to have been the case.

The Norman queens (like their husbands) were often larger than life characters, whose extraordinary biographies reflect the turbulent times in which they lived. Roger II married a woman by the name of Elvira, daughter of a Spanish king (Alfonso VI, king of Castile and León) and his Moorish wife (Zaida, who took the Christian name Isabella when she married Alfonso). The marriage seems to have been a sentimental as well as a dynastic success. Elvira bore Roger five sons, including the next king of Sicily, William I, before she died in 1135, at the age of about thirty five. A medieval historian reports that following Elvira’s death, Roger was “so saddened by the bitterness of mourning that he closed himself for many days in his room, and did not appear except to his private staff; and so it happened that a rumor gradually spread, not only to those who were far away but even to those in the immediate proximity, that Roger had died.” Roger was obliged to put down an attempted coup when an ambitious Sicilian count sought to take advantage of the power vacuum resulting from the king’s withdrawal from the public eye.

Although Elvira had given Roger five sons, only one of them—the sickly, unpromising William—reached maturity. Fifteen years after Elvira’s death, Roger was obliged to marry again in order to ensure succession. Again, his long celibacy was quite extraordinary. Even with a plurality of potential heirs, a medieval king was likely to remarry following the death of a wife, both because marriage presented an opportunity to forge political alliances and because a consort came in handy at state ceremonies. Roger’s reluctance to remarry seems to provide further evidence of his affection for Elvira. But William, against the odds, survived his father and was crowned king of Sicily following Roger’s death. In about the year 1150, he married Margaret of Navarre, daughter of King Garcia IV Ramirez of Navarre and Margaret de l’Aigle. The biography of William’s consort demonstrates what would become a truism of the Norman queens: they attracted attention, in general, only when their actions offended public opinion. Following her husband’s death, while Margaret ruled as regent for her son, the second William, she summoned a party of Frenchmen to Sicily (including Peter of Blois, who acted as tutor to young William). The Sicilians were not pleased at the influx of foreigners; nor did the French seem inclined to lengthen their stay in Sicily, although Margaret insisted and ultimately prevailed on this point. With Margaret’s support, one of the Frenchmen—Stephen, son of the count of Perche—was made chancellor and archbishop-elect of Palermo. This action earned her the enmity of the Sicilians, who resented the power given to a “puerum alienigenam” (a foreign-born boy) and suspected that less than professional sentiments motivated the queen’s actions. It was said that “the queen, although she was Spanish, called this French boy her brother, spoke to him too familiarly, and looked at him with hungry eyes; they feared that under the cover of professional proximity, an illicit love was hidden.” But Margaret’s efforts to staff her court with Europeans proved unfruitful. Peter of Blois soon left Sicily and described the island afterward as a hazard to travelers by virtue of both its climate and its people (“Sicily is to be faulted because of its air, and it is to be faulted for the malice of those who live there; I consider it hateful and almost uninhabitable”). Stephen’s (and Margaret’s) political enemies would drive Stephen himself out of Sicily in 1168.

So, too, a late Norman consort—Sibilla, wife of Tancredi of Lecce, an illegitimate grandson of Roger II who vied for control of Sicily following the death of William II in 1189—drew the enmity of her contemporaries by virtue of her political machinations. We possess a wholly unsympathetic account of Sibilla in the history written by Peter of Eboli. Peter, a partisan of Sibilla and Tancredi’s rivals for the Sicilian throne, Norman Constance and Hohenstaufen Henry VI, details an intrigue that pitted Sibilla against Constance. In the opening chapter of this unsavory history (which, in honesty, seems to consist of equal parts polemic and factual account), Tancredi asks Sibilla to invite Constance to Palermo. In her reply to him, Sibilla accuses him of raving senselessly; to honor Constance with her company, Sibilla believes, would implicitly acknowledge Constance’s authority. In the end, Constance, rather than being received as an honored guest, was imprisoned by Tancredi and Sibilla. But the ruse did not last long. The pope interceded and Constance was released to the keeping of her husband. Following Henry’s elevation to the Sicilian throne, Sibilla would repent and seek forgiveness for her scheming; she, along with her daughter, would end her life in an Alsatian convent. The machinations of that Constance against whom Sibilla plotted, of course, would have a more appreciable effect on history. And historians would repay Constance in kind, making her (like the kings of Sicily) the protagonist of fantastic tales. Constance, daughter of Roger II, had been consigned to a convent, from which she was summoned to marry her Hohenstaufen husband in order to grant dynastic support to his Sicilian ambitions. She had already reached an advanced age, by medieval standards, when she was married and had passed her fortieth birthday when she bore her first and only child, Frederick II. The fourteenth-century historian Villani reports that Frederick’s birth challenged belief on two counts: because he was born to a woman consecrated to God, and because of his mother’s age (which he exaggerates, giving her more than fifty two years when she gave birth). The Sicilians, Villani says, frankly doubted Constance’s capacity to bear a child at her age; “for which reason, when the time came for her to give birth, she had a tent pitched in the center of Palermo, and made an announcement that any woman who wished might come to see her. And many came and saw, and so the suspicions ceased.” Giovanni Boccaccio, in his biographical dictionary of famous women, exaggerates both Constance’s age—he calls her a “wrinkled old woman”—and the prophetic significance of her pregnancy and Frederick’s birth. He attributes to Constance’s son the responsibility for the eventual fall of the Kingdom of Sicily. And after detailing his (rather fantastic) version of Constance’s late marriage and pregnancy, he asks: “Who will not judge Constance’s conception and childbirth to be monstrous?” In truth, Constance’s actions were characterized by less supernatural portent and more pragmatic significance. Following Frederick’s birth (in 1194, and in Iesi, not Palermo) and Henry’s death (in 1197), Constance ignored her husband’s wishes that a German ally be made Frederick’s regent. She sent the Germans out of Sicily, named the pope regent to her son, and had the four-year-old prince crowned king of Sicily in Palermo, before her own death in 1198. History might remember the name of the Sicilian queen, particularly when she—like Margaret of Navarre or Constance, or like Adelaide, Roger II’s mother—acted as her son’s regent following her husband’s death. But the queens seem to have had little appreciable impact on the cultural life of the kingdom. The Norman kings tended to marry women from European (typically French or Spanish) courts, like the consorts mentioned above—with the exceptions of Sibilla, wife of the illegitimate and luckless Tancredi, and Constance, wife of the scion of a German house, both of whom were Sicilians. William II married Joanna Plantagenet, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, a name that looms large in the history of European literature. But even this match seems to have done little to promote Romance letters in Sicily. Rather, the Norman monarchs seem to have pursued a diametrically opposed literary policy: they solicited the production of poetry in Arabic.”

Karla Mallette, The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100-1250. A Literary History, p. 93-97.

#history #history of women #women in history #historical women #women #adelasia del vasto #elvira of castile #margarita of navarre #joan of england #sibilla of acerra #costanza i #people of sicily #women of sicily #historyedit #myedit

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myarmsaretoolong · 4 years ago

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They Look so Pretty When They Bleed

Prompt #10: They Look so Pretty When They Bleed - Blood Loss | Trail of Blood

Word Count: 1235

Warnings: Blood | Needles | Medical Procedures

Synopsis: Tony thought the never-ending meeting with Ross would be the word part of his day, week probably. Then again, he hadn’t expected to be greeted by a trail of blood in the otherwise empty Avengers Facility.

Read Under the Cut | Read on AO3

It had been a long day in the office, and by office, Tony meant the seemingly neverending meeting with Ross he’d been trapped in since seven that morning. He’d been pretty pissed that Rogers snuck into the Raft and broke the Rouge Avengers out and decided to take it out on Tony, interrogating him all day long for any information he had. Not that Tony would give him anything even if he knew.

Twelve hours later, Ross finally gave up and let Tony leave - god how he regretted leaving that man on hold. Tony headed back to the Avengers Facility, back to the place that used to be filled with the now Rouges and now, instead stood a hollow shell haunted by days long past. Vision left earlier in the week, going to Edinburgh to spend some time with Wanda - ‘cause apparently they were a thing now. Even Rhodey was out spending time recovering. It was just Tony, alone, in a building where ghosts hovered at every corner.

He pulled up the driveway and stopped right outside the front door - it’s not like anyone was going to complain about lack of access. With a heavy sigh, Tony stepped out of the car, a feeling of unease brewing deep in his stomach. He didn’t have spidey-sense like the kid, but after eight years of being a superhero you learn to trust your gut. Tony looked around, searching for the source of his tension, but saw nothing except the open door to the Facility.

Oh, hang on. Tony wouldn’t have left it open all day, even if he had Friday would have closed it behind him. So why was it open, swinging gently in the almost non-existent breeze? Now that was the real question. Maybe Rhodey stopped by for a visit, he mused, but if so, why were the lights all off?

Tony crept forward, keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible on the tile floor in the foyer. To his horror, it also lit up a drop of blood, bright red against the white tiles. Then another. And another.

“What a way to add to the mystery,” he muttered. “Now,” slowly, he followed the trail, walking just to the side so as not to disturb it, “Tell me your secrets. In or out?” It soon became clear the answer was in. By the door, the trail consisted only of the odd drop here or there, by now the stream was far heavier.

Tony picked up the pace, whoever this blood came from couldn’t be in good shape. Friend or foe, Tony couldn’t take another lost soul on his conscience. Except if it were Ross, he could probably handle that after everything he’d put him through. Shit, what if it was Ross? Someone could’ve got to him after their meeting and he’d come here in search of help, not knowing Tony took the scenic route home to clear his head.

And if he died here, well that would reflect poorly on Tony. He could imagine the headlines; ‘Secretary of State found dead in home of public rival.’ It wouldn’t be hard for a lawyer to argue that Tony had both the means and the motive, all they’d have to do was bring up his less than heroic past. Yeah, he’d be walking straight into a murder charge.

“Ross, if you’re not dead yet I swear I’m going to finish you off,” he whispered. He kept following the ever-growing trail of blood through the darkened hallways he knew like the back of his hand. Straight through the lounge and kitchen area, a crimson handprint staining the orange sofa.

The sharp trill of Tony’s phone echoed through the room, making him jump at the suddenness of the noise. “That was smooth,” he muttered, pulling out his phone and answering without checking the caller ID. “Ross?”

“Uh, no… It’s May.”

Tony pulled the phone from his ear and check, sure enough, May Parker lit up the screen. “So it is, sorry May. It’s just...well, it’s a long story.”

“What was that? I can barely hear you, why are you whispering? Anyway, I just wanted to know if you’d heard from Peter. He didn’t come back from patrol at his normal time.”

The realisation hit Tony like Rogers and Barnes had in that godforsaken Siberian bunker.

“I know, I know. I’m probably overreacting. I just worry, y’know?”

Tony ran at full pelt. All attempt at keeping quiet dropped in favour of sheer speed. “May, I’ve got to go. I call as soon as I can.” He hung up without waiting for an answer. “Peter?” He yelled, praying or a reply. “Kid, c’mon. Where are you?”

His legs burned, fear growing with his every step. Every second passed was another Peter bled out. He skidded around a corner, the blood trail now little less than an elongated puddle. Sprinting on through the darkness, Tony almost didn’t see the body slumped in the corner of the corridor. “Kid?” Tony fell to his knees and tapped Peter’s cheek, trying to wake him up. “Come on, wake up for me. “Fri, get Cho here, now!”

Tony scooped Peter into his arms and ran to the medical bay, his hands and clothes stained red with the kid’s blood. He laid him on one of the beds, yelling for Friday to turn on the lights before searching for the source of the bleeding. “Fuck, kid.” Peter had a stab wound deep in his abdomen. “Fri, how long until Cho gets here?”

“Fifteen minutes, Boss.”

Not to sound cliché, but Peter didn’t have fifteen minutes. In fact, he barely had two judging by the colour of his skin and feeble beat of his pulse under Tony’s fingertips. His eyes flicked over to the storage cabinet stocked full of blood. Given the number of transfusions Tony had had himself, surely he knew how they worked. Right?

It’s not like he had a choice.

He darted across to the cabinet and grabbed a bag of Peter’s blood, double, and then triple, checking the name because for the love of God he was not giving the kid any of Bruce’s radioactive shit. He set up an IV for the blood bag and inserted a needle into the back of Peter’s hand before connecting the two with a plastic tube that looked close enough to the ones used on him.

For a couple of seconds, he watched the blood flow through the tube and into Peter’s body, then raced to find a bandage to make sure that blood stayed inside rather than ending up on the medbay floor.

After a minute, some of the colour returned to Peter’s cheeks, though he was still shades too pale. Peter gasped a great breath and air and Tony raced to his side, running a hand through his hair and whispering gently. “Hey, kid. Nice to have you back with us.”

“Huh,” Peter slurred. “Wha- Where?”

“It’s okay, I’ve got you. You’re safe now. Doctor Cho’s on her way, she’ll be here any minute.”

Peter seemed to be gaining a little more comprehension with every second. “Urgh,” he sighed, relaxing back into the bed. “Mister Stark?”

“Yeah?”

“I think someone stabbed me.”

“I think so too, kid. You left the evidence all over the compound.”

Peter screwed his eyes shut. “Sorry.”

“No,” Tony cooed. “I don’t care about that. I just care that you’re safe.”

#whumptober2020 #no.10 #they look so pretty when they bleed #blood loss #trail of blood #mcu #irondad #fic #blood tw #medical procedures tw #needles tw #i feel like i need to say this just given the prompt title and some of the people out there #not starker #ya nasty

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cosmostellar · 5 years ago

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I don't understand what could be wrong about frozen 2???

i feel like i could write an essay about it because its all ive been talking about for the last 2.5 hour and still i constantly think of new things but ill try to list the main ones for me

No one has a consistent/understandable character arc. Elsa is (I’m guessing?? these are legitimately my guesses because I don’t feel like the movie made anything clear enough to actually say it with certainty), but I’m guessing Elsa is supposed to be shown as wanting something more, seeking adventure, feeling like she’s wasting her life in the palace, hence “the siren voice”. But it never really feels like that because whenever Elsa is distracted or seems upset it’s not because of her own needs not being met in the palace or the role of queen being upsetting/overwhelming for her, or her being bored, or her just wanting to GET OUT AND DO SOMETHING. Her only motivation and the reason for distress initially is hearing the voice, she never seems to enjoy herself on the adventure in the forest. Why does she even want to stay in that forest in the end? Because she likes the people she’s never really talked to? Because she enjoys the magical adventure? There is no connection written between Elsa and the adventure, Elsa and the unknown, Elsa and the magic.

Anna is just a complete mess in this movie. I don’t know if her obsession and overprotective behavior towards Elsa are supposed to be seen as negative or do the writers just struggle with writing sibling relationships this much, but it’s the only thing she does that can be somewhat interpreted as something she needs to work on. And there is never any conclusion to that?? Elsa sends Anna away once, goes somewhere herself and ends up dying and having to be saved by Anna anyway, which in some way only confirms all of Anna’s fears, but they never have a conversation after that? And Anna’s ending (becoming a queen) is written hastily and comes out of nowhere, she is not previously set as someone who is better fit to be the queen of Arendelle than Elsa, or someone who wants it/needs it character-wise. I don’t know.

Kristoff’s presence in this movie was a joke and they didn’t even try and okay, I guess, but it was just. It was just sad how it looked like the writers cried for hours before they came up with a way they can squeeze him into the story.

The dialogue was SO BAD. It was either pure clear exposition given in the way that you could just SEE they are setting something up - Olaf talking about the water, Kristoff and Anna talking about the dam, Elsa and Anna being told the story of the enchanted forest. No one talked like real people, even in the emotional movies they were mostly exposition machines (Anna telling Elsa how Elsa is the gift from the spirits because of what their parents did. Also I still don’t know how she arrived at that conclusion). The script never took a break to just have them sit and talk, banter, joke with each other. It felt… like they barely knew each other? And it honestly looked like the writers kinda noticed it too because they really did their best to have Anna and Elsa EXPOSITION how they Know Stuff About Each Other (”oh you are wearing mom’s scarf, i know you must feel bad”). Don’t… don’t tell me that these people know each other?? Show me? The sisters interact on a daily basis for three years and still don’t have a single inside joke? Anna reacts to Kristoff’s rambling as if she knew him for three days? Also I THOUGHT that her reactions to what he was talking about during their journey after Elsa fell asleep was supposed to hint at some other thing she struggles in within herself (feeling like she’s not good enough at love or something, idk), but no, that was just. I don’t know what that was.

The big twist of the movie is that whites fucked over native people. Woohoo. Wasn’t at all obvious the moment the whites and the natives appeared on the screen together. Also Elsa’s mom looks like a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON as a child just so that another plot twist could work.

And I don’t know why were those people even there?? No one connected to them in any way, it’s hard to assess what relationship these two groups had towards each other, how do they function, the sister and brother were so unnecessary it actually hurt to see them just pointlessly moving around on the screen.

Also the pace and the plot were atrocious, the lack of clear conflict made it impossible to really root for them because most of the time it was unclear what the characters were actually attempting to do and what was supposed to happen, and I’m the first one to advocate for lack of clear villains in the movies but boy. That movie could really use a villain because it was tiring to watch Anna and Elsa go around and discover random things that would once again change their goals and journeys in a quasi-unclear and uninteresting way.

#many more but its 1 am here and i got tired #also all of these subjects can be discussed at length #the character arcs killed it for me tho #also the plot but... 1 am #koh talks #asks #frozen 2

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harringtonandbuckley · 5 years ago

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ticket stubs

robin buckley x reader

request: How about a robin x reader, but reader works at the ticket booth for a old-fashioned classic movie theater that plays black and white films. Reader takes a liking to Robin who shows up almost weekly (as she’s a film buff) and sometimes has Steve with her. So in turn reader thinks she’s taken? But Robin has seen most of the films playing there so she just practically goes to see the ticket booth girl every week ;) (Post-starcourt events)

You hated movies. Well, maybe ‘hate’ was a onverreaction. You strongly disliked movies, especially ones that pretentious and snobby teenagers would flock to see. You strongly disliked movies that one would watch maybe ten minutes of and come out of the theatre feeling ‘cultured’ and ‘renewed.’ So, you did what any other person with these opinions would do: you got a summer job at an old-school cinema that, get this, only plays classic black-and-white movies.

Most of your job consisted of ticket sales and trying not to reach over the counter and strangle someone when they would say “it’s film, not movie.” I mean, Jesus, just go watch your french movie that you will not understand one damn word of and stop with the stupid corrections. You were eighteen, not six.

It was safe to say that you hated, and this was not an overreaction, every single customer that would walk through the door. However, there was one that would stick out to you every time they came in. It was a girl around your age, and she was probably the nicest person you had ever dealt with. She would waltz in once a week, maybe twice if she was feeling motivated. After talking to her during the first couple of visits, she figured out your schedule and would purposely show up early to chat.

You were most certainly not opposed. She had told you that her name was Robin on the first early show up, and you had apologetically offered yours a couple weeks later. She was easily earning your respect and attention.

So today, as you sat at your booth giving out ticket stubs, Robin approached your stand, smile on face.

“What’s it gonna be today,” you grinned and rested your head in your hand. “Casablanca? Laura? Maybe Rebel Without a Cause? That’s becoming a popular one here for some reason.”

Robin laughed and shook her head. “It’s gonna be a Roman Holiday day today.” You quickly grabbed a ticket and ripped off the stub, handing it to her slowly. She sheepishly smiled as she grabbed the money out of her jacket pocket. “I need an second ticket, actually.”

“Oh. Yeah, alright.” You managed to get out as you reached behind you, picking at the stacks of tickets. You turned around for a brief moment, and when you turned back, you came face to face with Robin’s second ticket holder. This kid was the embodiment of chaos.

“Steve, Y/N. Y/N, Steve.” Robin pointed between the two of you. You mustered a ‘nice to meet you’ and Steve was practically beaming. He nudged Robin’s arm. “So what’s the movie?”

“Roman Holiday.”

Steve let out some kind of exited gasp, which irritated you ever the slightest. “Hell yeah! That movie is the epitome of romance.”

“Maybe you could learn a few things.” Robin smugly joked. You handed Steve the stub and felt a twinge of jealousy as he looked at Robin with a pained expression.

“Jeez, Rob. Go easy on me.” He threw his hand over his heart.

Robin looked at you as you frowned, and you didn’t really bother changing the look on your face. “You guys should probably go. Don’t wanna miss your movie.”

“Yeah we gotta get through those lines before they get long,” Steve glanced at his watch and looked between you and Robin. “I’m gonna go grab some popcorn if you wanna get the drinks. Nice meeting you, Y/N.”

You waved as he ran off. “See you, Robin.” You faced away from the girl, causing her to furrow her eyebrows and walk away.

A few weeks later, much later than the usual time, Robin came bounding into the theatre alone, looking more disheveled than usual. “Hey, how’s my favourite theatre girl?”

“Hi.”

You didn’t really feel like entertaining the conversation. You felt strange to talk with Robin how you usually did knowing that she had a boyfriend. It was always like you two borderline flirted, but now it just felt off.

“You know, Ive been meaning to tell you that that uniform really works. I’m just glad I don’t have to deal with the old Scoops one. That was hell to wear.” Robin laughed and rested her hands on the counter. Your face stayed neutral. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re being kind of cold.”

“Two tickets, right?”

“Excuse me?” Robin narrowed her eyes at you. You shrugged. “What makes you think I want two tickets?”

“I dunno. You’ve been bringing your boyfriend for the past couple of weeks so I just assumed that would be a regular thing.”

“My boyfriend?” Robin gasped and looked at you in shock.

“Yeah, Steve. Remember him?”

“For fuck’s sake. That dingus isn’t my boyfriend,” Robin erupted into a fit of laugher and shook her head. “I’m actually kind of insulted you would think that I would stoop that low.”

You opened your mouth and closed it almost immediately. “Honestly, since we need to be more clear about this whole situation, I only come here half of the time to see you. Steve is just collateral damage.”

You gawked at Robin as she continued to talk. “I’ve seen all of these movies god knows how many times. Do you really think i wanted to, or even needed to, see Gone With the Wind six times? I mean, seriously. I’ve saved every single ticket stub you’ve given me just because it’s been you.”

You smiled half-heartedly. “I just thought you were a big Clark Gable fan.”

“More of a Vivien Leigh girl,” She shrugged nonchalantly and grabbed your hand. “More of a Y/N Y/L/N girl.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Hell yeah. Much prettier and better than those other people on the screens.”

“What if she called ‘films’ movies?”

“Not a dealbreaker in the slightest.”

“What if she has never seen any of these movies?”

“Well, we’ll just have to go to see every single one when she doesn’t have to work. You know, if she’s up for that?”

“She is,” You squeezed her hand and checked the small clock in your booth. You took your vest off and threw it to the ground. “In fact, her shift is over in five minutes.”

Robin’s blue eyes lit up, and for some reason you felt like you could get lost in them for the rest of the night, completely forgetting about the movie you two would go and watch.

“So what’ll it be tonight, Robin?”

“Date’s choice.”

You closed your eyes and grabbed at a stack of tickets. You brought them to the counter and Robin groaned. “Looks like it’s gonna be Gone With the Wind. You okay seeing it for a seventh time?”

“If it means I get to hold your hand for an entire four hours then yes. One hundred percent yes.”

#stranger things #stranger things season 3 #steve harrington #stranger things 3 #st3 #robin buckley #robin stranger things #joe keery #maya hawke #robin buckley x you #robin buckley x reader

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notafightr · 5 years ago

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It fic exchange!!!

so here's my reddie fic for @disneyfan567 for the it fic exchange event! no trigger warnings, sorry for any mistakes or lack of skill this displays as i havent written in a long time and this is the first time ive written in this fandom

(°﹏°)

Eddie was 13 when he moved to Ohio. Sonia decided she had had enough of Derry, and the small town was doing more harm than good to her delicate son. To describe Eddie's reaction, reluctant was an understatement. He was leaving his 6 best friends, his only real friends, all because of his mother's glorified temper tantrum.

The past 3 years were (in)arguably the best years of his life. He met his best friends, more of a family than his own (which really just consisted of his overbearing mother), he had irreplaceable experiences and memories with his best friends, these friends entirely shaped and nurtured his character. So to have his mother rip all of that away from him, well it understandably upset him. Most of all, he didn't know how he was going to cope with the frequent flashbacks and nightmares that taxed him emotionally and mentally several times a week, dutifully owed to that short, albeit rather traumatic summer of 89’.

For 3 long, yet oh so short years, Eddie coped with these strains through the support of his friends, especially a loudmouthed, annoying boy with Coke bottle glasses and slightly bucked teeth, named Richard Tozier, who couldn't find it in him to ever stop annoying Eddie, or stop telling him how much he loved him, or stop picking flowers for him on walks because he knew even though Eddie denied it, they really did make Eddie happier than he cared to admit.

How do you cope with a demon clown terrorising you and your friends’ lives for an entire summer, haunting you as your worst fear, using unholy tactics to scare you in unimaginable ways, trapping you in its crack den, and almost killing you miles below land level, all at the ripe age of 10? Hopefully you found yourself down there with your 6 best friends. You also let your mind do the forgetting. Well, what it can. There's some things you can't forget.

Until you leave Derry.

Eddie started forgetting the moment the plane took off, whether he realized it or not. He managed to remember his friends for a short while, but vaguely. He didn't remember the poems Ben gave him every birthday, or that the friendship bracelet on his left wrist was made by thee Beverly Marsh. He didn't remember that the reason his room was always so tidy was because Stan Uris couldn't help himself every time they chose Eddie’s place as the hangout spot (when Sonia wasn't home of course), or all the scary stories Bill liked to tell at their weekly sleepovers at the ass crack of 3 am. He didn't remember how Jessica and Will Hanlon were by far the superior parents of the friend group and the snacks they so generously provided to said group were the best he ever had, no doubt that Mike directly inherited their kind and generous traits.

When he woke up at the end of his plane ride, he didn't even remember that the lily flower in his hand was given to him as a parting gift by Richie, whose parents picked him up from the airport after he gave one last hug goodbye at the gate and waved Eddie off with flower in hand. Even after intently looking down, confused, and finally remembering it was indeed Richie who gave him the flower, he still didn't remember Richie’s endearing flower giving habit.

He promised them he'd stay in touch, but it wasn't long before the initials BH, BM, SU, BD, MH, and RT were just meaningless letters next to a series of unknown house phone numbers.

It wasn't until he forgot one particular conversation with Bill during a sleepover one night in 6th grade that he forgot Richie completely.

“Bill?” Eddie whispered, lying down in Bill’s bed, not even sure if Bill was awake.

“Y-yeah?” Bill replied after some silence.

“So, we're best friends right?”

“Well y-yeah, I m-mean all-” Bill started before being interrupted.

“No I mean like, I know the seven of us are best friends obviously, but I mean, we’re best-best friends, you know what I mean? Like even before the lucky seven it's always been us right?”

“Oh. Yeah I s-suppose.” Bill reassured him.

It took Eddie a second to try and gather his thoughts and articulate what he was trying to say.

“Well, I feel like, Richie’s different from all of you.”

“Yeah n-no sh-shit Eddie, that k-kid can't k-keep his mou-” Bill was again interrupted.

“No, that's not what I mean. I mean,” Eddie again had to organize his thoughts in his head, which proved to be difficult when not even he knew what he was thinking. “I mean I feel different with him. Like when he gives me flowers and stuff, and he's the only one that calls me Eds. But I know you're my best friend. My best-best friend. Am I wrong? Maybe Richie is my best-best friend?” At this point it felt like Eddie was just saying it out loud for himself.

After a few seconds, which felt like several minutes to Eddie, Bill giggled.

“What?” Eddie asked, almost panicked.

While Bill didn't necessarily believe this, the thought amused him greatly. “It s-sounds like you have a c-cr-crush on h-him.”

“Wh-... you th-” Eddie just about got whiplash from Bill’s statement. “You think I have a crush on him?!”

“I n-never said that… I j-just said it s-sounds like you do.”

“I'm not… I don't like boys like that. My mom told me what it means if you do and what happens, and I don't think I do,” he backtracked.

At this point, Bill was almost asleep. “Okay Eddie, that's fine,”

“I think maybe you're just both my best friends,” Eddie assured, but undoubtedly he said this more for himself than for Bill. Bill probably succumbed to slumber before Eddie could even start.

Once any evidence of this conversation having occurred left his brain, any trace of Richie was buried deep under newer things. The others were already long gone. The nightly nightmares he experience fizzled out eventually, but they did resurface every once in a while. On the other side of the same coin however, he did have dreams about the good times with the losers. He never remembered them when he woke up, though.

Not to mention, he was frequently frustrated at his lack of motivation to clean his room properly, wondering why his always clean room in Derry suddenly had no place in his new life in Ohio. Where's a Stan Uris when you need him?

He tried to make friends. For a bit he was even in a nice friend group of people he clicked fairly well with, they were funny and kind and they welcomed him with open arms. But nothing felt right. They were funny, but it hurt to laugh at their jokes, they were nice, but almost too nice. If anyone so much as cracked a your mom joke, Eddie's first thought was an annoyed “Stop trying to be-” but always stopped short right there.

Stop trying to be who?

He didn't know. He didn't remember.

So at the end of his sophomore year, when he asked his mom to sign his permission form for the classes he wanted to take the upcoming school year, his mom declined.

“Eddie Bear, we're moving back to Derry this summer.” Sonia said apologetically, understanding he'll have to say goodbye to the friends he doesn't have.

“Wait, what?” confused was an understatement. He had to rack his brain for a moment to even remember what “Derry” meant.

“It’s getting difficult for me to support us financially here, so we're moving back near your Aunt Jodie and she's going to help us a little bit. We should start packing no later than the end of May, we’ll be out of the house and into the new one at the beginning of July in time for you to to get settled and start school at Derry High.”

Eddie had never felt more indifferent in his whole entire life, while also feeling an inkling of hope he didn't quite understand. If anything, his biggest curiosity was why he didn't feel even a whisper of sadness for leaving the people he knew in Marietta, Ohio. While Eddie didn't care about moving back to Derry, and it meant almost nothing to him on the surface, the Eds inside of Eddie couldn't help peeking through.

So they moved back. Eddie finished packing up his belongings before the deadline his mother gave to start packing had even passed, and he didn't bother telling any of his “friends” (perhaps acquaintances is a more applicable word) that he was leaving because the truth was, it was more trouble than it was worth. They would no doubt care more than twice as much as he did, so he left without so much of a trace of a goodbye.

Now that Eddie was 16, he could drive. While Sonia wouldn't buy Eddie his own car, not over her dead body, she did allow him to use hers when it was available, and given her physical state and social life, it was almost always available. After a solid 8 hours of unpacking his things in his new, snug room on an otherwise uneventful July evening, he picked up his mom's keys.

“Bye Mom!” he shouted loud enough for his mom to hear without bothering to hear her response as he shut the door.

He shoved the key in ignition. Despite not having been in town for 3 years, he was still able to navigate the area without assistance. He drove to the coffee shop that he had vague memories of visiting during middle school winters for hot chocolate with some friends whose faces he couldn't quite remember yet.

Walking in it didn't look much different. Not that Derry would care enough to update the coffee shop, or any shop for that matter, for any reason.

“Hi, how can I help you?” a blonde girl at the register asked uninterestedly.

She definitely hates her job, Eddie thought while pointlessly perusing the menu, already knowing what he planned to order. Sophomore year was not academically kind to Eddie, and a caffeine addiction to compensate for the mass amount of all nighters pulled did occur.

“Can I just have a black coffee with sugar?” he asked while digging through his tattered black wallet he received as a birthday gift in seventh grade. He then flinched his head up in response to hearing another employee drop an entire pitcher of coffee on the floor.

“Oh, fuck,” said worker pointedly exclaimed, which not only stirred a giggle out of Eddie, but his voice in combination with his oddly familiar black curly hair caused his heart drop, though completely lost as to why.

“Your name?”

“Hello?” She asked after a moment.

“Hello!” the blonde girl repeatedly nagged, trying to catch Eddie’s lost attention.

“What? Sorry I missed that,” Eddie finally grounded himself. Unfortunately his attempt to catch the other employees face failed as he stayed turned away and then hurried to his hands and knees on the floor.

“I need your name for your order.”

“Oh yeah of course, Eddie.” Not even seconds after his response, he heard something nearly inaudible, completely not understandable from the employee on the floor, which was confirmed by the blonde girl, which Eddie now gathered from her name tag to be Sarah, who exasperatedly asked about the other employee’s struggle.

“You alright down there?”

“Yeah, I’m just peachy, Sarah,” hearing the voice even clearer instilled a visceral reaction even stronger in Eddie once again.

Sarah took Eddie’s cash, distributed his change, and set his cup down on the back counter for when the other employee to make when he was done cleaning up his mess. He picked a seat close by the counter and waited. After a few minutes, longer than probably usual, given time dedicated to cleaning up the coffee on the floor, Eddie heard his name called by the same antagonist and saw his coffee set on the counter, but employee was again out of sight. Eddie grabbed the coffee and with no reason to stay he made his way back to the car.

Drinking his iced coffee on his way home, at a stop light he picked up his drink and studied it curiously. He noticed the boy who made his drink must have added his name for some reason because when Sarah set it down for him to make, there was nothing written on it. However, clearly on the cup, was his name:

While looking at the little flower next to his name made him smile, it was a cute gesture, it filled him with a familiar sense of longing and loneliness, as if he was missing something. He got home, finished his coffee, continued unpacking, dreadfully argued with his mom about leaving the house without telling her where he was going, and went to sleep. It was less of a need for caffeine but more of an eagerness to learn about a curly headed, clumsy employee that brought him back to the coffee shop the next day.

So he came back. He came back at the same time too, to have his best chance of the boy being on shift.

“How can I help you?” Sarah asked.

“Black coffee with sugar, Eddie.” successfully staying on track with Sarah this time around.

Again, she set the blank cup on the counter and just like before, his name with a dainty doodle of a flower beside it. Unfortunately, even if he wanted to say anything to the employee which Eddie now knew wears a big pair of glasses, his introverted nature wouldn't allow it. Back to home it was, to continue setting up his new room.

The next couple of weeks was the same routine, and quite lonely. Being in the middle of summer, with no school to be his vessel of socializing, and no friends, it was him, his lonely self, and his mom. For all intents and purposes, him and his lonely self.

However one morning, in a hurry as he had a family gathering for brunch to attend to, he knew he wouldn't be able to get to the coffee shop in the evening so he came in the morning, despite knowing the shift would likely not be the same.

He walked in and noticed it was in fact not Sarah at the register but didn't look further.

“How can I help you?” The boy at the register was looking down.

“Just a black coffee and sugar. Eddie.” He got the cash from his wallet and told the boy he could keep the change as he was already late to his aunt's house and confident he could do without the dollar and 74 cents. As he walked to the counter to get his coffee as soon as it was ready, he noticed the boy scribbling his name and a flower on the cup but his brain didn't process anything other than how late he was. He took his coffee eagerly and made his way back to his car, knowing his mom (who was already there after being picked up by her sister) was no stranger to yelling at Eddie for “caring more about himself than his family”.

On the drive to his house he allowed himself time to think and thought about the boy at the register. He was familiar to Eddie and not just because he's seen him every day for two weeks, making his regular order with ease.

The Coke bottle glasses.

The flower.

The unkempt, black, curly hair.

But that was still too out of reach for him. He thought about it for as long as he could without having an aneurysm from working his brain too hard and decided he would come back the next morning for the same shift.

Sonia greeted Eddie outside before he was able to come inside.

“Eddie bear, why are you so late?”

“Sorry ma, I was up late finishing my summer assignment and I stopped to get coffee when I left,” Eddie started despite knowing this wouldn't be enough to appease his mom.

“Aunt Jodie is being very kind to help us out and this is the first time seeing family since we've gotten back, you should show your gratitude properly. Say thank you when we come in.”

“I will, Ma. Why didn't you just wake me up and take the car here?”

“Aunt Jodie wanted to catch up with me before everyone else got here. She took us to breakfast. I figured you'd have enough autonomy to drive yourself here on time. Are you feeling well? Did you sleep enough?”

“Yes, ma!” Eddie spoke as he got out of the car and locked it, handing the keys to his mom. “I just overslept. Sorry for being late.”

However, while his cousins and aunts and uncles were asking him how Ohio was and if he was sad to leave his friends and if he left a broken hearted girlfriend back in Marietta, all he could think about was the coffee shop employee who never failed to doodle a flower next to his name.

He got home late, worked on his summer assignment, because against what he told his mom, he had in fact not started yet. He made sure to wake up at the same time as the morning before and headed to the coffee shop. To his pleasure, the boy was at the register.

“How can I help you?”

Eddie stared at him.

“Uh,” He couldn't help but chortle as Eddie stared, wordlessly, and then it appeared as though a freight train of memories hit him square in the head.

“Oh my God,” Eddie nearly dropped to the floor. “Richie? Richie fucking Tozier? Is this a joke?”

“Ya know Eds, I was starting to think you really forgot me. Or maybe you just hated me.” Richie allowed himself to laugh.

“I… I did forget you? But how? We-” and at that moment Richie could visibly see It creep itself back into Eddie’s memories.

“Holy shit? You forgot about that too? Do you have amnesia? What happened to that pretty little head of yours?” Richie put his hand on Eddie's forehead and pretended to feel his temperature.

“Oh my God,” whiplash had struck Eddie again. “I need to sit down,” He started to move to a chair nearby when he remembered more. “The others! Beverly, and Ben, and Stan and Bill and Mike!” he quite literally felt like someone waking up from a 20 year coma, rediscovering everything that happened before he fell asleep.

“They're peachy. Stan's actually getting back from visiting his family in Florida today.” Richie informed him. “Any reason you never stayed in touch like you said you would? Left a man hanging.”

“It's like, wait- those initials were yours!” Suddenly three years of wondering who those house numbers in his binder belonged to clicked. “It’s like I forgot you guys as soon as I left,”

“That soon? Ed's, you wound me,” Richie teased. “But you're still wearing the friendship bracelet Bev made.” He held out his wrist and displayed a bracelet of the same pattern but in different colors. “What’s she got that I don't?”

For the first time in 3 years, Eddie let out a genuine laugh.

“Are you busy, cutie? I'm on break in 15 minutes and I can get someone to cover the rest of my shift,” Richie asked, hopeful.

“Yeah that's fine.. uh.. have you been working every day? All day?” Eddie asked, concerned.

“Well the past couple of weeks at least a couple of us from the gang has been visiting family or doin’ some crazy shit so I figured I'd make use of time and make some money, we're doing a road trip in a couple of weeks.”

“Oh that's cool-”

“You're invited, if you want, obviously. What better way to celebrate you coming back than a road trip? Ed's, just wait till’ they find out you're back-” Richie cut himself off when he noticed another man walk into the shop and they both decided to end the conversation there so he could order. “Okay hold on I'm gonna take his order, and I'll be out in 10 minutes, you can wait here if you want?”

“Sounds good,” Eddie couldn't help the smile on his face, it's contagiousness showing in Richie's smile.

After waiting for a bit, Richie came from the back out of his uniform, a bag on his shoulder, and a rose in his hand. He held it out to Eddie.

“Do you just, carry flowers with you?” Eddie looked at him curiously.

“No but I- after I saw you yesterday morning and I passed this one on my way to work, something told me I should grab it.” Eddie took it. “Flowers still get ya goin’?” Eddie punched him in the shoulder.

“Thanks, Rich.” He smiled.

“Where to now, spaghetti?” Richie put his arm around Eddie.

“For 3 glorious years I never had to hear that, don't call me spaghetti!”

“Okay Eds, answer the question!”

#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it #stephen king #IT by stephen king #Stephen kings IT #it fic #reddie fic

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thousandeyesand-one · 6 years ago

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Cersei Lannister with the wits & cunning of Tywin Lannister..

Recently I read an anti's perspective of this scene where cersei is very cunning with her fear mongering. Apparently cersei wasn't lying in this scene about daenerys, she wasn't inaccurate about who the Mad King's Daughter is & every last bit of info she dropped on her. So here's a breakdown of this scene & the amount of "truths & lies" it contains.

This statement coming from cersei is really something considering she has steered the War of the Five Kings which has destroyed the realm, wiped out several noble families & caused innocent lives the count of which is still unknown.

Open Rebellion which happened because of how cersei ended the future of a great house who were actually the crown's greatest ally. Olenna was playing a last move against cersei for justice for her family that is the only reason she allied with daenerys.

•House Tyrell aren't Targaryen Loyalists really! during the rebellion they sided with the Targaryens as long as they were the winning side as soon as Rhaegar died & Lannister's sacked KL they lifted the seige on Storm's end, similarly in the War of the Five Kings they sided with the Crown right after renly died. So, a family who has stayed Loyal to nobody but themselves in the past will have an easy case built against them by cersei. Their past isn't very convincing on their loyalties for Tyrell's bannermen to stay loyal to their Lord Paramount in a state where they side with a foreign army against the crown. Cersei isn't lying here but definitely hand picking selective facts to back her case up.

•Mindless unsullied soldiers or more correctly Loyal unsullied soldiers. When daenerys gave them their freedom back & the right to choose whether they fight for her or not & they chose to fight for her they stopped being mindless. When Kraznys Mo Nakloz shows daenerys the ranks of unsullied more than half of them were of dothraki stock, some from lys & Qarth. They seem to have no allegiance to anyone but their commander unlike the golden company consisting of sell swords from around the world & a number of exiled westerosi men whose only allegiance is to gold not any commander. They aren't mindless atleast not the unsullied with daenerys. But yeah I guess Unsullied in general have that reputation of being mechanical to consequences of war. Again cersei isn't lying here but these are hand picked facts she needed to back her case.

"Unsullied are brave soldiers ... But not warriors. Not knights"

-Ser Barristan Selmy

While the unsullied are helpless to their own nature to the way that they were created to be as soldiers not warriors or knights. Yet there are those like Ser Gregor Clegane, who was knighted for his sadistic brutality on Princess Elia & her children. Also known for being pretty brainless with his brutality of innocent & women, children & in burning of villages. Rmember the way Lannister men tortured people in harrenhal without question?! If the unsullied are mindless then so is the Lannister army, the Northern army & every other army who fights & follows their commander's orders as in that's what armies do. As of now in the show mountain is just as brainless as any foot soldier in the army of the dead. There is nothing that the Dothraki does that the Lannister men haven't done in a time of war. Dothraki way is the barbaric way, that's the only way they know unlike the Lannisters. So again, cersei hand picked the facts to back her case.

Also I love how they cut to Jaime when cersei says the following..

•Ned Stark's service & loyalty was also rewarded in a particular fashion of unfair brutality by cersei for the sake of her children. Olenna is doing the same in fact her motivations are the same that of cersei's. Cersei was protecting her family Olenna is avenging hers.

•Mad King is cersei's strongest champion in this discussion, she strengthened her own position by using mad king to exploit daenerys & her reputation before she builds one in the eyes of westerosi lords. Cersei knows as much about Aerys & Daenerys as much as the next person in that room. But Ser Barristan Selmy not only served Aerys but also had seen Rhaella, Rhaegar & Daenerys. Other than varys he might be the only person who saw the Last of House Targaryen pretty closely. He thought Daenerys was like Rhaegar who was widely believed to be nothing like the Mad King.

"Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and ... forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth ... even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did."

-Ser Barristan Selmy ASOS (Daenerys IV)

"I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen's sister," Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

"Aye," said Arstan Whitebeard, "and a Queen as well."

-ASOS (Daenerys IV)

While Jorah & Whitebeard knew daenerys that well to make that comparison of her to Rhaegar. Tyrion on the other hand knows both cersei & Daenerys well enough. He chose to serve daenerys over his own sister & did her bidding one on one to cersei. Neither does he want daenerys to launch a dynasty nor does he wants to see cersei win. He wants to build a new world with daenerys with the help of the power she holds because according to him, her mind & heart are ultimately in the right place when it comes to the overall picture!

"Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love."

-Tyrion Lannister ADWD

Tyrion never refers daenerys in anyway ever as unworthy, mad or cruel, ever! Neither in the books nor on the show. All he says is "Daenerys is not her father" Cersei is wrong with her comparison of mad king & daenerys.

•I agree daenerys has made mistakes in the past, done things that when given a second thought to, come of as cruel. But to remember the fact that she was brought up on the road in exile with an abusive Half-mad brother, whose decent into madness she saw & lived with. Both Jon & Daenerys are Targaryens, both very similar people at the core of their personalities; Innocent & introvert, pure & kind the only reason why Jon is such a flawless beloved character is because he was raised by Ned Stark unlike daenerys who was raised by Viserys & his own twisted perspective of the world & people. Yes She crucified 163 masters of meereen, most of whom had a hand behind the crucifixion of little children at every mile on a post for 163 miles. All those children were brutally tortured so daenerys learns a so called lesson masters wanted to teach her. Maybe not all those masters were behind the said brutality but daenerys is a women in a hurry to establish power in meereen not to enjoy the fruits of power but for the betterment of the mereenese, the slaves & the children. Regardless of the consequences her intentions were never evil.

•About feeding the masters to her dragons. This doesn't happen in the books neither does Ser Barristan dies. So purely from a Show viewer perspective cersei humiliated Ser Barristan Selmy out of his servitude in the Kingsguard, the sworn brotherhood like the Night's Watch whose oath frees one upon their death.

A little history on Selmy; he was sworn into the brotherhood of Kingsguard during the reign of Jaehaerys II who was weak but a fine king Selmy was happy to serve him yet he died quickly after which Aerys II ascended to the throne who wasn't mad initially but soon acquired the said madness & Selmy grew to respect his oath over the king he serves. He fought for Rhaegar at the trident because he believed he would be a better king than his father unfortunately he died too. Leaving Selmy in a clutch of his oath & honor, upon being pardoned by Robert Baratheon he decided to serve him because he was a great knight but even he turned out to be a Bad King. Let's not even talk about Joffery! After being free of the oath that bound him to the Crown he went looking for someone he would follow & serve out of sheer will. Ser Barristan Selmy made daenerys feel closer to her family than Viserys ever could in all the time that she was with him. On the show Selmy dies fighting the harpies in a betrayal, for daenerys this was her losing her family all over again. Arya fed Frey's sons to Walder Frey only on the show by far, sansa fed ramsay to his hounds again only on the show by far & Daenerys fed the men whose betrayal costed her Selmy after finding about jorah's betrayal.

In all honesty she only fed one man to her dragons with an intention to terrify the others into divulging the truth. Yet again cersei hand picked the facts to back her case up.

sure.

A Solution? More like an attempt & a failed one at that!

Cersei is outright lying here, playing with incomplete selective truths. Neither did she depict the past accurately nor the future. Hypocrisy is written all over this scene, This is fear mongering 101.

#daenerys targaryen #game of thrones #jonerys #pro daenerys #daenerys defense squad #anti mad queen daenerys

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aliwept · 6 years ago

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WARNING : MASSIVE TOKOYAMI HC DUMP AHEAD ! part one of ..... many sldkfjds i gotta transfer a lot from old blogs

triggers: body talk, religions mentions, mentions of binding, self hatred and transitioning.

BELIEFS / MOTIVATION:

tokoyami looks at becoming a hero the “wrong” way — or rather, in a way that cripples his success.he doesn’t want to become a hero in and of itself, but to help as many people as he can.

this is usually a good thing, but it is motivated by his extreme guilt and self doubt rather than pure desire, believing that that is the only way to pay for his “sins.” (i.e., the destruction or potential destruction his quirk as/could cause(d).)

he holds himself up to an extremely high standard, (it is impossible to have a totally “pure” motivation,) one of being perfect and disciplined in every way, but he consistently fails to reach that (as any human being would), making it so that he falls deeper into a circle of self-doubt and pity.

he also tends to idealize his friends for their faults, and when those difficult traits show up he gets extremely bothered, then angry at himself for his idealization, then angry for bothering them, & it escalates until he’s simply angry at himself for being what he believes to be a burden.

this is an extremely deeply rooted process, one that even daily actions contribute to, & while the source isn’t completely his parents, it is certainly reinforced by his mother’s abuse & his guilt relating to his father’s death.

PHYSICAL:

he’s not particularly muscled — well, compared to his more muscular classmates. most of his muscle is in his legs & stomach. he does not have a particular training regimen, typically unmotivated unless prompted.

unlike the majority of his classmates, because a lot of his fighting is done with dark shadow moving him (so that it’s harder to predict movements, as well as going from a large range), the majority of the time he’s not challenged physically.

against close attacks, both attacking which he uses his sword for (seen in his dorm room), when allowed. he inherited that sword from his father after his death. he also feels fatigue easily, not so much due to muscles but because of his exhaustion that is his “normal” state, given that dark shadow is nocturnal. (this & his low work ethic. he works a lot harder when training with friends.)

he doesn’t feel the need to bind more than not, given his skinny physique, with his hips being only a little bit wider than the average cis man’s.most of his scars are on his arms, self inflicted from his talons cutting into his skin. parts of his skin are covered in a gel like skin, clear to see the feathers that poke out from them, going much like arm hair down his sides. these are mostly around his shoulders.

most of the feather is underneath skin (though the skin & the feather both have no nerves), visible with the skin being mostly clear (no muscles adding color, only the natural dark pigment) with the rest of the feaher poking out at a low angle to his arm.

HABITS:

he has a diary that he writes in religiously. it’s kept in a hat box under his bed when he returns to the dorm, along with a collection he’s had since he had been able to write.

at times, in nostalgia, he’ll read through his earlier books. he also tends to doodle his classmates in them ! he’s an incredibly private person — especially because his mother ignored his privacy, refusing to let him keep secrets of any kind in ‘fear that he was hiding something’ — but also enjoys putting his thoughts into words.

PAST:

tokoyami was bullied due to his appearance / personality. for someone who was already uncomfortable with his body (not knowing what being trans was at that point) this became the root of deep insecurity regarding his appearance, whether it was as simple as hesitation.

he is autistic !! he stims a lot with his hands, though usually it’s in his hoodie / under his cloak, because he’s very self conscious about it. he also has adhd: inattentive type, bpd, depression & anxiety!

fantasy verse: he’s a witch & i will fight you on this fact. my boy loves the occult. he’s also. in generally he tends to be superstitious, & more than that enjoys different rituals! it probably won’t show up in my rp cause i honestly don’t know much about that type of thing but ! he absolutely adores things like that, not necessarily because he fully believes them but because they’re interesting & he believes that they probably stem if only in part from fact.

now im gonna add some notes here. while he is obviously pretty strong, he has problems with control, considering that not only does he have to react, he has to communicate those thoughts with dark shadow. speed / offense / defense obviously are enhanced w dark shadow, as well as his own abilities (he would still be able to hold his own if he couldn’t use his quirk).

as well, a lot of his stats are basically his stats + dark shadow, which obv makes them higher than they otherwise would be. he also has really high stamina and working out for a long time doesn’t really. make him tired, nor dark shadow, because dark shadow doesn’t get tired & he’s not the one doing a lot of the actual physical stuff. he’s not good w weapons tho in general. note that these are basically during the daytime w/o a huge light source so things change when it’s darker/lighter.

parents: tokoyami’s mother had the ability to call spirits of the dead to her and talk to them, & his father’s was to house things, as in objects, so he cld like. store things inside of his body. it’s real wild.

a quirk that combined with another in tokoyami’s lineage, so one of his ancestors had the ability to shapeshift, specifically with birds & banged w someone who has a quirk similar to aizawa’s, where it basically ‘stills’ the action of .someone’s quirk, if that makes sense? so down the line people wld inherit a birds’ features, but it would switch. in his dad’s case, he got a raptors ‘arms’ & eyes.

i am here to inform you that not only is he really short, he’s also chubby! espcially as a child. while he now has muscle! :tm: ive made earlier posts about how he doesn’t have a good. regimen & shit so. yeah. just like deku, while he may be muscled, (though he’s less muscled than. most of his classmates) he still is v chubby on other parts of his body.

also ! he’s trans & he has. a large bust, which he does not bind most of the time due to fear of asphyxiation. being demiboy, he is bothered at it at times, but dislikes tight clothes as a whole (like binders). this is because he is easily overstimulated by excessive contact with his body, causing sensory overload.the exception is his neck, which his choker is a source of comfort. (though, warning, there are scars underneath that the large choker hides!)

tokoyami. will say/do something & then become embarrassed by it, after the act has already been done. he’ll fuckin melt on the spot.

tokoyami is absolutely someone to leave ppl on read. or respond w several paragraphs w ‘K.’ like. that’s just how it is. he’s lowkey an asshole in that way but he just. he has to think a lot before having a response but he gets distracted & just leaves it.

he has dark fucking brown skin !!!!! people who draw tokoyami w light skin cause he’s a ‘pale goth uwu !!!!’ are weak & will be weeded out by natural selection.

people he trains with most are ,,, mostly kirishima, kaminari, aoyama and momo when they’re available

he’s mix of japanese, native american, and indian!

self knowledge questions: neediness, independence, shyness.

NEEDINESS: being affirmed & nurtured by others is a central requirement for you to feel safe. this means you can be slow to warm up to other people, which is difficult because what you most need from them is their warmth. yet you know how to be vulnerable: to let down your defenses and accept that you need another person. this lack of pretense is a valuable trait, and ultimately more endearing than the macho efforts others make to deny their childlike sides.

INDEPENDENCE: you don’t set out to be different for its own sake; you are more easily guided by what interests & moves you. you are more concerned about what is right for you than about the pressure to fit in. you know the value of selective irresponsibility, of forgetting occasionally about being ‘good’.

SHYNESS: part of you is gripped by the fear that you’ll launch into something and completely mess it up. the upside of this is wise caution: people are indeed often too rash, whereas you know, by instinct, that holding back can save you. probably, you feel shame and self-disgust a bit too much. but when you do feel in your element, you act with a wisdom and sensitivity never found in people with thicker skins.

there’s an au where he’s tamaki’s half brother tamakis hmu

more ramblings cause i lov him so anw. i figure that like. if he had to have a motivator it would be an outside force but basically he’s riding on the fact that he has more physical ability because he doesn’t perform very well in studies. ( bird brain …… )

getting 14th place out of the class on midterms, he’s aware that he’s not motivated & as well as his migraines & other mental illnesses ( adhd, executive dysfunction, etc. ) this means that he doesn’t really reach his “full potential.”

he’s aware of this, though, which causes him to train physically. physically training also allows him to ( a ) feel proud of himself, something that he struggles with ( b ) help him generally, esp with dysphoria ( c ) get his mind off of other things / points of stress.

i still don’t think he’s like. as buff as shouji for example, though part of that is that he’s naturally lean ! & he has trouble motivating himself sometimes but when he stays up late ( due to dark shadow ) it basically wrecks his sleeping patterns, so this gives him something beneficial to do while also exhausting himself, which he hopes will help him fall asleep.

like i know that i said that . . he was skinny / not v muscled ( when compared to his buffer classmates, rather ) but i guess i’ve been proven wrong because it took both Buff McFuck mina and hagakure 2 push him out of the way ( not tht it took that long but that was w them straining / time skips )

so @ this point i Just Don’t Know. he got 9 in the practical which means he’s obv like ?? p good but that was the entrance exam. ( he got 10 rescue my baby !!!! im so proud of him ) & then w aizawa’s exams he started off at 5 & im tryna find the other thing what it ended up as but @ this point i’m just , pretty divided cause i’m not seeing much reason for him to learn to train w/o proper training ( & we kno that he’s not someone who was trained specially like todoroki / momo tho tht doesnt mean it’s not possible & at this point im just ) ya. he’s gotta be able but from what we know he’s not v motivated ? ausdjkfdsfjk we’ll see ig.

tokoyami is a mix of shinto (where his hero epithet comes from), taoist (due to the values), & hindu (again, values). i think for now it’s going to be some mix of that, though i’m going to do some research on shinto values since i don’t know much about it !!!!!

generally, he’s pretty superstitious, just because he knows many myths are based on facts, & the idea of ‘it doesn’t hurt to watch out for them.’ he prefers to avoid possible things that would make him have bad luck.

#dont rb or i manifest in your house n kill you /

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snickerl · 7 years ago

Text

The Woman From His Dreams

Post-Ghouli fanfiction

Not sure CC gives us a Mulder-Scully-William/Jackson reunion we can live with, so I wrote one I like.

Tagging @today-in-fic

His abilities have helped him to get here. They can be of real use sometimes, as much as Jackson curses them because most of the time they make his life more difficult instead of easier. He lost his parents because of them. When they were shot in order to get to him he only managed to escape because of his power to make people see what he wants them to see. He created a false reality and let everyone believe he shot himself in the head, including his birth mother who later held a speech at the morgue to what she believed was his corpse in a body bag. What she said touched him deep inside but it also overwhelmed him. He wasn’t able to handle the sobs and tears of a woman he knew but then again didn’t know.

He had dreamed of this woman when he was little and had shared his visions with her when he was a teenager, their heads aching in unison. He can’t explain how it worked, he just sent the signals out and felt they were being received. Always by the same person, a redheaded tiny woman with friendly blue eyes and a warm smile. It had eased his pain and his fear to know that there was someone out there experiencing the same thing. It made him less of a freak.

Three days ago, it was the other way around, Jackson was at the receiving end of the visions, but they didn’t consist of a global pandemic or a ufo hovering in the night sky, and that was exactly what worried him. The visions he shared with her this time led him to a silent pond where she was sitting in a wooden rowing boat. The boat had no oars, it just floated aimlessly around on the water and he was watching her from the shore. The silence was deafening. There was no rippling of waves, no chirping of birds, no rustling of leaves. No sounds at all. As if the place was dead. It scared him. He got in his car and drove 30 hours straight. Sometimes it helps to be some kind of superhuman, he never needed much sleep.

And now he’s here, the functional building of the George Washington University Hospital rising up to the dark night sky. As Jackson doesn’t know her name and wouldn’t know who to ask for at the reception, he stays put in his car in the parking lot until he shows up, the tall man who was with her when he faked his death. Jackson follows him inside, past the reception, up the stairs taking two at a time, into the hallway on the fourth floor and up to a room the man vanishes into without bothering to knock. Jackson stays behind in the hallway, breathing deeply through his nose in order to get his brain activity level down. He wants to step before them as himself today, not as Peter Wong, the pick up artist, but as Jackson Van De Kamp, their biological child.

He opens the door softly, he doesn’t want to startle them. When he makes a step into the room, the rubber soles of his sneakers silent on the linoleum flooring, he sees exactly what he feared to see for the past three days. The redheaded woman is lying in a bed, motionless and with closed eyes. There are monitors indicating her vitals, she’s hooked to an IV, wires are connected to her temples. Jackson knows what this means. She’s unconscious, maybe even comatose. At least, she isn’t put on a ventilator but breathing on her own. The man who led him here is sitting next to her bed on one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs which only seem to exist in hospitals, his elbows propped on his thighs and his head buried in his hands.

He has no idea how to introduce himself properly in a room so oppressively silent and to people he doesn’t know but are actually his blood relatives, so Jackson just asks what he has been wondering for three long days without announcing himself first.

“What’s the matter with her?”

The man’s posture dissolves only very slowly, his movements cumbersome as if a heavy load was on his shoulders. He turns his head in Jackson’s direction, his empty eyes scanning the room for the intruder. When he sees him and realization kicks in of who is standing in front of him, he stares at him, speechless for a moment. Maybe he isn’t sure if his visual nerves can be trusted.

“Jackson?” he asks incredulously. “Jackson Van De Kamp?”

Jackson nods. “Yes, sir, it’s me.”

“What are doing here?”

Jackson hardly recognizes the man’s voice. It’s so much smaller than when he heard him talk at the morgue or when he asked him to show himself in the hospital. Jackson had heard the worry in their voices, their need to know he was alright, but he wasn’t able to face them then. He used his power to create a fake reality again and hid behind the appearance of a nurse to escape from the situation. Things have changed, now he’s the one who is worried about them, the redheaded woman in the bed as well as the broken man beside her.

“I…uhm…I was summoned,” Jackson mumbles

“Summoned?”

“Mmm,” he only replies with a quick nod in the woman’s direction.

“Oh, I see. Another vision shared by the two of you.”

Only now is the man rising from his chair and closing the gap between them. Now that they are standing in front of each other, it’s obvious they look quite alike: tall, lean, long arms, thick brown hair. He puts his hand on Jackson’s shoulder and sighs, “good you’re here, kid.”

The back of Jackson’s throat tightens because of the sudden closeness to who he thinks must be his birth father. “How is she?” he asks, coming back to the initial motive for his being here. “What happened to her?”

The man sighs again, then leads Jackson to the bed. He shoves a chair to the other side and motions for him to sit down before he resumes his place opposite him.

“Several gunshots. She lost a lot of blood.” His voice is raucous and too weak for a man this tall and broad.

Jackson is shocked. Is he supposed to lose a third parent to gunshots? His terror must be readable on his face because the agent hurries to tell him, “not by the same people who shot your parents, Jackson. We worked on a completely different case. We were ambushed and she was ahead of me.” He swallows and rubs his wrinkled forehead. “She simply was out of the car faster than I was. I wasn’t fast enough. Had I been faster, I would’ve been in the front and could’ve taken the bullets for her. Then I would be lying here and she could be talking to you. She would be delighted, you know? I’m never going to forgive myself for having been so fucking slow if she won’t get a chance to talk to you anymore.”

Jackson is touched by the raw pain he hears and sees in front of him in this man’s voice, face, body posture. His whole demeanor cries out how much guilt he’s carrying.

One thing he heard frightens Jackson and he asks, although not wrapped in a question but in a statement, as if in so doing it was more likely his hope would come true, “but she’s going to make it.”

“Under the circumstances, you could say she was lucky. One bullet missed the main artery by a hairsbreadth. Some inner organs were injured though. They had to remove the spleen.”

“Is she going to make it?” Jackson insists. He’s not ready to lose his birth mother again now that he has just found her.

“She’s tough. She’s small but she’s strong. We’ve been in a situation like this more often than I would like, she’s always pulled through.”

They sit in silence for a moment, the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor the only sound in the room. It’s soothing in a way, as it indicates her heartbeat is steady and regular. Then Jackson realizes he still doesn’t even know the most commonplace things about these people.

“What’s her name?”

His counterpart looks at him with dull eyes, but then a hint of a smile is playing around his lips when he speaks of her. “Dana, her name is Dana. Dana Katherine Scully. She’s a medical doctor specialized in forensic pathology. She’s an FBI agent and we’ve been partners for almost 25 years now.”

Jackson hears admiration in the man’s voice but also deep affection and he wonders when being work partners had turned into life partners. Considering his birth date it must have been sometime around age six or seven into their partnership the latest. “Dana.” He lets the two syllables roll off his tongue. Female names with A’s in them have such a round, melodic ring to them. Dana. It’s a nice name. Jackson likes it. “ Erm…and your name?”

“Mulder,” the man answers taciturnly.

“Mulder? That’s all? Don’t you have a first and middle name?”

Jackson doesn’t know what to make of the man’s distorted face. He remembers that the redheaded woman, Dana, called him Mulder in the morgue in the short conversation they had next to his body.

The man sighs as if in defeat. “Of course, I do. My full name is Fox William Mulder.”

“Fox?”

“Now you know why I prefer to go by Mulder.”

Jackson contemplates for a moment. A distant memory creeps into his head. He remembers a stuffed animal he had when he was really little, three, maybe four years old. It was a reddish-brown fox with a bushy tail, pointed nose, and dark beady eyes. It had a place of honor on his bookshelf and his mother had always told him to be extra careful with it. Had it been something to take with him when he was given up for adoption? A fine bond his birth mother wanted to establish between him and his biological roots? Then something else struck him about the man’s name.

“William? Hmm…in the morgue…she called me William in the morgue. She said something like ‘if you are William’. Was that my name before I was adopted?”

The man who wants to be called Mulder nods.

“So I was named after you?”

“There are quite a few Williams in our families, actually. Scully’s father and brother are called William, referred to as Bill and Bill Jr. Her brother is still around but her father passed some years ago. My father was a William too, he’s the one I got my middle name from. Scully said she named you after my father, your grandfather. I guess we would’ve gone by Will with you with the many Bills we already had around. But Jackson is also a nice name.”

“It’s the only one I know.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

There’s a sadness resonating in his response. The remorse Jackson heard in Dana’s words in the morgue and the disillusionment shining through in Mulder’s reaction now give him an impression of how they had suffered throughout the years since they made the decision to give him up.

“You call her Scully? Not Dana?”

“It’s a habit from when we started working together and never unlearned. You’re not the first person to find it strange but for us, it’s the most natural thing.”

“Oh, I don’t find it strange, not at all. It’s cool. Better than one of those sappy pet names married people seem to have for each other.” His own parents, may they rest in peace, called each other by their first names, putting a 'yes, dear’ or 'please, love’ in occasionally. He had been spared the poppyheads, honeybunches, and snookums he heard at his friends’ houses and which made him gag. He had never heard a couple call each other by their last names, though, and wonders if it has any meaning beyond being a habit they never got rid of. Fox here doesn’t like his first name, that much is clear, but why Dana is fine with being called Scully by him, Jackson doesn’t understand. This woman’s personality has many interesting facets he’s only beginning to explore.

“I tried to picture her since I first came to the understanding that I had two mothers. That there was a birth mother somewhere in addition to my, uh…other mother.”

'Real’ had been on the tip of his tongue but it feels unfair. Unfair to Dana. If he labeled Helen Van De Kamp his real mother, what would Dana be then? Not a real mother as in only an illusion? A hallucination? Fake? Dana is his biological mother, the woman who gave birth to him. They had been physically connected by the umbilical cord for nine months. He carries her DNA. If all of this wasn’t real, what was?

“My parents never kept it a secret that I was adopted, so from early on I knew that I hadn’t grown in my mother’s belly but in another woman’s. It didn’t bother me that much really. Frankly, I didn’t think it was that uncommon. I must have been four or five when I started dreaming of a certain woman a lot, and after a while, I believed that she must be the one, the one with the belly I had grown up in. She had red hair and blue eyes and, uh, wait…” Jackson, hand to his brow, throws Mulder a questioning look, “does she even have blue eyes?”

“Yes. She has deep blue eyes. They are much like yours, actually. You had just been born when I told her you had her color and her eyes. It was so obvious you were her child. ”

“Hmm,” Jackson only replies. It’s giving him chills to be finally sitting in the same room with people who could tell him something about the first year of his life. It has been completely unaccounted for so far. As if he hadn’t existed before his first birthday.

He tried to get information from the adoption agency once he was old enough to file a formal inquiry on his own behalf but got disappointed when he found out his folder was sealed, the information in it classified, something called a closed adoption. His birth mother had demanded it, the social worker told him, leaving him with no legal rights to obtain any information about her identity. Jackson would’ve liked to ask the lady with the contrite face shrugging her shoulders in an apologetic gesture why his birth mother kept sneaking herself into his head then if she didn’t want him to find her, but how on earth was he supposed to make her understand what he was talking about? So he dropped it and paid more attention to the woman’s appearances in his imagination from then on: how she looked, moved, sounded.

She remained a mystery.

“Anyway, when I was little, I couldn’t make much of the dreams but they weren’t bad or anything so I was fine with them. When I hit puberty things started to change though. I had seizures that went along with visions which weren’t so innocent anymore. Some of them were actually quite disturbing, especially when I realized the woman from my childhood dreams was in them, or rather….”

Jackson leaves the last sentence unfinished, mainly because he lacks the right words to describe the exceptional experiences he had, but Mulder pushes impatiently driven by his thirst for understanding what the connection between them had been like.

“She wasn’t exactly in them like in the dreams. She was rather simply there somehow while I was having them. She was watching them with me as if she was standing next to me. I felt her presence and I heard her groan like me because of this nagging pain in our heads. But then again, they were only visions, nothing real. It was strange. I mean, nothing of this was really happening, it was only an imagination, but still…uh, sorry, it’s difficult to explain,” Jackson sighs, raking his fingers through his hair.

“No, you’re doing great, Jackson. How did you know this woman in your dreams and visions was your mother, uhm…birth mother?”

Mulder’s excitement it palpable. It’s the first time Jackson doesn’t encounter total incomprehension, disbelief, or even fright when he talks about his experiences. Mulder listens to him with an open mind, absorbing his words like a sponge. It’s a good feeling not to be looked at like he was some eccentric, a monstrosity who belonged in a freak show. It encourages Jackson to tell his entire story for the first time, even the things he had kept to himself all those years for fear of sounding stupid.

“I have no idea. I…just knew. Maybe from the dreams I had when I was a kid. In them, she always smiled lovingly at me, she sang lullabies, read stories. Mom’s stuff.”

“I see.”

“I had this one recurring dream where we were at the beach, our naked feet sinking into the sand where the waves were lapping ashore. I was afraid of the ocean because I’d never seen it before but the moment she took my hand my fears were forgotten.”

“It sounds just like her. Scully loves the ocean, her father was a Navy captain. She would’ve taken you to the beach, for sure.”

“In my dreams, I always felt protected and cared for because she was there. I was never afraid or insecure, and the feeling somehow lingered on even in the real world. It helped me cope with the seizures and the visions which honestly frightened the hell out of me. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. Nobody did. My parents didn’t know what to do with me, so they sent me to a shrink who was also clueless. She prescribed pills for the seizures but they had no effect at all, so I after a while I didn’t take them anymore. Knowing that she,” Jackson casts a glance at the ginger-haired woman in the bed whose blue eyes are still closed, “had the same visions like me made them less terrifying. I wasn’t alone in this, someone who I knew cared for me shared my fear, and so it was only half as bad. In the morgue she said she wished she’d been there to ease my pain…well, in a way, she was.”

Mulder stares at him for a beat, his face a stone mask. The only movements are his teeth grinding so severely, Jackson fears he might break his jaws. Then his face contorts into a grimace, pain, and sadness written all over it. “It would be so great if you could let her know,” he says, checking the monitors for any changes of her vitals. “It was her greatest concern that because you were given up for adoption you doubted yourself, that you thought you weren’t worthy to be loved. It kept her awake at night.”

The more Jackson hears about how Dana had coped - or rather not coped - with his adoption, the more he feels for her. She had struggled way more with the consequences of her decision than he had, his childish ignorance a blessing. And along with her the man in front of him had suffered, his birth father.

“You really didn’t give me up because you wanted to get rid of me, did you?”

“What? No! Not at all! You were a blessing, Jackson! Our miracle! I had told Scully once to hope for a miracle and we got our miracle in you. Nothing and no one has made her happier than you, and sadder once you were gone. I’d always thought she was pretty but pregnant Scully was stunningly beautiful. Radiant. My rational, no-nonsense partner had turned into a round, soft bundle of emotions. It was delightful and it even increased after she’d given birth to you. It took my breath away every time I saw her with you. She beamed with elation. She was so at peace with the world despite the hell she’d been through to get to this point in her life. It filled me with so much joy I almost exploded. Motherly Scully was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. If we could’ve only held on to our miracle, we would’ve had the best of lives together.”

Jackson gets the impression that Mulder spoke the last sentences more to himself than to him. Along with his narrative, his birth father has lost himself in his bittersweet memories, gazing in abstraction. Jackson is deeply moved and thinks hard about something nice to say.

“The Van De Kamps were the best parents I could imagine, but I guess you guys would’ve been quite okay too.”

Mulder shows him a smile but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“My parents hadn’t been the best examples to prepare me for my fatherly role but Scully knew what family was all about. She had the most wonderful mother and a very protective father. She would’ve been…she was…a terrific mother. Giving you up was an act of motherly love, Jackson. It tore her apart, but she wanted to get you out of harm’s way at all costs and hiding you in a family with no connection whatsoever to us was the only possible way. Actually, now that I think of it, it was good your parents gave you a new first name. It perfected the setup. Scully knew she would never get over it, but she went through with it nonetheless. For you.”

Mulder’s raving narrations of Dana’s qualities as a mother have an effect on Jackson. He’s overwhelmed by a sudden need for physical contact with her which he finds a bit embarrassing but still, he asks, “can I touch her?”

“Of course! You can also talk to her if you want. She might hear us. Maybe you can do what I haven’t been able to do…bring her back.”

Jackson cautiously reaches out for her, grazing the back of her hand with his fingertips. For a split-second, he’s worried he might disturb her, but then he calls himself foolish for the thought as this is exactly his intention. He covers her entire hand with his which is easy because her hand is tiny compared to his. Her skin is soft and warm. She’s got nice hands. He imagines how they would’ve caressed his face or ruffled his hair if it had meant to be, how they would’ve prepared sandwiches for school or put a band-aid on a bleeding knee. He has problems to picture how these delicate fingers cut open a dead body or pull the trigger of a cold weapon.

Jackson feels the corners of his mouth rise into a smile on their own accord. It feels good to touch her. They are reunited after all those years. She’s the only mother he has left. He loved his mama, Helen Van De Kamp. She was a great mother - patient, empathetic, supportive, loving, caring. When he thinks about how she was shot in the head his stomach churns. Well, the men who did this to her and to his father paid bitterly for it. It was one of the moments his abilities came in very handy. Those assholes had no idea how he was able to manipulate them with his powers into shooting themselves. Mulder and Dana instantly grasped what had happened at the hospital reception. They’re smart, or maybe they just understand what his powers consist of because they know where they come from. If he puts two and two together, his extraordinary abilities made him an adoptive child. He already had them, or some, when he was a baby. That’s why Dana thought she was bringing him to safety with giving him up. These two people might eventually give him the answers he’s been longing for as long as he can remember. The answers to why he is such a freak.

But to be able to give him answers, she has to wake up.

Jackson shoves his chair closer to the headboard of the bed. It’s slightly elevated, probably to make it easier for her to breathe. Holding on to her hand, he leans in and starts talking. To his surprise, the words start flowing out of his mouth without thinking. He had racked his brain more than once about what he would say to his birth mother if he ever had the chance. What he hears himself say now is something completely different.

“Hi, Dana, it’s me. Jackson. Jackson Van De Kamp. You sent for me, right? You shared your vision with me. I saw you in that boat on the lake. You were about to let go, but then again you didn’t. You looked at me as I was standing on the shore.” Mulder moans silently but Jackson cannot be distracted. “Here I am, Dana. I’m here to get to know you better. I meant what I said at the gas station. I’m sure you figured out that the pick up artist was me controlling your perception of me. I also heard what you said at the morgue, and I’m sorry I had to put on that act. I simply didn’t know what else to do. I want you to know that I believe you when you say you didn’t give me up because you didn’t want me but because you loved me. I guess I have always known.”

Mulder can’t take it anymore. He jumps off his chair and after a few big strides, he’s crossed the entire room to stare out the window. Jackson doesn’t cast a glance at him, he’s completely focused on the message to his birth mother.

“You need to wake up, Dana. Don’t go there, as much as you would want because it’s warm and bright and there’s no pain over there and all your deceased loved ones are on the other side waiting for you. You have to stay in this world. With us, Mulder and me. You said you wished we had a chance to know each other. Well, here it is, your chance. All you have to do is open your eyes. Throw me the rope and let me pull you ashore.”

And then it just slips out of his mouth, completely not on purpose and completely unexpectedly. “Please, mom.”

Mom. The word tingles in Jackson’s ear like a blast injury.

He once stood too close to his dad firing at the range. He wasn’t wearing ear muffs and was diagnosed with an acoustic shock when days later he still heard the sound of the shot. It feels very similar right now. The word, just three letters, echos in his ear, bouncing off the walls of his auditory canal. Mulder also seems in shock, Jackson hears him suck in his breath.

“What?” Jackson hiccups for his part, “wh-where did that come from? I-I…I didn’t mean to…I…ugh, I don’t know.”

Mulder’s eyes are on him but Jackson can’t look at him right now. He’s not sure what his face offers as an explanation, whether Mulder can see how for a moment he feels he betrayed his mama calling Dana mom. Mama, the woman who raised him, who kissed his bruises better, comforted him when his favorite cat died and cheered him on at the baseball field. Would she believe she’s been replaced already? A pang of guilt makes itself felt in the pit of his stomach.

“In my head, I’ve always referred to her as my birth mother, never as…mom.”

“It’s okay, Jackson, there’s no need to justify yourself. You’re overwhelmed. This has simply been too much. You’re traumatized by your parents being shot and us arriving on the scene, I totally understand. You set the pace, kid. We are willing to be to you whatever you want us to be. Allies, friends, confidants. Parents, if you let us. I only wished Scully could’ve heard that. It’d make her so happy. You have to understand, she was never being spoken to as mom. By any of her children.”

“Children? I have siblings?”

Jackson sees that this is another painful chapter of their lives. His birth father’s face falls apart and a wave of grief wafts off of him.

“Scully was an unwilling participant of a secret program conducted by a shadow government. I will tell you more about it when the time is right, not today. This program is the reason why we are where we are at this very moment. She had a biological daughter who had been created with her DNA but she knew nothing about until she was three years old and incurably sick. Her name was Emily. She died only days after Scully had found her. All Scully could do was accompany her on her way to death, and she did so courageously. Emily never learned about their special connection and why Scully cared for her so dearly. And she never called her mom. That’s the short version,” he concludes.

“Am I right when I say that my life has also been influenced by this program you mentioned?”

“Yes. When Scully became pregnant, we feared the truth but hoped against all odds that you were a normal, healthy baby like the hundreds of thousands of other babies that were conceived every day on this planet. This time no petri dish had been involved, so there was cause for hope. When you were born, we still nurtured that hope, and for a short time, we were allowed to be happy and carefree with you. Then things changed for the worse. I had to leave to keep the both of you safe and Scully had to learn you were indeed special, that you had…abilities and that there were people out there who were after you because of them. She fought for you, believe me. Fiercely. But when your opponents have so much more power than you, when they have so many more resources, you get to a point where you realize that you don’t stand a chance against them. The day Scully had reached this point, all she could think of was for you to have a normal life without fear. It was more important to her than anything else.”

“So you weren’t around when the decision was made to give me up. It was hers alone, wasn’t it?”

Mulder’s chin drops to his chest. He avoids Jackson’s eyes when he mumbles, “yes, and I hate myself for having put this load on her. You have to know, she not only thinks she failed you, she also never stopped thinking she failed me. Failed as in she’d taken my son from me. Complete BS! As if I was in a position to blame her for anything,” he huffs.

Jackson has the feeling he’s talking about more than just the decision to give him up for adoption. The relationship of his birth parents seems to be multi-layered and complicated. Maybe he will get the whole picture one day when they are willing to open up about their entire history together and not only about the short time he was present in their lives. Right now isn’t the right moment to further mull over it. At present, there are more important issues.

Mulder seems to be of the same opinion because he leaves his spot near the window and resumes his place at his partner’s bed. He takes her hand and strokes it lovingly. Leaning into her he speaks to her, his voice touchingly raw.

“Scully, you have to wake up, William is here. Your son is here.”

Jackson flinches when he hears the unfamiliar name but he understands what Mulder tries to do and he thinks he could even get used to it. One day, he might be able to accept William as the name his birth parents have for him, like a parental pet name. They’re the only family he’s got left.

“Scully, please. We need you, Will and I. I already told you once in a situation like this that I didn’t believe you were ready to go yet, and today I’m telling you the same. Open your eyes and meet your son, Scully.”

Mulder kisses her forehead and slumps back into the chair which creaks properly. It’s evident how lost he is, how numb in the fear for her.

Jackson himself is at a loss about what else he can do, but then something his mama always told him comes to mind. “You cannot study on an empty stomach, Jackson,” she would say when he spent hours at his desk studying for exams. She would ruffle his hair and place a plate with homemade brownies next to his textbooks. She told him to take a break and have a snack and that after that he would be able to focus all the better. Jackson has the heavenly smell of his mother’s brownies in his nose and their rich, chocolatey taste on his tongue. Tears prick at his eyes. He hasn’t had a real chance to deal with his parents’ assassination yet and in moments like these, when sweet childhood memories sneak into his mind, he has no defense mechanism against them. He’s glad that Mulder’s paying more attention to the patient in the bed than to him, so brushing the tears from his cheeks pass unnoticed. He then decides to follow his mama’s advice.

“There’s a vending machine in the waiting area. Can I get you something, Mulder?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

No, you aren’t, Jackson thinks. He searches his pants pocket for money and finds two five-dollar bills and a few coins. He steps out of the room and sets out to where the vending machines are located near the reception.

“Hungry?” a nurse asks him when he assesses the offer.

“Yeah,” Jackson answers, uncertain what to choose. He has no idea what Mulder likes. He inserts a note into the slit, the display tells him he deposited five dollars and asks him to make a selection. “Chocolate never harms,” he mumbles and presses the button to release a Snickers bar, then opts for some M&Ms. A bag of chips, in case he prefers something salty, and a red bag of Skittles for himself. He pushes the candy into the pockets of his hoodie and tucks the chips under his arm. He scans the room but doesn’t find what he’s looking for.

He turns to the nurse behind the reception desk. “Excuse me, ma'am, can I get a coffee anywhere?”

“Sure, there’s a coffee machine down the hallway but the coffee tastes awful.”

Jackson shrugs his shoulders. “Ah well, it’ll have to do. As long as it’s hot.”

“Who are you visiting, young man?” the friendly nurse asks. She’s in her thirties probably, has warm eyes and shows him a compassionate smile.

“Dana Scully,” Jackson answers.

“Oh, the FBI agent who got shot.”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“I’m sorry, it must be hard for you to see your mom so severely injured.”

She’s not my mom, Jackson has on the tip of his tongue but then realizes that the nurse is indeed right. Dana Scully, the FBI agent who got shot, is his mom. He has even called her exactly that a few moments ago: mom. As confusing as the notion is, it’s also warming his heart and he hears himself say, “yes, it’s not easy.”

“You want the coffee for your dad?”

“Uhm, yes. He’s drained. I’ve got to get some food into him, and some caffeine wouldn’t harm either, I guess.”

“Absolutely. I sent him away to have a shower and some sleep this morning after he’d been keeping vigil at her bed for more than 24 hours, but he returned only two hours later.”

“He’s very worried.”

“Well, understandable. Her chances are not bad though. She’s in good shape, her overall constitution is above average for her age. The surgeon who performed the emergency operation told me he never believed someone could survive a gunshot wound as severe as this. Your mom is strong, and I bet she knows you and your dad are here. Just be patient and don’t lose hope. She can regain consciousness any time.” She smiles reassuringly at the teenager in front of her, totally oblivious to what her well-meant words do to him. “Here,” she says, placing a mug with a pink imprint on the counter, “have some of our coffee.” She fills the mug, probably her private one, from a thermos she conjures from under the counter. “Sugar? Milk?”

What now? Jackson doesn’t know how Mulder drinks his coffee. Is he a cappuccino double foam type or rather a black like my soul? “Black, please,” he finally decides. If Mulder wants sugar and milk, he can come back. “Thanks, you’re very kind.”

His hands full of the provisions he managed to provide, Jackson walks back to Dana’s room. The nurse said that she’s strong, that she can regain consciousness any time. He hopes to God she’s right. He has so many questions for her, and he wants to tell her about his childhood and youth, that it was good and that she doesn’t have to blame herself anymore. He’s about to pass through the doorframe when he hears someone say, “he’s alone out there? He’s in danger! Go, look for him!”

Jackson knows this voice, he heard it before from inside a body bag. The mug almost slips out of his hand. He takes a tentative step inside and the view he catches takes his breath away. The head section of the bed is elevated higher than before, Dana’s upper body being almost upright and her eyes are…open. But they aren’t looking at him, they are fixed on the man next to her bed.

“I can’t believe you let him go alone, Mulder. They’re after him, remember? Bring him back here right now!”

Is it possible this woman was unconscious half an hour ago? The intensity with which she’s scolding Mulder makes it hard to believe. Jackson commiserates with him. The man has spent three days at her bedside without considerable sleep and probably without food and drink, he had to cope with his biological child showing up out of thin air, and now he gets a lecture because he didn’t accompany his teenage son to the vending machine. If it wasn’t so damn surreal, it would be funny.

Jackson coughs, and when his birth parents’ heads turn in his direction, he murmurs, “I’m here. Unscathed.”

The room is silent within the fraction of a second.

What happens next is kind of a blur to Jackson. The world around him seems to keep turning but inside this room, it has come to a halt or is turning slower at any rate. He feels like being underwater, where the sounds from above the surface are muffled and one’s movements are harder because of the water resistance. He looks into his birth mother’s - his mom’s - eyes and contrary to the last time he had done the same thing, unbeknownst to her, he sees his own eyes reflected in hers. He’s familiar with that face beaming at him the way it’s beaming at him right now, with that blissful smile and that loving gaze. He knows it’s irrational, he’s paid attention in biology class when they studied the human brain and its power of recollection, but he swears deep down in his brain there is a memory of her, how she looked at him exactly like this when he was a baby. It’s contradicting the scientific facts but the heck with it, he isn’t a normal human being, human science doesn’t apply to him anyway.

Jackson’s musings are interrupted by a weak whisper. “Thank you, dear Lord,” he hears her voice which has a completely different timbre than moments ago when she was vigorously telling her partner to go look for him.

Mulder squeezes Dana’s shoulder gently, unable to take his eyes off of her as if he waited all his life to see this. Only when she folds the blanket back, obviously getting ready to leave the bed, he intervenes. “Woohoo, Scully, no! No way are you getting out of this bed! You stay right where you are!” Pinning her down forcefully with the hand that only seconds ago touched her so feathery, he looks at Jackson. “Would you mind coming over here? We have a very unreasonable patient here.” But Jackson feels glued to the spot where he’s standing, coffee mug in one hand, precariously tilted, bag of chips in the other. As much as he wants to, his feet won’t move. Mulder lets go of Dana, not without shooting her a stern look telling her quite cleary he wants her to stay put, then walks over to Jackson. “Hand me the mug before you spill it,” he says and takes the piece of pottery from him. He looks at the pink, glittery imprint and chuckles. “Born to be a Girl Boss. That’s actually your mug, Scully, isn’t it?”

“Oh shut up, Mulder,” she rebukes him, her vocal cords apparently having straightened again.

“Back from the unconscious for barely a quarter of an hour and already a big mouth again. Case closed. Your mug,” Mulder retorts putting the piece of evidence to his lips and taking a gulp for Dana and Jackson to see the imprint. He tries to hide his smile behind it but fails.

“Don’t be such a sissy, Mulder. I’ll buy you a mug saying Mr. Awesome as soon as I’m out of here if it makes you happy.”

“How about World’s Best Badass Partner?”

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

“Consider it done, Mulder. I’ll get you one of those travel mugs. You can bring it to the office every single day and show it around for everybody to see with a big, fat smirk on your face.”

“Sounds lovely when you put it like this.”

Jackson can’t believe what’s happening in front of his eyes. Here they are, all three of them at a life-altering moment. A blink of an eye ago, Dana was at the threshold to death, Mulder to insanity, and Jackson to losing his youthful optimism for good, and now they have nothing better to do but banter about the imprint on a stupid mug? It has broken the spell they’ve found themselves in, for sure. Maybe that has been their intention, although Jackson doubts they’re acting like this on purpose. Their banter seems so natural and effortless as if being the result of years of practice. In a way, he’s relieved they’ve lightened the atmosphere by it because as every teenager in the world he hates tawdry sappiness. “How about I buy you a set saying Partners in Crime?” he tries to join in and it doesn’t remain without effect. Both Dana’s and Mulder’s heads turn and they look at him as if for a moment they’d forgotten that he’s even there. From one second to the next, Dana’s face is serious again and the room is filled anew with the heaviness of the situation. “I’ve been hoping for this to happen. I prayed and hoped against all reason. And now it’s happening, truly happening,” she breathes.

“You…erm…you sent for me. The visions. They came from you, didn’t they?” At least Jackson’s vocal cords are still doing their job if his legs must quit the service. He’s still standing in the middle of the room a bit at a distance from his birth parents.

“I have no recollection of what I’ve been doing these past few days, I’m afraid. I’m not even sure this is real,” she says.

“It is real. I am real,” Jackson assures her. He takes a cautious step toward her bed, positioning himself at the foot of it.

“You have been talking to me.”

Jackson nods.

“You told me to wake up, didn’t you? You too, Mulder.”

“Yes, Scully. We hoped you’d hear us.”

“It’s scientifically proven that depending on the depth of the comatose state an unconscious person can perceive their surroundings, that they hear sounds, feel touches or temperature swings. So, yes, I heard you. Both of you. You said nice things. Very nice things.”

Mulder and Jackson exchange a look, both guessing what she might be referring to.

“You mean you heard me when in all my pathetic need for you I told you for the millionth time that I can’t live without you? That I’m helpless as a puppy when I’m on my own?”

Mulder has wrapped a joke around his questions but there is more than just a kernel of truth buried in there. The intensity with which these two people cling to each other is palpable. Jackson had seen his adoptive parents in love with each other, both deeply rooted in a solid marriage and an interplay of unconditional trust and loyalty, but his birth parents seem to have a relationship so symbiotic, he wonders how big the chances are to find a match this perfect among the seven billion people inhabiting this planet. Mulder and Dana appear like one human entity rather than two independent beings. You cannot harm one without hurting the other, one cannot be happy with the other being sad, one can simply not be without the other. Utter co-dependancy, that’s what Jackson sees when he looks at Dana and Mulder.

Being a child to a couple capable of giving so much selfless love must be a wonderful place to grow up in, comes to his mind. What a shame it has never happened. What has He been thinking to begrudge them children to raise? The love these two people have to give would’ve been enough for a whole bunch of them, including himself. The thought brings Jackson back to the moment he had said what Dana called nice things to her. Mulder tried to take the edge off it with his sad attempt to be funny but the pink elephant in the room is so big it takes almost the entire space. Jackson needs to address it.

“You heard me call you mom.”

Tears instantly well up in Dana’s eyes, intensifying their blue color to a degree it’s almost hypnotizing. She’s obviously struggling for words and losing the battle. She opens her mouth but no sound emits from it, so Jackson continues, “it wasn’t planned but neither inconsiderately spoken. It…it came from within somehow. I’m not going to deny that I was startled when I heard myself say it, but…I’m okay with it. With you being my mom, I mean.”

Taking it from the way Dana’s face lightens up, his is showing that he means it. “I don’t know what to say,” she whispers and reaches out for Mulder. Their hands find themselves blindly and intertwine, he then leans in and kisses her temple. “You don’t have to say anything, Scully. You were always meant to be a mother and now you’re reunited with your son. Finally.”

“He’s your son too, Mulder.”

Mulder nods. They’re gazing at each other so intensely, Jackson almost wants to wave at them and tell them that he’s also in the room, but then they tear their eyes away from each other and look at him. Dana holds her other hand out and now Jackson is finally able to move. He leaves his spot at the foot of the bed where his fingers have been clutching the footboard, closes the gap to her and willingly takes her hand. It’s as warm and soft as before when he spoke to her when she was still unconscious, but it feels so much better now. The energy she emits is electrifying. It passes through his whole body and empowers him in a way he hasn’t expected. It’s almost as if after these past weeks that have been so dark since his parents, the Van De Kamps, were murdered she’s breathing life into him again. On his lonely road trip he felt like he was drowning in a cold, deep ocean with no chance for rescue, and now the woman who gave birth to him once is pulling him out of the water into a life raft where he is protected and cared for and…loved.

Maybe it was all meant to happen like this, Jackson thinks. The Van De Kamps, the best parents in the true sense of the word, have taught him to believe that God has a plan, that everything happens for a reason. Maybe he was to reunite with his birth parents, who are equally devoted to him, exactly at the moment his adoptive parents were taken from him so he wouldn’t be alone. Dana gave him up at a moment she couldn’t protect him anymore in the strong belief he was safer and happier with other people. And he had been safe and happy with his adoptive parents. Until he had those visions that someone tried to track him down, to get at him because of his abilities. Thenceforward, the Van De Kamps didn’t know how to help and protect him any longer.

They tried, moved from the rural countryside into a city home to give him access to psychological and medical treatment, they installed an alarm system when he told them he feared he was being hunted, but their efforts were for naught. In the end, they made the ultimate sacrifice. They gave their lives for him, delaying the killers for the decisive seconds for Dana and Mulder to arrive at the scene and chase them away. If he looks at his life like this, it sounds like a well-planned and orchestrated course of events. It had to be someone’s plan, he just hopes it’s been a divine plan and not one set up by men. Mean men.

“What have you got in your pockets?” Mulder asks and tears Jackson away from his significant thoughts.

Jackson pulls the Snickers bar and the M&Ms out and deposits them on Dana’s lap. “Chocolate. And some Skittles, if you want.”

“Too much sugar for me,” Dana says in doctor’s mode now, “I will be put on a bland diet for some time, I assume, given the injuries to my abdomen.”

“Would something salty be okay? I also bought some chips.” He places the bag of Lays on the blanket draped over Dana’s legs.

“Mmmm, salt & vinegar. Good choice. Too greasy, though. Salt and fat is not a good combination for a traumatized digestive tract, but you got these for Mulder anyway, didn’t you?” She turns her head to the side. “Isn’t that some kind of offer to choose from, Mulder?”

“It’s great, thank you, Jackson. As long as I can have all the red M&Ms, I’m happy,” he says, ripping a corner off the candy bag. He picks a few red ones out with his long fingers and pops them into his mouth. “Yummm, almost as good as sunflower seeds.”

“Oh,” Jackson says, “I got some of those too.” He searches the inside pocket of the jacket he carelessly tossed to the ground when he first stepped into the room a lifetime ago and pulls out a little bag. “I only have the ones in shells, though. I love to crack them between my teeth. It’s almost meditative. It helps me concentrate.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Dana murmurs and Mulder stares wordlessly at him. Jackson no longer understands the world. What’s so weird about liking sunflower seeds, he asks himself. “Is something wrong? Did I say something stupid?”

“No, Jackson, there’s absolutely nothing wrong,” Dana’s says who seems to have found her voice faster than Mulder. “I just didn’t know that the craving for sunflower seeds was hereditary.”

Before Jackson can process the words and ask her what she means by it, Mulder reaches into his pants pocket and pulls an identical bag out of it, also half empty. He casts it onto Dana’s lap just next to the one Jackson has left there a moment earlier. She picks them both up, holding them next to each other. “Like father, like son, I’d say.” She looks at them with a wide, joyful smile that is so contagious that quickly all three of them are gazing at each other with happy faces. Then Mulder breaks out into a laughter and Jackson and Dana join in.

“Ouch,” she whines, gently covering her stomach with her hands, “don’t make me laugh. The dressage on my abdomen tells me I had major surgery, so would you please mind me and my sensitive body parts.”

Mulder slaps his forehead with his open palm. “What have I been thinking? We need a doctor to check you out, Scully. Jackson, would you mind looking for a nurse and telling her to send a doctor in here to check her out?”

“I am a doctor, Mulder. I’m perfectly fine. I’ve never been better.”

“ Are you sure?”

“I am.”

She reaches out for both of them, encircling her delicate fingers securely around their hands. Jackson is surprised about how strong she appears all of a sudden.

“I have everything I need.”

A feeling of having arrived settles in Jackson’s chest, like a circle has been completed. He misses his parents very much, but fate has led him to two people who equally care for him. They loved him when he was a baby and never stopped. And he is sure that one day he will equally love them back.

For the first time in a long time, he feels good and looks at his future optimistically. With Dana and Mulder at his side, his parents now, he will be able to deal with all the demons in his life. The visions, his powers, the threats from God knows who or what - everything can be dealt with as long as they are with him. Jackson Van De Kamp aka William Scully or Mulder or Scully-Mulder is happy.

Who would have thought?

#jackson van de kamp #mulder and scully #season 11 closure

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phantom-le6 · 4 years ago

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 (5 of 6)

After an indulgence of some procrastination, here’s the penultimate load of episode reviews for season 3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation…

Episode 20: Tin Man

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise brings aboard the Betazoid mission specialist Tam Elbrun and takes him to a distant star system. Elbrun, whom Deanna Troi previously knew when he was a mental patient and she was a psychology student, has a history of mental instability due to overpoweringly strong telepathic capabilities that have been active since birth (most Betazoids develop their telepathic abilities in adolescence). However, his unique skills are used for first contact situations with alien life. On this particular mission, Elbrun's abilities are needed to try to coax a giant sentient spaceship, code named "Tin Man," away from a star that is about to go supernova. It also comes to light that the star is in a Romulan-claimed area of space, and that this is a race to claim the living ship. Elbrun finds it impossible to filter out the thoughts of the Enterprise crew, but finds solace in meeting Lt. Commander Data, by whom Elbrun is initially puzzled, finding what he calls 'absence of mind'; he finds relief in developing a friendship with Data, who, being an artificial lifeform, has no organic mind to be read.

When they arrive, the Enterprise is attacked and disabled by a Romulan Warbird that has overly stressed its engines to catch up to them. The Romulans race ahead to try and communicate with Tin Man. When Elbrun gleans from the Romulans telepathically that they intend to destroy Tin Man if they can't claim it, he sends it a telepathic warning to Tin Man. Tin Man suddenly comes to life and emits an energy wave that destroys the Warbird and further damages the Enterprise. Elbrun, now in communication with Tin Man, reveals that it calls itself Gomtuu. The creature is millennia old and formerly had a crew, but they were lost in a radiation accident. Due to a combination of remorse, loneliness, and a lack of purpose, Gomtuu wishes to die in the supernova. Elbrun requests to be beamed aboard the creature, but Captain Picard is cautious of this action. When a second warbird arrives, Picard lets Elbrun transport to Gomtuu along with Data to help procure the ship. Elbrun is initially overwhelmed by Gomtuu, but eventually comes to identify himself with the ship.

With the supernova imminent, the elated Elbrun informs Data he will stay with Gomtuu, believing it is where he truly belongs. Moments before the start of the supernova, Gomtuu creates another energy wave that sends the Enterprise and the Warbird spinning out of the star system in separate directions before they are caught in the nova blast. As the Enterprise regains control, they find Data aboard the bridge, who reports what happened aboard Gomtuu. When Data discusses the events with Troi, Data acknowledges that like Elbrun with Gomtuu, the Enterprise is where he belongs.

Review:

This episode was apparently co-written by a trio of writers in response to the fire quality of the opening five minutes of the second season episode ‘Samaritan Snare’, and then further developed from that initial spec script when the show needed an episode that looked easy to put into production while other scripts were still being re-worked. It’s a writing motivation I can certainly understand; some of my own writing decisions are in response to my dissatisfaction with other works in the same genre. For example, I don’t like how some films, TV shows and even modern comics work in a mixed array of characters that gives the feeling they’re trying to essentially manufacture an air of diversity, rather than allowing the diversity to just be ‘part of the background’ and focus more on narrative. As such, my novel work will hopefully include a level of diversity that matches what I’ve experienced in real life and that is just an accepted part of that world, thereby allowing the story to retain centre stage.

Trek itself is the epitome of ‘diversity in the background’ because it’s never needed to really call any special attention to how mixed its various crews have been over the various shows. It just gets on with telling the story at hand, and the diversity just shows itself through the performance and development of the characters and the issues their stories handle. Sadly, ‘Tin Man’ fails to include any kind of character or issue exploration. We don’t get into what Tam goes through as an overwhelmed psychic enough because we’ve got this living starship being sought by the Romulans as well as by the Federation, and Tam and the Romulans take up screen time that could have been spent really exploring the living ship idea.

Frankly, I think the X-Men comics of the early 80’s did better with the concept of a living spaceship creature when they introduced the Acanti during the Brood Saga. Maybe Trek should have asked Chris Claremont to ship in a script or two, considering the number of episodes I’ve noted to date that include stories covered better by his X-Men run than by TNG. I also don’t get where Data’s ‘realisation’ about belonging on the Enterprise comes from, given that at no point in the entire episode does Data question whether he belongs on the Enterprise, nor does anyone else. This final scene makes the episode all the poorer because it just doesn’t make sense, and yet the people who wrote it did so in protest over a previous episode that also made little sense in many areas. Ultimately, I give this episode 4 out of 10.

Episode 21: Hollow Pursuits

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise in the process of transporting Mikulak biological tissue samples intended for use in combating an epidemic of Correllium fever on Nahmi IV. The transport of the samples is delicate, and when they find one of the sample containers is leaking, they are forced to destroy it to prevent the contamination of the other samples. Lt. Commander La Forge tells Commander Riker he is concerned that one of his engineers, Reginald Barclay, has been underperforming and notes that he is late to help with the sample transport. What La Forge does not realize is that Barclay has been in the holodeck acting in a simulation of other Enterprise crew members, avoiding contact with their real counterparts. La Forge requests that Barclay be transferred from the Enterprise but Picard recommends that La Forge take Barclay on as a "pet project".

La Forge works at supporting Barclay as their team works to investigate the failure of unconnected systems around the ship. Picard invites Barclay to a bridge meeting to review the investigation, but slips up and accidentally calls him "Broccoli", a nickname given to him by Wesley Crusher, due to Barclay's tendency to 'veg out'. Barclay later returns to the holodeck to seek refuge in the simulated version of the bridge members. In talking to La Forge, Guinan suggests that Barclay is simply imaginative and that La Forge keep a more open mind towards him. On her advice, La Forge visits Barclay on the holodeck and discovers the exaggerated simulation of the bridge crew. La Forge suggests Barclay get counselling from Counsellor Troi, whose counterpart on the holodeck displays clear signs of sexual attraction towards Barclay. Barclay attempts to undergo a real counselling session with Troi, but freaks out when she tries to relax him with the appearance of actions his holodeck version of her would do, and ends the counselling session to flee back to the holodeck.

When Barclay cannot be located to attend a briefing with Riker, Riker storms into the holodeck with La Forge and Troi to locate him. They find comical versions of the senior staff, with bumbling versions of Picard and La Forge, a slothful idiot version of Wesley, and an extremely short, comical version of Riker. Riker attempts to stop the program angrily, but Troi stops him saying it might traumatize Barclay and exploring this world can help them understand Barclay better. However, when they come across the sexed-up version of her, it's her turn to want to immediately stop the program, but Riker stops her, sarcastically throwing her own words in her face. They finally locate Barclay sleeping in the lap of a fantasy Dr Crusher.

Suddenly, the Enterprise mysteriously accelerates to warp speeds, and Riker, La Forge and Barclay go to Engineering to discover the matter/anti-matter injectors have jammed; the ship will continue to accelerate until its structural integrity collapses unless the injectors are cleared. The team is unable to come up with any immediate solutions that will work in the limited time they have, but Barclay realizes all the failures they have seen have been connected by a human element: a member of La Forge's Engineering team has been present at each incident, so he surmises that somehow they became carriers of an undetectable contaminant. Using a process of elimination, they reduce the possible contaminants from 15,525 to 2. The contamination that has been interfering with the systems is quickly discovered to be invidium, which was used as part of the Mikulak samples. They are able to quickly repair the injectors, stop the ship, and set course for a nearby starbase to remove the rest of the invidium contamination. La Forge commends Barclay for his contribution in saving the ship.

Barclay returns one more time to the holodeck and addresses the simulated bridge crew, believing it best he leaves them, and then deletes all of his holodeck programs but one.

Review:

According to a note on Wikipedia, the episode writer claims that the central guest character of Lt. Reg Barclay was meant to be a satire of Trekkies and their tendency to develop obsessions with certain characters, though notes on the Trek wiki site Memory Alpha refute this. Frankly, I’m inclined to believe the Memory Alpha notes more just because what the episode gives us isn’t consistent with the kind of satire Wikipedia seems to think this is. If it was a satire of Trek fans, then Barclay would either be obsessed with the main characters and spending too much time with them, or he’d be spending too much time with totally made-up characters relative to the ‘real-life’ of the Trek world.

What we instead get is Barclay playing out how he wishes he could be with real people in a fantasy world, and this is something I think everyone can relate to. We all experience difficulties with friends and colleagues, and given access to holodeck technology, I don’t think there’s a single soul who wouldn’t want to re-create those moments of difficulty in ways we wish they had gone. Of course, the hidden trap in such an approach to resolving issues is that you can then be seduced by the fantasy to the point of neglecting reality, which in turn is what happens to Barclay, and it takes Geordi relating his experiences from the episode ‘Booby Trap’ earlier in the series to bring Reg out of his shell and out of what would ultimately be self-destructive behaviour.

Barclay is a great guest character played by actor Dwight Shultz, who manages to reprise this role many times throughout the TNG TV show, as well as in the second TNG film and a number of episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. It’s refreshing to see that someone can still be a bit of a ‘fish out of water’ in the world of Trek without being an alien, an android or something simply not human, and we also get good development of Geordi, as he gets a chance to be a sympathetic and tolerant commanding officer who is willing to help Barclay (we haven’t seen Geordi play this side of being a commanding officer much). This isn’t quite the best of Trek, but it comes pretty damn close. I’d give it 8 out of 10.

Episode 22: The Most Toys

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is called to assist the colony on planet Beta Agni II, which has suffered contamination to its water supply. They meet with the Jovis, a ship owned by the Zibalian trader Kivas Fajo, a trader who so happens to have hitritium, the extremely rare compound needed to neutralize the contamination. The volatile substance cannot be beamed aboard, so Lt. Commander Data is assigned to make several shuttle trips to collect the cargo. Just before the final trip, Data is kidnapped, and his shuttle is rigged to explode. The Enterprise crew scan the debris and finding trace elements matching Data. As a result, they believe he is dead, and are forced to leave to continue their mission.

Data is reactivated in a secured room and is met by Fajo, who explains he collects rare and valuable objects and has kidnapped Data due to his uniqueness. Fajo's assistant Varria tells Data to change out of his Enterprise uniform and to sit in his chair. Data refuses to follow orders and remarks that they are both Fajo's prisoners.

Mourning the supposed loss of their friend, Geordi is certain that he is missing something about Data's destruction. Geordi takes his hypothesis to Picard and Riker, stating that the reason he can't find anything is there's nothing to indicate a malfunction. He explains that the only option is pilot error, but doesn't believe it as the odds are too vast to calculate. Picard gives him some words of solace and dismisses him. Picard and Riker select Worf as Data's replacement.

In an effort to make Data comply with his wishes, Fajo says that he isn't at war with anyone and is in fact Data's liberator. He prods Data about whether or not he is capable of killing anyone, and Data states that he is programmed to never kill except in self-defence, and thus would be incapable of murder. When Data still refuses to submit, Fajo splashes a solvent on Data's uniform that dissolves it so he will be compelled to change his clothes.

Geordi and Wesley run through Data's communications during the shuttle trips, with Geordi noting that Data follows protocol to the letter. Wesley further points out that Data didn't report the shuttle clearing the cargo bay of the Jovis on the final transmission, per protocol. Geordi and Wesley conclude that for Data to not follow standard procedures, such as not reporting something wrong, is not like him unless there was something wrong with Data himself.

Data remains defiant against Fajo's attempts to make him an object of display, purposely remaining silent and immobile when Fajo shows off his collection to a rival trader. Only when Fajo threatens to kill Varria with a very rare and illegal Varon-T disruptor does Data agree to follow Fajo's orders and sits in the chair.

The Enterprise crew arrives at the colony and uses the hitridium to neutralize the contamination, but finds it works far more quickly than it should and deduce that the contamination had been caused deliberately, leading them back to Fajo. They return to the last-known location of the Jovis to track Fajo down.

Varria decides to help Data to escape. During the attempt they set off alarms that alert Fajo, and when he gets there, he uses the Varon-T disruptor on Varria, killing her without remorse. Data picks up the spare Varon-T that Varria had possessed and threatens to use it on Fajo. Fajo in turn threatens to murder more of his assistants if Data doesn't comply with his demands, believing that Data's programming will prevent him from shooting Fajo and to preserve the assistants' lives by submitting. Fajo further taunts Data to shoot him, mocking him as "just an android" incapable of feeling rage at Varria's death. Data states that he cannot allow this to continue and gets ready to shoot Fajo, much to the latter's shock. The Enterprise arrives and suddenly beams Data back aboard, discovering that the disruptor was in the process of discharging. Data is met in the transporter room by Commander Riker, and requests that Fajo be taken into custody, with Riker responding that arrangements have already been made. When Riker asks why the disruptor was energized, Data only offers that something may have happened during transport.

Data visits Fajo in the brig, where Fajo laments the reversal of their situation, but says defiantly that he will again add Data to his collection one day. Data informs Fajo that his stolen collection has been confiscated, and all his possessions returned to their rightful owners. Fajo remarks, "It must give you great pleasure." Data replies "No, sir, it does not. I do not feel pleasure. I am only an android." He then leaves a stunned Fajo alone in the brig.

Review:

This is a decent Data episode, though nowhere near on the same level as ‘The Offspring’ from earlier in this season. Given the conclusion and how that feeds back to an earlier conversation with the guest villain, the episode seems to be an exploration into how a being of no emotion and pure logic handles captivity, villainy and where the line lies between a justified act of defence and an act of murder. It’s intriguing to watch, but flawed in that apparently, the show’s producers tried to make the episode’s ending ambiguous. Of course, they haven’t succeeded, because O’Brien detects Data’s weapon firing while Data is being beamed to safety. Clearly that means Data was going to kill Fajo and had been in the process of firing, otherwise the transporter sensors couldn’t have detected and neutralised the weapon’s discharge.

What might be ambiguous, however, is thy why. Why did Data fire? Was it out of sheer logic, reasoning that killing Fajo was necessary to safeguard the lives of his crew and future victims of his collection-oriented piracy and kidnapping? Was it because on some level of pure logic Data could not allow Fajo to keep stalemating him into compliance and captivity? Or was it possible that at this time when Data lacked an in-built capacity for emotion, there was a brief moment where Data’s positronic brain developed a split-second of emotional awareness and he acted based on that? My guess is it’s more likely to be one of the first two, but really, it’s in that one area that the episode makes its mark. For me, the episode as a whole is worth around 8 out of 10.

Episode 23: Sarek

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Federation Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan has arrived on board the Enterprise with his human wife, Perrin. His mission is to attend a conference to lay the foundation for a treaty between the Federation and an alien race called the Legarans, after which time he will retire due to old age. Though Captain Picard and his crew attempt to provide for Sarek and have arranged for a chamber music concert for him, the ambassador expresses apprehension and annoyance. Picard is surprised when Sarek starts crying in the middle of the performance, an emotional trait Vulcans normally suppress.

Across the ship, the crew members start to act with uncharacteristic hostility towards one another, leading to a large brawl in the Ten Forward lounge. The onset of the events is tied to Sarek's arrival. Ship's Counsellor Deanna Troi and Chief Medical Officer Dr Beverly Crusher believe Sarek may be suffering from Bendii syndrome, a degenerative neurological disease that only affects aged Vulcans. This condition causes individuals to lose control of their emotions and emit "broadcast empathy", destabilizing the emotions of others around them. Picard attempts to approach Sarek about this, but Sarek's aides deny that there are any problems. Picard asks Lt. Commander Data to speak with Sakkath, Sarek's assistant, who has mutual respect with Data; Data confirms that Sakkath has been attempting to channel his mental discipline into Sarek, but Sarek has been overwhelmed by the pressures of the conference. Picard directly confronts Sarek on the matter, who attempts to deny the problem. When Sarek breaks down emotionally in front of Picard, Picard realizes they may need to cancel the conference.

As Picard prepares to cancel with the Legarans, Perrin arrives and suggests an alternative option: Sarek could mind meld with another, allowing him to temporarily transfer his emotions onto someone else. This would leave Sarek able to successfully complete the conference and maintain his dignity, reputation and honour. Sarek, however, warns of the possible dangers to the receiver's mind from Sarek's strong emotions. Picard willingly agrees to be the host. Sarek performs the mind meld with Picard, and is able to retain full control of his emotions for the duration of the conference. However, Picard, monitored closely by Dr Crusher, suffers through the numerous emotions that Sarek has pent-up for years, including his regrets of not being able to show his love for his first wife Amanda, their son Spock, or his current wife Perrin. With the conference successfully completed, Sarek prepares to take his leave. Picard lets Perrin know of Sarek's love for her, and Perrin says she has always known it. Sarek thanks Picard for his kindness, and with deep respect states: "We will always retain the best part of the other, inside us."

Review:

This is a great watershed moment for The Next Generation, as for a long time Gene Roddenberry had been adamant about not allowing the show to reference the original series directly. However, with this episode that caveat was lifted, and by having Spock’s father appear on Picard’s Enterprise, we get the first truly explicit link between the two series since Dr McCoy appears in the TNG pilot. The long life-span of Vulcans meant the original actor for Sarek from the Original Series productions got to reprise the role, adding nicely to the continuity of the franchise. It’s great seeing Sarek and Picard together, and the episode makes for an interesting metaphorical nod to dementia among the elderly, and with a proud Vulcan as the focal point, even Sarek’s denials of the condition and emotional outbursts are on-point for how some people might react when coming to terms with such ailments in real life.

Less good, however, is having to sit through all the scenes where members of the main cast and others experience the random broadcasts of anger from Sarek. They’ve all got that ‘characters acting weird for weirdness’ sake’ vibe to them, which is often the case with Trek. Almost no one they hire to play a role can play that character possessed or mentally altered without making it blatant something had happened. It would be nice if every once in a while, they could play such changes more subtly so the audience is genuinely surprised when it turns out what we’ve just seen was down to external influence x, y or z. When it comes to mysteries, some people may like the over-telegraphing of something like Columbo. Me, give me a traditional Poirot or Marple-style mystery where the solution takes some work to discover. For me, these two sides of the equation bring the episode to a balances score of about 8 out of 10.

Episode 24: Ménage à Troi

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

At a reception aboard the Enterprise following a trade conference on Betazed, Counsellor Deanna Troi argues with her mother, Lwaxana Troi, about her insistence that Deanna get married and raise a family. At the same party, Lwaxana is approached by the Ferengi Daimon Tog of the ship Krayton, who is interested in Lwaxana in a sexual way, but also explains he would like Lwaxana to use her telepathy to help him in his business dealings. Lwaxana rejects him flatly, then becomes irate and remarks that she would rather eat Orion Wing Slugs than date Tog. Deanna tries to speak with Lwaxana in her quarters about the incident, but winds up becoming infuriated over Lwaxana's pet name for her, "Little One," and leaves.

Afterwards, at the urging of Captain Picard, Commander Riker and his one-time flame, Deanna, decide to take a quick shore leave on Betazed while the Enterprise heads out on a routine mission studying a nebula. Lwaxana tracks down her daughter and Riker, with intent to encourage a renewed romance between the couple. She is just getting started when Daimon Tog beams down. As Riker expresses his surprise, Tog states that he has come for Lwaxana. When he is again rebuffed by Lwaxana, this time under pain of provoking an interstellar incident, Tog has himself and the others transported aboard the Krayton, leaving a confused Mr. Homn to wonder where his employer has gone.

The three awaken in a cell aboard the Krayton. Tog then has Deanna and Lwaxana beamed into the lab of Farek, a Ferengi doctor who hopes to study Lwaxana's telepathy using mind probes. In the process of transporting them he leaves the women's clothing behind, saying that women are not worthy enough to wear clothes. Lwaxana pretends to be interested in Tog, and gains Deanna's return to the cell with Riker by agreeing to discuss with Tog a proposal to use her telepathic abilities in trade negotiations.

Riker entices a Ferengi guard into a chess game, and once outside the cell, Riker quickly overpowers the guard. Once freed, Deanna and Riker attempt to send a message to the Enterprise, only to learn that the ship's communication system is secured by access code. As Lwaxana seduces Tog by rubbing his ears, she receives a telepathic message from Deanna asking her to try to get Tog's access code.

Lwaxana has nearly gotten Tog to tell her the code when Farek walks in and catches her in the act. Farek threatens to humiliate Tog by revealing his incompetence to the Ferengi, but offers to forget the incident if Lwaxana is turned over to him for experimentation, despite the fact that the proposed tests may be lethal.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise leaves the nebula, which has been interfering with communications, and learn from Betazed officials that Riker and the Trois have been kidnapped. Returning to Betazed, the Enterprise crew discovers flowers indigenous to a Ferengi planet at the spot where Deanna and Riker were last seen. Picard orders a frequency scan to see if Riker has somehow sent a message, but are unable to pick up anything discernible. In fact, Riker has tapped into the system on the Krayton that suppresses Cochrane distortion from the ship's warp field, and modulated it to generate a signal using unsuppressed distortion into a pattern he hopes the Enterprise crew will recognize.

In the midst of the search, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher is in final preparation to depart to Earth for his second attempt to pass the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. Just as he is about to leave, he realizes that the modulated interference itself may be the signal, and rushes back to the Bridge, missing his transport back to Earth. Decoding the signal, young Crusher finds Riker has provided the heading of the Krayton and the Enterprise heads out in pursuit.

In the meantime, Deanna is experiencing great pain as she senses the mind probes being used on her mother. Riker, having finished setting up the modulation of the Cochrane distortion, arms himself and bursts into Farek's lab to free Lwaxana, but a standoff ensues when Tog enters with a phaser. Just then the Enterprise arrives, and Lwaxana buys the release of Troi and Riker by agreeing to stay with Tog and serve him both as a lover and a business partner. After Riker and Deanna are returned to the Enterprise, Picard begins to play the role of a jealous lover on Deanna’s advice, describing his love for Lwaxana and telling Tog that if he cannot have her no one will, and threatens to destroy the Krayton if she is not delivered to him immediately. When Picard tries to "win back" Lwaxana at the end, he recites parts of three William Shakespeare sonnets and Canto 27 of "In Memoriam A.H.H.", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Fearing for his life Daimon Tog hurriedly beams Lwaxana directly to the Enterprise Bridge and leaves the area post-haste. So taken is Lwaxana by Picard's poetic profession of "love" for her that she takes her place on his lap in the command chair, causing Picard to quickly tell Ensign Crusher to "set course for Betazed", almost whispering "warp nine".

Crusher is told that he will have to wait for another year before he can reapply for entrance to Starfleet Academy, but in the interim the Enterprise will continue to benefit from him. Picard also tells him that, in his eyes, he isn't an 'Acting Ensign' anymore and thus gives him a field promotion to full Ensign in light of his contributions to the ship and crew.

Review:

A Lwaxana Troi episode is generally never a good thing in my opinion, though this one is more tolerable than most with regards to Majel Barrett’s performance this time around, and for once the Ferengi make decent guest adversaries. However, the bridge scene near the end when Picard starts quoting romantic poetry demanded an extensive fast-forward. The whole thing felt forced, and while in one sense it would be considering Picard can’t really stand Lwaxana, someone who was coaching Data on acting back in the episode ‘Deja Q’ should have been able to give a more convincing performance. Clearly Ferengi theatre must be truly abysmal, if they have any, because that’s the only way I can see Daimon Tog buying Picard’s performance at all.

Luckily, the B-plot surround Wesley missing Star Fleet Academy again and becoming a full ensign regardless is much better, and compensates for the main plot a fair bit. However, it still indicates a bad TNG episode if you need a Wesley-centric story line to save the episode; after all, since when is it etiquette for the hard-to-write child character to surpass the boss’ wife and, in so doing, make the episode her influence has all but broken? For me, this episode only racks up a mere 6 out of 10 while reminding me, as it should everyone else, that Majel Barrett’s best Trek performances are lending her voice to Starfleet computers.

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 4 years ago

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2nd June >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Mark 12:13-17 for Tuesday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Give back to... God what belongs to God’.

Tuesday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Mark 12:13-17

Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God

The chief priests and the scribes and the elders sent to Jesus some Pharisees and some Herodians to catch him out in what he said. These came and said to him, ‘Master, we know you are an honest man, that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you, and that you teach the way of God in all honesty. Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay, yes or no?’ Seeing through their hypocrisy he said to them, ‘Why do you set this trap for me? Hand me a denarius and let me see it.’ They handed him one and he said, ‘Whose head is this? Whose name?’ ‘Caesar’s’ they told him. Jesus said to them, ‘Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.’ This reply took them completely by surprise.

Gospel (USA)

Mark 12:13-17

Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.

Some Pharisees and Herodians were sent to Jesus to ensnare him in his speech. They came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion. You do not regard a person’s status but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or should we not pay?” Knowing their hypocrisy he said to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius to look at.” They brought one to him and he said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They replied to him, “Caesar’s.” So Jesus said to them, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” They were utterly amazed at him.

Reflections (6)

(i) Tuesday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s first reading from the second letter of Peter says, ‘Think of our Lord’s patience as your opportunity to be saved’. The Lord’s patience is our opportunity. When I was young, I used to hear a little jingle, ‘Patience is a virtue, keep it if you can, always in a woman, never in a man’. Perhaps there is some truth in that little saying! Patience is certainly a virtue and one we appreciate when we are shown it. Patience is the ability to wait on people. Jesus once spoke a parable about a barren fig three that the landowner wanted to cut down. However, the landowner’s gardener was a much more patient man. He persuaded his master to leave the fig tree for another tree during which he would tend to it to ensure it bore fruit the following year. Jesus might have seen something of himself in that gardener. He was patient with people, including his own disciples. So many times, they failed to grasp what he was trying to say to them, but he never gave up on them. Even when Peter, the leading disciple, denied him, he didn’t give up on him. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus’ patience is put to the test. The Pharisees and the Herodians asked him what seemed like a serious question, ‘Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ In reality, they were not looking for information but, as the gospel reading says, they were trying to catch Jesus out. They weren’t being sincere and, according to the gospel reading, Jesus saw through their hypocrisy. Yet, he was patient with them, asking them for a coin from their pockets and declaring that Caesar should be given back what belongs to him, but, more importantly, God should be given what belongs to God. What belongs to God according to Jesus? Just a few verses later in Mark’s gospel, Jesus will answer that question, ‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’. It is only God, and God’s Son Jesus, who is worthy of our total loving loyalty – certainly not Caesar. Jesus’ patience towards his opponents on this occasion was their opportunity to learn a vital lesson for life. The Lord’s patience is always our opportunity.

And/Or

(ii) Tuesday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus is asked many questions in the course of the gospels. Many of them are sincere questions expressing a longing for truth. There are some who question Jesus out of much less noble motives, such as in this morning’s gospel reading. Jesus is questioned by an unusual alliance of Pharisees and Herodians. The Pharisees were very committed to the Jewish Law and were wary of the foreign rulers and their representatives. The Herodians were supporters of Herod Antipas who was a client ruler of Rome. The question they ask is not a sincere question; it is an attempt to trap Jesus, ‘Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ If Jesus answered ‘no’, an answer pleasing to the Pharisees, the Herodians could report him to Herod as a subversive. If he answered ‘yes’, an answer pleasing to the Herodians, he would have lost popular support because the people experienced the various Roman taxes as an unjust burden. The answer Jesus gives to the question is somewhat elusive and thought-provoking, ‘Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God’. The coin his questioners had in their pocket had Caesar’s image on it; it belongs to him; it can be given back to him. What is it that belongs to God? Jesus will go on to say that God is to be loved with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Our whole being belongs to God in love. Whatever is owed to Caesar, to the political power of the day, is miniscule compared to what is owed to God. Jesus seems to be saying that our duty to the political powers must be lived in a way that is consistent with the much greater duty that we owe to God.

And/Or

(iii) Tuesday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

The payment of taxes is often a contentious issue. It was especially contentious in the time and in the land of Jesus because the taxes were paid to the Romans, an occupying power. An unusual coalition of Pharisees and Herodians approached Jesus to ask him if it is permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not. The Pharisees would have opposed the paying of such taxes whereas the Herodians would have favoured it. It seems that no matter how Jesus answered, he couldn’t win. It was a trick question that was intended to set a trap for Jesus. His eventual answer took his questioners by surprise; he escaped their trap. His reply recognizes the legitimacy of the governing authorities, ‘give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar’, but it sets that within the larger context of what we owe to God, ‘and to God what belongs to God’. What belongs to Caesar, namely the coins with his image on them, is much less than what belongs to God. Caesar’s image may be on his coins but God’s image is on all of us. Jesus seems to be saying that if our coins belong to Caesar, we ourselves belong to God. God’s ultimate authority makes relative all human authority. We have only one Lord and that is God and for us Christians it is Jesus the revelation of God. Our ultimate loyalty is to the Lord and his values, and that primary loyalty is to shape all our human loyalties.

And/Or

(iv) Tuesday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

The question that is put to Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading is not a sincere question. It is an effort to trap him. If he were to say, ‘Yes, pay your taxes to Caesar’, he would lose the esteem of most of the Jewish people who resented the Roman presence; if he says, ‘No, do not pay your taxes to Caesar’ he would be liable to arrest and trial by the Romans. Jesus was asked many questions in the course of his public ministry and when the question came from a heart that was genuinely searching he took it very seriously. On this occasion, however, Jesus’ questioners were simply out to get him. Yet, Jesus did not stay silent before this question, insincere as it was. In a very succinct and somewhat enigmatic fashion he declared that people should give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give back to God what belongs to God. The coin can be given to Caesar because it belongs to him, but what is to be given to God is something much more fundamental. A little later in that same chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus will spell out what is due to God – God is to be loved with all our heart, soul and mind. God is to be our first and greatest love, our primary commitment. That certainly can never be said of any human authority, be it political or otherwise. Jesus is saying that no Caesar, no political institution, no human institution can ever take the place of God in our lives.

And/Or

(v) Tuesday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Some questions people ask spring from a genuine desire to know. Other questions people ask can be more in the way of trick questions; their purpose is to embarrass or to catch out the person being questioned. The question that representatives of the religious and political establishment asked Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading comes into that second category. ‘Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ Jesus’ reply ‘Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God’ indicates, at the very least, that Caesar is not God, and that what belongs to God is of a different order to what belongs to Caesar. If Jesus were to be asked, ‘What is it that belongs to God?’ he would no doubt answer, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’. Caesar, no political authority, no religious authority, is to be loved in that way. For us as Christians to love God in this wholehearted way is to love Jesus, God’s beloved Son, in this wholehearted way. He alone is worthy of our total allegiance, and all other allegiances have to be shaped by that fundamental allegiance in our lives.

And/Or

(vi) Tuesday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus was asked many questions in the course of his public ministry and when the question came from a heart that was genuinely searching he took it very seriously. The question that is put to Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading, ‘Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ is not a sincere question. It is an effort to trap Jesus. If he were to say, ‘Yes, pay your taxes to Caesar’, he would lose the esteem of many of the Jewish people who resented the Roman presence; if he were to say, ‘No, do not pay your taxes to Caesar’ he would be liable to arrest and trial by the Romans. Yet, Jesus did not stay silent before this question, insincere as it was. In a succinct and somewhat enigmatic answer he declared that people should give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give back to God what belongs to God. Jesus seems to be saying that a certain loyalty is due to the political authorities but an even greater loyalty is due to God. A little later in that same chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus will spell out what is due to God – God is to be loved with all our heart, soul and mind. God is to be our first and greatest love. That certainly can never be said of any human authority, be it political or otherwise. Our primary loyalty is to the God whom Jesus reveals to us by his life, death and resurrection; all other loyalties are shaped by that primary loyalty.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

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